Light A Candle

[Arvestaked]

Light a Candle

[Nakharar]

What happened to that online petition? Is it still going on? I think it was on genocide1915.com or something like that.

[MosJan]

MY GRANDPARENTS FAILED TO LIVE IN THIS LAND; I WILL DO THAT FOR THEM'

 

There are 53.000 candles in memory of The Armenian Genocide victims on http://candle.direct.am/ website. The number of lit candles increases by 2000 daily. This indicated to the number of people who do not forget and demands Turkey to acknowledge before the world the crime it committed.

 

People put candles from everywhere: USA, Canada, Russia, Turkey, Japan, Brazil, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Sri Lanka, Iran, Australia, Argentina, Honk Kong, Bolivia, Slovakia. Hayk Asatrian, author of the program, highlighted such geography: "This means that the information on the Armenian Genocide spreads all over". Most of the visitors of the site are from the US, Armenia is on the second place and then the EU states come.

 

Hayk Asatrian classifies people lighting candles in several groups. There are most of all letters of sympathetic character and promises never to forget what we have lived through. Letters of demanding character and letters of overseas Armenians to their governments to recognize the Genocide also occupy a considerable place. "Messages of Genocide survivors are of special interest. It's clear that they do note type messages themselves but dictate to their grandchildren, but it is important that others read them to remember once again that atrocity", Hayk says. According to survey, 37 percent of visitors simply puts candles and leaves the site, 15 percent goes through the pages for 15 minutes reading the messages and 5 percent studies the site for half an hour. Hayk thinks that figures speak well for the website.

 

The program could not but stir our foes' fury. They often send anti-Armenian messages and try to damage the website. Hayk Asatrian successfully repulses "attacks" for the time being. He foresees more attacks as April the 24th approaches and gets ready. "I collect the whole information of the site once during each 2 hours. So, I can renew the site any time", he says.

 

At first, Hayk was wiping out all swearwords by Turks and Azeris but seeing its inefficiency he programmed the system to change the oaths into "I am sorry". There are now 500 "regretful" candles on the website. Every message from Azerbaijan comes to the program director first and it is posted on the site if found acceptable. Hayk says that there are problems with the Turks in Iran as well but he is unwilling to limit their access as there are many Armenians in Iran too. He also removes all curses addressed to the Turks. Hayk plans to write all the information of the website on a CD and send a copy to embassies in Yerevan.

 

There are messages that stand out among all others. Such is Lusine Meghrian's: "I will take our lands home by the path of my father", or Marine Temirian's: "My grandparents failed to live in this land; I will do that for them". "Fight Forever", reads a precept on one of the pages by our Artsakh freedom fighters, Bekor, Dushman, Ognevoy Hrach, Abo Alaverdian, Petros Khevonsian, Vartan Baghshian and other heroes.

 

By Tamar Minasian

[ED]

ԱՐԱՆՑ ԽՈՍԿԻ

[Accelerated]

I have been reading up on the Genocide a fair bit latelly, mostly on the net (reading online material and visiting various forums) but also Dadrians work "History of Armenian Genocide" or similar. I now have a much better appreciation of the struggle we are facing in getting Turkey to recognise her role and the effort they have exerted to deny us. Edited April 20, 2005 by Accelerated

[Anoushik]

Same here. I chose the denial of the Armenian Genocide as my topic to give a speech in one of my classes last week, and I haven't been able to stop to keep reading about the denial the Armenian people have faced for the past one hundred years.