Author: Baghdasarian Karlen

Trends/Tendances, France
6 Mars 2014

S’ASSEOIR ET LIRE CHEZ BOGHOSSIAN

‘ENTRE DEUX CHAISES, UN LIVRE’ À LA VILLA EMPAIN

PHILIPPE CORNET

Jusque début septembre, une belle exposition aux trouvailles parfois
ludiques se tient à la Villa Empain. ‘Entre deux chaises, un livre’.
Suivez le guide.

‘THRONE’, KRI TOF KINTERA, 2011’PITH’, JONATHAN CALLAN,
2006ÉVANGÉLIAIRE ARMÉNIEN, MANUSCRIT SUR PARCHEMIN, 16e
SIÈCLE’TÉLÉVISION’, DARREN FOOTE, 2008’ZA-A STATE OF TENSION’, HIROKO
TSUCHIDA, 2009’CHICAGO (88-4-9)’, KENNETH JOSEPHSON, 1988’BACK TO THE
ROOTS’, BOB VERSCHUEREN, 2010

Le titre est un rien théorique parce que les 200 objets présentés par
la Fondation Boghossian dans son vaste écrin bruxellois de l’avenue
Franklin Roosevelt, à de rares exceptions près, ne sont ni propices à
la lecture ni à la position assise. A moins d’être contorsionniste.
L’usage pratique n’est pas leur destination première mais leur
présence à la Villa Empain est bien dans la ligne prônée par la
Fondation : tracer un dialogue entre Orient et Occident. ‘La chaise
comme le livre, sont des objets d’échange entre les hommes, précise
Diane Hennebert, chargée de la direction du lieu, le livre est
évidemment transmetteur de savoir, de pensée et d’émotions ; la chaise
est tout au moins un objet de convivialité. Les hommes vivent ensemble
assis. Montrer les uns et les autres uniquement de manière
fonctionnelle serait un peu ennuyeux : comme le dit le Libanais Wajdi
Mouawad, le rôle des artistes est aussi de réenchanter le monde.’ Une
grande partie des objets installés sur les trois niveaux de la Villa
provient de la collection Galila, de la dame du même nom, propriétaire
de plus de 3.000 oeuvres dans sa large demeure du Brabant wallon, ‘un
vaste corps vivant, proliférant à la manière d’un organisme’, décrit
Diane Hennebert. La configuration chez Boghossian est plus détendue et
espacée quoiqu’un chouia martienne : nombre de chaises ou de livres,
compactés, compressés ou réimaginés, pourraient donner l’impression
qu’on est en visite chez Tim Burton. Diane Hennebert commente sept
objets que nous avons repérés.

‘C’est le travail d’un artiste tchèque : la chaise bouge, tourne sur
elle-même et les ailes donnent l’impression qu’elle pourrait
s’envoler. Il y a aussi dans cette chaise un rêve de liberté, de
pouvoir s’échapper du travail. Elle évoque également une forme de
puissance puisque les ailes sont faites d’authentiques plumes de
vautour, d’où le côté prédateur qui pourrait également être angélique.
Beaucoup de lectures sont possibles…’

‘Ce Londonien, né à Manchester et ayant étudié au Goldsmiths College,
est davantage sculpteur que designer : il a plusieurs oeuvres dans
cette expo, notamment cePithqui explore la dimension volumétrique du
livre. Il travaille sur la corporalité du livre et en tire des volumes
de sculptures. Ce n’est pas du tout une création détachée des autres :
Jonathan Callan a une persistance, il est depuis longtemps dans cet
univers-là.’

‘Comme la plupart des livres anciens arméniens, il s’agit d’un livre
de prières. L’Arménie a été le premier pays à reconnaître le
christianisme comme religion d’Etat au 3e siècle. Les Arméniens ont
créé leur propre écriture, leur propre langue, disparues pendant
l’occupation soviétique. Les livres sont pour eux les objets sacrés
auxquels ils tiennent le plus : détruire le livre, c’est détruire la
culture arménienne et cela renvoie à la pratique de l’autodafé. La
première visite que l’on fait en arrivant à Erevan est celle du musée
des manuscrits.’

‘Celle-là est installée dans une salle qui conteste la modernité :
cette petite télé avec son antenne évoque la colère des artistes face
à la prolifération d’objets de consommation pas chers, lisses,
anonymes. L’artiste cherche la singularité, Ikea cherche la
standardisation : voilà comment une chaise peut devenir autre chose.
Cette expo est sans doute moins palais des découvertes’ que notre expo
Turbulences (de février à septembre 2013, Ndlr) mais c’est quand même
une grande fête de l’imagination, par des gens qui ont créé des choses
enchantées.’

‘Cette jeune Japonaise est venue monter sa chaise elle-même : elle dit
avoir employé 80 millions d’épingles à nourrice, cela me paraît
énorme. La chaise a un effet très soyeux qu’on n’imaginerait pas et
j’aime le décalage entre cette jeune femme et le côté monumental du
siège, qui est une sorte de trône, trapu, bizarre, magique. Fait d’une
matière qui n’est pas noble mais qui scintille de façon très soyeuse,
très curieuse.’

‘Cette photo raconte comment le livre est né du pli, du fait que la
feuille de papier a été conditionnée, manipulée pour créer l’objet :
le livre est donc l’enfant du pli. Cette image de Kenneth Josephson
(né à Detroit en 1932, Ndlr) fait penser à un arbre de vie : à partir
de cela, on peut imaginer et faire beaucoup de choses…’

‘J’aime beaucoup celle-ci. La chaise est un objet éminemment culturel,
déterminé par sa grandeur, son usage. Il existe une hiérarchie de
chaises et aussi un enracinement : on appartient à une culture comme
on appartient à la terre. La façon dont Bob Verschueren (né à
Bruxelles en 1945, Ndlr) a imaginé une chaise avec des ramifications
rappelle que les hommes sont passés de la position accroupie à la
position assise. On peut prendre racine dans un territoire et cette
chaise raconte cela.’

‘Entre deux chaises, un livre’ à la Fondation Boghossian à Bruxelles
jusqu’au 7 septembre,

Chaque dimanche à 11 h, Sam Touzani et Zidani interprètent un texte de
Jean-Claude Grumberg dans le cadre de la Villa Empain.

From: Baghdasarian

GRÈCE Visite officielle du président allemand
Je demande pardon

>, insiste-t-il , a tenu à souligner
le président allemand. Pourtant Carolos Papoulias a, dès sa première
rencontre avec son homologue allemand, tenu à mettre les pendules à
l’heure : >, a-t-il martelé, >

L’Allemagne oppose à cette demande une fin de non-recevoir depuis des
années. Position qu’elle a réitérée la semaine dernière à l’intention
de la communauté juive de Thessalonique, qui a également déposé une
demande de réparations distincte de l’État grec. L’affaire est
désormais devant le tribunal international des droits de l’homme. Le
président allemand a répondu qu’il >. Pour l’ensemble des médias grecs, cette
petite phrase marque une différenciation du président allemand de son
gouvernement qui va de pair avec le ton de sa visite au village
martyr.

Emprunt forcé de 160 milliards d’euros

La question des réparations de guerre est un vieux débat qui a
ressurgi avec la crise. Il s’agit essentiellement de revendication de
réparations financières réclamées à l’Allemagne en compensation des
crimes commis lors de l’occupation du pays par les nazis (1941-1944)
et surtout d’un emprunt forcé à la Grèce contracté en 1942, montant
actuellement estimé à plus de 160 milliards d’euros. Ioannis Siafakas
retraite de Liguiades ne croit pas qu’un jour Berlin paiera, mais >

ANGÉLIQUE KOUROUNIS

DNA

8 mars 2014

dimanche 9 mars 2014,
Stéphane (c)armenews.com

From: Baghdasarian

ARMENIE
Les députés arméniens veulent interdire les commentaires offensants sur internet

Les députés pro-gouvernementaux et de l’opposition ont proposé un
projet de loi controversé qui permettrait aux fonctionnaires arméniens
de poursuivre les médias en ligne pour les commentaires désobligeants
tenus par les lecteurs anonymes.

Les projets d’amendements au Code civil de l’Arménie co-parrainés par
les membres de presque toutes les factions du Parlement stipulent que
les publications pourraient faire face à des poursuites en diffamation
si elles refusent de supprimer ces commentaires dans les 12 heures ou
aider les personnes offensées à identifier leurs auteurs.

Les sites de services et sites web de journaux et les diffuseurs de
nouvelles en ligne pourraient également être poursuivis pour des
diffusions calomnieuses sur Facebook et d’autres réseaux sociaux par
des personnes ne divulguant pas leur identité.

Certains éditeurs arméniens ont exprimé leur inquiétude quant à ce
projet de loi, disant qu’il va restreindre la liberté de la presse
dans le pays. >, a déclaré Armine Ohanian du
journal “Hraparak”. >.

Edmon Marukian, un député indépendant et l’un des co-auteurs du projet
de loi, a rejeté ces craintes, disant que les autorités ne seraient
pas en mesure d’en abuser. >, a-t-il dit au service arménien de RFE / RL
(Azatutyun.am). du projet de loi
et qu’il pourrait subir des changements avant d’être voté au
parlement.

NDLR : Notons que les lois anti-injures et anti-diffamations existent
aussi en en France et d’une manière générale dans toutes les
démocraties.

dimanche 9 mars 2014,
Stéphane (c)armenews.com
– 914

From: Baghdasarian

Azerbaijani violated the ceasefire 200 times in the past week

16:12 08.03.2014

According to the data of the NKR Defense Army, about 200 cases of
ceasefire violation by the Azerbaijani side were registered at the
line of contact between the armed forces of Nagorno Karabakh and
Azerbaijan from March 2 to 8.

The rival fired more than 1,300 shots from weapons of different
caliber in the direction of the Armenian positions.

The activeness of the rival was pressured as a result of response
actions taken by the front divisions of the Defense Army.

From: Baghdasarian

Armenian-populated district of Aleppo under rocket attack

March 08, 2014 | 17:28

ALEPPO. – Armenian-populated district of Aleppo was under rocket
attack on Saturday, the press service of the Diocese of Aleppo of the
Armenian Apostolic Church reported.

The main street of Nor Gyugh district and neighborhood of National
Armenian Gymnasium was attacked. Servicemen were wounded. No
casualties among civilians have been reported.

Overall 60-70 thousands Armenians were residing in Syria before the
bloody events. More than half of them lived in Aleppo and the other
half was scattered in the cities of Latakia, Homs, Qamishli, Hasaka,
Raqqah, Kessab and, of course, the capital – Damascus.

From: Baghdasarian

FOR THE KREMLIN, UKRAINIAN ANTI-SEMITISM IS A TOOL FOR SCARING RUSSIANS IN CRIMEA

The Tablet
March 7 2014

But now the country’s Jewish community is divided between those lining
up with Moscow and those joining the revolution in Kiev

By Hannah Thoburn

You know the joke: Ask two Jews a question, get three opinions. It’s an
old saw, but it describes fairly accurately the response of Ukraine’s
Jewish community to the collapse of the country’s government last
month. And understandably so: Life for the country’s Jews, and everyone
else, is increasingly complicated.

The new government in Kiev, backed by the Maidan movement, is full
of promise and riding a wave of popular momentum–but some, both in
Ukraine and beyond its borders, insist that the conglomerate of groups
that overthrew President Viktor Yanukovych and now rule the country
are Ukrainian ethnic supremacists and anti-Semites. Russia’s President
Vladimir Putin has seized upon worries of possible violence toward
Ukrainian Jews as a kind of stand-in for the message that he seeks to
deliver: This Ukrainian revolution represents a danger to order and
the lives of all minorities. Russian state media, widely watched by
Russian-speaking Ukrainians, has made much of that new government’s
ties to historical currents of extremism and nationalism. So, people
wonder: Should they trust their experiences on the streets, the rumors
they hear, or what they see on television? What to believe and whom?

The accusations of rampant anti-Semitism have divided the country’s
Jewish community, which is estimated at a little over a 100,000. In
the past two weeks, rabbis and community leaders have begun to choose
sides in the growing conflict–perhaps adding to the confusion,
rather than alleviating it.

The day Ukraine’s pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted,
Rabbi Moshe Reuven Azman–Chabad’s chief rabbi in Kiev–told his
congregants to leave the city because of “constant warnings concerning
intentions to attack Jewish institutions.” His warning seems to have
been borne out by the recent attack on a synagogue in the southeastern
city of Zaporizhiya and the graffiti sprayed on the Reform synagogue
in the Crimean city of Simferopol. But the Kremlin has been known to
employ accusations of anti-Semitism for its own political purposes,
and many in Ukraine suspect Azman is simply following the Russian
line because of the close relationship between Russia’s Chief Rabbi
Berel Lazar–a Chabad emissary–and Putin.

That includes Ukraine’s chief Orthodox rabbi, Yaakov Dov Bleich,
who referred to the attacks on Ukrainian Jews this week as
“provocations”–not by neo-Nazis, but by Russian partisans. “We expect
that the Russians would like to justify their invasion of Ukraine,”
Bleich told reporters on Tuesday. He noted that Russian state media
broadcasts had included numerous reports of banderovtsi–followers
of the Ukrainian nationalist hero Stepan Bandera, who collaborated
with the Nazis in WWII–attacking synagogues. “There is nothing of
the sort,” Bleich insisted. “Anyone can change into the outfit of a
Ukrainian nationalist and start beating Jews.”

This week, leading members of Ukraine’s Jewish community countered
with an open letter to Vladimir Putin that dismissed the accusations
of violence against Jews and minorities: “Yes, we are well aware that
the political opposition and the forces of social protests who have
secured changes for the better are made up of different groups. They
include nationalistic groups, but even the most marginal do not dare
show anti-Semitism or other xenophobic behavior. And we certainly know
that our very few nationalists are well-controlled by civil society
and the new Ukrainian government–which is more than can be said for
the Russian neo-Nazis, who are encouraged by your security services.”

And Jews and other minorities feature prominently in the new regime.

Oligarch Ihor Kolomoiskyi is one of the best-known members of
Ukraine’s Jewish community and was just named as the governor
of the Dniepropetrovsk region in south-central Ukraine. Vladimir
Groisman, a young, promising politician with family ties to Israel,
was promoted from his position as the very successful mayor of the
city of Vinnytsaa to that of first deputy prime minister in charge
of regional development. The acting president, Oleksandr Turchynov,
is a Baptist pastor in a largely Orthodox and Catholic country,
and Interior Minister Arsen Avakov is of Armenian origin. The new
Cabinet even includes several Russian-born members. Perhaps tellingly,
their religious and ethnic histories are barely mentioned in the
Ukrainian press.

But Ukraine’s ethnic minorities were highly visible in the protests in
Kiev’s Independence Square–which, as Timothy Snyder has pointed out,
were sparked by a Muslim journalist born in Afghanistan. Protesters
in the Maidan created a “Jewish Division” of the self-defense forces.

Among the dead were an Armenian, Georgians, a Belarusian, and Jews.

***

The promotion and constant talk of ethnic, linguistic, and cultural
divisions, writes Ukrainian photojournalist Maia Mikhaluk, “is to
convince Ukrainians that we are divided, not one country, and that the
safest course of action for Russian-speaking areas is to break away and
join Russia.” Of course, that’s not necessarily true for non-Russians
living in Russian-speaking parts of the country: In Crimea, currently
occupied by Russian forces, the native Turkic-speaking Muslim Crimean
Tatars have taken the side of the Ukrainian authorities in Kiev,
worried that if they fall under Russian control they will be persecuted
as they were during Soviet times.

And while many in Ukraine do believe that the animosity from
Ukrainian speakers toward Russian speakers (or Jews or Armenians,
for that matter) is real, others have taken a stand against what
they see as a massive Russian disinformation campaign. A group of
Ukrainian journalists and journalism students recently launched the
Russian-language website stopfake.org in an effort to push back against
some of those divisive accusations and the force of statements like
this from the Russian president: “We see the rampage of reactionary
forces, nationalist and anti-Semitic forces going on in certain parts
of Ukraine, including Kiev.”

Those forces do exist, and the rhetoric spewed by members of right-wing
nationalist groups like Praviy Sektor (Right Sektor) and the political
party Svoboda (Freedom) is immensely worrisome. But while Svoboda has
over the past years gained in popularity, the number of anti-Semitic
vandalism incidents in Ukraine has simultaneously fallen. When asked
about the Russian focus on anti-Semitic incidents in Ukraine, Josef
Zissels, the president of the Ukrainian Vaad, told the Daily Beast’s
Eli Lake, “There are more neo-Nazi groups in Russia than there are
in Ukraine.”

Yet Crimea’s Russians, who consume primarily Russian mass media,
are terrified of the kind of disorder that they saw in Kiev during
the months of protests and are sure that Ukrainian nationalists hold
only ill will toward them. They believe that Kiev is controlled by
radical fascist forces. And they are thankful for the “self-defense”
forces that have come from the Kremlin to protect them–a mobilization
that itself is part of an information war–because they have come to
believe that western Ukrainians want to force them to speak Ukrainian
rather than Russian.

Ordinarily, it might be a good thing to have one minority group
identify with the experience of another. But uniting such a fractured
country, much less Ukraine’s competing Jewish factions, is a tall
order, particularly in the face of external meddling. How Ukrainians
respond, and whether they can overcome their divisions–real and
imagined–will determine how, and whether, Ukraine survives.

From: Baghdasarian

A REALITY CHECK

Fillmore County Journal, MN
March 7 2014

By Col. Stan Gudmundson

Fri, Mar 7th, 2014

It is important to periodically reexamine humanity’s hideous past to
remind us of how extremely dangerous our world is. We cannot afford
to take our country, liberty, and our way of life for granted.

The slaughter of the last 125 years or so can be divided into three,
often interrelated, categories. The first is war. Millions and millions
have lost their lives for, in most cases, literally nothing.

The second is government’s murder of its own people in pursuit of
utopian fantasies. Socialists, i.e. Fascists and Communists, for
example have killed far more than 100 million of their own citizens in
Germany, Russia, China, Cuba, Cambodia, and North Korea to name a few.

Worse, in places like China, Cuba and North Korea it still goes on.

The century’s death toll as a result of government’s killing their
own people is far greater than that of its wars.

The third category is that of ethnic cleansing, the focus of this
editorial. The phrase “ethnic cleansing” is relatively new.

Unfortunately the process isn’t.

The stereotypic view of the Jewish holocaust places virtually all of
the blame on Germans. That view is incorrect. An observer in Romania
in 1940-41 noted that the, “average Rumanian hated Jews with fury
unapproached in Germany and equaled only in Poland”. There were
anti-Jewish pogroms that killed hundreds of thousands and forced
millions to flee in Croatia, Romania, Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania,
Latvia, Greece, Serbia, and the Soviet Union before, during, and
after WWII.

German observers were stunned by the viciousness of Croatians. Most
its 700,000 Jews died in Croatia.

Consequently, eastern and central Europe was virtually emptied of
Jews. “Never Again” became the rallying cry. Unfortunately the reality
is more like “Again and Again”.

Early in the 20th century thousands of Bulgarians were killed and
hundreds of thousands were banished by Romanians and Greeks.

During the late teens and early 20s more than two million Greeks were
thrown out of places they lived, often for centuries, by Bulgarians and
Turks. Some Greeks forced to flee Turkey didn’t even speak Greek.Five
hundred thousand were also forced forever into Turkey’s interior. Turks
kidnapped many of the Greek women.

Beginning in 1915, 1-1.5 million Armenians were the victims of
a Turkish genocide. Earlier, in the 1890s, Turks killed tens of
thousands. In the late 1990s a quarter of million Armenians became
refugees at the hands of Azerbaijanis. Kurds and Tatars also purged
Armenians.

In 1932-33 Ukraine suffered a terror famine under Stalin’s direction.

Upwards of 7.5 million died. During the ’40s at least 1.6 million
Ukrainians were displaced or killed by Romanians, Poles, and Germans.

Turks suffered at the hands of Greece, Bulgaria, and Serbia. Hundreds
of thousands were forced out of these countries. In the early ’20s
at least a million left lands conquered by Greece.

Hungarians, 350-425,000 of them, were banished by Ukraine and 200,000
fled in 1956, 200-300,000 Italians were driven out of Yugoslavia,
and over a million Serbs fled at the hands of Kosovars, Croatia,
Albania, and Bulgaria.

During WWII the Soviet Union removed from the Caucasus region and
Crimea, entire Chechen, Balkar, Ingush, and Tatar populations.

According to the Soviet NKVD, 144,000 Chechens were eliminated.

Upwards of 2.5 million Poles were slaughtered or moved by Ukraine,
Germany, and the Soviet Union. At least 500,000 were sent east to
work and die in Soviet labor camps.

And the nationality subject to the largest population purge in European
history? Germans. After the WWII, 12-14 million Germans were purged
from Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, Romania, Austria, and the
Soviet Union.

Precise death tolls as a result of “ethnic cleansing” are impossible to
tally. Movements of huge populations always caused enormous numbers
of deaths. The agony and suffering caused by starvation, rape,
pillage, and whole varieties of other inhuman treatment is beyond
description. Virtually every German woman in the area occupied by
Soviet troops was raped.

In the 1980s and ’90s there were hundreds of thousands of Georgians,
Bosnians, Serbs, Croatians, Chechens, Azerbaijanis, Armenians, and
others killed or forced out of the countries they had been living in.

The hatreds are still there. Human nature has not changed. Having an
unpopular religious, ideological, ethnic, or racial heritage was and
still is enough to get one killed or purged.

During the Ottoman Empire 20 percent of its population was Christian.

Today Christians make up about 2 percent of the population in those
same areas. Having the legal status of second class citizens their
homes and businesses are being destroyed and they are being murdered.

Ancient Christian communities are being obliterated. 450,000 have
fled Syria and more than 850,000 have left Iraq. Copts in Egypt are
being slaughtered.

There are huge faultlines throughout the world that will assuredly
continue to produce the horrors of war, slaughters within countries,
and ethnic cleansing. A small sample includes Muslim v. Christian in
the Middle East but especially in Europe as a declining European
population faces a growing Muslim population, Shia v. Sunni,
nationalistic China v. its neighbors and the US, and competing hatreds
in the Caucasus. Hatred is worldwide and it is deep and long-lasting.

Americans really can’t comprehend hatred of this kind. Those who think
they see racial prejudice and hatred everywhere here in the US don’t
have a clue.

Years ago I began to try to understand the scale of and the reasons
for the death toll of the 20th century and the potential for the same
kinds of events for the future. I just finished another related book
“The Tragedy of Liberation” by Frank Dikotter, an account of Chinese
Revolution between 1945-1957. Mao was incredibly depraved and by normal
standards of behavior, literally insane. I don’t see how anyone can
draw any other conclusion.

I wondered if this hatred and evil was just part of human nature or
was there more to it? Even without my Christian faith I would find it
very difficult to believe humanity is intrinsically that terrible. The
toll is just too great. There is more to this wickedness than just
human nature.

This overview is far from all-encompassing but it should help
illustrate why it is absolutely essential that the United States
maintain the strongest military on earth. We can’t let our guard down.

The world is just too dangerous. This is imperative for not only the
survival of the United States but for the survival for the rest of
world as well.

From: Baghdasarian

WHAT THE US MEDIA WON’T TELL YOU ABOUT UKRAINE

Published on Tuesday, March 4, 2014 by Common Dreams

by Ted Rall

Armed men in military uniform walk outside a Ukrainian military unit
near Simferopol, Ukraine, on Sunday, March 2. Hundreds of armed men
in trucks and armored vehicles surrounded the Ukrainian base Sunday
in Crimea, blocking its soldiers from leaving. (Photo: Getty Images)As
usual, America’s foreign correspondents are falling down on the job.

Stories devoid of historical context cast Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
as a naked act of neo-Soviet aggression. Considering that the relevant
history begins a mere two decades ago, its omission is inexcusable.

The spark that led to the takeover of Crimea was not the overthrow
of President Viktor Yanukovich. It is what happened the day after.

A 2012 law gave the Russian language official status in regions where
Russians comprise more than 10% of the population. This is the case
in most of eastern Ukraine and particularly in Crimea, where 59%
are ethnic Russians.

One week ago, Ukraine’s rump parliament (members of Yanukovich’s
party, hiding from opposition forces and in fear for their lives,
didn’t show up) took advantage of Yanukovich’s downfall to overturn
the language law. Americans didn’t notice, but Russians did.

“Attack on the Russian language in Ukraine is a brutal violation
of ethnic minority rights,”Konstantin Dolgov, the Russian Foreign
Ministry’s commissioner for human rights, tweetedthat day.

Seems a little over-the-top, right?

Sure, but only if you don’t know that millions of ethnic Russians in
former Soviet Republics have suffered widespread discrimination and
harassment since the 1991 collapse — and that their troubles began
with laws eliminating Russian as an official language.

Laws like the one passed last week in Ukraine.

The demise of the Soviet Union left 25 million Russians stranded in
14 newly independent states, in such countries as Belarus, Azerbaijan,
Turkmenistan and Ukraine. These new countries had to scramble in order
to create the trappings of national identity virtually overnight. They
designed new flags, composed national anthems and printed new currency.

To instill a sense of loyalty and patriotism, the governments of many
of the freshly-minted republics resorted to rank nationalism.

Nationalism isn’t just about what your country is. It’s also about
what it isn’t. This requires defining some things — some people —
as outsiders. Unwanted. Scapegoats. Enemies of the state.

Turkmenistan, a Central Asian dictatorship and former Soviet
republic in Central Asia, is one example. It instituted a policy of
“Turkmenization” after 1991. Russians, a privileged group before
independence, were now refused work permits. A 2000 decree banned the
use of the Russian language in official business; since Turkmenistan
is a totalitarian state and all business is legally governmental,
this reduced Russians who didn’t speak Turkmen to poverty and
low-status jobs.

The Turkmen government abolished dual Turkmen-Russian citizenship,
leading to the mass exodus of panicked Russians in 2003.

Denaturalization — the stripping away of citizenship —
followed. “Many people…were having to sell houses and apartments at
far below market values in order to leave by the deadline,” reported
the UN. Hundreds of thousands of people lost everything they owned.

“Over the past decade Russians have been systematically discriminated
against, and currently hold no positions in Turkmenistan’s government
or state institutions,” says the report.

Russians who remained behind after 2003 fared poorly. “On the
streets of the eastern city of Turkmenabat, Russians appear to be
rapidly becoming an underclass in a nation mired in poverty. Many
scrape a living as taxi drivers, waitresses or in other low paying,
insecure jobs.”

Harassment of Russians is rife throughout the former USSR. Every
other Commonwealth of Independent States nation has abolished dual
citizenship.

In the former Soviet Union, everyone knows that the road to
statelessness, unpersonhood and poverty begins with the official
elimination of Russian as an official language.

National language statutes targeted against Russian speakers are
analogous to Nazi Germany’s Nuremberg Laws, which prevented Jews from
holding jobs or even owning a radio: the beginning of the end. At
the end of the Soviet period in 1989, the Tajik SSR passed a law
establishing Tajik as the sole official language. Less than two
decades later, 85% of ethnic Russians had left the country.

“The linguistic nationalization carried out in each republic provided a
strong impetus to emigrate…Even if schools systematically introduce
children to the official language today, the [former Soviet] states
have established no programs to train adults,” Seymour Peyrouse noted
in a 2008 report for the Woodrow Wilson Institute about the Central
Asian republics. “It seems that the principal cause of emigration
remains the absence of a future, or the perception of such, for the
younger generations.”

Given recent history, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that ethnic Russians
freaked out when one of the first official acts of Ukraine’s parliament
was a linguistic nationalization law.

As for Russia’s response, you need to know two facts. First, Ukraine
isn’t as independent of Russia as, say, Poland. None of the former
Soviet republics are. “Kiev is an ancient Russian city,” Masha Gessen
writes in Vanity Fair. “It is an overnight train ride from Moscow —
closer than 90% of Russia is to the Russian capital. Russian citizens
haven’t needed visas or even foreign-travel passports to go to Ukraine
— the way U.S. citizens can enter Canada with only a driver’s license.

Every store clerk, waiter, and taxi driver in Kiev speaks Russian.”

And of course there’s the Black Sea Fleet. Really really independent
countries don’t have 11,000 foreign troops stationed on their soil.

Had it been possible for rational diplomats and demographers to manage
the Soviet collapse, Crimea probably would have wound up in Russia.

Until half a century ago, after all, Crimea was Russian. Nikita
Khrushchev “gifted Crimea to Ukraine as a gesture of goodwill to mark
the 300th anniversary of Ukraine’s merger with tsarist Russia. Not
surprisingly, at the time, it did not occur to anyone that one day
the Soviet Union might collapse and that Ukraine would again be an
independent country,” writes The Moscow Times.

It’s easy to see why Vladimir Putin would invade, why Russian public
opinion would supporthim, and why neither cares what America thinks.

Back in September, after all, most Russians told pollsters Crimea is
part of Russia.

Why are American reporters covering Crimea ignoring the big picture,
and instead so focused on secondary distractions like how it makes
Obama look and whether there’s a chance of a new Cold War?

Four horsemen of the journalism apocalypse afflict overseas reporting:

Journalistic stenography, in which attending a government press
conference constitutes research.

Kneejerk patriotism, where reporters identify with their government and
are therefore less likely to question its actions, while reflexively
assuming that rivals of the U.S. are ill-intentioned.

Jack-of-all-trades journalism, in which the same writers cover too
many different beats. A few decades ago, there would have been a
bureau chief, or at least a stringer, who knew Ukraine and/or the
former Soviet Union because he or she lived there.

American ahistoricism, the widespread and widely acceptable ignorance
of politics and history — especially those of other countries.

(c) 2014 Ted Rall

Ted Rall is the author of the new books “Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central
Asia the New Middle East?,” and “The Anti-American Manifesto” . His
website is tedrall.com.

From: Baghdasarian

NIKOLAY TSATURYAN SURRENDERS HIS POSITION

18:54 | March 5,2014 | Social

Nikolay Tsaturyan, Artistic Director of the Gyumri-based Vardan
Achemyan Theatre, has surrendered his position to Ludwig Harutyunyan,
a 33-year-old citizen of Gyumri.

“Ludwig is a young, promising director and will soon assume
the position of the general director. I simply consulted with the
director and told him that I want him [Ludwig Harutyunyan] to become
the general director of the theatre. The director agreed. The theatre
does not need an artistic director,” Nikolay Tsaturyan told A1+.

Tsaturyan will continue to work at the theatre as an adviser. He
assured us that the decision should not be linked to the unpleasant
incident that involved Culture Minister Hasmik Poghosyan.

“When Hasmik Poghosyan visited Gyumri, she said Nikolay Tsaturyan
will work at the theatre as long as he wishes,” said Mr. Tsaturyan.

From: Baghdasarian

IRAN CLAIMS HAVING MISSILES WITH MULTIPLE WARHEADS

March 5, 2014 – 15:09 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – Iran says its powerful Revolutionary Guard has
acquired missiles with multiple warheads, a step that it says is a
major boost of its defense capabilities, according to the Associated
Press.

The claim by Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan is the latest reported
advance in Iran’s domestic missile production program.

He says Western sanctions have not stopped Iran from augmenting its
ability to deter its enemies from attacking the Islamic Republic,
a reference to Israel and the U.S.

His comments were posted on the Guard website, sepahnews.com,
Wednesday.

Iran regularly announces breakthroughs in military technology that are
impossible to independently verify. But the Pentagon released a rare
public report in 2012 noting significant advances in Iranian missile
technology, acknowledging that the Islamic Republic has improved the
accuracy and firing capabilities.

From: Baghdasarian