By Vache Kahramanian

In our modern, globalised and ever-changing world it is often easy to forget where one comes from. Some choose to forget, some don't have the time to remember, and some unfortunately were never given the right to know.

Last Friday night I had the pleasure to meet and hear Turkish human rights lawyer and writer Fethiye Cetin speak about her book My Grandmother.

Fethiye is one of the lucky ones. Her grandmother was born an Armenian and taken away from her parents at a young age to be brought up in a Turkish family. Her grandmother lived her whole life with a secret kept inside her, a secret she only shared with her granddaughter before departing from this world.

The impact of such an event can not be described, yet it further reinforces the fact that the events on the Armenian Genocide still resonate and impact on peoples' lives even after 95 years. As Fethiye comes to terms with her past, a nation is still subject to the denialist machine of the Turkish government. And who knows how many more people will never be allowed to know their past...

It takes courage to look back in time, however, it takes strength to accept the events and correctly label them as Genocide. To Fethiye, I'm grateful you were given the opportunity to know. To the many millions more, after 95 years time is no longer on your side.

Time can never erase the impacts of such a heinous crime against humanity. Time will never change the facts of what happened in 1915. It is time for the Turkish nation to look into its past and accept, acknowledge and most importantly condemn.

By closing I would like to use the words of a great and noble man, The Late Holiness Karekin I, who once said, ‘Those who forget the past, have no future'.

Vache Kahramanian is the Political Relations Director of the Armenian National Committee of Australia (ANC Australia)