English

I thank the Turkish citizens who started an online petition to apologize, for their share, to the Armenians of today (www.ozurdiliyoruz.com).

They took in conscience and publicly the decision to no longer support the denial they were involved in for 94 years. With this unprecedented gesture, they do recognize that denying 1915 genocide victims implies as a consequence  the denial of the moral injuries of the survivors and their descendants.
Being aware of the risks they run,  I decide in my turn, to respond in a manner other than indifference, criticism or abiding time. Citizen of the world and child of Armenian survivors, I express my gratitude to the signatories for their courage.
Denial and lies have been and continue to make the bed of extremism, generating hatred and suffering. Any form of violence must now belong to a bygone past.
Today the time may have arrived for truth that soothes, for encounters and for sharing. This is the path opened by Hrant Dink. I believe in the strong determination of men and women on both sides to accelerate this process on a human level.
Turkish civil society is entitled to know, freely and independently, all that has taken place. Information and books are available everywhere and also in Turkey; testimony and traces are still there, words liberate themselves despite and against the state’s denials.

In this context, I welcome this initiative as an authentic sign of hope and progress of history, and I support it personally.

France, January 19, 2009

You are invited  to sign, if you want, by:

1) adding your first name, name, position and city in the comments

2) confirm for security by sending an email with the same informations to merci.jesigne@gmail.com