Author: Baghdasarian Karlen

‘THE BOOK TARGETS THE CONSCIENCE OF THE WORLD’S READERS’
By Gohar Gevorgian
AZG Armenian Daily #182
11/10/2005
Bookshelf
“The colossal literature on Armenian Genocide has gotten enriched
today by one more book. This book, written in brilliant methods of
feature, targets the conscience of the world’s readers”, Levon Ananian,
president of the Writers’ Union, said at the presentation of “A Summer
Without Sunrise” book by Hakob Khachikian and Jean-Yves Sussi.
“A Summer Without Sunrise” of Hakob Khachikian, author of more than
20 books, was first published in French in 1991 and then republished
3 times in French, 3 times in English as well as in Romanian, German,
Spanish and Armenian. The presentation of the Armenian translation
will take place in near future; the Turkish version is waiting for
publication.
The novel is about the Armenian Genocide. “Delineated against the
background of complicated human relations, the novel emphasizes the
national drama.
Built on human relations, it preserves the historic standpoint”,
Yervand Azatian, vice-chairman of Tekeyan Cultural Union in the US
and Canada, said.
A people’s tragedy is shown in the book by a family’s fate. The
protagonist is Vartan Palian, writer, officer of the Turkish army
and a parliament member, introduces the tragedy that his people
went through. The speakers of the day compared the book’s power and
resonance with that of “The 40 Days of Musa Dag” after Franz Werfel.
Ruben Mirzakhanian, chairman of the Tekeyan Cultural Union and
sponsor of the event, underscored the importance of the books Armenian
publication which, he thinks, will enable wider circles of readers
to get acquainted with the book.
From: Baghdasarian

California Courier Online, October 13, 2005
1 – Commentary
Armenians Should Squeeze Concessions
Out of Turkey During EU Negotiations
By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The Califorrnia Courier
2 – Armenian Ambassador Tatoul
Markarian Visits Los Angeles
3- Hebrew University Armenian Faculty
Join International Conference in Spain
4 – Turkish Professors Speak at
UCLA on Armenian Relations
5 – State Trade Office Opens in Armenia
6 – UACC Banquet Set for Nov. 12
7 – AYF Gathers 200 Youngsters
For Little Armenia Clean Up
8 – Founder of California Courier, Financier
George J. Mason, Passes Away at 74
9 – UCLA’s Prof. Cowe Will Speak on Origins
Of Armenian Alphabet at CSUF, Oct. 21
10 – USC Armenian Institute Gala Honors
Judge Tevrizian and Raises $700,000

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1 – Commentary
Armenians Should Squeeze Concessions
Out of Turkey During EU Negotiations
By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier
Turkey finally embarked on a journey that it had been anxiously awaiting
for more than 40 years. The long and arduous negotiations for Turkey’s
membership in the European Union officially started last week and are
expected to last 10 or more years.
Armenians are of two minds over the benefits of Turkey joining the EU. Some
of them are of the opinion that Armenia is better off if its old nemesis is
kept under check by EU’s strict code of conduct. Armenians in this camp
believe that a “civilized Turkey” is more apt to recognize the Armenian
Genocide, lift its blockade of Armenia, and conduct peaceful relations with
its neighbors.
Other Armenians believe that Turkey is simply going through the motions of
transforming itself, without having any honest intentions of doing so.
Besides, these Armenians believe that there are no guarantees that “an
enlightened Turkey” would be more inclined to recognize the Genocide.
Turkey could well become an EU member, and like Britain, still refuse to
acknowledge the Armenian Genocide. Even worse, should Turkey not change its
denialist policy after joining the EU, Armenians would be deprived of
whatever clout they may have had in creating obstacles for its EU
membership. Furthermore, Turkey would have by then the largest population
among the EU countries, and thus be entitled to have the largest number of
votes in various EU councils. Turkey could thus block pro-Armenian
initiatives and help pass pro-Turkish and pro-Azeri resolutions in the EU.
Therefore, the time to get any possible concessions out of Turkey is now,
before it joins the EU.
Whether or not Turkey eventually becomes an EU member in 10 or 15 years
from now is very difficult to determine in advance. To begin with, no one
really knows with any degree of certainty the domestic and foreign
developments that would shape Turkey’s decisions and as well as the
attitudes of Europeans about Turkey years from now. Here are some of the
factors that could influence the outcome of Turkey’s EU membership
negotiations:
1) The social, economic and political conditions within Turkey that would
impact its government’s desire to make the extensive changes required by
the EU negotiations framework;
2) The stability of neighboring Iraq and the repercussions on Turkey
arising from Iraqi and Turkish Kurds pursuing their national aspirations;
3) The social, economic and political conditions within various EU member
states, particularly the attitude of their citizens towards the influx of
more foreign workers at a time when they may be suffering from high
unemployment and social unrest;
4) The state of negotiations on the settlement of the Cyprus problem;
5) The clout of the US government in terms of its ability and willingness
to influence the EU on Turkey’s membership;
6) Whether or not more terrorist acts are committed by radical Islamist
groups, particularly in Western Europe;
7) The results of the referendums that are to be held in several European
countries on whether to allow Turkey to join the EU; and
8) The status of Armenian-Turkish relations that are partly linked to the
outcome of the negotiations on the Karabagh conflict.
While Turkey will most probably have to lift its blockade of Armenia, since
“the EU-Turkey negotiation framework” document requires that it
unequivocally commit to “good neighborly relations,” the recognition of the
Armenian Genocide by Turkey is not certain at all. Aside from the repeated
non-binding resolutions adopted by the European Parliament demanding
Turkey’ s recognition of the Armenian Genocide, the EU itself has not made
such acknowledgment a part of its requirements for membership.
It would be naïve, if Armenians believe that they could block Turkey’s EU
membership because of its non-recognition of the Armenian Genocide. If
several years from now, Turkey successfully fulfills all EU requirements
and settles the conflict in Cyprus, its EU membership would be just about
guaranteed. Armenians should not expect European countries to rise to their
defense, at the expense of their own self-interests. The Europeans would
care about Armenian issues only when they happen to coincide with or serve
their own national interests.
To be able to squeeze the maximum concessions out of Turkey, Armenia and
the Diaspora would need to make common cause with the majority of Europeans
who are strongly opposed to Turkey’s EU membership. Turkish officials must
realize that unless they sit down at the negotiating table with Armenians
and try to accommodate some of their grievances, Armenians would work
tirelessly for the next 10 or more years to ensure that Turkey’s membership
is delayed indefinitely. It is not in Armenians’ interest to block Turkey’s
EU membership, but to drag it out as long as possible. The longer the
negotiations take, the more concessions can be squeezed out of Turkey. This
is the logic behind the positions of Cyprus and Greece. Despite the fact
that they could have vetoed the start of Turkey’s EU talks, Cyprus and
Greece allowed the talks to go forward with the aim of extracting
concessions from Turkey during the negotiating process. Had they used their
veto last week, they would have deprived themselves of the opportunity to
get any concessions from Turkey.
The interest of Armenians requires that, on the EU issue, Turkey remain a
bridesmaid, as long as it refuses to pay the dowry to become a bride!

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2 – Armenian Ambassador Tatoul
Markarian Visits Los Angeles
LOS ANGELES – Ambassador Tatoul Markarian visited Los Angeles on September
29 – October 2, for meetings with the Armenian-American community leaders
and organizations.
The Ambassador visited the Consulate General of the Republic of Armenia
where he discussed the Consulate present and planned activities with Consul
General Gagik Kirakossian and Consulate staff. On Sept. 29, Ambassador
Markarian met with representatives of the Armenian-American political
organizations at the Consulate. Visiting the office of the Lincy
Foundation,
The Armenian envoy once more expressed appreciation for Lincy’s large
scale projects in Armenia, which he said have left a permanent positive
imprint on Armenia.
The next day, Markarian attended welcoming receptions by Archbishop Hovnan
Derderian, Primate, Western Diocese and Archbishop Moushegh Mardirossian,
Prelate, Western Prelacy, where parish pastors, members of the Diocese and
Prelacy Councils, and local community activists were also present.
Later that same day, the Armenian Ambassador attended the Armenia Fund
reception as the guest of honor. The event was held in advance of the
Annual Telethon. On October 1-2, he also participated in the USC Gala
Banquet organized by the USC Armenian Studies Institute and in the AGBU
Annual Banquet.
Ambassador Markarian was interviewed by the Horizon TV, fielding questions
on Armenia’s foreign policy, U.S.-Armenian cooperation, and
Armenia-Diaspora relations.
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3 – Hebrew University Armenian Faculty
Join International Conference in Spain
JERUSALEM – Last month, over 60 scholars of Armenian Studies gathered in
Vitoria, Spain for the Tenth General Conference of the Association
Internationale des Etudes Armeniennes (AIEA). Founded in 1980 by Professor
Michael Stone of the Hebrew University and Professor J.J.S. Weitenberg of
Leiden University in Holland, AIEA is an organization of scholars of
Armenian Studies, with its centre in Europe. The suggestion to found the
organization was made by Dr. Nira Stone.
The meeting was attended by scholars from all over Europe, America, Armenia
and the Middle East. From the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Dr. Sergio La
Porta, Prof. Stone and doctoral student Mikayel Arakelian all presented
lectures, while Dr. Nira Stone also participated. Hebrew University
Armenian Studies PhD graduate, Prof. Peter Cowe of UCLA, and former
Armenian Studies student Pablo Trojiano teaches at the Compultensian
University in Madrid. Former visiting researcher Prof. Theo van Lint,
Gulbenkian Professor of Armenian at Oxford University also joined in the
Hebrew University reunion.
All the Armenian Studies faculty from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s
Armenian Studies program were there and they all brought home new and
stimulating ideas. They were able to discuss matters with colleagues, and
as a result new directions of cooperative work are emerging and will soon
be announced.
Prof. Stone devoted his lecture to his recently completed translation of
the medieval Armenian epic poem about Adam and Eve, written by Arakel of
Siunik at the beginning of the 15th century. The poem, a complex
composition of quite startling beauty, contains over 5,500 lines of poetry,
which Prof. Stone translated into English poetry. It is presently being
considered for publication.
Quite different, but equally stimulating, Dr. La Porta presented a paper on
“The Earliest Armenian Scholia on the Works Attributed to Dionysius the
Areopagite.” In addition to providing a linguistic analysis of the scholia,
Dr. La Porta posited the locus of their production and the context in which
they were composed.
Mikayel Arakelian described in detail the catalogue he has prepared of
illuminated late medieval Armenian manuscripts in Germany. This very
thorough work will make known several hundred unknown or little known
manuscripts. Mikayel is writing his doctoral thesis on the Armenian art of
New Julfa.
The Armenian Studies program at the Hebrew University was established in
1966.
For further information contact Prof. Michael E. Stone
([email protected]) or Dr. Sergio La Porta ([email protected]).
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4 – Turkish Professors Speak at
UCLA on Armenian Relations
LOS ANGELES – A unique presentation featuring “Three Turkish Voices on the
Ottoman Armenians,” will be held Nov. 6 at UCLA’s Court of Sciences 50
(Young Hall).
Sponsored by the Armenian Educational Foundation Chair in Modern Armenian
History, the event will feature professors Taner Akcam of the University of
Minnesota, Elif Shafak, of the University of Arizona, and F. Muge Gocek, of
the University of Michigan.
Each academic will address recent developments in Turkish-Armenian
historical relations.
Prof. Akcam will present a new assessment of Ottoman documents. Prof.
Shahaf will speak on memory and literature. F. Muge Gocek will address the
recent Istanbul conference on Ottoman Armenians.
The event is open to the public at no charge. Daily parking at $8 is
available at Parking Structure # 2 (Westholme entrance at Hilgard Ave.).
For additional information, contact Prof. Richard Hovannisian at
[email protected].
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5 – State Trade Office Opens in Armenia
By Alex Dobuzinskis
L.A. Daily News
GLENDALE – California’s trade office in Armenia opened Oct. 1, thanks to
the $75,000 raised by local members of the Armenian community to create
trade partnerships between the Golden State and the former Soviet republic.
The office will be in temporary quarters in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital, in
a government building there. An English-speaking Armenian was appointed to
run the office, which will link importers and exporters between California
and the landlocked nation east of Turkey and north of Iran.
Because the money was raised privately, the state was able to open the
office in Armenia even though California’s other foreign trade offices were
closed recently because of state budget woes. That could be a model for the
state if it opens other foreign trade offices, officials said.
“The Armenian officials that I met with are very excited about it because
they recognize that one of the ways as a developing country they’re going
to progress is to count on the expertise and the products that would come
from a place like California,” said Sen. Jack Scott, D-Pasadena, who was in
Armenia from Sept. 19-23.
Officials expect that the office will facilitate in the export of
information technology and health products going into Armenia and
help Armenian businesses export foodstuffs and other products to
California.
There is nearly $50 million in trade between Armenia and the United States,
most of it with California, said Berdj Karapetian, chairman of the
Glendale-based Foundation for Economic Development, which helped create the
trade office.
“There are quite a few individual business owners, midsize business owners
– not the multimillion dollar ones or the small mom-and-pop entities –
midsize businesses that are looking for business opportunities in Armenia
that are developing, but they’re not sure the exact ways to go about it,”
said Karapetian, who works in marketing.
The office will facilitate that work that they need, he said.
No public money has gone into creating the trade office, and there could be
a need for additional fundraising in the future to keep the office
operating.
“I’d like to see it grow,” said Annette Vartanian, executive director of
the Glendale-based Armenian American Chamber of Commerce. “Obviously, it’s
going to start out small, but I’d like to see in the next couple of years
for the office to expand and to see a team of people working.”
The office is overseen by the California Business, Transportation & Housing
Agency.
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6 – UACC Banquet Set for Nov. 12
HOLLYWOOD, CA – Members and friends of the United Armenian Congregational
Church (UACC) will gather for its annual banquet, Nov. 12, at 6 p.m. in
UACC’s Avazian Hall.
Dr. Donald Sunukjian, Talbot School of Theology Professor of Christian
Ministry and Leadership, Homiletics, will be the evening’s keynote speaker.
He is a founding member of the Evangelical Homiletics Society and of the
Academy of Homiletics and Religious Communication Society.
Henry Abadjian will be the Master of Ceremonies. A member of the church
since 1976, Abadjian graduated from the Gemological Institute of America in
1978, and now operates Blue Diamond Company and Montrose Jewelers with his
brother, Jack. He has been an executive officer of the Armenian Aintabtsi
Cultural Association and the Armenian Evangelical College Alumni
Association.
Musical selections will be provided by Ruth (Ketenjian) Fitzgerald.
The banquet will begin at 6 p.m. with mezze, then dinner. Nina Kasbarian, a
member of the UACC Board of Trustees, is this year’s banquet chair. During
the program, the annual Trustees’ Person(s) of the Year will also be
presented.
For more information, call the church office at (323) 851-5265.
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7 – AYF Gathers 200 Youngsters
For Little Armenia Clean Up
LOS ANGELES – Well over 200 Armenian youngsters gathered in the “Little
Armenia” district of Los Angeles on Sept. 25 to provide volunteer service
to the Armenian Youth Federation’s 3rd Annual Little Armenia Cleanup.
Volunteers from all over Northern and Southern California; including Fresno
and San Francisco, helped remove thousands of pounds of trash from major
streets in Little Armenia, bringing the three-year total to over 23.5 tons
of trash removed by the AYF.
Organized by the AYF and cosponsored by Los Angeles City Council member
Eric Garcetti’s Office, the cleanup attracted volunteers from the public at
large and community organizations such as the AYF, Homenetmen Los Angeles
Chapter, and the ARF Badanegan Organization.
Before the clean up began, Nora Ounjian relayed the AYF Central Executive’s
message to the youth. “The AYF will remain at the forefront of serving our
community and, in particular, will continue to provide our youth with
opportunities of social service,” said Ounjian. Rev. Fr. Vicken Vassilian
representing Western Prelate, Archbishop Moushegh Mardirossian, blessed
both the effort of the AYF and the volunteers’ willingness to serve the
community.
Los Angeles City 13th District Council member Eric Garcetti thanked the
volunteers and welcomed the AYF’s initiative.The Council member awarded the
AYF with a desktop plaque that carries the seal of the city of Los Angeles
and reads Little Armenia.
In the coming weeks many “Welcome to Little Armenia” light-post banners
will be added to the existing 63 erected from past years. Depicting the
Tri-color, Sardarabad Monument, and Mount Ararat, the banners have added a
touch of Armenia to the community.
The AYF took the opportunity to thank the official sponsors of the Little
Armenian Clean Up: Adin of California, Asbarez Daily Armenian Newspaper,
Horizon Armenian Television, Nor Hayastan Daily Newspaper, USA Armenian
Life Magazine, Closet World, Color Depot, Donoyan Insurance Agency,
Sylvie’s Costumes, Carpet Show, Sun Work’s Tanning, Eric Garcetti’s Office
and staff, and the A.R.F. Hollywood Karekin Njteh Gomideh.
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8 – Founder of California Courier, Financier
George J. Mason, Passes Away at 74
By Jon Thurber
L.A. Times
George J. Mason, who founded the California Courier, the first
English-language Armenian newspaper in the state, and had a significant
career in finance as a senior managing director of the Los Angeles office
of Bear, Stearns & Co., has died. He was 74.
Mason died Oct. 5, according to a statement from MGM Mirage, where Mason
was a longtime board member. He was being treated for cancer at the time of
his death.
Terry Lanni, chief executive officer of MGM Mirage, which owns the Bellagio
and Mandalay Bay casinos in Las Vegas, called Mason “an incredibly
influential figure in the gaming and finance industries.”
Born in Los Angeles, Mason earned his bachelor’s degree in Slavic studies
from USC. He went on to earn a master’s degree in political science from
Columbia University.
Mason served in the Air Force in the early 1950s. In 1958, he founded the
California Courier in Fresno and served as editor until 1970.
“I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say that George’s California
Courier was and will be remembered as a journal of Armenian life in
California,” Vartan Oskanian, Armenia’s minister of foreign affairs, said
in a statement released by MGM Mirage.
“George left a legacy for the Armenian community in the written word,” said
Raffi Hamparian, a member of the board of directors of the Armenian
National Committee of America.
“He is a tribute to the Armenian experience in America that largely emerged
from nothing to become a vibrant and active community.”
After leaving the paper, Mason entered the world of finance. He worked for
Kirk Kerkorian’s Tracinda Investment Co. for several years in the 1970s
before joining Bear, Stearns & Co. in Los Angeles in 1973. According to the
announcement from MGM Mirage, Mason was a senior managing director at Bear,
Stearns & Co. from 1973 until his death.
Mason is survived by his wife of 52 years, Sally; their six daughters,
Cassandra Goehner, Melanie Goodman, Teresa Mason, George Ann Mason, Diana
Chakalian and Mary Mason; and his sister, Shirley Rakoobian.
A memorial service was held Oct. 8 at St. James Armenian Church, in Los
Angeles. A reception followed at the Fairmont Miramar Hotel in Santa
Monica.
Instead of flowers, the family suggests that any donations be made in
Mason’s name to: Nevada Cancer Institute, Continued Research in the Field
of Bladder Cancer, 10000 W. Charleston Blvd., Las Vegas, NV 89135.
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9 – UCLA’s Prof. Cowe Will Speak on Origins
Of Armenian Alphabet at CSUF, Oct. 21
FRESNO – Dr. Peter Cowe of UCLA will speak on “The Origins of the Armenian
Alphabet and Its Cultural Impact” Oct. 21, at 7:30 p.m., in the Alice
Peters Auditorium, Rm. 191 of the University Business Center on the Fresno
State campus.
The presentation is part of the Armenian Studies Program Fall 2005 Lecture
Series and is co-sponsored by the Armenian Students Organization.
Joining Dr. Cowe will be Prof. Barlow Der Mugrdechian of the ASP who will
speak on “The Political Situation in Armenia on the Eve of the Invention of
the Armenian Alphabet.”
This year marks the 1600th anniversary of the invention of the Armenian
Alphabet. Der Mugrdechian’s presentation will explore the political
situation of the time, while Dr. Cowe will focus on the Armenian sources
for the invention and also discuss the impact on the Armenian culture,
especially in art.
Dr. Cowe is Naregatsi Professor of Armenian Language and Culture at UCLA
and is an internationally recognized authority on the Armenian language. He
is a founding member of the Association Internationale des Etudes
Arméniennes (1983). Dr. Cowe received his PhD in Armenology from Hebrew
University and has taught at Columbia University (1984-1996) and at UCLA
since 1996. Dr. Cowe is the author of Commentary on the Divine Liturgy by
Xosrov Anjewatsi (1991), The Armenian Version of Daniel (1992), and Modern
Armenian Drama: An Anthology (2001), among other books.
Der Mugrdechian has been teaching for more that10 years in the Armenian
Studies Program at CSUF. He has served as the President of the Society for
Armenian Studies (2000-2004) and currently is the SAS Treasurer.
Relaxed parking will be available in Lots A and J after 7:00 PM the night
of the lecture. For more information on the presentations, contact the
Armenian Studies Program at 278-2669.
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**
10 – USC Armenian Institute Gala Honors
Judge Tevrizian and Raises $700,000
By Eva Emerson
The USC Institute of Armenian Studies hosted a gala banquet on Oct. 2 to
honor federal judge and USC alumnus Dickran M. Tevrizian Jr. for 32 years
of public service. Tevrizian was the first Armenian-American to be
appointed to the U.S. federal bench.
The evening marked the second community event organized by the USC
Institute of Armenian Studies which was launched by USC College in
February, and raised an estimated $700,000 in new gifts for the institute’s
endowment, which now totals $1.5 million. With a broad mission to increase
understanding of modern Armenia and Armenians, the institute is envisioned
as a multidisciplinary center of research and learning that will respond to
the needs of the Armenian community.
The institute is the first academic center of its kind, said Joseph Aoun,
dean of USC College. Created in close partnership with the local Armenian
community, it also represents a model for a new, more collaborative and
responsive kind of town-and-gown relationship.
Dean Aoun was among the 25 speakers, including former Gov. George
Deukmejian, who saluted Tevrizian as an outstanding jurist and community
leader during the evening’s program. Aoun called Tevrizian one of USC’s
most distinguished alumni and thanked him for his early support of the
institute.
Close to 850 guests gathered at the Century Plaza Hotel in Century City to
celebrate Tevrizian as he assumed the new status of Senior U.S. District
Judge. Attendees included Tevrizian’s USC fraternity brothers, professional
colleagues, distinguished public figures, religious leaders, family,
friends and admirers, including more than 200 of his current and former law
clerks and externs.
Providing plenty of accolades – and good-natured ribbing about his fierce
loyalty to the USC football team and his matchmaking prowess – speakers
praised Tevrizian’s accomplishments as well as his integrity, fairness and
deep commitment to mentoring young lawyers. Speakers included luminaries in
law and business such as Edward Roski Jr., USC trustee and CEO of Majestic
Realty Co.; Ronald Tutor, USC trustee and president and CEO of Tutor-Saliba
Corp., a leading construction firm;
Kinko’s founder and USC alumnus Paul Orfalea; and Armand Arabian, a former
member of state supreme
court. USC Trustees Stanley Gold, John F. King and Alfred Mann attended the
banquet, as did former Gov. Pete Wilson, Sheriff Lee Baca, USC Athletics’
Mike Garrett, and a long list of prominent attorneys and judges.
During the evening, Tevrizian was awarded a Medal of Honor from the
Armenian Apostolic Church. A letter from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
congratulating Tevrizian was included in the program.
Decades of Service
Tevrizian began his judicial career at age 31, when then-Gov. Ronald Reagan
appointed him to the Los Angeles Municipal Court in 1972, making him the
youngest judge ever appointed to the judiciary at that time. Six years
later, Gov. Edmund Brown Jr. elevated him to a post on the California State
Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles. In 1982, Tevrizian returned
to private law practice until 1986, when President Ronald Reagan selected
him to serve on the U.S. District Court for the
Central District of California.
Tevrizian graduated cum laude from USC with a B.S. in finance in 1962,
before attending USC Law School. After earning his law degree, he joined
and became a partner in the law firm of Kirtland and Packard. Later, he was
a partner in the law firm of Mannet, Phelps, Rothenberg and Tunney and Of
Counsel to the law firm of Lewis, D’Amato, Brisbois & Bisgaard.
He has received many awards, including: being named Trial Judge of the Year
by the California Trial Lawyers Association in 1987; the Ellis Island Medal
of Honor Award in 1999; the Maynard Toll award from the L.A. County Bar
Association for his service to the underprivileged in 2002; and the Emil
Gumpert Award for his efforts in promoting alternate dispute resolution in
2005.
In 1997, Tevrizian joined a delegation of distinguished U.S. jurists led by
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia to visit the newly independent
Armenian Republic to assist in the development of a democratic legal
system. Last month, he returned to Armenia with several members of the
institute, where he met with the Armenian pontiff Karekin II and government
officials.
Awakening a Sleeping Giant
Ever since the establishment of the USC Institute of Armenian Studies, its
director, Richard Hrair Dekmejian, has received a flurry of calls about
possible events and projects. It seems, he said, that the institute is an
idea whose time had come.
“We have awakened a sleeping giant,” said Dekmejian, a professor of
political science in the College. “We’ve had call after call – one group is
interested in hosting a symposium on economic development in Armenia, one’s
interested in Armenian classical music and another in the music of the
Armenian church.”
The institute aims to promote Armenian-related scholarship and activities
in a wide range of fields, from dance, music and the arts to politics,
religion and community affairs. Addressing concerns of the community will
be a top priority.
A key purpose of the institute in Tevrizian’s eyes is to focus on the next
generation, connecting Armenian-American students with internships,
scholarships, advisors and professional mentors. His hopes for the nascent
institute, Tevrizian said, is to create a “home” for young
Armenian-Americans at USC.
“The impact of this institute will extend far beyond USC,” said dean Aoun,
a key architect of the institute. “It will help the world to understand the
many contributions of Armenians to society, as well as to remind them of
the tragic history of the Armenian people.”
At the gala celebrating the institute’s launch in February, the enthusiasm
of the Armenian-American community for the institute was evident. Among the
575 guests attending was a virtual “Who’s Who?” of the community, including
Judge Tevrizian, USC Trustee Roski and Gerald Papazian, College alumnus and
member of the College Board of Councilors.
In June, the institute co-hosted a well-attended symposium and lunch in
conjunction with a visit by His Holiness Karekin II. Event speakers
explored the impact of globalization on the Armenian church and related
themes.
On Oct. 15, the USC Institute of Armenian Studies will host an all-day,
public conference entitled “The Christian Response to Violence.” Speakers,
including the visiting church leader Catholicos Aram I, will examine
violence from the micro-level – in families, gangs and schools – all the
way up to terrorism and genocide.
For more information about the USC Institute of Armenian Studies, call
213-821-3943 or email: [email protected].
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From: Baghdasarian

EU SUPPORT FOR TURKEY ‘GENOCIDE’ WRITER
By Amberin Zaman in Istanbul
The Daily Telegraph, UK
Oct 10 2005
A senior European Union official has underlined concern for Turkey’s
human rights record by joining the acclaimed author, Orhan Pamuk,
for lunch in Istanbul. An Istanbul court provoked outrage last month
when it charged Mr Pamuk with violating laws that forbid description
of the mass killings of Armenians during the last days of the Ottoman
Empire as genocide.
The author, who is due to appear in court on Dec 16, could spend
up to three years in prison if found guilty of “insulting Turkey’s
national dignity”. The charges were filed after Mr Pamuk told a Swiss
newspaper in February that “a million Armenians and 30,000 Kurds were
killed in these lands and nobody but me dares talks about it”.
Olli Rehn, the EU’s enlargement commissioner who lunched with Mr Pamuk,
hinted that negotiations with Turkey over its entry to the EU might
be interrupted if the author were to be convicted.
From: Baghdasarian

ECONOMIST: ARMENIAN DIASPORA CALLED EU-TURKEY TALKS “UNDESERVED PRIZE TO IMPENITENT COUNTRY”
Pan Armenian
08.10.2005 20:10 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The British Economist writes that the Armenian
Government hailed EU decision to start talks with Turkey, while the
Armenian Diaspora called it “an undeserved prize to an impenitent
country.” “Residents of the Armenian capital consider that by joining
Europe Turkey will change its attitude both by re-comprehension of
the history and towards relations with neighbors. At the same time
at the same time Armenia and Armenians of the Diaspora have different
attitudes towards Turkey, the Economist writes.
From: Baghdasarian

ARMINFO News Agency
October 8, 2005
ARMENIAN PRESIDENT’S NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR WARNS OPPOSITIONISTS
AGAINST TRADING IN THEIR FATHERLAND
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 8. ARMINFO. I have repeatedly warned some of the
oppositionists that unless they stop offering their faterland to
foreigners in exchange for flower revolution I will make these facts
public, says the national security advisor of the Armenian president
Garnik Isagulyan.
He says that those calling for boycotting the Nov 27 nationwide
referendum on the draft constitutional amendments or voting against
them are people who feel no responsibility for their words and
actions and are ready to sacrifice everything even national interests
to get what they want. These people are irreparable – they daydream
of becoming revolutionaries and presidents.
People cannot vote against something that can improve their lives.
One cannot but value the president’s voluntary relinquishing some of
its powers – this is quite unprecedented, says Isagulyan expressing
conviction that the people will say yes to the amendments.
There will be no flower revolution in Armenia and the people should
calmly prepare for the next elections in 2007-2008, says Isagulyan.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

PRESS RELEASE
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia
Contact: Information Desk
Tel: (374-1) 52-35-31
Email: [email protected]
Web:
STATEMENT BY H.E. MR. VARTAN OSKANIAN
MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE REPUBLIC OF ARMENIA
AT THE 33rd UNESCO GENERAL CONFERENCE
PARIS
OCTOBER 7, 2005

Mr. President,

Congratulations on your election, and we look forward to working with you as
we have with President Omolewa. Congratulations also to the Director-General
with whom we look forward to working for a long time to come.

At a time when the world is faced with new types of violence and must
therefore seek new ways to find peace, UNESCO is faced with the hardest
challenge of all: to create the defenses of peace in the minds of men. For
60 years, this organization has promoted education, science and culture
because we know that it has been through education, science and culture that
ALL our civilizations have been nurtured and have flourished. Education,
science and culture cultivate peace and are its fruits.

Each of us recognizes this in our own lands, in our own countries.

In Armenia, Education gave us our first university eight centuries ago.
Today, our education enrollment and literacy rate is among the best in the
world.

Ten centuries ago, Science provided us the tools with which to study
medicinal herbs under our feet, and the stars over our head.

But it is our culture that has saved us, defined us, formed our character.
My people have lived in Diaspora for far longer than we have had a state,
and we have contributed to and learned from cultures across the globe.

In Singapore, we have a church which is 200 years old. The one in Dakka is
even older. In Macao, the cemetery markers are memorials to Armenian
merchants from the 1600s. In Bangkok, the cemeteries are newer, but only
slightly. The local governments all protect and maintain these cultural
monuments consciously and generously, because they understand that these
monuments of a culture long gone are theirs as much as ours.

There is a similar cultural heritage in Europe and the Middle East. From the
tombs of Armenian medieval kings here in Paris to ancient communities in
Poland and Ukraine, the traces of a continuous Armenian presence in Europe
are guarded.

No better example exists than the Armenian Island of St. Lazaro, in Venice,
claimed equally by Armenians and Italians as part of their cultural
patrimony.

In Jerusalem, the old Armenian Quarter is an integral part of the Biblical
city¹s past and future.

Throughout the various Arab countries of the Middle East, it is only the age
and quantity of Armenian structures that differ. The care and attention
which Armenians and their possessions receive is pervasive.

In our immediate neighborhood, Iran is home to cultural and religious
monuments built by Armenians over a millennium. The government of Iran
itself takes responsibility for their upkeep, and facilitates their
preservation by others.

Against this background then, we can only wish that our other neighbours
were equally tolerant and enlightened.

In Turkey, there are thousands of cultural monuments built and utilized by
Armenians through the centuries. Those structures today are not just symbols
of a lost way of life, but of lost opportunities. Those monuments which
represent the overlapping histories and memories of Armenians and Turks do
provide us the opportunity around which a cultural dialog can start and
regional cooperation can flourish.

Instead, those monuments which serve as striking evidence of centuries of
Armenian presence on those lands are being transformed or condemned to
indifference.

But we are hopeful that there are changes in these attitudes and approaches,
and that Turkey is on the road to acknowledging its pluralistic past and
embracing its diversity today.

A few months ago, Turkish authorities began to actively encourage and
facilitate the expert renovation of a medieval jewel – the Armenian
monastery of Akhtamar. What is happening on this small island, not far from
our border, can be repeated again and again. Together, we can work to
rebuild the sole remaining monument in the legendary city of Ani, just on
the other side of the border, within easy view from Armenia. The medieval
city of a thousand and one churches is a cultural marvel that can pull
together and bind our two peoples.

Unfortunately Mr. Chairman, with our other neighbor, Azerbaijan, the effort
to do away with Armenians, which began even before Sovietization, continues
unabated. Now that there are no Armenians left in Azerbaijan, it is
religious and cultural monuments which remain under attack.

This assault on our memory, history, holy places and artistic creations
began long before the people of Nagorno Karabakh stood to demand
self-determination in order to assure their own security. It began long
before the government of Azerbaijan chose war as the response to the
rightful, peaceful aspirations of the people of Nagorno Karabakh.

Mr. Chairman,

Even in 1922, stone cross Armenian tombstone carvings, older than Europe¹s
oldest churches, began to disappear in Nakhichevan. There was no war in the
years between 1998 and 2002 when 4000 of these giant sculptures were knocked
over, piled onto railroad cars and carted away under the Azerbaijani
government¹s watchful eyes. There was no war in 1975 when a 7th century
Armenian church was completely demolished in the center of Nakhichevan, for
no reason other than to wipe out the memory of the Armenians who constituted
a majority there just decades earlier.

Mr. Chairman,
Cultural destruction can and is a potent weapon in campaigns of political
oppression and tyranny. In an era when new kinds of violence with new names
are exploited in political and ideological warfare, damaging or destroying
cultural or religious memory intentionally, consistently, repeatedly must be
labeled what it is – cultural terrorism – and it must be condemned with the
same resolve and determination as violence aimed against people.

Mr. Chairman,

Armenia already profits hugely from UNESCO¹s ³Memory of the World² program,
thanks to which our depository of ancient, unique manuscripts is being
digitized. In the Remember the Future program, we are honoured that some of
our ancient monuments are included in the World Heritage List. We are set to
ratify the Convention on the Safeguarding of the Intangible Heritage, and
are pleased that the traditional melodies of the Armenian reed duduk may be
included in the Masterpieces of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.
What we want to work on next, Mr. Chairman, is the elaboration of a UNESCO
legal instrument which will hold accountable those involved in the
Intentional Destruction of Cultural Heritage.

Armenia attaches great importance to all of UNESCO’s initiatives in the
region. We believe in UNESCO¹s dream of creating and educating societies to
believe in peace and to benefit from its dividends.

Thank you.
From: Baghdasarian

DIVA IS DEAD-SET: DIAMANDA GALAS
by ALISON BARCLAY
Herald Sun (Melbourne, Australia)
October 5, 2005 Wednesday
Defixiones: Friday, 8pm.
Songs of Exile: Monday, 8pm. Where: Hamer Hall.
Tickets: $19-$65.
Bookings: 1300 136 166.
SHE was born 50 years ago and hasn’t died yet. If Diamanda Galas can
wrest her ancestral gods of Olympus to her desires, she never will.
“We Greeks don’t really believe in life after death. We believe
in death after death,” the Greek-American musician says with
blood-curdling emphasis.
“We are absolutely mortified by death — ooh, bad word. Terrified
by death.”
Terrified? This from the woman who sings of the worst types of death
and has spent the past 20 years becoming an expert on it?
But Galas is sharp on her subject. For the brother and friends she
lost to AIDS, she wrote Plague Mass.
Last in Melbourne in 2001 with La Serpenta Canta, she returns this
weekend with Songs of Exile and Defixiones: Orders from the Dead.
The latter is an operatic mass for those who died in the Armenian,
Assyrian and Pontic Greek genocides from 1914-23.
Most of these she has recorded, but the question about whether her
work will survive her, whether she may achieve immortality via CD,
brings a sigh of profound longing.
“One would love to think such things, but it isn’t true,” she says.
“Greeks certainly feel we should live forever — and what is wrong
with that? I really do not appreciate this sentence of mortality. I
take issue with the gods about that!”
Styled for a concert, Galas is the nightmare life-in-death, with
sootened eyes and talons that recall that oddly comforting rumour
about fingernails continuing to grow after the ghost has left the body.
But on the phone from Italy, where she toured before coming here,
she is energetic, funny and friendly.
Unlike the Greek Americans she complains are “invisible” — and silent
about past atrocities committed against them — Galas has a big mouth.
She loves Greek Australians because they do, too.
“There is no comparison. When I have spoken to Greeks in Australia,
wow, there are so many genocide scholars in Australia.
“And I’m telling you, there is no comparison between the consciousness
of the Australian Greeks and the American Greeks. It is a completely
different world.
“A lot of the Greeks don’t even want to discuss it in Greece, and
they don’t want to be Greek. They want to be French!
“They say ‘Oh, let’s be friends with the Turks’. And I say shut the
f— up!”
She wonders if her outspokenness cost her a gig at the Athens Olympics
last year.
“I was going to sing, but they chose Bjork instead,” she says.
“She is a lovely singer, but what she has to do with Greece is beyond
me. Instead of a Greek singer they chose an Icelandic singer because
they don’t want to be Greek. They want to be European.”
THAT genocides are allowed to keep happening has much to do with
nations protecting trade, Galas says.
Mass death “is an insignificant problem, economically speaking,
if it gets in the way of larger interests”.
Hurricane Katrina is a case in point. “Here we have in our own country
a disaster in which the individuals must take action because the
government completely ignores it,” she says.
“If anyone had any doubt about what was going on in Iraq, they now
know for sure. If Bush is treating his own people like this, imagine
what he is doing in Iraq.”
In speaking, as in singing, Galas barely pauses for breath, a legacy of
her training in bel canto technique, for which another Greek American,
Maria Callas, was famous.
Of Callas, Galas says: “I adore her beyond words. She was such a
magnificent musician.”
But it’s the Welsh tigress Shirley Bassey who makes her roar with
admiration: “She has a monstrous great voice. I am just astounded at
how great she is.”
From: Baghdasarian

Caucaz.com
5 Oct 2005
Armenia: Referendum on Amendments to Constitution Will Be Held on November
27, 2005
Yerevan, October 5 – President Robert Kocharyan signed a decree on holding
the referendum on Amendments to the Constitution on November 27, 2005,
Presidential Press-Service reported ARKA News Agency. The decree was signed
according to the Constitution, Law “On Referendum”, and taking into
consideration proposal of the National Assembly to put the draft amendments
to Constitution on referendum.
The National Assembly adopted amendments to the Constitution in the third
and final reading on September 27, 2005. The previous referendum on
amendments to Constitution in 2003 failed. Amendments to Constitution are
Armenia’s main commitment to the Council of Europe.
From: Baghdasarian

TURKISH SOCIETY SPLIT ON GENOCIDE, THE EU, AND MANY OTHER ISSUES
By Harut Sassounian; Publisher, The California Courier
AZG Armenian Daily #177
04/10/2005
Turkey-EU
For 90 years, Turkish officials have denied the reality of the
Armenian Genocide. During the past weekend, for the first time in
Turkish history, a conference was held in Istanbul during which Turkish
scholars challenged the revisionist position of their own government
on the Armenian Genocide. This was not an easy accomplishment. It
came about after the organizers struggled to overcome a series of
almost insurmountable legal obstacles and physical attacks.
The conference was originally planned for last May. However, Justice
Minister Cemil Cicek caused its cancellation at the last minute by
accusing the participating Turkish scholars of being “traitors” and
“stabbing Turkey in the back.”
Embarrassed by stinging criticism from many European officials,
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan quietly urged the organizers
to reschedule the conference for Sept. 23-25, just days before the
planned start of talks for Turkey’s EU membership. Foreign Minister
Abdullah Gul even promised to deliver the opening remarks at this
unprecedented gathering of Turkish scholars.
However, just hours before the start of the conference, an Istanbul
court issued an order suspending the gathering. The judge gave the
organizers 30 days to respond to a series of bizarre questions on the
qualifications and selection of the scholars as well as the financing
of their travel and lodging expenses.
This eleventh-hour postponement of the conference stunned not only
the EU officials but also most of the Turkish public, including the
overwhelming majority of newspapers and TV stations in Turkey. Both
the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister saw the court order as an
attempt to derail Turkey’s EU membership drive. The judge, petitioned
by ultra-nationalists, clearly exceeded his jurisdiction by interfering
in the internal affairs of an academic institution.
The conference, titled “Ottoman Armenians During the Decline of
the Empire: Issues of Scientific Responsibility and Democracy,”
was finally held during the past weekend after changing its venue to
Bilgi University. The organizers either took or were allowed to take
advantage of a loophole in the court order that had specifically banned
two of the three co-sponsoring universities (Bogazici and Sabanci),
but not the third – Bilgi University.
Ultra-nationalist groups and retired military officers had urged all
“patriotic” Turks to converge on the conference site and disrupt the
proceedings. They called the participating Turkish scholars traitors.
Despite the presence of a strong police force to protect the university
from attacks by extremists, the protesters managed to pelt the
participants by eggs and rotten tomatoes. A few trouble-makers even
managed to sneak into the hall and attempt to disrupt the discussions.
Once they passed the gauntlet, scores of scholars presented their
papers over a two-day period. Most of them carefully avoided the
use of the word genocide, due to their fear of being hauled into
court and charged with “denigrating” the Turkish nation. Some of the
participants were also weary of being accused of siding with Armenians
on this emotionally charged issue.
The scholars made it clear, however, that Ottoman officials had
organized the mass deportations and the subsequent killings of hundreds
of thousands of Armenians.
Even though there were very few new revelations on the topic of
the Armenian Genocide during the course of the conference, the
significant aspect of the gathering was the fact that it took place
at all. This is the first time that a group of Turkish scholars,
facing the wrath of many of their radical compatriots and a legal
ban, had dared to challenge the official revisionist position of the
Turkish establishment on this issue.
Of course, the proximity of the date of the planned start of Turkey’s
EU membership talks on Oct. 3 played a considerable role in winning
the tacit and reluctant support of the Turkish government for this
conference. Neither Erdogan nor Gul were probably motivated by their
“deep seated beliefs” in academic freedom to support the holding of
such a conference in Turkey.
Turkish society still has a long and uphill battle in deciding
its future.
There are powerful conflicting forces within Turkey tearing the
country into two divergent directions: one looking to Europe and the
other to an ultra-nationalist, Islamist, and pan-Turkist orientation.
Before the Turks worry about whether the Europeans would allow them
to join the EU, they themselves would have to decide the direction
of their own society. When millions of Turks are still fanatically
clinging to their old authoritarian mentality, no matter which new
laws their government adopts and which agreements their leaders sign,
at the end of the day, these documents are meaningless pieces of
paper. Prime Minister Erdogan’s saying that his country should be a
part of Europe does not make it so. True reform must first take place
in the hearts and minds of the people, before it can be adopted as
a legal code. Such reforms cannot be imposed from outside.
They have to come from within Turkish society.
How long would it take to reform Turkish society is a question to
which no one knows the answer. When millions of Turks are still
adamantly opposed to the most basic values shared by Europeans,
it is clear that they are neither ready now nor would they be ready
anytime soon to join the EU.
Turkey should neither be rejected right away nor accepted into
the EU in the foreseeable future. Turkey should not be admitted
now because it’s not and would not be ready to join the ranks of
civilized European nations nor should it be rejected outright for
fear of setting completely loose a monster that would be a clear and
present danger to its immediate neighborhood!
From: Baghdasarian

MOHAMMED ALI
By Fayza Hassan
Egypt Today
Oct 4 2005
Two centuries after Mohammed Ali’s meteoric rise to power, we delve
into the testimony of his contemporaries and descendants to take
the measure of the man the world came to know as the Father of
Modern Egypt.
EXACTLY TWO CENTURIES ago to the year, one man was single-handedly
shaping Egypt’s history as we know it. Simultaneously feared and
admired by his subjects, the visionary viceroy set the wheels of
modernity in motion. Travelers awed by his reputation came from the
four corners of the globe to chronicle the extraordinary legends spun
around him in an attempt to elucidate his formidable personality.
Called the Father of Modern Egypt, the Wali, the Pasha of Egypt and
the Great Viceroy, Mohammed Ali ruled Egypt for almost five decades,
from 1805 to 1849. This year, for the first time since the memory
of the royal family he spawned was collectively declared persona non
grata by the Free Officers’ Revolution, the Pasha is finally getting
his due in bicentenary celebrations.
Feature The Imam of Quraa Once, Sheikh Mostafa Ismail’s recitation
of the Qur’an was e…
Mostafa Ismail .. .
Rebuilding the Rubble Israel has withdrawn from Gaza, Egyptian troops
are back on …
He who saw Egypt 40 years ago can only but marvel at the transformation
that came to pass over [the country]; it is a new world that has
appeared. To what cause should one attribute this transformation? As
soon as one mentions modern Egypt, it is always to the Great Viceroy,
Mohammed Ali that reference is made. He is the one who transformed
[Egypt]; he opened wide the doors to Europe’s material progress
and through these doors events have made their way, ideas have been
introduced which have concluded the task [he] started.Nubar Pasha,
Memoirs, Cannes, November 1890 “Mohammed Ali was a pragmatist,”
says Raouf Abbas, a professor of modern history at Cairo University,
“a pragmatist with qualities of genius and farsightedness.” Abbas,
the ultimate Egyptian authority on Ali’s reign, explains that the
nation was mired in the Middle Ages when Napoleon Bonaparte pointed
out its strategic importance to Europe. The information was not lost
on the young Ali, who soon realized how, on the other hand, Europe
was important to Egypt.
Europe then possessed the knowledge and technical know-how needed
to turn Egypt into an international power to be reckoned with; it
was therefore necessary to attract as many foreigners as possible to
do the job, he decided, while promising young Egyptians were sent on
missions abroad to learn the skills that would allow them to replace
foreign experts in the future.
Mohammed Ali devoted his life to the grand oeuvre of dragging Egypt
out of its state as a backward province of the Ottoman Empire. Though
he fell short of his long-term dream to head the Ottoman Empire,
while attempting this formidable conquest, he managed to turn Egypt
into a self-sufficient, secular and modern country, active on the
international scene and a beacon in the Middle East. Agriculture and
irrigation, digging of canals and building of dams, education and
healthcare, constructing factories and creating a military force were
high on Mohammed Ali’s list of priorities.
His methods may have been ruthless, but he managed to perform a near
miracle in less than half a century.
Debated Origins
Was Mohammed Ali a poor boy raised by his paternal uncle as he
himself always claimed? Or was he born in a well-to-do family of
tobacco merchants? Did his father die when he was only six years old,
as he often recounted? Or rather, when he was well into his 20s,
did he join the family tobacco business as an already married man,
as Afaf Lutfi Sayyid-Marsot contends in her renowned 1984 book Egypt
in the Reign of Mohammed Ali?
Much confusion surrounds Mohammed Ali’s childhood, and different
versions have been periodically circulated on the various episodes
of his life as the ruler of Egypt.
According to Marsot, Ali’s exact date of birth is uncertain – he
claimed he was born in 1769, although other sources suggest 1770 or
1771 – and so are the origins of his family. “Mohammed Ali was from
lowly stock,” Marsot claims. “He was the son of Ibrahim Agha, who was
the son of Uthman Agha, himself the son of Ibrahim Agha, engaged in
military duties for three generations. Beyond that, little is known
about the family or their roots.
“While historians have described his clan as being of Albanian origin,
a family tradition maintains that they might have been of Kurdish
stock and come from the village of Ilic in Eastern Anatolia, where they
were horse traders,” Marsot notes. Apparently, Mohammed Ali’s father,
Ibrahim Agha, moved first from his village to Konia, then to Kavala
in Macedonia, this latter flight the consequence of a blood feud.
Little is known about this incident, except that the family had to
leave in a hurry for fear of reprisals, a tradition that continues
to this day in isolated pockets of neighboring Albania.
The last of the MamluksPainting by William De Famars Testas
Yet, Prince Abbas Helmi, who is descended from Mohammed Ali through
Viceroy Ibrahim, Khedive Ismail, Khedive Mohammed Tewfik, Khedive
Abbas Helmi II and Prince Mohamed Abdel-Moneim, believes otherwise.
Prince Abbas, who is also head of Concorde Investments in Cairo,
contends that the family was very active in the tobacco business,
which was extremely lucrative at the time, and therefore Mohammed
Ali was not a poor boy of lowly extraction, as has been often alleged.
Although several historians claim that Mohammed Ali came to Egypt
as a lieutenant with a small contingent of Albanian soldiers, Prince
Helmi asserts that his forefather was sent at the head of an Albanian
regiment. He was not an Albanian soldier himself, the prince points
out, but an Ottoman subject whose family had moved from Konia to
the tiny port of Kavala for reasons linked to the tobacco trade. In
Kavala, Ibrahim Agha married into the family of the port’s governor
and was appointed commander of a body of irregulars, famous for their
restiveness, the prince adds.
Interestingly, the wording of the Ottoman Sultan’s firman (also
referred to as faramaan, meaning ‘royal mandate’ or ‘royal decree’)
that was to send Mohammed Ali on the warpath, which Prince Helmi has
had the opportunity to study, mentioned an “authorization” rather
than an “order” to levy a contingent of Albanians and sail to Egypt.
“It could mean, perhaps, that Mohammed Ali was a turbulent young man
who made himself a bit of a nuisance with his fiery temperament and
that the sultan was only too happy to grant him the request to go
fight the French,” Prince Helmi suggests.
Actually, though it is not widely known, Mohammed Ali’s brother Ahmad
accompanied him to Egypt, adds Prince Helmi. This fact is also recorded
by Abdel-Rahman El-Jabarti, the famous chronicler of the period:
“On Saturday, Ahmad Bey, Mohammed Ali’s brother, went to the Khan
El-Khalili to conduct an investigation in the matter of the plunder
taken from the Albanians by the Janissaries (members of the elite
personal guard) and deposited for safe-keeping by the latter with
their friends the Turks.”
Mohammed Ali’s mosque at Cairo’s Citadel
Helmi wonders whether Ahmad was sent along because he, too, was too
boisterous for his own good, or whether he joined the expedition to
keep an eye on his brother. His role at this point in time remains
shrouded in mystery, but family tradition has it that once Mohammed
Ali was established as Pasha of Egypt, he offered Ahmad a high-ranking
position, a palace and a fortune in gold, but the latter refused,
preferring to return to Kavala.
As Prince Helmi sees it, this is further proof that the family was
not poor and that business was on the contrary thriving; otherwise
Ahmad would have been happy to stay.
Ghislaine Alleaume, historian and researcher at France’s renowned
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), offers a slightly
different version of the beginnings of the Great Pasha.
“Mohammed Ali was born in 1771 at Kavala.” she writes. “His family
was Turkish from Anatolia and established in Macedonia for three
generations. They were very representative of families of provincial
notables who were hired to head small military or civil functions,
were involved in international commerce as well as being tax farmers.
Ibrahim Agha, Mohammed Ali’s father, headed a sort of local band of
policemen in charge of road security. In parallel, he had investments
in the tobacco business, the principal export product of Macedonia.”
Ibrahim Agha, she goes on, died rather young in 1791, but not before
Mohammed Ali was married to Amina, who remained his only wife,
although he later acquired several concubines. Alleaume also argues
that although his younger brothers and sisters were placed under
the guardianship of his paternal uncle Tussoun, if Mohammed Ali had
a protector in Kavala, it would have been his maternal grandfather,
who was governor of the city.
The massacre of the Mamluks at Cairo’s citadel Painting by Horace
Vernet, 1819
Whichever account is closer to the truth is of little importance, as
Mohammed Ali himself decided early on to rewrite his past, presenting
himself as a poor orphan adopted by his paternal uncle. According to
Marsot, he did so in order “to enhance himself as a self-made man who
rose to fame against insuperable odds, including that disadvantage
early in life.”
In the introduction to All the Pasha’s Men (Cambridge University
Press, 1997), Khaled Fahmi describes the meeting Mohammed Ali had
with John Barker, the new British Consul in Alexandria, when he came
to present his credentials at Ras El-Teen Palace. In a dispatch to his
government, Barker reported that almost at once the Pasha launched into
a monologue about his childhood, designed to impress upon the consul,
his autobiographical adaptation of the awe he inspired in others.
The following is an excerpt: “I was born in a village in Albania,
and my father had 10 children who are all dead; but while living,
not one of them contradicted me. Although I left my native mountains
before I attained manhood, the principal people in the place never took
any step in the business of the commune, without previously inquiring
what my pleasure was. I came to this country an obscure adventurer,
and when I was yet a bimbashi (captain), it happened one day that
the commissary had to give each of the bimbashis a tent. They were
all my seniors and naturally pretended to a preference over me;
but the officer said, ‘Stand ye all by; this youth Mohammed Ali,
shall be served first.’ and now here I am. I never had a master.”
Alleaume believes this was all a fabrication, as was his claim that his
parents died when he was young (the date on Ibrahim Agha’s tombstone
reads 1205/1790 – in reference to the year of his death according to
the Islamic lunar calendar and the corresponding year in the Gregorian
calendar, which is approximately 20 years after Mohammed Ali was born).
“Behind such a fabrication, there may have been an unconscious desire
to cut all links with his past and to invent a new one, more befitting
his new life and social position.” In the same spirit of aggrandizing
himself, he made up a new date of birth, 1769, so as to share the
day with two men he admired: Napoleon Bonaparte and Admiral Nelson.
According to Prince Helmi, Mohammed Ali’s almost childish desire to
have his personal accomplishments celebrated may also have led him
to pretend being completely illiterate. However, as a merchant and
the commander of a regiment, he was necessarily called upon to read
and write, even if marginally. Furthermore, as a practicing Muslim,
he must have been taught at least to read the Qur’an in his childhood.
It is therefore reasonable to believe that he had a working knowledge
of the Arabic script, as well as of the popular Turkish written
language, which was different from literary Turkish.
Nubar Pasha, the Armenian minister who, starting in 1842, played a
major role in the political life of Egypt – first under Mohammed Ali,
and then under the five following khedives – confirms in his Memoirs
that, “One could speak Turkish perfectly, read a document couched
in ordinary Turkish without understanding a word of the literary
language.”
It was probably this latter proficiency that Ali wanted to acquire.
However, he chose to make a big show of learning basic literacy
skills at the age of 40. If his aim was to foster admiration,
he fully succeeded in attracting historians’ attention to this
deed. Few studies of his reign fail to mention these unusual attempts
at literacy, although no comment is ever offered as to how successful
he ultimately was.
The Opportunist
Early on, Mohammed Ali showed an uncanny capacity to take advantage
of circumstances and people. The beginning of his reign is a case
in point. He had come to a seething country where the Mamluks had
turned on each other in a desperate attempt to seize the power that
they thought the Ottoman Sultan would restore to them once the French
had departed. This, however, was never the intention of the Sublime
Porte, who wanted to get rid of the Mamluk troublemakers and rule
the country from Istanbul.
Amid the confusion of the warring factions, Mohammed Ali found
opportunities to consolidate his power base, relying on the Albanian
soldiers he had come to head after his direct chief had been promoted
to the command of the Turkish troops.
He entered into secret alliances, promised or withheld support.
Depending on the situation, he either controlled his charges or
encouraged them to create trouble over their unpaid wages. All the
time, he was careful to remain in the shadows. In the course of one
particular military insurrection, he got in touch with Omar Makram,
head of the Ashraaf (direct descendants of the Prophet, PBUH) and de
facto speaker for a civilian population exhausted by the soldiers’
conflicts and constant extortionist tactics. These followed Omar
Makram in earnest when he incited them on May 13, 1805 to depose the
last governor of Cairo named by the Porte and proclaim Mohammed Ali
the new Pasha of Cairo.
>>From then on, Mohammed Ali made a great show of his religiosity,
sending his wife to the Hajj every year in style and providing extra
camels and provisions for the pilgrims. At the same time, however,
he was surrounding himself with “infidels” who, by all accounts,
had never been better treated and were considered for the first time
equal to Muslims in front of the law.
In his great project of modernizing Egypt, Mohammed Ali sucked
knowledge out of his collaborators, showering them with honors and
gifts while they remained useful, but did not hesitate to get rid of
them in the most summary manner when he was through with them.
A consummate actor, it was hard even for those who knew him to decide
whether he was totally bereft of feelings. Historians point out the
fact that Amina remained his only wife and though he had many children
from his concubines, he was only interested in the offspring that
were born to her. He gave his daughters splendid weddings that are
talked about to this day – and showed deep despair at the death of
his sons Ismail and Tussoun.
The Man without a Heart
Nubar Nubarian (later Nubar Pasha) was a young man freshly graduated
from a British university when he came to Egypt to join his uncle
Boghos Bey, then Mohammed Ali’s trusted Armenian adviser. On the
evening of his arrival, his uncle took him to Ras El-Teen Palace to
meet his future master.
In his Memoirs, Nubar recounts his first encounter with the Pasha
of Egypt: “At the bottom of an immense hall lit by a white crystal
chandelier and deriving grandeur from its austerity and its majestic
proportions, a man was seated in the corner of a sofa covered with
a rich length of material adorned with gold tassels: it was Mohammed
Ali. Leaning on a pillow, his legs slightly bent, he was listening to
one of his secretaries’ reading of the day’s dispatches Five or six
young Mamluks attended the proceedings standing humbly at attention
my uncle introduced me. ‘Work,’ the Pasha told me. ‘I want to see
you at work.’ I then withdrew respectfully having kissed, as the
etiquette required, the hem of the carpet he was sitting on.”
Lord A.W.C. Lindsay offers a similar description of the Pasha’s palace
in his 1838 Letters on Egypt, Edom and the Holy Land. “We visited the
old spider [Mohammed Ali] in his den, the citadel Ascending a broad
marble passage on an inclined plane and traversing a lofty antechamber
crowded with attendants, we found ourselves in the presence-chamber,
a noble saloon but without an article of furniture, except a broad
divan, or sofa, extending around three sides of the room, in a corner
of which squatted his highness Mohammed Ali. Six wax candles stood
in the center yet gave but little light.”
Oddly, neither Nubar nor Lindsay make mention of Mohammed Ali’s
piercing eyes, a trait commented on by almost every traveler who
happened to meet him, even briefly. As such, Mr. Ramsay, Lord
Lindsay’s friend and companion on the visit, was more alert: “He
[Mohammed Ali] did not address any of his subjects, but I observed
his sharp, cunning eyes fixing on everyone.” Another traveler, Mr.
Wilde, who visited the Shubra Palace in 1837 with his friends,
came across the Pasha in the garden. Seeing a group of foreigners,
Mohammed Ali stopped briefly to salute them. “He is a fine old man
now,” wrote Wilde after this encounter, “upward of seventy with a
very long silver beard Slight as was our view of him, it did not
pass without making us feel the power of an eye of more brilliancy
and penetration that I ever beheld.”
If so many travelers looked at Mohammed Ali in awe, it was because
his reputation as a bloodthirsty Oriental potentate had been well
established by the massacre of Mamluks at the Citadel in 1811, which
he orchestrated to establish his power over Egypt once and for all.
The awareness of the regime’s cruelty was perpetuated by the sight
of tortured bodies floating down the Nile every so often, as the one
observed by the count of Forbin in 1817: “His two hands were nailed
and crushed between two planks. A thigh had been devoured by the fish.”
Forbin, a writer and a painter, wanted to meet Mohammed Ali and
approached Bernardino Drovetti – who would later become the French
Consul in Egypt and had the ear of the Pasha – for an introduction.
He was welcomed at the Palace of Ras El-Teen: “Mohammed Ali received
me very graciously, and expressed his regrets not to have been in
Cairo when I was visiting the city,” wrote Forbin. “His features
are lively and his eyes very expressive. He was smoking: his gold
narghile [referred to as shisha today] is covered in precious stones
Conversation with Mohammed Ali is often interrupted by a sort of
convulsive hiccup. I was assured that this infirmity befell him after
he had been given a violent poison, which effects, caught in time,
left only that sequel. Many great European doctors were consulted to
provide a remedy, but until now this has been to no avail.”
Forbin was allowed to paint Mohammed Ali a portrait for which the
Pasha posed with evident pleasure. This painting and Forbin’s account
of his visit inspired the painter Horace Vernet in his tableau of the
Pasha half-reclining on his cushions, gazing fixedly ahead. Next to
him is a small lion symbolizing might. He is making a fist with his
right hand, the only indication that he is aware of the massacre of
the Mamluks taking place in the courtyard beyond.
Nubar Pasha had many opportunities to learn of Mohammed Ali’s
callousness. Tales of the bloody events that had brought him to
power were reaching the young man’s ears and it did not take him
long to discover that his uncle had at one time been victim of the
ruler’s ruthlessness: Soon after Ali came to power, he called Boghos,
who was then director of the customs, to Damietta. They had a slight
disagreement over the accounts, which enraged the master, who shouted,
“Drag him by his feet.” This was tantamount to a death sentence. One
of the Turkish attendants got hold of Boghos and dragged him out,
but since he owed him a favor, instead of taking of him to the Nile
where his body should have been thrown after the execution, he hid him
in a safe house. A few days later Mohammed Ali had trouble collecting
the taxes in Rosetta and, finding himself short of cash, exclaimed:
“If only Boghos were here, he would have solved the problem!”
The attendant, believing that Mohammed Ali had found him out,
confessed to the hiding of the customs director. “Boghos is alive,”
cried the Pasha. “Bring him to me at once and if you don’t, you won’t
live long enough to regret it.”
It seems that, from that day on, Boghos earned more and more esteem in
the Pasha’s eyes, but the poor man could never relax enough to enjoy
the favors bestowed on him. Years later, after Boghos had retired,
an incident occurred which left him feeling slighted by one of the
Pasha’s administrators. He was hurt so deeply that he took to his
bed and refused to take any nourishment. Alerted, Mohammed Ali sent
one of his secretaries to inform Boghos that the Pasha was ordering
him to get well.
“If my master has ordered,” Boghos told his physician, “then I must.
See what you can do.”
But it was too late, however, and Boghos died soon after his master’s
command. His funeral was a little-publicized, discreet affair until
the Pasha, who was residing in Alexandria at the time, found out that
the old man was not buried with military honors, as he deserved. He
dispatched at once the following letter to the commander in chief of
his armies:
“To my honored son, the mighty Osman Pasha: You are an ass and a
brute. The man who bought you and raised you dies, and you and the
troops under your orders do not accompany him to his grave! As soon
as you receive this letter, you and the Alexandrian regiment will go
to the Armenian church, dig out Boghos and bury him again with the
military honors due to him. Don’t you dare disobey me.”
The body was not disinterred, but a new mass was said, attended by
Osman Pasha and the regiment, the commander and high-ranking officers,
while soldiers stood at attention in the courtyard.
Death of a Giant
In 1844, Mohammed Ali began to suffer episodes of mental collapse.
The fits were of a passing nature and, after periods where he was
prone to hallucinations, the Pasha recovered without a trace. The
origins of his illness have never been fully ascertained, although
Alleaume suggests that some of the symptoms were indicative of
Alzheimer’s. Ali’s private physician ordered small doses of mercury
to be administered to the Pasha to control the bouts; historian
Mohammed Hakim argues that the treatment was severe and the physician
had ordered that the patient abstain from sexual activity. However,
according to Hakim, one of the Pasha’s daughters, wanting to please
her sick father, surreptitiously allowed women into his room, thus
unwittingly hastening his demise.
By 1848, Mohammed Ali’s spells had turned into comas, and he was
unconscious at the time of his son Ibrahim’s death in November of
that year. Luckily, he was thus unaware of what this favorite son
had done: In the spring of that same year, Ibrahim had convened a
group of 12 physicians who had unanimously declared the Pasha unfit
to govern. He had taken this report to Istanbul, where he claimed
the Sultan’s investiture.
Mohammed Ali was deposed in September 1848, and with that his dreams of
grandeur for the country came to a crashing end. Ibrahim became viceroy
for a period of two months whereupon, after his untimely death, power
passed on to Abbas, the son of Tussoun and the oldest male member of
the family, as prescribed by the law governing the succession in Egypt.
>>From then on, Mohammed Ali’s descendants saw their power decline
until 1952, when King Farouk was finally ousted from the throne.
Dynasty
Today, Princess Nimet Amr lives in a Zamalek flat in sober gentility.
In her living room, cluttered with pictures of her family and children,
is a portrait of Mohammed Ali gazing sternly from a side table, perhaps
looking on at the trials and tribulations of his descendants. Princess
Nimet Amr is his great granddaughter.
The princess, however, does not remember the founder of the dynasty
particularly overshadowing her childhood, except in so far as she was
submitted to a stricter discipline than children her age, “Because
of who I was,” she says. “But that was more related to the present,
to the fact that we belonged to the royal family and had to appear
as examples of good behavior,” she reflects.
Of Mohammed Ali, she was told that he was Albanian and that she should
be proud of his achievements because he had introduced modernity to
Egypt. It was very theoretical however, like being proud to be Egyptian
or Muslim, something really shared with the rest of the population. It
did not amount to personal pride in a special relationship.
That, she says, is why the princess does not normally dwell on the
past and would rather talk about her work in an arts and crafts
boutique. Yet when the conversation turns to Mohammed Ali’s military
successes, suddenly she blurts, “Mohammed Ali would not have lost
Palestine, I can tell you that!” Suddenly, pride in the achievements
of her ancestor is there for all to see. Gamal Abdel Nasser may have
abolished the privileges of the royal family, but he did not succeed
in belittling its founder.
Battered like all the members of the royal family by the Free Officers’
revolution, the princess’ first loyalties are to the country her
ancestor adopted and proudly built. She suffers much less from the
unfair treatment that was meted to his memory and his family during
the past half century than from the defeat of 1948, in which King
Farouk played an active and determining role.
But how binding is memory? The princess’ daughter Magda, born after
the revolution, today has no interest in the glorious past of her
august ancestor. She is resolutely modern. She is steeped in Egyptian
life, embracing the fashions and customs of the day. If her great,
great grandfather brought about some of the progress she is enjoying
now, so be it, but she is more worried about her 20-year-old son
threatening to quit his job or her daughter’s intention to celebrate
her best friend’s henna night in their flat.
A distressed Princess Nimet expresses how the world has changed so
much. She wonders where the manners she was once taught have gone. In
her days, weddings were a most civilized affair, certainly not preceded
by a folkloric carnival.
One can, however, imagine that in his frame the Pasha of Egypt will
look kindly tonight upon the frolicking girls. The sumptuous wedding
including a henna night that he organized for his daughter Zeinab was
a historic event lasting many days; he wanted modernity for Egypt,
but knew better than to reject its people’s lore, which he obviously
did not consider incompatible with progress.
Mohammed Ali is not a primary concern in the life of Fouad Sadek
either. The son of Princess Faika, sister of King Farouk, he is a
partner in a well-known fabric shop in Zamalek. He is surprised that
Egyptian intellectuals have chosen to honor his ancestor on the 200th
anniversary of his ascent to power, but he is nevertheless delighted.
With his friend and expert in Mohammed Ali’s history Mahmoud Sabet
(another descendant of Mohammed Ali – the son of a cousin of Queen
Nazli, King Fouad’s wife), they are happy to evoke the Pasha’s military
acumen and his numerous victories.
“He was one of those rare men who appear every few centuries and who
have natural gifts that propel them to power. Mohammed Ali knew how
to use them well,” concludes Sabet. et
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress