TO OUR READERS: Please Note that the California Courier will go on our
semi-annual vacation. We will return for publication on January 11, 2007.
Happy New Year and a Merry Armenian Christmas to All.
California Courier Online, December 28, 2006
1 – Commentary
Who Publicizes the Genocide More?
Armenians or Turks?
By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier
2 – Armenian American Nurses Association Holds Flu Clinic
3 – Judge Sinanian Appointed Supervising
Site Judge of Burbank Courthouse
4 – History Channel Documentary Films in
Etchmiadzin for Spear That Pierced Christ
5 – The Genocide Education Project Reaches
Hundreds of Teachers at National Conference
6 – California Will Begin Plans to Build
Genocide Memorial in Sacramento
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1 – Commentary
Who Publicizes the Genocide More?
Armenians or Turks?
By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier
The Foreign Minister of Turkey, Abdullah Gul, announced this week that the
Turkish government is planning to launch in 2007 a new comprehensive propaganda
campaign to deny the Armenian Genocide. All previous Turkish government
attempts to bury the facts of the Armenian Genocide have ended in failure, after
wasting millions of dollars on lobbying firms and books by phony "scholars."
Ironically, the more the Turks try to deny the crime committed by Ottoman Turkey
in 1915, the greater the number of countries, international organizations and
individuals that recognize it.
In recent weeks, after the Argentinean Parliament recognized the Armenian
Genocide, Ankara warned that country’s Senate not to follow suit. Despite the
Turkish warning, and maybe because of it, the Argentinean Senate adopted the
Armenian Genocide resolution unanimously! A couple of months ago, when the French
Parliament adopted a bill that would make it a crime to deny the Armenian
Genocide, the Turkish government gave a similar warning to the French Senate. If
the Turks continue to irritate the French by their threats and obnoxious
insults, I have no doubt that the Senate would reciprocate by adopting thisnew law
by an overwhelming majority!
Here are a few other items of interest to our readers:
— Several Turkish newspapers reported last week that the Armenian American
lobby scored a major victory when Pres. Bush could not get the Senate to
confirm Richard Hoagland, the Ambassador-designate for Armenia. The Turkishpress
quoted an analyst as saying that the blocking of Hoagland’s nomination was a
major success for Armenians: "The Armenian lobby has never been this strong."
— The Canadian Jewish News reported on December 14 that Israel has developed
"a rich friendship" with Shiite Muslim Azerbaijan. "The relationship was born
in 1992 when Israel supported Azerbaijan against Armenia in the Karabagh
War," the Jewish publication stated. Since then, Israel has continued "to provide
intelligence, security and military training to Azerbaijan…. Israel’s Backcell
is the second-largest cell phone operator" in Azerbaijan and is "one of many
Israeli businesses doing brisk trade" in Baku.
— The Turkish Culture Minister announced last week that the official opening
ceremonies for the renovated Aghtamar Armenian Church would take place on
April 24. The Patriarch of Constantinople, Archbishop Mesrob Moutafian, issued an
uncharacteristically bold statement, saying that holding the ceremony on that
date would be exploiting Armenian people’s suffering for political gain. He
said that neither he nor any other Armenian would participate in such a
ceremony on April 24. It has been obvious to me from the very beginning that Turkish
officials were planning to exploit the renovation of Aghtamar for political
purposes, independently of the date of the ceremony. Maybe the Patriarch,
instead of objecting, should have accepted that date and turned the ceremony planned
for April 24 into a commemoration of the Armenian Genocide — which would
have been a first in Turkey since 1915.
— Sylvester Stallone announced last week that he is interested in making
Franz Werfel’s famous novel, "The Forty Days of Musa Dagh," into a blockbuster
movie. Turks went into total panic and organized a worldwide e-mail campaign
urging Stallone not to be "an instrument of Armenian lobbies." Armenians onthe
other hand were so excited that they started celebrating as if the movie was
already made. Surprisingly, neither Turks nor Armenians seem to remember that
Stallone has made this same announcement several times in the past with nothing
to show for. However, should Stallone end up making this movie someday, he can
count on the Turks to provide a lot of free publicity, ensuring its success!
— Turkey’s Prime Minister, Recep Erdogan, told the editors of the New York
Times last week that they had become "a tool in the hands of the Armenians." He
was unhappy that the N.Y. Times had decided that the newspaper would refer to
the Armenian Genocide as a historical fact. This is the second time that the
Turkish Prime Minister has personally complained to the N.Y. Times on this
issue in the past couple of years. Maybe it’s about time that Erdogan realized
that the N.Y. Times, true to its noble calling, is a tool for the truth andnot
a tool for Turkish denialism.
–Father Serop Azarian, the Pastor of the St. Gregory Armenian Apostolic
Church in Granite City/St. Louis, sent me an e-mail describing his encounter with
Turkish novelist and Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk, at a lecture sponsored by the
Washington University in St. Louis on Nov. 27. Fr. Azarian said in his
e-mail: "Although in his speech Pamuk came close to mentioning the Armenians,
denounced the criminal regime of the Young Turks and the delusional Turkishleaders
of today, and spoke about the need for Turkey to be more open and responsible,
he did not say one word about Armenians or the Genocide. He was cautious and,
I think, rather cowardly in not telling the truth. While signing his books,I
approached him and asked him if he would write a novel about prominent
Armenian Genocide victims, such as novelist and Parliament member Krikor Zohrab.
Initially, he warmly said (in a very low voice): ‘I live there [Turkey]. I cannot
do it.’ Then in a louder and more blunt tone he said: ‘As a novelist, I
choose what I write.’ " Later on, in December, while in Sweden to receive the Nobel
Prize for Literature, when asked about the Armenian Genocide, Pamuk replied:
"No comment!" It appears that Turkish denialists have succeeded in scaring
this great writer into silence with their threats.
Let’s see what 2007 has in store for the Armenian Cause. One thing is
certain: Armenians can count on Turkish denialists to continue publicizing the
Armenian Genocide by their extremist actions.
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2 – Armenian American Nurses Association Holds Flu Clinic
By John Krikorian
GLENDALE – The Armenian American Nurses Association (AANA) joined forces with
the Glendale Adventist Medical Center and held a "free" Flu clinic with the
assistance of energetic student volunteers from Glendale High School.
The AANA has been coordinating this event since 1998.
The nurses administered over 300 doses of flu shots to community members.
The flu clinics were held in Glendale’s St. Mary’s Apostolic Armenian Church
and also at various Adult Day Care Centers. The volunteer nurses that helped
at St. Mary’s Armenian Church were Rosine Der-Tavitian, the Flu clinic
coordinator, along with other nurses from the AANA and employees of the centers.
The nurses that assisted the event were Mary Konyalian RN, MSN, and current
president of the AANA, Sossi Mikaelian RN, Ani Iskenderian RN, C RAC-C, and
Aghavni Khachadourian RN.
"Once again, Glendale can take deep pride in having the excellent caliber of
youth from Glendale High School that helped fill out forms, translations and
other logistic work that was needed to accomplish our mission in serving the
Glendale community. They gave up their leisure time as did the Armenian American
Nurses Association to serve the community," noted John Krikorian, consultant,
Krikorian Marketing Group.
"It’s Not Flu As Usual" brochures were distributed by Krikorian Marketing
Group at the Flu Clinic supporting the County of Los Angeles Public Health
campaign that targets families and individuals, the medical community, businesses,
and community organizations. The brochures that will be distributed throughout
the community will be supported by a media advertising campaign that will
emphasize the importance of "Clean Hands" as the best form of preventive care to
avoid the Pandemic Flu. The campaign will be in Armenian, Russian, Arabic and
Farsi languages.
The Flu Clinic itself was under the direction of Mary Konyalian RN, MSN,
current president of the AANA and Rosine Der-Tavitian RN, BSN, PHN, flu clinic
coordinator, along with Krikorian Marketing Group.
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3 – Judge Sinanian Appointed Supervising
Site Judge of Burbank Courthouse
LOS ANGELES – Last month, J. Stephen Czuleger, Presiding Judge-elect of the
Los Angeles County Superior Court appointed Judge Zaven V. Sinanian as site
supervising judge of the North Central District, Burbank courthouse. Judge
Sinanian will assume that position on January 8.
Among his duties, Sinanian will be supervising the judges, commissioners and
temporary judges who sit at the Burbank courthouse. He is the first Armenian
American judge to be appointed site judge in the North Central District, which
includes the Burbank and Glendale courthouses and has the largest
concentration of Armenian Americans outside of Yerevan.
Also, in December, 2006, Judge Sinanian was reelected by his colleagues as
the North Central District’s representative to the Los Angeles Superior Court’s
Executive Committee, which is the policy making body of the court. Sinanian
has been a member of the statewide Judicial Council Advisory Committee on
Access and Fairness, to which he was appointed by Chief Justice Ronald M. George
of the California Supreme Court in December, 2005.
Sinanian currently serves as vice-chair of the Los Angeles Superior Court
subcommittee on diversity, a member of that court’s Access and Fairness
committee, Outreach committee, Bench and Bar committee and the Alternative Dispute
Resolution committee.
Sinanian was appointed to the bench in June, 2002 by Governor Gray Davis. He
was elected to another term by the voters of Los Angeles County in 2004.
Since his appointment, Sinanian has presided over a variety of assignments,
including general criminal and civil trials, family law and probate cases,and
unlawful detainers.
"We are very pleased with Judge Sinanian’s appointment as the site judge,"
said Frank Zerunyan, Chairman of the Armenian Bar Association and a City
Councilman for the City of Rolling Hills Estates. "He is very qualified forthe
position, and I am not surprised at all by the fact that he has received this
important appointment so early in his judicial career," said Zerunyan.
Sinanian is a past Chairman of the Armenian Bar, and continues to participate
in its seminars, panel discussions and continuing education classes for
attorneys.
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4 – History Channel Documentary Films in
Etchmiadzin for Spear That Pierced Christ.
YEREVAN (Azg) – For the first time, a US film crew has traveled to Armenia to
investigate the Holy Lance in Etchmiadzin.
Producer Ken Winikur and Boston-based Northern Light Productions have
recently completed "The Spear of Christ", a one-hour documentary for the History
Channel’s, "Decoding the Past" series.
Filmed in over 4 countries, including Armenia and Turkey, the program follows
the legend of one of history’s most powerful relics on its 2000-year journey.
The spear that pierced the side of Jesus Christ while he was on the cross is
believed to hold miraculous powers. It has been linked to some of history’s
most powerful rulers and said to have been present at some of the greatest
battles ever waged.
Constantine and Charlemagne have waved the spear. The ruthless Adolf Hitler
coveted it. Today, four artifacts exist which claim to be this holy spear: one
in Vienna, one in Poland, one in the Vatican, and the mysterious lance of
Armenia. The program examines each in an effort to determine which, if any,is the
authentic Spear of Christ, and what powers each may hold.
Tufts Professor, Ina Baghdiantz McCabe, Darakjian Jafarian Chair of Armenian
History at Tufts University provides a historical analysisof Armenia and the
Spear. Unprecedented access to the Holy See of Etchmiadzin and exclusive
footage of the Holy Lance being used in religious ceremonies will be seen.
"The story of its Holy Lance is virtually unknown to an American audience and
we are excited to feature it in our program," Winiker said.
Winikur’s previous film, Bet Herut, the end of the beginning, a one-hour
documentary investigating the rise and fall of a communal farming village in
Israel made its world premiere to a packed house at the 2003 Philadelphia Film
Festival. It has since gone on to show around the world, most recently on athree
city tour in Israel.
The information was rendered by Lola Koundakjian at the Armenian Poetry
Project on the web
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5 – The Genocide Education Project Reaches
Hundreds of Teachers at National Conference
WASHINGTON, DC – The Genocide Education Project expanded on its participation
in the annual conference of the National
Council for the Social Studies, which took place November 30th through
December 3rd in Washington, DC. The Genocide Education Project drew more than 700
educators to its information booth, disseminating new and varied instructional
materials about the Armenian Genocide.
Education Director, Sara Cohan, conducted a workshop on "Exploring the Impact
of the Armenian Genocide," incorporating genocide survivor photographs and
testimony. In addition, Cohan and Executive Director, Raffi Momjian conducted a
one-day teaching "clinic" entitled, "Teaching Genocide in the Age of
Genocide," in collaboration with the United States Holocaust
Memorial Museum, Facing History and Ourselves and the Choices Program at
Brown University.
This year’s hallmark conference for social studies educators drew
approximately 4500 educators from around the country. The Genocide Education Project’s
booth distributed information and guides about teaching the Armenian Genocide
in the classroom and collected educators’ contact information to keep them
informed about future projects and teacher training workshops it conducts and to
update them about the various teaching resources it develops.
After working together for the past year to organize the one-day clinic
"Teaching Genocide in the Age of Genocide," The Genocide Education Project led a
team of educators from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Facing
History and Ourselves, and the Choices Program at Brown University, providing an
approach to genocide education which considers causes, methods, parallel events,
individual responsibility, and prevention.
"Having the opportunity to work with educational organizations who share a
common mission was exhilarating" commented The Genocide Education Project’s
Executive Director, Raffi Momjian. He continued, "The result was exactly what we
had hoped for -teachers attending our presentations received a solid
introduction to the subject of genocide education and based on their post-clinic
comments, are ready to explore the subject with their students."
The Genocide Education Project also was selected to present a one-hour
workshop, "Exploring the Impact of the Armenian Genocide through Contemporary
Photographs and Survivor Testimony." Using a lesson plan developed by The Genocide
Education Project, based on the iWitness photograph exhibit by Levon Parian
and Ara Oshagan, teachers modeled
classroom activities using photographs and testimony of survivors of the
Armenian Genocide in order to better understand the impact of genocide.
Next year’s NCSS Annual Conference will be held in San Diego, California.
The Genocide Education Project is looking forward to continuing its outreach at
this and other conferences, working directly with educators, providing them
with innovative teaching material on the Armenian Genocide and professional
development opportunities to engage with colleagues on the subject.
The Genocide Education Project is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that
assists educators in teaching about human rights and genocide, particularlythe
Armenian Genocide, by developing and distributing instructional materials,
providing access to teaching resources and organizing educational workshops
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6 – California Will Begin Plans to Build
Genocide Memorial in Sacramento.
By Peter Hecht
The Sacramento Bee
SACRAMENTO – Assembly Member Lloyd Levine says he came to understand his
Jewish cultural roots and comprehend a horrific epoch in history on a trip to
Israel in 2004.
He was at the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, transfixed by cubes
stacked like children’s play blocks. Each depicted children who died of Nazi
genocide. A somber voice intoned their names as 1.6 million beams of light
reflected the toll of young lives taken.
"For the next several hours, I had the abiding urge to throw up," said
Levine, D-Van Nuys. "It makes you sick knowing what happened."
Levine returned to California determined to make his own contribution to the
victims by seeking a "dignified and quiet" memorial outside the Capitol to
honor those who "perished and suffered" in the Holocaust.
But as the bill he sponsored was debated and amended in the Legislature and
then signed into law by Gov. Schwarzenegger on Sept. 30, Levine’s vision grew
markedly.
Under Assembly Bill 1210, which goes into effect Jan. 1, California will
begin a quest to construct a memorial in Sacramento not only for victims and
survivors of the Holocaust – but for all people who faced genocide and ethnic
cleansing across the world and many generations.
On its face, the effort raises a poignant challenge by seeking to bring
together diverse peoples and histories to acknowledge acts of inhumanity from the
Holocaust of Nazi Germany to the killing fields of Cambodia to the ethnic
slaughter in Darfur.
Though still an ill-defined concept, the idea of such a memorial is stirring
emotional discussions among vast, varied communities affected by genocide.
In Glendale, Haig Hovsepian hopes the memorial will acknowledge the mass
murder of hundreds of thousands of Armenians in Turkey in 1915.
"A vast majority of Armenians who came to California were either survivors or
descendants of the victims of Armenian genocide," said Hovespian, community
relations director for Armenian National Committee of America. "If you wantto
boil it down, it is the reason that they are Californians today."
In Sacramento, Zang Fang, 36, believes such a monument should acknowledge
Hmong refugees who fled wanton killings in Laos during 30 years of retaliations
for the Hmong’s support of the United States’ secret war against communist
Pathet Lao in the 1970s.
Under AB 1210, a nine-member International Genocide Commission, including at
least six survivors or descendants of genocide, will be appointed to selecta
design and initiate private fundraising to build the memorial.
The bill declares that "California recognizes the atrocities of all ethnic
cleansing campaigns," including "the Holocaust, Kosovo, Armenian genocide,
Rwanda, African American slaves, Native Americans and the plight of the Hmong in
Southeast Asia."
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