Due to a technical error the text below the figure in Hrag Vartanians Telegram in JSAS 27.2, published on April 30 2021, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/26670038-12342736, wasn’t printed. Below you will find the article in full.
Still Here
Citation: Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies 29, 2 (2024) ; 10.1163/26670038-12342804
A few days before the war in Artsakh broke out on September 27, I was engulfed in a peculiar online phenomenon called “being canceled.” It’s a term that denotes being rejected by a group for some reason that is outside their agreed upon norms. The term has turned into a type of bogeyman, as college students and celebrities recoil at the thought of being rejected when their need for group acceptance is particularly acute.
The incidents – which actually involved two different people and their interactions on Twitter – was first ignited by a devout Apostolic Armenian who was irritated by my dismissal of the “Armenia was the first Christian nation” trope that is oft repeated and has no meaning for many of us. The other thread that came together to conjure this canceling involved the communications director of a major West Coast Armenian organization. He was clearly angry that I had blocked him on the social network after he kept jumping into threads to add his two cents.
The second incident seemed to piggyback on the first, as it used the temporary fury as an opportunity to resurface a months-old tweet about the vandalism of an Armenian school in San Francisco – which is attended by the children of some of my closest friends – that was later characterized as a hate crime by the city’s police department. Nationalists have no humor, but it’s much needed during dark times. I faced many hateful comments during those strange days. I stopped counting after a few dozen, but it reminded me of something very familiar, and a feeling that I felt unfold over the course of the war, even if it was in new and unusual ways.
For me being bullied by Armenians isn’t new, as I had one such bully on my Saturday Armenian school bus in Toronto. He attacked me for being effeminate and I protested at the notion of sharing a ride with him. My mum insisted I continue to take the bus and she’s the one who taught me never to give in to bullies. Eventually the school intervened and I was able to take the bus without being threatened, even if the possibility was in the air – the bully still attended weekly and still shared a ride with me, even if we were seated in opposite ends of the vehicle.
I bring this up because it reminded me of the atmosphere war creates. Uneasy truces, strange allies, and uncomfortable realities that galvanize, scare, and can even terrorize us.
The online harassment continued through the war, though it became less frequent and I did my part by blocking trolls as fast as I could. As a digital native, I’m very familiar with the attention economy and how it craves all of it, no matter how negative or vile.
The slow daily drip of Artsakh news made me distracted and on edge, particularly when Azerbaijani forces initially dominated the online infowar. Wading through channels and news often felt like walking through a blizzard. I was expecting bad news every morning. My hope was that the Armenian forces could hold out until next year when we had a more sane administration in the White House, though I’m not even sure if they would’ve done anything anyway. A friend asked me afterwards if I believed, as she did, that Armenia wasn’t going to win from the beginning. “Yes, unfortunately,” I replied. “I know how to read.”
Without Russian help it was clear to most of us what the fate of this small seemingly impossible experiment in indigenous sovereignty would be. While slogans about winning dominated the online dialogue, it was the sobering images of torture and bombing that shocked the most at first. As a Syrian whose cousin was kidnapped and tortured by one of many Islamist rebel groups, the notion that they were now fighting in Artsakh and being paid extra for every Armenian they decapitated was too much. My cousin now lives in Yerevan.
The night I saw images of white phosphorus showering down on the forests of Artsakh; I felt sick. I knew then it was worse than I anticipated, that this would have a grisly end. I also knew the world wouldn’t do anything about it. The fact that this bright poison rain appeared strangely beautiful on my screen depressed me.
In 2019, Hyperallergic, the art publication I co-founded and where I serve as editor-in-chief, published Simon Maghakyan and Sarah Pickman’s groundbreaking investigation into the destruction of millenia of Armenian historical monuments and churches in the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan. It was an impressive piece of journalism and over a decade of work on their part. The response was limited. The New York art media, which I am a part of, almost universally ignored it. Publications elsewhere, including the Art Newspaper and the Guardian, both in London, and the Los Angeles Times, did their own stories based on these findings, but overall the impact was muted. That experience told me the same would happen during the war, particularly during the final months of a contentious US Presidential election.
The violence of the war spread to the diaspora, as it always does. Turkish and Azerbaijani nationalists took to the streets of Lyon to “hunt” Armenians, while Armenians in Germany received flyers from the ultra-nationalist Grey Wolves that read, “You filthy children of Armenia, we will find you and all and your children will stand at your grave before they fall into their own grave.”
There were Turks and Azeris living in the US proudly declaring on social media that the Armenian Genocide never happened. I rarely engage, though previously I would, eventually realizing how futile the back and forth was. After the war ended I knew these attacks would be more frequent. I’m still bracing myself.
I spent the war in a state of anxiety, as my body absorbed the stress around me. I attended #ArtsakhStrong protests, which were some of my most inspiring moments in 2020, and connected with people I’d never before met. Borders never defined us, and the comfort of our community has always been a blessing. The lines of empires have always dragged themselves on our bodies and lands, and we have taken those same lines and markings and woven them into rugs, khatchkars, and needlework turning the patterns of trauma into loving artifacts of the imagination.
Unlike the bullying on the bus, which I remember as a solitary experience, I was pleasantly surprised by those who came to my defense online. It wasn’t something I’d ever experienced in the Armenian community before. I was protected and elevated by strangers and followers online. This was new and unfamiliar.
A few days after the war ended, and the independence of Artsakh was lost, I finally received my November 7th edition of Armenian Weekly. The front page screamed in all caps, “Armenian Forces Down More Drones, Aliyev Claims False Victory.”
The news of the defeat of Artsakh still bores deep into my heart, reminding me of other experiences I’ve had when you witness the triumph of evil – like Standing Rock, when thousands of indigenous water protectors faced off with federal government forces protecting the greed of oil companies. Standing Rock was lost but it inspired a whole movement, like Occupy Wall Street before it. And this will too.
Hrag Vartanian
Editor-in-Chief and Founder of Hyperallergic
