Genocide Ignored is Genocide Repeated: The Armenian Struggle for Media Coverage
President Serzh Sargsyan visits a memorial site to pay tribute to the victims of the Armenian Genocide on the 100th year anniversary. Photo from President.am, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Armenian wounds are open, while Turkish history books stay closed.
Often referred to as the ‘Forgotten Genocide,’ the Armenian Genocide has received a lack of recognition from world leaders, including the United States government, for far too long. World War I acted as a convenient cover for the mass slaughter of Armenians in 1915, allowing for quiet deportation under conditions of starvation, dehydration, exposure, and disease.
Because the Turkish government continually chooses to ignore all genocide allegations, the dehumanization of Armenians has not only been sustained since 1915 but is currently escalating to astronomic levels. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently referred to the Armenian Genocide as “baseless memories” that need to be “thrown away.”
By law, Turkish authorities have the right to control and restrict speech in the mainstream media. Human Rights Watch recorded many journalist killings and reported on Turkey’s dystopian new legal amendments that consist of 40 articles making “disseminating false information” a criminal offense with prison sentences of between one to three years. It establishes much tighter government control over online news websites. Under the new legislation, anyone who criticizes the government on online platforms can be prosecuted under disinformation charges.
The blatant ignorance from the current Turkish government, in consequence, has ignited anti-Armenian rhetoric from the people of Turkey and the neighboring Turkic nation Azerbaijan. Between 2020 and 2023, Azerbaijan conducted an ethnic cleansing campaign against indigenous Armenians in a region called Artsakh, also known as Nagorno-Karabakh.
Azerbaijan’s capture of the entire territory left 120,000 innocent Armenians forced to leave their homes after months of their full-scale military aggression. Both Turkey and Azerbaijan’s governments framed this seizure of Artsakh as necessary to bring peace to the caucus. Rather, in the months since, Azerbaijan’s probing attacks on Armenia’s frontier have continued and brought nothing but chaos.
In the midst of the Turkic nations’ attacks and erasure of Armenian monuments, Western media has ignored the millions of protests around the world, the cries for help, and the signs that read, “Genocide ignored is genocide repeated.” The Turkish refusal to publicly recognize their attempt to cleanse the caucus of Christian Armenians shared with Turkey and Azerbaijan’s power through alliances results in an international fear of confronting the truth.
The question arises: if the genocide of 1915 were to happen today in 2024, would it be stopped? The answer is no.
The international community failed to hold Turkey and Azerbaijan responsible for their attacks in 2020. But Armenians continually embody resilience when struck with tragedy. The Armenian diaspora has stood strong in defending their people in any way possible, continuing to protest at Turkish and Azerbaijani consulates around the world.
The commemoration of the 1915 Armenian Genocide will only become louder until their voices are ultimately heard. Their struggle warrants the media’s attention, and the Armenian people deserve to live.