Just Say the Word: Don't underestimate a word's power

          

  It’s funny how much controversy can be brought up just by saying, or not saying, one little word. Is any word really so important? Could a word change anything or make any difference in events of a hundred years ago?

            The first time I heard the word Armenian we were at the table and I didn’t want to eat my vegetables. My father said, “Think of the starving Armenians!” and when I asked, “What’s an Armenian?” he shocked me by responding, “We are.”

            Over time I’ve learned that being tied to the word Armenian (our name used to be Khachigian but became Catchick in America) means many different things. For one, I was connected to a rich cultural heritage in that tiny country to the east of Turkey. It also meant I am part of the Diaspora of Armenians living here in America, on the East Coast, in the Detroit area and in L.A. Most of all, it meant the entrance of that other oh-so-controversial word into my way of thinking: for we Armenians are survivors of genocide.

            Before you can even finish typing the word Armenian into the Google search bar, it prompts you with that other word, genocide. This word has become a part of being an Armenian, as much as we associate Holocaust with the Jews. The Armenian genocide occurred during World War I when over a million and a half Armenians were rounded up by the Ottoman Turks and marched off to die.

This Friday, April 24^th, marks the 100-year anniversary of these events, and just last week Pope Francis called what happened to the Armenians the first genocide of the 20^th century. His use of this word has caused controversy with Turkey, as that country, its leaders and others, including our own president, will not use the word genocide to describe these events, despite so many survivors’ reports.

Which brings us back to the original question, is just saying a word really so important? Nothing can change what happened 100 years ago or bring back the lives that were lost. Most of the people with first hand knowledge of this tragedy are dead now. So what does putting this label on those events do to change anything for those of us who are already one or two generations removed?

But there is importance in it. Saying the word, demands full recognition of what was done in the name of Muslim-Christian disputes and desire for land. Saying the word acknowledges the full extent of the atrocities that took the lives of unarmed women and children. Saying the word requires that we look back with unflinching stoicism at the truth of the darkness that lies within mankind’s heart.

Pope Francis did not reference the Armenian Genocide of 1915 because it was the only time such things have happened… he called it the first of its kind. Today with ISIS waging war on Christians in the Middle East, and tribal conflicts causing devastation among many countries in Africa, we can surely recognize it is not the last time we have seen such ethnic cleansing.

Now, more than ever, we must look to our histories and learn from the lessons they will provide us.

The poet Dylan Thomas says, “And you, my father, there on the sad height,/ 
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
/ Do not go gentle into that good night.
/ Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Remembering our dark pasts is indeed both a curse and a blessing. It may seem gentler and more polite to let the dark work genocide slip from our memories of the Armenians. But we cannot let it go. We must rage against the pain of our past with every word we have, for only then can we turn with wide-open eyes to what will be demanded of us to prevent such cruelty in the future.

published in The Cheboygan Daily Tribune April 25-26 issue