By Edmond Y. Azadian
Newspapers, television screens and the Internet are all flooded with stories and pictures about refugees pouring in and around the Mediterranean. The caravans moving over land and the rickety ships on seas evoke memories of yesteryear, when emaciated refugees marching on some of those very roads taken today were Armenians seeking refuge in any country willing to shelter them, seeking peace and survival for their families.
Therefore, all those images and news stories strike a very deep chord with the Armenians who are descendants of Genocide survivors.
History repeats itself, though this time with a cast of Syrians, Iraqis and Libyans.
Some European governments, such as Germany, demonstrate empathy towards the plight of those uprooted people. Others, such as the Hungarian government, treat those human beings as so many heads of cattle, as they try to cross through Hungarian lands to reach northern countries. It is ironic that Hungary, which until a little over two decades ago was suffering economically because of the Iron Curtain, can spare so little sympathy.
In both cases — whether charitable or not — there is a sense of irony which needs to be identified and addressed. The people who are knocking at the doors of Europe are in that position not because they decided overnight to abandon their habitats and seek refuge in Europe. They are the victims of a man-made humanitarian catastrophe splintering their countries, designed by the very same powers upon whose mercy they are throwing themselves.
