“The genocide continues”: Kamp Armen under threat | ROAR Magazine
“The genocide continues”: Kamp Armen under threat
The spirit of resistance has taken root
in Tuzla, a wealthy, beachside suburb on the Anatolian side of Istanbul.
Getting off the bus, an hours’ drive from the Bosporus a series of
spraypainted signs direct one past gated communities and celebrity
villas to a hidden plot of land where once the songs and laughter of
hundreds of Armenian children brought live to a now derelict and
partially demolished school building.
‘Welcome to Camp Armen’ reads a sign at the entrance in both Turkish and Armenian. A narrow driveway covered by flags from Nor Zartonk –
a political association founded by Armenians which fights for minority
rights in Turkey – and flanked by walls covered in political slogans
leads to site where for almost one month people have successfully
resisted the destruction of the former Tuzla Armenian Orphanage. On May 6 – a mere two weeks after the 100th
commemoration of the Armenian genocide – bulldozers arrived at the site
of the abandoned school building and immediately set to work in
demolishing the structure. One entire wing was leveled before local
activists who had been warned by sympathetic construction workers that
were building a villa next door arrived on the scene and threw
themselves in front of the machines to try and safe what was left of the
school.
In Turkey the cultural genocide of minority groups continues.
Now, a Gezi-like resistance movement tries to turn the tide and build a
common future.
