If I could describe our world in one word, it would be tangled. There are many words that come to mind like corrupt, lost, messed up, etc, but tangled just seems fit after our class discussion today. It's like its impossible for the Armenian Genocide to be acknowledged by the whole world, and genocides are going to keep on happening because some nations give off the "You can't touch me" vibe. To put it another way, the Armenian Genocide denial situation is kind of like a murder trial with a witness that refuses to testify. The witness saw what happened, and could take the stand and make the perpetrator pay, but the perpetrator has connections and has threatened to kill the witness's family if he testifies. Thus, the witness won't testify because he doesn't want to risk losing his family. The witness is "tangled" in the middle of everything.
This is the same deal with the United States- we have proof that the Armenian Genocide was in fact a genocide, yet our government won't "testify" because they fear how Turkey will respond. To the United States, oil, aircraft bases, waterways, etc are more important that telling the truth- just like the murder trial's witness's family is more important than the truth to him. Any of us would like to think that if we were in charge we would do what was right regardless of the consequences we may face. But in reality, would we, really? This is one tangled up situation, and unfortunately, there isn't any easy solution either. How can we begin to untangle this mess? What could we, as American citizens do to start paving the path to acknowledgement?
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You raise great questions.. And, for whatever it is worth, my own answer to the question of what we can do-- even more than sending letters or emails to our legislators... is to teach others... to tell friends and family what we have learned about Armenia-- to tell them enough that they are then curious ENOUGH to ask someone else, to teach someone else about what happened. Spreading the word-- making the Armenian Genocide one that is no longer hidden but that becomes a part of our collective, world, history will begin to really make a difference. Afterall, we saw how powerful our class was to Anais in simply listening to her story and validating it by not denying it....
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