By David Cruz
Correspondent
Several hundred members of the Armenian diaspora in New Jersey gathered in Hackensack for a solemn remembrance on the centennial of what they have come to know as the first “genocide” of the 20th century, a term used to describe the slaughter of more than a million Armenians by the Ottoman Turks that is still not universally accepted.
“A full, frank and just acknowledgement of the facts is in all our interests. Peoples and nations grow stronger, and build a foundation for a more just and tolerant future, by acknowledging and reckoning with painful elements of the past.”
That’s a statement from President Barack Obama yesterday. It fell short of using the word genocide, which was not lost on those here today, including Sen. Bob Menendez, who sponsored a resolution in the Senate, calling on the U.S. to recognize the events that began in 1915 as genocide.
“When the president was Sen. Obama, he had the right view, that this should be recognized by our country as genocide,” he told the crowd of over 200. “And it would have been my hope that as President Obama he would’ve finally brought our country into line with the historical reality of that time.”
Menendez struck the defiant tone, which was carried on by a number of speakers, including keynote speaker Lisa Kradjian, Grand Matron of the Daughters of Vartan.
“The quality of our lives, personally, and of our work collectively, as a people, will be the greatest sign that Turkey failed, that the genocide did not destroy us,” she said. “We don’t need to wait for barbarians to legitimize our history, our truth.”
Pope Francis referred to the “first genocide of the 20th century” in remarks he made earlier this month, and the Armenian church canonized the 1.5 million victims. Why, wondered Steven Kradjian, of the Knights of Vartan, is the U.S. still not in line?
“We have a unique responsibility to remind the world of the horrors of genocide and a responsibility to lead that growing chorus of voices who demand that never again shall the civil world tolerate genocide in any form, at any time, on any people,” he said.
A prayer for the saints. The laying of flowers at a memorial plaque. Symbolic gestures of remembrance and suffering. Followed by a march to the courthouse, where, in a final act of defiance, they raised the Armenian flag and sang the Armenian national anthem.
“A man dies but once,” it says. “Blessed is the one that dies For the freedom of his nation.”