Dear Editor,
After reading headlines about another year without “official U.S. recognition” of the Armenian Genocide, it is time Armenians realize that we will never get recognition and just reparations by appealing to the morality of bourgeois states. Their own histories are plagued with genocide and colonization.
And if they refuse to acknowledge their own pasts, they will never acknowledge our own.
Talk to any poor or oppressed person, tell them our history of immeasurable pain, and they will not be surprised as they face the same pain themselves.
The Arabs know what we went through. The Kurds know what we went through.
Tell it to any Indigenous person in the United States or Canada or Mexico and they will tell you our histories are the same.
Tell it to the Irish, whose ancestors suffered famine and exodus while the British government forced them to export food to sustain their empire.
Tell it to any person in East Asia, who still remembers the pain that colonialism has caused to their countries.
Tell it to any Indigenous Mexican, whose home was destroyed to make way for sugarcane farms and was forced to work there under appalling conditions. See if they will not easily call what we went through “genocide.”
Tell it to any Palestinian who is living through genocide today.
You will find countless friends among people whose histories match our own. With them, we can force every state in the world to acknowledge what happened to our people.
Sadly, all we care about is suits and ties and wining and dining politicians in lavish banquets. We left the streets for desk jobs and called it “hard work” instead of what it really is: Compromise.
The moment the oppressed and working masses across the globe realize the injustices they have all experienced—and more importantly, realize their collective strength—see if we don’t get genocide recognition and reparations the following day.
Garen Chiloyan,
Watertown, Mass.
The post Letter to the Editor: Let’s Stop Appealing to the Morality of Bourgeois States appeared first on The Armenian Weekly.
Source: Armenian Weekly
Link: Letter to the Editor: Let’s Stop Appealing to the Morality of Bourgeois States
