Well, now that today is over, here is my view on it.
My grandfather was born as the genocide was coming to a close and the first independent Armenia rose up from that. His family had already fled from the Lake Van region to this new Armenia, and as the Turks attacked this new Armenia, they had to flee again to Iran, although many of his family members were killed during the "war" and during the genocide. Now I'm in LA, one of the largest areas of emigration. I know
@Slevs family is from the Middle East (for purposes of this convo Iran is not part of the ME), where there is another large population of Armenians, many of whom were driven there by the genocide.
Why do I say this? Because as a direct result of the genocide, Armenia is slowly dying. Outside of the Jewish community, we have the largest diaspora in the world. Why? In large part due to the genocide, but also because most everyone has to leave as there is little in the way of work outside of the tech sector. The trend is slowly reversing, but its mostly older folk that want to die in their homeland, which places greater strain on the health care system.
Yerevan has modernized and tried to become a tech center, yes, but you go outside of Yerevan... my heart broke when I see the poverty villagers are in. Pashinyan tried to open us up for more Western investment and move more towards the middle between the West and Russia, and all that did was alienate Russia to where they sat on the sidelines in the Azeri conflict, unwilling to get involved in another proxy war with Turkey. I say this because as the Azeris are using drones to bomb us, we literally have to have fundraisers just to try and get night vision goggles for our troops. Just another sign of how grim it is in the country.
With all that being said, and I get that its personal for me, were sat here watching as Biden is hemming and hawing over whether to use the word genocide? We have way bigger issues, like trying to build up the economy and provide opportunities for the people while trying to increase the population and stemming the tide of emigration, and while I am thankful he finally said it, it gets to the point where its like feck you dude. I know in the grand scheme of things were a nothing nation and not many would understand or even care about the deeper lying issues... but at the same time its not like you're going to sanction Turkey until they give us reparations as a result of this decision, you're just calling a spade a spade, which to me is the least you can do.