Armenian premier addresses message on 109th anniversary of the  Armenian Genocide

ArmInfo. Below is a message by Armenian Premier Nikol Pashinyan on the 109th anniversary of the  Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire. 

Dear people, dear citizens of the Republic of Armenia, 

Today we commemorate the memory of 1.5 million victims of the  Armenian Genocide, the Meds Yeghern, who were put to the sword in the  Ottoman Empire since 1915 for being Armenians.

This large-scale tragedy took place during the years of the World War  I, and the Armenian people, who had no statehood, had lost their  statehood centuries ago, and essentially had forgotten the tradition  of statehood, became victims of geopolitical intrigues and false  promises, lacking first of all a political mind capable of making the  world and its rules understandable.

Meds Yeghern became a nationwide tragedy and grief for us, and  without exaggeration, is a predetermining factor for our  socio-psychology. Even today, we perceive the world, our environment,  ourselves under the dominant influence of the mental trauma of the  Meds Yeghern, and we have not overcome that trauma.

This means that, being an internationally recognized state, we often  relate and compete with other countries and the international  community in a state of mental trauma, and for this reason, sometimes  we cannot correctly distinguish the realities and factors, historical  processes and projected horizons.

Maybe this is also the reason why we get new shocks, reliving the  trauma of the Armenian Genocide as a legacy and as a tradition.

In this sense, I consider the internal Armenisation of the Meds  Yeghern extremely important. When talking about the Armenian  Genocide, the Meds Yeghern, we always cite the outside world, talk to  the outside world, but our internal conversation never takes place on  this topic.

What should we do and what should we not do in order to overcome the  trauma of genocide and exclude it as a threat? These are questions  that should be the key subject of discussion in our political and  philosophical thinking, but this kind of point of view of dealing  with the fact of the Meds Yeghern is not common among us.

This is an imperative, an urgent imperative, and we must evaluate the  relations between the Meds Yeghern and the First Republic of Armenia,  we must relate the perception of the Meds Yeghern with the vital  interests of the Republic of Armenia, our national statehood.

Meds Yeghern, deprivation of homeland is not a verdict for us, which  we have to bear as a continuous search for a lost homeland. We must  stop the searches of a homeland, because we have found that homeland,  our Promised Land, where milk and honey flow. For us, the  commemoration of the martyrs of the Meds Yeghern should not symbolize  the lost homeland, but the found and real homeland, in the person of  the Republic of Armenia, whose competitive, legitimate, thoughtful  and creative policies can exclude a repetition.

Never again. We should not say this to others, but to ourselves. And  this is not an accusation against us at all, but a point of view  where we, only we, are responsible and the director of our destiny  and we are obliged to have enough mind, will, depth and knowledge to  carry that responsibility in the domain of our sovereign decisions  and perceptions.

May the martyrs of Meds Yeghern and all our other martyrs be consoled  in their permanent sleep by the Republic of Armenia.

And long live the Republic of Armenia.