Joe Biden and his significant Recognition of the Armenian Genocide
“We affirm the history,” Biden said on 106th anniversary of the beginning of the Armenian massacre. “We do this not to cast blame but to ensure that what happened is never repeated.”
On April 24th, President Joe Biden became the first president in US history to recognize the killing of 1.5 million Armenians during WW1 as genocide. There are 33 countries around the world, with the US being the most recent addition that now recognize the atrocious acts of the Ottoman Empire.
”"Each year on this day, we remember the lives of all those who died in the Ottoman-era Armenian genocide and recommit ourselves to preventing such an atrocity from ever again occurring,” Biden wrote.
One of the important words to note is that Biden specifically used the word genocide in his statement. Although thrown around a lot, the word genocide carries a significant weight to it. The term genocide was added to the English vocabulary by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish born lawyer who lost much of his family in the holocaust. The term was used to denote a “crime without a name”, with the goal to encompass and summarize the holocaust. The actual definition of Genocide is the intentional action to destroy a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part.
Biden’s use of the word is not just etymologically correct, but also has a deeper meaning. Invoking the term conjures memories of Nazi death camps, the killing fields of Cambodia, and the wholesale slaughter of Tutsis in Rwanda. In other words, the Armenian genocide is not just another tragedy, it is now on equal playing field as the final solution in WW2. To deny the Armenian genocide is to deny the holocaust.
This address is not just important for Armenians but for other cultures and ethnicities from around the world who are faced with past and ongoing atrocities. In Ethiopia’s Tigray region, ethnically motivated mass killings and sexual violence are thought to amount to crimes against humanity. China’s treatment of the Uyghur community has been found to constitute genocide. And the targeting of civilians continues in Myanmar, Cameroon and Mozambique, among others.
These actions taken by the Biden administration are the first of many steps needed to help help address situations of atrocity, from the past, present and potentially in the future.
Although feeling vindicated along with the Armenians, the Greeks and Assyrians who were equally as affected by the Ottoman Empire are still left with little recognition from the global community. It is the hope that this momentum continues and protects the history of those who have passed. Further, it would be nice to see this momentum continue in the hopes that these atrocities may never happen again. For now this is a small victory in a much larger battle.
