There Is No Peace without Justice

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There Is No Peace without Justice

The following talk was given by Armenian Weekly Editor Nanore Barsoumian in Ankara on April 25. The commemoration was co-sponsored by 18 human rights groups and political organizations from Turkey, including the Human Rights Association, Dur-De, and the leading pro-Kurdish political party HDP. The commemoration event featured remarks by writers, artists, and human rights activists from Turkey and the Armenian Diaspora. Alternative Radio founder and director David Barsamian, scholar and activist George Aghjayan, co-founder and board member of the Genocide Education Project Roxanne Makasdjian, Seda Byurat, the great-great-granddaughter of prominent Armenian writer Smbat Byurat, and scholar Khatchig Mouradian were among the speakers.

Hundreds gathered for a commemoration of the Armenian Genocide in Ankara (Photo: Mehmet Ozer)

The genocidal process targeting Armenians had just begun when the Armenian version of the newspaper I edit, the Hairenik Daily, published the following telegram on May 6, 1915:

Treason against Armenians in Bolis [Istanbul]. All our ungers [comrades] and the intellectuals of the community, even former Minister Mardigian, former Patriarch Arsharouni, and other clergymen arrested. Situation frightful. Immediately organize protest meetings on international soil and appeal to government to influence through Ambassador in Bolis. Otherwise the Armenian people will be annihilated.

Fast forward to 2015.
It was about a month ago when I received an e-mail from a friend.
He told me he had an ad—that a friend hoped we could publish it in the Armenian Weekly.
When I saw the ad, I almost fell out of my chair.
It was a drawing of a young boy with bright blue eyes, and it had a message under it from a 109-year-old woman whose last wish is to find her older brother.
The woman and her brother had been orphaned during the genocide, and were separated after they were put in an orphanage.
The woman remembers crossing the blood-red waters of the Arax River, and she remembers her brother and the way she would ride high up on his shoulders.
We ran the ad on the front page of our newspaper.
***

Nanore Barsoumian delivering her remarks (Photo: Mehmet Ozer)

Now think of all that was robbed from this woman—her parents, maybe grandparents, her home, maybe a favorite tree she used to climb, maybe that stray cat she used to play with when she would go visit her grandmother every Sunday. She lost her beloved brother, and she has not forgotten him even after 100 long years.
But most of all she lost her home and her land.
She was robbed of her right to stand where her grandparents, her great grandparents and their parents had stood, toiled, sweated, and finally bled. She lost all that they had built for centuries.
***
But this crime has countless victims, and survivors.
There are survivors and descendants of survivors among your neighbors, your teachers, your politicians, your grandparents, and your children. Tens of thousands of orphaned children were brought in to live with Turkish and Kurdish families. Some have told their children about it. Many have not. It must have been tremendously hard and painful to be a member of a hated people. I have met some of these survivors—as have my friends who are here with us today, and as have you…whether you have realized it or not.
Yes, this crime has countless stories of destruction, uprooting, and murder, but it also has stories of heroism and the triumph of compassion.
Let’s not bury these survivors with the crime. Haven’t they suffered enough? Let’s not bury justice with the crime—because there can never be peace without justice. And let’s not bury hope with the crime—because all of us, all our children, deserve better.