UCLA students, along with Armenian students from across Southern
California, came together with the Armenian community Saturday
night for “Blinded by Injustice: Rally Against Denial”
to remember those who were killed in the 1915 Armenian Genocide and
campaign for international recognition.
Today marks the day of remembrance for the genocide that began
91 years ago and lasted for eight years, killing an estimated 1.5
million Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Turkey.
While bodies like the California Congress, the European Union
and other nations have officially acknowledged the genocide, both
the United States and Turkish governments have not.
For Haig Hovesepian, a pharmacology graduate student who was the
UCLA representative coordinator of the event, the rally called to
support involvement in the democratic process, something he
believes is crucial to gaining formal recognition of the
genocide.
“It’s not just enough to be aware and feel something
about the issue, but also to do something about the issue,”
said Hovesepian.
“(We) have to continually knock on the doors of their
representatives and tell them this is important to you,” he
added.
Saturday’s rally in Glendale, the hub of the Armenian
community in the U.S., was coordinated by the All Armenian Student
Association Confederation, a coalition of Armenian Student
Associations from 12 universities in the Southern California
area.
More than 200 members and allies of the Armenian community were
in attendance, including Congressman Adam Schiff, D-Pasadena, a
longtime supporter of the Armenian effort for genocide
recognition.
Schiff spoke to the crowd about his current efforts to pass
HConRes195, which would be an official recognition of the genocide
by the U.S. Congress and would urge Turkey to seek resolution with
the Armenian people.
He questioned why Congress voted to acknowledge a genocide in
Darfur and not the Armenian genocide.
“(The U.S. is) a greater country than that, and I think
it’s tremendously important that we lead by example and that
we call genocide for what it is,” said Schiff after his
speech.
A series of events last week, including Saturday’s rally
and a benefit concert held last night, have led up to a march to
the Turkish Consulate this afternoon.
Nareeneh Sohbatian, a fourth-year international development
studies and political science student, is a member of Alpha Omega
Alpha, the Armenian sorority at UCLA, which collected over a dozen
sandwich boards from other campus groups and covered them with
black paper and information about the genocide, placing them along
Bruin Walk.
“It’s about continuing to educate the Armenian
community and educating the community at large,” Sohbatian
said of the various events being held around the day of
remembrance.
The issue of recognition of the Armenian Genocide came to a head
at UCLA in 1997, when the Turkish government offered $1 million to
endow a Turkish studies chair.
The offer came with multiple preconditions including that the
chair would need to “maintain close and cordial relations
with academic circles in Turkey,” provisions which raised red
flags among the Armenian students of UCLA.
The current stance of the Turkish government and Turkish
academics is that a genocide did not occur and that the deaths were
the result of quelling civil unrest and fallout from World War
I.
Arbi Ohanian was a fourth-year at UCLA at the time, and took
part in the campaign against the donation that resulted in a vote
by the UCLA Department of History in which the money was turned
down due to possible conflicts in academic integrity.
“It’s still a contemporary issue. It’s not
just something that happened 91 years ago, as evidenced by the
Turkish Study Chair (incident),” said Ohanian while attending
the rally. “It’s continued denial that’s
occurring.”
In years past, students have organized vigils on their campuses
to remember the genocide, however, this year the main event was
moved to Glendale.
Coordinators also changed the event from a vigil to a rally, as
it has evolved in placing more emphasis on politics and the
democratic process than in previous years.
“In recent years the vigil looked less like a vigil and
more like a rally. This is more like a call to action,” said
Christopher Minassian, chairman of the Genocide Recognition
Committee, of the evolution of the event.
Hovesepian said the importance of events like the “Rally
Against Denial” is that they help to keep the issues of the
genocide in people’s minds and in the public eye.
“There are individuals out there who would like to see
these types of issues dropped because they’re
inconvenient,” Hovesepian said.
“So when you have individuals such as ourselves become
complacent, it gives these individuals the opportunity to erase
these things like genocide from our collective conscience.
It’s not just our community but a lesson for other
communities,” he added.
Many of the people in attendance Saturday night also felt that
continued awareness was important for the Armenian community.
“I don’t think there’s a difference between
April 24 and any other day,” said Maral Karagozian, a recent
UCLA graduate and former member of the ASA.
“It should always be in our minds that (the Armenian
Genocide) is a part of us.”