France has her say
Al-Ahram Weekly, Egypt
Sept 7 2006
Despite the British occupation, French culture was the number one
foreign culture among Egyptians. Professor Yunan Labib Rizk explains
that even though the occupiers succeeded in introducing English to a
great number of schools, France was king
Abdel-Rahman El-Gabarti, the grandfather of Egyptian historians, was
contemporary to the French military expedition and wrote two books
about it. In the first he recorded all that he witnessed, and it came
out in four volumes under the title Ajaaib Al-Athar fi Al-Tarajim
Wal-Akhbar [the wonders of the vestiges of biographies and events].
This book was objective within the limits of the religious culture
that predominated in that age.
Rifaa El-Tahtawi
————————————————- ——————————-
His second book was released in one volume and was produced under
request by the first Ottoman pasha who arrived at the citadel
following the departure of the French. It consisted of excerpts from
the first book that defamed the occupiers who had only recently
evacuated the country and was titled Mathhar Al-Taqdis bi- Zawal
Dawlat Al-Faransis [the phenomenon of sanctifying the removal of the
French state].
The great El-Gabarti rejected in his second book much of what he had
been impressed with in the first. With regard to culture in
particular, following his visit to the library the military
expedition had established, he had expressed his bedazzlement with
its order. Likewise, upon his visit to the scientific institute the
military expedition had established, he had been awed by the chemical
experiments its scientists were conducting. He even wrote in
acknowledgment, “these matters are not comprehended by minds of our
likes.”
This is perhaps what led some Francophone Egyptians to coin the
metaphorical phrase stating that “Napoleon came with cannons and a
printing press, and he returned to his country with the cannons but
left the printing press.” This is also perhaps what led Sheikh Hassan
El-Attar, El-Gabarti’s teacher who had greater opportunity to mix
with the French, to advise his student Rifaa El-Tahtawi, when he was
sent by Mohamed Ali Pasha with the first academic mission to France
in 1826, to record all the details of life he would witness among
people there. El-Tahtawi did this meticulously, and his famed book
Takhlis Al-Abriz fi Talkhis Bariz [extrication of pure gold in an
outline of Paris]. This book was the first Egyptian overview of a
European society.
The saying that Napoleon left behind the printing press was not
accurate in actuality, however, for the men of the military
expedition in fact took their two presses with them when they left
the country. Yet it was true metaphorically, for French culture
remained the number one foreign culture among Egyptians until after
WWII (1945). It dominated its English counterpart despite the British
occupation of the country and the occupiers’ efforts and policies. At
the head of these efforts was the English consultant to the Ministry
of Education, Douglas Dunlop, who sought to Anglicise education.
These efforts ended in failure, however, and although the occupiers
succeeded in their aim of introducing English to a great number of
schools, they failed in Anglicising education and culture. The spread
of the occupiers’ language was limited to civil servants, and among
other Egyptian intellectuals, French remained lord.
This can be traced to a number of reasons. Most of the Egyptian
missions dispatched during the reign of the remarkable ruler Mohamed
Ali Pasha were sent to France. Statistics concerning the members of
eight missions sent during this period show that 372 were sent to
Paris, including a number of leading intellectuals such as Rifaa
El-Tahtawi and Ali Mubarak, while the number of those sent to England
was 47, sent to learn advanced industries. The second mission sent to
England, consisting of 21 members, was dispatched to learn the art of
carpentry. Austria only received seven delegates. In other words, the
primary bloc of Egyptian delegates to Europe during this Pasha’s era
headed to France, to the degree that the Egyptian government set up
special housing for them that was supervised by one of the academics
of the French expedition.
Mohamed Ali entrusted Frenchmen with the supervision of the advanced
military institutes he established — the war academy, the medical
school and the naval academy. Mohamed Ali’s initial establishment of
a modern education system in Egypt had coincided with the fall of
Napoleon Bonaparte (1815) and the release of a large number of
officers from the French army, whom the ambitious pasha welcomed into
the process of modernising the country he ruled.
It was natural for these men to add a French flavour to their
schools’ programmes and to rely on the resources and methodologies
they had learned from or taught with in their own institutes. This
situation sped up the French to Arabic and Turkish translation
movement, a fact that was followed by the Al-Alsun [languages] School
being the first to be established alongside the military institutes
to serve this need.
During the final quarter of the 19th century, a class of large
agricultural landowners developed and sent its children to the French
schools that spread across the country, in particular the Jesuit and
Frere Schools for boys and the Sacre CÏur and Bonne Pasteur Schools
for girls. This further spread French culture among this class, to
the point that the commonly used language in many of its households
was French rather than Arabic. Many also sent their children to
complete their education in France’s universities, particularly to
law colleges and the universities of Sorbonne and Montpellier.
Law schools were the most common type of French educational centre.
At one time, when the French felt that their influence was waning in
the khedivial law school, they established an adjunct French law
school that gained wide acceptance among members of the class of
large agricultural landowners. Moreover, legal education, which the
French excelled in, was like the royal door for those who wished to
gain a high position in the judiciary and then in political life. A
number of Egyptians who forged paths in these fields benefited from
this situation, including Saad Zaghloul, Mustafa Kamel, Mohamed
Farid, Qasim Amin, Ahmed Lutfi El-Sayed, and many others.
French thus became the primary foreign language for the
communications of the Egyptian government’s ministries, and
particularly the ministries of justice and foreign affairs. A look at
the various rounds of negotiations that took place starting in 1920,
including those known as the Saad-Milner negotiations, and until
1936, in the negotiations that ended with the treaty of friendship
and alliance between Egypt and England, shows that Egyptian
negotiators used French while British negotiators used English.
Moreover, a look at the foreign press issued during that era confirms
that some of it was read by Egyptians as well as the foreign
communities whose languages it was written in. French took the lion’s
share in this, and it is sufficient to note that Al-Ahram was the
first to publish a French edition called Le Pyramides. Other French
language newspapers including Le Progrès Egyptien and La Reforme, and
were widely read by Egyptians.
In contrast, English culture did not enjoy a similar share. The
occupying state did not have strong enough missions to compete with
French missions in the field of education, and the most it could do
was to establish Victoria College in Alexandria, most of whose
students were members of the British community in Egypt alongside
small numbers of Egyptians. While American missions were more active
in this regard, most of their efforts were spent on urging Coptic
Christians to change their sect from Orthodox to Protestant, which
was opposed by the national church. In addition, they established
schools in the areas they were concentrated in, Assiut in Upper Egypt
and Tanta in Lower Egypt. They also attracted members of the small
middle class who did not have a strong social or cultural influence
as did the aristocracy who joined French schools. Yet even when one
of the American missionary groups established the American University
in Cairo in 1920, it did not receive sufficient attention because it
was at first more of a high school and did not target Egyptians as
much as minorities such as the Armenians, Greeks, and Jews.
Another indication confirming the preponderance of French culture
arises in the war waged by the high commissioner’s headquarters in
Cairo when the affiliation of the local university’s administration
was transferred to the Egyptian Ministry of Education in 1925 and it
was turned into a royal university. Lord Lloyd, the British high
commissioner, tried by all means possible to make the majority of its
colleges’ teaching staff English. While he succeeded with regard to
the colleges of medicine and sciences, he failed with regard to the
colleges of arts and law, the majority of whose teaching staff
remained of French culture, whether Egyptians or Frenchmen.
A final observation, and although it may seem superficial, is in fact
highly significant. A large number of French vocabulary items slipped
into the speech of ordinary Egyptians, such as bonjour, bonsoir, au
revoir, and others, more than their English counterparts were used.
We can still witness this in the dialogues of cinematic films
produced during that period.
THIS LENGTHY HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION explains what took place in the
period following the 1936 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty. This treaty, while
settling many of the problems between Egypt and the occupying state,
also removed many of the obstacles the British authorities in the
Egyptian capital had placed before the natural relations between
Cairo and Paris.
In the period following the signing of the treaty, cultural relations
between the two states grew active again in an unprecedented manner.
While the French-English agreement signed in 1904 known as Entente
Cordiale guaranteed France some advantages that maintained its
cultural relations with Egypt, and particularly with regard to French
schools and the post of the director of antiquities remaining with a
Frenchman, WWI and the resultant growth of the nationalist movement
drove the British authorities to withdraw most of the advantages the
French had held onto. Their excuse was always ready — that Egyptians
had the competence to fill the places that had been agreed to be left
to the French.
To the point, following the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty, Egyptian-French
relations regained their former position of prominence, this time
through the will of both sides. And Al-Ahram played a role in this
change.
This role is apparent in the trip organised by Al-Ahram for those
wishing to visit the Paris international exhibition that opened on 16
June 1937. The young King Farouk I and the president of the French
republic participated in the opening of the Egyptian section.
Speeches were given by Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Bey, the commissioner
of the exhibition’s Egyptian section, and the exhibition’s general
commissioner. Cultural relations between the two countries occupied
the greater part of the two men’s speeches.
In Khalil Bey’s speech, he compared between “Egypt, the mother of the
arts” and the “vestiges of Napoleon” left behind in Egypt. Of the
first, he said that “the antiquities of Isis, who Egyptian artists
have glorified here, and the restoration of her tomb, this is what
speaks of us in this dialect.” As for the latter, he placed two
volumes of the encyclopedic Description of Egypt before him and
described them as an innovative work that “all those who love your
country and ours must be familiar with.”
As for the commissioner’s speech, it was replete with praise for
Egyptian civilisation. He said that the participation of Egyptians in
the exhibition “shows with the clearest of indications that you are
worthy of being the successors of ancient Egypt and the great
territory with which is formed the Egyptian homeland, the producer of
a civilisation established 6,000 years ago, a civilisation of arts
and industries that, in their glorified appearance, we applaud this
year between deference and dignity in the shadow of peace.”
Another occasion presented itself in the form of a celebration of the
end of the school year for the Jesuit Fathers School in Paris.
Mahmoud Fakhri Pasha, the Egyptian minister plenipotentiary, attended
the event on the occasion of his son succeeding in his baccalaureate
with the grade of “very good”. He indicated that he, in turn, was a
graduate of a branch of the same school in Alexandria, “whose work in
the Nile Valley in particular had been fruitful and successful. Many
academics, statesmen and prominent men are graduates of the Jesuit
Fathers schools. Last May, the French-Arabic school opened in
Heliopolis and on this occasion Ahmed Ziwar Pasha, a former Egyptian
prime minister, gave a speech, saying that there is no country more
ready for this education than Egypt. Putting spirit and thought
before materiality was one of the truest traditions of ancient
Egyptian civilisation.”
A third occasion was provided by the International Conference for
Foreign Writers of French. Egypt’s part in it was a speech made by
Georges Cattawi under the title “Egypt’s writers and French
literature.” At the head of these writers was Wasef Ghali Pasha, the
Egyptian minister of foreign affairs at that time. Cattawi began by
documenting the national role of the pasha, who was the son of
Boutros Pasha the Great and the uncle of Boutros Ghali, the former
secretary-general of the United Nations who once told this writer
that Wasef Pasha had been the highest role model he had emulated
throughout his life. Yet despite his national role, Cattawi stressed,
“he did not overlook the craft of literature, historical studies, and
the writing of poetry. The traces of his pen can be counted through
the merits of prose and the choicest works of poetry. He made it
clear that the West and Christianity have borrowed greatly from
Islamic civilisation.”
Cattawi did not limit himself to Wasef Ghali, however; in his speech
he also made observation of other Egyptians he praised for writing in
French. “No writer in Egypt such as Lutfi El-Sayed, Taha Hussein,
Ahmed Deif and Mansour Fahmi failed to publish even a small amount in
French on the margins of their precious writings in Arabic. It is
sufficient to mention Ahmed Deif, in partnership with a Frenchman,
wrote the story Mansour and others. He described the charms of the
Egyptian countryside, the life of sailors on the Nile and in
Alexandria’s harbour, and Al-Azhar University.”
Ahmed Rasim Bey, the undersecretary of the Cairo governorate, also
participated in this conference. Al-Ahram introduced him as a
“renowned poet in the world of French literature.” The title of his
report was “Egyptian poets who write poetry in French,” and readers
may be surprised by the number of poets Rasim Bey addressed. They
included Haidar Fadl, a descendent of Mohamed Ali with two volumes of
poetry in French, Flowers spattered with blood and An Eastern
collection. They also included Abdel-Khaleq Tharwat, the famous
politician, with a volume titled Love among the Arabs. There was also
Marios Shumayl Bey, who was described as the owner of the Egyptian
World magazine and who had a volume titled Against forgetfulness,
Fouad Abu Khatir, who had two volumes of poetry in which he “sang in
a musical lilt of his joys, grief, melancholy and grievances,” as
well as Mohamed Zulfiqar, “who let free his genius and forged a path
no one had traversed in terms of style, which was guided by Eastern
culture.”
At the end of his valuable study, Rasim Bey also made an observation
of a number of female writers who had participated in the literary
movement in Egypt and were of great consequence. He mentioned Madame
Nelli Zananiri, the delicate poetess and scrupulous writer, Madame
Amy Kheir, of Lebanese origin and a novelist and poet who praised the
charms of Egypt, Princess Qadriya Hussein, who had written verses
titled “Royal ghosts” and who charmed readers with their formulation,
and Mai Ziyada, the great Arab writer who composed valuable writings
in French.
TRAVEL LITERATURE formed another side to the expression of cultural
relations between Cairo and Paris. An example is provided by one of
the participants in the trip organised by Al-Ahram, Mohamed Awad
Gabril, who grasped the opportunity to write a long article about his
overland trip to Paris.
It was titled “From Cairo to Paris — 5,500 kilometres in five and a
half days.” During that time he passed through Palestine, Lebanon,
Syria, Turkey, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Italy, and Switzerland, until he
finally reached France “without boarding a plane or having a ship
transport him above the depths of water.” During that time he made
note of everything he found strange or unusual. For example, there
was the Taurus Road, which began in Tripoli and “crossed Anatolia
between snow-covered mountains reaching heights of 1,500 metres. The
train continued through these views for about 26 hours, during which
we traversed 42 tunnels and passed through Ankara, modern Turkey’s
capital.”
Gabril could not deny his wonderment after the trip continued into
Europe. “We moved through redolent gardens. From meadows whose trees
were adorned with fresh flowers to soaring mountains from which water
gushed and wide lakes and flat steppes, the most beautiful sight my
eyes beheld was two mountains cloaked in a green robe of trees. The
space between them was so narrow that it only allowed the passage of
the train and the river running alongside it… We traversed the
Simplon tunnel, the longest in the world at 16 kilometres by 700
metres, and passed through Montreux, Lausanne and Dijon before
reaching Paris.”
In the French capital, the pen was passed from Gabril to the Al-Ahram
special reporter accompanying the trip. The first thing that caught
his attention was the excessive speed with which Parisians moved
about in their daily lives, reaching the point of madness “as it
seems to us strangers, having grown accustomed in our country to a
life other than this one.”
Another thing that caught his attention was the absence of an
electric tram in the capital, for it had become one of the greatest
factors obstructing traffic. Instead it moved underground, and the
reporter stated that Paris had in fact become three cities — one
under the ground, on one the surface, and a third in the sky.
The speed characteristic of advanced industrial societies was a
source of wonder for the reporter. The speed of cars reached the
point of madness “and their movement in the street is not restricted
by a system like that present in Egypt. Watching this movement and
speed I remembered those constables who move on motorcycles through
the streets of Cairo and collect the numbers of cars speeding, even a
little, and bring their drivers to trial and the payment of fines…
It is astonishing, in such crowdedness and speed, to not hear horns.
Everyone knows their duty and what they must do. Everyone upholds
order and the law, and it is impossible to find someone crossing the
street other than in the place allocated to do so. And thus,
accidents rarely take place and rarely are there victims of cars in
this capital crowded with millions, in contrary to our own
situation.” And this situation has remained in place!
Then the reporter spent some time on the Seine, noting that it was no
comparison to the Nile in terms of size, width or beauty. “And yet
the French have benefited from it in a manner that some may need to
see to believe. They benefit through shipping, electricity
generation, transport, recreation, the construction of cafes and
everything that science, rationale, and creativity might suggest. As
for Egypt, the masses just wish to find a spot to sit in so as to
enjoy the beauty and grandeur of the Nile that foreigners envy.” It
is fortunate that the man did not live to see Egyptians crowding both
sides of bridges crossing the Nile in search of a breeze during
Cairo’s hot summer nights.
Al-Ahram ‘s reporter accompanying the trip allocated another long
article to Paris’ markets and places of entertainment. It is the
habit of Egyptians on such group outings, once completing the
shopping they are passionate about, to attempt to persuade one
another that they got a better price and diminish the worth of what
their counterparts purchased.
As for places of entertainment, it was a free for all. The reporter
wrote of the Latin Quarter, where there were underground bunker-like
bars with rectangular wooden tables and champagne glasses lined up.
He also wrote of a dance hall whose last dancers were youth who slept
all day and stayed up all night “although their dancing is no
different from any other in terms of modesty and decorum.” After
that, they visited one of the most famous places of entertainment in
Paris — Moulin Rouge. After viewing what they pleased, the reporter
wrote that “the theatres and entertainment halls in France are not
subject to government monitoring and therefore you find the door to
innovation consistently open and unrestricted before the public.”
The trip also included a visit to the Paris mosque, and rather than
performing prayers, the participants sat in its garden drinking
Arabic coffee. “There were some Moroccan crooners singing Arabic
songs to the tune of the oud and qanun and the beat of a drum, but it
was nothing compared to the singing and musical artistry of those we
are accustomed to in Egypt. At any rate, however, it brought great
joy to our hearts after having spent days in a purely Frankish
environment.”
–Boundary_(ID_vI4i4J T+f6lBAOYLmEMLJA)–

STATEMENT OF THE OSCE MINSK GROUP CO-CHAIR COUNTRIES
Lragir.am
08 Sept 06
Sixtieth Session of the UN General Assembly
Agenda Item 40, “The situation in the occupied territories of
Azerbaijan”
The Russian Federation, France, and the United States of America, as
the Co-Chair countries of the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe’s Minsk Group, remain committed to promoting a
peaceful, negotiated resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. In
this capacity, we take with great seriousness concerns raised by
either side to the conflict regarding threats to the security and
stability of the region, as well as any developments that pose new
obstacles to the negotiation process.
Accordingly, we have examined closely the information provided by the
Government of Azerbaijan regarding fires in the eastern part of the
occupied territories of Azerbaijan surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh. We
also note the report of the Personal Representative of the
Chairman-in-Office of the OSCE, who, at the request of the Government
of Azerbaijan and direction of the Chairman-in-Office, has carried
out a monitoring mission to the affected areas. We note, in
particular, that fires of both natural and manmade origin are a
regular occurrence in the region in question. The question of whether
more extensive fires this year are a cause of ecological concern
requiring international attention to their suppression is one that
can only be answered through a technical examination of the
situation.
Therefore, the Co-Chairs stand ready, together with the Personal
Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, to lend their
immediate assistance to the organization of an OSCE mission, with the
support and expertise of the United Nations Environmental Programme,
and to report to the UN General Assembly 011 the results of the
mission, as requested in the present resolution, as well as to the
OSCE.
We commend the spirit of goodwill demonstrated by both Armenia and
Azerbaijan in agreeing to cooperate to address the situation raised
through this resolution. We hope the agreement reached today reflects
a new readiness by both sides to engage in further measures to build
confidence that will advance the process of negotiations, and we will
redouble our efforts, through the OSCE’s Minsk Group, to promote such
activities.
Mr. President, we note that over the past two years, the Co-Chairs of
the Minsk Group have worked intensively with the Foreign Ministers
and Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan to identify core principles
of an agreement that would lead to a just and lasting settlement. Our
nations, reinforced by the voices of the Group of Eight leading
nations at their summit in St. Petersburg in July, have called on the
Presidents of both Armenia and Azerbaijan to accept now these core
principles as a basis for resolution of the conflict, and to prepare
their publics for peace, and not war. We reiterate that call today
and restate the readiness of our governments to lend full support to
the achievement and implementation of a peace agreement.

V.OSKANIAN: SYRIAN MUFTI’S VISIT TO ARMENIA TESTIFIES TO FRIENDSHIP
BETWEEN THE TWO NATIONS
Arka News Agency, Armenia
Sept 7 2006
YEREVAN, September 7. /ARKA/. On Wednesday Armenian Foreign Minister
Vartan Oskanian during his meeting with the Syrian clergy delegation,
headed by Mufti Sheikh Ahmad Badr Al-din Hassuni, said that their
visit to Armenia testified to friendship between the two nations and
existence of dialogue between the religions.
Press and Information Department of the RA Foreign Ministry informed
ARKA Agency that during the meeting emphasizing high level of bilateral
relations, the sides pointed out the fact of absence of political
discrepancy between Armenia and Syria.
Al-din Hassuni spoke well of friendly relations and cooperation
between the two states, pointing out the importance of the role of the
Armenian community in Syria and its contribution to the development
of the country.
The interlocutors also touched upon regional issues; including the
situation is Lebanon, process of peace talks over the settlement of
the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. S.P.-0–

ARMENIAN FOREIGN MINISTER RECEIVES U.S. AMBASSADOR IN CONNECTION WITH
COMPLETION OF HIS DIPLOMATIC MISSION
Arka News Agency, Armenia
Sept 7 2006
YEREVAN, September 7. /ARKA/. Armenian Foreign Minister received
Wednesday U.S. Ambassador to Armenia John Evans in connection with
the completion of his diplomatic mission.
The foreign ministry’s press service reported that they pointed out
that over the two years of Evans’ work in Armenia, a tangible progress
in the Armenian-American relations has been observed.
At the same time, Oskanyan and Evans expressed confidence that new
initiatives and spheres will be further included in the agenda of
the bilateral cooperation of the two countries.
The foreign minister thanked the ambassador for his contribution
to the Armenian-American relations, and wished Evans luck in this
further activity. R.O. -0–

OSCE YEREVAN OFFICE ORGANIZES PRESENTATION OF RESULTS OF RESEARCH ON
TRAFFICKING IN ARMENIA ON SEPTEMBER 8
Arka News Agency, Armenia
Sept 7 2006
YEREVAN, September 7. /ARKA/. The OSCE Yerevan office organizes a
presentation of results of 2 researches on trafficking in Armenia on
September 8.
On Thursday Press and Public Affairs Department of the OSCE Yerevan
office informed ARAK News Agency that during the event the Armenia
Sociological Association would present “Sociological Research:
Illegal Trade and Labor Exploitation of Armenia Migrants”.
Besides that, the Union of Armenia Aid will hold a presentation on the
theme of “Children in Children’s Homes and Special Schools of Armenia:
Potential Victims of Trafficking and Exploitation”.
The U.S. Department for Struggle against Drugs and Low-Enforcement
Cooperation rendered financial assistance during elaboration of
these researches.
Vladimir Pryakhin, ambassador and head of the OSCE Yerevan Office,
the Chairman of the Interdepartmental Commission for Struggle against
Trafficking, Head of International Organizations’ Department of the RA
Foreign Ministry Valery Mkrtumyan and Blanca Khanchilova responsible
for issues of democracy of the OSCE Yerevan office will make a speeches
during the event. S.P.-0-

Reuters, UK
Sept 7 2006
Senate panel backs U.S. Armenia envoy nominee
Thu Sep 7, 2006 2:36pm ET
Politics News
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A Senate panel backed President George W.
Bush’s pick for ambassador to Armenia on Thursday after an
impassioned debate over the administration’s withdrawal of the
previous ambassador who described Turkey’s 1915-1923 assault on
Armenia as genocide.
Several members said the committee should reject Richard Hoagland to
protest the administration decision to recall John Evans in May after
he asserted the killing of 1.5 million Armenians during the Ottoman
Empire should be called genocide.
U.S. administrations have avoided that term in order not to offend
Turkey, a key ally.
“In Darfur we are witnessing the first genocide of the 21st century
and the Bush administration called it that,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer,
a California Democrat. Boxer said she could not support Hoagland
“until we call the first genocide of the 20th century by its rightful
name.”
At his confirmation hearing, Hoagland avoided using the term
genocide.
The committee approved Hoagland’s nomination 13-5, advancing it for a
full Senate vote.
Committee Chairman Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican, said no one
was questioning Hoagland’s credentials and said rejecting a qualified
nominee “because of concerns of U.S. policy toward that country would
set a troubling precedent.”
While Turkey has acknowledged that atrocities were committed, it
contends there was not an intention to eradicate Armenians so it was
not genocide.
The Bush administration is trying to patch relations with Turkey,
which it holds up as a model of democracy among Islamic countries,
after they were frayed by the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
Sen. John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, said to withdraw an
ambassador “because he uttered the word genocide is to kow-tow” to
other countries. “I think the vote is bigger and more important than
just Ambassador Hoagland and that’s why I’ll vote ‘no’.”
But Ohio Republican Sen. George Voinovich said he felt the
administration was justified in recalling Evans.
“By golly, if they recalled a person because of this, it had to be
something really, really important in terms of this country’s
relationship with Turkey,” Voinovich said.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Armenians at Home
By Kevin Matthews
UCLA International Institute, CA
Sept 7 2006
“That’s where the village was,” locals said, pointing at mounds of
earth. “That’s where the church was.”A history teacher and curriculum
coach at Glendale High School, where roughly half of the multiethnic
student population is Armenian, Nancy Witt says she attends training
sessions at UCLA partly to keep up with her students-not just the
subjects she’s been teaching for 14 years. At an Aug. 8 session led by
UCLA Professor Richard G. Hovannisian, the discussion centered on the
changing character of Armenian immigrants who have arrived in Southern
California from various spots in the Ottoman Empire, Arab Middle East,
Iran, the Caucasus region, and Europe over more than a century.
Armenians traveled far and wide: the next UCLA conference to be
organized by Hovannisian and the UCLA Armenian Studies Program will
focus on Armenian trade and communities in and around the Indian
Ocean. Still, Southern California and Greater Los Angeles have the
highest concentration of ethnic Armenians outside of the Republic of
Armenia. At the session, Hovannisian highlighted diversity within
a local minority group that has been broadly but unevenly affected
by migrations and a genocide perpetrated in the last years of the
Ottoman Empire.
Just back from his first-ever trip to eastern Turkey, to ancestral
Armenian land where his parents were born and where reminders of the
1915 genocide persist, Hovannisian also had new stories to recount.
The Aug. 8 session was part of a five-day workshop for educators
organized by the UCLA Center for European and Eurasian Studies and
supported by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, by the UCLA
History-Geography Project, and by the California Geographic Alliance
at UCLA. Under this year’s theme of “Migration,” the workshop included
curriculum planning and three history lessons by UCLA faculty. CEES and
other member centers of the International Institute regularly sponsor
K-12 training workshops. In turn, teachers in leadership positions
such as Witt’s use the experience to train and assist colleagues.
Remains Hovannisian, who holds the Armenian Educational Foundation
Chair in Modern Armenian History at UCLA, visits Armenia regularly and
has traveled around the Middle East and to Istanbul, but his recent
two-week trip to eastern Turkey was different. He was “going back
to see a civilization that doesn’t exist,” he explained to about 15
LA-area teachers.
“That’s where the village was,” locals would tell him, pointing
at mounds of earth. “That’s where the church was.” Disturb the
surface of the Syrian desert, where much of the killing took place,
Hovannisian said, and you immediately find human bones. On this trip,
he traveled with a Turkish colleague, something that would have been
almost unthinkable twenty or thirty years back, he said.
The Armenian Genocide began in 1915 as the Ottoman Empire sought
scapegoats for the defeats of World War I. By 1923, when the Republic
of Turkey was founded, massacres and deadly forced marches had reduced
a pre-WWI population of some two million Armenians in the empire
to about 200,000. Fewer than 75,000 live in Turkey now, and almost
exclusively in Istanbul. The holocaust’s legacies include repetitions
(“Who remembers the Armenians?” Hitler said to his generals before
invading Poland), the travels and traumas of survivors, denials by
the Turkish government, and failures by others to acknowledge the
enormity of the facts.
In the latest U.S. chapter of this tale, members of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee have been unable to get the State Department to say
whether the Bush administration’s recall in May of U.S. Ambassador
to Armenia John Evans was related to Evans’ public and pointed
uses of the G-word in early 2005, in place of officially sanctioned
descriptors such as “tragedy” and “calamity.” A delayed hearing on the
nomination of Evans’ replacement is set for today, Sept. 7. According
to Hovannisian, Evans acknowledged the Armenian Genocide both at a
faculty luncheon and a public event on Feb. 17, 2005.
Over some of his more than 40 years at UCLA, Hovannisian and colleagues
gathered taped testimony from some 800 genocide survivors, all but
a very few of them now deceased. More recently, he reports, the
long project has advanced. The entire archive has been digitized,
about half of the interviews have been transcribed, and perhaps 100
have been translated from the relevant languages–Armenian, Turkish,
Arabic, Russian.
Three Waves Hovannisian’s focus for the Aug. 8 session was on Armenians
who eventually came to Southern California-beginning with a few
agricultural workers who arrived in the San Joaquin Valley in the
last decades of the nineteenth century. A pre-WWI U.S. population of
less than 40,000, concentrated in New York and New England, swelled
after the genocide, reaching 100,000 by the time of the restrictive
Immigration Act of 1924.
Two more large “waves” of immigrants would affect the development of
communities such as Glendale. After World War II, Armenians began an
exodus from the Middle East, fleeing turmoil and rising nationalism.
Emigration from Iran, where Armenians had lived for centuries
in relative quiet, spiked after the 1979 revolution. Finally, the
numbers of Armenians leaving the Soviet Union from the 1970s increased
dramatically following the unraveling of the USSR in 1991.
So Glendale, for example, is populated largely by Iranian and,
more recently, former Soviet Armenians with very different cultural
heritages-­their cuisines, dialects, and behavioral patterns. In
contrast to the more recent post-Soviet immigrants, many Armenians
of Iranian descent arrived with significant financial assets and a
family tree untouched by the genocide.
“We’ve got the waves,” Witt said. According to Witt, the Glendale
district has put resources into educating high school teachers
about the Armenian Genocide. Last year, a group of tenth grade world
history teachers visited Washington, D.C., to hear Hovannisian and
other scholars on the subject.
Photo: UCLA historian Richard Hovannisian instructs local K-12
teachers on more than a century of Armenian migrations to Southern
California and elsewhere. His archive of interviews with 800 survivors
of the Armenian Genocide is now digitized, with transcriptions and
translations in the works.
–Boundary_(ID_QPBApC0oAZWIge3QuCdr7g)–

World Bank issues report on the ease of doing business in 175 countries
Regnum, Russia
Sept 7 2006
The World Bank and the International Finance Corporation have released
a report Doing Business 2007, reports REGNUM correspondent. The report
ranks 175 countries as to the ease of doing business there.
In terms of attractiveness for business, Kyrgyzstan has gone up from
104th to 90th place from 2005 and is now more attractive than Turkey,
China and Russia, but less attractive than Mongolia and Kazakhstan.
Georgia has jump up from 112th to 37th, Kazakhstan from 82nd to
62nd place. Now the leaders of the region are: Armenia (34), Georgia
(37) and Kazakhstan (62). Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have the worst
positions among the CIS countries – 133rd and 147th, respectively.
Russia is 96th – lower than China, but higher than Brazil and India.
Ukraine and Belarus are 128th and 129th, respectively.
The top reformers are Georgia, Romania, Mexico and China. In the CIS
Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia
and Ukraine have carried out, at least, one reform. Tajikistan have
carried out no reforms, while Uzbekistan has made business an even
harder job for its companies.
The report gives a review of the reforms carried out in the past
year. For example, Georgia reduced the size of the minimum capital
required for starting a business from 2,000 to 200 lari ($85).
Business registration rose by 20% between 2005 and 2006. Reforms in
customs and the border police simplified border procedures. It took 54
days to meet all the administrative requirements to export in 2004 –
it now takes 13.
Armenia brought together the procedures of new business registration
in tax authorities and social security funds thereby reducing the
time of new business starting by one day. The country softened the
requirements for construction business licensing and simplified the
property rights transfer procedure. Armenia enhanced the rights of
creditors by allowing them to claim guarantees outside courts.
Kyrgyzstan introduced a fixed noratial tariff for land transfer
contract certification. The tariff has replaced an interest
honorarium. This reform has reduced the cost of property right
transfer from 5.25% to 1.99% of the cost of the property. The country
also allowed non-court guarantee and pledge claims, which has made it
easier for creditors to get back their debts. The period of compulsory
employee dismissal notification was reduced from two to one month.
Azerbaijan simplified the documentation requirements and reduced the
time of new business registration – from 115 to 53 days. The country
revised the Civil Code and enlarged the rights of creditors to claim
their unpaid debts. From now on, seized property will be sold through
a public auction. This makes the sale maximally profitable.
Russia reduced the single social tax and the size of pension
allocations and abolished 3 taxes: tax on securities, tax on the use of
“Russia” and “Russian Federation” and tax on forest. Besides, in Moscow
they will no longer demand that new businesses register their seals.
Ukraine formed a single body for new business registration: now
the procedures of registration in the pension, social security and
employment funds, in the fund of insurance against industrial accidents
and in the tax authorities (except for the registration for VAT) will
be carried out by one body. As a result, the number of steps for new
business registration has been reduced from 15 to 10 and the time –
from 34 days to 33 days.
Moldova reduced the number of licenses for business or commercial
activity from 400 to 128 and lowered the corporation income tax from
20% in 2004 to 18% in 2005 and 15% in 2006.
The first credit bureau of Kazakhstan has begun issuing crediting
reports on potential borrowers. Today, the bureau has information
(both negative – non-payment of loans, and positive – timely payment)
on 5.5% of Kazakhstan’s population. It gets the information from 29
commercial banks.
Belarus lowered the turnover tax from 3.9% to 3% and the transport tax
from 4% to 3%, but has much to do yet in tax reforms: if a company
in Belarus pays all the required taxes, it will have to pay 186%
of its profit. Belarus also sped up the process of new business
registration by obliging the committee registering new companies to
meet every week rather than once in two weeks. At the same time, the
country took a step back by prohibiting creditors to register their
pledge claims at notary’s office. Now they have to appeal to court.
Uzbekistan has made things worse for its business. The country imposed
a new tax on business – compulsory allocation to the school education
development fund. As a result, the tax burden on local companies has
grown from 106.3% to 122.3% of their profit. The local creditors have
become less protected in bankruptcy cases.
The report says that the key problems in the region are red-tape
in trade and complicated tax system. For example, in Kazakhstan
the export of a product takes 93 days and requires 14 documents. In
Belarus tax payments make up 186% of local companies’ profits, while
the procedures of their registration take 1,188 working hours.
The key indicators of the report are how much time and money is needed
for a new company to prepare all necessary documents, its activities,
trade operations, taxes and closing procedures.

Turkiye, Turkey
(via Turkish press)
Sept 7 2006
Who Do The Armenians Think They Are?
Published: 9/7/2006
BY YILMAZ OZTUNA
TURKIYE- The European Parliament gave a young Dutch MEP, who wants to
make his career from Turkey, the task of preparing a report on
Turkey. I can’t remember another report so ridiculous. His intentions
are bad. It seems that cleverer politicians have misled this young
MEP. Moreover, he claims to be a friend of the Turks.
He says Turkey has to accept the so-called Armenian genocide. We were
surprised to see Armenia in Turkey’s EU progress report. Those who
are unable or more reluctant to make Armenia withdraw from
Azerbaijan’s soil are criticizing our policies. How many times do we
have to say it? ‘If the Armenians withdraw from Azerbaijan soil, then
we would develop every relation with Armenia.’ Armenia would become a
prosperous state in two years if we opened its doors to the world.
Even simpletons know that there are many Armenians working illicitly
in Istanbul.
But the Armenians think that this is the opportunity to form their
‘greater Armenia.’ The Kurds also think that they are close to
forming their ‘greater Kurdistan.’ The PKK has become more violent.
Barzani lowered the Iraqi flag. What’s happening? What do they
believe? I should say it: They believe Turkey won’t stay on the US
side in a war with Iran. They thing Washington will break off its
relations with Turkey in such a case, and think that the Kurds and
the Armenians would then have an opportunity. They are calculating
that Turkey wouldn’t be considered in the Middle East. They think
that such a Turkey would benefit both the Arabs and Iran. But Turkish
foreign policy would never be based on such a scenario. A few Turkish
mistakes shouldn’t inspire Armenian and Kurdish fantasies. We already
got sunk into our debate over sending troops to Lebanon. We shouldn’t
get stuck in a small part of the big game. We shouldn’t work for
something impossible like finding a solution to the Palestinian
problem. We shouldn’t make even one small mistake in the realities of
foreign policy.

Armenian Foreign Minister Hails Syria’s Stances
SANA – Syrian Arab News Agency, Syria
Sept 7 2006
Thursday, September 07, 2006 – 04:35 PM
YEREVAN, (SANA) – Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanyan hailed
Syria’s supporting stances and help to Armenia during the difficult
past years.
Receiving the Syrian Grand Mufti of the Republic Ahmad Bader Hassoun,
Mr. Oskanyan stressed his country continuous support to the Arab
issues, particularly the Palestinian Cause.
For his part, the Grand Mufti underlined the importance of cooperation
among all countries and peoples to work to achieve the peace in
the world, pointing out to the strong relation connecting the two
friendly countries.
Talks during the meeting also dealt with the cordial and hearty
relations between the two friendly countries.