HUSBAND STABS EX-WIFE IN FRONT OF PEOPLE IN TURKEY (VIDEO)
April 27, 2012 | 00:04
35-year-old M.K., when meeting his former wife suddenly started to
stab her in Izmir, Turkey.
The man stated he does not like the way his ex-wife lives and started
to stab her making serious injuries in front of many people, Turkish
Hurriyet reports. One of the passers-by shot the video on the cell
phone.
ARMENIAN CHURCH IN TURKEY IS USED AS GARBAGE DUMP
news.am
April 27, 2012 | 12:38
The 11th-century Armenian church in Yenipinar village of Turkey’s
Batman Province is used as a garbage dump by the locals.
Village resident Ali Ucar noted that he is very troubled that the
villagers are taking the ruined church’s stones and using them in
their stables, Haberler news agency of Turkey informs. He stressed
that this shows how the residents do not value historical treasures.
Ucar claimed that solely four of the church’s eight columns have
remained erect.
In his turn, Batman University Rector Abdulselam Ulucam noted
that a project will soon be implemented, with the support of
Batman Provincial Hall, along the lines of which the Province’s
historical treasures-irrespective of their religious belonging-will
be registered. The Rector informed that the registered historical
monuments will be restored and introduced to tourism.
ARMENIAN FOREIGN MINISTER TO VISIT IRAN
armradio.am
27.04.2012 13:27
Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian will pay an official
visit to Tehran April 29-30, Press and Information Department of the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported.
Within the framework of the visit Minister Nalbandian will have
meetings with the senior leadership of Iran.
CANADIAN SENATOR HONORS THE MEMORY OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE VICTIMS
armradio.am
27.04.2012 11:14
Addressing the Senate on April 24, Canadian Senator Maria Chaput
commemorated the Armenian Genocide. “Today I am joining with the
thousands of our Armenian-Canadian citizens who have gathered on
Parliament Hill and across the country to honour the memory of the
victims of the Armenian genocide of 1915,” she said.
“On this day, 97 years ago, the Turkish Ottoman government proceeded
with the mass arrest of the Armenian intellectuals on its soil. The
arrest, deportation and execution of these hundreds of intellectuals
was only the beginning of the atrocities that followed. Left without
its elite, the Armenian population was brutally decimated in the
months and years that followed. More than 1.5 million men, women and
children fell victim to an ethnic cleansing campaign that was planned
and orchestrated by the central government,” The Senator stated.
According to her, “97 years later, the Turkish government continues
to deny this crime that was committed by its Ottoman predecessor
despite the academic consensus on the genocidal nature of these acts
and the fact that a number of countries, including Canada, recognize
this genocide.”
“Ninety-seven years later, the Armenian people continue to fight
on two fronts: they are fighting for their rebirth and for the full
recognition of this crime. They are fighting for recognition by keeping
their language and traditions alive, by establishing and developing
vibrant communities throughout the world. And they are fighting for
the renaissance of the young Republic of Armenia which, since 1991,
has taken its place in the international community.
They are fighting for recognition of this crime to honour the memory of
their ancestors and for justice and human rights, to raise awareness
and to prevent such tragedies, to encourage mutual acceptance among
all peoples, for the Jews of Europe and the Ukrainians, for Cambodia,
for Rwanda, for Yugoslavia and Sudan, for all of humanity,” Hon. Maria
Chaput continued.
“We will never be able to explain why they fell. Nevertheless, 97
years later, Armenians are standing up for their cause and for all
of humankind. I hold out my hand to them and stand in their honour,”
the Senator concluded.
GENOCIDE ARMENIEN/ D’UNE SEULE VOIX MAIS PAS ENSEMBLE
L’Union
25 avril 2012
France
Nicolas Sarkozy et Francois Hollande n’entendent ni l’un ni l’autre
ceder un pouce sur le vote armenien : ils ont tour a tour, mais sans
se croiser, commemore hier a Paris l’anniversaire du genocide armenien
de 1915.
Ils ont tenu, par leur presence a une ceremonie commemorant le 97e
anniversaire du genocide armenien, a confirmer leur engagement mutuel
a faire adopter rapidement un texte de loi reprimant la negation du
genocide armenien de 1915.
Arrive le premier vers 19 heures place du Canada, au pied de la statue
de l’ecclesiastique Komitas, arrete et torture en 1915, le candidat
socialiste a repete son engagement de faire adopter une loi reprimant
la negation du genocide de 1915.
” Quelles que soient les pressions qui s’exercent, je tiendrai bon,
votre histoire ne sera jamais oubliee parce qu’elle ne pourra plus
etre contestee “, a lance M. Hollande.
Le temps de changer de pupitre et le chef de l’Etat a succede a la
tribune a son adversaire, sous les memes acclamations de la foule.
Nicolas Sarkozy s’est lui aussi rejoui de l’unanimite politique
francaise realisee autour de la cause armenienne. ” Les idees que
je vais defendre sont des idees qui, me semble-t-il, sont partagees
très au-dela des frontières partisanes “, a-t-il souligne, avant de
repeter sa promesse de faire adopter une loi punissant la negation
du genocide armenien.
” En tant que chef de l’Etat, je dois m’incliner devant la decision
du Conseil constitutionnel mais pas devant mes convictions donc j’en
fait le serment devant vous […] un nouveau texte sera presente dès
le mois de juin “, a-t-il dit.
Le Conseil constitutionnel a censure, le 28 fevrier dernier, une loi
votee le mois precedent par le Parlement qui penalisait la negation
du genocide armenien de 1915, la jugeant contraire a la liberte
d’expression.
EREVAN – L’ARMENIE COMMEMORE LE GENOCIDE ARMENIEN, DEFILES A BEYROUTH ET JERUSALEM
20minutes.fr
25 avril 2012
France
EREVAN – Des milliers d’Armeniens ont defile mardi en Armenie ainsi
qu’au Liban et en Israël pour commemorer le 97e anniversaire des
massacres d’Armeniens sous l’Empire ottoman, un genocide selon Erevan,
terme rejete par la Turquie.
Dès le matin, la foule a afflue vers un memorial au sommet d’une
colline de la capitale armenienne, Erevan, pour y deposer des fleurs
et allumer des bougies en souvenir des victimes.
“Aujourd’hui, nous nous inclinons, comme beaucoup, beaucoup d’autres
gens a travers le monde, devant la memoire des victimes innocentes du
genocide armenien”, a declare le president armenien, Serge Sarkissian,
dans un communique.
Tsovinar Toumassian, 75 ans, est venue en souvenir de son père qui,
raconte-t-elle, s’etait battu a l’epoque pour essayer de proteger
des femmes et des enfants contre les forces turques.
Si les Turcs “ne sont pas forces a reconnaître le genocide, ils ne le
feront jamais. Ils croient qu’avec le temps, tout le monde oubliera”,
a-t-elle declare a l’AFP.
La Turquie refute le terme de genocide, meme si elle reconnaît des
massacres.
Le president americain Barack Obama a appele mardi a une
“reconnaissance totale, franche et juste des faits”.
Denoncant les massacres d’Armeniens sous l’Empire ottoman comme
“une des pires atrocites du XXe siècle”, M. Obama n’a cependant pas
employe le terme de genocide, mais appele implicitement la Turquie
a reconnaître son rôle.
“J’ai a de maintes reprises donne mon point de vue sur ce qui s’est
passe en 1915. Mon point de vue sur ce fait historique n’a pas change”,
a declare M. Obama dans un communique publie par la Maison Blanche.
“Une reconnaissance totale, franche et juste des faits est dans
l’interet de tous. Nous ne pouvons pas aller de l’avant sans prendre
en compte les faits qui se sont deroules par le passe”, a souligne
le president americain.
A Beyrouth, des milliers d’Armeniens ont manifeste dans la banlieue
nord de la capitale du Liban.
“Nous considerons l’actuelle Republique de Turquie, en sa qualite de
successeur legitime de l’Empire ottoman, responsable de ses crimes
contre notre peuple”, a lance le patriarche Aram I lors d’une ceremonie
dans la principale eglise armenienne, a Antelias.
“Une nation dont les prisons sont pleines de militants des droits de
l’homme et de journalistes peut-elle faire la lecon a d’autres sur
les principes democratiques et les droits de l’homme?”, a-t-il ajoute.
Quelque 140.000 Armeniens vivent au Liban, la plus importante
communaute au Moyen-Orient. La majorite d’entre eux sont des
descendants des survivants des massacres.
En Israël, des centaines d’Armeniens ont defile devant le consulat
de Turquie a Jerusalem-Est. Après s’etre recueillis dans la prière
et avoir allume des cierges au Couvent armenien de la Vieille ville,
les manifestants se sont rendus au cimetière armenien du Mont Sion,
selon un journaliste de l’AFP.
“La Turquie, coupable de genocide!”, “Halte a la machine negationniste
turque!”, ont scande les manifestants qui brandissaient des drapeaux
aux couleurs nationales armeniennes.
Les persecutions des Armeniens sont commemorees chaque annee le 24
avril, date de l’arrestation en 1915 a Constantinople de plus de 200
intellectuels et dirigeants de la communaute armenienne, un evenement
qui avait marque le debut d’une vague de massacres et de deportations
ayant dure jusqu’en 1917.
Pour les Armeniens, le genocide a fait plus de 1,5 million de morts,
alors que la Turquie ne reconnaît qu’entre 300.000 et 500.000 morts
dans cet Etat du Caucase.
HANTEE, OUI, PAR UN DEVOIR DE MEMOIRE
Jackie DERVICHIAN
L’Orient-Le Jour
,_oui,_par_un_devoir_de_memoire.html
26 avril 2012
En 1923, la Conference de Lausanne annula les accords signes a Sèvres
entre la Turquie et les Allies. Winston Churchill ecrivit dans ses
memoires: “Dans le traite qui etablit la paix entre la Turquie et
les Allies, l’histoire cherchera en vain le mot Armenie.”
Pour une fois, Churchill s’est trompe. L’Armenien existe et persiste.
Le devoir d’oubli suppose que justice soit faite. Il faut ensuite que
l’histoire garde ses droits: une histoire qui hierarchise et nuance,
mais qui n’oublie ni n’occulte.
Surtout quand il s’agit d’un genocide; or la representation du
genocide n’est pas sans poser des problèmes ethiques : sa mise en
mots ne permet-elle pas d’accepter un evenement qui devrait rester de
l’ordre de l’inacceptable? Comment dès lors raconter l’irracontable
qui se situe hors de toute humanite?
La distinction entre penser et comprendre implique une separation
entre la logique et le sens. Il y a bien une logique genocidaire,
elle est cependant sans sens. En revanche, le sens du temoignage donne
par le rescape nous pouvons et nous devons le comprendre. C’est le
seul sens pour nous.
Du fond de ma memoire, lorsque j’avais sept ou huit ans, je voyais
souvent mon grand-père pleurer. J’etais une enfant. Je ne comprenais
pas pourquoi ce vieil homme pleurait. Je savais juste que ses trois
frères lui manquaient enormement.
Mon grand-père etait un etre perdu, plus tourne sur son passe que sur
l’avenir. Les evenements restaient toujours trop proches de lui. Il
ne pouvait plus garder sa chère Armenie enfouie en lui. Il fallait
crever l’abcès, denuder la plaie et la panser. Le tristement celèbre
fleuve Euphrate revenait comme un leitmotiv lancinant dans ses propos
rappelant les massacres perpetres: “Lui, qui avait toujours porte la
vie, charrie, depuis l’avril fatidique, la memoire de l’horreur. Contre
son gre. L’eau a ete surprise par d’abondantes menstrues violentes
qui lui ont arrache les ovaires.”
Combien de morts? Un million et demi.
L’ironie provient ici de la multiplicite des chiffres qui reduisent
le corps humain a une accumulation d’os et de crânes. Ces squelettes
anonymes exhibes pour l’exemple en guise de preuve ont perdu toute leur
humanite, ils font desormais partie de ces nombreuses statistiques
dont se nourrissent avidement tous les “Laisser fleurir la verite”,
pour crier au reste du monde les injustices et les meurtres qui se
sont deroules en avril 1915.
Et leur humanite exige de donner, ne serait-ce que pour quelques
instants, visage, nom, voix et, partant, memoire vive aux centaines de
milliers de victimes pour qu’elles ne soient pas simplement synonymes
de chiffres, au pire, precipitees dans les caveaux de l’oubli et,
au mieux, dormant dans les colonnes de quelques tableaux plus ou
moins officiellement reconnus par la conscience qu’on dit collective
et qu’il faut raffermir de jour en jour.
Après un genocide pareil, tout le monde etait, de toute facon, un peu
mort. Il restait peut-etre moins de vie dans les veines des rescapes
errants que parmi les ossements de Deir ez-Zor. C’est pourquoi je
parle de la resurrection des vivants.
La resurrection passe par le temoignage, elle passe par le pardon.
Mais le pardon lui-meme doit passer par la justice. Et cette
resurrection des vivants passe, et c’est le plus essentiel, par la
reconnaissance par le monde.
Par la Turquie, par vous et par moi.
Le fait que le monde ait decouvert et accepte l’Holocauste a beaucoup
fait pour aider les juifs dans leur travail de deuil.
La memoire est selective, et c’est pourquoi elle participe de
l’enchantement. L’histoire est plus prosaïque et desenchantee.
C’est pourquoi notre arme n’est pas la memoire qui construit,
deconstruit, oublie ou enjolive, mais l’histoire seule.
C’est une memoire qui n’est pas brisee, une memoire complète.
Tous les hommes peuvent mourir, tous les Armeniens peuvent mourir,
mais la parole reste la eternellement, comme si elle habitait le monde.
Il y a l’echo qui dira certainement le genocide.
Nos martyrs vivants et morts ne sortiront du deuil que le jour où ils
auront regle le problème de la memoire, justement. Ce sont les morts
qui portent la veritable memoire, les ancetres. Et cet ancetre, aigri
par l’histoire, revient de facon très amère, très violente contre le
present. Les ancetres redoublent de ferocite, ils ont raison parce
qu’ils ont l’impression d’avoir ete trahis.
Comment rendre la justice? Comment pardonner? Des mots qui
questionnent, qui fouillent, qui reecrivent l’histoire officielle
pour trouver du sens.
Lorsque l’Etat turc abandonnera son entreprise de deni de l’histoire,
lorsque les archives s’ouvriront, lorsque les chercheurs pourront
travailler ensemble, les libertes civiles auront fait un grand pas
dans ce pays et dans le monde. Dès lors, toutes les contributions
en provenance des diverses disciplines s’interessant au genocide
sont les bienvenues, tant il est vrai que seule une approche
pluridisciplinaire et plurimethodologique peut nous permettre de
cerner la complexite du processus genocidaire qui se reflète dans
la pluralite meme des figures de la victime, et, partant, de parer a
la banalisation/confusion entretenue entre ces differentes figures;
une banalisation/confusion qui est l’un des moyens privilegies par
les negationnistes pour brouiller les pistes, renverser les rôles,
et, partant, nier la realite du crime.
Il ne s’agit pas seulement de la question armenienne, mais aussi et
d’abord d’un rapport a l’histoire, a la verite et a la democratie.
Le “tabou armenien”, a travers les questions politiques que pose sa
resolution, represente une chance pour la societe turque, mais aussi
pour les communautes armeniennes qui ne peuvent vivre en dehors de la
perspective d’une juste reconciliation, et au-dela, pour le progrès
d’une ethique des savoirs. L’effort de connaissance dirige vers les
evenements les plus tragiques reste possible et n’est jamais vain.
Aux historiens alors de favoriser cet usage democratique d’un passe
refuse ou impossible.
Quand justice sera faite a tous nos martyrs armeniens, nous n’ecrirons
plus dans l’odeur de la mort.
CALLS FOR ARMENIANS TO PROTEST AGAINST PARLIAMENTARY POLLS
Vestnik Kavkaza
April 26 2012
Russia
The “We Shall Not Remain Silent” initiative condemns lack of the
“against all” point on voting papers at the upcoming parliamentary
polls, Armenia Today reports.
The initiative prepared a Youtube video
()
where a girl is expressing skepticism over the ability of any party
running for parliament to save Armenia.
SHOAH FOUNDATION DIRECTOR DISCUSSES DIGITIZATION OF SURVIVOR TESTIMONIES
by Ara Khachatourian
April 25, 2012
The University of Southern California (USC) Institute of Armenian
Studies’ Leadership Council on Sun., April 15 will honor the USC
Shoah Foundation Institute for championing the Armenian Genocide
Digitization Project at a gala banquet at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.
USC Shoah Foundation Executive Director Stephen Smith The Shoah
Foundation Institute, established by Steven Spielberg in 1994, has
been a part of the USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters,
Arts, and Sciences since 2006. Its Visual History Archive-one of
the largest of its kind in the world-contains nearly 52,000 video
testimonies of survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust.
The goal of the Leadership Council is to bring together the digital
copies of every collection of interviews with Armenian Genocide
survivors and eyewitnesses, essentially creating what may become
the largest archive of genocide eyewitness interviews. With the
USC Shoah Foundation Institute’s support of the Armenian Genocide
Digitization Project, the interviews will be indexed, preserved,
and made available to scholars, students, and researchers. The
J. Michael Hagopian/Armenian Film Foundation archive of nearly 400
filmed eyewitness testimonies will be the first collection in the
Armenian Genocide Digitization Project.
Asbarez Editor Ara Khachatourian recently caught up with the Shoah
Foundation Institute’s executive director, Dr. Stephen D. Smith,
who discussed the foundation and detailed the partnership with the
Armenian Film Foundation.
***
ARA KHACHATOURIAN: Tell us about the Shoah Foundation and how it came
into being?
STEPHEN SMITH: The USC Shoah Foundation came into being after the
filming of “Schindler’s List,” when film director Spielberg realized
that many Holocaust survivors wanted to tell their own personal life
histories. And he set out the project, to enable…survivors…to
tell their own stories. And 52,000 survivors and witnesses to the
Holocaust were interviewed in 56 countries in 32 languages, creating
a vast audio-visual archive.
A.K.: What is this archive going to be used for?
S.S.: The archive has several purposes. First of all, it is about
the documentation of personal life histories, so that what we have
is not just the large scale of what genocide looks like, but also the
individual stories that make that up. It is very important to document
that. Secondly, it’s about giving voice to the individual so they can
talk about their families, communities, and the things that really
matter to them, because when genocide takes place the intention is
to wipe those out. By these individuals talking about what happened
to them, they reinstate them in memory and in our lives. The third,
and most important, perhaps, is education. To give opportunity for
people around the world to have access to these vitally important
life histories and to understand what it means to them and their
lives today and to learn about their experiences.
A.K.: What about the partnership with the Armenian Film Foundation?
S.S.: The archive of the Shoah Foundation was donated to USC in 2006,
creating the USC Shoah Foundation Institute… We put together a
partnership using the USC Shoah Foundation as the basis by which the
architecture and infrastructure of the Shoah Foundation is going to
be utilized to be able to digitize, to preserve, to index, catalogue,
and disseminate the testimonies of the Armenian Film Foundation.
A.K.: Where are you in that process?
S.S.: The collection of 400 histories that J. Michael Hagopian filmed
over 30 years is being compiled so it can be digitized. That will
be done this year. Once the digitization is done, we will take each
interview and index it minute-by-minute. There are things that we
have to do, especially for this collection, and, indeed, for any
other Armenian collection we will work with. Because we have very
different geographies, all the names of the places, the languages,
and terminology need to be addressed. We are bringing in experts to
help with that, to make sure that what we do has integrity-historical
integrity-and also the integrity of ensuring that we take great care
over these testimonies.
A.K.: One of the concerns that I’ve heard in the Armenian community is
that by giving this archive to the USC Shoah Foundation, it might be
lost as an asset of the community. With this and with future archives,
how can the community be able to access it and use it, and how can
we ensure that it is not lost?
S.S.: The beauty of a partnership like this is that the Armenian Film
Foundation retains the ownership of the collection. What we do is we
license a copy of it-the digital copy. Then we have an arrangement
with our partner that we have permission to use that digital copy
and make it accessible to a wider public. What we are interested
in, as a research and an educational institute, is making sure that
these testimonies are given the greatest opportunity to reach the
widest public.
One of the things that we’re all interested in-within the Armenian
community, within the academic community, and indeed in the Jewish
world-is how do we, who experienced these experiences, such as the
Armenian Genocide, tell the world what happened and give them a chance
to learn? The great thing here is that through this partnership the
testimonies themselves will remain as part of the Armenian community’s
legacy and will remain within the Armenian community, but the power
of those testimonies will reach the world.
A.K.: How did you get involved with the Shoah Foundation?
S.S.: I was born in a mining village in the middle of Nottinghamshire,
England. My father was a Christian minister in the Methodist Church and
my mother is a religion education teacher. I had no connection to the
Jewish world at all until I went to a family holiday to Israel. We
found a fascinating experience and I got very interested in the
Christian-Jewish relationship initially. With the more I learned
about anti-Semitism within the Christian world, the more I realized
that the Holocaust did not come out of nowhere, and there are real
issues to address here.
One of the big moments in my learning experience was being in Yad
Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem. There I was, a young
guy in my early 20s, coming from Britain and a Christian background
in Israel learning about the Holocaust. One of the things I learned
in Yad Vashem was about a group of people called “Righteous Among
the Nations.” These were people who had rescued Jews during the
Holocaust; all of them rescued at least one Jewish person except for
one of them: His name was Armin T. Wegner. And, I was very impressed
by this individual because he had, in 1933, when the Jews were first
boycotted in Nazi Germany, written a letter to Adolf Hitler saying,
“In my name, in the name of the German people, STOP, because what you
are doing could result in the distruction of the Jews and certainly
would bring shame upon our country forever.”
I was surprised to find out that the Armin Wegner who had spoken
out on behalf of the Jews was the same Armin Wegner who had taken
photographs during the Armenian Genocide, documented them, and then
tried, in the 1920’s, to be a part of the legal process to bring this
to the attention of the world. So he was a man that experienced the
Armenian Genocide, and was equipped to try to prevent the genocide
happening in the rest of the world. He failed on both counts. The
Armenian Genocide happened and the Holocaust happened. But he was
the very same man that sat with Michael Hagopian in 1967 and said,
“Michael you are filmmaker. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to use your art
to collect the testimonies of the Armenian Genocide survivors?”
So, this is a part of the legacy that we all share. Armin Wegner has
been a tremendous influence on my life, because he was the guy that
never stopped trying and gave us a tremendous example of why we want
to learn about these genocides. Because we want to prevent it in the
future, too.
A.K.: It’s ironic, because Israel has not recognized the Armenian
Genocide officially. In fact, a couple of months ago one of the
foreign ministry officials said there cannot be a comparison between
the Holocaust and genocide, because the Holocaust was a unique
experience. What are your thoughts on that?
S.S.: Human suffering cannot be compared. How can I say that what I
suffered is greater than what you suffered? It’s a travesty to do
that. However, the causes and the consequences absolutely must be
compared, if we as a human race are to be able to understand what we
are we capable of and to be able to prevent that. What we don’t need
is comparison. What we do need is compassion.
A.K.: The fact that Israel has not recognized the genocide… What
do you attribute that to?
S.S.: I think this is a tragedy, that any country takes a long time
to recognize the Armenian Genocide for political reasons. This is
not about politics. This is about humanity. I think we all need to
be able to, within ourselves as human beings-political entities or as
individuals-get over those things that hinder us from recognizing the
suffering of others, and to be able to just be clear about that. It
doesn’t matter where we are in the world.
A.K.: What are your thoughts on the American anti-defamation groups,
such as the ADL (Anti-Defamation League), which, while not denying the
Armenian Genocide, are impeding efforts for international recognition
of the fact?
S.S.: What I can say is that the USC Shoah Foundation Institute
is very clear about this. What happened to the Armenian people was
genocide and it needs to be recognized as such by the international
community and by organizations wherever they are, so that we can work
together as communities-Armenians, Jews, Christians-wherever we are
on a very vitally important work of education for the future. That’s
our mission here, and we intend to do that in very close cooperation
with the Armenian community.
A.K.: Another issue that has been talked about is the component of
funding for this project. Is there a component of fundraising that
goes on continuously in the Shoah Foundation?
S.S.: Basically, we have different collections, they are like different
projects. So for each of those projects we need to find the appropriate
people to support and fund them. And in fact, whether we talk to our
Rwandan colleagues or Armenian colleagues, we say let’s think about
the best way to do this. If we have a story to tell, let’s really
take ownership of that. We take our responsibility very seriously, to
think how can we best contribute in terms of our time, and our effort,
and our energy to really make this work for all of us and to share the
burden of telling the story. That’s the principle that we have here.
>From the time when we manage to find the funding for the archive,
it’s about an 18-month to a year process. One of the things that
we take very seriously here at USC-we are a research university-is
making sure the quality of the work that goes into this is done at
the very highest level.
We’re already tackling enough as it is, in terms of denial and
obfuscation. So what we want to make sure is that we spend enough time
on the detail of the indexing and the clarity of that, so whether
people use it for research or for education, we know we’ve done our
work very thoroughly. If that means, that we take a little longer,
that’s time well spent in my view, because we want this to be right
for the benefit of those 400 people that gave testimonies…
A.K.: How do you safeguard those interviews from being taken and
bastardized by those who want to revise history?
S.S.: Whenever we put content into the public domain we always have
that risk, that somebody will misuse it. We have to be very careful
about that and build policies around that. So, one of the policies
is that we release our content on a registration basis only. Maybe
we want to put some testimonies and make them available to the wider
public and if somebody takes it and misuses it, we do run that risk.
The greater good being served here, and the number of people that
get a great deal out of it, so vastly overwhelms that small number
that are very marginal to our work. Putting work and testimonies in
the public domain has a very beneficial value.
A.K.: As time passes, the distance between the reality of the Holocaust
or Armenian Genocide and the current generation grows wider.
For Armenians, it’s been 97 years. Survivors are not here anymore.
What is your message to the new generation that might not have direct
contact with the first-person account?
S.S.: Of course, you can’t replace a human being. There’s nothing
more wonderful than talking to another soul about their experience
and feeling that sense of connection. But, of course, there’s the
reality of time and we have to deal with it. Video does have a
very profound effect on the way in which this particular generation
understands history. We are experiencing that now with the Holocaust
survivors’ testimonies. We weigh carefully how young people are using
them and they do develop a real strong sense of connection. With a
video testimony you see eyes, and the eyes are like the windows to
the soul…
And you see the face, you really get a sense of who that person is
and it’s so interesting how often people-students-say, “Oh I met so
and so.” And of course they never met them at all, but they saw them
on the screen and they got that sense of connection. So, I believe
that all is not lost and there is a lot to be gained from this.
One of the things that bring the Armenian Film Foundation collection in
is that in about 18 months from now, we will have Holocaust survivors
testimonies, Armenian survivors testimonies, Rwandan survivors
testimonies-all will be available to this generation. I can tell you,
from talking with teachers and students, they are really looking
forward to that because they know that while they are not going to
compare them, they are going to understand human experience in a much
deeper way, and can listen to many voices across many generations.
CONGRESSWOMAN HAHN: GENOCIDE IS A CRIME THAT RIPPLES THROUGH GENERATIONS
PanARMENIAN.Net
April 25, 2012 – 10:12 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net – Congresswoman Janice Hahn released the following
statement in recognition of the 97th anniversary of the Armenian
Genocide:
“Today we remember 1.5 million innocent men, women and children
murdered in the Armenian Genocide. For no greater offense than their
ethnicity and their faith, the Armenian people were systematically
killed. It is a crime that ripples through generations, felt in the
losses still mourned by families, and the families that never got to
be. These dead cry out for justice. As a member of the Los Angeles
City Council, I took every opportunity to urge our government to
officially recognize this genocide. Now, in Congress, I will continue
the fight to win these dead the long overdue recognition they deserve.”