“Turkey stands with and will continue to stand with friendly and brotherly Azerbaijan with all our means and all our heart.”
– Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, regarding the current fighting between Azerbaijan and Armenians defending Nagorno Karabagh (Artsakh)
April 24, 2015. Marking one hundred years of commemorating the genocide of up to 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turkey, beginning in 1915; a genocide denied to this day by modern Turkey.
Along with countless tens-of-thousands of Armenians from Armenia and around the world, I walked in silence that day toward the Armenian Genocide Memorial on the hill of Tsitsernakaberd in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. It was a somber sight, a rainy day, umbrellas everywhere but still soaked. I remember a wide pathway – a long downhill, allowing me the view of a river of umbrellas headed toward…well, we couldn’t see it, as we would turn a few corners before reaching the plaza and the monument.
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I had visited the monument before, during one of my previous trips to the country; a necessary stop for all Armenians. Inside the museum, a map of Turkey, with villages marking Armenian populations – well, the populations prior to 1915. I saw two gentlemen pointing to Kayseri, discussing the city. I spoke with them; my maternal grandmother also was from this city. She, unlike many in her family, survived.
The monument itself is made up of twelve slabs positioned in a circle, each slab representing a lost Armenian province in present-day Turkey. Rising above it all is a single pillar, 44 meters high, representing the rebirth of the nation. In the center of the circle, an eternal flame dedicated to the 1.5 million killed. On the day of this visit, on the 100th anniversary, this eternal flame was encircled in flowers left in offering, one by one, by the visitors – all passing by in silence. By the time I reached it, the flowers were already piled four or five feet high. Still, behind me the crowds were endless.
I arrived that day by bus, avoiding, momentarily, the rain, until I began my slow procession with the multitudes. However, my return to the hotel was on foot and alone – not even sure, exactly, how to get back. I found myself complaining – rain soaked, the umbrella of little use. I quickly stopped myself. What a pathetic, miserable soul I am.
My grandparents and their families – like countless thousands of our grandparents – were forced from their homes, many husbands, fathers, and sons killed or forced into work camps. Wives, mothers, children, forced to march into the Syrian desert in the heat of summer. Starving, raped, dying. And I am complaining about a little rain, while many, one-hundred years ago, died for lack of water. So, I took down my umbrella and continued walking.
My paternal grandfather would tell the story of his father, taken – like others at the time – to work on road crews, perhaps for the Berlin-Baghdad railway, perhaps for some other purpose. His job was to break rocks; not really a job, as that implies a mutual agreement for compensation. My grandfather saw a vision of his father dying there, begging his son to bring him a little water and bread. Maybe it happened this way, maybe it didn’t.
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This great-grandfather was named after Jesus’s hometown – Nazareth. My grandfather was named for one of the Apostles that first brought Christianity to Armenia – Thaddeus. But in Armenian we say Tateos. Following a supposed tradition, my father – the firstborn – was named after his grandfather. Each in this line was firstborn, as far back as I have any knowledge.
As I was firstborn of the firstborn, my grandfather expected that I would receive his name. I thank God that my mother refused. Thaddeus would be OK (well, maybe for a middle name), but Tateos would have been tough to grow up with in America.
Armenians are funny with names – funny in a good way. We name our children after ancient – even fabled – princes. We name them after lost provinces. We name them after ancient capitals. We name them after ancient monasteries. Also, many Biblical names. We name our children after all of the prophets and all of the apostles; we name them after our early Christian martyrs. But we have more; our Christian faith is in our names, reminding us always of our faith:
- Haroutyoun: Resurrection
- Hampartsoom: Ascension
- Kalousd: Advent
- Mgrdich: Baptist
- Yerchanig: Blessed
- Endza: Gift
- Barkev: Reward
- Avedis: Good News
- Hnazant: Obedient
- Mayranoush: Sweet mother
- Shnor: Grace
There you go. You pretty much get the entire message of the Gospel right there. Still not enough for you? Many of these are also used for last names – just add “ian” or “yan”; for example, Haroutyounian, Kalousdian, Mgrdichian. And if that isn’t enough, try being Haroutyoun Haroutyounian – Resurrection, son of Resurrection; also, Ascension, son of Ascension, or Good News, son of Good News. And so on, as if to prove a point.
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Murray Rothbard would write:
Contemporary libertarians often assume, mistakenly, that individuals are bound to each other only by the nexus of market exchange. They forget that everyone is necessarily born into a family, a language, and a culture. Every person is born into one or several overlapping communities, usually including an ethnic group, with specific values, cultures, religious beliefs, and traditions. He is generally born into a “country.” He is always born into a specific historical context of time and place, meaning neighborhood and land area.
Armenians know this about as well as any nation on earth. Much of the West, and many contemporary libertarians, have no idea what Rothbard is talking about. This is why the West is losing, and why libertarianism solely as libertarianism can never win.
Besides carrying the baggage (as far as the Armenians are concerned) of being a Turk, what is Erdogan’s track record? What does he do to back up all his “heart” when it comes to his “friendly and brotherly Azerbaijan”? The current Turkish president – the leader of the country that refuses to deal with its history of genocide and who has been one of the leaders in turning Syria and Libya into hell-holes, that is threatening Greece and Cyprus – has thrown his country’s full means behind his Turkic Azeri brothers against Armenians in this conflict.
The most potent non-nuclear military south of Russia, west of China, and east of the United States is making this threat. Turkey, which spends almost fifteen times as much on the military as does Armenia. This threat against a country with one-third the population of Azerbaijan, and that spends half as much on the military as does Azerbaijan.
I have previously written of the history of this conflict, so will only touch on it here: Armenians have lived in Karabagh – Artsakh for us – for at least 2,500 years. There was no such thing as Azerbaijan – other than as a province of northern Persia – before 100 years ago. The only reason Artsakh was part of Azerbaijan was due to politically-calculated decisions made by Soviet leaders in the early days of the Soviet Union. At the time, the region was over 90 percent Armenian – and at the time of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it was still 75 to 80 percent Armenian.
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The fact that remains at the forefront of the Armenian mind in regard to this conflict is the Genocide. Turkey offers many excuses regarding events of 1915 – fog of war, fighting on both sides, removing Armenians from the front, whatever; as if any of this justifies the aggression perpetrated.
Armenia is all that stands in the way of a pan-Turkic empire stretching from Thrace to the eastern edges of China. Armenia is the only non-Muslim, non-Turkic nation in this path; it is the only Christian nation as well. But it is more than the Genocide. It is the memory of how Turkey intended to finish the job, in 1918; an intention that is a boil on the surface of the skin for Armenians, implicit and bordering on explicit in Erdogan’s words.
The Battle of Sardarabad occurred from 21 to 29 May 1918, between the regular Armenian military units and militia on one side and the Ottoman army that had invaded Eastern Armenia on the other. Sardarabad is just west of the Armenian capital of Yerevan. Keep in mind, this is just after the Turks depopulated, via death march, much of Turkey of its Armenian population – the Genocide.
Now the Turks were advancing on what was Armenian land previously under Tzarist rule – Eastern Armenia. Except by now there was no Tzar; the Russian Revolution took care of that, and the Russians withdrew from the war and from this front.
The Armenians were successful in this battle, miraculously given the extreme poverty of the country and the countless refugees who survived the Genocide. Had the Armenians not been successful, there likely would no longer have been an Armenia worth discussing.
In the words of Christopher J. Walker, had the Armenians lost this battle, “[I]t is perfectly possible that the word Armenia would have henceforth denoted only an antique geographical term.”
The Armenian Catholicos – the human leader of the Armenian Apostolic Church – refused to vacate Etchmiadzin, the home of the Church. This despite it being directly in the path of the oncoming Turkish forces. In addition to rejecting the proposal to flee, he would encourage the military:
Later legend claimed that church bells pealed for six days calling on Armenians from all walks of life – peasants, poets, blacksmiths, and even the clergymen – to rally to form organized military units. Civilians, including children, aided in the effort as well, as “Carts drawn by oxen, water buffalo, and cows jammed the roads bringing food, provisions, ammunition, and volunteers from the vicinity” of Yerevan.
Outnumbered and outgunned, the Armenians would fight. The nine-day battle would result in a complete Armenian victory, halting the Turkish advance through Armenia and to the desired oil fields of Baku. The details aren’t precisely the same today, but the players and the existential nature of the crisis are exactly the same.
Had the Armenians lost, annihilation of the locals and the refugees would certainly have followed. This is what today’s battle means to Armenians. This is what Armenians know of Turks, and this is why the current situation is existential for Armenians. Nothing has changed.
I will leave you with two pictures. The first is in the region of Martakert, in Artsakh (Nagorno Karabagh) and directly on the border of Azerbaijan (RT):
These are Armenians living in this village. We personally support the Armenian Church in Martakert, and these people are now in grave danger. Apparently, UN resolutions favor the Azeri position regarding governance of this village along with all of Artsakh, but governance by Azeris means the death or deportation (for the lucky ones) of this population. What we are told is that dirt and officially recognized artificial lines on a map are both more important than the people who live there.
Ludwig von Mises had the right answer on this:
… whenever the inhabitants of a particular territory, whether it be a single village, a whole district, or a series of adjacent districts, make it known, by a freely conducted plebiscite, that they no longer wish to remain united to the state to which they belong at the time, but wish either to form an independent state or to attach themselves to some other state, their wishes are to be respected and complied with.
The inhabitants themselves decide how the lines are drawn. The overwhelmingly Armenian population of Nagorno Karabagh did precisely this in the last years of Soviet rule; unfortunately, their wishes were not respected.
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The second picture:
This is what is in the blood of those killed in 1915; this is the blood that is in the soil. And it is in the blood of Armenians today. I know the words “blood” and “soil” have a bad connotation to those who cannot think beyond superficial simplicities. It means the difference of life and death to some, every single day; it will mean the difference of life and death to all civilizations that do not understand the necessity of defending it.
This history is also in Armenian hearts and minds, as Turks – both to our east and west – pledge to stand together against Armenians, as Erdogan says, “with all our means and all our heart.”
Jeff Deist asked the question: What are you willing to fight for?
…what would you physically fight for, where doing so could mean serious injury or death. Or arrest and imprisonment, or the loss of your home, your money, and your possessions.
…we probably would fight for our towns and communities if they were physically invaded by an outside force, even though we don’t personally know all of the people in our towns and communities.
For Armenians, you can take out the word “probably.” He concludes:
In other words, blood and soil and God and nation still matter to people.
To some people, at least; to Armenians, certainly. This is why Armenians will not lose. We don’t often win the battles we fight and we have very often been governed by others, but we do not lose our souls or our place. Yes, we have as much corruption as anyone in politics, business, and the Church. But unlike much of the West, Armenians know who they are and what is worth fighting for.
Armenians are not fighting today because of the last Genocide; they are fighting to prevent the next one. Albeit at potentially great loss of life, Armenia will survive.
