The California
Courier Online,
1- Armenia’s
Incompetent Actions at the UN
Did More
Damage Than Good
By Harut
Sassounian
Publisher,
The California
Courier
www.TheCaliforniaCourier.com
2- Azerbaijani
Protesters Arrested after
Assaulting
Armenians Outside UN Headquarters in NY
3- Artist Haro
Istamboulian Featured in
‘Let’s
Paint Sherman
Oaks’ Utility Box Project
4- ‘Between Two
Worlds’: Moving story of Armenian-American trauma, pride
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1- Armenia’s
Incompetent Actions at the UN
Did More
Damage Than Good
By Harut
Sassounian
Publisher,
The California
Courier
www.TheCaliforniaCourier.com
The United Nations Security Council is composed of 15 member
states: Five are permanent members with veto power (China,
France, Russia, the United
Kingdom, and the United States), and the other 10,
have a term of two years, on a rotational basis.
The Security Council’s powers include establishing
peacekeeping operations, enacting international sanctions, and authorizing
military action. It is the only UN organ with the authority to issue binding
resolutions on member states.
With such extensive responsibilities, the Security Council
is the right UN body to deal with Azerbaijan’s blockade of 120,000
Artsakh Armenians which risks their starvation resulting in genocide, according
to the UN definition of that term.
Regrettably, the Armenian government, due to the
mismanagement of its approach to the Security Council, mishandled this unique
opportunity to get the UN body to adopt a resolution urging Azerbaijan to
immediately unblock the Lachin Corridor. Otherwise, it would impose severe
sanctions.
The proper way to have handled the petition to the Security
Council would have been for Armenia
to prepare the text of a draft resolution, meet with all 15 members, and try to
get them to agree to the proposed resolution. Since the blockade has been going
on for eight months, the Armenian government had plenty of time to do this
work.
Without any preparations, petitioning the Security Council
and expecting a positive outcome is unrealistic and self-defeating. The
ambassadors of the 15 member countries always receive advance instructions from
their foreign ministries on what to say during the UN meetings and if there is
the pre-prepared text of a proposed resolution, they are told how to vote.
Nothing is decided on the spot during the meeting and no action can be taken
that has not been agreed upon in advance.
The Armenian government should have known these basic facts
and have taken the proper steps before requesting a Security Council meeting in
order to ensure a successful outcome. In this absence of such a preparatory
work, it is not surprising that the Security Council did not adopt a resolution
to warn Azerbaijan
that unless it unblocks the Lachin Corridor immediately, severe sanctions will
be imposed.
During the meeting, all 15 member states delivered speeches,
many of them urging Azerbaijan
to unblock the Lachin Corridor and resolve the issue through peaceful
negotiations. The French Ambassador delivered the most favorable speech for Armenia, while
the Russian Ambassador’s remarks were disappointing. When the meeting was over,
everyone got up and went home without adopting a resolution and resolving the
blockade. Azerbaijan and Turkey, which
are non-members of the Security Council, repeated their myriad of lies about
the Lachin Corridor, denying the obvious facts known to the whole world. To
counter Turkey’s remarks,
why didn’t Armenia arrange
to have Cyprus or Greece attend
the meeting to support its position?
Regrettably, the UN Security Council member states preferred
to pursue their own narrow national interests rather than trying to save the
lives of 120,000 starving Artsakh Armenians, thus abdicating their humanitarian
responsibility and undermining the integrity of the United Nations
Organization. Shamefully, the Security Council did not even bother to back up
the two decisions of the International Court of Justice on unblocking the
Lachin Corridor.
Armenia’s
Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan, who flew to New York on this occasion, gave a proper
speech, urging the Security Council “to act as genocide prevention body and not
as genocide commemoration, when it might be too late.” Mirzoyan asked that the
UN dispatch an interagency needs assessment mission to Artsakh, which was
ignored. Nevertheless, he failed to request that the UN Security Council order Azerbaijan to
open the Lachin Corridor and impose sanctions, if it did not comply. On the
other hand, the Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan, Jeyhun Bayramov, did not bother
to fly from Baku to New York, knowing full well that nothing
will happen at the UN meeting.
Azerbaijan’s
Ambassador falsely stated that since Artsakh is a part of his country’s
territory, it can do as it pleases and no one has the right to interfere. The
whole world knows that he is completely wrong. Human rights violations are of
universal interest. They are of serious concern to the whole world and are not
the internal issue of any one country.
While it is true that several Ambassadors urged Azerbaijan to
unblock the Lachin Corridor, regrettably, these requests were mere words which
fell on deaf ears. Azerbaijan
ignored all such requests, as it has rejected similar pleas from several heads
of states, foreign ministers, the European Union, European Council, European
Court of Human Rights, World Court,
and Secretary-General of the United Nations. Words without action are
meaningless.
To save face, Prime Minister Pashinyan told Armenians after
the UN meeting that now the whole world knows that Azerbaijan, contrary to its
denials, was blocking the Lachin Corridor. This is a meaningless statement as
everyone already knew that the Corridor was blocked. That was not the purpose
of the UN Security Council meeting. The purpose was to adopt a resolution and
impose sanctions on Azerbaijan.
Armenia
failed to accomplish that important objective.
The UN Security Council meeting was much more than a missed
opportunity for Armenia
and Artsakh. Having raised and then shattered the expectations of Armenians
that the Security Council will lift the blockade further demoralized Armenians
worldwide. It would have been far more preferable for Armenia to take
no action rather than make a half-baked attempt which caused more damage.
Since last week’s failed meeting, Azeri officials have
boasted that no one at the UN believed Armenia’s ‘baseless accusations,’
as a result of which no decision was taken. Regrettably, Azerbaijan is now emboldened more than ever to
take further aggressive steps against Artsakh and Armenia,
knowing full well that no one in the world will take any action against Azerbaijan.
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2- Azerbaijani Protesters Arrested
after
Assaulting
Armenians Outside UN Headquarters in NY
(The US
Armenians)—Two Armenian activists were assaulted outside the United Nations
Headquarters in New York
on August 17 by Azerbaijani counter-protesters.
Mari Lucine Chobanyan and her mother Manik Karapetyan
described being harassed and assaulted by three Azerbaijani counter-protesters
(one male and two female) who tried to cover the Armenian signs with Azeri
flags; then tore the family’s posters apart; used the Azeri flags to stifle
Chobanyan and Karapetyan by covering their faces and heads; pulled Chobanyan’s
hair; shouted slurs at them in Russian—and then ultimately one of the
counter-protesters struck Chobanyan in the back with a flagpole leaving a large
red welt.
The two female counter-protesters were subsequently
arrested.
The entire incident was captured on video by an Instagram
user named “ma4stro_” and posted to The US Armenians page.
Chobanyan posted a comment shortly after the incident on one
of the videos informing that one of the women was released, while the other
woman was still in police custody. Chobanyan said the family would be pressing
charges.
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3- Artist Haro Istamboulian
Featured in
‘Let’s
Paint Sherman
Oaks’ Utility Box Project
For the third time, the Sherman Oaks Chamber Foundation
chose artist Haro Istamboulian for a grant to paint a utility box in the city.
Istamboulian submitted his design—a number of honeybees flying throughout a
blue sky, gathering pollen from white and yellow flowers and taking them back
to their golden honeycombs dripping with fresh honey.
Istamboulian’s utility box is on the corner of Beverly Glen Drive
and Dickens Avenue
in Sherman Oaks.
The Chamber Foundation offers grants to local artists to
paint LADOT Utility Boxes in Sherman Oaks. In partnership with the Los Angeles
City Countil and Mayor Karen Bass, along with Council District 4—currently
helmed by Councilmember Nithya Raman—the grants offered by the foundation
include the cost of all materials. After painting, the utility boxes are
branded “Let’s Paint Sherman Oaks” and the Chamber Foundation covers all the
boxes with an anti-graffiti coating and cleans them monthly.
“I’m grateful to the chamber for having confidence in my
work, and for again giving me the opportunity to have my art become a lasting
part of making the city more beautiful for everyone,” said Istamboulian.
Throughout the last eight years, Let’s Paint Sherman Oaks
has beautified the city of Sherman Oaks, Calif., by sponsoring
the painting over 100 utility boxes.
The organization has hosted three community art walks;
created a public art installation at Westfield
Fashion Square in Sherman Oaks with over 200 local
students; and painted a public mural at Ventura
and Noble.
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4- ‘Between Two
Worlds’: Moving story of Armenian-American trauma, pride
By Larry Wilson
(Pasadena
Star News)—Southeast Altadena and Northeast Pasadena
have always — meaning, for well over a century — been Armenian neighborhoods.
Not entirely, but substantially.
Some immigrants came here even before the Armenian Genocide.
Why, former Pasadena police Chief Barney
Melekian’s grandparents ran a bakery in East Pasadena,
and he’s in his 70s now.
When I was a child in Altadena,
we defined neighborhoods by the attendance zone of the local elementary
schools. And you knew everyone for many blocks around you, because everyone,
almost literally, in my Baby Boom generation went to the public schools.
At Luther Burbank, the friendly rival to my far Northeast Altadena elementary, Arthur Amos Noyes, there
were plenty of kids from Armenian families. Avazians. Barmakians. Meymerians.
At more WASPy Noyes, not so many. But I suppose we always
knew that the Macer family — big house on Altadena Drive, father a prominent
physician — had ancestors from Armenia. And just didn’t have an “ian” at the end
of their name.
And we certainly knew that my classmate Jemela Macer, a
smart and popular yet “quiet” girl, had an unusual name. But I will swear on
whatever you consider holy that I never heard one person — and you know how
mean young children can be — make fun of the name or of Jemela herself in that
way kids will do when anything at all is considered out of the ordinary. Never.
And I have a good memory for those years.
But we also were told at some point that Jemela wanted to be
known by her middle name, Sue. OK, we said. But I could never quite get used to
it.
And now I find by reading a new book by Jemela — long a
clinical psychologist in La Canada Flintridge and Glendale — that there was a
kind of trauma associated with that name change, along with her father’s
decision in medical school to change the family name from Mahsereghian to
Macer. A lot of trauma, in fact.
And she details it all in her wonderful, moving “Between Two
Worlds: An Armenian-American Woman’s Journey Home.” I recommend it not only to
those of us interested in the Armenian diaspora, but to anyone interested in
what it means to be American here in California, with all of us excepting the
almost wiped out native Tongva descended from recent immigrants to this land.
The Armenian-Californian experience is a particular one,
filled with its own pains and joys. At the beginning of Jemela’s book, reading,
for instance, about her father’s decision to change the family name, I was
inwardly scoffing. My sister’s and my own pediatrician down on Pasadena’s
fancy-doctor East Green Street was Dr. Hovsepian, a properly beloved figure in
the community, twinkly, forever pulling the parlor trick of finding a hidden
nickel behind our ears. He did OK, keeping the “ian,” right?
As I continued through her book, and through her telling of
her family, marriage and career path after a childhood in which the name change
had an actually profound effect on her life, I now see that my scoffing was
part of a whitewashing of the Armenian experience in Southern
California.
Having the name Macer also opened her ears and eyes, as for
decades she’s suffered through weirdly anti-Armenian colleagues and
acquaintances, not knowing her background, openly expressing their prejudices
against the more newly arrived families in Glendale, where her therapy practice is.
There is so much in “Between Two Worlds” — so much of her
loneliness as a child considered chubby, which I’d never known of; so much
hard-won spiritual growth; an incredible story of her eventual trip of
rediscovery to Turkey and Western Armenia with other descendants of immigrants,
which she calls her “Genocide Tour.”
But for me the most telling story here is of the struggles
of her Glendale
patient Taline, daughter of Armenian immigrants, trying to be the perfect
child, graduating from USC, nominally engaged to a boy from an Armenian family,
actually in love with a brash and fun blonde girl called Erica.
“I understood,” Jemela writes, “that Taline was caught
between the old Armenian world of my grandparents and the new American world
that Erica represented. Whatever she chose, something would be lost, and
something would be gained.”
After travels into her past, after a struggle, Jemela
concludes: “I cast out shame, and remember where we have been, what we have
suffered, and who we are. On good days, I replace shame with pride.”
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