TURKISH CYPRIOTS TO COMMEMORATE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE FOR FIRST TIME THIS YEAR
Noyan Tapan
April 2, 2008
NICOSIA, APRIL 2, ARMENIANS TODAY – NOYAN TAPAN. The Progressive
Turkish Cypriot parties in Boyug Khan will for the first time
commemorate the Armenian Genocide on April 24. As the Gybrahayer site
reports, the main speaker will be announced next week.
ARMAVIA AIR COMPANY TO REDUCE TWICE YEREVAN-ISTANBUL-YEREVAN AIR TICKET PRICE
arminfo
2008-04-01 16:23:00
ArmInfo. Beginning from 1 April the national carrier Armavia air
company will reduce twice Yerevan-Istanbul-Yerevan air ticket
price, press-secretary of the company Nana Avetisova told ArmInfo
correspondent.
She also added that if earlier the econom class ticket cost $450, now
it will cost 65 thsd Armenian drams (about $200). The 50% discount will
function in summer season. There are two flights in a week from Yerevan
to Istanbul, but another two flights Yerevan-Antalia-Yerevan will be
added in summer. Chiefly representatives of small and medium-size
business use this flight. In summer the number of passengers which
visit Turkey to spend their vacation there grow.
FLAWED SECULARISM
Alfred Stepan
Times of India
April 2 2008
India
NEW YORK: The chief prosecutor of Turkey’s high court of appeals
recently recommended to the country’s constitutional court that the
ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) be permanently banned. Now
the supreme court has decided to hear the case. Only last July, the
AKP was overwhelmingly re-elected in free and fair elections to lead
the government. The chief prose-cutor also formally recommended that
Prime Minister Recep Erdogan, President Abdullah Gul, and 69 other
leading politicians be banned from politics for five years.
Clearly, banning the AKP would trigger a political crisis that would
end Turkey’s efforts to join the European Union in the foreseeable
future and threaten its recent strong economic growth. So the chief
prosecutor’s call should not be taken lightly – all the more so
given that the constitutional court has banned 18 political parties
(including the AKP’s predecessor party) since the current constitution
was introduced in 1982. Indeed, the recent call to ban the AKP is
directly related to its efforts to change Turkey’s constitution.
The underlying charge in the chief prosecutor’s indictment is that
the AKP has been eroding secularism. But the origins of the current
constitution, and its definition of secularism, are highly suspect.
Turkey’s existing constitution was adopted in 1982 as a direct product
of the Turkish military coup in 1980. The five senior generals who
led the coup appointed, directly or indirectly, all 160 members of
the consultative assembly that drafted the new constitution, and they
retained a veto over the final document. In the national ratification
referendum that followed, citizens were allowed to vote against the
military-sponsored draft, but not to argue against it publicly.
As a result, the 1982 Turkish constitution has weaker democratic
origins than any in the EU. Its democratic content was also much
weaker, assigning, for example, enormous power – and a military
majority – to the National Security Council. While the AKP has
moderated this authoritarian feature, it is difficult to democratise
such a constitution fully, and official EU reports on Turkey’s
prospects for accession repeatedly call for a new constitution,
not merely an amended one.
With public opinion polls indicating that the AKP’s draft constitution,
prepared by an academic committee, would be accepted through normal
democratic procedures, the chief prosecutor acted to uphold the type of
secularism enshrined in the 1982 constitution, which many commentators
liken to French secularism. Yet the comparison with what the French
call laicite is misleading.
Certainly, both French laicite and Turkish secularism – established
by modern Turkey’s founder, Kemal Ataturk – began with a similar
hostility towards religion. But now they are quite different. In
Turkey, the only religious education that is tolerated is under the
strict control of the state, whereas in France a wide variety of
privately supported religious education is allowed, and since 1959
the state has paid for much of the Catholic Church’s primary school
costs. In Turkey, Friday prayers are written by civil servants in
the 70,000-member State Directorate of Religious Affairs, and all
Turkish imams also must be civil servants. No similar controls exist
in France. Similarly, until the AKP came to power and began to loosen
restrictions, it was virtually impossible in Turkey to create a new
church or synagogue, or to create a Jewish or Christian foundation.
This may be why the Armenian patriarch urged ethnic Armenians in
Turkey to vote for the AKP in last July’s elections. Here, too,
no such restrictions exist in France.
The differences between French and Turkish secularism can be put in
even sharper compa-rative perspective. In the widely cited "Fox"
index measuring state control of majority and minority religions,
in which zero represents the least state control, and figures in the
30s represent the greatest degree of control, all but two current EU
member states get scores that are in the zero to six range. France is
at the high end of the EU norm, with a score of six. Turkey, however,
scores 24, worse even than Tunisia’s authoritarian secular regime.
Is this the type of secularism that needs to be perpetuated by the
chief prosecutor’s not-so-soft constitutional coup? What really worries
some democratic secularists in Turkey and elsewhere is that the AKP’s
efforts at constitutional reform might be simply a first step towards
introducing sharia law. If the constitutional court will not stop a
potential AKP-led imposition of sharia, who will?
There are two responses to this question. First, the AKP insists that
it opposes creating a sharia state, and experts say that there is no
"smoking gun" in the chief prosecutor’s indictment showing that the
AKP has moved towards such a goal. Second, support for sharia, never
high in Turkey, has actually declined since the AKP came to power,
from 19 per cent in 1996 to 8 per cent in 2007.
Given that the AKP’s true power base is the support it got in
democratic elections, any attempt to impose sharia would involve
the risk of alienating many of its voters. Given this constraint,
there is no reason for anyone, except for "secular fundamentalists",
to support banning the AKP, Erdogan, or Gul, and every reason for
Turkey to continue on its democratic path. Only that course will
enable Turkey to give itself a better constitution than it has now.
The writer is director of the Centre for Democracy, Toleration and
Religion at Columbia University.
ARMENIAN WRITERS OF CALIFORNIA TO MEET IN GLENDALE
AZG Armenian Daily
01/04/2008
Culture
The forthcoming meeting of Armenian Writers Union of California will
be held on April 3 in the hall of California Public Library. The
writers will deliver speeches and read their works on Genocide theme
dedicated to the 93rd anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.
Discussions of the read materials will be led after the speeches.
NKR PRESIDENT HAS ACCEPTED
Azat Artsakh Daily
March 28, 2008
On March 28th NKR President Bako Sahakian accepted the primate of
Tehran Diocese of Armenian Apostolic Church Sepuh archbishop Sargsian,
the primate of Atrpatakan Diocese Nshan bishop Topuzian, the primate
of Nor Jugha Diocese Babken bishop Chalian. At the meeting, where the
primate of Artsakh Diocese Pargev archbishop Martirosian participated,
a number of questions concerning future broadening and deepening of
relations with iran-armenian community, perspectives of realization
of investment programs in Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as state-church
relations were discussed.
2008 BUDGET OF AKHALKALAK-KARTSAKH RAILWAY CONSTRUCTION APPROVED
Noyan Tapan
March 28, 2008
AKHALKALAK, MARCH 28, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. The 2008 budget
(107 mln laris – 71.3 mln USD) of the project on construction of
Akhalkalak-Kartsakh railway section has been approved. According to
A-Info news agency, the Georgian deputy minister of economy Vakhtang
Lezhava told reporters about it.
The construction of Akhalkalak-Kartsakh railway section within
the framework of Baku-Tbilisi-Akhalkalak-Kars project will start
soon. Azerishaat Service company will implement the construction
work. Some Georgian companies will also participate in this joint
project with the indicated Azerbaijani company.
Azerishaat Service was announced the winner of the 2007 international
tender for construction of Akhalkalak-Kartsakh section. According to
the tender requirements, the construction work shall be completed by
October 9, 2009.
ALL OF 46 DETAINED SET FREE IN YEREVAN
PanARMENIAN.Net
27.03.2008 18:15 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ All of 46 detained at a rally in Northern Avenue on
March 26 were released. No one was made answerable, the PA police’s
press office said.
The detained, including Hnchakyan Social Democratic party chairperson
Lyudmila Sargsyan and former MP Gagik Nersisyan, were brought to police
station of Kentron community and then set free, IA Regnum reports.
On March 26, policemen dispersed the supporters of Armenia’s former
President Levon Ter-Petrosyan who gathered in Northern Avenue to
protest the outcomes of the February 19 presidential election.
PROFESSOR MARC NICHANIAN LECTURES ON: "HAGOP OSHAGAN IN THE TCHANGHERE PRISON"
Mira Yardemian
AZG Armenian Daily
25/03/2008
Culture, Diaspora
Beirut, March 18, 2008- Renowned Professor Marc Nichanian, delivered
his second public lecture entitled, "Hagop Oshagan in the Prison of
Tchangere," on March 12, in Haigazian University Auditorium, among
a capacity audience of Armenian intel^_lec^_tuals, writers, faculty,
staff and students.
Dr. Nichanian, who is currently a visiting professor in the Armenian
Studies Depart^_ment, presented his lecture as being an echo of
the questions raised in his most recent French volume, Le Roman de
la Catastrophe, to be published in 2008 by the publish^_ing house
MetisPresse in Geneva.
The event opened with the welcoming words of the University’s Public
Relations Dir^_ec^_tor, Mira Yardemian, who briefly introduced the
educational and teaching back^_ground of the guest speaker Marc
Nichanian, in addition to naming his various pub^_lica^_tions in
French, English and Armenian languages.
The topic of Marc Nichanian’s lecture was the unwritten part of
Oshagan’s novel Mnasortats, of which only the first two parts have been
published. As it is well known, Oshagan was un^_able to write the third
part of the novel, in which he purported to "approach the Catastrophe."
After presenting Oshagan’s biography and describing the general
features of his novelistic output, Marc Nichanian reviewed the reasons
given by Oshagan for this failure and proposed a reading of the
scarce passages (spread in Panorama of Western-Armenian literature),
where Oshagan gives an idea of what he intended to do in this third
part of the novel. One of these passages was supposed to give an
account of the "last" night of the Armenian intellectuals, these
"princes of the spirit," in Tchangere. The latter is the ill-famed
place in Turkey where most of the arrested Ar^_men^_ian intellectuals
during the round-up of April 24 were deported. Very few survived. Of
course, Hagop Oshagan was not arrested on April 24 and has never
been in Tchangere. In this respect, the audience was very curiously
listening to Nichanian, in order to decode the mystery of Hagop
Oshagan’s sojourn in the "Prison of Tchangere."
IN `DARKNESS,’ DANCE GROUPS COLLABORATE TO EXPLORE THEME OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
by Janine Parker
The Boston Globe
March 21, 2008 Friday
MEDFORD – In a bright rehearsal studio, a group of young dancers ends a
rather dark scene: The characters are trying to escape unseen forces,
and those that have "died" are gestured over, touched, and cradled in
the others’ arms. The room grows quiet; several older women looking
on are moved by what they see. Soon the girls will be giggling and
doing their homework on the sidelines – but for one moment, real time
has stopped while this beautiful dream of a nightmare unfolds.
The dancers are members of the local Armenian folk group Sayat Nova
Dance Company preparing for "Out of Darkness," an evening-length
performance exploring the themes of genocide in general and the
Armenian genocide in particular. Sayat Nova is pairing up with
the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange in this joint concert showcasing
the two companies separately and together, including work created
collaboratively in the companies’ respective studios in Washington,
D.C., and Watertown.
If art imitates life, yet it is often expected to bring beauty to the
world, what is the artist to do when life is particularly ugly? How
can art portray the horrors of, say, genocide and still be bearable
to an audience? How can it strike the right balance: power without
preaching, clarity without condescension?
Such questions have fueled Lerman’s work as a dancer and choreographer
in her 30-plus years as founding artistic director of her company. And
they seem particularly appropriate for this project, which grew out
of a political drama that became intensely local last August. That’s
when the New England regional director of the Anti-Defamation League
was fired for disagreeing with the national ADL’s continued refusal to
term the Ottoman Turks’ 1915-1923 massacre of 1.5 million Armenians a
genocide. Since then, the national ADL has acknowledged the Armenian
genocide (and the regional director was rehired, then resigned). The
turmoil was yet another reminder of the controversy that continues to
surround this issue; the US government has yet to formally acknowledge
the genocide as such, and some maintain that US military ties with
Turkey may be a factor.
"Out of Darkness" was born when the local Jewish-sponsored New Center
for Arts and Culture, in cooperation with the educational nonprofit
Facing History and Ourselves, engaged Lerman’s company to collaborate
with Sayat Nova.
Of course, for many Armenian-Americans, the genocide has never strayed
far from their minds. Like many ethnic groups no longer living in
their homeland, Armenian communities in the United States seek to
proudly carry on their heritage.
"These were the rules of our household: We ate, drank, spoke, and
sang all in Armenian," says Sayat Nova director Apo Ashjian, who
immigrated with his family in 1970, by phone before the rehearsal.
Ashjian and his wife have raised their children in a home steeped in
Armenian traditions and objects, "to the point where even our puppy
dog only understands Armenian commands," he says.
As a teenager, Ashjian began studying Armenian folk dance, and it
quickly grew into a passion not only to perform, but to preserve a
tradition. "Right away I knew that my love was studying the dances
of our ancestors," Ashjian says. "The older I got, the more I felt
responsible to educate our young through music and dance." Founded in
1986, Sayat Nova has blossomed into a nonprofit company of 72 dancers
that has performed in the United States, Canada, and, triumphantly,
in Armenia, as well as a school that serves students age 4-17.
Last weekend, Ashjian’s dancers joined members of Lerman’s company to
begin the last set of group rehearsals before the performance, which
will include Lerman’s company reprising its stunning "Small Dances
About Big Ideas," a piece commemorating the Nuremberg trials, and Sayat
Nova depicting Armenian culture and history through storytelling and
the vividly joyous language of Armenian folk dance.
Dozens of dancers spread out between two studios, and the wide age
range (late teens through 60-plus), varying body types, and bilingual
instructions seemed like one big visual metaphor for the community
that binds us all as humans. The two companies have in common an
intergenerational performer pool – striking not because of the mix
of ages in what used to be a youth-ruled form, but because of the
apparent comfort the dancers enjoy with one another. During breaks
in the rehearsal, conversations between teenagers and their elders
flowed, with no shuffling feet or downcast eyes.
If anything, it was the dance dialects that seemed to need the
most translation as Lerman’s modern-dance-based company took on the
intricacies of Armenian folk dance and vice versa. Helping one of
the Sayat Nova dancers achieve more of the weightedness appropriate
to a particular step, Liz Lerman Dance Exchange artistic director
Peter DiMuro told him, "The moment you start to feel buoyant, you
know you’re in the wrong world."
DiMuro was talking about physical weightedness, but of course there is
much about "Out of Darkness" that is emotionally laden. The scene in
which Sayat Nova dancers cradle the dead like so many pietas references
a particularly searing moment that occurs in Lerman’s "Small Dances,"
in which bodies are laid out, measured, "autopsied."
"This question of beauty is a very interesting one," says Lerman
by phone from Washington. "At times, I’ve wondered if it’s even
appropriate to think of beauty in relationship to any of this
subject matter." Reactions may vary widely, when the subject is this
difficult. "It’s always been curious to me as an artist, why some
subjects were OK and some weren’t," Lerman says.
At one point in "Small Dances," audience members are invited to stop
and mull over what they’re seeing; in a rather overt dissolving of
the so-called fourth wall that exists between audience and performers,
dancers break out of character and go into the house to discuss with
audience members their answers to the question "when did you first
hear the word `genocide’?" DiMuro, acting as the narrator in "Small
Dances," gently and elegantly guides the dancers and audience through
this somewhat unusual exercise. "The subject matter is so delicate
that, while you don’t want to be ineffectual, you don’t want to be
so bombastic and didactic, either," DiMuro says. "I think this moment
allows people to reevaluate their own relationship to reality."
DiMuro concedes that "Out of Darkness" won’t be a light evening at
the theater: "The subject matter is deep, it’s difficult, it’s hard,
it’s all that." But he says that Lerman knows how to portray such
issues poetically. "It’s not so much that the choreography goes to
lighter places, but it goes to a variety of interesting places."
Dance may seem an unlikely art form to tackle something like
genocide. Alternatively, perhaps its very muteness is a particularly
effective way to address the unspeakable.
ARONYAN IS IN SOLE LEAD
armradio.am
21.03.2008 15:09
Armenian Grand Master Levon Aronyan defeated Ukrainian Vasili Ivanchuk
1.5:0.5 in the 5tgh round of the 17th Amber International Blindfold and
Rapid Chess Tournament underway in Nice (France). Levon Aronyan thus
moved into the sole lead in the overall standings with 6,5 points
from 10, one point ahead of a pack of no fewer than six players,
including Vladimir Kramink of Russia, Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria,
Wishvanathan Anand of India, Vasili Ivanchuk of Ukraine, Peter Leco
of Hungary and Magnus Carlsen of Norway.
Levon Aronyan is also leading in the rapid chess tournament with
4 point.
Aronyan is still the 6th in blindfold chess tournament with 2.5 points.
Magnus Carlsen is leading here with 3.5 points.