R.I.P. to all the Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks and Kurds that were slaughtered at the hands of Turks under the guise of national security. 

We don’t need to convince the US Government that the Genocide was real. We need to convince the Turkish Government. We need to educate the Turkish populous, those that have grown up with incomplete history books and shady politicians presiding over them. It will be through their voice that the Turkish Government will finally hear our outrage. That’s who you should be protesting, not America. 

Protesting the US government does nothing for us. Even if they recognize it, what then? Are we satisfied? I won’t be and I know none of you will be, either. Look to France as an example. A powerful and large nation who’s recognized the Genocide for many years and has even taken it a step further to outlaw it’s denial and what was the result? Did it somehow convince the Turks? Did it some how lower their level of denial? Did it force them to negotiate with our countries and our people? No. It did the opposite. It infuriated the Turkish Government. It drove them to lash back and get vocal in opposition. 

Why? Because the Turkish citizens still have their back and politicians, regardless of ethnicity or creed, will bend in the direction that the majority moves in. And for now, through institutional controls, their citizens deny the genocide because they are sheltered from it. 

Just like people used to deny the existence of an America, or a round planet, or the idea that the Sun, not the Earth, is the center of our solar system. But through time and education, knowledge and truth will prevail. That’s why Hrant Dink was assassinated. He was on the inside, lifting the veil of darkness from the eyes of the Turkish people. And that’s why they assassinated him. But with that loss, adding to the 1.5 million before him, more eyes were opened. 

The path to recognition is not paved with the same violent methods that got us here. It’s paved with the education of the Turkish people. So I urge everyone to not badmouth the Turkish people but to befriend them. Show them that we aren’t vile, as their gov’t has told them. We aren’t liars. We are humans, like them, and like them, we’re missing 97 years of our history.

@Suga_Shane