Armenians must side with indigenous land rights against the occupier US government – Armenian Weekly

On left: Poster of Bobby Onco, a Kiowa and member of the American Indian Movement (AIM), holding up a rifle after a ceasefire agreement between AIM forces and federal marshals at Wounded Knee, Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota, 1973 (Photo: Library of Congress) On right: Armenian freedom fighters led by fedayi leader Dikran Deroyan (Photo: Public Domain)

It is widely known that the Armenian Diaspora in America faces the existential threat of assimilation into American society. We typically view this assimilationist crisis through the angle of loss of culture and identity; that is to say, in what ways we cease to engage in Armenian identity-affirming traditions cultural, political, etc. What we dont often focus on is what superfluous and negative beliefs we acquire from the culture of our host country.

Specifically, one factor to focus on is the political assimilation that occurs within the American school system and society. After years of conditioning within pro-American classes, most Armenian-Americans develop the same attitude as their peers toward the American state and Indigenous rights in America, despite the fact that the mainstream narrative is counter-productive and harmful for the Armenian people.

At best, our people learn about the oppressive policies of the American government, but associate such heinousness and the existence of Indigenous Americans in general with the past; even the most truthful and in-depth of settings does not even dare to question the legitimacy of the existence of the American state. Most people, however, learn a narrative that entirely absolves the United States of culpability in past and present crimes and not only legitimizes, but glorifies that institution.

We must first establish that the United States government is responsible for the genocide of the Indigenous people of America. This is a fact that is accepted by the vast majority of historians and proven by the immense decrease in the Indigenous population of the United States since its founding (a decrease in the scale of hundreds of thousands). The United States government engaged in the wholesale massacre of non-combatant innocents, forced relocations and death marches, as well as breaking treaties with and occupying the lands of Indigenous nations. The criminal US regime, which has been founded upon and continues to occupy stolen land, now has created a settler-colonial state to force Indigenous people to assimilate into or be marginalized within American society.

Armenians are no strangers to these sorts of crimes against humanity. For over a millennium, we have faced the genocidal and settler-colonial regimes of the Turkish fascist state in its various forms: the Seljuk Empire, Ottoman Empire and Turkish Republic. Most of us do not speak our ancestral dialects, live in our ancestral villages and cities, know the location of our forefathers homes and graves, and so on. Those Armenians who still live in the Turkish state are subject to extreme discrimination and are prevented from fully expressing their culture and identity out of fear of reprisal from the racist government.

Coming from a similar background as Indigenous Americans, we must then, as Armenians, stand against the genocidal American regime, in solidarity with other oppressed Indigenous peoples, marching forward against the force of settler-colonialism. Morally speaking, why should we victims of genocide, ethnic cleansing and settler colonialism stand with the perpetrators of such heinous crimes, rather than the victims? Each Armenian who actually supports even the idea of the American state legitimizes an institution which inflicts upon the original peoples of this continent that which the Turks have done and continue to do to us. Moreover, our great eternal enemy, the Turkish fascist state, is part of the same Western coalition of genocidal murderers that is, the so-called Free World of which the United States lauds itself as being the leader and representative.

For those faithful to the ideology of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF/Tashnagtsutiun), the reasoning is even simpler and the necessity is even more imperative. The ARF Program posits that Every nations natural and inalienable rights include its homeland its historical, territorial habitat as its distinct environment, vital to creativity, survival, and development. And yet, the Indigenous nations of this country do not have this inalienable right, because they have been victim to the very capitalism, imperialism, totalitarianism, and colonialism that the ARF Program wholeheartedly condemns.

This line of logic even flows from the national (azkayin) ideology of our party, rather than ARF socialist ideological thought, through the lenses of which one could examine the role of capitalism in creating and encouraging the development of settler-colonialism in the Americas and the solutions to it within the socio-economic, rather than national-revolutionary sphere.

Why, then, should we have a state in our homeland, as opposed to other stateless Indigenous peoples? After all, to side with the American government on the issue of its legitimacy is to tacitly admit that the Indigenous peoples of the United States are not deserving of a state on their united homeland. This can only be based on two potential suppositions: either a) that we, unlike other peoples, are deserving of a state, or that b) the Indigenous people of America, specifically, are not deserving of a state. Either way, both suppositions are unacceptable because the first is chauvinist, while the second is racist: the Armenian Revolutionary Federation is neither of these things and actively eschews both in its program.

With all this said, our path as Armenians, guided by the moral-ideological values of our forefathers (revolution, socialism, democracy and nationalism), must be to strike against, rather than support, those who inflict suffering and oppression upon others. It is a lamentable fact that we view ourselves within a vacuum as a people, alone and afraid, without the help of others, and thus, not compelled to aid others. Instead, we must view ourselves as ideological fighters in the global struggle against imperialism and capitalism. As soon as we have reframed our mindset, we will find that others will help us in our struggle; unfortunately, only we can be the ones who take the first steps of solidarity, as we are a small, relatively unknown nation whose interests conflict with those of Western powers and have not perpetrated any recent radical actions surrounding our just cause to catch the worlds attention.

The future to which we look forward must not be a vignette centered solely around Armenia, but a world in which we have taken back Western Armenia and all of our historic homeland from cruel oppressors, in which the illegitimate American occupier government has been overthrown by the solidarity of oppressed peoples, in which the Indigenous people of America once again rule their own homeland, and in which the workers of various countries have taken back their just rights, allowing us to coexist in an international brotherhood of socialist peoples, with the utmost respect for both national independence and individual rights.

our ideological and moral support should be with the oppressed peoples of the world

Of course, we need not be involved in all struggles (whether based on class or national rights) as active participants (indeed, we scarcely have truly committed fighters in our own struggle); yet, our ideological and moral support should be with the oppressed peoples of the world, not the oppressors. Though this path may be long and arduous, it begins with breaking the shackles of (love of America) that have been forced upon our people by the chauvinist, hyper-American attitudes and pressures of the mid-to-late 20th century.

It is only once we begin to be Armenians, rather than Armenian-Americans, that we are ready to participate in this international anti-imperialist struggle by sincerely fighting against the fascist Turkish-Azeri oppressor and completing our duty of leaving the Diaspora and returning to our ancestral lands. In this grand struggle, there is only victory or martyrdom, freedom or death.

Aram Brunson is a freshman at the University of Chicago from Newton, MA. He is a proud member of the AYF-YOARF Greater Boston Nejdeh Chapter and serves on the AYFs Central Educational Council. In addition, he dances with the Hamazkayin Sardarabad Dance Ensemble and is a member of the Armenian National Committees of Eastern Massachusetts and Illinois.

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Armenians must side with indigenous land rights against the occupier US government - Armenian Weekly