Georgetown University’s Armenian Student Association disbanded in 2021 after many of its members graduated. Now, Armenian students like myself on campus are working to reestablish the club. Our efforts come at a time of crisis for the Armenian community, as the Azerbaijan government blockade preventing food and other necessary supplies from reaching Armenians in Artsakh has now reached day 95 as of March 17, 2023.

With widespread ambivalence both on and off campus toward the ongoing ethnic cleansing of our people, an Armenian Students Association is necessary not just to celebrate Armenian culture but to be an active voice for justice. 

The population of Artsakh is over 99% ethnic Armenian, and Armenians have inhabited the land for thousands of years. Yet during the period of Soviet colonization in West Asia, the Soviet Union gave Artsakh to Azerbaijan and changed its name to Nagorno-Karabakh. 

As Azeri settlement and anti-Armenian rhetoric increased in the area, a series of deadly pogroms — organized massacres of a specific ethnic group — forced many Armenians to flee. Since then, on-and-off war in Artsakh has persisted to the present day, displacing tens of thousands of Armenians. 

Azerbaijan has used illegal cluster munitions and drone strikes against Armenian families, proudly shared videos of them brutally torturing and executing Armenian civilians — including the disabled, elderly and children — and destroyed important Armenian cultural and religious sites in an attempt to sever the connection the indigenous people of Artsakh have to their homeland. The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention has also warned of Azerbajian’s pattern of genocidal action towards Armenians.

Now, Azerbaijan, backed by Israel and Turkey, a country that not only denies its own genocide against Armenians but celebrates those who carried it out, is repeatedly cutting the water, heating, electricity and internet connection in Artsakh as temperatures plunge below freezing. 

Azeris posing as “ecological activists” have blockaded Artsakh’s lifeline — the only road that connects Artsakh to Armenia and the only way Artsakh can receive food and necessary supplies. The blockade also prevents people from entering or exiting Artsakh, leaving many families separated. 

As food pantries go bare and children go hungry across Artsakh, the Western world has turned a blind eye. The United States currently sends military support to Azerbaijan, and I rarely see coverage of the conflict in Western media outlets. For example, the last time The New York Times directly covered the region’s hostilities — other than a brief overview of Russia’s waning influence over the Caucuses — was more than six months ago, despite the daily updates that the clashes warrant.

In light of Western apathy, last month, Armenian students at Georgetown joined our fellow local diaspora Armenians in a protest in front of the White House where we called for immediate humanitarian aid to be airlifted to Artsakh, sanctions against the Azerbaijani government and an end to using tax dollars to arm Azerbaijan. 

Not only is the media ignoring violence, but most of the student body is not aware of the Armenian genocide denial present in our Georgetown community.

In 2020, Georgetown’s Middle East North Africa (MENA) Forum hosted an event titled “Towards a New Turkish Identity, Neo-Ottomanism at Home and Abroad” run by vocal Armenian Genocide denier Hakan Yavuz. Calls from Armenian students on campus about the deeply dangerous nature of an event promoting neo-Ottomanism were — unsurprisingly — ignored by the administration. 

Many Armenian students on campus are related to those who were victims of colonization, forced to flee their homeland, massacred and sent on death marches by the Ottoman Empire during the Armenian genocide. 

It is egregious that we — as Middle Eastern students on campus — Bc are not even able to feel welcome within the university’s MENA forum.

While Georgetown is known to have a history of failing to support minority groups on campus, platforming a genocide denier who actively promotes a resurgence in the very ideology that led to the massacre of our people reaches a new level of egregiousness. I’m not sure the Jesuit value this fits under — is it people for others? Community in diversity? Contemplation in action? 

In conversation with a current Georgetown sophomore, I learned how last year, when she was in the process of planning for the Armenian ambassador to the United States to visit Georgetown University, the School of Foreign Service dean’s office told her that the way to gain traction for the event would be to invite the Azeri ambassador to ensure we were open to “both sides.” She felt shocked that in an attempt to uplift Armenian voices on campus, she was encouraged to confront her mother country’s oppressor in a “friendly debate.”

When it comes to ethnic cleansing and cultural erasure, there is no room for a middle ground or friendly debate. There is only a choice between solidarity or complicity.

Many Armenian students have expressed anger over the lack of awareness and care — especially on a campus that frames itself as extremely politically active — for the ongoing ethnic cleansing in Artsakh.

It is imperative that Georgetown University’s MENA forum apologizes for choosing to platform an Armenian genocide denier. It is imperative that the Georgetown administration ends its rhetoric of neutrality when it comes to inviting speakers who support ongoing violence and terror against indigenous Armenians. It is imperative that Georgetown students end their apathy toward violence against minority groups in the Southwest Asian North African region — also known as SWANA, an acronym for Southwest Asian and North African, which is used as a decolonial term for the Middle East — region and stand in solidarity with the Armenian Student Association. 

Otherwise, the ongoing violence against our people will continue to be swept under the rug.

Lela Tolajian is a first-year student in the School of Foreign Service.