Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E52: Armenia and Christian Persecution with Simone Rizkallah

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E52: Armenia and Christian Persecution with Simone Rizkallah · The Lila Rose Show

0:00
There's not one Armenian that doesn't have a genocide story.
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And now in Armenia, there's not one Armenian that hasn't lost a
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husband, a son, a brother. It feels extremely hopeless.
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There are 360 million Christians who are persecuted every year.
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You think of crucifixions, you think of the the early Roman
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Empire, you think of Jesus. But these are women who were
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actually crucified. Hey guys, welcome to the Lila
0:26
Rose Podcast. We've had her on the podcast
0:29
before. She is my dear friend Simone
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Rizcala. I'll introduce her in a moment.
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We're going to hear from her on a topic that I think is really
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important, and it's a news pop topic.
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It's a thing that's in the news or it should be in the news.
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It's happening right now and that's Christian persecution,
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particularly of Armenians. So we're going to get into it,
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what's going on in the world, what our response can be,
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whether you're a Christian or not, or how we can engage.
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But first of all, very excited to welcome Simone.
0:59
Simone is a dear friend of mine that I've known for going on, I
1:02
think 15 years now. It's been a while.
1:05
And she is the director of program at Endow, an amazing
1:08
woman's ministry. She's also a special advisor to
1:11
the president for the Filos Project.
1:13
She is a theologian and a speaker and a writer and someone
1:17
that I love very much. Simone, thanks for coming back
1:19
on the podcast. Thanks for having me Lila, so
1:21
grateful. The last time we did this, we
1:23
talked about personality types. We did, because, you know, I'm
1:25
obsessed. Yes, with personality types.
1:27
It was very fun. Now I'm obsessed with working
1:29
genius. Yes, our friend Pat Lanciani's
1:32
new tool to help you understand your strengths and weaknesses,
1:35
The working genius from Table Group.
1:38
So, Simone, you have been on a campaign lately to draw
1:43
awareness to what is happening to Christian families in this
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little pocket of Armenia where they're being starve to death
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and no one's talking about it. Someone just died last week.
1:55
Children are malnourished. I want to get into all of that.
1:59
But first, what? You are Armenian.
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You are, you are Armenian. You are a Christian.
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Tell us a little bit about, I can see immediately why this is
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something you're passionate about, but tell us a little bit
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about your background in learning about your heritage.
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And I want to understand the background of Armenia because
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it's really important, I think, not just for Christians, but
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geopolitically. Yep, this little country in the
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middle of the Middle East surrounded by countries that
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don't share its values, right. Give us the lay of the land on
2:31
Armenia. Yes, Well.
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I'm Armenian, Egyptian, so most Armenians are actually in the
2:37
diaspora because of the Armenian Genocide.
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So there are more Armenians living outside of Armenia than
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actually in Armenia proper. In my family's case, we decided
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to go to Egypt. So that's why we're Armenian,
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Egyptian and why Egypt, Why I think the Egypt at that time,
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there was a lot of opportunity, especially in my, my, my great
3:01
grandparents, my grandparents, my parents day.
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There was a lot of economic opportunity.
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It was very cosmopolitan. There were Greeks, Armenians,
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Jews, Italians. My grandma learned Italian, she
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had an Italian neighbor. So it was like, yes, that's kind
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of why I brought it up. So it was a place of
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opportunity, a place where Armenians could prosper.
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My great grandfather was told, hey, things are going to get
3:27
really bloody here for Armenians, you should probably
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get out. So he did.
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And I'm glad he did. And that that's a success story
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story of mercy for me and my family.
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But of course, we have stories of people in our family that we
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lost to the genocide. No time to get into that.
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But that's why. I want to get into that because
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I think it's so important people understand the history here
3:49
because there's a lot of it. So, so just to walk it back to
3:52
your story with Egypt, your family chose Egypt.
3:56
They were leaving Armenia to go to Egypt.
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Were they being persecuted in Armenia when they left to Egypt
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or were they going more for economic opportunity?
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No, they the the IT was before the genocide there was talk that
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things were going to get tough for Armenians, that there was
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going to be bloodshed. That rumor my great grandfather
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on my maternal side took seriously.
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What year was this? Or around what time?
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Well, it had to be before the 1915, right?
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So my grandmother, early 20s. Yeah.
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My. Yeah, My grandmother was born in
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1912 in Alexandria, Egypt. So it had to have been before
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then. Now, there was a little genesis,
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not little genocide. There's such thing, a little
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genocide, but there were persecutions and genocide
4:43
against the Armenians in the 1890's.
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The Hamidian massacres that occurred.
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That's a whole other incredible story.
4:51
What are those? What are the hermit?
4:52
So you're saying in the 1890s there are Christian Armenian
4:56
Christians who were killed in the Hermidian?
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The Hamidian Massacre, massacres, what was that?
5:00
The really interesting thing about that is the Sultan's name,
5:03
Hamidian, after him. But the really interesting thing
5:07
about that is that this is kind of neat for Americans to know,
5:10
is that American Congregationalists, pastors went
5:13
to go evangelize in that area. They didn't have much success
5:17
with evangelizing Muslims. So they actually evangelize
5:20
Armenians who are already Christians.
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But that's why we have Armenians who are evangelicals and
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Presbyterians, and they help. There's a lot of Armenians who
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are alive today to and in Fresno, CA because.
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I used to know something. That why are Armenians in
5:36
Fresno? Because these American
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Congregationalist missionaries that went to Armenia ended up
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getting them to come to California and saving their
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life. So a lot of the the Armenians
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from a region in now considered Turkey Harpoot.
5:54
The Harpoot Armenians were saved because of these American
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missionaries, which is really interesting.
6:00
So in this, so going back to the 1890 massacre, who is hurting
6:06
who and why? The Turks, the Turks, the
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Ottomans and then later in world.
6:13
War and because they're Muslim and they were persecuting
6:16
Christians? Or was it also because of the
6:18
ethnicities being different? So to be when you, you know,
6:21
you're, when you mentioned you're an Armenian and you're a
6:23
Christian. To be an Armenian is to be a
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Christian. We are the First Nation, the
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First Nation to to declare Christianity at state religion
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in three O 1 AD that that belongs to the the you know, the
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legacy of the Armenian people that we were the first to
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declare Christianity our official state religion because
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Saint Gregory the illuminator healed and evangelized the king.
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Wow, yes. So he got baptized, he took, he
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took, took Saint Gregory out of solitary confinement and he was
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healed and he was converted. And then so, so are the.
7:04
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free. So have there been for those,
8:13
let's say almost 2000 years, like leading up to the massacre
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you mentioned in the 1890s? And then World War One and.
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Then we're going. I want to get to that.
8:20
Have there been because they've had this Christian identity in
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the middle of what would become a very Islamic region?
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Yeah. How much of it has been, you
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know, attacks because of the ethnic differences versus when
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did it really become attacks because of the religious
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differences? Because Islam didn't really
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enter the world until what, the the 5th or 6th century, right?
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Yes, 7th or 8th century is is Arab invasions, but so it's it's
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it's complicated because to be in Armenian is to be a
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Christian. So there is a hatred of the
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Armenian people. There's also a hatred of the
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faith and the resilience of Armenians who will not convert,
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who will not convert to Islam. So it's all now.
9:05
There are other reasons Armenians have done really well,
9:09
very resourceful people, very successful.
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So there's also jealousy there. There's also political,
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geopolitical paranoia involved in the First World War that also
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made Armenians a easy scapegoat in a certain sense because of,
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well, who are the Armenians going to align with?
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Are they going to align with the with the Ottomans, with the
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Turks? Are they going to align with
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Russians or like what? You know, there's complicated
9:38
questions like that at play. So it's we don't want to say
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it's just because of ethnic or religious ideological
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differences. There's other factors that plays
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are always are with these problems of war, but certainly
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it's a big part of what's going on and probably the root part.
9:58
So when your family left Armenia for Egypt, you said it was right
10:03
before World War One and right before the 1915 genocide.
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Yeah. What happened?
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What did they save ultimately you from?
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Because if they had been caught up in that and had been killed,
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you wouldn't. I wouldn't know.
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He was just able to be, you know, unbearably horrible.
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But what? What happened?
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Yeah, 1.2 million Armenians were massacred, 1.2 million.
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The word genocide, we know that word.
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That word was coined by a Polish jurist who coined that word in
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large part because of what happened to the Armenians.
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When Hitler was planning his Jewish Holocaust, a Nazi
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official asked him, how are you going to get away with this
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Jewish Holocaust? And Hitler responded well.
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Who today even remembers the Armenians?
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Wow. So.
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And so how? Who was eradicating 1.2 million
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Armenians and how was that done? It was done in a variety of
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ways. There there are the Dan Burke
11:03
mentioned this when I was talking to him on Divine
11:06
Intimacy Radio that when he's he's Jewish, he's a Jewish
11:09
background. And when he started researching
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the genocide, he was horrified to discover the crucifixions of
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Armenian women. So crucifixions, starvation,
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death marches, shootings, all the various ways.
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And who was who was the aggressor?
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The Turks. It was the Turks, OK, It was the
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Turks so and the Turks were in World War One.
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What was their give us the kind of for people listening who
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don't know exactly the Armenia story, how did that play out in
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World War 1? Well, what do you mean?
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How did that play out? Was this part of World War One
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or in the lead up to World War One?
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It was during World War One, so. 1.2 million people killed.
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Yeah. And you know, obviously the
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Holocaust is absolutely horrific, the Jewish Holocaust
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in the amount of millions of Jews killed.
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And there's a Holocaust remembrance museum in DC.
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And they, I mean, it's, it's unfathomable to think of all the
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evils committed. There was a genocide before that
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that I don't know, is in a common language today that we
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talk about. I mean, I think your average
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person doesn't know about the Armenian genocide, right?
12:21
They don't. And these were men, women and
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children killed during this by the by the Ottoman Turks in a
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variety of ways. And it was.
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There was also Greeks and Kurds and Assyrians and others who
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were who were killed. So the number we throw out as
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1.5, but I think and people dispute how many were Armenians,
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how many were, but we say 1.2 Armenians, 1.5 total.
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And you mentioned crucifixions. What what happened with that?
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They, there are pictures, horrific pictures of women who
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are crucified. I mean, you can, you can, I
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don't want to say Google this, don't Google it.
12:55
But I, you know, I remember growing up as a child looking at
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all of these Armenian genocide books and stories and, and
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seeing pictures of women. Literally, you think of
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crucifixions, you think of the, the early Roman Empire, you
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think of Jesus. But these are women who were
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actually crucified. For their faith, do you think
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that's part of it or they were just especially torturous way
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they wanted to just I think it's like extra pain.
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Yeah, I think I, Yeah, Again, I don't know the details of the
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story of why these women, and I don't have an exact number on
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it, 9 to 15 women, but it's so horrific to you.
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You know, I don't want to say it's one thing to be shot.
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That's one thing to be shot. It's another thing to be
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crucified. It's it's unbearably horrific.
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Yeah. So, OK, so Armenia undergoes
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this incredible persecution. 1.2 million people are wiped out.
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What happens next? Are there any Armenians left?
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So again, many in the in the in the diaspora Americans and were
13:56
amazing at historian Howard Sascher said that and I quote
14:03
kept Americans kept an entire nation quite literally alive.
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Maybe that's, you know, that's incredible thing for Americans
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to be really proud of. How do they do that?
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They they rallied, they wrote. Raise awareness.
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They sent money. There's a really great book by
14:22
Peter Balakan called The Burning Tigris where he documents
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American involvement in keeping Armenia and Armenians alive and
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going. JD Rockefeller convinced Clara
14:35
Barton to take the Red Cross International, and the first
14:38
time she did was for the Armenians, for Armenia.
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So there was a time actually in American history in the early
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part of the last century, where Americans knew about Armenia and
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knew what was happening and were growling for them, raising money
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for them, sending relief, aid, help.
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So Christian persecution, my understanding of it is that
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today it has increased even in just the last couple decades.
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What's the information? What are the what are the
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statistics on that that people should know?
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So the latest statistics are that there are 360 million
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Christians who are persecuted every year and the number has
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now reached up to 7676 countries as of 2023 that persecute
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Christians. And when they what does it mean
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to like does that does the United States.
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I know some Christians here like I'm persecuted because I'm being
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told I have to pay taxes to the government who does abortions,
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right? And I don't personally buy that
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because I yes, I think it's completely horrific that the
15:43
government does that. But I think we have incredible
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protections in the United States, religious freedom
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protections. And yes, the missing protections
15:51
in the United States are the fact that children are being
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killed by abortion and they don't have any protections.
15:54
It's not a religious issue. It's just they're human beings
15:57
that are too young. So what?
15:59
What is that? Does that statistic?
16:02
How does it? What is the definition there for
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a country that persecutes the Christian?
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Yeah, I certainly wouldn't put the United States, I agree with
16:11
you on that list. We're talking about countries
16:14
that range from new top #1 violator North Korea, right,
16:19
which is extreme persecution, extreme religious persecution.
16:23
You can't even think your own thoughts in North Korea to
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Somalia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, these kind of countries where
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the and I really like, I like the voice of the martyrs.
16:36
I like for the martyrs open doors.
16:40
They have really great maps and statistics on all this.
16:43
And something I really like about the open doors persecution
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map, which I used to use when I taught high school.
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I'd have my students just look at the world map and see, look
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at all the countries where Christians are persecuted.
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They're the number one people persecuted in the world.
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And something that Open Doors does is they have different
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categories, 3 different categories from like like very
17:07
hostile persecution to like second class citizenry
17:13
discrimination. So you can take a look at that
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map and see, OK, which country and what is the nature of that
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persecution, you know. Are Christians the most
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persecuted religious group in the world?
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They absolutely are, and that's little known as well.
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One in seven Christians, one in seven are considered persecuted.
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Most people, I think, wouldn't think that.
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And I think that's in the West. It seems like Christianity is
17:39
doing so, so well in terms of its freedoms anyways.
17:43
Maybe it's like struggling because culturally the culture
17:46
is getting so hedonistic and all of these things which go against
17:50
the Christian faith. And there's this confusion of
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what does it even mean to be Christian?
17:53
How do you be Christian? But it's hard to think that here
17:56
we are in the West. You know, we're in California
17:58
right now. And yeah, there's a lot of
18:00
darkness here culturally. But we can go any day.
18:04
We want to pray. You know, we can speak what we
18:06
want, speak our minds, and we have protection.
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Like we're not worrying about being persecuted for it in terms
18:13
of the government coming after us typically, but that there are
18:17
other Christians right now at this time who are facing even
18:20
death for their belief. I have some of the.
18:24
Worst cases of it right now. Well, we hear a lot of Nigeria's
18:29
on the top ten. You know, you're, I feel like
18:32
we're always hearing something about Boko Haram kidnapping
18:35
Christian girls. My mom has been kind of keeping
18:39
me up to date on what's happening in Egypt again, like
18:41
there's been kidnapping of Coptic girls.
18:44
There's what happened in Pakistan and India in the last
18:49
few weeks. I can't remember the details,
18:51
but church attacks, church bombings, you know?
18:56
Yeah, I think it's also not politically correct to talk
18:58
about in the United States because we're so we like to talk
19:02
so much about diversity and, you know, freedom of the religion,
19:08
which of course we support that, but we don't want to make it
19:11
seem like Christianity is better than another religion.
19:13
So to point out that another religion or sort of sect is
19:17
persecuting Christians, you know, definitely more than
19:19
they're persecuting them back. I think when, when I read these
19:22
news stories, like of the different cases where like, you
19:24
know, in Nigeria, you mentioned like there's a church that's
19:26
bombed and they kill a bunch of people in the church.
19:30
I think there's sort of a Western narrative that, well,
19:32
they're just fighting each other.
19:33
These groups are just persecuting each other tit for
19:36
tat. It's horrible.
19:37
It's sad, but it's not like one group is more of the victim and
19:41
one group is more of the villain.
19:42
Right, That's exactly right. It is not politically correct to
19:44
say that, but the truth is it is Islamic countries by and large
19:50
that are persecuting Christians in these 76 countries.
19:54
It's not. It's not only Islam, there are
19:56
also Hindu attacks and obviously North Korea's atheistic, but by
20:02
and large the majority of these countries are Islamic countries.
20:06
So back to Armenia then? Yes, because that is the case in
20:10
Armenia. No, it's surrounded by Islamic
20:11
countries. Yes.
20:12
And they will not say it's, it's, it's not Islamic in the
20:15
sense of the way that persecution is happening in
20:19
other countries, especially Azerbaijan, who's the aggressor
20:24
of what's happening now in this territory called the Nagorno
20:27
Karabakh Arzak. There's a hundred.
20:30
It's not part of Armenia proper. It's this enclave of 120,000
20:35
ethnically Armenian Christians. So Azerbaijan has been painting
20:40
itself as a secular country and doing a lot of PR work as a
20:43
secular country. Look, we're a secular country,
20:46
but the truth is they are, it is an Islamic country.
20:50
They are ethnically Turkish. They describe themselves, the
20:53
Turks in the Azeris, as you know, really two countries in
20:58
one, even though they're two separate countries, two
21:01
countries, one nation. And Armenia is the one thing
21:05
geographically that is not just Christian, but it's also
21:09
geographically getting in the way of creating a perfectly
21:13
seamless pan Turkic region, right?
21:16
So if you're ethnically Turkish on one side and ethnically
21:19
Turkish Azerbaijan on the other, and then there's this like group
21:22
of like 3,000,000 Armenian Christians smack dab in the
21:27
middle, you're going to want that land and that territory.
21:31
And that's what's happening. And that's what they want.
21:33
So this region of Armenia that is right now effectively under
21:38
siege, is it a piece that the Turks are trying to take?
21:44
So it's it's the Turks helping the Aziris.
21:47
OK. It's the Aziris that they, yes,
21:49
they do want. So they're right now, since
21:52
December of 2022, it's now an 8 month blockade.
21:55
They have blockaded the latching corridor, which is the only
21:58
route that connects the Nagorno Karabakh with Armenia proper.
22:03
By blockading that corridor, they are effectively,
22:08
religiously and ethnically cleansing that region through
22:11
starvation. So when you say block a corridor
22:14
again making this very broken. Down that road.
22:17
That road, you just can't go. You can't.
22:19
You can't leave, you can't get in.
22:21
You can't leave. You can't get in.
22:22
They won't let the Red Cross in. They won't let the Japanese
22:26
ambassador try to send food. There are other, I mean, they're
22:29
not letting supplies in or letting people out.
22:34
They're kidnapped people who are trying to get out to go to
22:36
hospitals in Armenia proper. They're kidnapping them.
22:39
They're shooting at Armenia proper.
22:42
They're, they are shooting at farmers who, you know, when
22:47
you're trying to grow food and you're starving and you're being
22:50
shot at, effectively you're killing off the food supply.
22:54
Plus there's no fuel, so you can't even transport the food
22:58
even if you have it. So it's a very, the
23:03
international community is now calling it a genocide because
23:06
that's what's happening right now.
23:08
And most recently, they are allowing those, like college
23:14
students who are going to start school to leave.
23:16
But once you leave, you can't come back.
23:19
And the only reason they're letting them leave is because
23:20
they have Russian passports and they're allies with Russia, so
23:23
you have to let them out. It also looks good on the
23:25
outside because you're letting people see.
23:27
Look, there's this perception that, see, people can come and
23:30
go, but that's not the true story.
23:33
So and then the children and the families are not able to get any
23:38
food, right. I mean, that's more.
23:39
Medical supplies. So what is what are what do you
23:41
hear and how do you hear about reports on the ground?
23:44
And what are you hearing about reports on the ground of how
23:45
people are doing? I mean, they're not doing well.
23:48
I mean, I, you know, we heard of that 40 year old very recently
23:51
that literally with skin and bones.
23:55
One of the saddest stories I heard was the single mom who
23:58
lost both her children to starvation.
24:01
People are hungry. They're literally being starved
24:04
to death. It's just devastating.
24:09
It is devastating. What can be done?
24:12
Well, there's so many things that can be done politically.
24:14
I would say putting pressure on the Biden administration to cut
24:19
all aid, our millions of dollars, millions of American
24:23
dollars that are going to Azerbaijan.
24:26
There's Section 9 O seven of the Freedom Support Act that states
24:29
you cannot use this money for aggression against Armenians.
24:33
So that's a big political push. But we, I mean, the call to
24:38
action is end the blockade and the blockade now we need to like
24:41
AirDrop food, we need to get food through.
24:43
We need to get medical supplies in.
24:46
Kids aren't going to be going to school this year because how can
24:48
they go to school? They're hungry.
24:50
They're traumatized from living under a blockade for eight
24:52
months. The weather conditions, there's
24:54
no fuel. Electricity is.
24:56
They also cut electricity at some point.
24:58
So what are we supposed to do? I mean, if we keep sending money
25:02
and supporting Azerbaijan, what's the incentive there for
25:05
them to end this blockade? So we are literally sending
25:09
millions of dollars to Azerbaijan to just is that
25:13
foreign aid money or what is that money used for?
25:16
What is the premise for that? Well, it's not supposed to be.
25:18
I don't exactly know what it's used for, but it's not supposed
25:20
to be used to start a war with Armenia, Yeah.
25:23
And then this country is is being the aggressor in this
25:27
conflict and shutting off food, shutting off fuel like you're
25:30
saying. So I think that sounds like a no
25:33
brainer. I know the publications of these
25:36
things are, you know, I'm not a foreign policy expert, but what
25:39
are the excuses? Like, why haven't this, Why
25:41
haven't more people heard about this?
25:42
What are the excuses for Azerbaijan?
25:45
Well, I don't know that they can make excuses because it's very
25:49
clear to anyone who's paying attention at all that what
25:53
they're really trying to do is either you can leave, but.
25:56
You can't. There's blockades, no?
25:58
Well, I mean, if they're letting these people with Russian
26:00
passports leave the students, OK, you can leave or you can
26:02
give up and surrender to Azuri control, which Armenians won't
26:06
do, you know, or you starve to death and then the land is, is
26:11
is essentially yours. I'm not a foreign policy expert
26:14
either, but, and I don't know, I mean, I, I keep hearing reports
26:16
of different international communities having all these
26:19
conversations and, you know, but, but then what is what is it
26:24
actually going to take to broker a so-called peace deal and peace
26:29
for how long and under what conditions?
26:32
Because the truth is Azerbaijan and Turkey have made it very
26:36
clear that they will finish what their father started, meaning
26:43
the genocide of the 20th century.
26:46
They're going to finish what their father started.
26:48
That is their goal. And there's a phrase in Turkish
26:52
called leftovers of the sword. Armenians are left.
26:55
Any Armenian that's alive today is a leftover, the sword.
26:59
So these are countries that fail to wreck, fail to recognize the
27:03
Armenian genocide and call Armenians leftovers of the
27:07
sword. And we're going to finish what
27:08
our father started. And when Pope Francis spoke out
27:12
against the Armenian genocide, the president of Turkey said, I
27:16
criticize and I condemn him for speaking out.
27:21
Condemn the Pope. Condemn the Pope.
27:23
He should, and I warn him. So is this a like a a well known
27:27
fact in Azerbaijan that we hate the Armenians and we want to
27:30
destroy them? Is that like a a common identity
27:33
in a way national identity, or is that more the political
27:35
leadership who wants the land? Well, if there's a phrase
27:39
leftovers of the sword in Turkey and probably Azerbaijan, I think
27:44
culturally, yes, Armenia is disliked.
27:48
Does that mean that every Turk, that every Aziri feels that way?
27:52
Right. No.
27:53
But you know, I this is a story that it's hard to tell, but when
28:02
Egypt went to war with Israel, my grandmother, the man that she
28:07
bought groceries from for 30 years, that his kids played with
28:12
my mom the day that Egypt went to war with Israel, he told my
28:18
grandmother, first we'll get them, meaning the Jews, and then
28:23
we'll go after you. How does that?
28:27
It it, it's such a striking thing.
28:30
Again, we're so privileged in the United States to not have to
28:35
deal with genocide on a daily basis.
28:37
You know, we are so protected from that at large.
28:42
And I'm not saying people don't experience horrible things
28:44
because obviously horrible things happen everywhere, but
28:47
that idea of your neighbor literally says, I'm going to
28:50
come and kill you. And there's no like legal relief
28:53
or reprieve. This is just he wants to kill
28:56
you, but he did business with you for years and the kids
28:58
played together. And I, I know there were stories
29:00
of this in Nazi Germany, you know, Jewish families who would
29:04
hang out with non Jewish families and the kids would play
29:06
together. And then once the persecution
29:08
started amping up and the rhetoric started amping up, then
29:11
it was like, we're not even going to have the kids play
29:13
together like they are the other.
29:15
And it's amazing to me how quickly, how quickly that can
29:18
happen. Yeah.
29:19
That that hatred can take root. And that bias and race racism
29:26
and yeah, I mean religious persecution can spring, spring
29:29
out of that hatred. Absolutely.
29:31
I think it's extremely difficult for Americans to believe because
29:35
it's so far from American thought.
29:37
I truly believe that it's very hard.
29:40
The lack, the, the miss, the fundamental mistrust that that
29:45
exists among people who are different than you is not, to
29:50
America's credit, part of our DNAI think in in the sense of
29:56
like, not that we don't have our, our issues here, our race
29:59
issues, our conflicts, our, you know, especially being a melting
30:03
pot. It's not that that didn't exist,
30:05
but I'm talking about today in my experience as an American.
30:08
Well, I think there's a lot of proactive work that has been
30:12
done in this country. And I do think, you know,
30:15
there's a lot of question Mark's kind of conservative,
30:17
conservative sort of media. You know, there's a criticism
30:21
of, oh, you're too sensitive about racism.
30:23
This isn't racism. You know why you're calling
30:25
something racist that's not racist or everyone's a racist to
30:28
you. But that hypersensitivity is a
30:30
response in sent in in in a sense to what can go wrong.
30:36
And, you know, that is where I don't think we're born looking
30:41
with each other with distrust. I don't think distrust is a
30:43
natural state, but it's an easy state to fall into because of
30:47
our woundedness. And I do think that it can be
30:51
easy to hate. I mean, hatred can because of
30:54
woundedness. Come, come be easy to to, to
30:58
practice. And So what is the solution?
31:00
You know, what do you think is the solution?
31:02
We get food there. Let's say we stop the blockade.
31:05
But how do we change the dynamics of a whole country's to
31:09
prevent that genocide from being?
31:11
Completed. Yeah.
31:12
So let's let's say that the blockade ends today.
31:15
We get food in there to have the reality, like the reality check,
31:20
that the Azirsan Turk will not stop.
31:24
What Armenia needs is friends. And she doesn't really have
31:28
friends. And the reason she doesn't
31:30
really have friends is because she's not economically
31:32
prosperous to anybody. So we don't know about this
31:35
issue in the media because it doesn't really matter
31:39
economically, politically. For us, so sad.
31:41
That's the truth. So how do we get virtuous men in
31:45
leadership that care about a country, a small Christian
31:48
country? That I think one way is for the
31:53
good people of America to remember that there was a time
31:56
when we really did play our hand in history and keeping those
32:00
people alive. A beautiful one.
32:03
And the second thing is to think that it will come back to bite
32:06
us because Armenia represents democratic, anti authoritarian
32:12
western values in a region that largely doesn't.
32:16
So even if you don't care about the fact that they're humans
32:19
suffering in a terrible way, or you don't care about that
32:21
they're Christians or any of that, care about the fact that
32:26
you want to support Western values in a place that really
32:30
needs that support because you might need it.
32:32
You might need it one day. If anything, it makes sense to
32:36
me. I mean, look at all the aid we
32:38
provide to Israel as an example, because like kind of that from
32:42
like a, the geopolitical standpoint there, that bastion
32:45
of you could say Western values or Western alliance in the
32:49
middle of what can be an often hostile territory, right?
32:53
But you know, people would say, well, Israel has more firepower
32:56
literally then I think their nuclear power, right.
32:58
So, you know, Armenia doesn't have, I would imagine a strong
33:02
military. There's they've been made.
33:04
Imagine being a country where 1.2 million of your people were
33:08
wiped out. You know, I'm sure that recovery
33:10
from that is not How can you how, how does one recover?
33:15
Yes, and especially the 2020 war, which the Aziri's again or
33:19
aggressive against the Armenians in a time where people were
33:22
distracted with COVID and quarantine and we got wrapped up
33:26
in the Ukraine issue. So it was the perfect time, it
33:30
was clever, it was the perfect time to attack Armenia.
33:33
There is not one Armenian, I would say that doesn't have a
33:37
genocide story. And now in Armenia, there's not
33:40
one Armenia that hasn't lost a husband, a son, a brother to the
33:45
war. I mean, it's really, it feels
33:49
extremely hopeless. What does that feel like for you
33:53
as an Armenian and the community that you come from?
33:57
What does that trauma look like in sort of the day-to-day in a
34:01
community, especially when it's part of the diaspora?
34:03
You've left you from the United States now, but to know that in
34:07
your family line there are victims of genocide and they're
34:10
really every family has been affected.
34:13
Yeah. I mean, I think there's yeah, I
34:16
question of I of, of like they're like on the one sense
34:21
gratitude that Egypt was a place to go to, but then we had to
34:25
leave Egypt because of increasing levels of Islamic
34:28
fundamentalism there, right. The things that happened with
34:31
ISIS in the last decade or things that you know, my family
34:36
wanted to avoid, right. Knowing that the situation in
34:39
Egypt was going less from a very liberal open democracy where you
34:43
had Italian degree excuse and Armenians to becoming more and
34:46
more fundamentalist. So taking a preemptive strike
34:50
and leaving the country, which turned out to be good for us.
34:54
But but in what is that was that trauma look like?
34:58
Is there ever going to be a well, not maybe not in this
34:59
life, right, But is there a place, you know, and, and
35:03
feeling very passionate about keeping America free?
35:05
You know, when we were little, when we talked politics, there
35:09
was always that my mom and dad being like, oh, like kind of
35:11
like that knee jerk reaction of like close the windows because
35:14
we're talking about politics or because in Egypt, you want to be
35:17
careful. We say out loud.
35:18
So here in the United States, when we're, you know, having
35:22
these free speech issues, like we really need to be careful
35:25
because we don't want to go down to like censoring anytime
35:28
someone if, if we're never allowed to say anything because
35:31
someone might be offended or like, it's a slippery slope of
35:34
getting to a place like these countries where you can't really
35:39
be free. So I think we're very, very
35:42
sensitive to that here because wait a minute, we just got here.
35:46
Like I'm, I'm the first born here.
35:49
We just got here. I don't want to start seeing
35:50
things happening here that were happening in the last two
35:53
places, you know, So that's one, one element of it.
35:59
But to always know that like man's freedom, religious freedom
36:03
being the most fundamental, assuming life right, religious
36:07
freedom is the is the most fundamental freedom that man
36:11
has, and it's worth protecting, even if it's not economically
36:14
prosperous for you. I think the the sort of counter
36:20
argument from people in the political space is that, well,
36:23
we're not the Big Brother for the world.
36:25
You know, the United States can't get involved in everybody
36:27
else's conflicts. Even if it's a just, it would be
36:30
just in terms of we would be siding with a true victim
36:34
against an aggressor. Do you have any opinions on
36:37
that? Yeah, I mean, I do.
36:41
One of them is this is Armenians are not a place where you're
36:45
going to force democracy. They already believe in
36:50
democracy. Interesting.
36:51
You know you're not. We're not trying to force
36:54
American western values on a people that can't relate to it
36:57
on any existential level. These people are already
37:01
democratic, anti authoritarian, Christian and free.
37:05
They need support. They need the right to self
37:07
determination and they need western support for that.
37:12
So it's very different. A welcome banner for the for the
37:16
Americans. Versus because I can see, I can
37:18
see why America's like, you know what?
37:19
Every time we get involved, things are not we, we don't, we
37:22
don't do foreign policy, right? Every time we get involved, we
37:25
kind of mess up something. We mess it up especially for
37:27
Christians, right? But this is a different thing.
37:32
And it feels like crying wolf, but it's not.
37:35
They are. They don't need Armenians, don't
37:37
need us to go in there. We don't need troops.
37:39
We don't need money. We just, we don't need that.
37:42
What we need is support against aggressors.
37:46
And as you said earlier, that support doesn't necessarily even
37:49
look like going to arms against the aggressor.
37:51
It's, you know, withholding the millions of dollars.
37:53
Exactly. There's a lot of different forms
37:55
of diplomacy, different levels of engagement that you can use
37:59
or you can enter. And the reality is we're not
38:03
sounds like doing anything. Are we doing anything right now
38:05
as the United States? I mean this conflict.
38:08
Trying to supposedly broker a peace deal but.
38:12
We're saying that, yeah. I mean, we said that.
38:13
I mean as a country. The Biden administration has
38:15
withheld the waiver for Section nine O 7.
38:18
But it really, it really has to continue to withhold it until
38:23
all like stop the shootings, the weekly shootings, like knock it
38:30
off and we and Armenians won't shoot back because they do not
38:33
want war. We do not want war again.
38:37
So it was very unfortunate that Stalin gave that territory under
38:42
a 0 jurisdiction. You know, like after World War
38:46
One, we had these couple years of independence and then Armenia
38:49
was under the Soviet Union and then it declared its
38:53
independence in the 90s. And then Artsac Nagorno Karabach
38:59
did as well. So Azerbaijan and Turkey have
39:03
been kind of planning this moment for a long time and have
39:07
been doing an excellent PR job trying to paint themselves as
39:13
secular people. And it's great.
39:15
I mean, they have, you know, they've been doing a really
39:18
great job on that. And I wish Armenians would, you
39:22
know, kind of catch up. It feels.
39:24
It feels they're. Starving, it's a little hard.
39:26
Well, yeah, now it's it's very hard.
39:28
Yeah. So what what are some practical
39:30
things that you want other people to do?
39:32
Like folks listening right now, what are some things that they
39:35
can do? I mean, certainly let's pray for
39:38
the people of Armenia, especially the ones in the
39:40
corridor who are being persecuted and for their for
39:44
their safety, I mean, that they can be freed from this.
39:47
What can people do? I.
39:49
Really, I, I think people feel, oh, I'm not an influencer.
39:53
My voice is too small. Know the story, know the story.
39:57
You don't have to know every detail.
39:58
It's complicated, but, but know your, your story, your American
40:02
history in this way that we did this before, we can do it again.
40:05
And also hashtag save our meaning, your social media.
40:09
The more people talk about it, the better, and the more you
40:13
call, you call your congressman, your representative and just put
40:17
pressure. You know, on them to like, hey,
40:20
this is one of the the and this is again, idealistic, but
40:25
nothing great was ever achieved without great high ideals.
40:28
But you know, Robert Nicholson, the president of the Feels
40:32
project, who's been working on this Army initiative.
40:35
You know, This is why isn't this issue in the presidential
40:38
debates. It should be.
40:40
It should be. Now, again, that seems like it
40:43
could be crazy talk, because why should we care?
40:46
It doesn't matter to us, doesn't change our everyday life.
40:49
But again, if we want to continue to perpetuate true
40:52
Western values here in this country, we need to
40:56
intelligently support it in other places where they
40:59
desperately, desperately need it.
41:01
Well, thank you for being a voice, Simone.
41:03
You've made, you've educated me. I know you're educating so many
41:07
other people who just don't understand.
41:10
And I think that movements going to keep growing.
41:13
And so how can people find and follow your work?
41:16
Thank you so much, Lila. Thank you for this platform and
41:19
this opportunity to retell the, the American Armenian Story.
41:23
Go to filosproject.org/armenia. You can sign up for updates,
41:29
newsletter updates, which I would, I'm really excited to
41:33
share with anybody signing up for, for, for those who are
41:37
Christian, who are interested in the, in the Christian story
41:39
again, First Christian Nation. There's a lot of spiritual
41:43
richness in the Armenian tradition that I look forward to
41:46
sharing, as well as as well as practical ways that you can
41:50
help. Thank you Simone, I'll be
41:52
praying and looking forward to seeing.
41:55
I hope good, good things happen soon as more people become aware
41:59
and we can take action as a country.
42:01
Thank you, Lila. Thank you my friend.