I agre with you, but this has nothing to do with the question of weather Armenians living in Turkey "should" leave or not !!! this " moral obligation" and responsibility lies with all Armenians around the world, no matter where their roots are.
There are as many "Hayastan-Armenians" who travel to Turkey for vacation, as there are "Turkey-Armenians" living outside who fly back for vacation. (I can't tell my anger when I saw all these publicity for Holidays in Turkey when I was in Armenia last summer!). 2 Yerevanzi's living here in Switzerland who will both get married this year, plan their honey moon in Turkey! There was no Bolsahay here who was not -badly- surprised. But this again is another topic!
I saw that there were diffrent replies to my post, I will try to give my feedback on the diffrent comments:
I am traveling to Armenia regularly and spend a lot of time there.
We even seriously thought about living there.
But it was more the idea of a "dream come true" which I wanted to keep on.
The truth is, that I will do my best to support Armenia and love it as "our country; but it is definitely not were I belong to, and I will definitely not move to Armenia for good- and this has nothing to do with the economic situation.
Would you discuss this with me if there was no Genocide?
I am not going to live in Istanbul either, but this is simply because I cannot stand the political situation.
However, and I can only repeat it, I highly appreciate and offer my deepest respect to all those who stay there were they have been for more than 3000 years. There is NO reason, they SHOULD BE ASKED TO LEAVE their land, weather it is called Armenia or not.
Hrant Dink has seen Armenia and he stand for what he thought was right. (I don't agree on all of his opinionans but this is not the question).
If he was "forced" to leave his roots and go to Armenia, he would have felt deported. That's finaly what he said, because he simply wanted to stay where his roots lied and where he belonged to!
It took me some years and lot of traveling, lot of experience in political activates to understand this, as I used to talk like you before. The very first experiences I had in Armenia were very surprising to me, as at that time, I was defending the same "opinion" that you seem to have. I then met for the first time with one of my grand fathers cousins' son (already before the genocide this part of the family always used to live in the region of Yerevan while my grand fathers roots were in Istanbul), He asked me about all the members of his family still living there. I told him that "fortunately" most of them have left the country and to my surprise he was very disappointed! He said "that's very sad. I can understand all those who leave for economical reasons, but I am an old man, I know that there is nothing worse than to leave the land of your roots."
I was still very naive and convinced that one day I would move to Armenia too, and said "but don't you think maybe one day lot of them will come to live in Armenia, as they used to dream about?"
The old man responded: "I love this land, its where MY roots lie. I would be more than proud if Armenians like you come to become "Armenian Citizens" rather than to be "an Armenian of the Diaspora" which is meant to die one day. I wish you could see the Ararat in real instead of having it in a frame hanging in your living room. But when you become old like me you will know that nothing can replace the land of your roots. By leaving Turkey, Armenians leave theses roots behind them for ever and one day they will be forgotten. when this happens, an important part of the Armenian Identity will die too."
This is just a part of what I remember out of his words, but I know that at that time, I did not want to REALLY understand his words nor did I want to accept or understand the surprising "positive" comments I have heard from diffrent people in Armenia. I thought this was to be excused by economical advantages and the idea of "a better life- outside armenian, NO MATTER where.)
After my experiences (especially in Lebanon) and other communities, I realized that they (the Armenians from Turkey as well as those living in today's Armenia and who never left Armenia) are all much more peaceful in their soul than the rest of the Diaspora. They struggle for their future, and for "justice" and the memory of our past (each community in his own way), but they are free of complexes, predictions and judgments which fill the hearts of most of the Diaspora. They did not have these complexes of "prooving their armenian identity" as we can observe all over the armenian communities world wide.
It is true, that in Turkey there are more and more "assimilations", which is VERY sad.
But that's just as everywhere in the Diaspora a piece of reality, which not only Armenians are asked to face.
But I have not seen any other community (IN EUROPE) which still LIVES the armenian culture, at least as much as they do in ISTANBUL!
Facing the reality of what remains of armenian communites in Europe, I envy those armenians, who manage to live in Turkey but who under the given circumstances still manage to SIMPLY LIVE their culture!
They live on the land of their roots, no matter what politics wanted or wants them to do.
And there is no Turk and no Armenian who should try to take them this right.
I agree that we (the diaspora) has the responsibility to stand for the armenian case in a rather aggresive way, and i understand that this is causing even more "trouble" for the armenians living in Turkey. I know we cannot "help" them, its something we have to go through. and therefore, I admire them even more! Cause they are alone, but they resist and they rarely complain, they try to live their lives, on the land of their roots...and trying to keep their armenian idenity as much as possible.
It has nothing to do with weather we have to support Armenia or not.
And by the way, although I still have family in Turkey, I am not a "real" bolsahay.
And although my own family over there, does not like my political activities for the Armenian case, they accept and respect my choice, just as I accept and respect theirs. They know that we all have our own "responsibilities".
Anyways, I don't think that this discussion will change anything, as at the time, there was no one who could change my own opinion either It took me years of reflection and experience to be able to "accept and respect" this myself. (btw, you don't have to accept it to respect it. that's the minimum we owe each other among Armenians.)
