It is the symbol of the centenary of the Armenian genocide<\/span><\/a> of 1915, being marked this week in solemn ceremonies in Yerevan and wherever in the world this ancient people fled in the wake of the mass atrocities suffered in the dying days of the Ottoman empire.<\/p>\n This newly invented tradition, a poppy-like throwback to the killing fields of eastern Anatolia, has triggered complaints about commercialisation. But it has caught on. Across Armenia<\/span><\/a>, in schools and homes, and as far away as the diaspora community of Glendale, California, children have picked up crayons and scissors to make their own paper flowers or have planted the real thing in remembrance of the horrors that beset their forebears.<\/p>\n Rosa and Tamara, Yerevan sisters of 10 and six, wrote a name on the back of their homemade forget-me-nots: Raphael Lemkin<\/span><\/a>, the Polish -Jewish scholar who coined the word genocide in 1944 \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c and cited the Armenians as a seminal example.<\/p>\n The centenary on 24 April provides a rare opportunity to focus global attention on killings that were once notorious, then faded from view, were fought over in a vicious propaganda war, and are now widely seen as a crime on a monumental scale \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c and a grim precursor to the Nazi Holocaust. In their different ways, the pope and the reality TV star Kim Kardashian both highlighted the issue last week, much to the fury of Turks who continue to dispute the Armenian version of events.<\/p>\n Final preparations for Friday\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s commemoration are under way at Armenia\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s genocide memorial on the Tsitsernakaberd plateau, overlooking Yerevan. It features a bunker-like museum and a tapering grey stele pointing skywards like an accusing finger. To the south, on the Turkish side of the long-closed border, Mount Ararat beckons through spring clouds, snow-covered and majestic.<\/p>\n The big names on the day will include Vladimir Putin and Fran\u0569\u0083\u0539\u00abois Hollande, leaders of the largest of the 20 countries to have formally recognised the genocide. But western governments that have not, including Britain, are sending low-profile officials to Yerevan, and far more senior representatives to Turkey<\/span><\/a> to mark the centenary of the Gallipoli landings, the date deliberately and cynically chosen by President Recep Tayyip Erdo\u0569\u0084\u056a\u0534an \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c so furious Armenians believe \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c in order to sabotage their own ceremony.<\/p>\n \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093I am proud to be here and I understand why I am here,\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d said Milena Avetisyan, 16, looking formal in black suit, white blouse and sensible pumps, standing with an honour guard of her classmates outside the memorial\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s cone of basalt slabs, an eternal flame burning at its centre. \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093It is a call to the world to recognise the Armenian genocide. It is to show that we remember and demand.\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d<\/p>\n The slogan lies at the heart of the campaign for the Turkish state to recognise that its Ottoman predecessor annihilated up to 1.5 million Armenian citizens, starting on 24 April 1915 with the arrest of intellectuals in Constantinople and continuing with a centralised programme of deportations, murder, pillage and rape until 1922. The shadowy Teskilat e-Mahsusa (\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093special organisation\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d) drew up plans and sent coded, euphemistic telegrams to provincial officials and dispatched its victims on railway journeys to oblivion in the deserts of Iraq and Syria. Henry Morgenthau, the US ambassador, described the Turks as giving \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093a death warrant to a whole race\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d.<\/p>\n On 23 April, at Etchmiadzin, seat of the Armenian Apostolic church, the martyrs will be canonised collectively \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c renewing a tradition dating back 1,700 years. \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093We have to liberate our own people from hostility and hatred,\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d explained Bishop Bagrat Galstanyan. \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093And we have to liberate the Turks, to cleanse themselves from the pain of genocide.\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d<\/p>\n It was at Etchmiadzin in 1965 \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c the 50th anniversary of the slaughter, a key moment of Armenian national awakening, and when many witnesses were still alive \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c that the bleached bones of the dead were brought from Deir ez-Zor in Syria for reburial.<\/p>\n Numerous centenary events, such as conferences, exhibitions and concerts, underline how closely this country\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s identity and future are bound up with the bloody past. Raw emotion, competing narratives and an ongoing diplomatic crisis make for a difficult combination.<\/p>\n \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093International recognition is fine but, if Turkey doesn\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7t do it, then we won\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7t have the security we need,\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d said Tevan Poghosyan, an MP for the nationalist Heritage party. \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093It is a security issue because the genocide happened to us. It is our nation that lost its homeland and was scattered around the world. It is not just a historical issue.\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d<\/p>\n History does cast a long shadow. Modern Armenia won its independence in 1918, but was taken over by the Soviet Union two years later and only regained its freedom in 1991. Landlocked and poor, its 3 million people include many descendants of the survivors of the genocide, though far more of them live in the diaspora of 7 million to 10 million, concentrated in Russia, the US and France \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c a split that has had a powerful effect on the politics of commemoration and the closely linked question of the troubled relations between Yerevan and Ankara.<\/p>\n Turkey\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s behaviour is seen as consistent with its traditional animosity towards the Armenians. The border has remained shut since 1993, part of the continuing stand-off over Nagorno-Karabakh<\/span><\/a>, the ethnic Armenian region of neighbouring Azerbaijan, in which Ankara supports Baku. That \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093frozen conflict\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d has heated up into a shooting war in the past year so the issue is live and dangerous. People and goods do get through from Turkey by air and by land via Georgia but the blockade is damaging to an already fragile economy and ties it uncomfortably closely to Russia.<\/p>\n \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093Turkey has engaged in a proactive policy of denial, and scholars say denial is the last stage of the crime of genocide,\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d said Vigen Sargsyan, the presidential adviser in charge of centennial events. \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093Genocide is based on xenophobia and it has a tendency to affect the current policy of the state that denies it. Turkey has an anti-Armenian policy. The burden of proof is with them to show that it does not.\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d<\/p>\n Independent Armenian voices readily acknowledge the changes that have taken place in Turkey, where liberal intellectuals, civil society and Kurdish groups accept that genocide occurred. Thousands signed the \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093We Apologise\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d petition in the spirit of the Armenian-Turkish writer Hrant Dink<\/span><\/a>, who was murdered in 2007. Memorial ceremonies will be held in Istanbul and elsewhere, and Turkish delegations will be in Yerevan on 24 April. Last year<\/span><\/a> Erdo\u0569\u0084\u056a\u0534an referred to the victims as \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093Ottoman citizens\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d and sent \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093condolences\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d to their descendants.<\/p>\n But his Gallipoli manoeuvre has been a crude reminder of the refusal of the Turkish state to go any further than what many in Yerevan dismiss as \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093repackaged denial\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d.<\/p>\n The cultivation of memory is presented as a national duty. There is a striking parallel with Israel, where the Nazi holocaust is seen as part of the state\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s raison d\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7etre. Like Jerusalem\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s Yad Vashem, Yerevan\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s genocide memorial is invariably the first stop for visiting foreign VIPs \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c many of their names inscribed on plaques under the trees in its \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093alley of memory\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d.<\/p>\n New interactive exhibits are being installed so that an Armenian child of today can connect to one of his or her own age in those times of savagery and terror. \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093We try to avoid the most horrible photographs of human remains,\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d said Suren Manukyan, the museum\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s deputy director, \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093or at least to use them on touch screens rather than on public display.\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d<\/p>\n Individual memories do not need to be curated by the state. It is common to hear stories of a grandmother fleeing to the screams of men burning alive; of orphans blinded and girls abducted.<\/p>\n But it is not only the atrocities that are remembered. In Nerkin Sasnashen, a village of simple stone houses, unpaved roads and a ruined 7th-century monastery, locals talk animatedly about their roots in Sasun, a mountainous region of what is now Turkey\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s Batman province and a stronghold of Armenian resistance to Turks and Kurds \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c who carried out a notorious massacre in 1894. The second word of the village\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s name means \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093built by people from Sasun\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d.<\/p>\n Handfuls of earth from Sasun are thrown into graves and at one recent baptism the proud parents gave the priest consecrated oil brought from there. \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093We even name our children after the towns and villages of western Armenia,\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d said Andranik Shamoyan \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c his own first name recalling the most celebrated of his people\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s national heroes<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n Arayan Hendrik, a leathery-faced 72-year-old sitting back after a festive lunch of kebab, lavash bread and vodka toasts, sang movingly of the beauty of Sasun in the dialect spoken there in 1915. \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093Our children dance the same dances as their great-grandparents did,\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d he said. \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093They are part of our history that we want to hand down to the next generations. They are a connection between us and the lands we left.\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d<\/p>\n Many have travelled to Turkey to seek their roots but say they find it an unsettling, emotionally wrenching experience. Others refuse to visit their homeland as tourists. If the border were open, it would be just a 90-minute drive from Yerevan to Ararat. As it is, the journey there, via Georgia, takes 14 hours. Unlike Palestinians, few Armenians articulate a \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093right of return\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d to their lost patrimony. \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093It is not that people don\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7t dream about their land,\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d suggested Poghosyan. \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093But they do have a state now and they need to build it.\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d<\/p>\n Armenian government policy does not include demands for territory or reparations, as organisations in the more militantly nationalist diaspora would like. Yerevan seeks normalisation of relations with Ankara, starting with the crucial reopening of the border, to promote reconciliation that it hopes will eventually bring genocide recognition \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c even if that takes decades.<\/p>\n Optimism peaked in 2009, when protocols brokered by the Swiss and endorsed by the US and EU were signed in Zurich, crucially with no mention of the horrors of 1915. But they were never ratified \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c because the Turks insisted on linking them to progress on Nagorno-Karabakh. It has been downhill ever since, relations now frozen in an atmosphere of deep mistrust. The vacuum is being filled by strident, anti-Turkish voices from the diaspora, and attitudes are hardening at home as well.<\/p>\n Talk of greater unity is rife. \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093We live in a small territory but we are a big nation,\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d said Hranush Hakobyan, minister for the diaspora. \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093Anyone who deals with us is dealing with 12 million Armenians.\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d The country\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s entry to this year\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s Eurovision song contest will be sung by a six-strong band \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c one singer each from the five continents of the diaspora and one from the republic. The title of the song is Don\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7t Deny.<\/p>\n \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093Nationalist tendencies are gaining the upper hand,\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d warned Vahram Ter-Matevosyan, a highly regarded historian of Turkey. \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093People feel that we tried to help the Turks to come to terms but they failed, so why should we trust them again?\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d<\/p>\n No one expects much to change after 24 April, even if Erdo\u0569\u0084\u056a\u0534an comes up with another expression of qualified contrition that avoids the totemic G-word. There are signs, however, of a debate about the style of the genocide commemoration, dominated by the ubiquitous forget-me-not.<\/p>\n \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093I was a bit critical of this campaign at first but it is the first time Armenians have associated themselves with a symbol,\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d said Ter-Matevosyan. \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093This is about modernising genocide discourse, a sort of rebranding. Now it is the fifth generation since the genocide so you do need to reach out to young people with a different message.\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d<\/p>\n But Tigran Matosyan, a sociologist, warned of \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093a ritual without reflection\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d that was not relevant to the country\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s needs. \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093Armenia has lots of problems and I wish the centennial could be used as an opportunity to reflect on them,\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d he said. \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093Armenia wants to be a democracy, but it\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s not. There\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s huge social injustice as well. That\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s not becoming for a people who suffered genocide.\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d<\/p>\n Isabella Sargsyan, who promotes Armenian-Turkish reconciliation, remembers her first meeting as a teenager with a Turk from Kars, her family\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s ancestral home, and bursting into tears, lost for words. \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093It\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s not that I am not sorry for the genocide,\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d she said. \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093I am. But I don\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7t like the way it is dealt with publicly. And it is also not the only thing that shapes my identity. The old diaspora is focused on the genocide. It\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s an identity issue for them. We are citizens. The fact that we have this tiny piece of land is a miracle. The primary goal for the Republic of Armenia is to be a decent place for the people who live here.\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d<\/p>\n Still, time alone, it seems, cannot heal the open wounds of a century ago. Remembering is the easy part. Fulfilling the demand that goes with it is far harder. \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093Other genocides have been recognised, but ours has not been,\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d said Andranik Shamoyan. \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093It will be part of our lives always. You cannot just turn this page.\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d<\/p>\n Some estimates put the Armenian diaspora at 10 million. Those with Armenian parentage include: theguardian.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As Armenians mark the beginning of violence that left 1.5 million dead, Turkey\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s lack of contrition leaves descendants struggling to reconcile loss and renewal Mount Ararat, in neighbouring Turkey, reminds the population of the Armenian […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aaeurop.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16559"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aaeurop.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aaeurop.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aaeurop.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aaeurop.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.aaeurop.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aaeurop.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aaeurop.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aaeurop.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aaeurop.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Artwork](\"http:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/static\/w-620\/h--\/q-95\/sys-images\/Guardian\/Pix\/pictures\/2015\/4\/20\/1429539215894\/5cec7ffa-f8a2-418e-bd6f-1f114dfec094-620x372.jpeg\")
<\/i><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n![\"The](\"http:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/static\/w-605\/h--\/q-95\/sys-images\/Guardian\/Pix\/pictures\/2015\/4\/17\/1429294354424\/529ac310-41f5-45eb-9c3b-56bb356146ed-620x372.jpeg\")
<\/i><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n![\"The](\"http:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/static\/w-605\/h--\/q-95\/sys-images\/Guardian\/Pix\/pictures\/2015\/4\/17\/1429295391504\/6b81b500-7673-4468-bfe3-39c5b0774a3a-620x581.jpeg\")
![\"Cher\"](\"http:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/static\/w-605\/h--\/q-95\/sys-images\/Guardian\/Pix\/pictures\/2015\/4\/23\/1429745256912\/eece9159-9acd-48b3-957c-02ad82dba5b7-480x720.jpeg\")
Famous diaspora<\/h2>\n
\nCher<\/span><\/strong> The 68-year-old superstar was born Cherilyn Sarkisian to an American mother and an Armenian-American father.
\nKim Kardashian<\/span><\/strong> The 34-year-old US-born reality star\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s late father, Robert, was Armenian.
\nAndre Agassi<\/span><\/strong> The ex-tennis player\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s father is Iranian Armenian. An ancestor changed the name from Agassian to avoid persecution.
\nCharles Aznavour<\/span><\/strong> Aznavour, 90, is a beloved French-Armenian singer.
\nSergei Lavrov<\/span><\/strong> Russia\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s foreign minister was born to an Armenian father and a Russian mother.
\nAndy Serkis<\/span><\/strong> The Gollum actor was born to an Armenian father.
\nDavid Dickinson<\/span><\/strong> The 73-year-old TV presenter and antiques expert was born to an Armenian mother and then adopted.<\/p>\n