As the world reels from brutal wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, it may not be a stretch to say that we may be entering a new age of genocidal violence. It is not only the countless, innocent lives that are being sacrificed to geopolitical scrambles that stem from economic uncertainty, environmental crisis, and technological disruption. What is also at stake is the post-World War II historical order, and the associated narrative, that had ensured an unprecedented eight decades of peace in the West.
Should the invaders and the agents of genocidal violence prevail in the conflicts currently unfolding, a narrative that denounced genocides and other forms of mass violence will inevitably be compromised. It will be replaced by the apologists’ boasting, justifying their brutality, now with more impunity than before.
Turkey and Azerbaijan, its Caucasian minion, are the quintessential tribunes for all that is wrong and bad in the world. Turkey was born from the impunity of the Armenian Genocide, while Azerbaijan came out of the massacre of Baku Armenians in 1918. Crime on an unspeakable scale, therefore, is foundational for them. In this world turned upside down, everything that’s wrong for right minded people is worthy of paeans in the darkest quarters of Ankara and Baku. Murder, pillage, looting, they are all justified under blanket excuses that come down “to it wasn’t a genocide but we did the right thing.”
Every time the world enters a new historical era—be that the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, world wars—there seems to be a sense of a moral reset, that the values that have held up society together for millennia are to be called into question.
Yet that is belied by the continued existence of the Armenian nation against all odds. Our cause and our values are right. They are as true today as they were a century ago, in the same way that the eternal message of our Savior is. More than ever, we need to hold on to our unbreakable faith as we navigate stormy waters. Just think of all the detractors of Armenians and of the Church every time upheavals threatened either or both. They are now in the dustbin of history. In the immortal words of Barouyr Sevag, “We exist, we will exist, and still multiply.” Never stop believing. Only if we did we would be doomed.