Sincerely Aggie: Kessab Armenians Under Attack

As a child, I always dreaded the month of April. As March came to a close, my stomach suffered deep pangs of anxiety while my nights were haunted by thoughts of murder and separation from my family.


While watching news segments featuring pictures of anorexic children, men and women with their heads cut off, and hearing chilling, first-hand accounts about Ottoman soldiers ripping fetuses out of pregnant women, I assumed that Turks would try killing Armenians again once April 24 drew near. I feared that like the Armenians before me, I would never see my family again. To a four-year-old, particularly one with separation anxiety, this was the worst possible scenario.


This bone-deep fear led me to view Turks with a certain degree of uncertainty, despite my parents’ efforts to remind me that once cannot be prejudice against an entire group of people and that some Turkish people had helped rescue victims of the atrocity. It was not until I was about seven-years-old and witnessed a group of younger, Armenian kids bullying a half-Armenian, half-Turkish boy, who could not have been more than four or 5-years-old, that I began to feel ashamed of my own fear and mistrust. Though at that young of an age I was still unsure about my feelings toward Turks, a people that, to me, symbolized the Ottoman perpetrators of the genocide and its subsequent denial, I was sick with guilt over the little boy, standing helplessly at the playground while one kid, a classmate of my younger sister’s, spat at him and hurled abuse.

Upon approaching him, I gave him my Kool-Aid and told the other kids to go away. I sat with him until his parents returned from their stroll and took him away. Years later, my encounter with this child led me to me realize that the vicious cycle of hostility between Armenians and Turks does not help solve any of our problems. 

For nearly a century, Armenians have sought the affirmation of the genocide. The stories and accounts that have been passed along by victims and witnesses are sobering enough to make anyone wince, as Ottoman soldiers were indiscriminate over whom they abused. People of all ages were targets of rape, execution and deprivation of food and water as they were marched across the Syrian Desert. 

More recently, Christians and Armenians in the Syrian town of Kessab near the Turkish border have faced attacks and executions by rebels, who are believed to have Turkish sponsors. The state department released a statement saying they are “deeply troubled” by the violence endangering Kessab Armenians, while Congressman Adam Schiff, Dem-Glendale, expressed concern over the troubling reminders of the Armenian Genocide.

Whether Armenians and other Christian minorities are once again being targeted by Turkish-sponsored extremist rebels or are just caught in the crossfires of the Syrian Civil War,  the fact remains that people are dying and being forced out of their homes. People have been killed across Syria as a result of the insurgency since March 2011. The Kessab attacks, however, hit close to home for many Armenians due to the lingering, deep-seated trauma of the 1915 atrocities, particularly as they take place a month before genocide commemoration day.

Even after 99 years since the Armenian Massacres, there is still hostility between Turks and Armenians and Christians and Muslims. With so much history and violence between the groups, it was unsurprising that their descendants today would fall victim to a legacy of hate, murder, and both religious and political conflict, as evident by the attacks against Armenians in Kessab.

Naturally, the events in Kessab will only ignite more hostility and fuel tensions.

However, as I scroll through Facebook and Instagram, seeing posts and photos of the message “Save Kessab,” I cannot help but wonder why “Save Syria” was not trending, at least on my social media pages, when non-Armenians, Christians and Muslims alike are being killed throughout the region. Similarly, during the 1990s, Americans were more concerned over the Bosnian Genocide than they were over the Rwandan, simply because the Bosnians were white. 

People should care about the murder of others regardless of race or religion. Genocides, rapes, conflicts between differing cultures — these are all part of the human legacy, a legacy that befalls succeeding generations.

The attacks in Kessab should serve as a reminder that antipathy and aggression only breed more resentment and violence, adding to years of animosity and conflict.

Years from now, I am sure a Turkish child will be condemned for his background by the descendants of people who were victimized by whatever massacre that took place in the past. I am just as sure that future generations of Muslims and Christians may feel compelled to hide their religious identities from each other. Although this article is about Christian Armenians under attack in Kessab, Islamophobes should not use this as an excuse to perpetuate their hate. Muslims have been victimized by Christian populations for centuries - we especially cannot forget the discriminatory attitudes Muslim Americans faced post-911.

This is not a Christian versus Muslim or an Armenian versus Turkish issue. This is a human issue and we need a wake-upcall. This is the legacy we have created and it is time to dismantle it.