CONTACTS:
Brian Kabateck
Mark Geragos
Kabateck Brown Kellner LLP
Geragos & Geragos
213-217-5000 213 625-3900
[email protected]
[email protected]
Dian e Zakian Rumbaugh Vartkes Yeghiayan
Rumbaugh Public Relations Yeghiayan & Associates
805-493-2877
818-242-7400
rumbaugh@ear thlink.net
[email protected]
PRESS RELEASE September 26, 2006
ATTORNEYS REPRESENTING ARMENIAN GENOCIDE VICTIMS
APPLAUD GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER’S SIGNING OF SB 1524
LOS ANGELES, CALIF.–Attorneys representing the heirs of
Armenian Genocide victims whose family assets were inappropriately held
for decades by German banks are welcoming yesterday’s signing by
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California Senate Bill 1524. The law
enables families to seek legal action to recover assets lost or stolen
as a result of the American Genocide.
The attorneys, all of Armenian decent, are Brian Kabateck,
partner with Kabateck Brown Kellner, Mark Geragos, partner with Geragos
& Geragos and Vartkes Yeghiayan of Yeghiayan and Associates. The
attorneys filed a lawsuit earlier this year against Deutsche Bank and
Dresdner Bank, two German banks they say wrongfully held Armenian assets
and froze Armenian bank accounts during the Armenian Genocide that began
in 1915. (Varoujan Deirmenjian, et. al. v. Deutsche Bank, A.G., Dresdner
Bank, A.G., et. al., Case No. CV 06-00774, U.S. District Court, Central
District of California).
Under the new law, Armenian Genocide victims, heirs or beneficiaries who
live in California can bring or continue a court action against a
financial institution for its failure to pay or turn over deposited or
looted assets. The statute of limitation for filing a claim is December
31, 2016.
“Deutsche Bank and Dresdner Bank were approached by Turkish
leaders to store Armenian artwork, gold and other valuables that were
illegally seized by the Turks during the Armenian Genocide,” says
Kabateck. “The assets and the money deposited by Armenians in these
banks mysteriously disappeared and were considered lost for decades.
With most of the rightful owners massacred, these banks apparently
thought they could get away with stealing family assets from an entire
generation of Armenians. A new generation of Armenians has set out to
right this wrong.”
“We applaud Gov. Schwarzenegger’s efforts to recognize the
atrocities of the Armenian Genocide and to hold accountable those who
benefited from the terrible acts that occurred so long ago,” says
Geragos.
The class action suit estimates that the banks took more
than $22.5 million in looted assets, based on 1915 dollars. “We assume
banks have a fiduciary duty to ensure its customers’ deposited assets
and securities are protected,” says Yeghiayan. “This duty was ignored
for 90 years by the German banks. This new law will shine a light on a
shameful act of wrongdoing and greed.”
###

SERGE SARGSYAN RECEIVED THE NEWLY APPOINTED UK MILITARY ATTACHE NICOLAS RIDOUT
Public Radio of Armenia
Sept 26 2006
On the occasion of completion of the tenure in office of UK Military
Attache Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Nann and for presenting
the newly appointed Attache, Lieutenant Colonel Nicolas Ridout,
on September 26 Secretary of the Presidential Council on National
Security, RA Defense Minister Serge Sargsyan received Charge
d’Affaires ad Interim of the United Kingdom in Armenia, Deputy
Ambassador Richard Hide.
Congratulating the new Military Attache on appointment, the Minister
thanked Lieutenant Colonel Nann for his work and wished success in
future activity.
The parties stated during the meeting that in the course of the past
3.5 years cooperation ties in the military sphere have been reinforced,
progress has been registered.
The newly appointed Attache Lieutenant Colonel Nicolas Ridout promised
to further deepen the level of cooperation during his tenure in office.

AZERI FOREIGN MINISTER BLAMES ARMENIA FOR REFUSING DIRECT TALKS
Turan news agency, Baku,
26 Sep 2006
New York, 26 September: Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar
Mammadyarov has blamed Armenia for refusing direct talks on a Karabakh
settlement. Addressing the 61st session of the UN General Assembly
yesterday [25 September], he said that Armenia was displaying a
non-constructive position on the settlement of the conflict.
The parties to the conflict as well as the [OSCE Minsk Group]
mediators view a stage-by-stage solution as “the only possible way”
of resolving the conflict, Mammadyarov said.
“There are two major sticking points – finding an autonomous status
for the population of the occupied Nagornyy Karabakh region and
the withdrawal of the Armenian troops from Azerbaijan’s occupied
territories,” he said.
“We believe that the issue of status cannot be resolved today. The
status can be defined as a result of a peaceful, democratic and lawful
process with the direct participation of both the Azerbaijani and
Armenian communities of Nagornyy Karabakh,” the minister added.
Mammadyarov noted that the occupying forces must leave the Azerbaijani
territories and necessary conditions should be created for the return
of the Azerbaijani refugees to Nagornyy Karabakh and to the surrounding
districts of Azerbaijan.
“Such a course of events would provide the necessary conditions for
the next stage of the settlement. In the next stage, life in the
conflict zone and also inter-community relations will be restored,
social and economic development will be ensured and an autonomous
model will be found for the region within Azerbaijan. We demand
unconditional withdrawal of the occupying forces from all the occupied
territories. This position is in line with the UN Security Council
Resolutions [on the Karabakh conflict] and an OSCE decision on the
restoration of Azerbaijan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,”
Mammadyarov said.

RUSSIA ELECTRICITY GIANT TO INVEST $20 MLN IN ARMENIA POWER GRID
RIA Novosti, Russia
September 26, 2006
YEREVAN, September 26 (RIA Novosti) – A subsidiary of Unified Energy
System [RTS: EESR] said Tuesday it would invest $20 million in
Armenia’s electric power grid by the end of the year.
On Tuesday Inter RAO UES officially took possession of 100% shares in
Armenian Electric Power Networks JSC servicing about 913,000 consumers
in the South Caucasus republic.
Yevgeny Tod, director general of Inter RAO UES, said the investment
would focus on projects designed to cut electric power losses, improve
energy supplies and upgrade power units of the Armenian power grid.
RAO UES owns 60% of stock in Inter RAO UES and the Federal Agency for
Nuclear Power holds 40%. The company, which has an authorized capital
of 160 billion rubles ($6 billion), handles imports and exports of
electric power, and runs energy assets in and outside Russia.

Sunday, September 24, 2006
*************************************************
THE TRIUMPH OF EVIL
*****************************************
An elegantly dressed, coiffed, and bejeweled lady on Armenian TV spouting all the predictable clichés, among them:
“There is corruption in Armenia, certainly! But then there is corruption everywhere, including Canada.”
With one important difference: in Canada, when exposed, the corrupt are fired, sometimes even arrested, tried and jailed. Also, I have never heard a Canadian justify corruption by saying there is corruption everywhere.
*
“We shouldn’t judge our brothers in the Homeland. Are we better than they?”
True! We are not. We too are at the mercy of charlatans with their perennial Panchoonie punch line, “Mi kich pogh oughargetsek” (Send us a little money); and because I have been saying this, I have become persona non grata, and in the eyes of our chauvinists, an enemy of the people. Besides, if we don’t judge the corrupt, in a way we judge and condemn the victims at the mercy of bloodsucking parasites.
*
“The police stop and give you a ticket for traffic violations you didn’t commit.”
This may explain why everyone wants to emigrate except the police, who, according to a recent visitor “are the fattest and ugliest men I have ever seen.”
*
“It may take two generations for our brothers in the Homeland to abandon their Soviet ways.”
Who benefits from this kind of talk? Surely not the victims. As for their victimizers: it is almost as if they were given a license to carry on with the full protection and consent of the people for another forty or fifty years – a license for which they didn’t even apply.
I have said this before and it bears repeating: our national sport is the blame-game: we blame the “red” massacres on the Turks and on the indifference of the Great Powers; the “white” massacre (exodus from the Homeland and assimilation in the Diaspora) on “social, economic, and political conditions beyond our control”; our tribalism on our climate and geography; and now, our corruption on the Kremlin. During the Soviet era I don’t remember any one of our chic Bolsheviks in the Diaspora complaining about Soviet corruption. On the contrary. We were told we were in the best of hands and we never had it so good.
*
“Let’s not forget that, as a state, Armenia is only a new-born child.”
And yet, when it suits us, we claim to be one of the oldest civilizations, after which we brag about the fact that at a time when most of Europe lived in huts and caves, we enjoyed a Golden Age.
*
To those who explain and justify our criminal conduct, may I remind them that evil triumphs only when the majority adopt a passive stance and they justify their cowardice, moral moronism, and absence of vision by engaging in charlatanism.
#
Monday, September 25, 2006
**********************************************
ODIAN’S ARMENIANS
**********************************
On reading Yervant Odian’s COUNCILMAN’S WIFE (first serialized at the turn of the last century, later published in book form in 1921) one thing becomes abundantly clear: the Armenian community of Istanbul consisted of morally bankrupt schemers (I am being politically correct now, because “a bunch of degenerates” would be closer to the truth) who spent their lives backbiting and plotting against one another.
What has changed? As far as I can see, only one thing: we no longer have writers like Odian willing to write about what they see and experience. What we have instead are academics and self-appointed pundits who, afraid to deal with the dark side of our collective existence (please note that I am not saying community life) feel more comfortable and safe writing about the past, and if it’s not the Middle Ages, it’s the massacres, as if we were “history”– I use the word in its colloquial meaning.
*
Julien Green (1900-1998), Francophone American writer, on death: “It is only the liberation of the spirit from the flesh.”
*
On biography: “Slices of cold mutton.”
*
On first impressions: “They are not to be resisted or ignored. One should never come to terms with vulgar people and vulgar not only in manner but also in spirit.”
*
On the self: “We are strangers to ourselves from the day we are born, and we spend the rest of our lives trying to understand and adjust ourselves to him.”
*
On life: “What happens in the world is of little interest. What happens within, that’s what really counts.”
***
Bernard-Henri Levy (contemporary French philosopher): “Only jackasses and the dead have nothing to hide.”
***
Abdelwahab Meddeb (Tunisian writer and professor of literature): “Islamism is the most absolute fascism ever conceived by man.”
#
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
*********************************************
ON CORRUPTION AND RELATED ATROCITIES
****************************************************
If we need two generations to de-Sovietize ourselves, how many generations do we need to de-Ottomanize ourselves?
*
Corruption and cancer have this in common: unless surgically removed, they metastasize.
*
Where the corrupt are in charge, honesty will be outlawed.
Where the mediocre are in charge, excellence will be suppressed. Which is why to adopt a passive stance towards the corrupt and the mediocre is to condemn the nation to the death of a thousand cuts. As for those who like to brag about our resilience, adaptability, and instinct for survival: I suggest, to drag on a degraded existence is worse than death.
*
Do I repeat myself? Why not? How many times are our clichés and fallacies repeated? And I don’t mean harmless, infantile, and meaningless clichés, like first nation this and first nation that, but dangerous ones, like the one about two generations mentioned above….
*
Instead of meritocracy we have mediocracy, and instead of honesty we have charlatanism. A corrupt power structure conducts a genocidal policy towards all honest men as surely as Talaat did towards all innocent women and children. Now then, go ahead and parrot the two generations cliché with a clear conscience, if you can.
*
We were morally and politically right to rise against the Ottoman Empire. But we were dead wrong in our reliance on the verbal commitments of the Great Powers. Which means that even our so-called heroes behaved like dupes; even our so-called revolutionaries lacked self-reliance. And what could be more cowardly than heroes and revolutionaries who are afraid of free speech?
*
If you make a study of censorship and its victims (from Socrates to Solzhenitsyn) you may notice that its aim is to silence not charlatans and liars but men of integrity and truth. My final question is: Do you really believe some day in forty or fifty years our charlatans and parasites will see the light and usher in another Golden Age?
#
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
**********************************************
CONFESSIONS AND ADMISSIONS
********************************************
Somewhere along the line I decided that I knew not only everything I needed to know but also what others needed to know, and ever since then my life has been a concatenation of blunders, among them my decision to be not just a writer but an Armenian writer. I know now that the certainty of being right is the greatest source of error.
*
Socrates spent his entire life proving that we use words without knowing their meaning. When asked what he would do first were he called upon to rule a nation, Confucius is said to have replied, “To correct language.” In our own days, semanticists tell us we don’t even know how to use such simple and common words as “to be.” For example, one should not say “I am not good at math,” but “I didn’t receive good grades in math.”
*
What is history? What else but the clash of two sets of charlatans and their dupes?
*
Not being a historian I must rely on the testimony of historians, and when these historians contradict one another, common sense tells me to rely on historians who are in a better position to be objective and impartial. This automatically excludes all nationalist, tribal, and partisan historians.
*
In his efforts to silence me, one of our flunkeys with “leadership qualities” (if you can imagine such an absurdity), once said to me: “Do you really think you are the only writer who has been unfairly treated?” To which I replied: “Of course not. That’s why I speak with the strength of many.”
*
Since dialogue is anti-Armenian, it follows it is a waste of time to reason with a man you can silence.
#
##

TURKISH PM VOWS TO CONTINUE REFORMS ON FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS, FREEDOMS
People’s Daily Online, China
Sept 27 2006
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed Tuesday that his
government would continue reforms on the country’s fundamental rights
and freedoms, the semi-official Anatolia news agency reported.
“One of the most important aspects of our European Union (EU) process
is to establish fundamental rights and freedoms in Turkey, ” Erdogan,
who is also the leader of the ruling Justice and Development Party
(AKP), said at a parliamentary group meeting of the AKP.
“As you all know, it is not enough to change laws to establish
fundamental rights and freedoms. It requires a mental change, and
such a change takes time,” he was quoted by Anatolia as saying.
Referring to the much-debated Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code,
which sets out up to three years in jail penalties for insulting the
Turkish Republic, Erdogan signaled an amendment on the article.
“If legitimate rights and freedoms are limited while we try to prevent
offensive acts in implementation of the Article 301 of the Penal Code,
we will make the necessary amendments to the article,” Erdogan said.
Last week, the European Commission Representative to Turkey Hansjoerg
Kretschmer criticized Turkish army’s habit of intervening in many
civil affairs, including education and religion, attributing the lack
of expression freedom to Article 301.
“We insist that Article 301, which is the reason for the filing
of court cases on a number of people over expressing their ideas
in a democratic manner, should be removed or at least rewritten,”
said Kretschmer.
Noting that relations between Turkey and the EU have gained a dimension
when the bloc started entry negotiations with Turkey on Oct. 3, 2005,
Erdogan underlined that the EU adjustment laws would be high on agenda
in the new legislative year.
He also expressed the government’s determination in maintaining the
reform process without any interruption.
Erdogan’s remarks came as the report on Turkey’s progress towards
accession to the EU and the reforms, which was prepared by European
Parliament (EP) Turkey Rapporteur Camiel Eurlings, is being discussed
in the EP on Tuesday. The voting of the report is to take place
on Wednesday.
Earlier this month, the European Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee
approved Camiel Eurlings’ report on Turkey, which calls on Turkey to
recognize the Armenians genocide in the period between 1915 and 1923,
and to open its ports to Greek Cypriot traffic.
The draft report also insists that there are persistent shortcomings in
areas such as freedom of expression, religious, minority and women’s
rights in Turkey.

CIS FORCES STAGE DRILL AT NUCLEAR PLANT SECURITY IN ARMENIA
People’s Daily Online, China
Sept 27 2006
Security forces from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)
started an exercise on Tuesday in Armenia which focused on ensuring
the security of nuclear power plants.
The drill, code-named Atom Anti-Terror 2006, aimed “to reveal and
destroy sabotage groups that infiltrated the territory of Armenia and
seized a nuclear power plant in the city of Metsamor,” Boris Mylnikov,
chief of the CIS Antiterrorist Center, was quoted as saying by the
Itar-Tass news agency.
The exercise is being conducted at the Armyanskaya nuclear power
plant and runs through Friday.
Forces from the Armenian National Security Service and Russian Federal
Security Service’s special task center will act as “terrorists”
secretly moving in Armenia with plans to seize the Armyanskaya plant,
Mylnikov said.
When the “terrorists” were spotted, an Armenian motorized infantry
battalion and special forces would join hands to free the “seized”
nuclear power plant, he said.

TURKISH GENERAL INSISTS ARMY HAS ROLE IN POLITICS
Ian Traynor
The Guardian, UK
Sept 27 2006
A leading Turkish general issued a stinging attack on the centre-right
government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan by warning that the danger of
Islamism in the country was reaching “alarming” levels.
Defying EU demands for the military to keep out of politics, General
Ilker Basbug, chief of land forces, warned the Erdogan government that
the top brass still saw itself as the ultimate arbiter of Turkey’s
secularist constitution.
“The Turkish armed forces have always taken sides and will continue
to do so in protecting the national state, the unitary state and the
secular state,” he told a ceremony for cadets at a military academy
in Ankara. Islamists were “patiently and systematically” seeking to
erode the secularist order.
The robust defence of the military’s role in Turkish politics is
certain to affect an EU assessment of Turkey’s bid to eventually join
the EU.
The European commission is to issue a report card on Turkey in
November, delayed from next month, and is concerned about curbs on
freedom of expression, persecution of the large Kurdish minority
and the military’s interference in democratic politics, as well as
Turkey’s dispute with the EU members Greece and Cyprus over trade.
Other incidents yesterday showed Turkey ignoring EU criticism,
suggesting a rise in hostility ahead of elections next year.
Prosecutors filed new charges against the Turkish Armenian editor Hrant
Dink for “denigrating Turkishness”, an article in the penal code used
to muzzle writers and journalists and which Brussels wants scrapped.
In the largest Kurdish city in Turkey, Diyarbakir, the state put 56
Kurdish mayors on trial for appealing to Denmark to allow a Kurdish
exile television station to keep broadcasting.

INTER RAO UES BECOMES OWNER OF ARMENIAN ELECTRIC POWER GRID
Itar-Tass News Agency, Russia
Sept 26 2006
YEREVAN, September 26 (Itar-Tass) — Russia’s Inter RAO UES has come
to stay in Armenia, a country of economic growth, Chairman of the
Board of Directors Andrei Rappoport said on Tuesday.
The company has become the owner of the Armenian electric power grid,
which regulates the national distribution and selling of electricity.
Some 36,000 kilometers of power lines make deliveries to over 913,000
clients. The company is one of the largest taxpayers in Armenia.
“Inter RAO UES has made enough investments to feel comfortable,”
he said. Apart from the renovation of power lines and equipment, the
company will draft a program of future investments and a development
strategy.
Being the owner of a large part of the Armenian energy system, Inter
RAO UES will guarantee the stable deliveries of electric power,
he said.
“The skills and experience of Inter RAO UES in Russia and CIS countries
will upgrade the energy security of the republic,” Armenian Deputy
Energy Minister Iosif Isayan said.
Inter RAO UES acquired the entire stock of the Armenian Electric
Power Grids from the British-based Midland Resources Holding for $73
million. The Britons were in control of the Armenian company for the
past four years. The collection of electricity payments increased
to 99.4%, while electricity losses reduced from 21 to 16.1% over
that period.
The Unified Energy System of Russia (UES) owns 60% of electricity
facilities in Armenia, including the Sevan-Razdan cascade of hydropower
plants, company general director Yevgeny Dod told Itar-Tass. The
board of directors has approved the investment of $20 million in the
Armenian electric power grids.
The Russian company also manages finances of the Armenian nuclear
power plant. The power plant has overcome a crisis and become profit
making with the Russian company’s help, Dod said.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

POPE’S VISIT TO TURKEY: A UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY?
Zenit News Agency, Italy
Sept 26 2006
Interview With Bishop L. Padovese, Apostolic Vicar of Anatolia
ROME, SEPT. 26, 2006 (Zenit.org).- The apostolic vicar of Anatolia
believes that Benedict XVI’s visit to Turkey in November might be a
unique occasion to give a clear address on relations between Islam
and Christianity.
In this interview with ZENIT last Friday, Bishop Luigi Padovese, 59,
an assiduous scholar of the Church in Turkey, sketched a picture of
the state of that country, destination of the Pope’s fifth apostolic
trip abroad.
As apostolic vicar of Anatolia, he has been threatened and, four
months ago, a motorcyclist tried to run over him. He now has a police
escort when he goes out, which the Italian ambassador requested from
the governor of Antioch.
The bishop’s region of Anatolia is where an Italian missionary,
Father Andrea Santoro, was slain last February.
Q: What is the situation in Turkey?
Bishop Padovese: Turkey presents a composite picture, where the
presence of nationalist groups and the growing phenomenon of
Islamization, triggered by an economic situation that has been
degenerating, has fueled a closed attitude both in regard to
Christianity as well as to Europe.
We might think that in Turkey everyone is in favor of [the country’s]
entry into Europe, but instead, I am beginning to see that it isn’t
like that.
There are Muslim groups that believe that Turkey’s rapprochement to
Europe might make it lose its Muslim identity. In Turkey today, to be
a good Turk means to be a good Muslim. For such people, Turkey’s entry
into Europe might mean to be a good Turk but no longer a good Muslim.
Q: Do you think Muslims fear modernity?
Bishop Padovese: They use the instruments of modernity, but fear
losing their national identity, fruit of the work of conquest of
[Kemal] Ataturk [the first president of Turkey].
In my opinion, Turkish democracy, deep down, does not accept other
voices: It is democratic but in unison. This is explains why, all told,
minorities are hard-pressed to be accepted and recognized.
Q: And what is the situation with the Orthodox?
Bishop Padovese: The relationship with the Orthodox is quite good
because we are experiencing the same problems.
There is a certain accord linked to common problems, though I must
say that in regard to the Pope’s visit, the Ecumenical and Armenian
patriarchates have taken a stance that seems almost like a distancing
— an action justified for reasons of prudence, because in Turkey
there is no inclination to subtleties and no distinction is made
between Orthodox, Catholics and Protestants. Seen from outside, it
looks like a desire to wash one’s hands; seen from within, it is a
way of shielding the community from dangers and threats.
Q: What can be said about the Catholic community in Turkey?
Bishop Padovese: The Catholic presence is very limited and concentrated
in great centers: Istanbul, Smyrna, Mersin and Ankara, especially
among diplomats. There are parishes here and there, but frequented
by a few hundred faithful.
There is a Latin, Armenian-Catholic, Chaldean-Catholic and
Syro-Catholic Christianity. They belong to the Tradition and the
expressions of the different rights are kept, though in numerical
terms they are few.
Q: How do you assess the Holy Father’s forthcoming visit?
Bishop Padovese: The Holy Father’s visit is delicate — not problematic
due to questions of an ecumenical character, because from this point
of view an accord has already been reached. Moreover, there will be a
joint declaration by the Bishop of Rome and the patriarch of Istanbul.
The more complex questions regard the relationship between Christianity
and Islam, and what the Pontiff thinks of Turkey’s eventual entry into
Europe. Turkish media criticized the then Cardinal Ratzinger because,
according to them he is not in favor of Turkey’s entry into Europe.
Q: What do you think of the reactions to the lesson Benedict XVI gave
at the University of Regensburg?
Bishop Padovese: I fear that some in Turkey might wish to organize
a protest in view of the Pope’s arrival. For the fundamentalists it
is a very tempting occasion.
I read a statement of the person in charge of Turkish religious
affairs, who specified that Turkey will receive the Pontiff but as
a head of state, which means that the figure of the religious leader
fades into the background.
There are those who would prefer that the Pontiff not go to Turkey;
however, it is no longer an issue of opening a window to the Muslim
world but a balcony, to deliver a clear address on relations between
Islam and Christianity.
I am convinced that what was a problem might become an unrepeatable
occasion, a unique opportunity, because all the media of the Arab
countries will focus on what the Pope says. Some won’t be happy,
but at least they will refer to what the Holy Father affirms.
Q: In what way can the Western Christian community help the small
Turkish flock?
Bishop Padovese: We are a reality without a voice. The problem, which
the Pontiff also expressed on the occasion of Father Santoro’s death,
is that we are in Turkey without means of social communication.
Protestants have a TV channel and two or three radio stations. We
have nothing. This means that we cannot take a position and are even
unable to rectify anything falsely written or said against us. To
make rectifications I have had to contract a lawyer full time. I have
requested rectifications from two newspapers and they have done so, and
another, to avoid prosecution, will meet with me to present excuses.
Q: How is dialogue with Islam progressing?
Bishop Padovese: The situation is complicated because Islam has an
idea of reality that is all-encompassing and absorbing. And the
absolutism that Muslims advocate does not allow for any form of
dialogue or compromise.
There is a relationship with some people of the Muslim world. The
greatest problem is linked to the difficulty of different levels of
cultural and theological preparation. There are Islamic schools of
theology, but I have the impression that they are not at the level
of our own; we do not meet on the same plane.
The fact is that Islam does not allow exegesis of the Koran, while
Christianity allows exegesis of sacred Scripture.
So it happens that there is no true dialogue, only mutual knowledge.
A gathering of information from one side and the other, what we do
and what they do, but this isn’t genuine dialogue.
There is dialogue and cooperation in charitable and social works, but
when it comes to theological questions, then we are very far behind.
We have organized congresses on the images of Jesus and Mary in Islam,
but there were few Muslim participants — only people of a certain
cultural formation. Those imams with little theological preparation
did not participate. This is one of the big problems.
There is very little theological activity in Islam, which differs
according to the different schools. The difference is that we
Christians have a guiding magisterium; [Muslims], instead, don’t have
it and it is individual theologians who decide.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress