Today in 1915 signaled the beginning of a tragic event that would forever haunt human history.
We, as individuals, as a collective society in this smaller and smaller world, should never forget the massacre of the Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman gendarmes. In the wake of all the spilled blood, lay the remains of over 1 million Ottoman Armenians and a memory that stirs the past and the present.
The debate of the genocide is still a vibrant political issue. Turkey denies it and is prepared to go lengths to construct its own narrative. In 2006, the Turkish writer and Nobel laureate Orphan Pamuk was sent to court for acknowledging the genocide. Turkey later dropped the charges. He was lucky. A year later, journalist Hrant Dink was murdered for saying the same thing.
Today in Brussels, around 500 Armenians will be marching in front of the European Commission. It is time for the world to recognize and accept what happened all those years ago. Turkey, especially, needs to recognize this dark chapter and make peace with it.
