Author: Hovhannisian John

The genocide of the Armenians will be discussed at the Congress of
Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada in a member
organized session on June 2, 2005. The Congress this year meets in
London, Ontario. Members of the community could participate through a
day pass. See below the details of the 3-part session. The section on
the Armenian case is set at 12:30 noon.
CONGRESS 2005
University of Western Ontario
Session sponsored by the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association, the
Society for Socialist Studies and the Canadian Women’s Studies Association
Thursday, June 2, 2005
Part 1: 9:00-10:30am in SH 3350, Break 10:30-10:45am, Part 2:
10:45am-12:15pm in SH 2355, Break 12:15-12:30pm, Part 3: 12:30-2:00pm
in SH 2355
See

Translated Memory and Language of Genocide: (Gendered) Responses to
Traumatic Histories and Silence (with CWSA and CSAA)
Session Coordinators: Dr. Sima Aprahamian and Dr. Karin Doerr
Email Addresses: [email protected] and
[email protected]
Institutional Affiliations: Simone de Beauvoir Institute &
Sociology-Anthropology, Concordia University and Simone de Beauvoir
Institute & Modern Languages, Concordia University
Mailing Addresses: Simone de Beauvoir Institute, Concordia University,
1455 de Maisonneuve W., Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8 and Dept. of Classics,
Modern Lang. & Ling., Simone de Beauvoir Institute, and Montreal
Institute of Genocide Research, Concordia University, H-663 1455 de
Maisonneuve Blvd. West Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8
Phones: (514) 848-2424 x2142 or x2370
This session seeks to explore connections between
genocide, the translating of experience, and the recording of
memories. It also aims to deal with the language, silences, and
denials of such history. We wish to illuminate diverse expressions by
analyzing and theorizing survivors’ responses as well as those of
perpetrator nations. We seek to answer questions of how the
persistence of racism, political agendas, and denial perpetuate
traumatization or solicit the need to rearticulate responses to the
past. We particularly welcome papers that include a gender dimension.
Part I: Literary Responses
9:00-10:30am in SH 3350

`Le voci del silenzio’: Voices of Silence in Elsa Morante’s La storia
Gabrielle Elissa Popoff ([email protected]), Columbia University
Abstract: Elsa Morantes 1974 novel “La storia” plays story against
history, presenting a non-hegemonic view of Italian fascism and World
War II. In a key passage, a female protagonist witnesses mass
deportations of Roman Jews. During her subsequent wanderings through
the deserted ghetto, her epileptic hallucinations repopulate it in a
maternal, fantastical way. Morantes willingness to mingle history with
fiction and employ an unreliable narrator to reveal in nonstandard
language untold truths about historys construction and the past is
characteristic of 1970s Italian historical representations, in
contrast to Holocaust survivors more immediate postwar works which
stress their veracity and literary artlessness. [Note: The Italian
word “storia” means both “history” and “story.”]
Personal and Political: Ruth Kluger’s and Judy Chicago’s Feminist
Revisionings of the Holocaust Memories of Feminism and Nationalism in
Ilse Langner’s Mythological Dramas Lynn Kutch ([email protected]),
Lehigh University
Abstract: From 1932-1970 German playwright Ilse Langner developed a
mythological sub-genre featuring mythological heroines that become
emblematic of (West) Germany at highly politicized turning points in
German history. The complexities and contradictions of Langner’s
heroines allow her to portray her country as strong and confident, but
also as the feminized, abused victim driven to violence. This paper
shows that the because of the more powerful messages of victimization
or generalized critique of a war mentality that emerge from Langner’s
works, her topical, potentially hard-hitting critiques dissolve into
subtle nationalism.

Remembering Differently: Transgenerational Haunting in Anne-Marie
Macdonld’s The Way the Crow Flies Susanne Luhmann
([email protected]), Laurentian University
Abstract: This paper examines transgenerational haunting in a Canadian
novel, The Way of the Crow. As a form of historical knowledge
transgenerational is an unconscious remembering. The book both tells
a story about and is animated by the force of transgenerational
haunting. The main protagonist becomes a witness to her father’s sins
and seeks to repair his crimes. By way of telling a different national
history the novel accounts for traumatic national and personal events
(slavery, the holocaust, the cultural genocide of Native people,
childhood sexual abuse), which many would rather forget.

Part II: The Holocaust and Remembering
10:45am-12:15pm in SH 2355
Words of Death and the Death of Words: Memories and Meanings of Jude
Karin Doerr ([email protected]), Concordia University
Abstract: Jude figures prominently in the Lexicon of the Third Reich
Language and illustrates linguistically the Nazis systemic
discrimination and the judeocide. In the postwar era, Jude and its
connotations were silenced. This paper will address how concerns of
post-Auschwitz generations of Germans and Jews converge. I shall
include personal experiences with Jude, my research of the Nazi era
language, and the work of artist and child of German Jewish survivors,
Ruth Liberman. She deals dramatically with German words and memory of
the past. I have also interwoven definitions of Jude from German
dictionaries. Some editions reveal ambivalence with this term.

Off the Record: Voices of Working Poor Jewish Women in Shoah
Representations Marion Gerlind ([email protected]), University of
Minnesota
Abstract: The stigma of poverty and manual labor has been largely
overlooked in historical reconstructions of the Shoah (Holocaust). Few
scholars have scrutinized the connections between socioeconomic status
and gender vis–vis death and survival. My research focuses on
working-class and rural Jewish women growing up with this stigma. Lack
of financial resources and connections decreased their chances of
survival and their testimonies are missing in critical
analyses. Listening to voices of those who were able to
survive-against overwhelming odds-leads to a more comprehensive
assessment of the Shoah. Primarily based on oral history interviews,
I present a few snap shots from survivors’ biographies.

About Auschwitz: Recent Photographs
Judith Lermer Crawley ([email protected]), Photographer/Retired
from Vanier College
Abstract: This presentation/slide-talk will position my most recent
photography exhibit, in the context of my artwork, teaching and family
history. It incorporates text with black and white photographs taken
on a recent visit to the Holocaust’s most infamous extermination camp,
a place my parents, though not most of their families and friends,
narrowly avoided. It functions on artistic, emotional, as well as
informative levels. The text includes information researched after our
visit, panels at Auschwitz and journal extracts. I will share further
research about a photograph I encountered on the wall in one of the
Auschwitz 1 buildings.

Part III: The Armenian Genocide
12:30-2:00pm in SH 2355
Powerful Silences: Becoming a Survivor Through the Construction of
Story Arlene Voski Avakian ([email protected]), University of
Massachusetts
Abstract: Survivors’ accounts of traumatic events function on many
levels for both the teller and the hearer. The construction of these
stories and their telling may also provide a means of countering the
devastating psychological effects of the trauma. This paper will
explore one story about the Turkish genocide of Armenians in 1915 as
told to me by my grandmother, Elmas Tutuian. Tutuian’s story omits as
much as it tells. Examining this narrative from a psychological and a
textual perspective, I suggest that by choosing to be silent about
parts of her experience, Tutuian constructed herself as a survivor
rather than a victim.

La Memoire Des Survivants Comme Irrefutable Temoignage Historique du
Genocide des Armeniens
Verjine Svazlian ([email protected]), Museé-Institut du Génocide des
Arméniens de l’Acadmie Nationale des Sciences d’Arménie
Abstract:Les récits et les chants folkloriques (650 units), communiqus
par les témoins oculaires survivants ayant survécu par miracle au
Génocide des Arméniens organisé entre 1915 et 1922 par la Turquie
ottomane, et que nous avons recueillis, enregistré sur cassettes audio
et vido pendant 50 ans en Arménie, en Grèce, en France, aux Etats-Unis
d’Amérique, en Turquie et ailleurs, ont la valeur d’importants
documents historiques et juridiques .
L’étude scientifique de ces documents folkloriques donne une claire
notion de tout le cours du Génocide des Arméniens, du pillage de leurs
biens et de leurs droits humains fouls aux pieds, ainsi que de leurs
héroiques combats contre leurs persécuteurs.
Traumatic Pasts and Silent Presents: Testimony of the Genocide’s
Aftermath in French-Armenian Literature Between the Wars
Talar Chahinian ([email protected]), U.C.L.A.
Abstract: My paper proposes that French-Armenian literature of the
post-Armenian
Genocide period written by survivors can be read as a testimonial of
the trauma in its aftermath through the very repression of genocide
memory, in spite of the lack of an explicit genocide memory in the
texts. The trauma of the aftermath can be mediated indirectly, through
the use of indexical (figurative) representation. My paper is a
symbolic reading of symptoms of trauma in both the content and the
form of Hratch Zardaryan’s novel Mer Gyanke, [Our Life] (1934) and
Zareh Orbuni’s novella Pordze, [The Attempt] (1934).
Aftereffects of War and Colonialism
Facilitating War: Trauma, Memory and Gender
Doris Goedl ([email protected]), Institute for Social
Research, Salzburg, Austria
Abstract: This paper establishes interconnections between a
psychoanalytical approach to trauma, memory and gender, based on
theoretical and practical work as a psychologist (psychodynamic work
with a group of war-traumatized women in Croatia 1994 – 1997) and as a
social researcher in a research-project conducting interviews
(2002-2004) with men an women in Slovenia, Croatia and
Bosnia-Hercegovina concerning their memories on socialism, transition
and war.
I will highlight how processes of social transformation, political
transition and disintegration in former Yugoslavia can be interpreted
as collectively experienced historical Trauma as well as look at
individual memories and narratives from a gender perspective.
Teaching Gender and Genocide
Lynn M. Maurer ([email protected]) and Anthony Q. Cheeseboro, Southern
Illinois University, Edwardsville
Abstract: Our paper recounts the experiences of incorporating the
issues of gender and race into a university interdepartmental course
on war and peace. These issues are often overlooked in traditional
teaching and understanding of war, thus leading to denial or a
distorted “memory” of issues, such as genocide.
We found that students enter the classroom with preconceived ideas and
ideologies that inhibit memory and deny the multiple roles of women in
war and gender specific attacks involved in genocide. Here we bring
our experience and data forth to be compared with similar courses thus
aiding educators to overcome challenges to memory.

A1plus
| 21:15:33 | 11-05-2005 | Politics |
SERGE SARGSYAN THANKED JASKIERNIA
Today Minister of Defense Serge Sargsyan received PACE Monitoring Committee
speakers Jerzy Jaskiernia and George Colombier and PACE Monitoring Committee
secretary Bony Teofilova.
At the beginning of the meeting Mr. Jaskiernia represented the work carried
out by the PACE in the RA and asked the Minister to represent his own ideas
about the NKR status, Constitutional amendments, legislative changes,
alternative military service, and the further development of the army.
Minister Serge Sargsyan referred to the issues in detail and reconfirmed all
his ideas that have sounded up to now about the above mentioned issues.
At the end of the meeting Serge Sargsyan thanked George Colombier
representing France and Jerzy Jaskiernia representing Poland both for the
recognition of the Armenian Genocide and for the active participation in the
process of opening of the borders with Turkey.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Pan Armenian News
WE READ, SPEAK AND SING IN RUSSIAN COMPETITION FESTIVAL TO BE HELD IN
YEREVAN
12.05.2005 04:09
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Coordination Council of NGOs of Russian Compatriots in
Armenia along with the Russian-Armenian (Slavonic) State University with the
support of the Russian Embassy in Armenia plans to hold We Read, Speak and
Sing in Russian international competition festival between higher education
institutions. The competition festival will be held at the Russian-Armenian
(Slavonic) State University May 14 and will mark the celebration of the
60-th anniversary of the Victory over the fascist Germany. Russian Embassy
officers, Armenian First Lady Bella Kocharian and other public and political
figures will be present at the event, reported the Coordination Council.

Café Babel, France
May 9 2005
Identity and collective European memory
The European identity required reconstruction in the aftermath of the
Second World War. It is now time for the European populations to come
together and create a shared, common history. For some things, time
cannot heal.
Memorial for those executed at the Berlin Wall This May has proved
to be a month of happy co-incidence. At a time when more or less
everywhere people are celebrating the 60th Anniversary of the end of
the Second World War, the French nation will be called to vote upon
the European constitution. This legislation, an must for European
civil society, forms a landmark in a historically dynamic period
which began to blossom at the end of the Second World War. The wish
that such an event must `never again’ occur, along with an
examination of conscience have finally been translated into the
implementation of the European project. The goal, then, was to avoid
a return to imperialism, to economic protectionism and, above all, to
streamline inter-European processes.
Promoting collective awareness
It was as a consequence of this outbreak of genocide that the
European identity began to reconstruct itself little by little,
bringing with it the construction of a common memory. The journey
began with a promotion of awareness of the atrocities of mankind,
driving us to take our common destiny in hand. It is upon
re-examining our common past, our divisions and our past conflicts
that we are able to construct our common future together.
Hence the importance of education and multi-national commemoration
ceremonies which allow us, beyond our nationalistic interpretations
of the past, to re-write a common history which will be bequeathed to
future European generations. Today, however, despite considerable
effort, it is difficult to overcome the barrier posed by
nationalistic interpretations of the past. Thus the Georg Eckert
Institute, upon analysing school textbooks from 20 European
countries, realised that less than 10% of the content of them dealt
explicitly with European history. `The longer a country has been a
member of the European Union, the higher this percentage rate
becomes. Conversely, in the newly independent States the textbooks
tell a very nationalistic history, insisting on the antiquity and
originality of the nation’ states Fak Pingel, deputy director of the
Georg Eckert Institute. This very institute, moreover, originated as
an innovative experiment responsible for the conception of a
Franco-German history textbook.
Teaching a common history
Thus education is at the heart of the European project and some, like
the European Institute of Cultural Routes, are working on the subject
of key `locations’ in European memory. The issue, explains the
historian Pierre Nora, is to lead a `selective and knowledgeable
exploration of the main areas of our collective heritage, an
inventory of the principal `locations’ and to sketch a `framework of
common history”. As yet, much work still remains to be done if the
Community institutions and EU member states wish to create this
collective history. For if Franco-German relations are at the heart
of this communal re-examination of our past, the Poles and Germans or
indeed the Croats and Serbs still have difficulties in broaching
their own shared pasts.
Equally, in a period when the survivors of the Holocaust are
disappearing, a new and vital stage of this work on a collective
memory is emerging. It is important to transcend the generational and
genealogical aspects since, as German journalist Michael Martins
points out, `it would be necessary, for example, for a young German
of Turkish origin visiting the Holocaust museum in Berlin to
integrate this aspect of the past into his conscience, even if
descendents like himself haven’t been directly confronted by it.
He would need to understand that being European also means being able
to accept all aspects of the past with a sense of contemporary
responsibility.’
Henceforth, Europe still has a heavy workload to accomplish and must
maintain a critical review of the past in order to avoid falling into
`an apologetic and commemorative souvenir memorial’, as Martins puts
it. Is it really pertinent to celebrate the end of the Second World
War between allies? Attitudes are gradually beginning to evolve with,
for example, the notable presence of the German Chancellor, Gerhard
Schroeder, at the commemorations of the Normandy landings last year.
European institutions must concern themselves more with encouraging
European citizens and countries to develop a greater sense of
responsibility. What can one do then, to ensure that the Turkish
government recognises the Armenian genocide whilst the Jewish
genocide is still interpreted differently by EU member states?
In this quest for a collective memory, the European constitution
represents a major step towards the creation of a `constitutional
patriotism’, which signifies that the sentiment of belonging is being
translated into recognition of the principles of democracy and of a
constitutional state. It is a question of transcending national
applications of Human Rights through dialogue and interactions
between member states, stopping short though, of denying national
identities. Saying Yes to the European Constitution means having a
critical reflection on one’s own identity and making our way towards
a new idea of Human rights, social rights and politics, interacting
so as to transcend the nationalistic attitudes which originated from
the barbarisms of the 19th and 20th centuries. Essentially, we must
limit the nationalism which is putting the brakes on the construction
of our common European memory and identity.
Sarah Wolff – Paris – 9.5.2005 | Translation : Paul McIntyre

Three Azerbaijani prisoners freed from captivity in ethnic Armenian
enclave
AP Worldstream
May 07, 2005
Azerbaijan said Saturday that three Azerbaijani soldiers taken
prisoner by ethnic Armenian authorities in the disputed enclave
of Nagorno-Karabakh had been released after nearly three months
of captivity.
The country’s official in charge of missing servicemen in the conflict,
Avaz Hasanov, said the release on Saturday had been brokered by the
International Committee of the Red Cross.
Nagorno-Karabakh is a mountainous region inside Azerbaijan that has
been under the control of ethnic Armenians since the early 1990s,
following fighting that killed an estimated 30,000 people.
A cease-fire was signed in 1994, but the enclave’s final political
status has not been determined and shooting breaks out frequently
between the two sides, which face off across a demilitarized buffer
zone. The enclave is backed by Armenia.

AUSTRALIAN MINISTER CONDEMNS REMOVAL OF ARMENIAN PLAQUE
A1plus
| 13:22:43 | 05-05-2005 | Politics |
The Minister for Justice and Minister Assisting the Premier on
Citizenship, Mr John Hatzistergos today condemned the removal of
a plaque in Meadowbank, commemorating the 90th anniversary of the
Armenian genocide.
The plaque, which was installed on April 24, 2005, the 90th anniversary
of the Armenian genocide – has been forcibly removed from Memorial
Park, Meadowbank. It is unknown who has removed the plaque.
“This is a disgraceful and cowardly act,” Mr Hatzistergos said. The
plaque was installed following a motion from Ryde City Council
officially recognising and condemning the Armenian Genocide of 1915,
the first genocide of the twentieth century.
“The plaque is solemnly dedicated to the 1.5 million men, women and
children who were victims of the Armenian genocide.
“It serves as a reminder to the community of such darks chapters in
human history. p>In 1997, the New South Wales Parliament passed a
unanimous bi-partisan motion condemning the Armenian genocide of 1915.
In the following year, the Parliament passed another motion to install
a memorial for the victims of the genocide. That memorial is located
in the New South Wales Parliamentary precinct.

Where was God?
11:13 , 05.05.05
Holocaust must serve as lesson for humanity, not lesson in divinity
Yedioth Internet
By Avraham Burg
Where was God during the Holocaust?
That is the most poignant question raised during in-depth discussions
on “Hitler’s Century.”
An atheist would mostly find justifications for his arguments in
God’s disappearance during the Holocaust.
“A God who allowed more than a million children to die as if they were
bugs cannot exist,” he would say, “and if he does exist, he must not
be worshipped.”
On the other hand, the religious advocate needs the “Holocaust’s
miracles.”
“It’s a fact, the Holocaust led to the establishment of the State of
Israel,” he would say. “It’s a fact, less than half a century after
the crematoria the Jewish people is stronger than ever.”
“It’s a fact, I survived,” we survived!
And what happened to my God during the Holocaust? My God was not
even there.
My God is found elsewhere.
‘It wasn’t God who failed during Holocaust’
For me, God and the Holocaust do not belong together. My question is
not where God was, but where were the people, my brothers and sisters?
After all, the 20th Century was the most secular one we have ever
known – the century of man, where doctrines and perceptions from
previous centuries were realized.
A spirituality of liberation and secularization, ideologies premised
on power and nationalism, combined with the globalization of material
violence and unbounded, immoral greed.
It was not God who failed during the Holocaust, but rather, those
he created.
Moreover, the believer who found God during the Holocaust and the
heretic who lost his God during the same dark period are not that
different from each other.
Both of them either worship or dismiss a God who is their own creation.
They are angry at or cling to something that flows from inside,
and in fact worship themselves and their imaginations.
I belong to those who believe in something that is beyond human,
while they believe in man’s selfish idolatry. They direct their gaze
internally, to the ego, instead of looking up to that which is hidden,
magical, significant and found beyond all of us.
The 20th Century and its Holocaust must serve as a lesson for humanity,
not a lesson in divinity.
The lesson of man who failed in his mission.
A God who observes the minutest details, or a personal providence,
do not really exist. Neither is there a God of reward and punishment
– I pray and he saves, I behave piously and sanctimoniously and he
responds and makes things better.
Indeed, belief is a much more sophisticated matter.
New thinking needed
God gave us the “earth” to live in and rule over. Belief means
responsibility, not secular haughtiness or ultra-Orthodox weakness.
When things don’t work out on earth, it is the failure of the
responsible parties, humans, those around me, myself! It is not the
responsibility of the delegating authority, the invisible God up
there in the “heavens.”
The Holocaust is still too close, its questions have not yet been
fully asked, and its answers cannot yet be provided.
But still, the direction is clear: the old religions and particularly
Judaism, the mother of all western faiths, need new thinking.
Not a doctrine of eternal revenge or the perception that the world
always was, is, and will be against us. Not a “Holocaust Judaism”
that justified all our injustices because they pale in comparison to
the major injustice inflicted upon us.
The individual, and the group, need new thinking, which rejects that
personal providence notion, God as a babysitter. Because a God who
manages the lives of all individuals means a God who does not leave
any personal space for humanity to produce, correct, and be a partner
in creation.
‘There are other Holocausts that aren’t ours’
The new thinking stemming from the holocaust must focus on the forging
of better humans and a better humanity, that would never again give
rise to destroyers of humanity such as the Nazis, and would not allow
victims to be exterminated, as happened to us and the Gypsies and
homosexuals who were there with us.
Just like happened to the Armenians before us, and the victims of
genocide in Rwanda and Cambodia after us.
We need the kind of thinking that does not give us a monopoly on
suffering and exclusive rights to the Holocaust, because there were,
and there are, other Holocausts that are not ours.
New beliefs, and particularly Judaism, must breach the boundaries
of the enclosed old religion and turn the belief in humans as God’s
creatures into the basis for its tradition and customs.
Indeed, this new thinking must serve as the binding basis for dialogue
between followers of all religions who are willing to leave their own
“territory” in order to protect us and the world from bloodshed in
the name of closed-minded religion or arrogant humanity, wherever it
may be found.
Avraham Burg is a former Labor party Knesset member and author of
“God is Back”

TURKEY-GERMANY: SCHROEDER URGES TURKS TO CONTINUE REFORMS
AKI, Italy
May 4 2005
Ankara, 4 May (AKI) – The European Union will honour its pledge to
begin accession talks with Turkey in October, German Chancellor Gerhard
Schroeder said Wednesday, but he urged Turkey to “put into practice”
recent reforms and called for more religious freedom in the mostly
Muslim country. “The dynamics of reform should continue,” Schroeder
told reporters after talks with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan in Ankara. “The constitutional and other legal amendments
should be put into practice,” he added. Schroeder, a strong backer of
Turkey’s EU membership bid, assured Ankara that the bloc was determined
to open accession talks with Turkey on schedule on October 3.
Schroeder also reiterated EU demands on Turkey to allow greater
freedoms to its non-Muslim communities, mostly Orthodox Christians
and Jews.
“Religious freedom is a European principle,” Schroder said. “It is
indisputable and is valid for Turkey as well. People should freely
practice their religions.”
Turkey is under pressure to remove legal obstacles for non-Muslim
religious foundations to fully exercise their property rights and to
open a Greek Orthodox seminary in Istanbul closed down more than 30
years ago.
Schroeder also backed a proposal made by Turkey to Armenia for the
creation of a joint commission of historians to study allegations that
the Ottoman Turks committed genocide against their Armenian subjects
during World War I.
“We want Turkish-Armenian relations to improve,” Schroeder said.
“Germany is ready to do its best to help in this issue and open
its archives.”
Germany and the Ottoman Empire, from which the present-day Turkish
Republic was born, were allies during World War I, when the Armenian
massacres occurred.
Turkey has come under mounting international pressure to recognize
the 1915-17 killings as genocide; some EU politicians, including
the German opposition, argue that Ankara should address the genocide
claims if it wants to join the European bloc.
Erdogan denounced an appeal issued by the German parliament last
month calling on Ankara to face up to its history.
The two leaders said that they also discussed the Cyprus issue,
a major stumbling block to Turkey’s EU membership bid.
Schroeder pledged he would work for the release of a 259-million-euro
EU aid package earmarked for the breakaway Turkish Cypriot community
and the activation of measures aimed at easing trade restriction
imposed on the island’s Turkish sector.
The EU promised the aid last year as a reward for the strong support
that Turkish Cypriots gave to a UN peace plan, which was killed
off by an overwhelming “no” by the internationally recognised Greek
Cypriot side.
The measures have been blocked, however, because of opposition by
the Greek Cypriots, who joined the EU in May 2004.
Germany is Turkey’s largest trading partner and home to the largest
Turkish immigrant community in Europe, some 2.5 million people.
;loid=8.0.162757548&par=0
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

WILL THE CONSTITUTIONAL REFERENDUM TURN INTO A CONFIDENCE REFERENDUM?
A1plus
| 19:06:06 | 02-05-2005 | Politics |
Today the Parliament confirmed the agenda of the 4-day session where
the issue of the Constitutional amendments was also included. But
the delegates and the journalists are sure that the issue will be
put to discussion at the last hour of the last day to transfer the
discussion to the next 40day session.
Is it possible, in the today’s Parliamentary crisis (there are
already such names), to discuss the issue within the stated dates? We
asked this question to Galoust Sahakyan, head of the Parliamentary
majority. The latter is convinced that they will manage, “I think we
will finish everything in this 4-day session and will do it within
the established dates”. And will the coalition manage to do enough
work for the Constitutional referendum to take place.
Galoust Sahakyan considers that it is not so difficult to work with the
people, “Naturally, in the process of discussions we must try to make
the Constitution available to the people. The reaction of the people
is another problem. The regional structures are already getting ready”.
Galoust Sahakyan does not fear that the Constitutional referendum
can turn into a confidence referendum, or that the public activity
can serve as an opportunity for the opposition. “I do not think that
the Constitution is the problem that can turn into another one. There
are no grounds”.

Channel 4 News, UK
May 2 2005
Why History won’t go away.
Published: 2 May 2005
By: Lindsey Hilsum
The age of instant news has shortened our attention span, and blinded
us to the pressing historical concerns of much of the world. By
Lindsey Hilsum
As he was readying German troops to invade Poland, Hitler persuaded
his colleagues that their brutality would soon be forgotten. “Who,
after all, speaks today of the extermination of the Armenians?” he
asked.
The answer is that the descendants of the victims speak of it, and
will not allow the heirs of the perpetrators to forget. Turkey
maintains that it never happened, but the genocide of more than a
million Armenians under the Ottomans in 1915 is still a live
political issue.
While British voters seem only too happy to – in the Prime Minister’s
words – “draw a line” under the invasion of Iraq just two years ago,
elsewhere in the world, what happened even 2,000 years ago is still a
matter of dispute. The age of instant news has shortened our
attention span and blinded us to the pressing historical concerns of
much of the world.
This, maybe more than anything else, sets Europe and North America
apart. We are the generation which, in Francis Fukuyama’s words, has
lived through “the end of history”, when communism was defeated and
capitalism became the accepted global ideology. British politics
reflects our post-ideological age, when all that Conservative and
Labour can find to squabble over is the odd billion in the welfare
budget. We are all social democrats now.
Tony Blair and Gordon Brown don’t think Britain’s policy towards
Africa has anything to do with colonialism. But the reason Robert
Mugabe strikes a chord across Africa when he rails against Blair is
that history matters in places where people are still trying to forge
an identity. The Americans are surprised when Iraqis compare their
behaviour with that of British colonialists in Mesopotamia in the
1920s; they see their mission as an essentially modern attempt at
spreading democracy, while many Iraqis regard it as just another
imperialist foray.
To study the discourse of al-Qaeda is to see an entirely different
time-frame, in which the events of the seventh century – when Islam
was in the ascendant – are more important than what happens today.
When Islamists struck in Madrid, commentators struggled to explain
the location.
Was it because Spain had troops in Iraq? That was part of it, but the
real injury dates back to 1492, when Isabella and Ferdinand drove out
the Moors. “You know of the Spanish crusade against Muslims, and that
not much time has passed since the expulsion from al-Andalus and the
tribunals of the Inquisition,” said Serhane ben Abdelmajid Fakhet,
the alleged leader of the Madrid train bombers.
The past is always ripe for manipulation. The recent anti-Japan
demonstrations in China were supposedly sparked by a Japanese school
textbook, which referred to the 1937 Nanjing massacre as an
“incident” – as if up to 300,000 Chinese had died by accident, rather
than being slaughtered by the Japanese Imperial Army. There’s no
doubt that the Japanese authorities have equivocated over war crimes
committed in the 1930s and 1940s, yet these textbooks – used in less
than 1 per cent of Japanese schools – have been around for years.
China’s real aim was to assert herself as the rising power in Asia,
and to show the world why Japan should not have a seat on an expanded
UN Security Council. Japan and China are in dispute over oil and gas
in the South China Sea, but the state-controlled Chinese media
reignited the schoolbooks issue as the most effective way to engage
the masses.
Western politicians do understand the symbolic significance of
history when they need to, even if they don’t feel it. On 24 April,
as tens of thousands of Armenians commemorated the start of the 1915
genocide, President Bush carefully referred to it as the “Great
Calamity”, a way of acknowledging the pain of Armenians without
offending his Turkish allies by using the word genocide.
The official Turkish version of history is that many Armenians sided
with the Russians in the First World War, and therefore – inevitably
– there were killings on both sides. The genocide has become an issue
in Turkey’s proposed entry into the EU. France, the European country
with the most doubts about this and which also has a large Armenian
population, is insisting Turkey confess to genocide before it can be
admitted. The Turkish government has established a commission to
re-examine history – a hard task, given that denying the genocide has
been official policy since the massacres were perpetrated.
History never goes away, and it never stops. We are condemned to
misunderstanding if we do not follow the twists and changes as
history is reworked to justify current actions. “Forward not back”
would be a meaningless slogan in most places because, although
globalisation has spread western products across the world, beyond
our shores they’re really not thinking what we’re thinking.
Lindsey Hilsum is international editor for Channel 4 News. This
article first appeared in the New Statesman.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress