In case you haven't heard yet: There are officially no Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh also known as the Republic of Artsakh, the survivors of the "Anti-terrorist offensive" attack in September of this year (2023), all the skirmishes since 2020, that killed hundreds of Armenians, have been driven out by Azerbaijan. Armenia has had to decide the fight to return them is a lost cause and would only result in more Armenian death.
The Armenian Genocide in that region is complete. Over a thousand years of Armenian history in that area is done. The Republic of Artsakh will be officially dissolved starting January 1st 2024, this was officially signed by Samvel Shahramanyan. But by the 1st of October, so for a month now, it was considered an empty Republic anyway.
Please consider giving to the Armenia Fund who have pivoted to helping the Artsakh refugees as much as possible.
Some people have to understand that “land back” isn’t just “uhhh the colonizers stop being mean to the people being slaughtered by them”. Land back means land BACK. As in the land goes back to the people who lived there before it was taken from them by force. Land back is NOT “the fighting stops but the colonizers get to keep all the land”, it’s “the native people get their land back”. If you don’t support the native people of an area getting their land back, if you expect them to be happy living as a minority in their own land, or living under apartheid and peril in their own land, or not being allowed to live in their own land, then you don’t believe in land back.
Like, it’s right there in the name! The colonizers just give the land back to the people they took it from. That’s land back! So don’t say you support land back while also saying that the colonizers deserve the stolen land.
→ More than 100,000 (of 120,000) ethnic Armenians had to flee Artsakh to Armenia due to Azeri aggression. World leaders chose not to sanction Azerbaijan or offer any substantial intervention over the past 3 years while Armenians endured violence, shelling, and a nearly yearlong blockade - all on top of a global pandemic.
→ Azerbaijan deprived Artsakh of food, medical supplies, and outside aid, and took advantage of the West's reliance on its oil supply to force Artsakh to capitulate. With almost the entire population having fled out of fear of continued violence and ethnic cleansing, displaced Armenians are relying heavily on government and community support as they rebuild their lives.
→ "As tens of thousands of ethnic Armenians flee their homes in Nagorno-Karabakh, several international experts say the exodus meets the conditions for the war crime of "deportation or forcible transfer", or even a crime against humanity."
Awareness and donations are critical at this time.
It's been two months since more than 100 thousand armenians have been ethnically cleansed from their homeland of Artsakh. This doesn't mean that everything is over and everyone can get back to their daily lives and forget about it. I found some ways to help that I urge you to at least reblog.
DONATE:
Greenhouses and Beekeeping for displaced Artsakhtsis
CONTACT YOUR REPRESENTATIVES:
H.R.5683 - Supporting Armenians Against Azerbaijani Aggression Act of 2023
H.R.5686 - Preventing Ethnic Cleansing and Atrocities in Nagorno-Karabakh Act of 2023
H.Res.320 - Recognizing the Republic of Artsakh's independence and condemning Azerbaijan's continued aggression against Armenia and Artsakh.
[left: Anam is 90 years old. She lived through the Nakba in 1948, and today she was displaced again from the city to the south of the Gaza Strip.]
via ig: belalkh
[right: Amalia born in Martakert, Artsakh in 1920. Older than the borders of her region. She has experienced genocide all her life. She is now a refugee.]
After being starved and imprisoned in blockade for months, 120,000 indigenous Armenians in Artsakh just faced mass deportation and ethnic cleansing at the hands of Azerbaijan, aided by their brother country Turkey and supplied military aid by a third genocidal country, Israel. Noting that in case my American friends think this is a small regional conflict-- guess who funds Israel?
Artsakh will be dissolved on January 1st, 2024 and for the first time in 3,000 years, it will be void of Armenians. Hard to put the pain into words. Turkey and Azerbaijan will not stop here, as pan-turkic doctrine claims all of Armenia as theirs. Armenian existence threatens the fabric of Azeri (and Turkish) national identity so it is no surprise they want to annihlate us again.
With the violent occupation of Artsakh, our ancient holy sites will be desecrated and our history rewritten while major news outlets will find pretty words for genocide like "conflict" or "war". No one will punish Azerbaijan's war crimes, no one will remember white phosphorous rain on our homes. And the perpetrators will continue to live a lie.
I think denial is a fragile basis for any relationship, to a person or to a land. What is built on a foundation of denial will break under enough tension, after enough time. I believe we'll be back someday.
And we are our mountains. I think they will always remember us.
For all those who message me saying, ''The past has passed,'' and we must turn the page; it's not the case when you're dealing with a ravenous beast devoid of any humanity.
And I have some big feelings, as a part of the diaspora. Remembrance Day is an inappropriate title for a time in which Armenians still face genocidal forces. Just last year, Azerbaijan, armed by Turkey, ethnically cleansed over 280,000 Armenians from Artsakh. The illegal colonizer state of Israel, currently in the midst of their 6+ month-long genocide against the Palestinians, has placed the Armenians who call Jerusalem home under threat and siege.
The Armenian struggle and the Palestinian struggle are deeply linked.
In his rise to power, Hitler is quoted to justify his actions against the Jewish, Roma, Queer, Disabled, and other victims of the Holocaust, to say "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"
Echoing these chilling words, Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish wrote:
Who Remembers the Armenians?
I remember them
and I ride the nightmare bus with them
each night
and my coffee, this morning
I'm drinking it with them
You, murderer -
Who remembers you?
The trauma sustained during a genocide is not limited to the people experiencing it right now. The echoes of that trauma leak forward into the next generations, passed down through survival, and that is so insidious. My grandmother got to live, but did so believing that her parents did not love her, because the trauma they endured prevented them from expressing it. Abuse and unhealthy attachment were passed down because that starving hunger for love and acceptance was passed down. It is so deeply cruel and unfair that our oppressors get to reach through time and hurt our children's children.
We need to band together and stop the present-day abusers, the genocidal monsters that oppress the people of Palestine, Armenia, Congo, and so many others.
We need to uplift art made by those who survived, and by those who are surviving. Art is always targeted by the oppressor to erase cultural identity, to destroy legacy, and to break spirits. Support Palestinian and Armenian poets, and artists, and writers.
If you are one of the many who never learned about the Armenian Genocide, learn today. Ask yourself why people worked so hard not to educate you on this piece of history.
When human rights violations go unpunished, history keeps repeating itself. Armenians are experiencing it right now, again, as the world stays silent, again.
you may call it the "disputed region" of Nagorno-Karabakh or something else. It is irrelevant, there are Armenian people living here, as there have been for thousands of years—who are being subjected to ethnic cleansing, are being indiscriminately bombed, destroyed, and erased.
This isn't about a “disputed territory”. It’s about fundamental human rights, including the right of Armenians of Karabakh to live freely and peacefully on the land of their ancestors.
What also hurts is that most don’t know/don’t care… because the media algorithm has not told them to care, so they don’t. Again.
Local resident Anushavan stands in a pomegranate garden in the courtyard of his house. In his hand is an old Kalashnikov assault rifle, which he kept from the first Karabakh war.
Abovyan Hasmik cries in the doorway of her house in the village of Nerkin Sus, Nagorno-Karabakh.
Local resident Areg sits near a burning house in the village of Karegah.
To anyone interested in learning about Artsakh, its history and the struggle of Artsakhi Armenians for freedom and self determination, I suggest checking out Learn For Artsakh initiative (@/learn4artsakh on Instagram).They share a lot of information on these topics and spotlight the interconnection of violence inflicted on the indigenous groups in the region by the colonizing powers.
They also have an e-library with free pdfs of many books written by Armenians about Artsakh as well as literature about DR Congo, Sudan, Palestine and other nations experiencing genocide (scroll down to the "Libraries Against Genocide" section).