System of a Down have thanked President Joe Biden for recognizing the Armenian Genocide.
Fans of System of a Down are undoubtedly aware of how important political and social causes are to the band’s members. The group’s Armenian-American heritage has informed much of their work, including last year’s first new songs from the band in 15 years, recorded to underscore the consequences of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war.
Frontman Serj Tankian writes, “Thank you to President Joe Biden for properly recognizing the #ArmenianGenocide today. This is extremely important but only a milestone towards the long road of justice ahead with Turkey and its imminent need to do the same and make amends towards the descendants of 1.5 Million Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians systematically slaughtered by its Ottoman Turkish ancestors. Today, I will say thank you to the US and all those who have fought hard for this statement over the years.”
Drummer John Dolmayan also posted a statement to Instagram, writing, “I would like to thank President @joebiden for recognizing officially that the Armenian Genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) happened and that this crime against humanity emboldened Hitler and many other genocidal dictators throughout the last century. I will forever be grateful to this administration as an Armenian and as a proud American. I would further like to comment on the genocide of native Americans throughout North, Central, and South America and how the indigenous people who lived here before us deserve not only our empathy but also our support. Ultimately we are all one people regardless of our beliefs or other differences, hopefully one day we as humans will accept that fact and live in peace.”
As reported by The New York Times, the president’s acknowledgment of the Ottoman-era mass murder and ethnic cleansing of over a million Armenians during World War I as a genocide, a campaign promise Biden’s now made good on, is a break from past U.S. presidents.
“Each year on this day,” the White House’s April 24 statement begins, “we remember the lives of all those who died in the Ottoman-era Armenian genocide and recommit ourselves to preventing such an atrocity from ever again occurring.”
It continues, “Beginning on April 24, 1915, with the arrest of Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople by Ottoman authorities, one and a half million Armenians were deported, massacred, or marched to their deaths in a campaign of extermination. We honor the victims of the Meds Yeghern so that the horrors of what happened are never lost to history. And we remember so that we remain ever-vigilant against the corrosive influence of hate in all its forms.”
The statement concludes by urging Americans to “honor all those Armenians who perished in the genocide that began 106 years ago.”
