Common Sense: Through Dialogue, Not Diatribe, Change Will Ensue

Construing a paradigm-shift, Armenians should educate the global community about their issues

By JANO BOGHOSSIAN
Janoboghossian@ucla.edu

“1915 Never Again”, “Get Your Hands Off Our Lands”, “Turkey Run, Turkey Hide, Turkey’s Guilty of Genocide.” Armenians recite these chants every April 24 in the streets of Southern California, and up until I graduated high school, I believed that by taking part in this form of protest, I was helping progress a cause I cared about deeply. But as of late, it seems that this somber date in our people’s history has become a showing of one Armenian organization trying to outdo the other, and for some it is an opportunity to show off their new cars and socialize with fellow protesters.

Prior to graduating high school, I eagerly awaited missing class on April 24 in order to show my solidarity with my people and make some noise in the streets of Hollywood. That day was a reminder to the people at school and in the community that Armenians are a strong, united, and persistent ethnic group who do not give up on a cause. I was not able to participate in these demonstrations my freshman year of college due to an organic chemistry midterm; everything happens for a reason. After much reflection, it was then that I realized that our demonstrations and protests are counterproductive, and that we are in dire need of new tactics in order to have our voices heard.
I did not write this article to say there is no need for protests. We need to change the way in which we protest. April 24 protests are becoming the definition of “preaching to the choir,” whether it be on Wilshire Boulevard or in Hollywood. Each year, thousands of Armenians march for justice, but the majority of these demonstrations are geared towards the Armenian community itself. You are lying to yourself if you don’t go home at night and try to watch every local news broadcast about your specific protest. These demonstrations are becoming quite repetitive; not only do they unnecessarily take place in the heart of the Armenian community, but the locals who witness the protest are already informed, and the ones who have ignored it once will chose to ignore it again.

We must to change our tactics. Simply condemning any Turk we encounter for being brainwashed is not very effective. Many Turks do not know the reason behind these protests. For example, the Orange County Turkish American Association celebrated “Turkish Sovereignty Day” on April 24 this year in Irvine. Armenians need to reach out specifically to the Turkish population and educate them about our cause. Demanding recognition, reparation, and redistribution of lands simultaneously is very regressive.

Granted we need to educate more than just the Turkish population, we also need a new step-by-step approach to educating the world, besides screaming injustice and playing the victim of 95 years. We do not need to promote education through lobbying in America as much as we need it in Turkey. The majority of the older population of Turks in the villages in Eastern Turkey knows the truth, because they live on what used to be Armenian lands and property. The younger generation is clearly brainwashed by the Turkish government, and if we express our anger at them, it will cause more of a backlash for our cause.

A small group of Turkish, Kurdish and Armenian intellectuals gathered in Istanbul to commemorate the genocide amid protests from locals. We need to encourage this type of behavior, because this is the peaceful way to light the fire for a progressive social movement in Turkey. Hypothetically speaking, if the Republic of Turkey decides to accept the genocide one day - despite decades of denial and censorship of the truth, the commoners in Turkey will be outraged. We need the support of the Turkish population if we want to make any real peaceful change.
Demonstrating obviously publicizes our cause in newspapers and media, but repeatedly having the same protest every year is futile. Not only does it anger the Turks, who have no knowledge of why Armenians hold grudges against them, but it also causes our own youth to have the mentality that we have to be portrayed as the victim in order to have our own history decided by a foreign government.

If we continue to use the same strategy that has been keeping us in the past, we will never progress as a nation. It has been 95 years since the start of the genocide, and many of us are still stuck trying to find some sort of acknowledgment for what we know is a fact. Armenian revolutionary Karekin Njdeh said, “Without renewal, a nation dies every hour, every minute. Our political parties either don’t understand this or they have no desire to understand it.” The door is open for this renewal; let us take the first step.