Author: Baghdasarian Karlen

“The Cut” Genocide drama removed from Turkish film week entries list

September 13, 2014 – 17:56 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – Award winning director Fatih Akin’s Armenian
Genocide drama “The Cut” was removed from the list of entries for
Filmekimi Istanbul-hosted autumn film week.

Earlier, the drama was posted among the film week participants on the
Facebook page of the event organizer Istanbul Foundation For Culture &
Arts.

According to the Foundation, the film was removed from the list at the
request of foreign representatives of the film who were unwilling to
see a major gap between the film’s first screening and its premiere at
the cinemas, which was slightly delayed.

According to Ermenihaber, the move carries no political motifs.

“The Cut” tells the story of an Armenian man, Nazareth Manoogian, who
after surviving the Genocide learns that his twin daughters may be
alive, and goes on a quest to find them. Nazareth’s journey takes him
from his village Mardin to the deserts, to Cuba and finally North
Dakota.

From: Baghdasarian

Babayan: Artsakh’s recognition by Basque parliament is important step

Saturday,September 13

The recognition of Artsakh’s right to self-determination by the Basque
parliament is an extremely important step to us, David Babayan,
spokesman for the president of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic, told
Aysor.am. He described that step as a new beginning in Artsakh’s
history and the establishment of new relations with Artsakh.

“In Europe, it was the first step recognizing Artsakh’s right to
self-determination and the independence of the state of Artsakh. We do
work in various countries and continents and this work will produce
its results sooner or later,” Babayan said.

We would remind you that recently California became the sixth U.S.
state to recognize Artsakh’s independence.

“The geography is gradually expanding. These good and promising
developments will continue, making Artsakh recognizable in the world,
” Babayan said, noting that the process is conditioned by several
factors. In his words, it bears evidence of a community of interests
and the fact that Artsakh is a democratic state that has a right to
self-determination. “It is also a result of Armenia-Artsakh-Diaspora
trinity’s work. It also shows that Artsakh does not pose a danger to
any other state. No country would recognize a fascist non-democratic
state. It is a demonstration of goodwill, “Babayan said adding that
unlike Azerbaijan, Artsakh does not spend millions of dollars to
improve its image.

“It is not like Azerbaijan or some other states that waste billions of
dollars. For example, Azerbaijan does it with the aim of harming
Artsakh’s image,” he said.

Commenting on the negotiating process, D. Babayan considered it a bit
complex process. “These recognitions are important, but they have
nothing to do with negotiations. Azerbaijan is the main obstacle to
negotiations. Nevertheless, I believe that it is impossible to achieve
the final result in negotiations without Artsakh. Artsakh will join
these talks sooner or later. And the sooner official Baku understands
it and stops its ostrich policy, the better for Azerbaijan,” David
Babayan said.

From: Baghdasarian

Armenian digital project `CityBugs’ wins European Youth Award

September 13, 2014 – 17:26 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – The Armenian project `CityBugs’ was named among the
winners of Europe’s unique `Digital Creativity for Social Good’
contest. Prof. Peter A. Bruck, honorary chairman of the International
Center for New Media and initiator of the European Youth Award (EYA),
has announced the EYA winners 2014 selected by an international expert
jury.

`CityBugs’ stood out of 130 submissions from 49 European countries.
The project was developed by young and smart social entrepreneurs from
Armenia who bundled their forces to set new creativity and innovation
standards in the digital world. `CityBugs’ is a social platform to
enable solutions for critical issues affecting the environment,
health, education, public services and more. Committed citizens can
access CityBugs using the web platform or a mobile application,
reporting any relevant issue (whether garbage removal, health care
problems, missing zebras and street lighting, or infrastructure for
the disabled) to municipal authorities.

This year’s competition focused on European challenges and priorities
as defined by the EU strategy 2020 and the Council of Europe. How
these can be achieved by the creative use of IT and Mobiles, has been
demonstrated by Europe’s cunning digital natives. `To know that there
are so many young people who are caring to change the future, is
awesome! They really inspired me with their innovative projects!’ says
juror DuÅ¡ica BirovljeviÄ?, founder and owner of Nomcentar in Serbia.

The winning projects origin from eleven different countries ` Armenia,
Austria (2),the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany (2),
Portugal, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The
young bright minds behind the projects are invited to the EYA Festival
in Graz, Austria, from November 19-22, as reward for their great
achievements. There they will participate in an interactive conference
with international creative thinkers, ICT experts, business and
opinion leaders. During this three-days knowledge-event they will
present their inspiring high-impact projects in front of a high-level
audience. Based on their presentations, the EYA Festival Grand Jury
will select one overall winner.

Called into life by Prof. Peter A. Bruck, honorary chairman of the
International Center for New Media, in 2012, the European Youth Award
(EYA) is a leading European competition honoring excellence in the use
of Internet and mobile applications for social empowerment. Conducted
under the patronage of the Council of Europe, UNESCO and Unido, EYA as
annual contest seeks to motivate young people under the age of thirty
to produce socially-valuable digital projects that address the goals
defined by the Council of Europe and Europe 2020.

From: Baghdasarian

ARMENIE
Le gouvernement arménien soutient les habitants des villages
frontaliers de la région de Tavouche placés sous le feu des tirs
azéris

Le gouvernement arménien vient allouer une somme de 147 millions de
drams (360 000 dollars pour améliorer le sort des habitants de la zone
frontalière de Tavouche. Parmi les projets soutenus par le ministre du
Territoire, Armén Guévorguian, tel un réseau d’irrigation au village
d’Ayketsor. Le village frontalier sera sécurisé avec des murs et des
obstacles protégeant ses habitants des tirs azéris. L’école d’Ayketsor
sera également rénovée. Face à la situation très tendue début août
dans ces villages frontaliers qui essuyaient des tirs réguliers venus
de l’Azerbaïdjan, le gouvernement arménien a décidé d’entreprendre une
série de mesure pour sécuriser la zone et soutenir les villageois afin
qu’ils ne quittent pas leurs villages.

Krikor Amirzayan

samedi 13 septembre 2014,
Krikor Amirzayan (c)armenews.com

From: Baghdasarian

Will NATO build military bases in Azerbaijan?
By Nazila Isgandarova
2014-09-13

Intensified tension between Ukraine and Russia and regional
instability continue to jeopardize the security of the oil resources
of the Caspian Sea and important oil and gas routes. It also triggers
the `security vacuum” in the region, which in turn invites rival
powers to come along and occupy it.

Therefore, the threat in the region has two dimensions: the threat to
the oil supply routes and the prospect of rival powers coming into the
region. In this regard, growing competition in the South Caucasus
between Russia and the Western powers is another important aspect of
Azerbaijan’s security.

The main question is who will fill the security vacuum in the region.
Some analysts anticipate that the conflict in Ukraine may result in
NATO’s establishment of military bases in Azerbaijan. This speculation
is doubted by many analysts due to Russia’s open and explicit position
on NATO’s expansion in the South Caucasus.

However, similar doubts were also expressed when NATO showed interest
in actively participating in the region in 1995-2000. Their main
argument was based on NATO Secretary-General Javier Solano’s statement
after a meeting with Armenian President Robert Kocharyan in Brussels
that `the alliance was not thinking of deploying any troops in the
region.’ However, the regional actors, i.e., Azerbaijan, did not
exclude the fact that NATO was interested in the security of the
pipeline.

NATO’s formal involvement in the Caucasus began as early as 1990 with
the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE). Almost
immediately, as the South Caucasian states became North Atlantic
Cooperation Council (NACC) members in 1992, this forum touched upon
the conflicts in the region. For instance, the participants of the
ministerial meeting of June 5, 1992, paid significant attention to the
set of regional problems in the South Caucasus, and in 1994, NATO
launched the Partnership for Peace (PfP) project. NATO’s other
program, Individual Partnership Action Plans, was launched at the
November 2002 Prague Summit and was open to countries that have the
political will and ability to deepen their relations with NATO.

In both projects, NATO’s primary task in the region was to adapt its
political and military infrastructure to new threats. NATO was able to
shift from a realist-based military alliance, which was primarily
tasked with protecting the survival of the Euro-Atlantic democracies
from communism, to a security alliance geared to managing instability
and other nontraditional threats to peace and prosperity across
Europe, NATO’s involvement in the region in response to a variety of
circumstances, i.e., international terrorism, religious and political
extremism and drug trafficking.

However, NATO’s involvement was not helpful in solving the frozen war
between Azerbaijan and Armenia, which occupies more than 20 percent of
Azerbaijani land. The lack of NATO’s involvement in solving this war,
of course, will be a minus in the organization’s history because it
encouraged other similar situations in the region, such as the
situation in Ukraine.

Furthermore, due to NATO’s passive presence in the region, such
involvement contributed to a new dilemma in the region that relates to
the Western concern about the rapidly developing security relationship
between Russia, Iran, China and India in the region.

The relationship with Moscow and Tehran is more problematic. Russia
and Iran have identical foreign policy positions regarding the Caspian
Sea region; therefore, the alliance between them attempts to block
NATO influence in the area and monopolize energy corridors from the
Caspian region to Europe, and most important, to prevent NATO’s
intervention to protect the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline.

However, recent speculations that NATO may build military bases in
Azerbaijan suggest that the issue of security in the South Caucasus
has an importance that goes beyond the regional location of the area.
NATO’s involvement is important because instability in the area may
result in the interruption of oil supplies to other parts of the
world. Hence, instability in the region may have grave economic
consequences and bring about the danger of regional war.

The security question has been intensified because of the position
occupied by the area as regards oil production. It cannot be ignored
that oil extracted from the Caspian Sea represents an alternative to
the Gulf area for the West. In addition, the oil resources of the
Caspian Sea have the potential to contribute to the economic
prosperity, energy security and stability of the region.

Therefore, after the conflict in Ukraine, the interest of other parts
of the world, particularly, the West and Russia, in Caspian Sea oil
and gas has brought a state of confrontation between the US, Russia
and Iran in the region. The rivalry between the West and regional
powers such as Russia and Iran has created a sense of potential threat
to the oil supplies to the West through the BTC. The West and Russia
try to demonstrate their military presence in the region. In this way,
threats and risks to the Caspian Sea region come from international or
regional instability.

Thus, the search for security in the South Caucasus involves
international and regional actors. The regional states and the Western
companies in the Caspian Sea rely on NATO to reduce these threats and
risks in the region.

In conclusion, the security implications in the South Caucasus include
the Caspian’s importance in the context of the West’s energy security.
Azerbaijan and Georgia have high expectations of NATO to address the
security challenges in the region, but NATO and its member countries
still do not have a clear strategy and appropriate methods to address
these security challenges.

*Nazila Isgandarova is a Toronto-based researcher and author of `The
Nectar of Passion.’

From: Baghdasarian

TANBAK AND THE MONOCHROME OF MASS TRAGEDY

The Daily Star, Lebanon
Sept 12 2014

Jim Quilty| The Daily Star

BEIRUT: After spending some minutes absorbing the latest series of
the Lebanese artist named Tanbak, you begin searching for minute
traces of diversity. These mixed-media installations are the stuff of
“In Transit,” the solo show now up at Agial Art Gallery.

“In Transit” is, in most respects, a minimalist exhibition.

The works that make up the series are numerically titled – “1,” “5,”
“10,” etc. – and the predominant media are paper and wood. Most all
the forms Tanbak has crafted are square and rectangular, though “3”
has an irregular circular structure.

I find the whiteness of these pieces provides a nice distance from
messiness of the events behind them

The pieces entitled “1” and “2” are fairly representative of the
exhibition’s aesthetic – though they are unique, insofar as they’re
unusually similar to one another in composition.

Packed within their two 100x100cm frames are a profusion of paper
cuboids (“rectangular cubes”) of approximately the same size.

Bisecting “2” at a diagonal angle are a number of longer, thinner
cuboids.

+ Enlarge

All the forms in “1” and “2” have been painted a uniform shade of
white gray evocative of whitewash. The wooden frame about “2” has
been left unpainted, while the frame of “1” has had white slapped
upon it as well.

“There is composition at work here,” Tanbak says. “It’s not just
random. I tried to make an ordered disorder in each piece in the
series.”

For the casual onlooker, particularly anyone fond of poring over maps
of pre-20th-century urban quarters (or the ad hoc settlement of the
contemporary shantytowns) the ordered disorder in these installations
are scale models – sculptural representations of human settlement,
as seen from above.

The artist says the “In Transit” series emerged, in part, from the
challenge to create work upon a tragic historical theme, pieces that
move beyond the common figurative restrictions that usually constrain
that kind of work.

“About two or three years ago, someone commissioned me to do something
on the [Armenian] genocide,” Tanbak recalls.

“I didn’t want to make something on blood and murder.”

Her gaze drifts over to the side of the gallery housing works “1”-“3.”

“I find the whiteness of these pieces provides a nice distance from
messiness of the events behind them. Anyway two of the original pieces
were exhibited on April 24, the anniversary of the genocide.”

The urban topography-cum-formalism of this series stems from the
artist’s historical reading of the disaster afflicting Ottoman
Armenians during World War I: The pattern of dislocation the Armenian
genocide has come to represent keeps being repeated, and repeated on
Lebanese soil.

“I started working on these forms in 2011,” she recalls, “after the
Syrian refugees began arriving in numbers.

“I was moved by this overflow of humanity – first the Armenians, then
the Palestinians. Now the Syrians. I sometimes think that nowadays
more people are living in camps than are living in houses.”

The formal diversity in this series is narrow but rewarding.

In the work entitled “5,” for instance, not all the objects
assembled within its frame have been whitewashed. Standing out from
the monochrome background, some paper cuboids have been wrapped in
fabric and aluminum foil, like wee Christmas presents.

Complementing these are a number of found objects – shirt buttons,
electronic radio components and miscellaneous fragments of tubing,
plastic washers, and the like, some whitewashed, others not.

“You can tell this is one of the earliest pieces,” Tanbak says,
turning to face “5,” “because it hasn’t been completely whitened. You
can see some of the materials used.”

“The silver [tin foil] is meant to evoke the tannak [corrugated zinc
used as roofing material in some makeshift refugee houses].

“My mother used to tell me, ‘Never throw things away because you’ll
find you can always use them,” she gestures to the buttons. “This is
the junk that I used to assemble these early pieces. Life is like this,
a mixture of everything.

“These elements evoke the labor refugees must perform to make a little
money,” she continues after a moment. “The women tend to sew. The
men work as electricians, plumbers and such.”

She says only the later works have been denuded of any color or found
objects, becoming monochromes of whitewashed cuboids.

“Distance does have a way of making things more abstract,” she says.

“That’s one thing. For another, people here don’t want to be reminded
of these traces of the camps. They don’t want to see.”

The work titled “5” is among the works in this series whose frame
has been all but hidden by the surfeit of white forms bursting from it.

Tanbak explains that the earliest pieces in this series were made
on wooden boards, but that medium made each work too heavy. “The art
itself is made of paper, so it made no sense for each piece to be so
difficult to move around.”

That’s why the artist began working with framed canvases – not the
front bits, on which artists conventionally paint, but its backside,
where the wooden frame and canvas provide a receptacle for her array
of forms.

Assessing the cluster of works “7” through “10,” each frame betrays
traces of the whitewashed canvas that’s the nearly invisible medium
of each piece.

“But those works that are most-obviously framed,” she points to works
“1” and “2,” which are closest to being mirror images of one another,
“there’s no canvas backing there, just a wooden frame.”

She pauses again and seems to nod briefly into the gallery.

“I dislike frames,” she frowns. “Usually I want to work outside the
frame, since these [refugee] camps do have a way of bursting out of
their barriers.

“And I hate having frames in my own life.”

This remark resonates later in the conversation as the artist rolls
her eyes at the Lebanese custom of using a surname as the marker
or framework to make presumptions about someone’s identity. It’s
to sidestep some of this business, she says, that she chose to take
a pseudonym.

More Information

“In Transit” is on show at Agial Art Gallery through Sept. 20.

For more information on Tanbak or to see more of her work, visit

tania-tanbak.com

“Journalists insist on using my family name anyway of course,” she
sighs. “If they work for one side, they write my family’s name. If
they write for the other, they write the name of my husband’s family.”

Observers of work like that on show in “In Transit” sometimes remark
that the stories inspiring visual art can be more compelling that the
work itself. Such observations betray more about people’s fondness
for narrative than the relative virtues of formalism.

The principal critical strength of these works may be the precision
with which they express how the many and voices of diverse human
tragedies tend to be leveled with distance, and whitewashed..

A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Daily
Star on September 12, 2014, on page 11.

From: Baghdasarian

REMEMBERING THE GREAT FIRE OF SMYRNA

Greek Reporter
Sept 12 2014

by Ioanna Zikakou

Today marks 92 years since the Catastrophe of Smyrna (Izmir) and the
Great Fire that destroyed the city, causing the majority of Greeks
in Asia Minor to flee their homes and seek shelter in Greece and
other countries.

Smyrna used to be one of the wealthiest cities of the Ottoman Empire
and hosted one of the largest populations of Greeks and Armenians.

During the Greco-Turkish War from 1919 to 1922, Greek armed forces
settled in Smyrna on May 15, 1919. When the Turkish army regained
control of the city on September 9, 1922, a large number of Greeks and
Armenians were killed as part of the Greek genocide from 1914 to 1923.

Even though no one can know for sure when the Great Fire of Smyrna
started, historians believe that it was on September 13, and it burned
for almost nine days, until it was finally extinguished on September
22. Greeks and Armenians crammed by the waterfront, where they had to
live under horrid conditions for almost two weeks, while others managed
to escape. They boarded Greek and international ships which led them
to safety. In total, approximately 400,000 Smyrna citizens were forced
to abandon their homes, while the total estimated number of Greeks and
Armenians who were killed during the Great Fire ranges from 10,000 to
100,000. One of the survivors of the Catastrophe was Aristotle Onassis.

The multicultural city of Smyrna was turned to ashes with its
infrastructure suffering substantial damage. The inner center, which
housed many commercial and private buildings, had to be completely
rebuilt, while several historical monuments were lost in the fire.

Turkish soldiers murdered many non-Muslims, while others, mostly strong
and capable men, were forced to join labor battalions, the so-called
“amele taburu.”

The Great Fire of Smyrna was the peak of the Asia Minor Catastrophe,
bringing an end to the 3,000-year Greek presence on Anatolia’s
Aegean shore and shifting the population ratio between Muslims and
non-Muslims. The first census following the War (1927) showed an 88%
Muslim population.

Chronologically, the events that took place and led to the dreadful
1922 catastrophe were:

August 26, 1922 The Turkish army, well-trained and supplied by France
and Italy, finally launched a counter-attack and the major Greek
defense positions were overrun.

August 30, 1922 Approximately 200,000 strong, the Greek army was routed
at the Battle of Dumlupinar, with half of its soldiers captured or
slain and equipment lost.

September 1, 1922 Kemal Ataturk issued his famous order: “Armies,
your first goal is the Mediterranean, Forward!”

September 6, 1922 There were 21 war ships in the harbor, with 11
British, 5 French, 1 Italian, 2 US and more to come. Some 50,000 Greek
troops and thousands of refugees poured into Smyrna and congregated
on the quay side. The interior was in complete turmoil. Greek ships
in the bay were taking away the soldiers as quickly as they could.

September 7, 1922 The allies had strict orders not to intervene
in Turkish internal affairs. Their responsibilities lay with their
national citizens.

There were some 150,000 homeless refugees in Smyrna.

September 9, 1922 After the resignation of the Greek government in
Athens, Turkish cavalry entered into Smyrna. By dusk, the Turkish
army had approached the city from all sides and violence broke
out. There was looting towards rich and poor alike. A large number
of Greek soldiers had not managed to embark and settled old scores
in a killing spree.

September 10, 1922 There was large-scale looting, raping, mutilating
and killing of Armenians and Greeks. The Armenian quarter was
systematically plundered. Kemal’s cortege entered Smyrna through the
Turkish quarter where the cavalry awaited him. A battle raged with
a battalion of 6,000 Greek soldiers heading to the coast. That last
vestige of the Greek army surrendered and taken prisoners. Metropolitan
Chryssostomos was murdered by a mob. There was no authority over men
brutalized by years of war. Atrocities were committed in full view
of the war ships.

The streets and harbor were filled with bloated corpses.

September 11, 1922 The situation was deteriorating as more and more
refugees made their way to Smyrna.

September 12, 1922 More homeless, terror-stricken, refugees continued
to arrive and camp out in the streets. They were immediate victims of
lawless elements of the Turkish army. At that time, some 7,000 British
troops were stationed in Constantinople. Kemal stated: “We must have
our capital and if Western Powers will not hand it over, I shall be
obliged to march on Constantinople.” Smyrna was plunged into anarchy
– desultory shooting, looting and rape all around. The allied ships
remained under orders not to take any Greeks or Armenians. However,
it is likely that the Turks would not have permitted them to leave.

September 13, 1922 The allies began evacuating their nationals. The
city’s population swelled to over 700,000 people. Yet, Smyrna’s
non-Muslims were confident that the warships of the Allied fleet
would protect them.

They hoped Kemal would view this still prosperous city as an asset
to the new republic. They were, however, unprepared for the horror
unleashed upon them. Turkish troops set the Armenian quarter alight.

The quay side became crowded with half a million refugees with the
fires raging behind them. The city burned for four days.

People were in danger of being burned alive as the fire had reached
the waterfront. The ships moved 250 yards further out to avoid the
intense heat. The ships’ bands struck-up tunes to drown-out the screams
and shrill cries of a frantic mob on the quay side. A British admiral
had a dramatic change of heart and ordered all available boats to be
lowered and dispatched to the quay side. Total chaos followed.

Yet, one by one, the ships were overflowing with Greeks and Armenians.

The harbor and streets were filled with bloated corpses: people,
dogs, horses. The stench of burning flesh prevailed.

September 14, 1922 The rescue mission continued and room was found
for 20,000 people. The war ships sailed to Athens which was already
crowded with refugees and not equipped to deal with an influx of
hundreds of thousands of others.

September 15-18, 1922 Refugees continued to arrive in Smyrna. There was
hunger, thirst and a sanitary crisis. Kemal decreed that any refugee
in Smyrna on October 1 would be deported to central Anatolia. But
deportations began immediately. All Christians of military age were
deemed an enemy. The forced marches were similar to those of the
deportations of 1915.

Ultimately, 100,000 people were killed and 160,000 deported to the
interior.

From: Baghdasarian

D.C. SHORTS FILM FESTIVAL: “ZIAZAN,” AN ARMENIAN GIRL’S ADVENTURE IN GEOPOLITICS

Washington Post
Sept 12 2014

By Celia Wren September 12 at 11:15 AM

Sometimes chocolate speaks of geopolitics. It does just that in Turkish
director Derya Durmaz’s film “Ziazan,” part of the D.C. Shorts Film
Festival.

In the 15-minute movie — which has screening dates through Sept. 15 —
a 4-year-old Armenian girl stows away in the enormous suitcase of her
uncle, a traveling merchant who has brought her Turkish chocolate in
the past. She is greedy for more. International tensions turn Ziazan’s
surreptitious journey into a pint-size version of “The Odyssey.”

Because of a closed border between Armenia and Turkey (which have
a history of troubled relations), her uncle regularly has to take
36-hour detour through another country, Georgia, to obtain his Turkish
merchandise. This time, even that strategy may falter.

Speaking by phone from Istanbul, where she’s based,
actress-turned-filmmaker Durmaz, 41, recalls reading a 2011 news report
about a circuitous trans-Georgia route that was de rigueur for vendors
traveling between Armenia and Turkey. “I thought this was very ironic
and absurd,” she says. After all, “if you go to eastern Turkey and
stand close to the border and yell,” you can be heard in Armenia.

These reflections eventually generated “Ziazan,” which is “a short
film for those who believe in a world without borders,” she remarks
in a post-interview e-mail.

She developed the film project with assistance from the Armenia-Turkey
Cinema Platform, an organization that was launched by cinema lovers in
the two nations and whose aims include promoting mutual understanding.

All the “Ziazan” filming was done in Armenia, and Durmaz’s partners
in that country helped set up kindergarten visits so that she could
scout for likely young actors. (Chubby-cheeked Emy Vardanian eventually
landed the title role.) Her Armenian colleagues also translated her
script (which she had written in English) into Armenian; she created
Turkish subtitles for Turkish-speaking audiences.

The shoot, in the summer of 2013, coincided with protests over plans
to raze a park in Istanbul — protests that tested the government
of then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is now Turkey’s
president. A police crackdown on the demonstrators turned violent.

The Turkish nationals involved in the “Ziazan” film were all too
aware of those events. “It was very emotional for us to be away from
Istanbul, being at the set all day, then coming home late at night
to follow, on social media, the violent crackdown on protests,”
Durmaz says.

International cooperation on the movie didn’t end with the Armenia
shoot. At the age of 18, as an exchange student in the United States,
Durmaz had made friends with people from around the world. When she
wanted to submit “Ziazan” to a Spanish festival and needed subtitles
in Spanish, a plea for help via social media resulted in contacts
she has in the Dominican Republic, Spain, Venezuela and elsewhere
crowdsourcing the project.

“There is this quote of my favorite novelist, Tom Robbins: ‘Our
similarities bring us to a common ground; our differences allow us
to be fascinated by each other,’ ” says Durmaz, who is scheduled to
be Washington when the film is screened. “Even when we think we are
so different from each other, we experience so many similar things
in this life. And, yes, I really do agree that our differences bring
such richness of perspective into each other’s lives.”

The “Ziazan” screenings join an array of offerings scheduled for
Turkish Cultural Heritage Month, a celebration organized by the
American Turkish Association of Washington, D.C., in partnership with
other entities. Also on the lineup for the month: Turkish Heritage
Weekend at the Plaza at Tysons Corner Center in Northern Virginia
(Sept. 12-14) and the 12th D.C. Turkish Festival on Sept. 28 on
Pennsylvania Avenue. By the way, that chocolate theme in “Ziazan”? It
may have something to do with Durmaz’s own sweet tooth. “I’m a fan
of all sorts of desserts,” she confesses.

‘Artistic interplay

“It’s a synesthesia experience.”

That’s one phrase Erik Spangler, a Baltimore composer and electronic
musician, uses to describe his collaboration with Austrian artist
Astrid Rieder. On Sept. 24, at the Austrian Cultural Forum, they will
stage an example of the performance genre Rieder calls “Trans Art.”

Using electronic instruments, such as a Kaoss Pad, Spangler (a.k.a. DJ
Dubble8) will improvise a score that draws on some of his past
compositions. Rieder will draw abstract images with various pens,
pencils or colored crayons, depending on the music. Each artist will
respond to the other in real time.

Trans Art consists of “interplay between contemporary art forms,
which results in an intensified overall experience for the audience,”
Rieder explains in an e-mail.

Spangler, speaking by phone from Baltimore, says: “Sound and image are
being organically connected and moving together, [yet] at the same
time responding to each other and creating an immersive landscape
for the audience. Hopefully, it’s a contemplative act for Astrid and
I, and for the audience as well.”(Baltimore is scheduled to host a
Rieder-Spangler performance Sept. 25; the two artists will also take
their act to New York, for performances Sept. 27 and 28.)

Rieder, who is based in Salzburg, has been working in Trans Art’s
boundary-crossing vein since 1993, when she started drawing to the
sounds of John Cage and Morton Feldman in a workshop run by Wolfgang
Seierl, a Vienna-born composer, musician and visual artist.

Her goal –“inspired only by contemporary music,” she says — is
to move audiences beyond conventional ways of thinking about and
pigeonholing art. Audiences at past concerts, she says, have told her,
“When I see you drawing, I better understand these sounds!”

She hastens to note that she is far from the only artist to marry
brands of creativity in this way. “But almost no one sticks to it as
incessantly as I do!” she says.

D.C. Shorts Film Festival. Various locations, Sept. 11-21. Visit

“Trans Art.” Sept. 24 at the Austrian Cultural Forum, 3524
International Pl. NW. Also, Sept. 25 at Gallery 788, 3602 Hickory
Avenue, Baltimore. Visit

Wren is a freelance writer.

From: Baghdasarian

MAPPING A NEW WORLD ORDER

[ Part 2.2: “Attached Text” ]

The World After World War III?

By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya

September 11, 2014 “ICH” – “SCF” – The end goal of the US and NATO
is to divide (balkanize) and pacify (finlandize) the world’s
biggest country, the Russian Federation, and to even establish a
blanket of perpetual disorder (somalization) over its vast territory
or, at a minimum, over a portion of Russia and the post-Soviet space,
similarly to what is being done to the Middle East and North Africa.

The future Russia or the many future Russias, a plurality of weakened
and divided states, that Washington and its NATO allies see is/are
demographically in decline, de-industrialized, poor, without any
defensive capabilities, and hinterlands that will exploited for
their resources.

The Plans of the Empire of Chaos for Russia

Breaking the Soviet Union has not been enough for Washington and
NATO. The ultimate goal of the US is to prevent any alternatives from
emerging in Europe and Eurasia to Euro-Atlantic integration. This is
why the destruction of Russia is one of its strategic objectives.

Washington’s goals were alive and at work during the fighting
in Chechnya. They were also seen in the crisis that erupted with
EuroMaidan in Ukraine. In fact, the first step of the divorce between
Ukraine and Russia was a catalyst for the dissolution of the entire
Soviet Union and any attempts at reorganizing it.

The Polish-American intellectual Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was US
President Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor and an
architect behind the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, has actually
advocated for the destruction of Russia through gradual disintegration
and devolution. He has stipulated that . [1] In other
words, if the US divides Russia up, Moscow would not be able to
challenge Washington. In this context, he states the following:
. [2]

These views are not merely constrained to some academic’s ivory
tower or to detached think-tanks. They have the backing of governments
and have even cultivated adherents. One reflection of them is below.

US State-Owned Media Forecasts the Balkanization of Russia

Dmytro Sinchenko published an article on September 8, 2014 about
dividing Russia. His article titled . [3] Sinchenko was involved in EuroMaidan and
his organization, the Ukrainian Initiative
(÷ÓÅÕËÒÁ§ÎÓØËϧ ¦Î¦Ã¦ÁÔE×E ), advocates for
an ethnic nationalism, the territorial expansion of Ukraine at the
expense of most the bordering countries, reinvigorating the pro-US
Georgia-Ukraine-Azerbaijan-Moldova (GUAM) Organization for Democracy
and Economic Development, joining NATO, and launching an offensive
to defeat Russia as part of its foreign policy goals. [4] As a note,
the inclusion of the word democracy in GUAM should not fool anyone;
GUAM, as the inclusion of the Republic of Azerbaijan proves, has
nothing to do with democracy, but with counter-balancing Russia in
the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

Sinchenko’s article starts by talking about the history of the
phrase that the US has used to vilify its enemies.

It talks about how George W. Bush Jr. coined the phrase in 2002 by
grouping Iraq, Iran, and North Korea together, how John Bolton expanded
the Axis of Evil to include Cuba, Libya, and Syria, how Condoleezza
Rice include Belarus, Zimbabwe, and Myanmar (Burma), and then finally
he proposes that Russia be added to the list as the world’s main
pariah state. He even argues that the Kremlin is involved in all the
conflicts in the Balkans, Caucasus, Middle East, North Africa, Ukraine,
and Southeast Asia. He goes on to accuse Russia of planning to invade
the Baltic States, the Caucasus, Moldova, Finland, Poland, and, even
more ridiculously, two of its own close military and political allies,
Belarus and Kazakhstan. As the article’s title implies, he even
claims that Moscow is intentionally pushing for a third world war.

This fiction is not something that has been reported in the US-aligned
corporate networks, but is something that has been published directly
by US government-owned media. The forecast was published by the
Ukrainian service of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, which has
been a US propaganda tool in Europe and the Middle East that has
helped topple governments.

Chillingly, the article tries to sanitize the possibilities of a
new world war. Disgustingly ignoring the use of nuclear weapons and
the massive destruction that would erupt for Ukraine and the world,
the article misleadingly paints a cozy image of a world that will
be corrected by a major global war. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
and the author are essentially saying that
to the Ukrainian people and that some type of utopian paradise will
emerge after a war with Russia.

The article also fits very nicely into the contours of
Brzezinski’s forecast for Russia, Ukraine, and the Eurasian
landmass. It forecasts the division of Russia whereas Ukraine is
a part of an expanded European Union, which includes Georgia,
Armenia, the Republic of Azerbaijan, Belarus, Israel, Lebanon,
and Denmark’s North American dependency of Greenland, and
also controls a confederation of states in the Caucasus and the
Mediterranean Sea-the latter could be the Union of the Mediterranean,
which would encompass Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria,
Morocco, and the Moroccan-occupied Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic
or Western Sahara. Ukraine is presented as an integral component
of the European Union. In this regard, Ukraine appears to be
situated in a US-aligned Franco-German-Polish-Ukrainian corridor and
Paris-Berlin-Warsaw-Kiev axis that Brzezinski advocated for creating
in 1997, which Washington would use to challenge the Russian Federation
and its allies in the CIS. [5]

Redrawing Eurasia: Washington’s Maps of a Divided Russia

With the division of the Russian Federation, Radio Free
Europe’s/Radio Liberty’s article claims that any bipolar
rivalry between Moscow and Washington would end after World War III.

In a stark contradiction, it claims that only when Russia is destroyed
will there be a genuine multipolar world, but also implies that the
US will be the most dominant global power even though Washington and
the European Union will be weakened from the anticipated major war
with the Russians.

[0_8a050_7df5da85_L.jpg]

Accompanying the article are also two maps that outline the redrawn
Eurasian space and the shape of the world after the destruction of
Russia. Moreover, neither the author nor his two maps recognize the
boundary change in the Crimean Peninsula and depict it as a part
of Ukraine and not the Russian Federation. From west to east, the
following changes are made to Russia’s geography:

* The Russian oblast of Kaliningrad will be annexed by Lithuania,
Poland, or Germany. One way or another it will become a part of an
enlarged European Union.

* East Karelia (Russian Karelia) and what is currently the federal
subject of the Republic of Karelia inside Russia’s Northwestern
Federal District, along with the Federal City of St. Petersburg,
Leningrad Oblast, Novgorod Oblast, the northern two-thirds of
Pskov Oblast, and Murmansk Oblast are split from Russia to form
a Finnish-aligned country. This area could even be absorbed by
Finland to create a Greater Finland. Although the oblast of Archangel
(Arkhangelsk) is listed as a part of this partitioned area in the
article, it is not included in the map (probably due to a mistake in
the map).

* The southern administrative districts of Sebezhsky, Pustoshkinsky,
Nevelsky, and Usvyatsky in Pskov Oblast from the Northwestern Federal
District and the westernmost administrative districts of Demidovsky,
Desnogorsk, Dukhovshchinsky, Kardymovsky, Khislavichsky, Krasninsky,
Monastyrshchinsky, Pochinkovsky, Roslavlsky, Rudnyansky, Shumyachsky,
Smolensky, Velizhsky, Yartsevsky, and Yershichsky, as well as the
cities of Smolensk and Roslavl, in Smolensk Oblast from the Central
Federal District are joined to Belarus. The Smolensk Oblast’s
Dorogobuzhsky, Kholm-Zhirkovsky, Safonovsky, Ugransky, and Yelninsky
districts appear to be portioned further in the map as the new border
between Belarus and the proposed amputated Russia.

* The North Caucasian Federal District of Russia, which is comprised
of the Republic of Ingushetia, the Kabardino-Balkar Republic, the
Karachay-Cherkess Republic, the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania,
Stavropol Krai, and Chechnya, is separated from Russia as a European
Union-influenced Caucasian confederation

* The South Federal District of Russia, which is constituted by the
Republic of Adygea, Astrakhan Oblast, Volgograd Oblast, Republic of
Kalmykia, Krasnodar Krai, and Rostov Oblast, is completely annexed by
Ukraine; this leads to a shared border between Ukraine and Kazakhstan
and cuts Russia off from the energy-rich Caspian Sea and a direct
southern frontier with Iran.

* Ukraine also annexes the oblasts of Belgorod, Bryansk, Kursk, and
Voronezh from Russia’s most heavily populated federal district
and area, the Central Federal District.

* Siberia and the Russian Far East, specifically the Siberian Federal
District and the Far Eastern Federal District, are torn off from
Russia.

* The text states that all of the territory in Siberia and most of
the territory in the Russian Far East, which are comprised of the
Altai Republic, Altai Krai, Amur Oblast, the Republic of Buryatia,
Chukotka, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, Irkutsk Oblast, Kamchatka
Krai, Kemerovo Oblast, Khabarovsk Krai, the Republic of Khakassia,
Krasnoyarsk Krai, Magadan Oblast, Novosibirsk Oblast, Omsk Oblast,
Primorsky Krai, Sakha Republic, Tomsk Oblast, the Tuva Republic,
and Zabaykalsky Krai either turn into several Chinese-dominated
independent states or, alongside Mongolia, become new territories
of the People’s Republic of China. The map categorically
draws Siberia, most the Russian Far East, and Mongolia as Chinese
territory. The exception to this is Sakhalin Oblast.

* Russia loses Sakhalin Island (called Saharin and Karafuto in
Japanese) and the Kurile Islands, which constitute Sakhalin Oblast.

These islands are annexed by Japan.

On his own webpage, Sinchenko posted his Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty article days earlier, on September 2, 2014. The same
maps, which are accredited to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty,
are also present. [6] There, however, is an additional picture on
Sinchenko’s personal webpage that is worth noting; this is a
picture of Russia being cheerfully carved out for consumption as a
large meal by all the bordering countries. [7]

Mapping a New World Order: The World After World War III?

The second map is of a post-World War III globe that is divided into
several supranational states. Japan is the only exception. The second
map and its supranational states can be described as follows:

* As mentioned earlier, the European Union is expanded and has control
over its peripheries in the Caucasus, Southwest Asia, and North
Africa. This is the realization of NATO’s Mediterranean Dialogue
and Partnership for Peace at the political and military levels and
the European Union’s Eastern Partnership and Euro-Mediterranean
Partnership (the Union of the Mediterranean) at the political and
economic levels.

* The United States forms a North American-based supranational
entity that includes Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador,
Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Columbia, Venezuela, Ecuador,
the Guianas (Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana), and the entire
Caribbean.

* All the countries that are not swallowed by the US in South America
will form their own supranational entity in a lesser South America,
which will be dominated by Brazil.

* Some type of Southwest Asian bloc or supranational entity will be
formed out of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia,
Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Yemen.

* Some type of a supranational entity will be formed in the Indian
sub-continent or South Asia out of India, Sri Lanka (Ceylon), Nepal,
Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar (Burma), and Thailand.

* There will be a supranational entity in Australasia and Oceania
that will include the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei,
Indonesia, East Timor, Papa New Guinea, New Zealand, and the islands
of the Pacific. This entity will include Australia and be dominated
by Canberra.

* Aside from North Africa, which will be controlled by the European
Union, the rest of Africa will unify under the leadership of South
Africa.

* An East Asian supranational entity will include most of the Russian
Federation, Indo-China, China, the Korean Peninsula, Mongolia,
and post-Soviet Central Asia. This entity will be dominated by the
Chinese and dominated from Beijing.

[0_8a051_25620ea7_L.jpg]

Although Radio Free Europe’s article and two post-World War III
maps can be dismissed as fanciful notions, some important questions
have to be asked. Firstly, where did the author pick up these ideas?

Were they transmitted through any workshops supported by the US and the
European Union indirectly? Secondly, what informs the author’s
visions of a post-World War III political landscape?

The author has essentially catered to Brzezinski’s outline of
a divided Russia. The text and the maps have even included the areas
of North Africa, the Middle East, and the Caucasus that the European
Union views as a secondary periphery or layer to itself. These areas
are even shaded with a lighter blue than the darker blue used to
identify the European Union.

Even if Radio Free Europe is dismissed; no one should lose sight
of the fact that Japan still lays claim to Sakhalin Oblast and the
US, European Union, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia have been supporting
separatist movements in both the Federal Southern District and the
North Caucasian District of the Russian Federation.

Ukrainianism

The Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty article radiates with traces of
Ukrainianism, which is worth briefly mentioning.

Nations are constructed, because they are all dynamic communities
that, in one way or another, are constructed and kept together by
the collective of individuals that make societies. In this regard
they can be called imagined communities.

There are machinations at play to deconstruct and reconstruct
nations and groups in the post-Soviet space and Middle East. This
can be called the manipulation of tribalism in sociological and
anthropological jargon or, in political jargon, the playing out of
the Great Game. In this context, Ukrainianism has particularly been
supportive of anti-government elements and anti-Russian nationalist
feelings in Ukraine for more than one hundred years, firstly under
the Austrians and Germans, later through the Poles and British,
and now under the US and NATO.

Ukrainianism is an ideology that seeks to reify and enforce a new
collective imagining or false historic memory among the Ukrainian
people about them always being a separate nation and people, in both
ethnic and civic terms, from the Russian people. Ukrainianism is a
political projection that seeks to deny the historic unity of the
Eastern Slavs and the geographic roots and historic context behind
the distinction between Ukrainians and Russians. In other words,
Ukrainianism seeks to de-contextual and to forget the process that
has led to the distinction of Ukrainians from Russians.

***

Russia has always arisen from the ashes. History can testify to this.

Come what may, Russia will be standing. Whenever all the diverse
people of Russia are united under one banner for their homeland,
they have shattered empires. They have survived catastrophic wars
and invasions and have outlived their enemies. Maps and borders may
change, but Russia will remain.

Award-winning author, sociologist and geopolitical analyst, Mahdi
Darius Nazemroaza is the author of The Globalization of NATO
(Clarity Press) and a forthcoming book The War on Libya and the
Re-Colonization of Africa. He is Research Associate at the Centre
for Research on Globalization (CRG), a contributor at the Strategic
Cultural Foundation (SCF), Moscow, and a member of the Scientific
Committee of Geopolitica, Italy.

NOTES

[1] Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and
Its Geo-strategic Imperatives (NYC: Basic Books, 1997), p.202.

[2] Ibid.

[3] aÍEÔÒÏ o¦ÎÞÅÎËÏ [Dmytro Sinchenko], [], òÁÄ¦Ï ÷¦ÌØÎÁ ´×ÒÏÐÁ/òÁÄ¦Ï o×ÏÂÏÄÁ
[Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty], September 8, 2014.

[4] ÷ÓÅÕËÒÁ§ÎÓØËϧ ¦Î¦Ã¦ÁÔE×E [Ukrainian
Initiative ]
[Foreign Policy Strategy] òÕÈ aÅÒOÁ×ÏÔ×ÏÒæ×: ×Ô¦ÌEÍÏ ÍÒ¦§ × OEÔÔÑ
[Statesman Movement: Chasing Dreams/Visions]. Accessed September 9,
2014: .

[5] Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard, op. cit., pp.85-86

[6] aÍEÔÒÏ o¦ÎÞÅÎËÏ [Dmytro Sinchenko], [], aÍEÔÒÏ o¦ÎÞÅÎËÏ (âÌÏ­) [Dmytro Sinchenko
{blog}], September 2, 2014, Accessed September 3, 2014: .

[7] Ibid.

From: Baghdasarian

BECAUSE OF THE WESTERN SANCTIONS AGAINST RUSSIA, AIR ARMENIA COULD NOT TECHNICALLY PAY ACCOUNTS FOR THE FLIGHT NAVIGATION SERVICES

by Arthur Yernjakyan

Thursday, September 11, 17:45

The Armenian air company Air Armenia cannot be blamed for the debt to
the Russian State Corporation for Organization of the Air Traffic in
Russia, as it arose because of technical problems, Director of Air
Armenia, Arsen Avetisyan, told Arminfo correspondent.

He said that according to the arrangement, Air Armenia transferred
currency in US dollars at the account in CMP Bank, which renders
services to the State Corporation for Organization of Air Traffic
in Russia. However, because of the Western sanctions against Russia
linked with the events in Ukraine, the US dollar transfers at the
account in the bank were blocked and did not reach the recipient. So,
Air Armenia has arranged to make transfers in Russian rubles at the
account in another bank, Avetisyan said.

He also added that the past-due-debt of Air Armenia is $400 thsd and
will be paid off till 21 September. The current debt will be repaid
according to the repayment schedule, he said. “The flight navigation
service of Air Armenia will not stop and let passengers and clients
of the company not worry”, – Avetisyan said.

To note, Russian mass media referring to the information of the
State Corporation for Organization of the Air Traffic in Russia, have
disseminated inaccurate information, according to which starting 21
September Russia will stop rendering the flight navigation service to
the Air Armenia because of the debt, the total sum of which amounted
to about $1,1 million. The past-due-debt of Air Armenia amounted to
$400 thsd and the current debt – $700 thsd.

Air Armenia is a private airline established in Armenian in 2003 and
based at Yerevan Zvartnots Airport. For 10 years since its foundation,
Air Armenia operated only cargo flights, except for a short period in
2003-2004 when it was contracted to operate passenger flights. Upon
liberalization of air passenger transportation policy in Armenia
in 2013, Air Armenia launched regular passenger services to Russia,
and is planning to expand to other destinations in the CIS and Europe.

From: Baghdasarian