By Heghinar Melkom Melkomian
It just makes me wonder…
I wonder, will my grandfather and his sister, who lost their parents and were orphaned at the age of 10 and 5 respectively, forgive me.
Will my grandfather and his sister, who were the only ones in their family to survive the Armenian Genocide, forgive you.
Will my grandfather and his sister, who were separated during the Genocide and were reunited by fate only 20 years after the genocide, forgive us…
Nowadays, I am losing a lot of sleep over an issue, which I do not know if I have any influence on or not.
I have been thinking about my grandfather, his sister, his other sisters and brothers, his parents, who were probably cousins with or knew your ancestors, who, in their turn, were probably cousins with or knew the ancestors of those Armenians who today live in Paris, Lebanon, America; to cut my list short, I can simply say, in almost every country in this world.
Almost everyday I pass next to the beautiful buildings of the Government and Foreign Affairs Ministry, both on Republic Square, situated across from another, and I look at the worried faces of people signing the petition, protesting against the protocols or trying to understand what in the world are these people doing night and day in front of these buildings for the past ten or so days.
The hostile Turkish-Armenian relations stretch way back in history; earlier than me, before my parents or even their parents were born.
I am not a politician, neither a historian or journalist to allow myself to discuss the current political situation in Armenia, its further development or the reason why the Turks began hating our ancestors, but I know one thing and I know it very well, we and the Turks are not brother and sister and even if I were a hippie and believed in peace and making love not war, I could not accept Genocide- denying Turks as my good- willed neighbors or friends and Genocide- denying Turkey as our savior; a country that will help my beloved country to develop and grow!
I don’t know how to explain this all, but for me the possible opening of the Turkish-Armenian border, or should I say the opening of the Turkish-Armenian border, is like a nightmare or a black and very bad absurdity.
I just read Robert Fisk’s article in the Independece.co.uk and I feel ashamed. All my life I have been told that I have to be proud because I am an Armenian, but right now one thing I definitely do not feel is pride.
My name is Heghinar, I am the granddaughter of a man who barely escaped the claws of death not destined to him from above, but forced on to him; I am an Armenian, I live in Armenia, I am a citizen of Armenia, I represent my people, I represent my country, I know the truth of the Armenian Genocide and I believe in the independence and territorial integrity of Nagorno-Karabakh, I believe the lands of my ancestors, western Armenia, currently located in today’s Turkey belong to us and not them, but who am I once the President of my country opens the doors of my house to the enemy and the Foreign Affairs Minister of my country signs a paper, which places the Turks on a pedestal, turns history upside-down, denies the Armenian Genocide and jeopardizes Nagorno-Karabakh’s territorial integrity, scrubs off the little proof years have left us and flushes the blood, the sea of blood of the 1.5 million innocent massacred Armenians in 1915 and dozens of Armenian men and adolescent boys and women and girls (we always forget to mention them) who knowingly signed away their life on their way to the most bizarre war I can imagine (Armenia demanding its lands back and Azerbaijan not returning something that does not even belong to it to begin with) down the toilet.
Let me go over this one more time; I am Heghinar, I am a citizen of Armenia, I live in Armenia and if the President and Foreign Affairs Minister of my country sign a paper, which opens the doors of my home to enemy number one (Turkey) and announces that Karabakh does not belong to me but to enemy number two (Azerbaijan), a paper which maybe not verbally do so, but in its essence states that we Armenians are liars, all this has been a lie and my ancestors were liars and that enemy number one and two suffered because of the Armenians and not the other way round and all the blood shed is wasted and gets flushed down the toilet; who or what does all this make me?
I represent my country, I am my country and I bear the face of my country. I tell you what the signing of this paper will make me. All this will make me a liar, my grandfather a liar, my mother who passed on the story to me a liar, my nation who believes in this story a liar. Next time I tell someone I am Armenian, I don’t have to explain the location of this little country, because everybody has already pointed out its index finger to the liar. If I am my country, that means if my country agrees to the protocols, then I agree too. If I am my country, that means if my country does not recognize the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh, then I do not too. If I am my country, that means if my country wants to forget about the Armenians Genocide, then I do too. If I am my country, that means if my country is a treasure hunter and chases 40 pieces of silver, long locked behind the Armenian-Turkish borders, then so do I…
I cannot talk anymore, because two pages, 20 pages, even 200 pages will not be enough to explain how and what I feel. This, this chaos is what goes though my head every time I pass near the Republic Square, watch the news or hear people talk about this issue. You know when someone you love does something wrong and you try to justify that somehow, even though deep down inside you know it is wrong? That is how I have always treated my country: like my own child. This is not about politics and just to enlighten you, I am not a member of any party and I am not pro or against this or the past governments. I am a person who is for Armenia, I am a person who loves her motherland, I am a person who believes in her fatherland and finally I am a person who lives in her homeland because she wants and loves to and not has to. Every time my country makes a wrong move, I try to justify and understand my child, but today I am in a total state of shock. My child has stabbed me in the back; I feel ashamed, I feel sad, I feel lost.
I don’t know what can be done, because I have already signed against the protocol, tried to explain the reason why I am against the opening of the border especially at this specific cost and I intend to participate in any meeting, rally, protest against the signing of the protocols, I do not know what else I can do, how else can I contribute to the salvation of my country, how else can I ask the forgiveness of my ancestors and your ancestors who were brutally massacred thought the years of the Armenian Genocide, your father, brothers and uncles who went to die and thus prove the international community that they wholeheartedly believed that Karabakh belonged to us.
Now tell me this; do you believe in ghosts? I know I don’t, but what if, what if they do exist and do not tell me if is good, because I am trying to prove a point here. You have come with me this far, stay with me for another second. If you do not believe in ghosts rationally, please use your imagination and think that they do exist. The moment I began believing in ghosts fictionally, I started to lose sleep because I realized that I am afraid of the dark and that is the time when they say ghosts come out. I do not want to live in a country full of ghosts; the ghosts of the 1.5 million Genocide victims and survivals, those who died during the Karabakh war and all those who were defending these causes. I am afraid of ghosts, I am very afraid of ghosts, because if they do exist, they are definitely going to come and haunt every single one of us down, because we have disturbed their sleep!
I am my country and a country haunted by ghosts is no longer a country, but a curse…
I don’t think that the 1.5 million ghosts are going to forgive us, and I can’t imagine that there’s any kind of spell that will break this curse, so we are doomed…
Sireli Heghinar,
The sentiments you describe hit home, I believe, for a great many of us who feel baffled, angered, and upset by what these protocols represent.
Yet, I feel it is important for us, as a people, not to adopt emotions of guilt based on what our ancestors would think. You see, no matter what we do, I believe our ancestors will forgive us. They must, for we have inherited a situation that is tragic – a tragedy that they alone experienced first hand. Given our circumstances, as a people, it is normal that we not always proceed correctly. And yet, and yet… every time we rise against the forces that put money and political consideration against truth, history and human beings, we make our ancestors proud, by struggling against the universal dark human forces that killed them. In this case, as in other times of the past, we must stand against our own people and government. To do so is a struggle for the soul of our people.
At the same time, however, we have to ask if our views of the issues, and of our “enemies” are fairly representative of what our ancestors thought. When I was writing a thesis on the relationship between contemporary Armenians and Turks, I often reflected back on people who lived the atrocities that so influence us today. One of the things I discovered was that many in 1915-1920 were not as careless as we are today. They didn’t generalize “the enemies” and “Turks,” for example. Instead, they emphasized that really, their neighbors and friends (also Turks) did what they could to help, and cried in the streets as they were taken away. They damned the government but not their friends. And, while I should not generalize, I will say that my family history does include a great aunt who was saved by a neighboring Turk. Yet, as a people driven by political organizations with political goals, we often neglect this.
You see, to some extent, I feel personally responsible as a diaporan Armenian, for not doing more to help change the way we have sought recognition. While we have apparently come closer in terms of public debate, I believe the manners in which the bulk of our efforts are carried forth are psychologically, philosophically, and spiritually doomed. I do not mean that what we want – recognition – is the wrong goal; to the contrary, the pursuit of acknowledgement is a crucial aspect of healing. Rather, I’m calling to question the way we’ve sought recognition, i.e. creating generalized enemies from whom we demand, unequivocally, an acknowledgement that they, as a people, are perpetrators of genocide. In so doing, we unwittingly fuel the hate between peoples. On top of all else, this is extremely unChristian, which serves to push us further away from our identity as the world’s “first Christian nation.” I believe we are all, in part, responsible for the current tensions between Armenians and Turks, and for the troubles we face as a result. Yet, I also view our predicament as directly resultant of the trauma we have inherited from history. I must admit that what I’m describing here is rather new in our community, and deserves more critical debate and exploration that’s not possible in this brief response. However, the shortsightedness of those who dismiss these ideas, without exploring them more fully, is part of our biggest obstacle towards recognition. In short, it’s a shortsightedness that plagues our people deeply. If we are to move forward as a people, I believe we will ultimately have to rise to the occasion of new ideas.
What I mean to convey is twofold: first, I do not believe that the signing of the protocols is by any means our only or first mistake as an Armenian nation. In fact, I see these protocols to be, in part, a direct result of our inability to play a more effective role in the struggle for mutual recognition, healing and reconciliation. It is because we remain illiterate in the language of peace, love and reconciliation that we are left with choices between imposing demands on “the enemy” or “recognizing reality and moving beyond the past,” as if it doesn’t shape our present. This false choice between two poles greatly hinders our imaginations.
Secondly, we should never view any government (or political entity for that matter) as either our parents or as our children. Governments are institutions based on power, and should always be questioned, challenged, and/or resisted. By making excuses for our country, we simply sweep its problems under the rug, but the problems don’t vanish. We, as Armenians, should understand this better (if not simply just as well) as any other people on the face of this suffering earth.
We must never forget that a government is not the country, not the motherland. In a democracy, a government is elected by the people and serves the people. As such, we may love Armenia and being Armenian but that’s not the same as accepting the righteousness of a government, and making excuses for its mistakes. This may well be what Albert Camus meant when he said: “I should like to be able to love my country and still love justice.” Since its birth, the Sargisyan regime has been a point of discontent for many in Armenia. Yet, even while this government was cracking open the skulls of its own people, the diaspora remained tacitly in support, without adequately questioning its legitimacy alongside the many who bravely risked themselves in protest.
Further, we can never allow our country to become a curse by imagining it as haunted. Rather than haunt us, the souls of our ancestors should serve to inspire (that is, from the Latin: to breath into) us. The question is, having been inspired, what will we do?
Whether or not these protocols are signed, we remain a people, we have survived a tragic (ancient and modern) history and we are still here, many on land we can call our own. We are still the collective authors of tomorrow’s possibilities. What gives me hope is that tomorrow does not necessarily have to be as dark as today. Every moment has, within it, the possibility of a new zartonk (rebirth) and as we read, bridges of true reconciliation continue to be built between people.
May we continue to live, and to shine as brightly as our ancestors who, despite being swallowed by darkness, illuminate us as stars from the sky above. This time of intense tension and turmoil should ground us once again, and propel us toward assessing where we are and how we’ve gotten here. In doing so, we must critically analyze who were and where we wish to go. The differences in our answers are not as important as the commonalities. And if we cannot locate commonalities, it is time to question whether or not we exist as a true nation of people.
Against many odds, I believe that we do.
In solidarity,
Yetvart S. Majian
Bravvvvvo, good job Hegho jaaaaaaaaaaaaan.