Author: Tambiyan Samvel

SERJ TANKIAN, ELECT THE DEAD
Dorian Lynskey

The Guardian
Friday October 26, 2007

Buy Elect the Dead now

Serj Tankian is the frontman of Armenian-American metal agitators
System of a Down – and he comes across as an improbable hybrid
of Frank Zappa, Jello Biafra, Sepultura’s Max Cavalera, a Balkan
protest singer and someone on a street corner with a megaphone and a
placard announcing the end times. Here, without the berserk velocity of
System’s guitarist Daron Malakian, he is a little more conventional and
a little less interesting. At its most urgent, on Empty Walls or The
Unthinking Majority, Elect the Dead resembles a demented heavy-metal
musical about the last days of the American empire.

Tankian’s earnest emo croon is less engaging; by the umpteenth wailing
chorus of break-up song Saving Us, you might feel like dumping him,
too. But even playing with a relatively straight bat, he is the
only multi-platinum rock star on the planet who would write a song
about how "civilisation is on trial" and think, "Ah, the perfect
title! ‘Beethoven’s Cunt’."

Federation of Armenian Organisations of the Netherlands (FAON)
Address: Weesperstraat 91 – 2574 VS The Hague
Telephone: +31704490209
E-mail: [email protected]
Contact: M. Hakhverdian

PRESS RELEASE

The Hague, 25 October 2007

Dutch Parliament: Written Questions on Conviction of Arat Dink

This week Dutch MP Henk Jan Ormel of Christian Democratic Party (CDA)
submitted written questions to the Dutch Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs Frans Timmermans (Labour Party, PvdA), about recent conviction of
Arat Dink, the son of assassinated Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink,
according to Article 301 of Turkish Penal Code, for offending Turkish
identity. Mr. Ormel asks whether the Secretary of State can explain why the
Turkish govenrment refuses to amend said Article.

Former Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ben Bot, has reassured the Dutch
parliament on several occasions in the past that the Article 301 was to be
amended in short term. Then he referred to personal promises made to him by
former Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs, now president Gul, as well as
by the Turkish ambassador in the Netherlands. Unfortunately, these promises
have been never kept.

Mr. Ormel also asks if the Secretary of State expects that the Turkish
parliament will be urged to make the amendment of the Article 301. Finally,
Mr. Ormel wants to know if Mr. Timmermans is going to urge Turkey again, in
the EU context, to amend Article 301.

RA NA RATIFIES TWO INTERNATIONAL TREATIES

Noyan Tapan
Oct 24, 2007

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 24, NOYAN TAPAN. In the October 24 sitting the RA
National Assembly ratified two international treaties discussed on
the eve: the convention on "Political rights of women" signed on March
31, 1953 in New York and the agreement on "Cooperation in the sphere
of veterinary science and health of animals between the Republic
of Armenia and the Islamic Republic of Iran" signed on November 29,
2006 in Yerevan.

The parliament also adopted the three bills and legislative packages
discussed on the eve, according to which ammendments and addenda
are being made to a number of laws in force, including the package
of bills envisaging to make amendments and addenda to the laws on
"Social Security of Servicemen and Members of Their Families" and on
"Doing Military Service", as well as in the RA Code on Criminal Trial
by the first reading.

EU URGES ‘SUBSTANTIAL CHANGES’ TO TURKISH LAW RESTRICTING FREEDOM OF SPEECH

International Herald Tribune, France
The Associated Press
Oct 24 2007

STRASBOURG, France: The European Union on Wednesday urged Turkey
to make "substantial changes" to a law restricting the freedom of
speech and press ahead with other reforms crucial for its bid to join
the bloc.

Nobel Prize-winning author Orhan Pamuk and slain ethnic Armenian
journalist Hrant Dink are among those who have been prosecuted under
the controversial Article 301 of the Turkish penal code that make it
a crime to insult Turkish identity or the country’s institutions.

"We regret the lack of progress that has been made, … There have
to be substantial changes to Article 301 and also to other articles
worded in similarly vague terms," said Portugal’s European affairs
minister Manuel Lobo Antunes, speaking on behalf of the EU.

Antunes spoke to the European Parliament ahead of a Nov. 6 report by
the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, on the progress in
Turkey’s membership bid. The European Parliament passed a resolution
Wednesday that also calls for deeper reforms.

Turkish troops shelled Kurdish rebel positions across the border in
Iraq after an ambush that killed 12 soldiers Sunday. The EU condemned
attacks by the Kurdish PKK organization – which it considers a
terrorist group – but reiterated its call on Turkey to resolve the
issue in cooperation with Iraq and by respecting international law.

Pamuk and Dink had both been prosecuted under Article 301 for comments
about the mass killings of Armenians by Turks in the early 20th
century, an issue that has also strained Turkey’s relations with the
United States after a U.S. House of Representatives panel approved
a resolution labeling the killings as genocide.

Turkey’s EU membership talks began in 2005, but human rights, a
dispute over divided Cyprus and other issues have slowed the bid. EU
enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn said negotiations in two new policy
areas could be opened "in the coming weeks."

Turkey must implement EU legislation into its national rulebooks in
35 negotiating "chapters," a process expected to take years.

Antunes, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, also urged
Turkey to recognize Cyprus and speed up the improvement of religious,
cultural and women’s rights in Turkey. Better democratic oversight of
the country’s powerful military forces – which have vowed to safeguard
Turkish secularism – was also needed, he said.

Cyprus has been divided between a Greek Cypriot south and a
Turkish-occupied north since 1974, when Turkey invaded after an
abortive Athens-backed coup by supporters of union with Greece. A
U.N. peace blueprint was approved by Turkish Cypriots, but rejected by
Greek Cypriots in 2004, which meant Cyprus joined the EU as a divided
nation – with only the Greek Cypriot south enjoying EU benefits.

Turkey is under intense pressure from the EU to allow Greek Cypriot
planes and vessels to use Turkish ports and airports, but Ankara
has said it will not agree to any concessions on Cyprus until the EU
keeps to a promise to end the isolation of Turkish Cypriots.

The EU assembly said that Turkey’s refusal to comply with the
commitments made when it opened its accession talks with the EU
"will continue to affect seriously the process of negotiations."

But the parliamentary resolution did not address the issue of the
World War I-era killing of 1.5 million Armenians.

"Quite a few feel it was genocide – but in the current situation we
don’t think it’s a subject that should be addressed in a way that would
negatively affect our relations with Turkey," said Dimitris Komodoros,
spokesman for the Socialist group in the European Parliament.

WHAT LIMIT OF ELECTION FRAUD WILL UNITED STATES AND FRANCE DRAW?
Hakob Badalyan

Lragir
Oct 23 2007
Armenia

In some sense, Serge Sargsyan’s explanation is logical. He said it
is more expedient to prevent the soaring of prices, create favorable
social conditions and woo votes rather than to boost the prices,
accrue funds to buy people’s votes and cause social protest. On the
other hand, the prime minister must know that people are dissatisfied
not only with their social state. Moreover, the least dissatisfaction
is with the social state. The society is dissatisfied with injustice
in all the spheres of life in Armenia, which brings about innumerable
social, legal, moral, psychological consequences. In other words,
keeping the prices of food low is not enough to win over voters,
and the prime minister knows it, so does the party he leads, and
so do its coalition and other partners. Consequently, it is more
effective to accrue money and buy people’s dissatisfaction with
money because quite a different logic starts working as soon as
a person is offered to sell his dissatisfaction at some thousands
of drams. Certainly, it is silly to accrue election funds through
causing social protest. But since Armenia is an ancient civilization,
the rules of modern civilization stop working here.

It is not known when the government will accrue the necessary funds.

Perhaps it will become known after Serge Sargsyan’s U.S.-French visit
when he will have made clear what efforts it will take him to be
president of Armenia. And the extent of this effort will depend on the
limit of election fraud that the United States and France will draw,
the quantitative and the qualitative limit of election fraud.

If this limit is reduced compared with 2007, it means more money
will be needed to give bigger election bribes. Besides, it will
be necessary to buy several other candidates who will surely sell
themselves out expensively, considering the soaring prices. It does
not mean the candidates are also food and they became expensive
in a chain reaction, especially that the international price of
candidates is the same. The problem is that a candidate is also human
and he also needs to buy food, and since food has become expensive,
they need to sell their candidacy, the only product they have, for
a good price to afford to pay their bills over the next five years,
until the next presidential election.

Meanwhile, the United States and France are hardly likely to pledge
support to Serge Sargsyan. Nothing of the kind has happened in any
election. It is another problem that the absence of an alternative to
the government candidate made the West and Russia maintain the status
quo in the Armenian government. It was done through the observation
of the election process, there was no predetermined decision. No
election of Armenia has been predetermined, even though different
activists swear the election was determined to justify their failure.

Hence, Serge Sargsyan will probably return from the west without clear
likelihood of support. Meanwhile, he should be thankful that during
his visit no Armenian member of parliament or official was attacked
in Las Vegas or at Moulin Rouge in Paris.

RECOGNITION OF KARABAKH IN 90 DAYS

Lragir
Oct 23 2007
Armenia

Yesterday the Armenian parliament adjourned the discussion of the
bill on the recognition of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic by 90 days. The
bill has been presented by the Heritage faction. The leader of the
Heritage party said if the parliament majority needs time to make
their stance on the bill clear, they are ready to wait.

DON’T COUNT THOSE DONKEYS BEFORE THEY’RE HATCHED
By Don Erler

Fort Worth Star Telegram, TX
Oct 23 2007

After church last weekend, I remarked to my bride of 41 years that
Advent begins in six weeks. Yikes.

The succession of Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas will march
quickly by, with 2008 arriving before we finish exchanging those
not-quite-right gifts.

All of which means that the real presidential race — actual primaries
and caucuses, not mere polls and "debates" — will begin before our
New Year’s bubbly loses its fizz. And as Michael Barone pointed out
Oct. 16 in Dallas, few Americans will be paying attention to political
advertising during the holidays.

Major co-author of the Almanac of American Politics (a bible for
political journalists), senior writer for U.S. News & World Report
and respected print and TV commentator, Barone brings decades of
informed judgment to political analysis. He noted that predicting the
results of the Iowa caucuses will be especially difficult, given the
near-impossibility of polling only the caucus participants.

"We are in a period of political change," different in crucial respects
from much of our recent politics, he said. For the first time in 80
years, neither an incumbent president nor his vice president will be on
a major party ticket. By January ’09, the country will have experienced
two consecutive eight-year administrations, characterized by close
presidential races and what Barone calls "trench warfare politics."

But now we’ve entered a period of "open field politics," with voters’
church attendance no longer predicting their voting behavior with 80
percent accuracy. Barone observed that although Sen. Hillary Clinton
is the odds-on favorite to lock up the Democratic nomination, John
Edwards and Sen. Barack Obama appear to be close in Iowa.

The Republican side, he said, is "less clear all around." Although
he declined to predict a winner, Barone claimed that former New York
Mayor Rudy Giuliani has "an asset few in presidential history have
had": his performance in the 9-11 crisis, most closely analogous to
Dwight Eisenhower’s status in 1952.

As for the general election, few gamblers would bet against the
Democrats’ regaining the White House and strengthening their positions
in Congress next year. After all, a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal
poll revealed that Democrats are preferred over Republicans by a
margin of 49 percent to 36 percent.

But Republicans cannot be counted out — not yet, anyway. A Fox News
poll has discovered that nearly the same percentage of likely voters
who favor Democrats think that Giuliani would do a better job of
protecting the nation (50 to 36 percent). Thus, if national security
becomes the decisive issue, at least one Republican could win.

Moreover, last year the Democrats reversed the Republican majority
that was won in the U.S. House in 1994, promising to "drain the swamp"
of legislative corruption and end the misbegotten Iraq war.

But members from both parties continue to get caught with pants down
or hands in the freezer, pork continues to flow through "earmarks,"
and the Democrats have lost their nerve on surge-improved Iraq.

Even President Bush’s anemic approval rating appears gargantuan
compared to the disastrously low rating for Congress.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, having promised to secure a House vote on
a resolution to label as "genocide" the killing of Armenians by the
Ottoman Empire nearly a century ago, has backtracked. It appears that
several of the resolution’s 214 co-sponsors have heeded the prudential
warning that our close ally Turkey should not be embarrassed by such
a symbolic insult.

Clinton, like other leading Democratic presidential aspirants, has
outlined programs that, if enacted, would cost hundreds of billions
of dollars to implement. Taxing "the rich" simply cannot pay for them.

Even mathematically challenged voters can count, add and subtract. We
understand that counting Democratic proposals’ costs will add to an
already bloated national debt and subtract from our own families’
assets.

Such calculations counsel caution for Democrats who assume the
inevitability of their electoral success, which they expect to initiate
scant weeks from now.

Boston Globe
Greenway plan etched in stone

Message bricks sold for $500 apiece will line Mothers’ Walk

By Thomas C. Palmer Jr., Globe Staff | October 23, 2007

The group that oversees the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, which
for months opposed proposals to build memorials on the mile-long
corridor of parks, is planning to sell 900 engraved commemorative
bricks to the public, at a cost of $500 each.

In mid-November, the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway Conservancy will
start selling 6-inch-by-6-inch concrete pavers, which look like
granite cobblestones with smooth surfaces, to anyone who wants to
honor "a loved one, mother, mentor, coach, or teacher," said Nancy
Brennan, the conservancy’s executive director.

The engraved pavers, along the edge of a four-block stretch known as
the Moth ers’ Walk, are also a way "of building community," Brennan
said, a goal of the conservancy since its inception three years ago.
Details on how the public will purchase the stones are being worked
out.

The $450,000 gleaned from the sale of pavers will be added to almost
$18 million that has been pledged to the conservancy so far, as part
of its effort to raise at least $20 million by year-end to care for
the Greenway.

As for the inscriptions on the paving blocks, Brennan said, "Free
speech should be honored and celebrated," and "hate speech" avoided.

With that in mind, donors will have to choose from a list of 10
possible phrases, along with the name of the person being honored.

"With love to . . .," "Immigrated to Boston on . . .," "In admiration
of . . .," "My inspiration . . .," "We love you . . .," and "Thank
you!" are some of the choices.

Asked whether a potentially controversial figure would be allowed to
be commemorated, Brennan said that has yet to be resolved.

But the planned sale of commemorative stones along the Mothers’ Walk
immediately raised questions about whether the Greenway – long seen by
groups involved in its design as a place that would be without
memorials or plaques – is now changing that focus.

"I do worry about what the precedent is," said David Seeley, a Leather
District resident and member of the Mayor’s Central Artery Completion
Task Force.

"Does it mean other locations will come up for sale?" he asked.

Greenway memorials have been a hot issue for two years, as the
Armenian Heritage Foundation and the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority,
which built the park system, sought to designate a small block near
Faneuil Hall Marketplace to remember the 1915 Armenian Genocide.

Dick Garver, a representative of the Boston Redevelopment Authority on
the task force, said the Armenian group’s proposed park, which is now
being broadened to refer to many or all immigrant groups, would have a
plaque on it.

"There will certainly be words here," he said. "They will be worked
out in public." Garver said they will convey "universal themes" such
as immigration to Boston but cannot "establish a proprietary name for
the park."

The antimemorial sentiment, though unwritten, was reflected numerous
times over the years at meetings where the Greenway was being shaped.

One comment came long before the Armenian park had been publicly
proposed, at a public meeting in March 2003, from Anne Emerson,
president of the Boston Museum, which plans to build a history center
adjacent to the site of the proposed Armenian park.

Discussing the nature of the Greenway, Emerson said, "It’s a canyon of
buildings, and something needs to be done to soften it. There should
be no logos, memorials, barriers, or billboards."

Mothers’ Walk is a winding walkway on the harbor side of the four
blocks between Christopher Columbus Park and High Street. It is
scheduled to be dedicated in October 2008. Another 100 pavers will be
reserved for participants in three city youth programs, including the
YMCA of Greater Boston.

"If there’s an additional massive demand, we could install additional
pavers," said Linda Jonash, the conservancy’s director of planning and
design. The Mothers’ Walk has a total of about 7,800 stones that could
be engraved.

Pavers already laid in the Mother’s Walk will be removed, engraved
with specifically prescribed wording, and replaced in a line along the
walk’s edge.

"I think actually it’s a pretty good idea," said Gary Hack, dean of
the University of Pennsylvania School of Design, and chairman of a
group of professionals that advised Greenway designers. Although
buying bricks for fund-raising has become common, he said. "It’s a
terrific way people can gain and feel some attachment to the place."

Hack said some places on the Greenway may be appropriate for
remembering individuals. "There’s a great deal of public pressure to
use the public domain as a place to make people’s contributions or
faiths memorable," he said. "This is a time when people want to
memorialize everything."

The Greenway’s 30 acres of parks and sites for nonprofit facilities,
stretching from Causeway to Kneeland streets, is scheduled to be
substantially completed this year, with a formal opening next fall.

The Greenway park in Chinatown officially opened last month. Other
blocks, including one of the two park parcels in the North End, are
open to the public but have not yet been officially inaugurated.

Brennan said selling the engraved pavers is only one means the
conservancy is considering for raising money needed to maintain and
organize events for the parks, which have replaced the old elevated
interstate highway. The flower beds need support, too.

"We’re thinking about ‘buy a bulb’ for $50 each," Brennan said.

Thomas C. Palmer Jr. can be reached at [email protected].

(c) Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Source: /greenway_plan_etched_in_stone/

The Armenian Weekly On-Line
80 Bigelow Avenue
Watertown MA 02472 USA
(617) 926-3974
[email protected]
menianweekly.com

The Armenian Weekly; Volume 73, No. 41; Oct. 13, 2007

Commentary and Analysis:

1. Lessons from the United States Senate 1927
Shahe Fereshetian, M.D.

2. Names and Language
By Garen Yegparian

***

Lessons from the United States Senate 1927

Honorable Ms. Pelosi,

I am writing to you regarding H.Res.106, which would recognize the Armenian
genocide of 1915. You have received several letters asking you to prevent
the resolution from reaching the House floor, including the letter dated
Sept. 25, jointly signed by eight former U.S. Secretaries of State. I would
respectfully refer you to a similar situation that was faced by the United
States Senate in 1927.

At the conclusion of World War I, the United States signed a treaty with
Turkey on Aug. 6, 1923. Many statements for and against ratification of the
Treaty with Turkey were published during the following three years. On Jan.
3, 1924, the Honorable Charles Hughes, the former Secretary of State,
addressed the Council on Foreign Relations. ("Foreign Affairs," Supplement
to Vol. II, No. 2). He indicated, just as the letter you have just received
indicates, that should the United States fail to ratify the treaty with
Turkey, our economic and political interests would be in jeopardy. He even
quoted a letter by Dr. James L. Barton, who was the Secretary of the
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, saying that "If the
treaty (with Turkey) should be rejected, I am convinced that the continuance
of the American institutions in Turkey, with their large investment
interests, would be jeopardized" (Nov. 24, 1923).

Mustafa Kemal himself, the first president of the modern Turkish state,
indicated in an interview on Jan. 9, 1927, a week prior to the U.S. Senate
vote on the treaty, that the United State’s "present policy reacts against
America" and that "our mineral recourses which are awaiting American
engineering ingenuity and capital, when properly worked up, would furnish to
America much of the raw material that her country is not able to produce."

Despite all this rhetoric and the implicit-and explicit-threats, the
Democratic Party, lead by Senator William King of Utah, stood in unity and
rejected the treaty on Jan. 17, 1927. This was one of only three treaties
outright rejected in the history of the U.S. Senate. In his statement in the
New York Times, on Jan. 18, 1927, Senator King indicated the reason for his
principled stand: "The treaty was opposed upon three major grounds. Namely,
that it failed to provide for the fulfillment of the Wilson award to
Armenia, guarantees for protection of Christians and non-Muslims in Turkey,
and recognition by Turkey of the American nationality of former subjects of
Turkey."

"Obviously," he continued "it would be unfair and unreasonable for the
United States to recognize and respect the claims and professions of Kemal
so long as he persists in holding control and sovereignty over Wilson
Armenia-now a No Man’s Land, while a million Armenian refuges and exiles are
people without a country."

I am confident that you and your esteemed colleagues of the 110th Congress
will be able make a similar principled stand and bring H.Res.106 for a floor
vote.

Respectfully,
Shahe Fereshetian, M.D.
——————————————— ————————————————– –

2. Names and Language
By Garen Yegparian

Identity. In the diaspora, that’s what it’s all about. It may be denigrated
in the U.S. as "identity" politics," but as survivors of genocide with lots
of time and dead people to make up for, maintaining Armenian
identity-Armenianness-in dispersion is critical.

Obviously, we have the genocide as a unifying focus. But once the struggle
for recognition is over, even though we have much more important issues to
resolve, some of the cohesion we now enjoy will dissipate. Some of us will
breathe a collective sigh of relief and fade to the margins of our
community, or even completely out of it. Meanwhile we’ll still have battles
ahead requiring even better "armies" than the ones we now have deployed.

While we’re on the topic of recognition, make sure to contact Rep. Jane
Harman, who is nominally a co-sponsor of H.Res.106, but it turns out was
working undercover (what do you expect-she’s on a Congressional committee
dealing with America’s spies) AGAINST the resolution, until the ANC’s
pressure made them reveal it. Tell her how unforgivable her sneakiness is.
Contact her at (202) 225-8220, ask for Jay Hulings, or e-mail him at
[email protected]. You can now see the letter at

Returning to the topic of this article, two news items in the LA Times
appearing over the last five months are instructive and suggestive.

On May 2, "Indigenous pride rising with name issue in Mexico," described the
case of a two-year-old girl who is still officially nameless. It seems the
government’s computers can’t handle the accents and such around the letters
that would represent the sounds of the indigenous language. The parents have
persisted and refuse to Spanify their child’s name. This lesson in pride in
one’s own culture as manifested in names is one that ought not to be lost on
us. So many of our compatriots are busy Jennifer-ing, Hamlet-ing,
Rene(e)-ing their children’s names that it is an epidemic. We are Armenian
through our difference from others, not by naming our boys Artur (sic) after
some legendary English king, or Scarlet after a character in a movie. This
is the kind of slow, almost imperceptible assimilative activity that leads
to loss of identity.

A related concern is the diminution of the number of names we use, out of
concern that the odars will mispronounce the name or tease the child. So
what? That’s exactly what will help cement awareness of the difference of
being an Armenian.

In the same vein of loss of national identifiers is language. Obviously,
this one is an even bigger deal. On Sept. 19, a piece titled "Researchers
say a language disappears every two weeks" ran. It turns out that in the
last 500 years, half the world’s preexisting languages have disappeared. We’re
down to 7,000. Half of these are expected to disappear in the next century.
How far behind can Armenian be? What do we have left, two, maybe three
centuries?

But why does any of this matter? Certainly just giving a child an Armenian
appellation won’t make him/her Armenian, nor will speaking the language. It
is the combination of these two and many other cultural aspects that
constitute the creature known as an Armenian. We are all lacking in one
aspect or another of this Armenian constitution. If we’re serious about our
national persistence, then we must be alert to the slow erosion of our
attributes. And, this concern applies just as much to Armenia as anywhere
else.

You know right from wrong on this. Act accordingly.

le3081855.ece

The Independent

Out of America: Grandmaster with a moral message for the White House
To tackle the ‘new tsar’ in the Kremlin, the US must first get its own
house in order, Garry Kasparov warns

By Rupert Cornwell
Published: 21 October 2007

For an old Moscow hand, it felt just like old times, back when Soviet
dissidents would summon a few Western correspondents to a clandestine
meeting. They would denounce the evils of the unaccountable and
unassailable regime in the Kremlin, and suggest how America and its
allies might nonetheless bring pressure to bear.

Today another and equally unshakeable regime runs Russia, and new
dissidents have emerged. But their basic message has not changed: if
this or any other White House wants to change the Kremlin’s ways, it
must first of all avoid double standards in its dealings with the
world.

This, of course, is 2007, not 1977. The setting was not the kitchen of
one of those cramped Moscow apartments that I remember so well from my
days as a reporter there, but a smart theatre auditorium in a wealthy
suburb of Washington DC. And the speaker was not some tousled academic
or minor poet, but Garry Kasparov – a household name wherever chess is
played, believed by many to have been the greatest player in the
game’s history.

Now Kasparov is taking on an even more daunting task than holding the
world championship between 1985 and 2000. Three weeks ago he was
chosen as candidate for the "Other Russia" opposition party in the
presidential election next March, to take on whoever is handpicked by
Russia’s present tsar, Vladimir Putin, to succeed him.

It is, of course, a hopeless fight. Kasparov may not even be allowed
to stand. If he does, polls suggest Other Russia will get only 3 or 4
per cent of the vote. But the man is nothing if not a fighter. He
likens the moment to his epic challenge in 1984 to the reigning
champion, Anatoly Karpov.

Kasparov, the brash outsider, was taking on the champion of the
Communist system, the favourite of the Kremlin establishment. The
winner was to be the first to six victories, and at one point Kasparov
trailed 5-0. But he gradually wore his opponent down. After he
narrowed the gap to 5-3, the authorities called the match off, saying
both men were exhausted. Karpov indeed was, and the following year
Kasparov captured the crown.

But chess games can’t be fixed in advance. Politics can. With
quasi-total control of the press and TV, Putin has made himself as
unassailable as the Communist rulers of yore. Times have changed, of
course – superficially, at least. Kasparov can travel in and out of
Russia to promote his new book, How Life Imitates Chess, one of those
how-to-succeed-in-life manifestos that Americans love. But the reality
is darker. Opposing the Kremlin and its interests is a dangerous
business.

If they are clever, the Putin crowd will let Kasparov’s campaign go
ahead, as proof that the election, however pre-ordained its result, is
"democratic". After all, when there are two security policemen and
hired hecklers for every participant at an Other Russia rally, not
much can go wrong. But very nasty things can happen – as they did to
the campaigning journalist Anna Politkovskaya, shot dead in Moscow,
and Alexander Litvinenko, poisoned in London.

I asked Kasparov if he thought he was in personal danger. "Yes, I am
afraid. I take care," he replies. "But what can I do? I have no
choice." He avoids flying on Aeroflot and eating at restaurants he
doesn’t know. His wife and child spend much of their time in New
Jersey. In Russia he pays a small fortune for private security. "I
like to think there are limits on what they might do. But if they
decide to go after me, all precautions will be useless."

So what can the rest of us do? As those dissidents of the past used to
argue, Kasparov says that America’s most powerful weapon is moral. It
must lead by example. It must practise what it preaches, and avoid
double standards. So "when Putin acts badly, you must criticise him.
When he behaves like … Mugabe, he should be treated the same way."

Alas, this White House has turned double standards into an art form.
This last week alone offered a fine example, with the intense pressure
by the Bush administration on Congress to drop the resolution
condemning the 1915 genocide of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire, on
the grounds that it would upset Turkey, a key ally in the war against
Iraq.

Nothing has created greater double standards than the "war on terror".
In the absence of WMD, the revised justification for the invasion of
Iraq is that it was meant to bring freedom and democracy to the heart
of the Middle East – remember the stirring stuff in Bush’s 2005
inaugural address, about abolishing tyranny from the earth. Except, of
course, if you happen to sit on a great deal of oil, like Saudi
Arabia, or are a key regional ally, like Pakistan. And what price
liberty and the rule of law in the era of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay
and "extraordinary rendition"?

The greatest casualty of the "war on terror" is America’s good name.
Of all the wounds inflicted by the Iraq conflict, this one will be
hardest to heal. And, as Kasparov realises, for Putin it is a godsend.
Last week, speaking to today’s US correspondents in Moscow, the
Russian President likened himself to Franklin D Roosevelt, as social
reformer and national saviour. A stretch? Of course. But that’s what
you get when you operate double standards.