Today, April 24th, marks the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. It started in 1915 and continued to 1923 The Armenians living in Turkey and living in Armenia were all "relocated" to a desert where they were sent to die, 1.5 million Armenians died, either from starvation, dehydration, drowning, burning, hanging, shooting, being buried alive, and just plain murder.
This was all committed by the Ottoman Empire of Turkey.
We mark April 24th as the beginning because that was when all the leaders and intellectuals were rounded up and killed. They did this to weaken us and take away potential leaders of resistance.
The men were slaughtered immediately so that they would be unable to protect their children, those men who stayed alive only did so either because of disguise, or out of sheer luck. The women were picked out and raped brutally. The babies were drowned, and those children who were lucky enough to survive were left orphaned in the harsh world.
2/3 of the armenian population was eliminated, today only a tenth of what our country used to be stands. This is why we demand justice from Turkey, we want our land back, we want our homes and churches and mountains back where they belong.
Armenians were drivent to six continents on this earth, there is hardly any country that doesn't have armenians on it because they were so afraid for their lives they got as far as they could. Now however, many find it hard to keep our culture alive and that is why it is important for us to stay united.
The Turkish government of the past is responible for this. Not all turks are bad, some helped hide the armenians, others turned them in or killed them themselves. They had concentration camps and they had death marches. Our land was taken from us and the Turkish government continues to feed their people lies.
Many Turks claim that it was not a genocide but just "war casualties". But believe me, the systematic annihilation was genocide. Many Turks show their support to Armenians and I am so grateful, however there are those who will deny their country's shame to their dying breath.
The term genocide was specifically tailored to fit the atrocities that occured in 1915 to the armenians. The Armenian genocide was the very first genocide of the 20th century, and because turkey refuses to accept responsibility many other genocides have occurred.
For example, Hitler said and I quote,"Who after all remembers the Armenians?" Hitler used that to justify the ruthless slaughter of millions of jews. We protest to get recognition so not only can the souls of our people rest, but the souls of another people be saved from future Genocide.
"By denying the past we are condemned to repeat it,"
Today is a sad commemoration, but it is also a prideful day that after all these years we are still here :) #TurkeyFailed #ArmenianGenocide
Hope you learned something, feel free to ask more questions and I encourage you all to research more :)
My feet are so tired, we marched a good 10 miles today for the protest :D p.s the march is shown a little bit on the LA snapchat story
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