ZUCO'S BLOG

Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians? - Adolf Hitler

How can someone forget something that one never knew about? The massacre of close to 1.5 million Armenians in Anatolia by Ottoman Turkey that began on the 24^th of April 1915 was perhaps the event that seeded the idea of the "Final Solution" in Hitler's mind and I never even knew that.

As a result of the genocide and the subsequent mass migration/deportation of the Armenians, there are now three times more Armenians in Lebanon than in Armenia itself.

Yesterday, Armenians all around the world commemorated the 90th anniversary of the genocide that is still being denied by the Turkish government.

Actually if you read about the history of Armenia and its people, you would probably come to the realisation that they are very cham. It was formerly a strong but landlocked country that was the first in the world to adopt Christianity as its state religion. Unfortunately, it fell under various foreign occupiers before finally getting divided between the Ottoman Empire (present day Turkey) and Safavid Persia (present day Iran); which is probably why there's such a huge diaspora of Armenians around the world today.

My first encounter with Armenia was the Oriental Orthodox* Armenian Church (formally known as the Apostolic Church of Saint Gregory the Illuminator, apparently also called the Surp Krikor Lousavoritch Armenian Church of Singapore) between Hill Street, Armenian Street, Loke Yew Street and Coleman Rise (named after George D Coleman who designed the church). I often walked past it as a restless child killing time between homework and dinner, oblivious to who the Armenians were or the fact that it was the oldest church in Singapore. The only thing that caught my attention then were the numerous graves on the church grounds, which was rather unusual as I had never seen any churches in Singapore with graves before.

Even though the historical community was small in Singapore, some of them became rather famous. For example, Catchick Moses who co-founded the Straits Times, the Sarkies Brothers who established Raffles Hotel and of course Agnes Joaquim who discovered the Vanda Miss Joaquim that subsequently became our national flower.

The only Armenian I ever met in my whole life was this wizened old man who regularly attended the evening services in my church and sat by himself during after-service coffee. He was quite a curiosity because of the fact that he was an Armenian unlike the other British, American, Ozzie and Kiwi members of my church. Unlike him, I could understand why the others were in Singapore. The Brits, Ozzies and Kiwis were former colonial masters, imperial administrators and foot soldiers that evolved to the modern expatriate community. And the Americans were the administrators of a new empire, the booming American business empire.

But he was an oddity that I could not place. As far as I could assume at that young age, he was the only Armenian in Singapore. Of course I was curious about who he was, why he was here and what and who the mysterious Armenians were. But unfortunately, he spoke with a strong accent that was clouded with age that I could not make out. I am sure he would have a lot to tell me about himself and where he came from, but regrettably, my youthful impatience did not permit me the luxury to sit and spend hours talking and trying to understand what he was saying.

Then one fine day, he died.

I may be wrong, but he may have been one of the last few, if not the last Armenian, in Singapore. I really wonder if that community still exists today, cause it would be a real pity if they had just faded away like that

Now I wished I had spent more time with the old man and learned more about him and his people.

(* The Oriental Orthodox Church is the oldest church in the world having been established by the Disciples of Christ, the Apostles. They even predate the Roman Catholic Church that by tradition is believed to be established by the Apostle Peter. But in reality, it was established by Emperor Constantine I, originally Flavius Valerius Constantinus, who adopted Christianity as the state religion of Rome; 12 years after Armenia did the same.)