The world failed to act in 2020 when Azerbaijan attacked Armenia. Now history repeats itself in Ukraine.

A rustic led by an authoritarian launches an unprovoked conflict claiming sovereignty over historic lands. Hundreds of harmless lives are upended. Fathers depart kids behind to defend their nation. Church buildings and hospitals are bombed. Battle crimes are dedicated.

Sound acquainted? Whereas this may depict occasions at present unfolding in Ukraine, it additionally describes what occurred to Armenians dwelling of their ancestral homeland of Nagorno-Karabakh when Azerbaijan began a conflict within the fall of 2020.

However in contrast to Ukraine, the place worldwide condemnation of Russian aggression has been swift and extreme, the world stayed largely silent when Armenians have been desperately asking for help and assist. For hundreds of thousands of Armenians dwelling all over the world, this story is all too acquainted. As victims of the primary genocide of the twentieth century, when greater than 1.5 million Armenians have been systematically exterminated by the Ottoman Turks, an occasion Turkey denies to this present day, Armenians have come to count on that their struggling and ache shouldn’t be worthy of comparable consideration.

The occasions happening in Ukraine and the imbalance of protection that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict acquired has solely crystalized these emotions of frustration and exasperation. Wars are usually not a contest. And the folks of Ukraine deserve all the assistance and help that the world may give them to cease Vladimir Putin’s quixotic marketing campaign to revive the Soviet Union. However specializing in only one group undermines what different nations have endured in comparable conflicts, wars, and wanton acts of violence. It provides despots cowl to commit acts of violence at will and with out restraint.

Strongmen like Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan share contempt for the rule of legislation. Had the world acted on behalf of Armenia in 2020 — or, for that matter, through the Armenian genocide in 1915 — then possibly that will have despatched a stronger message to autocrats like Putin whose actions show that they consider they will perform acts of aggression in opposition to different nations with impunity. What’s taking place to Ukrainians is just like what occurred to Armenians. These are usually not mutually unique occasions. The parallels couldn’t be starker.

Taking a web page out of Putin’s playbook, President Aliyev used the pretext of historic revisionism to launch his unprovoked conflict in opposition to Armenians dwelling in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020. Claiming that enormous components of Armenia’s territory have been Azerbaijan’s “historic lands,” Aliyev defended this perception via incendiary language in quite a few speeches main as much as the conflict and even went up to now to say that Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, belonged to Azerbaijan. Nothing might be farther from the reality. It is among the explanation why he has launched into a marketing campaign to erase Armenia’s historical past and existence within the area by defacing, vandalizing, and destroying Armenian heritage and cultural websites, together with church buildings and monasteries which have stood for lots of of years.

Already we’re seeing Russian forces attempt to interact in comparable efforts. As an illustration, Moscow drew worldwide condemnation after an airstrike hit Babyn Yar, a Holocaust memorial web site the place Nazis killed 1000’s of Jews throughout World Battle II. Whether or not or not it was intentional, the final word message that Russia despatched was clear. Equally, photos surfaced through the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict exhibiting a memorial devoted to the victims of the Armenian genocide in Shushi being razed by occupying Azeri forces.

Regardless of these parallels, the world responded a lot in a different way to every occasion. Whereas Russia has rightly been sanctioned economically and labeled a pariah, Azerbaijan didn’t even get a slap on the wrist. FIFA and UEFA, the world’s largest governing physique for soccer, banned Russia however rewarded Azerbaijan by permitting it to host the 2020 European Championship video games. Those self same video games have been held subsequent door to Azerbaijan Navy Trophies Park, which glorifies and extols Azerbaijan’s victory within the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh Battle with Armenia, which principally represents a blatant disrespect for human rights because it celebrates its conflict crimes.

The park incorporates a show of lots of of helmets taken from Armenian troopers killed through the conflict and wax mannequins of captured troopers portrayed via exaggerated caricatures based mostly on Armenian stereotypes and tropes like crooked noses and bushy eyebrows. Many of those mannequins are of individuals proven of their dying moments or chained to jail cells.

Battle shouldn’t be a zero-sum recreation in relation to consciousness. It’s evil and represents the very worst of humanity. That’s the reason all conflicts deserve consideration. Human lives shouldn’t be measured by the dimensions of a rustic or the pure assets it could have. In some ways, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in 2020 was a harbinger of Russia’s conflict in Ukraine. As with the teachings of the Armenian genocide, the world did not study from historical past. Sadly, that historical past is repeating itself as soon as once more.

Stephan Pechdimaldji is a communications strategist who lives within the San Francisco Bay Space.