Author: Hambardsumian Paul

SYSTEM OF A DOWN’S SERJ TARKIAN SINGS OF HOPE AND UTTER DESPAIR
By Rose Aguilar

AlterNet
ture/79271/
March 11 2008
CA

The former lead singer of System of a Down shares his feelings of hope,
inspiration and utter dejection about our current state of affairs.

When Serj Tankian takes on political and social issues on his new solo
album, Elect the Dead, he doesn’t mince words. In the most political
song on the album, "The Unthinking Majority," he writes about a
hypocritical warmongering government running a society controlled by
antidepressants (in 2006, over 227 million antidepressant prescriptions
were dispensed in the United States.):

We don’t need your democracy Execute them kindly for me Take them
by their filthy nostrils Put them up in doggie hostels We don’t need
your democracy Postindustrial society The unthinking majority Elect
the Dead is Tankian’s first solo project after 10 years with the
best-selling metal band System of a Down. An unconventional musician
with a distinctive voice and complete creative control, Tankian plays
almost every instrument on the album’s 12 songs. "It’s liberating
because all the choices are mine. With this record, all success or
failure rests with me," he says.

Part rock, part jazz, and everything in between, Elect the Dead
invokes feelings of hope, frustration, inspiration and utter despair
about our current state of affairs.

On and off stage, Tankian takes on issues like environmental
destruction, capitalism, and the hypocrisy of pro-war preachers. The
10th track on Elect the Dead is appropriately called "Praise the
Lord and Pass the Ammunition." Each song, which is accompanied by
a video created by film directors, painters and digital artists,
is available free of charge on Tankian’s official website.

Born in 1967 in Beirut, Lebanon, to Armenian parents during tumultuous
political times, Tankian lived in his birthplace until 1975, when his
family emigrated to Los Angeles. He says he became politicized by the
hypocrisy of the denial of the Armenian genocide of 1915. Tankian’s
interview with his late grandfather, Stepan Haytayan, a survivor of
the genocide, is featured in the documentary Screamers.

AlterNet’s Rose Aguilar caught up with Serj Tankian to talk politics
just a few hours before he rocked a sold-out crowd at the Warfield in
San Francisco on Saturday. He’ll be on tour for the next three months.

Rose Aguilar: In past interviews, you’ve said it’s important to make
a statement with your music, not just put out a record. I’ve been to
a few of your shows and you have a very captive audience. Do you feel
a responsibility to discuss political issues and promote activism?

Serj Tankian: No, I’ve never felt like it’s our responsibility to
speak out as artists. I think everyone’s responsibility is to speak
from the heart. It’s not just artists’ job or responsibility to talk
about the truth. It’s all of ours. We’re human beings, and we live on
this planet together, collectively. We need to be truthful. In terms
of sociopolitical music or political music in general, speaking out
is not a must. I think love songs can change the world a lot more
than maybe political songs can.

Aguilar: You brought up truth, and that brings to mind your song,
"Lie, Lie, Lie." In January, the Center for Public Integrity found
that the Bush administration made over 900 false statements about
Iraq following 9/11. Some would say they lied over 900 times, and
this was over the course of just two years. Talk about your song
"Lie, Lie, Lie." And also, what does truth mean anymore?

Tankian: "Lie, Lie, Lie" is a song that originally had really serious
lyrics. I was going in with these really serious, really powerful
lyrics with quirky music, and it just wasn’t working. At first,
I didn’t notice why. The music’s great. They lyrics are really cool.

What’s wrong with this song? Since I was producing it, I had to step
back and go, OK, it’s just mismatched. You’ve got all this dramatic,
operatic funny music with serious potent vocals that don’t belong
there, so I went in and I improvised and made the whole thing into
a lie. Originally, I didn’t mean to call it "Lie, Lie, Lie," like
nontruth; it was more just the singing of "la, la, la, la." Then
I thought, I should just call it "Lie, Lie, Lie" ’cause it worked
perfect. The whole thing was a fabrication.

As to your question about truth, it doesn’t matter what my meaning
of truth is. I just notice that anytime there’s two people that both
claim to be speaking the truth, generally only one of them is. The
other one is trying to be perceived as speaking the truth. This is
not to say that people don’t believe that what they believe they feel
is true. This is to say that in reality, there’s only truth.

Something either happened or did not happen. There’s no questioning
of that. There’s no gray area in my opinion. When they’re talking
about denial of a genocide, there’s no question that a genocide
occurred. It’s just that because of sociopolitical or geopolitical
reasoning, they’re trying to deny it, but that doesn’t mean that it
did not occur. There’s always one truth.

Aguilar: You lobbied Congress to pass a bill recognizing the Armenian
genocide. The bill has yet to pass. How have you opinions about the
political process changed after being directly involved? What did
that experience teach you?

Tankian: It taught me a lot. I went to D.C. a few years ago to talk
to congressmen and a senator about the Armenian legislation at the
time. I was actually surprised as to the openness of certain members
of Congress. A number of them were already supporters, and a number
have an Armenian constituency, but there were a number of them that
weren’t supporters or did not have a large Armenian population in
their area. I had good talks with them. There were people that were
open that didn’t have any knowledge about it.

Here I am assuming all of these things that all of these people know
this and know that. They have more access to information than the
general public, but in today’s age, not really. Here we have Hillary
Clinton saying she supported the bill that gave President Bush
the authority to go to war, but she had access to information that
you and I don’t have. It surprises me that people make that kind of
mistake because they have more information than us, yet in some ways,
maybe they don’t or maybe they’re too busy and unable to filter that
information and find out what the truth is, that single truth that we
were referring to earlier. I think that was a major goof up that’s
working against her in the election. A lot of people did know that
it was the wrong thing to do.

Aguilar: On your new site Elect the Dead, you ask people to get
involved in four areas: getting rid of the electoral college,
equalizing corporate funding in elections, allowing people to choose
where their tax dollars go and instant runoff voting. Compared to
the songs you’ve done with System of a Down and on your own about the
unjust prison system, hypocrisy, lies and oil brigades, those issues
are fairly moderate. Why did you choose them?

Tankian: I don’t consider the issues moderate at all. For example,
the electoral college we’ve had from the beginning of American history,
and it’s an outdated institution that was put in place for the purpose
of possibly reversing the majority vote, which happened in 2000. So
we’ve seen something that’s worked against our democracy and yet we’re
so blind, we’re not talking about it. I think they’re revolutionary
ideas. They’re not my ideas. This is something that a lot of people
have thought about that I’ve just put together.

It’s an election year, and for me, no matter who we elect, if our
system is unjust, we will be beholden to multinationals, to foreign
governments, to the same type of people that have been running our
regime. We might have a more liberal person in the White House, but
that doesn’t make the system less unjust. How can we make elections
more just? How can we make them less focused on moneyed interests and
more equal and truly democratic? You look at K Street lobbying firms
that have taken in millions of dollars. These are ex-congressmen,
ex-secretaries of state that go in and lobby for foreign governments,
multinational corporations, giving them more of a voice than you and
me. That’s not a democracy. You look at 2000, where a majority voted
for one guy and another guy became president. That’s not a democracy.

We still have a two-party system. I always say that a two-party system
is only one more than a one-party system.

Aguilar: And you initially supported Dennis Kucinich?

Tankian: That’s correct.

Aguilar: And he was barred from debates. The media wouldn’t take
him seriously.

Tankian: Absolutely. The liberal media and obviously the conservative
media understated his purpose and didn’t take him seriously, and he
voted against the war. It’s really interesting.

Aguilar: You’re supporting Barack Obama now?

Tankian: I am supporting Obama. I think his intentions are good. I
think Hillary’s got a lot of great points, too. Obviously, either
of them would be better than McCain. I like Obama because he’s
confident, he comes from an activist background, and he comes from
a nontraditional lifestyle. He might be another centrist Clintonian
for all we know, and I wouldn’t appreciate that.

Aguilar: What are your thoughts on the corporate media?

Tankian: The Parisization of the media is really horrible. Look at
the conglomeration of our media — I call it corporate Darwinism
— and the mass privatization of our media. We always think that
privatization is the key to freedom of speech and what not, but you
look at the BBC in the U.K. and you’re like, wait a minute, they have
one of the most quality world news services anywhere and it’s owned
by the government, and yet they criticize their own government. We
have a very privatized media system, and we have Fox and all this
stuff. What if privatization isn’t the answer? And we have such a
hard time getting funding for Pacifica and NPR. It’s horrible.

Aguilar: I saw you with System of a Down at Ozzfest last year and
your first solo show in San Francisco at Slim’s in October, and I
was looking at the crowd singing your songs, wondering if they were
making the political connections. How important is that for you?

Tankian: It’s kind of like asking a chef when he’s making food how
he wants people to taste it. It’s beyond the chef. Some people want
to smell the food first. The chef would prefer people to chew slowly
and really appreciate the food and appreciate the ambience of the
restaurant, but they might just be hungry and just gulp it up. And
that’s fine, too.

Aguilar: I read that you’re doing a green tour.

Tankian: I wouldn’t call it a green tour.

Aguilar: Environmentally friendly?

Tankian: I’d say it’s more environmentally friendly. I don’t want
to take credit where it’s undeserved. We just learned about this
organization called Reverb, and I had management start a program
to work with them and do some carbon offsetting. We have a bunch
of stuff on the bus that we purchased that is more environmentally
friendly. The recycling thing is basic. I didn’t know that there were
these organizations that can actually help touring musicians be green
and minimize their ecological footprint. There’s a lot more that we
can do.

Aguilar: Do you think that will save civilization?

Tankian: I don’t think so.

Aguilar: Are we too late? We should have started doing this stuff
back in the ’70s. We had the answers back then.

Tankian: I’m with you. There’s this amazing environmental scientist
named James Lovelock who talks about this. He’s written a bunch of
books. I’m reading The Revenge of Gaia right now. But even before
that, I had this whole "civilization is over" theory, and now I’m
reading his books and there’s an actual scientist agreeing with
it and it’s scaring the shit out of me. Based on the accelerated
rate of population growth coupled with the accelerated rate of the
destruction of the world’s natural resources, our civilization in its
current progression is scientifically unsustainable, which is just a
fact. The fact that we can’t even perceive that and the fact that we
can’t accept it, because we can’t envision life without a civilization,
is what’s really haunting. It’s not humanity that’s in danger. It’s
our addiction to civilization that’s in danger. It’s that addiction
that makes us endangered. We know about global warming. We know about
the rise in the oceans. We know about all of the changes, from the
coral reefs to the melting of the polar caps, and yet we’re staying
in the same place and we’re doing the exact same things. It’s going
to change. It’s going to change rapidly. And we’re not going to give
up civilization. No, we’re going to be forced to give up civilization.

ARMENIA DETAINS OPPOSITION FIGURES AFTER CLASHES

Reuters
March 11 2008
UK

YEREVAN, March 11 (Reuters) – Armenia’s National Security Service
said on Tuesday it had detained two leading opposition figures, part
of a clampdown on those suspected of staging protests that left eight
people dead.

Armenian President Robert Kocharyan imposed emergency rule this month
after the eight were killed in clashes between police and demonstrators
protesting his ally’s victory in a presidential poll.

It was the worst civil violence in Armenia since the 1991 fall of
the Soviet Union.

Opposition challenger Levon Ter-Petrosyan, who is a former president,
refused to recognise defeat in the Feb. 19 election and blamed police
brutality for the violence.

Alexander Arzumanyan, his campaign chief, as well as Ararat
Zurabyan, a leader of the Armenian National Movement, which supported
Ter-Petrosyan, were detained, a spokeswoman for the National Security
Service said.

The police also said arrest warrants for two members of parliament
and an opposition newspaper editor had been issued. Two deputies were
arrested last week after their immunity was revoked by parliament.

The Prosecutor-General said at least 53 people had been arrested as
part of an investigation into the protests, which it calls riots and
says were aimed at a forceful takeover of power in the Caucasus state.

"The responsibility for the events lies on the shoulders of those
people who in the course of nine days provoked the people into mass
disorder," president-elect Serzh Sarksyan, who is currently prime
minister, told reporters.

Armenia’s Constitutional Court rejected on Saturday the opposition’s
assertion that Kocharyan rigged the Feb. 19 election in favour of
Sarksyan, who officially won with 53 percent of the vote against 21.5
percent for Ter-Petrosyan.

Western powers have urged Armenia to lift the emergency laws and
on Monday Kocharyan did lift minor provisions of the laws, a move
welcomed by the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly.

"I now call upon the authorities to lift the remaining provisions …

especially those that limit the freedom of the media," John Prescott,
who led the assembly’s observer mission to Armenia, said in a
statement.

He called for all sides to recognise the Constitutional Court’s
ruling on the election. (Reporting by Hasmik Lazarian, writing by
Guy Faulconbridge, editing by Elizabeth Piper)

ANCA CAPITOL HILL VISITS INCLUDE CONVICTED FELON AND ARMENIAN TERROR LEADER TOPALIAN

Turkish Press
March 11 2008

In an apparent motion of condoning a convicted felon who
U.S. authorities linked to at least four terrorist attacks, the
Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) included Mourad Topalian
prominently in its recent meetings with Members of Congress.

According to ANCA press releases and other Armenian web sites, last
week Topalian was part of an ANCA-Western Region delegation visit to
Capitol Hill.

About Mourad Topalian

In the indictment, Federal authorities connected Topalian to at
least four terrorist attacks on U.S. soil: the October 12, 1980
bombing at the U.N. Plaza in New York City; the June 3, 1981 bombing
at the Anaheim Convention Center in Los Angeles; the November 20,
1981 bombing of the Turkish Consulate building in Beverly Hills;
and the October 22, 1982, attempted assassination of the Turkish
Honorary Consul`s office building in Philadelphia.

Topalian was a leader in the Justice Commandos of the Armenian
Genocide (JCAG), the militant wing of the Armenian Revolutionary
Federation (ARF), for which ANCA serves as foreign agent in the
United States. According to the indictment, Topalian recruited
bombers and assassins from Armenian American youth, and provided
weapons demonstrations at Armenian Youth Federation summer camps in
Franklin, Massachusetts. He also sent Armenian youth to Beirut to
train in weapons and explosive tactics.

U.S. Marshals uncovered Topalian`s unsavory past when they connected
him to a storage locker in Bedford, Ohio that hid moldering high
explosives as well as machine guns and ammunition. The storage
locker was just 250 feet from a children`s day care center and also
dangerously close to a gas station, elementary school and public
highway. Federal authorities estimated that had the explosives ignited,
the explosion would have killed at least 500 people, mostly children
and highway drivers.

Topalian eagerly pleaded guilty to a three-year prison sentence and
three years of further supervised release — a plea bargain that
would not have been accepted if it had been made after the attacks of
September 11, 2001. United States v. Mourad Topalian, Case No. 1:99,
CR 358, The ATAA appeared at Topalian`s sentencing hearing
and submitted a Victim`s Impact Statement with supporting affidavits
of victims of Armenian terrorism and hate crimes. The Victims Impact
Statement, prepared and delivered by Constitutional Law expert Bruce
Fein, and International Law Fulbright Scholar and ATAA President-Elect,
Gunay Evinch, is available at

About Armenian Terrorism

Since 1974, Armenian terrorists have committed over 230 attacks,
killing over 70 and seriously injuring over 550 innocent people, as
well as causing hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage
worldwide, including in the United States. ANCA apparently feels
no remorse for these crimes committed in the name of anti-Turkish
hatred. In 1982, ANCA-WR Representative Leon Kirakosian condemned
the efforts of the FBI to arrest Armenian terrorists as "dirty work
against the Armenian people."

Two main groups compose the Armenian terror network: the Marxist,
Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) and the
ultranationalist JCAG. Both ASALA and JCAG have claimed responsibility
for mentioned attacks.

ANCA Today

In 2000, ANCA presented Mourad Topalian with the "Freedom Award" for
his "dedication to advancing the Armenian cause," praising his "unique
brand of leadership in driving forward and promoting Armenian history
and the cause of the Armenian nation." Unique indeed. ANCA`s adulation
of Topalian did not cease after his conviction. ANCA sponsored charity
events in honor of his legal defense fund and later welcomed him back
into the fold without a word of public censure.

ANCA`s condoning of Topalian`s crimes and Armenian terrorism present
a grave concern to American society. The legitimization of violence
and hate crimes by some Armenian organizations and by Armenia,
who recruits former JCAG and ASALA terrorists to its military and
militias in western Azerbaijan, creates a chilling effect on dialogue,
and should be carefully monitored by the authorities and policy makers.

March 11, 2008
Samsun Journal
A Patchwork Land Confronts a Lie of Whole Cloth
By SABRINA TAVERNISE

/europe/11turkey.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

SAMSUN , Turkey – When the word spread that they were coming, they were
suspected of being missionaries. Then fugitives. But when the small
band of Turkish intellectuals finally arrived at this Black Sea city
in February, people seemed to understand that they really wanted only
to tell stories.

The group – a feminist (Kurdish), a writer (ethnic Armenian), an
academic and a photographer (both Turkish) – were presenting a book of
photographs of people >From Turkey.

The book counted 44 different ethnicities and sects across Turkey and
captured their members dancing, eating, praying, laughing and playing
music. If that sounds innocuous, it is not. For its 85-year history as
a nation, Turkey has a very specific line on cultural diversity:
Anyone who lives in Turkey is a Turk. Period.

Attila Durak, a New-York-trained photographer born in Turkey, compiled
the book, traveling around Turkey for seven consecutive summers,
living with families and taking their portraits.

His intent was to show that Turkey is a constantly changing
kaleidoscope of different cultures, not a hard piece of marble
monoculture as the Turkish state says, and that acknowledging those
differences is an important step toward a healthier society.

"People see themselves in the photographs, and they realize they are
no different," said Mr. Durak, whose book, "Ebru: Reflections of
Cultural Diversity in Turkey," was published in 2006. He said viewers
reacted with: "Those Kurdish people have kids who play together like
ours. Look, they dance the same kind of wedding dance." Ever since
Turkey became a nation in 1923, it has been scrubbing its citizens of
identities other than Turkish. In some ways, that was necessary as a
glue to hold the young country together. European powers were intent
on carving up its territory, a patchwork of remains from the collapsed
Ottoman Empire, and Muslim Turkishness was a unifying ideology.

But it forced families from different backgrounds, who spoke different
languages – Armenian, Kurdish, Greek, Georgian, Macedonian – to hide
their identities. Family histories, like the crushing events of
Turkey’s genocide against Armenians in 1915, were never spoken of, and
children grew up not knowing their own past or identity. "Memories
like that were whispered into ears behind closed doors," said Fethiye
Cetin, a lawyer who learned only in her 20s that her grandmother was
Armenian. "There was a big fear involved in this, so the community
itself perpetuated the silence."

It is that locked past that Mr. Durak and his colleagues seek to
open. Their method is telling their own stories to audiences across
Turkey as an accompaniment to exhibits of Mr. Durak’s photographs, to
open a conversation about the past and to chip away at stereotypes.

The academic, Ayse Gul Altinay, an anthropology professor from Sabanci
University in Istanbul, is a kind of national psychiatrist,
identifying the most painful points from the country’s past and
offering a new way to think about them as a route to healing.

She points to the regional art form, Ebru, the process of paper
marbling that produces constantly changing interwoven patterns, as a
metaphor for multiculturalism.

"We’re not a mosaic, different from one another and fixed in glass,"
said Ms. Altinay, who earned her doctorate from Duke
University. "Ebru is done using water. It is impossible to have clear
lines or distinct borders."

In Samsun, a bustling city with a nationalist reputation, and the
fifth in Turkey to see the exhibition, the audience was small but
interested. The writer in the group, Takuhi Tovmasyan, talked about
how she was gruffly banished from a piano recital hall after winning a
competition, when teachers learned her last name, which is plainly
Armenian. "I hid this feeling for a long time," said Ms. Tovmasyan,
who has published a book of family recipes and stories as a way to
open up a conversation about the past. "But when I saw these
photographs, I decided I needed to talk about it."

The discussions have hit a nerve. At a presentation in Kars, in
eastern Turkey, a man in his 50s in a suit spoke through tears about
discovering that his family had been Molokan, also known as Russian
Old Believers. It was the first time he was speaking publicly about
it, he said.

Others have apologized emotionally to Ms. Tovmasyan. In Samsun, a
young man in a white sweatshirt said, "I personally apologize for ‘Get
out,’ on behalf of all my friends," eliciting applause. "It’s really a
terrible thing." Mr. Durak’s subjects look into his camera with a
directness that is startling. A Jewish man sits in a chair in
Istanbul. A gypsy in a flowered shirt plays the saxophone. A woman
from the Black Sea coast stands in a doorway, her fingers touching her
collarbone.

Each is labeled for ethnicity and sect, a categorization that
initially struck local authorities here in Samsun as something close
to seditious.

"They said, ‘We have to investigate; maybe they are wanted by the
police,’ " said Ozlem Yalcinkaya, an organizer from a student group,
the Community Volunteers Foundation, who arranged the exhibit. "I
said, ‘If they are fugitives, why would they be putting their names on
the exhibition posters?’ "

In the end, authorities relented, and the municipality even allowed
the use of its lecture hall. "The genie is out of the bottle,"
Ms. Altinay said.

She added, "Too many people are interested in looking into who we are,
who lived on this land before us," for the healing process to be
stopped.

A young woman in the audience echoed that thought, as she apologized
to Ms. Tovmasyan. For as gloomy as the past was, the future was more
hopeful, the woman said, because young people are much more flexible
and accepting than the older generations.

"In a few years’ time, a lot of people will be doing a lot of
apologizing," she said.

4 KILLED IN NAGORNO-KARABAKH REGION IN SKIRMISHES BETWEEN AZERBAIJANIS, ETHNIC ARMENIANS

International Herald Tribune
The Associated Press
March 10 2008
France

BAKU, Azerbaijan: Azerbaijani and ethnic Armenian forces exchanged more
gunfire near the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh over the weekend,
killing two civilians and at least two soldiers, officials said Monday.

There has been an alarming spike in shootings that Azerbaijani
officials say has killed seven soldiers and civilians this month
alone. The violence has raised new fears that full-scale fighting
could break out again between both sides.

Armenian officials confirmed the weekend shooting, but denied there
were fatalities on either side.

Azerbaijan and Armenia remain locked in a dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh
despite more than a decade of efforts by foreign mediators led by
the U.S., Russia and France to help reach a resolution.

The region, which is inside Azerbaijan, has been under control of
ethnic Armenian forces since a six-year conflict that erupted in the
waning days of the Soviet Union. Some 30,000 people were killed and
about 1 million were driven from their homes before a cease-fire was
reached in 1994.

Gunfire breaks out regularly near Nagorno-Karabakh and the lack of
resolution on the region’s status stokes persistent fears of a new war.

Azerbaijani Defense Ministry spokesman Eldar Sabiroglu said two
Azerbaijani civilians were killed and two wounded in the shooting
overnight Saturday in the Agdam region.

On Sunday, meanwhile, more small-arms fire broke out in another
adjacent region, killing one Azerbaijani soldier and injuring
another. An Armenian soldier was killed also, Sabiroglu said.

Nagorno-Karabakh’s defense minister, Lt. Col. Senor Asratian, denied
there were fatalities, either civilian or military during the weekend
skirmishes.

"As long as you don’t consider the regular violations of the cease-fire
from the Azerbaijani side, then one could say that the situation along
the line of control are fully normal," he told The Associated Press.

In Yerevan, meanwhile, the skirmishes prompted comment from President
Robert Kocharian, who told reporters that two ethnic Armenian
officers were wounded when Azerbaijani forces attacked an outpost on
Nagorno-Karabakh’s outskirts.

"It’s been a long time since artillery was used on the front line,"
he said.

He said meditators from the Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe later worked to persuade both sides to halt their gunfire.

Ali Hasanov, a top official with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev’s
administration, accused Armenia of sparking the violence, and he linked
it to the continuing unrest in Armenia that broke out following the
Feb. 19 presidential election.

Police violently cracked down on days of protests by supporters of
opposition candidate Levon Ter-Petrosian, who claimed the vote was
flawed. Officials say the man Kocharian endorsed – Prime Minister
Serge Sarkisian – won.

"The Armenian leadership has resorted to such provocations to distract
attention of Armenians and the international community from the
internal situation in the country" Hasanov alleged.

He said five Azerbaijani soldiers and two civilians have been killed
this month alone in and around Nagorno-Karabakh, and several civilians
and soldiers injured.

TURKEY BLOCKS EU FUNDS OVER BULGARIA’S BURGAS RECOGNITION OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

Sofia News Agency
March 10 2008
Bulgaria

Turkey’s government declined to sign a EU-funded cooperation agreement
with Bulgaria because of the decision of the city council in the Black
Sea city of Burgas to recognize the genocide of the Armenians in the
Ottoman Empire in 1915-1922.

The funds blocked by Turkey under the PHARE Trans-border Cooperation
Program amount to EUR 32 M, the Bulgarian private TV channel BTV
reported. EUR 12 M of these are for the 2007-2009 period.

The agreement was supposed to be signed on March 6 by the district
governors of the Bulgarian Burgas District, and the Turkish Edirne
District but the meeting was canceled by the Turkish side.

"It is not within the authority of the Burgas City Council to take
decisions on political matters, especially with regard to this issue
as there is no consensus between Turkey and Armenia over it, and
the interference by a third party will not be of any help", declared
Turkey’s General Consul in the city of Burgas on Sunday, March 9.

The Burgas Mayor Dimitar Nikolov also received Saturday a letter
from the Edirne District Governor regarding Burgas City Council’s
decision to recognize the Armenian genocide stating: "This decision is
offensive and we denounce it. Until it is canceled we will discontinue
all social, cultural, and economic contracts with your district."

Mayor Nikolov, who is from the Sofia Mayor Boyko Borisov’s GERB party,
expressed his surprise over Turkey’s sharp reaction. He said the City
Council was going to discuss the matter during its next session.

The Burgas City Council is dominated by members of the extreme
right Ataka Party, and of the GERB party. On February 28 it voted to
recognize the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire, and declared
April 24 Day of Remembrance.

Last week members of the rightist Democrats for Strong Bulgaria party
of the former PM Ivan Kostov tabled a proposal for recognizing the
Armenian Genocide to the city council in Bulgaria’s capital Sofia.

Bulgaria’s parliament has rejected similar motions by the rightist
opposition several times, allegedly because of the ethnic Turkish
part Movement for Rights and Freedoms, which is a junior partner in
the governing three-way coalition.

The Armenian Weekly On-Line
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The Armenian Weekly; Volume 74, No. 9; March 8, 2008

AYF Section:

1. AYF Chapters Remember Artsakh Struggle

2. The Burden of Privilege
By Vrej haroutounian

***

1. AYF Chapters Remember Artsakh Struggle

With this year marking the 20th anniversary of Artsakh’s liberation
movement, AYF chapters throughout the country are holding events in their
local communities honoring those who perished and commemorating the struggle
that achieved independence for Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabagh).
On Feb. 24, the Providence "Varantian" AYF Seniors and Juniors came together
to organize a special commemorative event marking the 20th anniversary. Over
150 community members attended the event, which was held after Sunday
service at the Sts. Vartanantz Church Hall in Providence, R.I.
Alexan Topalian, a member of the "Varantian" Junior executive, addressed the
crowd by noting the importance of never forgetting the massacres that befell
Armenians in places like Sumgait 20 years ago at the hands of Azeris. He
also remembered the heroic sacrifices made to achieve victory for Artsakh
and stressed the need to stand by the side of the people in their continuing
struggle for self-determination.
AYF members also distributed packets to attendees, which featured background
information on the struggle and pictures of some of the ARF freedom fighters
who gave their lives on the battlefield. Songs dedicated to Artsakh, as well
as video montages of various heroic figures and battles, were played
regularly throughout the event.
In addition to helping AYF members learn more about Artsakh’s liberation,
organizing such an event served to encourage the community to do more to
help strengthen Artsakh’s independence.
"From an awareness stand point, it helped us realize that we as Armenians
are in this all together. Regardless of what area of the world we live in,
we can all do something to help," said AYF Junior advisor Simon Sarkisian.

***

In the same spirit, the New York "Hyoritk" chapter remembered the Artsakh
movement with a commemoration held on Feb. 29 in the Armenian Center in
Woodside, NY.
The turnout was overwhelming, with over 250 in attendance and what became a
standing room only event.
After opening with the singing of "Mer Hairenik," a moment of silence was
held in memory of the victims of the Baku and Sumgait massacres and of those
who gave their lives fighting for Artsakh’s freedom. This was followed by a
moving program featuring a poem recital, dance performance, skit and the
reading of an inspiring statement from the ARF Youth in Artsakh.
Hyortik executive member Sossi Essajanian then took to the podium and spoke
on behalf of her chapter, noting the just nature of the Artsakh struggle.
"February 1988 and the start of the struggle for the liberation of Artsakh
proved that the Armenian nation has equal rights with the rest of the world
to live free and determine its own future," stated Essajanian.
She remembered the fedayees that fought for this cause saying, "Armenians
>From Artsakh, Armenia and the diaspora stood side by side to fight and die
for the idea of a free, independent and united Armenia."
The night culminated with a documentary screening dedicated to Artsakh
followed by closing remarks from Archbishop Anoushavan Tanelian. A reception
was held afterward, during which attendees received free CDs of songs
dedicated to Artsakh and browsed through an exhibit of black and white
photos by ArmenPress photographer Robert Garabedian, which depicted the
inception of the Artsakh movement.
This diverse and captivating program served as a truly memorable event and
succeeded in conveying the importance of Artsakh for all those in
attendance. "Through all these different mediums we wanted to put on a
diverse cultural program engaging attendees in a multi-media approach to
envelope them in the world that is Artsakh," said Hyortik member Toros
Asadourian.
David Ambartsumyan, a Sumgait survivor in attendance, added, "I think we are
doing a strong thing here by remembering this past tragedy. It was brutal
what they did, especially for us who went through it. But by looking at this
young generation, who knows about the genocide and is teaching others about
the massacres in Baku and Sumgait, I feel hopeful."
———————————– ————————————————– —–

2. The Burden of Privilege
By Vrej haroutounian

In March of last year, I found myself in Armenia, walking to the AYF Central
Office in Yerevan. There was a light snow coming down, the streets were
filled with mud and potholes were everywhere. As I walked down those
streets, I could not help but compare my experience in Haiastan to the life
I had in the States. I thought, "Man, I have it nice back home. A nice
house, new car, and…hot water." I realized just how much we take things
for granted in the States, things which are actually luxuries in Armenia.
For instance, that morning I had waited for 45 minutes for the water heater
to turn on so I could take a hot shower. After the wait, my choice for water
was simply hot or cold, there was no in-between. A few more comparisons of
this sort crossed my mind as I got closer to the office.
Finally, I walked in to find a young man sitting there reading a book. He
asked me who I was there to see and showed me the way to his office. As I
walked into the building, my friend greeted me and we immediately started
talking about the upcoming ARF rallies that were to take place later that
day. We waited for a few minutes before our fellow youth steadily began
showing up at the office. We all quickly mobilized and headed off to a
political gathering that was taking place in one of the regions of Yerevan.
It was great seeing all of these young people climbing into the vans with
their Armenian and ARF flags ready to go. It was especially impressive
because it was not taking place on a Saturday or Sunday-it was a Monday
afternoon.
When we got to the rally, everyone went off to do his or her job. Some
people set up the stage, others waived the flags, and others listened while
the ARF candidates spoke. As I stood there, I could not help but feel a
sense of humbleness. My fellow Armenians humbled me, as they were doing what
some of us do back in the States, but in their own homeland with much fewer
resources to work with.
At the end, when the speeches ended and some folk dancers took to the stage,
I remember looking around at the crowd, thinking how our people are a proud
people, yet their state is not what it should be. The streets were filled
with mud, everyone was dressed in gray and black, and the building weighed
down upon the square. But, just then, I saw something that gave me hope.
Behind the dancers on stage, there was the statue of Soghomon Tehlirian and
there with it stood the spirit I am confident will lead to a brighter
future.
On the drive back, all I could think of were the excuses. The excuses that
we all have, the excuses that we all make about having work, having school,
concentrating on our futures. The millions of excuses that we have given
and, at times, heard, if not to someone else, then to ourselves. The end
realization was that we in the U.S. live in an abundance of "privilege."
Every one of us has a home, which, even if it may not be a mansion, still
has running hot water every morning. Every one of us has a car and not once
have any of us had to walk through a muddy street in order to get to school.
At the same time, every one of us has a burden: a "burden of privilege."
This is a burden that a person trying to survive does not have. We are
privileged enough to have the financial means to attend universities and, as
such, a special burden to use our skills to work for the survival and future
of the Armenian people. We have the privilege of being citizens of a country
where we are not persecuted for calling for the recognition of the Armenian
genocide, and it is our burden to work towards that recognition.
I can go on listing a million other privileges. But recognizing your
luxuries and privileges is not what is important. The real question is, what
are you willing to do with the burden that comes with your privilege?

Attempting to span Turkey’s divisions

Sunday Telegraph/UK
GMT 09/03/2008

Jeremy Seal reviews The Bridge by Geert Mak

The bridge has long served Turkey, at once eastern and western,
traditional and liberal, Islamic and secular, as its metaphor-in-chief.
One consequence has been to reduce the country’s material bridges to
the role of symbolic abstractions.

Fishermen who used to catch sea bass now hook mostly sardines
In this pocket-sized portrait of Istanbul’s Galata Bridge, however, the
Dutch historian Geert Mak brings the brutal realities of urban
disenchantment, social exclusion and grinding poverty to the fore.

If ever there were an anti-travelogue, free of the platitudes which can
sometimes seem the genre’s stock-in-trade, then it is this stark and
brooding account of the bridge’s indigents who hawk ‘Nokias of dubious
provenance, umbrellas decorated with flowering fields, shaving brushes,
condoms and crawling mechanical infantry-men’.

Mak has reinvented the city’s iconic bridge as the focal point for all
the frustrations and humiliations endured by Turkey’s urban
dispossessed.

Successive bridges have spanned the Golden Horn (the strip of water
that bounds the old city to the north) at its confluence with the
Bosphorus since the mid-19th century. The current Galata Bridge (which,
as the city’s dead centre, we might call Istan-bull’s eye) is the fifth
to date and ‘is not a pretty sight’.

It is made of concrete, with ‘access ramps surrounded by tunnels and
shopping arcades’. Tramway, road and pavement ensure the human traffic
is continuous, but Mak’s subjects stand apart from the flow. They are
resigned to the bridge, for better but mostly very much for worse, as
their long-term touting patch.

A ‘bookseller’ attempts to flog dog-eared volumes in an underpass with
a ‘shop floor consisting of eight old newspapers’. Glue-sniffing
cigarette boys dodge police harassment. A flautist fakes blindness
behind a pair of dark glasses. A vendor of felt insoles gets by on
stale bread and asks for little more of each day than that it may bring
soldiers with ‘cold, sore feet from standing guard’; Mak is unsparing
as he details a daily budget so pared as not even to run to a ‘few
light-blue pills’ – antibiotics to soothe the insole vendor’s aching
teeth.

This is a sombre narrative, then, stalked by multiple instances of
yearning, failure and tragedy.

A cigarette boy recounts a failed attempt to stow away in a container
bound for Europe. An umbrella salesman has dreamt of suing England
since Heathrow’s immigration officials prevented him from entering the
country. The bookseller lost his mind when his wife and child were
killed in a traffic accident.

Mak not only plumbs the depths of his subjects’ troubles with an
intuitive sympathy, but also explores the belief systems that somehow
sustain them: Islam, brotherhood and that sense of honour, increasingly
alien in the West, which even today defines the Turkish sense of
personal worth.

Mak leavens the mix by recounting the history of the bridge and of the
city that surrounds it. A common misunderstanding is that the city’s
cultural faultline shadows its geographical one along the Bosphorus.

In fact, it is the Golden Horn that has always divided ‘the two spirits
living within this city: the southern shore is conservative and looks
towards the East, while the northern side with its centuries-old
embassies and merchants’ palaces is permeated with the mentality of the
West’.

The original Galata Bridge (1845) provided a first physical link
between these worlds and reflected a growing Ottoman fascination with
European innovation. Turks from the old city crossed the bridge and
took the Tünel, Europe’s first and shortest underground railway, to
gawp at the department stores, display windows and patisseries along
the Grande Rue de Pera.

In sure-footedly tracing the city’s tumultuous history from the
late-19th century – the descent from cosmopolitanism to nationalism,
the massacre of the city’s Armenians, the radical reform of the
enfeebled Ottoman state under the ‘Young Turks’, the occupation by the
Allies after the First World War – Geert never strays far from the
bridge.

His is a mournful default, thick with reminders of the city’s
impoverishment. Anybody the least familiar with modern Istanbul,
unfortunate enough to have caught a whiff of the mephitic Golden Horn,
will be amazed to learn that the waters were once so clean that
cubicles for bathers were incorporated into the third Galata Bridge
(1875).

One of the bridge’s many present-day fishermen, reduced to hooking
mostly sardines, remembers catching good-sized fish such as sea bass
just 10 years before.

To this chorus of beleaguered Galata voices Mak adds those of prominent
Istanbul intellects. He explores the role of women in Islam with the
novelist Elif Shafak just as she faces legal action for the anti-state
utterances of one of her fictional, female characters.

He evokes the city’s pervasive hüzün, or melancholy, by quoting Orhan
Pamuk’s brilliant observation that Istanbul people tend to experience
their city in ‘black and white’.

Mak enlists Pamuk to his particular cause by quoting him on the West’s
failure to appreciate the ‘overwhelming feeling of humiliation
experienced by most of the world’s population’. It’s a feeling which
particularly applies to Mak’s sorry but dignified cast, trying to
survive ‘without being seduced by terrorists, extreme nationalists or
fundamentalists’. Bombs are reported. There are muttered rumours of a
return to dictatorship.

Mak mentions a recent bestseller, which tells how Turkey, humiliated
beyond endurance, finally marches on Europe. It’s an extreme version of
the spectre raised by Mak’s own, fine book; the Turkish bridge is
showing signs of tottering.

Day.Az, Azerbaijan
March 7, 2008 Friday

Azeri army spokesman denies troops concentration on front line

The head of the Azerbaijani Defence Ministry press service, Eldar
Sabiroglu, has denied reports by "Armenian military circles" that
Azerbaijan is concentrating a large number of troops on the contact
line between the Armenian and Azerbaijani troops, the Azerbaijani
website Day.az has reported.

This is another lie inspired by the current leadership of Armenia
which is using all available means to mislead the international
community about the real causes of the 3-4 March firefight on the
contact line between the Armenian and Azerbaijani troops, Day.az
quoted Sabiroglu as saying.

Sabiroglu also denied Armenian officials’ statements about
Azerbaijani casualties. He said that the Armenian leadership is
trying to conceal from Armenian society the real consequences of the
"provocation" on the front line.

At the same time, Sabiroglu did not rule out that Armenians may
resort to similar provocations in the future, the website said. "But
let them learn a lesson from the incident and remember that the next
response of the Azerbaijani army will be even more tangible for the
Armenians," the website quoted him as saying.

Trend News Agency, Azerbaijan
March 8 2008

OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs Call on Azerbaijan and Armenia to Restore
Confidence along the Line of Contact
08.03.08 12:46

Azerbaijan, Baku 8 March /corr. TrendNews J.Babayeva / The three
Minsk Group Co-Chairmen – Ambassador Yury Merzlyakov of the Russian
Federation, Ambassador Bernard Fassier of France and Deputy Assistant
Secretary of State Matthew Bryza of the United States – issued a
joint statement, the OSCE reported.

Starting in the early hours of 4 March, shooting began on the
frontline of the Armed Forces of Azerbaijan and Armenia in the
occupied territory of Azerbaijan in several directions. The
Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said that during the gun fire with
Armenia, 12 Armenian soldiers were killed and 15 more were injured,
whereas four Azerbaijani soldiers were killed and injured.

"The OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs deeply regret the tragic loss of life
on March 4 along the Line of Contact in the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict. The Co-Chairs call on the parties to restore confidence
along the Line of Contact and desist from any further confrontations,
escalation of violence or warmongering rhetoric,’ the statement says.

`The Co-Chairs reiterate that there is no military solution to the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. `The outbreak of hostilities would
destabilize the entire region, with calamitous consequences for all
involved. The recent casualties and loss of life only underscore the
urgent need for both sides to reach to an agreement peacefully
through ongoing negotiations under the mediation of the OSCE Minsk
Group Co-Chairs. The Co-Chairs reiterate their support for
Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and that Nagorno-Karabakh’s status
is the subject of negotiations,’ the statement says.

The conflict between the two countries of the South Caucasus began in
1988 due to Armenian territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Since
1992, Armenian Armed Forces have occupied 20% of Azerbaijan including
the Nagorno-Karabakh region and its seven surrounding districts. In
1994, Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement at which
time active hostilities ended. The Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group
(Russia, France, and the US) are currently holding peaceful
negotiations.