THIS APRIL 24, TOO, WE ARE ON OUR OWN

This April 24, too, we are on our own, just as we have since 1915. We acknowledge the nobility of missionaries and supporters, including governments, from all walks of life who have come to our aid then or since. But no proclamation commemorating the martyrs is going to bring justice to them, to us, and to our homeland.   

We are not only talking about the ‘Union and Progress Party’ architects of the 1915 Genocide, who long met justice through the rightful hands of Armenian heroes like Soghomon Tehlirian, Arshavir Shiragian, and Aram Yerganian, to name some of them. We are talking about the authoritarian regime of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ‘Justice and Development Party’—Turks have a thing for farcical party names—and their well-learned apprentice, Azerbaijani dictator Ilham Aliyev, son of deceased dictator Heydar Aliyev and husband of vice president Mehriban Aliyeva. It all stays in the family among these kindred nations.  

The renewed aggression against the two parts of our homeland, the republics of Armenia and Artsakh, since September 2020 is unequivocally genocidal in conception, intent, and long-term goals. An unfavorable geopolitical environment further compounds our isolation. No power in the world looks ready to come to our rescue.  

This is not a call for lamentations. We have long known the world for what it is. Armenia is flanked by two unpunished and unrepentant genocidal states and nations. We have to draw from our enormous reserves of patience and faith to stay strong, united, and face the enemy for what they are: unreconstructed genocidal criminals. No exhortations to hope and reconciliation are going to change them or what we can expect from them. We Armenians know that and for that we are only accountable to our people and to future generations of Armenians, and to God.