Another silence
Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, November 14, 2023
While the media devote all their space to the war in Ukraine and Gaza and count, as they seem to love to do, the dead Palestinians and Israelis, Ukrainians and Russians, another people has once again been ignored: the Armenians, compelled, in order not to be exterminated, to leave the country where they lived. After the military offensive of September 1923 by the Azeris, Nagorno-Karabakh or Republic of Artsakh, as its Armenian inhabitants called it, no longer exists. As has happened many times already in this region, borders will be drawn again and entire populations decimated and displaced in the name of ethnic cleansing. When at the end of World War I the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic, which was created in 1917 by Armenians, Azeris and Georgians, was dissolved and the territory conquered by Russians, Nagorno-Karabakh, although it were populated by 98% of Armenians, was assigned by Stalin not to the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, but to the Azerbaijani one. Hence, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the conflicts that have had their sad outcome in these days. We have to reflect upon the destiny of this people who, like the Jews, suffered a genocide and are not spoken of, even though they are perhaps the most ancient Christian community and therefore occupy one of the four neighborhoods which divide the Old City of Jerusalem. It is close to us, even closer than the others we’re instead talking about. What is happening in Nagorno-Karabakh concerns and questions us, and that’s why we prefer to ignore it.
Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, November 14, 2023
While the media devote all their space to the war in Ukraine and Gaza and count, as they seem to love to do, the dead Palestinians and Israelis, Ukrainians and Russians, another people has once again been ignored: the Armenians, compelled, in order not to be exterminated, to leave the country where they lived. After the military offensive of September 1923 by the Azeris, Nagorno-Karabakh or Republic of Artsakh, as its Armenian inhabitants called it, no longer exists. As has happened many times already in this region, borders will be drawn again and entire populations decimated and displaced in the name of ethnic cleansing. When at the end of World War I the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic, which was created in 1917 by Armenians, Azeris and Georgians, was dissolved and the territory conquered by Russians, Nagorno-Karabakh, although it were populated by 98% of Armenians, was assigned by Stalin not to the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, but to the Azerbaijani one. Hence, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the conflicts that have had their sad outcome in these days. We have to reflect upon the destiny of this people who, like the Jews, suffered a genocide and are not spoken of, even though they are perhaps the most ancient Christian community and therefore occupy one of the four neighborhoods which divide the Old City of Jerusalem. It is close to us, even closer than the others we’re instead talking about. What is happening in Nagorno-Karabakh concerns and questions us, and that’s why we prefer to ignore it.
(English translation by I, Robot)
Sliman Mansour, Temporary Escape, 2019. Courtesy of WikiArt.
No comments:
Post a Comment