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It started in 1915, but it has never really ended
Here’s a memo to the Armenian nation on the occasion of the 107th year of the start of the Armenian Genocide: we need to alter our messaging by not referring to it as a finite historical event with a beginning and an end.
Sometimes dates can be a distraction from the message.
- Stepan Piligian
- The Armenian Weekly
We focus on 1915, but the Hamidian atrocities in 1894-96 are viewed by many as the start of a significant shift in Ottoman Turkish policy that established the evil momentum.
We label 1923 as the endpoint of the duration of the Genocide, as if a treaty, armistice or ceasefire ended the oppression.
We know better, as Turkish policy shifted in the new republic from wholesale massacre to…