Wednesday, April 24 2024 11:01

ArmInfo. 109 years after the Genocide, our people receive a prescription from their own  authorities: forget the past, abandon painful memories, forget everything that will prevent them from living like neighbors and trading with their own executioner.

This was stated by the head of the Office of the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, Archbishop Arshak  Khachatryan, on April 23 during the liturgy at the Memorial Complex  of the Victims of the Armenian Genocide in Tsitsernakaberd at the end  of the torchlight procession.

He began his speech with a quote from the Prime Minister of Armenia.  "Dear compatriots, sisters and brothers! "It's so good that  Azerbaijan is 50 meters away, we will trade there...", the leader of  Armenia Nikol Pashinyan said enthusiastically during a meeting with  residents of the village of Kirants on April 17.

More than 100 years earlier, with the same criminal naivety and  shortsightedness, many Armenians under the rule of the Ottoman Empire  in 1908, after the Young Turk revolution, exclaimed with joy and  inspiration: "Now we are free, we feel free, we walk, we sing, and  our hearts carefreely breathe in the free air of free mountains."

The result? This is the consequence. We are facing consequences. We  stand in front of a monument that symbolizes the memory of more than  one and a half million Armenians killed in the Ottoman Empire.  Today  is the 109th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. For decades, our  people, with broken hearts and unhealed wounds, have been heading to  the monument to the memory of martyrs, mentally talking with their  compatriots and ancestors who were killed or miraculously saved.   Thousands of days and thousands of nights we ask ourselves the  question: why did we suffer such a bitter fate, why did God abandon  us?

And now, people, I ask you again and ask us: why did the Genocide  happen, why were we destroyed and we became victims of a crime?

Many will say: "The world was to blame, in today's language, the  international community, which through its silence contributed to  crimes and pogroms." Others will argue that the cause of the Genocide  was the genetic cruelty and bloodthirstiness of the Turks. According  to others, the cause of the Genocide was the natural envy of nomads  towards the ancient and culturally creative people.

"We were killed because we did not have weapons, we did not have a  state," we will hear as another reason for the Genocide. Now I appeal  to you again, people, why did the Turkish scimitar overtake us, why  was the blood of innocent people shed, and why did our people go  around the world?

My answer is one: we were killed because we loved someone more than  ourselves, we were subjected to Genocide because we naively trusted  someone more than ourselves, and thoughtlessly devoted ourselves to  someone more than ourselves. We believed more in the benevolence of  the enemy than in our courage, we relied more on Turkish benevolence  and generosity than on our national dignity and natural desire for  self- defense.

Today history is repeating itself. The same Turkic tribe, revived in  Azerbaijan, along with their brothers from Turkey, continues to  consider Armenia and all Armenians a threat and an enemy. The tragic  events of recent years have proven that genetic hostility towards the  Armenians has not undergone any change in the collective  consciousness of the Turks.

Genocidal actions against the people of Artsakh, capture and  de-Armenization of Artsakh, torture applied to captive Armenians,  cases of consistent destruction and appropriation of traces of the  identity of Armenian spiritual, historical and cultural values,  attacks on the sovereign territories of Armenia, large-scale spread  of hatred and enmity against Armenia and Armenians by means  Azerbaijan's state propaganda is eloquent evidence that, yes, the  destruction of the Armenian people continues to remain one of the top  priorities on the Turkish agenda.

In the face of this tragic reality and ontological threat, the  selfless, but equally self-satisfied obsession with which the  Armenian authorities and the social, political, civil forces and  trends that resonate with them have harnessed themselves to work on  creating a Turkish-Azerbaijani tandem seems comical, if not  treacherous. architecture of the "era of peace" or "crossroads of the  world".

People, I have a question for you again: is it possible to create a  peaceful union between the executioner and the victim, is it possible  to be in solidarity with those who are trying to deny your existence,  who are challenging your right to life?

Of course, not. The coexistence of Armenians with these anti-Armenian  forces is only possible in one case:  if we renounce our identity,  our dignity, our dreams and visions of the future, our historical  memory, and, finally, if we renounce God.

Is this what we want? Is this what those killed during the Genocide  wanted? No, and again no.

Why did the Armenian Church canonize the victims of the Genocide?  Because they chose to die rather than renounce God and their own  identity.

And today we are faced with the same reality: we are offered the  illusion of life in coexistence with the executioners. And this is  being done only under the confident "leadership" of today's leaders  of our country.

To oblivion the sacred Mount Ararat, Aragats is put into the arena  and opposed, an attempt is made to bury historical Armenia in the  labyrinths of the apparent "real Armenia", Nzhdeh is rejected as a  nationalist, Vardan and Vasak change roles. The Armenian church is  seen as a competitor, and the clergy as a threat to the state.

The subject "History of the Armenian Church" is being removed from  school, and "Armenian History" is being falsified and distorted  within the framework of general education. Those who surrender land  become patriots, and those who fight for the land become agents of  influence, spouses become couples, and only men and/or only women can  become couples.

This is how the power of people who survived the Genocide today  "counteracts" the hostile agenda.  109 years after the Genocide, our  people receive exactly this recipe from their own authorities: forget  the past, abandon painful memories, forget everything that will  prevent them from living like neighbors and trading with their own  executioner.

Is this really something other than desecration of the memory of the  victims of the Genocide? Isn't this the beginning and prelude to a  new Genocide? I have no doubt that abandoning the past and  surrendering to the enemy is in itself a new Genocide.

Anyone who tries to erase or question the authenticity of the  Armenian Genocide should be cursed from generation to generation.

The name and memory of the one who tries to erase our historical  memory, as well as his family, must be damned forever.

Anyone who fights against the church will remain in history with the  stigma of eternal condemnation and shame.

Anyone who undermines the foundations of the Armenian family should  be deprived of family comfort and family warmth.

Anyone who renounces the lands of the Motherland must be cursed and  condemned like the fratricide Cain.

Dear people, today, on the eve of the anniversary of the Armenian  Genocide, you broke the darkness with the light of torches and  brought light into your father's life. With this light we dispersed  the fogs and darkness of time, overcame the insurmountable,  experienced the indescribable. And today we must not die, but must  live in piety, we must live, holding the light of torches above our  heads, dispelling the darkness of our path and with prayer on our  lips to the Lord," Khachatryan said.