La Tribune
23 février 2007
TRÉSORS D’ARMÉNIE AU LOUVRE
Pour la première fois, le musée du Louvre consacre une exposition à
l’art arménien. 200 oeuvres venues de ce pays témoignent de la
spécificité et de l’éclat de l’art chrétien depuis les origines au
IVe siècle jusqu’au XVIIIe: stèles, chapiteaux, khatchkars, grandes
dalles de pierre verticales ornées de croix, uniques au monde.
Agence France Presse
24 février 2007 samedi 5:28 PM GMT
Le ministre à l’Aménagement du territoire, Christian Estrosi, en Arménie
EREVAN 24 fév 2007
Le ministre délégué à l’Aménagement du territoire, Christian Estrosi,
proche de Nicolas Sarkozy, effectuait samedi une visite de deux jours
en Arménie, pays dont une importante diaspora vit en France, a
indiqué l’ambassade de France à Erevan.
Accompagné par deux députés de l’UMP, Thierry Mariani et Michèle
Tabarot, le ministre délégué à l’Aménagement du territoire a
rencontré le président arménien Robert Kotcharian.
M. Estrosi est un proche du ministre de l’Intérieur Nicolas Sarkozy,
ministre de l’Intérieur et candidat de l’UMP à l’élection
présidentielle.
La France, une des premiers pays à avoir reconnu le génocide arménien
de 1915, compte une importante diaspora arménienne.
AFFILIATION AND MORALITY
by Sam Vaknin, Ph.D.
Global Politician, NY
Feb 23 2007
The Anglo-Saxon members of the motley "Coalition of the Willing" were
proud of their aircraft’s and missiles’ "surgical" precision. The legal
(and moral) imperative to spare the lives of innocent civilians was
well observed, they bragged. "Collateral damage" was minimized.
They were lucky to have confronted a dilapidated enemy. Precision
bombing is expensive, in terms of lives – of fighter pilots. Military
planners are well aware that there is a hushed trade-off between
civilian and combatant casualties.
This dilemma is both ethical and practical. It is often "resolved"
by applying – explicitly or implicitly – the principle of "over-riding
affiliation". As usual, Judaism was there first, agonizing over similar
moral conflicts. Two Jewish sayings amount to a reluctant admission
of the relativity of moral calculus: "One is close to oneself" and
"Your city’s poor denizens come first (with regards to charity)".
One’s proper conduct, in other words, is decided by one’s self-interest
and by one’s affiliations. Affiliation (to a community, or a
fraternity), in turn, is determined by one’s positions and, more so,
perhaps, by one’s oppositions.
What are these "positions" and "oppositions"?
The most fundamental position – from which all others are derived –
is the positive statement "I am a human being". Belonging to the
human race is an immutable and inalienable position. Denying this
leads to horrors such as the Holocaust. The Nazis did not regard
as humans the Jews, the Slavs, homosexuals, and other minorities –
so they sought to exterminate them.
All other, synthetic, positions are made of couples of positive and
negative statements with the structure "I am and I am not".
But there is an important asymmetry at the heart of this neat
arrangement.
The negative statements in each couple are fully derived from –
and thus are entirely dependent on and implied by – the positive
statements. Not so the positive statements. They cannot be derived
from, or be implied by, the negative one.
Lest we get distractingly abstract, let us consider an example.
Study the couple "I am an Israeli" and "I am not a Syrian".
Assuming that there are 220 countries and territories, the positive
statement "I am an Israeli" implies about 220 certain (true) negative
statements. You can derive each and every one of these negative
statements from the positive statement. You can thus create 220
perfectly valid couples.
"I am an Israeli …"
Therefore:
"I am not … (a citizen of country X, which is not Israel)".
You can safely derive the true statement "I am not a Syrian" from
the statement "I am an Israeli".
Can I derive the statement "I am an Israeli" from the statement
"I am not a Syrian"?
Not with any certainty.
The negative statement "I am not a Syrian" implies 220 possible
positive statements of the type "I am … (a citizen of country X,
which is not India)", including the statement "I am an Israeli". "I
am not a Syrian and I am a citizen of … (220 possibilities)"
Negative statements can be derived with certainty from any positive
statement.
Negative statements as well as positive statements cannot be derived
with certainty from any negative statement.
This formal-logical trait reflects a deep psychological reality with
unsettling consequences.
A positive statement about one’s affiliation ("I am an Israeli")
immediately generates 220 certain negative statements (such as "I am
not a Syrian").
One’s positive self-definition automatically excludes all others by
assigning to them negative values. "I am" always goes with "I am not".
The positive self-definitions of others, in turn, negate one’s
self-definition.
Statements about one’s affiliation are inevitably exclusionary.
It is possible for many people to share the same positive
self-definition. About 6 million people can truly say "I am an
Israeli".
Affiliation – to a community, fraternity, nation, state, religion,
or team – is really a positive statement of self-definition ("I
am an Israeli", for instance) shared by all the affiliated members
(the affiliates).
One’s moral obligations towards one’s affiliates override and supersede
one’s moral obligations towards non-affiliated humans.
Thus, an American’s moral obligation to safeguard the lives of
American fighter pilots overrides and supersedes (subordinates) his
moral obligation to save the lives of innocent civilians, however
numerous, if they are not Americans.
The larger the number of positive self-definitions I share with someone
(i.e., the more affiliations we have in common) , the larger and more
overriding is my moral obligation to him or her.
Example:
I have moral obligations towards all other humans because I share
with them my affiliation to the human species.
But my moral obligations towards my countrymen supersede these
obligation. I share with my compatriots two affiliations rather than
one. We are all members of the human race – but we are also citizens
of the same state.
This patriotism, in turn, is superseded by my moral obligation towards
the members of my family. With them I share a third affiliation –
we are all members of the same clan.
I owe the utmost to myself. With myself I share all the aforementioned
affiliations plus one: the affiliation to the one member club that
is me.
But this scheme raises some difficulties.
We postulated that the strength of one’s moral obligations towards
other people is determined by the number of positive self-definitions
("affiliations") he shares with them.
Moral obligations are, therefore, contingent. They are, indeed, the
outcomes of interactions with others – but not in the immediate sense,
as the personalist philosopher Emmanuel Levinas suggested.
Rather, ethical principles, rights, and obligations are merely the
solutions yielded by a moral calculus of shared affiliations. Think
about them as matrices with specific moral values and obligations
attached to the numerical strengths of one’s affiliations.
Some moral obligations are universal and are the outcomes of one’s
organic position as a human being (the "basic affiliation"). These
are the "transcendent moral values".
Other moral values and obligations arise only as the number of shared
affiliations increases. These are the "derivative moral values".
Moreover, it would wrong to say that moral values and obligations
"accumulate", or that the more fundamental ones are the strongest.
On the very contrary. The universal ethical principles – the ones
related to one’s position as a human being – are the weakest. They
are subordinate to derivative moral values and obligations yielded
by one’s affiliations.
The universal imperative "thou shall not kill (another human being)"
is easily over-ruled by the moral obligation to kill for one’s
country. The imperative "though shall not steal" is superseded by
one’s moral obligation to spy for one’s nation. Treason is when we
prefer universal ethical principles to derivatives ones, dictated by
our affiliation (citizenship).
This leads to another startling conclusion:
There is no such thing as a self-consistent moral system. Moral values
and obligations often contradict and conflict with each other.
In the examples above, killing (for one’s country) and stealing (for
one’s nation) are moral obligations, the outcomes of the application
of derivative moral values. Yet, they contradict the universal moral
value of the sanctity of life and property and the universal moral
obligation not to kill.
Hence, killing the non-affiliated (civilians of another country) to
defend one’s own (fighter pilots) is morally justified. It violates
some fundamental principles – but upholds higher moral obligations,
to one’s kin and kith.
Note – The Exclusionary Conscience
The self-identity of most nation-states is exclusionary and
oppositional: to generate solidarity, a sense of shared community,
and consensus, an ill-defined "we" is unfavorably contrasted with a
fuzzy "they". While hate speech has been largely outlawed the world
over, these often counterfactual dichotomies between "us" and "them"
still reign supreme.
In extreme – though surprisingly frequent – cases, whole groups
(typically minorities) are excluded from the nation’s moral universe
and from the ambit of civil society. Thus, they are rendered
"invisible", "subhuman", and unprotected by laws, institutions,
and ethics. This process of distancing and dehumanization I call
"exclusionary conscience".
The most recent examples are the massacre of the Tutsis in Rwanda,
the Holocaust of the Jews in Nazi Germany’s Third Reich, and the
Armenian Genocide in Turkey. Radical Islamists are now advocating the
mass slaughter of Westerners, particularly of Americans and Israelis,
regardless of age, gender, and alleged culpability. But the phenomenon
of exclusionary conscience far predates these horrendous events. In
the Bible, the ancient Hebrews are instructed to exterminate all
Amalekites, men, women, and children.
In her book, "The Nazi Conscience", Claudia Koontz quotes from Freud’s
"Civilization and its Discontents":
"If (the Golden Rule of morality) commanded ‘Love thy neighbor as
thy neighbor loves thee’, I should not take exception to it. If he
is a stranger to me … it will be hard for me to love him." (p. 5)
Sam Vaknin ( ) is the author of Malignant
Self Love – Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain – How the West
Lost the East. He served as a columnist for Global Politician, Central
Europe Review, PopMatters, Bellaonline, and eBookWeb, a United Press
International (UPI) Senior Business Correspondent, and the editor of
mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory
and Suite101.
ARAM SARGSIAN TO SPARE NO EFFORT FOR OPPOSITION GOES TO ELECTIONS WITH JOINT FRONT, CONSIDERING THAT CLUE OF WINNING IS IN IT
Noyan Tapan
Armenians Today
Feb 21 2007
YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 21, NOYAN TAPAN -ARMENIANS TODAY. Aram Sargsian,
the "Hanrapetutiun" (republic) party Chairman, former Prime Minister
is sure that in the case of uniting, the Armenian opposition will
win at the May 12 parliamentary elections. A.Sargsian mentioned in
the interview to Radio Liberty: "I must surely say, if we join, we
already win before the elections. The clue of winning is in it." Aram
Sargsian said that "he will spare no effort for the opposition goes
to the elections with a joint front," and it has already initiated
meetings with representatives of the opposing forces.
He did not consider final statements of some of opposing forces that
they will alone go to the elections: "I do not consider any statement
as final one.
All the more, Stepan Demirchian’s statement. The one what is presented
is not at all final. There are parties which did not made those
statements. I incline to cooperate with the whole opposing field,"
he said.
Aram Sargsian who just returned from the United States, attached
importance to his meeting with officiating persons at the Department
of State. In his words, all his interlocutors "have exact information
what happens in Armenia."
"I assure you, the United States will observe these elections more
attentively, more efficiently and will quickly respond processes."
CONFLICTS "NOT AN OBSTACLE FOR NATO INTEGRATION" SAYS GERMAN FOREIGN MINISTER
By Christina Tashkevich
The Messenger, Georgia
Feb 21 2007
The German Minister of Foreign Affairs Frank-Walter Steinmeier said
Monday the existence of conflicts in South Ossetia and Abkhazia would
not necessarily prove an obstacle to Georgia’s accession to NATO.
"NATO and its members are of course interested that new members do not
bring new conflicts to NATO. But it does not mean that the existence
of these conflicts can be viewed as an obstacle of any kind, for in
this case we would give the third party an opportunity to hinder this
process," he said at the press conference Monday.
The Georgian Foreign Minister Gela Bezhuashvili said Monday that a
NATO mission is currently in Georgia to assess Georgia’s progress in
the implementation of the Individual Partnership Action Plan and will
present its recommendations to the alliance members. Bezhuashvili
noted that Georgia can rely on Germany as a trustworthy partner on
Georgia’s accession to NATO.
Bezhuashvili said the sides also reviewed the issues of Georgia’s
regional cooperation with Azerbaijan, Turkey and Armenia, as well as
Georgian-Russian relations and Germany’s role in their normalization.
The Georgian minister noted that Germany sees a positive dynamic in
the Georgian economy in terms of attracting investments, and that
German investors show an increasing level of interest towards Georgia.
Steinmeier said that after the incorporation of Bulgaria and Romania
into the European Union, the organization enlarged to include the
Black Sea region as well.
"As a whole, the challenge before us is to achieve rapprochement of
Georgia and the South Caucasus with the European Union," Steinmeier
said.
Talking about the conflicts in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the German
minister reaffirmed that the only way to resolve the conflicts is
through dialogue and mutual confidence. He noted that Germany is
interested that the conflicts in the immediate vicinity of the EU
borders are resolved peacefully.
"We envision only a political way to resolve the conflicts and I am
confident actors involved in this process can see no alternative,"
he said.
Steinmeier also talked about Russia’s political position that Kosovo
may become a precedent for Abkhazia and South Ossetia, saying Kosovo
cannot be a new model based on the principles of international law.
"Kosovo is an isolated case and I don’t think this model can be
exactly copied on Georgia," he added.
EDITORIAL: CAN CYPRUS PLAY THE OIL GAME?
Financial Mirror, Cyprus
Feb 21 2007
Now that the whole ‘striking oil’ fuss has died down and the experts
prepare to begin their preliminary work to see if there are any
sizeable natural gas or oil reserves, let alone if it is worth to
dig costly deepwater wells and pump the crude out, our politicians
should decide which game they want to play.
Playing with oil is like playing with fire, literally speaking.
Turkey has already made its hostile intentions well known, not just to
us, but to all countries that might operate potential oil exploration
companies.
Cyprus has no navy to protect its waters or its offshore resources and
Greece will not come to our aid as the government in Athens already
has its hands full with threats from Turkey of further conflicts and
minor skirmishes in the Aegean.
Turkey will continue to create tension in the area and will remain
on the offensive as long as this distracts world public opinion and
prevents it from abiding to any demands from Europe as regards human
rights, freedom of minorities and religious properties, the Kurdish
and Armenian problems, and of course Cyprus.
If the Cyprus problem were to be solved any time soon, or at least
seem to be on that path, then the dark clouds from the north could
disappear. But until then, we should know that we are on our own.
As long as the Cyprus problem has no hopes of being resolved and
Turkish threats continue to loom overhead, one easy solution would
be taking our time to review the bids. This could be delayed as any
Cyprus reserves will surely be smaller than discoveries further south
from our shores and international oil exploration companies would
not be in a rush to start digging off Cyprus.
On the other hand, Cyprus will also have to decide if it wants to
allocate exploration and then the potential exploitation contracts to
North American companies (with the hope of warming up to Washington),
to European companies (as all EU members would prefer us to do), or
to newcomers such as Egypt, which has a huge burden with the supply
contracts for natural gas that it will not be able to fulfill and
seeks to find new sources of energy supply.
Egypt, just like Turkey, is a growing country with its population
approaching 70-80 mln very soon. It is supposed to be the main supplier
of the Arab Gas Pipeline that ends on Syria’s border with Turkey,
while its own needs are growing rapidly inasmuch as its own crude
supplies will soon not be enough. The government in Cairo has even
resorted to alternative sources of energy with wind-generated power
plants now on the increase.
If we ignore the fact that the announcement of the winning bidders for
the 11 blocks off Cyprus has been suitably planned to coincide with
the final days of the presidential elections, the government should
get serious and decide who it wants as its ally – the Americans,
the French (who have a bone to pick with Turkey), or with Egypt.
The same mistake should not be made when the now-troubled state
carrier was contemplating buying new aircraft and the state, as its
main shareholder, could not decide whether to buy Boeings (and be
friendly with Washington) or Airbus (and be friendly with France
and Germany). As a result of dragging our feet and opting for both,
we owe favours to neither group on either side of the Atlantic.
IT IS ENVISAGED TO CREATE DATA BASE OF HEALTH CARE PRIMARY CIRCLE
Noyan Tapan
Feb 20 2007
YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 20, NOYAN TAPAN. Citizens’ registration at district
therapeutists’ and pediatricians’ will start in Yerevan in autumn in
the health care primary circle. As Armen Soghoyan, the Yerevan Mayor’s
Office Department for Health Care and Social Insurance stated at the
February 19 press conference, it will give possibility to create a data
base, digitizing complete information about every citizen. According to
his observations, the data base will replace the ambulance card in the
sense of principles, though they will be filled in. A.Soghoyan assured
that protective programs were worked out which will prohibit strangers’
entrance in data base. In the Department Chief’s words, creation of
the data base will give possibility also to define the real number of
the population as there are cases when the information presented about
it does not correspond to the reality. A.Soghoyan also mentioned that
the data base will make easier the process of instroduction of the
family doctor’s system. In his words, by the government’s decision,
family doctor’s individual and group practice will be introduced in
the system starting from the middle of 2007 and the latters will have
right to recruit citizens from the territory of the whole community.
ARMENIANS COMMEMORATE GURGEN MARGARIAN
Armenpress
Feb 19 2007
YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 19, ARMENPRESS: Hundreds of Armenians went today
to Yerablour cemetery on a Yerevan outskirt to commemorate the third
anniversary of a tragic death of Armenian army officer Gurgen Margarian
who was hacked to death by an Azeri office Ramil Safarov three years
ago in Budapest.
The commemoration was organized by Gurgen Margarian NGO together with
a regional chapter of the Republican Party in Achapnyak district of
Yerevan and Armenian defense ministry.
Last year a Hungarian court sentenced Ramil Safarov to life
imprisonment without the right to apply for parole for the next 30
years. Both were participants of an English language training course
within the framework of the NATO-sponsored "Partnership for Peace"
program held in Budapest, Hungary.
AMONG GENETIC DISEASES, PERIODIC DISEASE CHARACTERISTIC OF ARMENIANS
Noyan Tapan
Feb 19 2007
YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 19, NOYAN TAPAN. The number of types of genetic
diseases grows year by year in the world. Currently there are 15
thousand types of hereditary diseases. Tamara Sargsian, Director of
Yerevan Center for Medical Genetics and Primary Health Protection,
informed Noyan Tapan correspondent about it. In her words, chromosome
diseases are especially widely-spread: one out of 600 children in the
world is born with some chromosome anomaly, one out of 2000 new-born
boys is born with mental backwardness conditioned by X chromosome and
one out of 2500 new-born babies has mukoviscidoz. It was mentioned
that there are also some rare genetic diseases (Cornelia de Lange,
Wolf Hirschhorn Syndrome) diagnosed to one out of 100 thousand
new-born babies. The Center Director said that even if one gene
change can cause incurable diseases (cancer, diabetes). T. Sargsian
said that periodic disease (Yerevan disease) is characteristic of
Armenians. In her words, in total, over 7000 patients suffering from
periodic disease have been examined at the Center. According to T.
Sargsian’s observations, though genotherapy is not a fantastic notion
today, nevertheless, it is not used in any country for the present. In
her words, some steps are taken in this direction: many experiments
and clinic studies have been conducted. "Genotherapy is medicine’s
future: if we want to cure a disease, we should start it from depth,"
T. Sargsian said. Unfortunately, in the Center Director’s words,
no specialists of genetics are trained in Armenia.
For the purpose of filling up this gap, the Center conducts courses
dedicated to medical genetics. Besides, Center’s specialists teach
this subject at Yerevan Medical University.
PanARMENIAN.Net
Future of region depends on end to blockade of Armenia
16.02.2007 15:18 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ `The last decade and a half of U.S. foreign aid
policy to Armenia has been widely seen as a reflection of the
strategic importance of Armenia to both overall U.S. foreign policy
and to the U.S. Congress,’ Richard Giragosian, expert of the Armenian
International Police Research Group – AIPRG, Washington DC, told a
PanARMENIAN.Net reporter. `Although a major factor in the high level
of U.S. aid to Armenia (in per capita terms) stems from the work of
the politically active and sophisticated Armenian-American community,
or so-called `Armenian lobby,’ there is also an inherent recognition
that Armenia holds a position of strategic importance within the
post-September framework of international security,’ said he.
`But in the past few years, the course of U.S.-Armenian relations has
been subject to a reassessment, within a broader context of a shift in
the nature of U.S. foreign aid and in terms of changes to the
bilateral relationship between the United Sates and the Republic of
Armenia. A key question in this regard is the so-called `Section 907′
provision governing U.S. aid to both Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The presidential waiver of Section 907 may be renewed annually, and
sixty days after the exercise of the waiver, the President must report
to Congress on the nature of aid to be provided to Azerbaijan, the
military balance between Armenia and Azerbaijan and the effects of
U.S. aid on that balance, the status of Karabakh peace talks, and the
effects of U.S. aid on those talks. President Bush has exercised that
waiver ever year since, most recently in February 2006.
Thus, the effectiveness of Section 907 has clearly been diminished by
Azerbaijan’s failure to lift its blockade of Armenia, by it militant
rhetoric and threats of military action to retake Karabakh and wage
war on Armenia. It is time for a new effort, by both the United States
and the European Union, to recognize the fact that the continued
Azerbaijani (and Turkish) blockade of Armenia is a threat to regional
stability and an obstacle to regional development. And although the
Millennium Challenge Account is a good program, there needs to be new
pressure on both Azerbaijan and Turkey to accept that the future of
the region depends on an end to the blockade of Armenia, the last
remaining `iron curtain’ in Europe,’ said Giragosian.