BY TAKOUHY SISSLIAN
Citizens of modern-day Turkey, my name is Takouhy Sisslian. My last name should be enough to tell you all about my origins.
April 24th… Do you know the meaning that this day has for the Armenian people?
I will take your silence as an answer.
I don’t blame you for your lack of knowledge, considering that in your schools, the many pages of history of the Armenian people are not even included in the textbooks. This explains the deafening silence of those of you who don’t know the true history of Turkey and Armenia, and of those of you who knowing it, are ashamed of it; that is if such a noble feeling can exist in any of your hearts. After all, it is not your fault if your government forbids you from naming the Armenian Genocide and any correlation of it with Turkey; but nonetheless, consider yourself lucky because despite being forced to live under a government that deprives you of freedom of thought, speech, knowledge and especially, of the truth, you are ineffably fortunate to have been born and raised in your homeland. Instead, I and the entire Armenian diaspora that I am representing today have not even been granted this great privilege.
Ours is a diaspora that exists because of the first genocide of the 20th century.
A genocide that was carefully planned and systematically executed by the Turkish government in 1915 against the Armenian people.
A genocide ordered by the minister Talaat Pasha who in 1915 pronounced these exact words to the Turkish army: “Completely destroy all the Armenians. An end must be put to their existence, however criminal measures may be. You must be unscrupulous, and no attention must be paid to either age, sex, or physical condition.”
A genocide that led to the death of more than one million and five hundred thousand Armenians, killing the majority of the population of that time and depriving them of just as much land.
A genocide that has been officially recognized by 29 countries, including the United States of America, but 29 countries that have never included and still do not include Turkey.
The genocide of the Armenians is not a simple “relocation of the people,” although this is how it is defined by Turkish historians and the Turkish government; a government – which for geopolitical reasons – has always refused and still refuses to take accountability of its crimes against humanity and refuses to bring justice to the Armenian people.
Today, the 24th of April 2023, in honor of the day of the commemoration of the Armenian Genocide, I would like you all, perhaps for the first time, to try to put yourself in our shoes and in those of our ancestors.
How does it feel to know that your family members have been forced out of their homes, and that they had to watch them collapse as they walked away? To know that your fellow citizens were tortured for hours, and sometimes whole entire days and weeks, before being massacred? To know that every place, every building, every space that had any kind of significance to you has been destroyed with the sole aim of annihilating you? To know that every possible thing has been done to try and destroy your country, your culture, your traditions, but especially, your existence?
Imagine how you would feel if these injustices had happened to you, your country, your home, your family, your closest friends — your everything. Wouldn’t you demand justice? I’m sure you would, and you would fight every day of your lives to obtain it. And if there’s even one person listening to me right now who doesn’t agree with my statement, well, then I can tell you that he’s lying both to me and to himself.
Each and every single one of you would fight, without ever surrendering, to obtain justice and to ensure that those guilty of the massacre that your ancestors have suffered, recognize what they have done and apologize. This is exactly the reason for my presence today, which you now understand and somehow I also hope you adhere to. Unfortunately, history cannot be changed and the wounds engraved in the heart of every Armenian cannot be healed or erased; but justice can and must be obtained for every soul that was lost, for every church that got destroyed, for every Armenian who was not born and will not be born in his homeland, for every time an Armenian sees barbed wire surrounding what used to be his homeland, for every child who has never been able to discover what life had in store for him, for every act of violence, for every tear, and for every wound, justice must be obtained.
Today, in honor of all the Armenians who have unjustly passed away, I would like you to reflect and admit the mistakes your predecessors have made, so that together we can write a new page in history, the correct one: that of forgiveness. After exactly 108 years of denial, I am still capable of asking you to grant human rights and humanity justice, believing that this time, you will really listen to me and my fellow citizens because we know that you are capable of doing what’s right.
You can demonstrate that you have learned from the mistakes of your predecessors.
You can display integrity and awareness towards the Armenian people and towards your actions.
You can change the idea that because of your predecessors’ mistakes, others have of your country.
You can obtain justice for the Armenian people; and while you will never change history, today, you can at least change the future.
