Chidem Inch: The 104th Anniversary of the Genocide

Ara Güler

     This year, per the title, we are celebrating the 104th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. There is an annual protest in front of the Turkish Consulate in Chicago on the 24th and a Chicago wide mass and program on Saturday the 27th. I cannot attend the protest but will be present at the mass and program.
     In this 4th year after Centennial Anniversary, I am not sure what I am feeling. We continue pressing for recognition. If we ever get Turkey to commit to recognition, we will no doubt push harder for reparations. I am certain this is why Turkey may never recognize what happened. I think there was some hope before the coup d’etat attempt in 2016. Before, people in Istanbul showed up en masse to support the recognition of the Genocide and honor the memory of Hrant Dink.  The mood was positive and hopeful. After the coup? Erdogan cleaned house and basically punished anyone and everyone in the country that was more liberal and open than he thought the country should be. Whatever hope I had for a new Turkey evaporated with the failed coup. 
     Where is Turkey going? Why do I care? If they aren’t going to admit to anything or try to reconcile to any degree, they could implode as far as I am concerned. Would love to see a free Kurdistan because they should have a country and they might actually welcome Armenians back. They might even give Ararat, Ani, Kars, and Kghi to the Republic of Armenia. OK,this last scenario is probably only a smidge more likely than Turkey recognizing the Genocide. 
     On Easter Sunday, we were delighted to have Zaven Tokatlian over. The Tokatlian-Gavoor connection dates back to the 1960s in Khartoum, Sudan where the Tokatlians lived and where my great-uncle Rouben was the financial officer in the US Embassy. Zaven never comes empty handed. He brought flowers for Judy and my mother-in-law. He brought me the 2017 edtion of Orhan Pamuk’s Istanbul: Memories and the City. This reprint was expanded to include more photos including many from the famed photographer Ara Güler.  

     After our guests left, I sat down and looked at every photo in the book and read two chapters. The photos are amazing, and I love the way Pamuk writes. Yes, I can say or write that I don’t really care what happens in Turkey and the next day I am mesmerized by a book of memories and photos of Istanbul. None of our family actually lived there and I have visited only once. But, 104 years after the genocide here I am, a second-generation Armenian born in the US, still fascinated and drawn to the great Polis. I would visit again in a heartbeat should the opportunity. 
     Many of my generation of Armenian-Americans have faded away from Armenian life and melded into the dominant American culture. For those of us who persist, our Armnenian heritage, culture, and nation are powerful forces in our lives and define a significant part of our lives. We cannot let it go. We dream about the very improbable and definitely impractical repatriation, not to the Republic of Armenia, but the Turkish occupied villages of Western Armenia where my grandparents’ generation were born. 
     I want to say I don’t care what happens in Turkey but it is not true. I am not a citizen. I might have been and that gives me a reason to have interest, if not a stake, in what happens. Most non-Armenians from Turkey that I know cannot relate to this in anyway.  To them I am the foreigner that I most certainly appear to be.
     Çidem Ínç indeed!
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