Make our government acknowledge Armenian genocide
Make our government acknowledge Armenian genocide
The Issue
Two weeks ago I was in Yerevan. I was befriended by two young Armenian guys, they were incredibly kind and helpful and very keen to know a foreigners take on their country. They asked only one thing of me, to visit Tsitsernakaberd, the genocide memorial and museum. I promised I would.
The next day I took a taxi from my hostel to Tsitsernakaberd. To my surprise instead of just dropping me off the taxi driver, who could speak not a word of English, took it upon himself to walk me up to the memorial and around the museum. The sight of this man bowed quietly in prayer over the eternal flame at the centre of the memorial will go with me to my grave. The images of savagery I witnessed within the museum, the pain on the peoples faces, the tears they still cry 100 years on. None of this I will ever forget.
That night my new friends asked if I had been and what my impressions were. I tried to explain as best I could what an unbelievably intense but valuable experience it had been, about the taxi driver, the unbridled anguish I had seen. Of course I was telling them nothing that they did not know all too well. They asked me about the UK's positional on the genocide, I had to tell them that we do not officially recognise it. Refuse to say the word, genocide. The only apt word, the only word for what happened. The look in their eyes I will never forget.
For the first time in my life I was truely ashamed of my country.
Last week, 101 years after the atrocities began Germany officially recognised the genocide aligning themselves with France, Belgium, Italy, Greece, Israel, Russia, Canada and most of South America. We are conspicuous by are absence. This is an outrage and increasingly an embarassment to a country that in 1915 coined the term 'crime against humanity' to describe events unfolding in what is now Eastern Turkey. We could see what was happening then and we know what happened now, but to know and not say is almost tantamount to denial and at the very least smacks of moral cowardice.
This has gone on long enough. It is time to make a change.
The Issue
Two weeks ago I was in Yerevan. I was befriended by two young Armenian guys, they were incredibly kind and helpful and very keen to know a foreigners take on their country. They asked only one thing of me, to visit Tsitsernakaberd, the genocide memorial and museum. I promised I would.
The next day I took a taxi from my hostel to Tsitsernakaberd. To my surprise instead of just dropping me off the taxi driver, who could speak not a word of English, took it upon himself to walk me up to the memorial and around the museum. The sight of this man bowed quietly in prayer over the eternal flame at the centre of the memorial will go with me to my grave. The images of savagery I witnessed within the museum, the pain on the peoples faces, the tears they still cry 100 years on. None of this I will ever forget.
That night my new friends asked if I had been and what my impressions were. I tried to explain as best I could what an unbelievably intense but valuable experience it had been, about the taxi driver, the unbridled anguish I had seen. Of course I was telling them nothing that they did not know all too well. They asked me about the UK's positional on the genocide, I had to tell them that we do not officially recognise it. Refuse to say the word, genocide. The only apt word, the only word for what happened. The look in their eyes I will never forget.
For the first time in my life I was truely ashamed of my country.
Last week, 101 years after the atrocities began Germany officially recognised the genocide aligning themselves with France, Belgium, Italy, Greece, Israel, Russia, Canada and most of South America. We are conspicuous by are absence. This is an outrage and increasingly an embarassment to a country that in 1915 coined the term 'crime against humanity' to describe events unfolding in what is now Eastern Turkey. We could see what was happening then and we know what happened now, but to know and not say is almost tantamount to denial and at the very least smacks of moral cowardice.
This has gone on long enough. It is time to make a change.
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Petition created on 6 June 2016