As an ancient people living on the silk-road amidst centuries of empires, occupations, genocide and ethnic cleansing it is a miracle that we have been able to preserve our identity, language and culture both in diaspora as well as inside Armenia as well as in Palestine. In fact, it is a miracle that we even have a country that we can now call Armenia which is recognised as a sovereign state. The storytelling evening will share ways in which our collective identity has survived throughout the centuries and ways in which the Armenian identity, culture and language has survived.

The stories connect in different ways. There has been a continuous Armenian presence in Palestine at least since the 6th century.

Our story is not unique, but connected to a bigger history of colonial empire(s) and genocidal erasure of peoples across the globe. The evening will share stories from the Armenian Highlands as well as Armenians inside Palestine. Together we would like to reflect with the audience on the question; what makes fighting for your ancestral heritage worth the fight?

Between 18:00 and 19:00, we will be eating Armenian home made food from Mom’s kitchen.

Stories From the Armenian Highlands:

The session will be opened by a family and survival story of great grandfather Harutyun Simon Bedoyan from the infamous village of resistance called Zeytun during the Armenian Genocide. A village that is now being called Sulemanli in present day Turkey, which used to be part of the Armenian highlands. Here brothers Max Arto and Chris Kasper de Ploeg Bedoyan will share how together with their family they went back to visit their ancestral village and what they have encountered and learned, and how the story of Zeytun is also related to the larger history of Armenian resilience over the centuries. Max and Chris are both decolonial activist, and community organisers and have co-founded Aralez, a foundation that works on decolonisation and reparations.

Stories of Palestinian Armenians: Elise Aghazarian, a Palestinian-Armenian sociologist, will explore the histories and lived experiences of Palestinian Armenians through personal memories and her research into the oral and written biographies of the community. Elise is a PhD candidate at the University of Groningen and holds an MA in Social Sciences from the University of Amsterdam and a certificate in Teaching Arabic as a Second Language. She teaches Arabic language and culture at Dutch universities, translates books and articles from English into Arabic, and writes on Palestinian and Arab culture, gender, sociopolitical and colonial issues, and Armenian affairs.