But while wishing to be strong is noble, forgetting the past leads to others repeating mistakes of the past in different contexts -- genocides continue to reoccur. It is this that has proved the most significant lesson of Balakian's work regarding my perception of the world. I will never look at the signs to 'Save Darfur' the same way, after reading The Black Dog of Fate. Like myself, Balakian grew up at a table groaning with plenty, where his relative's past seemed very far away from Tenafly, New Jersey. In America, even after September 11th, it is easy to feel as though old, ethnic tribal memories and conflicts are very far away, when one is living one's daily existence and is obsessed with the day-to-day demands of one's personal life. Balakian came to learn about his family's history, not in some great, single revelation, like might happen in a made-for-TV movie, but slowly,...

Partly motivated by what he learned in college about justice, he asked his family uncomfortable questions about the Armenian Genocide.
My studies for this class entitled "Perspective on Freedom" have taught me that the one thing that is constraining is silence and ignorance. I am majoring in Chemistry. Chemistry requires rigorous scientific inquiry and truth telling, so that persons can understand and realize what is true about the natural world. This same scrutiny must be brought to history and to modern politics, to create a more just world. People must learn more about what has happened in the past, and apply these lessons to the present -- because we are free to learn under law, this does not make us morally free to forget.