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The Armenian Weekly; Volume 73, No. 40; Oct. 6, 2007
Commentary and Analysis:
1. Will it Still Be (Turkish) Business as Usual for Foxman and the ADL? I
Believe So.
By Michael G. Mensoian
2. Irritants VI
By Garen Yegparian
3. Letters to the Editor
***
1. Will it Still Be (Turkish) Business as Usual for Foxman and the ADL? I
Believe So.
By Michael G. Mensoian
On Nov. 1, Abraham Foxman and the leadership of the National ADL will hold a
meeting in New York ostensibly to respond to the demands of the several
towns in Massachusetts that have either withdrawn or have threatened to
withdraw from the ADL’s No Place for Hate program. These towns will
reconsider their participation in the program if the ADL recognizes the
Armenian genocide without qualification and agrees to publicly support the
resolution before Congress recognizing the genocide. The stakes are high.
What will be considered at this Nov. 1 meeting far outweighs the importance
of the No Place for Hate program. That is ancillary to the stinging rebuke
Turkey would suffer if the ADL unequivocally recognizes the Armenian
genocide and publicly supports the Congressional resolution recognizing it.
Whatever decision Foxman and the National ADL leadership agree upon will not
be made with the events in Massachusetts as their primary focus. Namik Tan,
the Turkish Ambassador to Israel, was extremely blunt when expressing Turkey’s
position to the Israeli Foreign Office: "Israel should not let the Jewish
community [ADL] change its position" from non-recognition of the Armenian
genocide, he said. Even more telling with respect to the influence Israel
exerts on the National ADL is his continuing comment that "[t]his is our
expectation. On some issues there is no such thing as Israel cannot
deliver." This expectation by the Turkish government is not based on
supposition but on a realistic understanding of the relationship that the
Israeli government has with the Jewish diaspora.
The fact that the New England Region ADL broke ranks with the National ADL
and came out in support of the Armenian genocide and the recognition efforts
in Congress reminds me of the "good cop-bad cop routine." It would be
surprising if the Regional ADL has sufficient clout to influence the
National ADL. Until now it hasn’t been apparent. Pragmatically, the position
crafted by the National ADL has international implications and as such will
always take precedence over any position that a regional affiliate may take.
If necessary, it would not be surprising for the National ADL to sacrifice
their No Place for Hate program in those few communities where Armenians
were able to muster a sufficient response to influence the outcome. Already,
letters to the editor column of various local papers have published letters
by people either lamenting the fact that they will be denied the
opportunities that the No Place for Hate program provides or extolling its
worthiness within the community. This is all part of a calculated campaign
to influence public opinion to support the program. To expect a significant
number of towns to join Watertown, Newton, Belmont and Arlington in
withdrawing or threatening to withdraw from the program is unlikely.
Presently, there are more than four dozen communities in Massachusetts that
participate in this program.
The ADL New England Regional director Andrew H. Tarsy, who was reinstated to
his position, was forthright in recognizing the Armenian genocide several
days after the Watertown Town Council’s vote. However, he was critical of
Mayor David Cohen’s decision to have Newton withdraw from the program.
In a similar vein, Nancy Kaufman, executive director of the Jewish Community
Relations Council of Greater Boston, was also upset with Mayor David Cohen’s
decision to withdraw from the program. Yet she claims that ".as an American
Jew.nothing would be worse than someone saying the Holocaust didn’t happen."
I agree with her completely and appreciate her honesty. But what both
individuals seem to overlook is that this is exactly what Foxman and the
leadership of the National ADL have said with respect to the Armenian
genocide. Another fact that Kaufman and Tarsy overlooked is that the
creditability of any program is determined by the creditability of the
sponsoring organization and its creditability is determined by the
creditability of its leadership-namely its director, Abraham Foxman. The
program may be valuable, but it is a creation of a national organization
whose leadership has neither the moral authority nor the necessary courage
to acknowledge the basic truths in carrying out its stated mission.
How can the No Place for Hate program have any credibility when it fails to
address the most grievous wrong imaginable: the Armenian genocide? Then, to
say that recognizing the Armenian genocide or influencing Congress in these
matters is not the mission of the ADL becomes pure fabrication. The ability
of the National ADL to speak out on the mass killing of ethnic minorities as
a political solution has been its principal strength and perhaps its most
significant contribution to the elimination of hate and prejudice. With
respect to the Holocaust, the message has been, "Never Again."
Unfortunately, the leadership of the ADL in the person of Abraham Foxman, a
determined ally of Turkey, must believe that "Never Again" begins with the
Holocaust. Given that fallacious reasoning he sees no need for the Armenian
genocide to be recognized.
A rereading of the message delivered by Turkish Ambassador Namik Tan is
instructive. It is inconceivable that Abraham Foxman’s anti-Armenian
position was taken without the tacit approval of the Israeli government. It
is the most efficacious position for the National ADL to have with respect
to the Armenian genocide given the Israeli-Turkish rapprochement.
I strongly disagree with individuals who believe that opposition to the
Congressional resolution is weakening. To believe that the local "victories"
will translate into a national movement that can effectively challenge the
ADL and its program and "force" acquiescence by the ADL leadership is
somewhere on the margins of wishful thinking. At the cost of being labeled
overly critical, the events of the past several weeks are akin to the
proverbial "tempest in a teapot." No one should doubt the tremendous
pressure Turkey will continue to exert on an already compliant Bush
administration and on members of Congress as well. Has it already been
forgotten that the Clinton Democrat administration was also pro-Turkish?
As a side thought, please consider that there are only two non-Arab Islamic
countries within that great expanse of states stretching from Egypt to
Afghanistan that have the potential to dominate the region: Turkey and Iran.
Presently, it serves the interests of Israel and the United States to assist
Turkey in remaining the dominant state. Success would contribute to the
misconceived global strategy of the United States to challenge Russia in the
Caucasus and Central Asia as well as maintaining its dubious Middle East
policy. Israel, for its part, would continue to have a significant military
ally within the region. The effect this would have on Armenia or the
Nagorno-Karabakh Republic is not difficult to imagine. Recognizing the
Armenian genocide makes no positive contribution to any of these objectives.
————————————– ————————————————– –
2. Irritants VI
By Garen Yegparian
Another right wing chestnut, probably the second favorite after "liberal
media," has been burnt to a crisp. The farcical hiring-firing-rehiring of
law professor-cum-dean Erwin Chemerinsky by the University of California at
Irvine is ample proof of the conservative bias prevailing in the academy.
The hue and cry raised by the right wingnuts about "liberal bias" on campus
should finally find its peace in a very deep grave. The man was asked to
establish a law school at the university, negotiated and agreement, started
working on assembling a team to render it a topnotch institution. But a week
after signing his contract, he was let go because he "wasn’t a good" fit.
Given the information in the media, it seems to me the right wing
establishment of Orange County started turning the screws on the university
resulting in this situation. It’s not the first time the wingnuts have
tried, often successfully, to cost someone their campus position, but it is
their most spectacular failure. Let’s see which of the right wing myths will
be the next to be debunked. What’s irritating about this kind of ultimately
good news? It’s the fact that the actions of a Ward Connerly (the
poster-child good-slave who helped pass California’s Proposition 209
terminating affirmative action considerations in college admissions) years
ago were insufficient to explode this myth.
While we’re discussing right wingnuts, how about that out-of-state funded
effort to fracture California’s reliably Democratic electoral college vote?
Yup, some lawyer in Missouri creates an organization, TIA (Take Initiative
America)-tugs at your heartstrings, don’t it?-on Sept. 10, and on Sept.
11-how devilishly appropriate-a $175,000 donation from that organization is
received by the backers of a California initiative. This ballot measure
proposes to allocate the electoral votes based on who wins each
Congressional district, with the two additional, "senatorial," electoral
votes (other than the 53 based on the number of representatives) going to
the statewide winner. As if stealing the presidency in Florida (2000) and
Ohio (2004) was not enough, the Republicans are now gearing up to continue
their electoral thievery through the biggest (population wise) state in
2008. Of course, this is all done in the name of "fairness." So, does this
mean that the Tom Delay-initiated tween-census redistricting in Texas will
be reversed and the same state, along with other Republican-leaning states,
will adopt the same approach? Isn’t that fairness? Not in the crooked
Republican Party’s lexicon. Fair means winning at all costs. California
voters, beware this scam. Don’t get me wrong. I am no supporter of the
Electoral College. It is an antiquated, anti-democratic and absurd holdover
>From the days when even slavery was deemed legitimate. But given the extra
leverage this relic gives the small-population states, it will never get
amended. So, a number of states have found a workaround. They have passed or
are considering laws that commit the state to casting all its electoral
votes for the candidate who wins the countrywide popular vote. This would go
into effect when enough states to provide an Electoral College majority have
enacted such legislation. The California State Senate passed such a bill (SB
37) but it is currently inactive, not having made it through the Assembly.
Let your legislator know you support this bill. Success in the latter
approach would indeed bring fairness to the United States’ presidential
elections.
A final partisan irritant is the constant quest for bi-, multi- and
non-partisanship. Many wax dreamy about the good old days of "consensus" and
"cooperation" in legislative bodies. To me, that is just a sign of the
duopoly that governs this country and smacks of the much reviled
dictatorships of yore and the present or only one party line is permitted.
Why should any party water down its approach to the point of
unrecognizability? This leads to, at best, partial solutions to the problems
of the day. Even a bad policy is better than a good policy so compromised
that its efficacy cannot be determined. The bad policy can at least be
recognized as such and discarded. It was refreshing to see "No, we can’t all
just get along" in the Sunday LA Times (Sept. 23). The author, Jonathan
Chait, ascribes the post-WWII era of bipartisanship to the Cold War and a
fundamental absence of disagreement over the basics of governance between
the two major parties. That no longer exists, thanks to the Republicans
being taken over by people with confidence in their (whacky) ideology. Now
the Democrats seem to be developing a backbone. If all goes well, we’ll soon
have two (preferably more) identifiable parties standing for some ideology.
Then, the need to organize will be much more sharply felt and all partisans
will have to go back to the people to win their support, if their ideas are
more appealing than others’. The pass, given to parties for the last four or
five decades absolving them of the need to organize will finally be
rescinded. Then we’ll have some progress.
In the spirit of standing up for what you believe, let me gripe about people
who are pathologically averse to confrontation or conflict. You meet them in
organizations and elsewhere. They’ll avoid returning a phone call if they
have to refuse someone a request. Why? The other person might actually try
to convince them otherwise, and that’s "conflict." No one advocates
acrimony, but avoidance at the level described is just as destructive. I had
someone contact me once, months after an article I wrote appeared. The
caller recognized him/herself and thought I had done him/her an injustice.
The request was for an apology or retraction from me. I stood my ground, at
which point I perceived the discomfort noted above. I suggested a letter be
sent to the editor. I said I’d support, nay advocate, its publication. But I
sensed this was too confrontational for the caller. Too bad, I’d love to be
proven wrong, or at least engaged in verbal battle. It can only enliven the
pages of the newspaper and serve the lofty goal of enriching public
discourse.
Returning to matters of (un)fairness, did you notice the news about Hyundai
chairman Chung-Mong-koo? A three-judge panel ruled that he was too
important, and jailing him would damage South Korea’s economy. So much for
equality before the law. Hey, maybe this is why the crooks in Armenia are
allowed to get away with their financial shenanigans.
Then we have the case of the Jena six. These black high school students beat
up a white student who had strung up a lynching noose. Both actions are
unconscionable. But the most unacceptable action came from the adults in
this Louisiana community. The principal’s expulsion of the white student was
overturned. Meanwhile, the black students were to be tried as adults.
Fortunately, the court rejected this. Does this unequal justice smell to you
like the treatment of Armenians by Turks in Ottoman times? It should.
How about the case of Kenneth Foster, once again in our favorite state of
Texas, the leader in legalized murder. For a change, Gov. Rick Perry
commuted Foster’s sentence from death to life imprisonment. This came upon
the heels of the state parole board recommending he do so and a public
campaign to get this result. Why should you care about a convicted murderer?
Well, because, simply, he’s not- a murderer, that is. Even Texas’ justice
system (I use the term loosely here) admits he committed no murder. He was
the driver in a robbery where his accomplice killed a man. Under Texas law,
he can be treated as if he pulled the trigger, even though he had nothing to
do with killing a man. How ridiculous is that? Seemingly, Texans may be
developing a conscience and some sense of fairness.
Let’s not omit Jack Kevorkian’s, "Dr. Death" a he was vilified in the media,
parole. Could this be another case of justice piercing the fortified walls
of the law? The man was doing something fundamentally humane in relieving
those who desired it of terminally agony. The state jailed him for his
kindness instead of changing the law to reflect modern medical reality.
Despite the parole, this remains another travesty since he was not acquitted
and found innocent, not to mention given an award.
While we’re in the realm of the law, let’s talk about traffic court. Ever
fought a traffic ticket? It’s virtually futile. I did it again after a good
half-a-dozen year hiatus. I neglected to bring a photograph, so the judge
opted to believe the officer. That is usually the case, the
judges/commissioners have an implicit, and you might argue understandable,
bias in favor of the police. If their rulings weren’t proof enough of this
slant, here’s another piece of evidence for you. I just learned while in
court that the police officers may not present arguments, at least in
traffic court, just the facts, whereas the accused can do both. In effect,
this implicitly places the judge in the position of being on the officer’s
side. Besides all this, the only person found not guilty (other than those
case where the officer did not appear) was a white guy on a seat belt
offense. The others, a number of Armenians among them, were found guilty. I
have to wonder, given his tone and attitude in dealing with Armenians, if
this particular commissioner might not be guilty of a different bias as
well.
Moving on to the more mundane but still relevant: We have Rep. John Dingell
(D-Mich.) proving that 52 years on the same job can pay off in terms of
slyness. This guy is a-if not the-major obstacle to Congress adopting higher
CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards. He is the auto
manufacturers’ man on this issue. So what does he do to cover himself? He
introduces a bill that would remove the mortgage-interest tax exemption on
all houses larger than 3,000 square feet in size. The rationale behind this
is sound. Such large houses have an outsized impact on the environment
because of how much material is (over)used in their construction, and the
subsequent heating/cooling/maintenance requirements, especially in terms of
energy. Is the honorable Congressman familiar with the acronym CYA? Or is he
perhaps well trained by magicians in the art of distraction? Face it John.
Currently the largest single contributor to our pollution problems,
particularly global warming related, is the automobile. Get on the wagon,
Congressman, (forgive the pun) and let’s save ourselves from our own excess.
You’ve heard of, or seen, people combing their hair, applying makeup or
otherwise grooming themselves while driving, right? Well, they even do that
on buses. In the former case, it’s private, but unsafe; in the latter, vice
versa. But the cake-taker was unsafe and un-private when someone used
hairspray on the bus! Aside from the noxious smell and potential for (other
passengers’) burning eyes, it’s arguably hazardous. I was thrilled when the
driver gave the idiot a tongue-lashing.
Given blood lately? You should, unless health reasons preclude it. But you
might also be one of those who just doesn’t want to deal with the absurd
paperwork even repeat, regular donors have to tolerate. Between the FDA and
Red Cross, they can’t seem to figure out that no one has yet built, much
less owns, a time machine. Every time a donor goes to give, s/he is asked
the same question about where they’ve been between 1980 and 1996 (the dates
are approximate and don’t matter, they’re in the past). Perhaps someone
would like to explain how the answer to that question could change. Given
the looming chronic shortage of blood, it behooves all of us to apply some
common sense. Let the FDA and your legislators know what you think.
Not wanting to be outdone by my erstwhile colleague in critique, Skeptik
Sinikian who long ago wrote about them, here’s an item about Armenian dating
websites. There are people who post a picture (only one) of two or more
individuals of their own gender. How is the viewer to know which one is the
right one?
Finally, to all those orthographically challenged, stop misspelling the word
"lose." That’s what you do when you want to get thinner (he wants to lose
weight) or misplace something (lose homework), have a poor sense of
direction (lose her way home) or even suffer defeat in battle (Azerbaijan
would lose a war against Armenia). Many, especially among Armenians, seem to
like to misspell the word as "loose." That’s what you are when you’re
promiscuous (she’s loose) or when a zoo escape occurs (the elephants got
loose) or you’re referring to coins (loose change). Please be careful on
this one, it’s embarrassing (to you), infuriating (to me) and confusing (to
your reader).
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3. Letters to the Editor
Dear Editor,
The Turkish American Cultural Society of New England has put forward an idea
to create a "Boston Peace and Heritage Park" on the Greenway in lieu of the
Armenian Heritage Park ("Turkish group has own idea for Greenway park,"
Boston Globe, Sept. 28). This offensive political stunt, as part of the
well-orchestrated denial efforts of the Turkish government, has reached a
new comical height by its recent assertions. The Turkish Cultural Society
states that the purpose of their proposal is "to celebrate and highlight
cultural and linguistic diversity." This is coming from a government that
denies the distinct ethnic and linguistic existence of millions of its own
population, the Kurds, by branding them as "mountain Turks." Further, they
mention "strength for our communities in the U.S. is that we have left
behind the conflicts and animosities of the old world." It is interesting
that while they have left the animosities of the old world behind, they just
happen to make this proposal when Congressional affirmation of the Armenian
genocide is set in motion, and the collusion of the Anti-Defamation League
(ADL) in denying the Armenian genocide, on behalf of the Turkish government,
has now become national news. While the Turkish Society can make ludicrous
proposals such as this one, our elected leaders must stay the course of
moral clarity and not be side-stepped by morally bankrupt proposals sheathed
in deceptively all-inclusive language.
Ara Nazarian
Brighton, Mass.
***
Dear Editor,
I’ve noticed much change in the Armenian Weekly regarding the choice of
articles and photo layouts. I like the changes. I especially enjoy the
articles by Knarik Meneshian with regards to life in Armenia and her stay
there. The articles give a good insight into the everyday life of the
people. I also enjoy the political opinion articles and letters to the
editor. Thanks for your fine work. I look forward to each edition.
Hike Oganessian.
Northridge, Calif.
***
Dear Editor,
I have been reading in the Weekly about the ADL director who is denying that
the events of 1915-1923 were genocide. Briefly, I would suggest that he
purchase a copy of the Memoirs of Mr. Henry Morgenthau. Maybe, just maybe,
after he reads it, and notices the barbarities committed by the Ottoman
Turks, he will have second thoughts about denying the genocide.
Leo Stepanian
Fort Smith, Ark.
http://www.ar