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I recently returned to Armenia following four months of study at Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. I felt "at home" in Boston, not only because of its thriving Armenian community but also because Bostonians—from professors to fellow students to strangers—were truly welcoming.
Yet the reality is that while I returned "home" to Armenia, I cannot for now return to my real home in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh)—which declared independence in 1991, and enjoyed democratic self-rule from the fall of the Soviet Union until last year. My ancestral homeland was ethnically cleansed by Azerbaijan last September.
The irony is that I applied to the Tavitian Fellows program at Tufts during the peak of Azerbaijan's 10-month blockade of my homeland, making my application process feel almost surreal. Living under siege, deprived of the bare essentials and free movement, even reaching the nearest settlement in nearby Armenia proper seemed impossible; how would I reach Boston? But I did apply, believing that if I wanted the blockade lifted, I needed to first create the hope in my mind that we would one day reconnect to the world.
I never imagined that the road would not only open, allowing me to travel across the ocean to Boston, but that the act that would enable it—my expulsion along with that of 120,000 of my compatriots—would also deny me a return home after the program's completion.
Established by the late Aso Tavitian, a businessman and philanthropist of Armenian heritage, the Tavitian Scholars program has for over 25 years been providing hundreds of mid-level government professionals from Armenia and Artsakh the opportunity to enhance their knowledge and skills.
While I applied as a civil servant who had worked in parliament for 14 years, over the past two years, including during the blockade, I had worked as a journalist. It was a childhood dream-turned-nightmare because I was amplifying to the world how our war-torn region was under siege.
I wrote stories of mothers waiting in bread lines all night, children attending school while braving freezing temperatures, pregnant women losing their unborn children to malnutrition and stress, and mothers in shelters praying for their children's survival. Many didn't survive.
When I arrived at Fletcher, I had already lost my homeland, my home, my career, and the very essence of my past, Being at Fletcher began the healing process for me. While I was there, back home several ancient churches and cemeteries were razed to the ground by Azerbaijan. Another irony—While I was in Boston developing my knowledge and skills in government and diplomacy, my own parliament building was being demolished, with Azerbaijan's president proudly lighting a bonfire during a major celebration and referring to it as a "final cleaning." This officially confirmed that our expulsion from Artsakh was an intentional ethnic cleansing.
Fletcher's deep traditions in diplomatic studies were an opportunity to explore the contradictions and conflicts of interest among great powers, and how historical experiences and technological developments affect security dynamics, legal challenges, and negotiation processes. Yet I was struck by the fact that in none of the lectures was the ethnic cleansing of Artsakh mentioned; all discussions revolved around Ukraine and Gaza.
While I'm sure the campus protests that got so many headlines didn't mean to ignore the world's other injustices, my recent and raw experiences weren't even acknowledged. To their credit though, my thoughtful peers and professors at Fletcher, who warmly embraced me during my time of greatest need, also welcomed the discussions I raised, sharing the bitter and painful experiences that I and my compatriots faced.
Behind every statistic, there's a tragic story of loss and salvation, pain and sacrifice, hopelessness and faith, and about families that need support, including from the U.S. Yes, I have expectations from America, which for years has been involved in the negotiation process for a peaceful resolution of the conflict in the region. U.S. State Department officials assured us that the US ''will not tolerate any military action, will not tolerate any attack on the people of Nagorno-Karabakh and that our rights would be protected within Azerbaijan. They weren't.
Now I'm in Armenia. As I walk through the noisy streets of the capital city, Yerevan, I feel as though I'm living someone else's life. Not only have I been deprived of my right to return home, but I just learned that my entire neighborhood where I lived for so many years is completely demolished, as was my workplace. It's as though Azerbaijan, with the world's complicity, is erasing my life, my past, and our millennial history. The world's indifference is deafening.
The journalist Edward R. Murrow, whose name graces Fletcher's Center for Global Diplomacy, said, "No one man can terrorize a whole nation unless we are all his accomplices."
By staying silent, we are all allowing Artsakh to be erased.
Siranush Sargsyan is an independent journalist.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
