About 400 of them marched on Washington Square in the Greenwich Village neighborhood on Saturday to celebrate the annual Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, which corresponded with the announcement of the US head of state.
“We are grateful that the government of our country has finally made its voice heard,” said the primate of the Armenian Apostolic Church for the eastern United States, Anoushavan Tanielian, who led the procession. “We must act to prevent future massacres or genocides.”
Once concentrated in the heart of Manhattan, New York’s Armenian community has now spread throughout the region, especially in the Bayside neighborhood of Brooklyn and northeastern New Jersey, but still comes together every year to celebrate the missing. of genocide.
Born in Turkey, Armenia, Iran, Syria, Lebanon or even the United States, the Armenians of New York have different backgrounds, but a common history, which they strive to preserve. All of them grew up with the memory of the events of 1915, transmitted by the elders.
In Aram Bowen, we spoke of this great-grandfather beheaded by Ottoman soldiers. To Ani Tervizian, her grandmother told how her own mother and uncle were slaughtered.
Turkey not mentioned
Measured, Yvette Gevorkian sees Saturday’s announcement as a “victory,” which rewards “all the time we’ve spent getting there.”
Arriving at 9 years old from Iran with her family, this now 51-year-old woman remembers the United States as a country “where people did not know” the fate of Armenians, who believe that a million and a half of theirs were killed by the troops of the Ottoman Empire.
Since then, the community has mobilized, she welcomes, also mentioning the help of the Kardashian clan, whose Kim, the most visible member of the reality TV family of Armenian origin, has been demanding for several years the recognition of the genocide.
It will not have escaped any of the marchers present on Saturday that Joe Biden spoke only of the Ottomans, all detecting the concern to spare, at least in part, Turkey, a strategic ally of the United States and a member of NATO. .
“It’s only a small step because he didn’t mention Turkey,” said Yvette.
“On the one hand, you recognize the Armenian genocide, but at the same time, you give them equipment, you support their army”, protested Mher Janian, of the Armenian National Committee of the United States (ANCA), accusing some the United States and other countries that had previously acknowledged the genocide playing a double game.
All see in Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president, not only an enemy but also a form of heir to the genocidal Ottomans, through his support for Azerbaijan during the recent conflict with Armenia over the fate of Nagorno-Karabakh.
For Aram Bowen, it would be enough “simple excuses” to normalize relations with Turkey. “Look at what the Kurds are doing,” he said, referring to the recognition, by part of the Kurdish community, of the role it played in the massacres of 1915, alongside the Ottomans.
But he recovers quickly, as if suddenly emerging from a dream. “Turkey is never going to recognize the genocide. It will never happen.”
The fight continues, but Ani Tervizian especially wants to retain from this gathering the clusters of adolescents and young adults who have come by the dozen, with a sign and Armenian flag in red, blue and orange.
“The fact that after so many generations,” enthuses the fifty-something, “all these young people, in a foreign country, feel Armenian, it is a victory.”
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