Speaker Asya Darbinyan, Ph.D. visits Manhattan University to lead a lecture on the Armenian Genocide in honor of the 110th year anniversary of the tragedy.
ASYA DARBINYAN / LINKEDIN.COM
Karen Flores, Senior Writer
The Manhattan University Holocaust, Genocide and Interfaith Education Center welcomed guest speaker Asya Darbinyan, Ph.D., to lead a lecture about the Armenian genocide and the history behind it on Thursday, Jan. 23.
According to Britannica, the Armenian genocide was a campaign led by the Young Turk government which included the mass killing and deportation of Armenians within the Ottoman Empire during World War I.
Menhaz Afridi, Ph.D., a religious studies professor at Manhattan University and director of the Holocaust, Genocide and Interfaith Education Center, spoke with The Quadrangle about why she decided to host this event.
“This year marks the 110th anniversary of the Armenian genocide and I asked her [Darbinyan] if she would like to come and do something, and she said that she’d love to,” Afridi said. “She is from Armenia, and is part of a consortium that I was the co-founder of in 2017.”
Afridi teaches a course on religion and the Holocaust. She mentioned that during this class, her students look into various topics related to genocides throughout history.
“We’re covering the Armenian genocide, and we start with looking at what genocide is, then we look to Armenia, then we look to the Holocaust and also issues regarding race and religion,” Afridi said. “I wanted someone from the outside to come in and talk about how genocide is defined, because there’s so much on social media about this in terms of the Middle East.”
Pashka Durgaj, a senior mechanical engineering major, attended the event and reflected on aspects that resonated with her.
“The word genocide, the person who coined it, was inspired to find that word because of the Armenian genocide in particular,” Durgaj said. “I feel like this one is kind of swept under the rug, especially with the perpetrators not having a reporting of the correct amount of people that were actually killed. It starts with knowing the smaller things, and being able to recognize that those things makes us better equipped to stop it before it gets to the extreme point.”
Durgaj also mentioned that awareness is key when it comes to historical events such as these genocides.
“Awareness is very important, because it teaches people what behaviors not to repeat, [and] things that should be taken into account when mentioning the subject,” Durgaj said.
Afridi emphasized that these kinds of events are important for students to be able to learn how to have their own thoughts and opinions.
“We’re a Catholic institution, we do a lot of peace work and interfaith work, but we also want to educate students with our own faculty with expertise,” Afridi said. “It’s an opportunity for my students to grow and to enrich themselves and to have their own minds and their own thinking about how they feel about a certain issue or topic.”
Durgaj said that having the chance to be educated about these devastating events is impactful, as it also showcases the resilience of those affected.
“A lot of people hear about such devastating tragedies, and such inhumane violence, so people may act very discouraged and think how there’s so much evil in the world, and little that they can do about it,” Durgaj said. “But being able to be educated, to have survivors and family members of survivors, along with people who become scholars that can fill the education gap about these places is a very impactful thing.”