Marc A. Mamigonian
I have seen them carved in stone monuments, lit up on the big screen in The Promise,
framed and hung on the wall outside my own office. Practically every
Armenian knows them, and probably quite a few know them by heart —
these, the most famous words of William Saroyan:
I
should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small
tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost,
whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard,
and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia. See if you
can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their
homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray
again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will
not create a New Armenia.
These
words resonate with Armenians everywhere, and not only Armenians. They
have been quoted on the floor in Congress. David Mamet uses them as an
epigraph in his book The Wicked Son: Anti-Semitism, Self-Hatred, and the Jews. They speak of deep yearnings and fond hopes — for the immortality of the Armenian spirit and the Armenian nation.
There is only one problem. These aren’t the words William Saroyan wrote.[1]
