Yesterday, I learnt about Turkey’s tactics to turn the Armenian genocide-themed film “The Promise” into a box office failure. Apparently, they have been entering about 100,000 poor reviews on Imdb, buying seats in theaters and then asking for refunds, so the seats will be empty, harassing actors and producers, etc.
Now that Turkey is even more openly the virtual dictatorship it has been for so long, I can only pity the good people of Turkey who have been brainwashed since childhood to deny what our Armenian families suffered, because a made-up genocide has never been heard of. I pity them for the oppression they have to endure on a daily basis. They too are victims, just like the Armenians who were massacred across the desert, in their homes, wherever they tried to run.
The denial of history is a damaging thing for any culture, and the Turkey of today is an example of what can happen when a nation lets something like that rot inside its heart, without letting it see the light.
Because I am no historian, but a poet, I wrote this today, to remember, to honor my ancestors, and to speak out for the victims of the genocides of today.
ALEPPO
Aleppo
was Alep to my grandmother
and the man who would
later become her husband
She was barely
out of her mother´s womb
when she boarded the ship
towards our land
He was a teenager
his adolescence
was spent in Aleppo
“Alep,” my father insisted,
“he called it Alep”
The Armenians
in their escape
from slaughter
found a way via Alep
and from Beirut
the port where everything began
My own Aleph
I wouldn´t have been born without
Those who remained
didn´t survive
the cotton workers from Marash
that gave us our name
I cannot look at
rubble, children,
bombs, weapons
US industry
Russian-made
Syrian civilians
caught in crossfire
resurrected cold war
the reopened wounds
and double trauma
of Aleppo children
like my grandfather once was
The Armenians of Aleppo
the Syrians who sheltered
our ancestors
welcomed them
and healed their wounds
Under siege now
chemical weapons
superbombs
Killing the weakest of the weak
all for the greater good
“The tyrant must be deposed,”
they say
and they bomb children convoys
as they try to escape
When they think,
now, finally,
we are safe,
they´ll take us to the West
some city without
bloodrain bonefall
engineered earthquake
Now like then
the dead do not rest
desert vastness
unnamed grave
Then like now
a genocide
can’t be erased
The bones have a voice
louder than volcanos
nuclear hurricanes
The blood flows
the heart beats
Without land
without the recognition
of our pain
without the ones we lost
the friends and relatives
we never met,
deprived of our true names
We are still Armenian
in this flatness still
we are mountain people
in this new world still
we are ancient people
I am Armenian
my heart is made
of candombe fire
and duduk melancholy
and my grandfather once
went from child to man
in a town by the name of Alep
´