Same Story for Different Nations
…Flame is licking the wall and climbing up very fast. In some seconds the roof of the house was caught by fire. The boy runs out of the house, not realizing what is happening. He hears screams and gunshots, he sees people running. He wants to find his mother, but he can’t. He sees his younger brother, who is crying and calling for his mom. A torch flies through their window, and soon the inside of the house is also on fire. He sees soldiers breaking into their neighbors’ house, and other houses on fire. His face is also burning from tears and the heat. Not even realizing what he is doing, he seizes his little brother’s hand and runs away, into the night, away from soldiers and screaming people…
…The sun is burning, like the fire that swallowed their village. The boy is tired, he hardly walks, his face is covered with tears and dirt, but he keeps walking, carrying his brother. “Let’s go home,” the little boy whispers, his eyes closed from tiredness. He kneels down, he can’t walk anymore. The elder boy doesn’t say anything; he just takes him on his hands and keeps going…
…He is so tired that he can’t even hide the body of his brother. He shakes him, trying to wake him up, he just doesn’t want to accept, doesn’t want to believe… He cries in silence, hugging his brother, waiting for him to wake up… He digs a hole with his bare hands, scratching the skin on his hands. He hides the small body in it. He kneels down, covering his face with his hands, trying to pray. He knows he has no time, he realizes he has to hurry, otherwise he will be caught. Finally he gets up and walks away, leaving his family, perhaps killed already, leaving the grave of his five-year-old brother, leaving the burning villages and cities behind, still feeling the heat of the fire on his back…
…Grandpa Vahan could never remember where he came from. He was only 8 years old, when his village was burnt and the family was killed during the Armenian Genocide of 1915. And although he’s my father’s grandfather, we could never find out where he came from. He was too young to remember it. The only thing he remembered is his 5-year-old brother Moushegh, who couldn’t survive during their escape, and he had to carry his dead body until he realized he was dead, then he stopped to bury him only by himself.
Vahan lived really long, and I met him when I was much younger. The only thing I remember very well is that he still loved his brother more than anyone, and he never believed that Moushegh was dead. I remember him asking sometimes: “Where is Moush, where is my brother?”
My younger brother’s name is Moushegh now; that was the last wish of Grandpa Vahan. We could never tell him that there are a lot of countries, that don’t want to accept our genocide, we just never dared. He would never believe it. He could never realize all those political games. Maybe if the Armenian Genocide was accepted, Darfur’s Genocide would never happen. Right now politicians try to cover the facts, using the word “incident” instead of “genocide” and “conflict” instead of “war”.
Who will explain to those few children, who survived the massacres in Darfur that we don’t dare to call it a genocide, that’s why nobody is being punished? Who will protect them while they’re being killed?
While we’re playing our political games, some children still bury their brothers there.
Posted in 2007-10: agendasetting| 23.10.07
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