Overview: On Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, UC Riverside’s Middle Eastern Student Center hosted a conversation with Armenian-American writer Markar Melkonian on the history of the Armenian Genocide and its relevance today. Melkonian discussed the genocide’s impact on Armenia and the Armenian diaspora, as well as the importance of solidarity with other communities, such as the Palestinian people. He also criticized Armenia’s current political direction and urged young people to reclaim a vocabulary for speaking about power, exploitation, and imperialism.
Aryana Noroozi
On April 24, Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, the University of California, Riverside’s Middle Eastern Student Center hosted a conversation with Markar Melkonian – Armenian-American writer, lecturer, and author of My Brother’s Road – on the history of the Armenian Genocide and its resonance in today’s world.
Melkonian opened with a brief but unflinching account of the genocide itself. Beginning in 1915 under the Ottoman Empire’s Committee of Union and Progress regime, the systematic campaign involved the disarming and killing of Armenian soldiers, followed by mass deportations, death marches, and massacres. “It was prosecuted from the very top, all the way to the bottom,” he said. More than a century later, Turkey’s continued denial of the genocide remains one of the most painful barriers to healing for diaspora Armenians worldwide.
Much of the conversation centered on Melkonian’s late brother, Monte – a UC Berkeley graduate who fought in Lebanon, spent years imprisoned in France, and ultimately died in battle in Armenia in June 1993. Monte is widely revered in Armenia today, Melkonian said, in part because he stood apart from the nationalist rabble-rousing of the era. “He was modest, honest, and brave.” But Melkonian did not shy away from complexity, acknowledging that Monte, like others caught in the ethnic conflicts of the early 1990s, sometimes found himself part of something far from what he had hoped.
The post-Soviet years, Melkonian argued, were catastrophic for Armenia – marked by kleptocracy, factory closures, and a brain drain that saw nearly 800,000 people leave a country of 3.5 million. Families burned park trees and ripped up parquet floors for warmth. “My sister told me her shampoo had frozen in the shower,” he recalled. He was pointed in his criticism of Armenia’s current political direction as well, arguing that recent agreements – including one he linked to U.S. influence over Armenia’s southern border with Iran – represent a serious compromise of the country’s sovereignty.
The event’s most forward-looking moment came when Melkonian was asked about the significance of April 24. Rather than framing the day around lobbying American presidents to say the word “genocide,” he urged a broader reckoning. For 1,600 years, he noted, Armenians and Palestinians – Christian and Muslim – have lived side by side in Jerusalem in peace. That history, he argued, obligates Armenians to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people today.
“Saying that a genocide is happening to another people does not diminish your own,” he said. “This is not the Indianapolis 500. It’s expansive, it means we have something in common with others, and there’s something to build on.”
Melkonian closed with a challenge to the college students in the room: that young people today have been “robbed of a vocabulary” for speaking about power, exploitation, and imperialism – and reclaiming that vocabulary is essential to building meaningful solidarity across communities.
The event was moderated by a UCR student and hosted by the Middle Eastern Student Center, home to student organizations including the Armenian Student Association and Students for Justice in Palestine.