On April 24, 1915, the Ottoman Empire enacted a mass campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Armenian population whose land was under Ottoman occupation. Their crusade began with the incarceration of Armenian intellectuals, and by the conclusion of World War 1, 1.5 million Armenians had been slaughtered. The Ottomans marched them through the Syrian desert until they met God beneath the barbarous sun or between the barrel of a gun and one’s head. The Euphrates River turned red with Armenian blood. The bones of my ancestors lie beneath that river, preferring to meet their demise by their own tenacity. Eventually, the Syrian desert became known as simply ‘The Cemetery’, the world transmogrified to something putrescent, consisting of mass graves, rituals of rape, and immolation.
As one of the 10 million descendants of survivors of this genocide, I am known as one of the leftovers of the sword. Belonging to the Western Armenian tradition, our homeland no longer exists. It is barricaded by Turkish troops and movements of censorship, our ancient churches and temples demolished and replaced with mosques. Sometimes there appears to be a great helplessness in this, something akin to an acceptance of our state of perpetual displacement. However, through my family’s voyage through Western Armenia, to Syria, to Lebanon, and eventually Australia, there is the very simple knowledge that the homeland cannot be found in a suitcase. This leads the diaspora to a sense of restlessness, an innate need for activism to have recognition, and thus reparations.
The term ‘genocide’ here is quite significant; the world denies this term, persistently swerving around it. Turkey diminishes the deaths as a response to war action. Almost every global power, including Australia, refers to the genocide as an ‘atrocity’, a ‘tragedy’, a ‘dark chapter’. Throughout this process, the most destructive element of conflict is evoked: the act of forgetting. The descendant never forgets. These experiences are passed through veins and arteries, facial features that repeat itself throughout generations. The survivor never forgets, nor does their child, or their grandchild.
What we can observe throughout this continuous campaign of denialism is the perpetuation of mass actions of violence. In 2023, Azerbaijan enacted a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the indigenous Armenian population of Artsakh, closing borders and restricting humanitarian aid to force 100,000 Armenians out of their homeland. Today, Artsakh political leaders are held hostage by the Azerbaijani government, and the displaced Armenians have been denied a right of return.
One cannot sit in silence, absorbing the cultivation of decades of directed hostility towards their people. Nor can they observe it cultivating across other minorities. Our struggles are united. History rhymes with itself constantly, and we are witnessing the reverberation of similar verses.
The ongoing genocide in Palestine encapsulates how detrimental silence can be. Since 1948, the ancestral land of Palestinians has been restricted, partitioned by border patrol. Ancient olive trees have been ripped from the earth, creating open wounds that span generations. During the Nakba, up to 1 million Palestinians were expelled from their land, and during the current genocide, 2.1 million Gazans have died or been displaced.
In the West, genocide is condoned through nullifying and denying the experiences of violence and displacement in West Asia and the Global South. These mass atrocities are silenced, diminished in their full intensity, and minimised through deceitful language and omission of fact. For the individual, this means a lack of reparations. Restitution cases for descendants of Armenian Genocide victims have been historically scarce. Our culture has been colonised, as well as our land, and we are offered only glimpses of our motherland through the distant peaks of Mount Ararat. For Palestinians, the pattern repeats. Reparations have not been provided, and their homeland is being gradually encroached on, their countrymen routinely murdered, throughout the continuation of Israel’s 77-year-long campaign.
What is significant about living in the West is that we have the ability to break our silence. Decades of the Armenian diaspora forming political organisations, consisting of tireless activism, have developed milestones of achievement. Significant bodies such as the International Association of Genocide Scholars have formally recognised the Armenian Genocide for what it is, no longer diminishing its truth through veiled descriptions. With the assistance of Armenian activists, parliamentarians have demanded that the Australian government recognise the genocide and intervene in the perpetuated Turkish atrocities in modern Armenia. Activists have fought for the Armenian Genocide to be commemorated within the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Most notably, these grassroots campaigns have forced the subject of the Armenian Genocides into international discourse. The prospect of the world forgetting and thoughtlessly repeating lies is averted by the continual activism of those who refuse to be silent about the truth.
Pro-Palestine activism has allowed awareness of Palestinian oppression to reach the epicentre of political thought and discussion, colossally altering public opinion and constructing mass movements of global solidarity that act to combat decades of silence and neglect. Nations across the world have stood before the colonial empire and recognised Palestine as a state, allowing for Israel to be pursued for legal accountability for war crimes. Other countries have gone further, cutting ties with Israel, taking Israel and its war criminals to the International Court of Justice. Most optimistically for me as an Armenian, pro-Palestine activism has led to the mass acceptance of Israel’s atrocities as a genocide.
This is not to convey that the struggle for liberation is complete, not for Armenians, nor for Palestinians. A genocide unpunished is a genocide encouraged, and until reparations and formal recognition of the truth is achieved, with the perpetrators held accountable, our struggle will not be complete.
As I observe the atrocities unfolding by Israel, I look to my history as a glance at the future of Palestine. But there is a difference, and it leads me to believe there is hope. Palestinians will not be known solely as leftovers of the sword. Nor will the world continue unaware of their existence, their plight. The global chain is shifting, and as long as we, as students and those with free voices, continue to speak out, march, and take action, recognition can be achieved. The truth will prevail, and the global cycle of injustice and silence will be broken.
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