It is customary that on April 24 the President of the United States, the POTUS if you will as this acronym is becoming commonplace, issues a carefully worded statement whose wording we, as Armenian Americans, carefully follow as well.
For all I remember it was in 1970’s that the observance of April 24 become the law of the land in the United States whereby the POTUS by law or by custom issues a statement regarding “Man’s Inhumanity to Man”. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, the idiom means “the cruel behavior that people show to each other”.
Eighteen U.S. Presidents have come to office since 1915. It was the 43rd president, President George W. Bush who for the very first time used our own term, “Medz Yeghern” in a covert reference to the genocide of the Armenians. Candidate Barak Obama promised to the Armenian American community that should he be elected as the 44th POTUS, he will acknowledge the genocide of the Armenians. In spite of his promise, President Obama did the same. He used the term “Medz Yeghern” through his first four years and upon reelection continued to do the same.
Donald J. Trump will have his proverbial ‘first 100 days” of his presidency marked on April 28, 2017. His statement on April 24, 2017 marked the first occasion for the newly elected POTUS to set the course of his conduct for the next four years. He too resorted to the customary wording and chose to use the term “Medz Yeghern” again as a covert reference to the genocide of the Armenians. But a new term, “Holocaust Memorial Day”, appears to have come about marking the occasion. Again for all I know this is the first time that the occasion marked on April 24 has come to be termed as the “Holocaust Memorial Day”.
I do not think I am wrong in stating that the English word “holocaust” has been hijacked to mean the genocide of the Jews although technically it is the capitalized holocaust that implies the attempted extermination of the Jews. Marion Webster dictionary makes a guarded reference stating the following “often capitalized: the mass slaughter of European civilians and especially Jews by the Nazis during World War II”. Note the statement, “often capitalized”. What the eminent dictionary is in fact implying that the word holocaust, whether capitalized or not, has come to mean the slaughter of the Jews. Used in a headline, the word holocaust will always be capitalized anyways as in "Holocaust Remembrance Day" for April 24.
In the aftermath of the sacking of Kessab in 1909, Miss Effie Chambers, the beloved missionary of Kessab, stated the following in her report to her Board in U.S. that oversaw and supported her mission: “The houses, my own, the Mission House, Girls' School, church, parsonage, and the market were all a holocaust”. Surely the word holocaust did not always imply the Jewish experience during the Great War, commonly known as the World War II. It sure does now.
Whenever I come across the word holocaust I am reminded of the famous Marlboro Man ads. There came a time when even the Marlboro brand cigarettes were not displayed with the Marlboro Man or Marlboro Country for the image had become so entrenched, so succesfull that a person seeing the Marlboro Man ad, knew reference is made to the that brand of cigarettes. It appears the word holocaust has attained the same status and now we have made a great leap from the Marlboro Country to Holocaust Country.
Should the Trump’s administration continue referencing the POTUS’ statement on April 24 as coming on the “Holocaust Memorial Day” it sure will take away from the spirit of impartiality the day is made to signify, ‘man’s inhumanity to man’ where the genocide of the Armenians should be no less and as plainly acknowledged as anyone else’s similar experience. And yes, unlike Holocaust, “Medz Yeghern” has not made into the English language lexicon to mean just that, the genocide of the Armenians.
No comments:
Post a Comment