The subject of “Aravot” on air “Face to Face” talk show is discussed between the Director of “Modus Vivendi” Center Ara Papian and Director of “Karin” ensemble Gagik Ginosyan
Aram Abrahamyan – Associated with the centenary of the Genocide, I realized that we are demanding something from the Turks. But in my impression, we have not yet decided in the end as to exactly what our demand is. At first, we need to determine within ourselves and then make demands before others. Do you agree?
Ara Papyan –I think, yes, for the beginning we need to come to a common point of view nationwide if not totally, in addition to moral demand, i.e. the recognition of the Genocide, we also have other demands. It is definite for me that we have an issue of property claims and territorial claims.
Gagik Ginosyan – Nzdeh used to say that talking with the same coolness about the Sahara desert and your own homeland, it is more than a crime. It is a desecration when someone is talking about the moral recognition. It could be an approach of an alien, let them recognized for having no genocide any more. Our entire biography, our natural development and establishment of the statehood is distorted because of these events. I am more than sure that there should be a reparation, because our future is at stake even today, if we do not achieve it, let us return it at least by parts what will bring Armenia to a strategic invulnerability.
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A. A. – The majority of the Armenian people believe that yes, there should be a reparation. But what do we want: money, land, assets, community property, national property? This is the question.
A. P. – You know, there is a very good formulation that even the government authorities are voicing: “Elimination of Genocide Consequences”. If we now mentally calculate what the consequences of the Armenian Genocide are, therewith we can have what we should demand. Essentially, two steps are required to overcome the genocide as a crime: to punish the perpetrator, which as of today is almost impossible because of the missing of the participants, and restoration of the rights of the injured party. Now, what have we lost? First, we have lost on the personal level, in other words, many families have lost their property in different ways: home, bank accounts and other properties of the family, so we have a problem of reparation on the individual level, as well as we have property of national institutions, which has also been captured, we also have the issue of its return. In these days, we witness the fact that an appeal has been submitted by the Antelias Catholicosate of Ankara.
A. A. – Can we measure the suffering?
G. G. – I believe that a cultural genocide has also occurred.
A. A. – Well, let’s take this matter. Can we measure it by money?
G. G. – Certainly, one can simply calculate how many churches, how many books, how many cultural centers are destroyed. If the comparison is constantly made with the Holocaust, the Jews were massacred not on their land, but instead, they got their 2,000 years-old homeland. We were massacred on our one land, our culture are destroyed, the Jews were destroyed just physically, but neither the culture was destroyed nor the homeland and the property was captured…
A. A. – Is it something measureable?
G. G. – Certainly, it is if there are documents. Most of them are lost also during the times of the Soviet Union, for example, one of our relatives burned his and General Andranik’s photos because if they were caught they would be sued, and there are a lot of people like that who did so and it is irreversible. However, I think that there are some documents, some experts… Samvel Karapetyan has some, how many households there were, how many villages and so on, in other words, villages and towns were completely destroyed, there was a census, and it is possible to calculate the approximate average values of the estate of these people and return officially.
Prepared by ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
