San Francisco Chronicle, CA
Aug. 12, 2006
A window into rich life of Cairo apartments
Reviewed by John Freeman
Sunday, August 13, 2006
The Yacoubian Building
By Alaa Al Aswany, translated by Humphrey Davies
HARPERCOLLINS; 253 PAGES; $13.95 PAPERBACK
All novels contain invisible cities, even those set in actual
metropolises. “Ulysses” does not unfold in Ireland but in James
Joyce’s mind. The same goes for the sprawling, heaving Cairo depicted
in Alaa Al Aswany’s tremendously likable new novel, “The Yacoubian
Building.”
At the heart of the book is a once-glamorous, now run-down apartment
complex built by an Armenian millionaire. Unlike in New York, where
higher floors come at a premium, the Yacoubian rooftop bows under the
weight of makeshift shanties that house the poor. “The children run
around all over the roof barefoot and half naked,” writes Al Aswany,
with a sweep of his narrative hand, “and the women spend the day
cooking, holding gossip sessions in the sun, and, frequently,
quarreling.” The men return home from work “exhausted and in a hurry
to partake of their small pleasures — tasty hot food and a few pipes
of tobacco (or hashish if they have the money).”
The third pleasure, of course, is sex, and the vibrations from it
rattle through the rafters to the floorboards, from the poor down to
the rich, giving this book a deliciously lewd throb. There is Zaki
Bey, a 65-year-old cosmopolitan playboy who has enjoyed more lovers
than Casanova, and Taha el Shazli, an ambitious businessman who takes
on a second wife to slake his lust.
The women get by, too. Busyana uses her feminine charms to get a
little extra money out of her boss at work, and then trades up by
making Zaki her lover. Souad, Taha’s new wife, retreats into memories
of her first husband when she is making love to her pompous new
husband, who can barely take his djellaba off some nights because he
is in such a welter of desire. In such moments, it is hard to forget
that she is essentially being paid for her affections.
Everyone is scheming in “The Yacoubian Building,” giving this novel
the shape and tone of a soap opera. Zaki’s sister Dalwat tries to get
him declared incompetent so she will have his large apartment all to
herself. Malak, a partially disabled shirt tailor, uses his
customers’ pity against them. Hatim Rasheed, the desiccated
aristocrat editor of Le Caire, a French Cairo weekly, goes to the gay
bar downstairs and lures men to his room with promises of riches.
When one of his lovers leaves him, he shouts: “You’re just a
barefoot, ignorant Sa’idi. I picked you up from the street, cleaned
you up, and I made you a human being.”
Ranging widely around his Cairo, Al Aswany describes the many ways
his characters scrabble against one another in this struggle to be
human. Some of them renounce the living world, like a young man who
is tortured for participating in a political protest. The experience
drives him into the hands of radical Islamic sheikhs, whose Wahhabi
interpretation of Islam is especially unkind to the fleshly urges.
If the novel makes any political point, it is that the restrictions
that such religious and cultural police put upon the bodies of Cairo
residents are just another slight against their humanity. For all the
compromises some of them make, Al Aswany argues that, for poor women
especially, sex gives them a chance to be alive. “They do not love it
simply as a way of quenching lust,” writes Al Aswany, “but because
sex, and their husbands’ greed for it, makes them feel that despite
all the misery they suffer they are still women, beautiful and
desired by their menfolk.”
Al Aswany can manage these soapbox asides because his narrative style
is digressive, and in confidence. Occasionally it seems as if an
indiscreet superintendent, jangling keys and all, is taking us around
the Yacoubian Building, whispering about secrets hushed up. This
vision of life connects high with low, rich with poor, through shared
vices and needs. The clandestine bars of Cairo attract the powerful
and the weak, for both desire the available women who serve the
drinks.
Cairo — at least the one where Al Aswany is mayor — has a choice:
to pay homage to its cosmopolitan roots and respect its diversity, or
close down and oppress its already suffering populations. Happily,
“The Yacoubian Building” does not attempt to fix these odds by
closing neatly. Some plotlines end abruptly, in tragedy, while others
simply vanish into the noise of the street. As in so many Jane Austen
novels, there is a wedding and a funeral, which bring with them an
appropriate mix of hope and despair. The difference here is this book
has shown us everything — and I mean everything — that has led up
to the wedding night.
John Freeman is president of the National Book Critics Circle.

Hindu, India
Aug. 13, 2006
Lebanon: How many times 1948?
ANJALI KAMAT
In October 2005, Lebanon saw demonstrations and heady hopes for a new
future. Where are those hopes now?
Qana carries a heavy symbolic weight in Lebanon.
I VISITED Lebanon twice this past year; first in October 2005 and
then, more recently, in May 2006. During my first trip, the country
was consumed by speculations over possible revelations in the first
report from the UN inquiry into the assassination of former Prime
Minister Rafiq al Hariri. It had been eight long months of explosions
and mourning – but also of million-strong demonstrations and heady
hopes for a new future. The day the report was released, Beirut was
practically under curfew. Driving along the former “green line,”
which had divided the city into the predominantly Christian East and
Muslim West during the civil war, Beirut’s empty streets seemed
stalked by fear, uncertainty, and an aggressive mix of memorialising
and amnesia.
As my gracious Armenian friend proudly showed me around her beautiful
city, we walked through the reconstructed alleys of central Beirut
and followed Hariri’s last footsteps – oddly memorialised in
Hollywood-style silver footprints – past rows of sunny cafes and
overpriced air-conditioned boutiques.
Stark contrast
This area, rebuilt under Hariri, was in stark contrast to the
bombed-out buildings that still haunt much of the city. These
remnants of the civil war, every remaining surface pockmarked with
dozens of bullet holes, stood like defiant reminders of the
unspeakable horrors of the war years – and of the lingering poverty
and disquiet – that the Lebanese seemed so determined to forget.
Every inch of wall space across the city was covered with glossy
pictures of both the “martyrs of the Independence Intifada,” the
vocal opponents of Syrian influence in Lebanon who had been
assassinated in the preceding months, as well as a motley crew of
controversial political figures: including former Christian warlords
Samir Geagea and Michel Aoun and Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Any remaining space was prominently occupied by English and Arabic
stickers demanding “The Truth,” in reference to the Hariri-family led
campaign to uncover the motives behind the assassinations between
February and October 2005 that claimed over two dozen lives.
Next to Hariri himself, the most popular poster was of the
charismatic Samir Kassir, a Palestinian-Lebanese leader of the
Democratic Left movement and a prominent intellectual who played an
active role in the popular and multi-confessional uprising in March
and April demanding government accountability and an end to Syrian
presence in Lebanon.
He was killed by a car bomb outside his home in the plush Christian
neighbourhood of Achrafieh on June 2, 2005. Critical of both
repressive Syrian power in Lebanon as well as the brutality of
American imperialism, he had become a hero of sorts for the secular,
democratic left across the Arab world. On seeing his pictures, my
fellow traveller, an outspoken Yemeni feminist, immediately ripped
one of them off the wall to take back home with her.
* * *
When I returned half a year later, the UN investigation, though still
ongoing, had slipped off the front pages, and the urgency created by
the assassinations and the “independence uprising” seemed to have
cooled off.
The political class was in the midst of a “national dialogue” and
politicians from the left and right, anti- and pro-Syrian, religious
and secular, Druze, Maronite, Orthodox, Sunni, and Shiite, many of
them once sworn enemies, were all talking to each other.
The rest of the country, it seemed, was trying very hard to put the
previous year behind them and concentrate on the World Cup and the
summer ahead. Beyond the immediate importance of one’s allegiance to
three most popular teams, Brazil, Italy, or Germany, people I talked
to were planning holidays, weddings, conferences, art shows, film
festivals, concerts, and their futures.
I too was content to let politics and history slide as I enjoyed the
breathtaking beauty of the Lebanese coastline and hillsides and
feasted on the finest seafood in the picturesque old port towns of
Jbeil and Saida. But ambling through the bustling alleys of the
Palestinian refugee camp of Sabra in search of a kuffiyeh – that
chequered symbol of Palestine solidarity – even as I entertained
fantasies of moving to Beirut, I woke back up to history. It was
here, and in the neighbouring camp of Shatila, that in September 1982
the Lebanese Phalangist militias, under the watchful eyes of Ariel
Sharon, massacred over 1,500 Palestinians – a people whom, in
Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish’s words, “the waves of forgetfulness
had cast upon the shores of Beirut.”
* * *
Today, a little over two months since my last visit to Lebanon, the
country has been plunged into chaos and in an ironic twist,
Palestinians in Sabra, Shatila, and elsewhere – Lebanon’s “unwelcome
guests” – have opened their camps to shelter a new generation of
refugees.
One month of Israeli air strikes, now combined with ground attacks,
has meant daily massacres, one million refugees, shattered
infrastructure, fears about the possible use of cluster bombs and
depleted uranium munitions, and a 15,000-tonne oil spill along
Lebanon’s coastline that former Greenpeace campaigner Wael Hmaidan
describes as the “biggest environmental catastrophe in the history of
the country.”
One of the most outrageous acts of Israeli aggression on Lebanon was
the indiscriminate bombing of an apartment building in Qana on July
30, that crushed some 60 civilians to death, over half of them
children. They died, under the rubble of a building they had sought
refuge in, when it collapsed after two air strikes in the middle of
the night.
Symbolic weight
Qana carries a heavy symbolic weight in Lebanon: ten years ago, this
mountain village, where Jesus was supposed to have once made water
into wine, was shelled by Israel, during its “Operation Grapes of
Wrath,” killing 106 civilians – again, more than half of them children
– seeking refuge at a UN shelter.
In the despairing words of Beiruti artist Mazen Kerbaj: “2,000 years
ago, in Qana, Jesus transformed water into wine; today in Qana, the
Israeli Air Force transformed children into ashes; today in Beirut, I
am unable to transform this page into a drawing.”
My Armenian friend asked me if Americans would still support
expedited deliveries of bombs to Israel if the US media had shown
them the horrifying images from Qana of dozens of dead children being
exhumed from the rubble. Like Robert Fisk, writing in The Independent
on July 31, she imagined that you had to have a “heart of stone to
not feel the outrage that those of us watching this experienced.” I’m
not sure how to convey my cynical sense that for Americans, and to
some extent people all over the world, weary of daily tragedies in
their inboxes and morning papers, what is happening in Lebanon, as
with Afghanistan, Gaza, Iraq, and Sudan, will soon become quite
“normal” – perhaps even rationalised as part of the endless “cycle of
violence” in a “naturally” turbulent region, or worse, a necessary
cost of the “war on terror.”
Powerful statement
Two weeks into the start of the Israeli assault, 70 Lebanese writers,
artists, journalists, academics, and filmmakers, circulated a
powerful statement against U.S.-supported Israeli impunity and the
normalisation of state terror. Building on a growing international
campaign for boycott, divestment, and sanctions, they called for
marginalising Israel – along the lines of movements against apartheid
South Africa – through “boycotting Israeli products and Israeli
academic and scientific institutions that do not condemn the Israeli
aggression against Lebanon.”
But even as people in Lebanon and around the world register their
protest, I can’t shake Palestinian artist Emily Jacir’s unsettling
words: “Is this all fodder for entertainment? Something for people to
write about, make art about, make films about, cry about, complain
about, shout about, and then go home and live while the bombs drop
and entire countries are destroyed? How many generations have to live
through these Israeli horrors? Watching the generation of my parents
having to re-live all this yet again … how many times 1948?”

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Aug. 12, 2006
Baku hosts international forum of Azerbaijani students abroad
[ 12 Aug. 2006 12:48 ]
The 6th international forum of Azerbaijani students studying abroad
was held in the capital Baku today, APA reports.
The forum with the motto `What can Azerbaijani youths do for
liberation of our lands?’ has brought together about 80 students
studying in 18 foreign countries.
BP-Azerbaijan company vice-president Rashid Javanshir making an
opening speech wished success to the forum participants.
Head of the London Azerbaijan Society Taleh Heydarov informed about
the priorities and future plans of the Society. He said the objective
of Azerbaijani students in London is to introduce Azerbaijan not only
as an oil-rich country but a state with rich historical traditions
and culture. The Society head also said their goal is to make public
Garabagh truths in the world and enhance efforts to solve the
problem.
Member of the Association of Azerbaijani Students in France Hamlet
Akbarov said the Association is expanding its activity as there is a
powerful Armenian Diaspora in France. He said they will further make
efforts to make public Azerbaijani truths all over the world.
Head of Coordinating Council for Russian Azerbaijanis Javid Mammadov
stressed the importance of having a strong Diaspora in Russia as
there exists a strong Armenian Diaspora. He said the objective of the
Council is to unite the potential of Azerbaijani youths and encourage
national spirit to solve the Nagorno Garabagh problem.
The participants also delivered reports on priorities of Azerbaijani
youths’ public activities as well as the priorities of Azerbaijani
students union in foreign countries. They exchanged views on the
settlement of the Nagorno Garabagh problem.
Member of the organizing committee Parviz Akbarov said to the APA the
forum has brought together students and society members from the
United States, Turkey, China, Japan and different European countries.
The goal is to get information on organizing activities of
Azerbaijani youths as well as exchange experience.
Akbarov also said they are planning to establish information resource
to connect our youths. The forum has website /APA/

New York Times, NY
Aug. 12, 2006
Writers on Trial

By MAUREEN FREELY
Published: August 13, 2006
Elif Shafak is a Turkish novelist who has spent much of her life in
Europe and the United States. She fills her books with characters who
defy all orthodoxy, and in her journalism she lives by the same code,
mixing feminism and nuanced political analysis with a deep interest
in Ottoman culture. She has been much criticized by literary purists
for using words of Arabic and Persian origin that the reformers of
the early republic worked so hard to expunge, and for drawing on Sufi
traditions that continue to inform popular culture 80 years after
those same reformers banned Turkey’s dervish sects. She has a
particular genius for depicting backstreet Istanbul, where the myriad
cultures of the Ottoman Empire are still in tangled evidence on every
family tree.
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Elif Shafak
Readers’ Opinions
Forum: Book News and Reviews
In her sixth and most recent novel, `The Bastard of Istanbul,’ which
is already a best seller in Turkey and will be published in the
United States by Viking next year, one character declares: `My father
is Barsam Tchakhmakhchian, my great-uncle is Dikran Stamboulian, his
father is Varvant Istanboluian, my name is Armanoush Tchakhmakhchian,
all my family tree has been Something Somethingian, and I am the
grandchild of genocide survivors who lost all their relatives in the
hands of Turkish butchers in 1915, but I myself have been brainwashed
to deny the genocide because I was raised by some Turk named
Mustapha!’ These are strong words in a country whose official
historians maintain that the Armenian genocide at the hands of Turks
is itself a fiction. In February 2005, when Orhan Pamuk, Turkey’s
most famous novelist, said in passing to a Swiss journalist that `a
million Armenians had been killed in these lands, and I am the only
one who talks about it,’ he was branded a traitor and prosecuted for
`denigrating Turkishness.’ Shafak must have known that she was
risking the same, as she has frequently challenged Turkey’s treatment
of its minorities. In September, she spoke at a conference at Bilgi
University in Istanbul – the first Turkish conference ever to
challenge the official line on the Ottoman Armenians – and though she
went on to state her own position clearly and unequivocally in
several newspapers, the censors left her alone. But early last month,
Shafak learned that she was to be prosecuted for, among other things,
allowing a character of partly Armenian heritage in `The Bastard of
Istanbul’ to utter the forbidden G-word. Her trial is scheduled for
Sept. 21.
Since its inception in 1923, the Turkish Republic has policed its
writers fiercely. Its penal code, taken from Mussolini’s Italy, puts
serious curbs on freedom of expression, but Turkey’s leading writers
have never toed the line. The great modernist poet Nazim Hikmet spent
much of his adult life in prison and died in exile. The novelist
Yashar Kemal, for many decades Turkey’s most famous writer, has been
serially harassed and prosecuted. During the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s, so
many writers, journalists and scholars were imprisoned for their
views that a prosecution became a badge of honor: if you had not yet
angered the state, then perhaps you hadn’t said anything of
importance.
But 18 months ago, the rules of the game looked set to change. The
European Union had at last set a date for talks on Turkish accession.
The long conflict with Kurdish separatists was apparently over, and
the Kurds had been accorded limited cultural rights. Encouraged by
the prospect of entry into the European Union, other previously
silent Muslim and non-Muslim minorities were beginning to make
themselves heard. It was finally possible to tap the rich
multicultural Ottoman legacies that nationalist ideology had so long
repressed. There was a new vogue for family memoirs. Some showed how
peacefully the empire’s diverse `nations’ had once coexisted. Others
– like Fethiye Cetin’s `My Grandmother,’ in which the author recounts
her discovery that her grandmother was in fact Armenian – explored
suppressed histories. In Europe, a new generation of bicultural Turks
were mixing Turkish and Ottoman traditions with European forms and
winning prestigious prizes. As Pamuk’s star rose in the West, many
other Turkish novelists – Shafak, Latife Tekin, Asli Erdogan and
Perihan Magden – had their works translated. All were writing
sophisticated fiction that refused to conform to national – or
nationalist – modes.
In so doing, they seemed to be reflecting the mood of the country as
a whole. An overwhelming majority wanted to join the European Union.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the pro-market, pro-Europe Islamist prime
minister, had committed himself to a new penal code that promised to
bring Turkey into line with European norms. The hope was that the
European Union process would force the ossified machinery of state to
modernize.
What few people predicted was that the new penal code would become
the vehicle for backlash by expanding curbs on freedom of expression.
Article 301 recommends sentences of up to three years for those
convicted of `denigrating Turkishness’ or insulting the judiciary or
other state organs, while other articles make it an offense to insult
the memory of Ataturk or `seek to alienate people from military
service.’ A recently revised antiterror law is so broadly written
that it will, human rights groups claim, make it a crime to espouse
any view that is shared by an outlawed group or even to publish a
statement by an illegal organization.
To date, there have been more than 60 cases brought against
novelists, publishers, journalists, scholars, politicians and
cartoonists. Hrant Dink, the editor of the Turkish-Armenian weekly
Agos, currently has two cases against him open. The publisher Fatih
Tas is on trial for publishing a book (by the political scientist
John Tirman of M.I.T.) that takes a critical look at the Turkish
Army. Two eminent professors faced charges for saying, in a
never-published government-commissioned report, that Turkey’s
treatment of its minorities fell short of European standards, while
the magazine Penguen and one of its cartoonists were prosecuted for
portraying the prime minister as a kitten and an elephant, among
other animals.
So far, no one has been sent to prison. Some defendants have been
acquitted; others, like Pamuk, have seen their cases dropped on
technicalities, while many have been given suspended sentences that
were then converted to fines. But to assume that writers have nothing
to fear is to underestimate the forces behind these prosecutions.
It is still not clear how Article 301 found its way into the new
penal code, but the Unity of Jurists, an ultranationalist lawyers
group, is behind most of the high-profile prosecutions. Its main
spokesman is a lawyer named Kemal Kerincsiz. His rabidly xenophobic
sound bites have turned him into a national celebrity, and his words
are echoed by the thugs who have taunted, assaulted and insulted
defendants and observers in the corridors of the courthouses,
denouncing them as traitors and `missionary children’ (a reference to
the foreign schools many of the defendants attended) and spouting
racist slogans that call to mind Berlin in 1935, while the riot
police look on.
In certain corners of the state apparatus there must be others who
believe, like Kerincsiz, that `the European Union means slavery and a
prisoner’s chains for Turkey.’ They must be rejoicing that the trials
have seriously damaged the case for Europe inside Turkey, while also
giving fodder to anti-
Turkish nationalists in Europe. Most of all, they must be pleased
that the European Union has now signaled that the 301 trials are
serious impediments to accession.
This is not a tug of war between East and West as the West likes to
understand it: while some of Turkey’s new ultranationalists are
Islamists, most are old-guard, die-hard secularists. The battle is
about democracy, with supporters of European Union membership hoping
for peaceful change and opponents hoping for a return to
authoritarian rule.
How best to help the writers caught in the middle? Because Kerincsiz
and his colleagues have successfully labeled foreign trial observers
as spies and agitators, many in Turkey believe that non-Turkish human
rights groups should keep their mouths shut. But if the
ultranationalists are allowed to continue their campaign
unchallenged, they stand a very good chance of winning. And if they
do, the oldest stable secular state in the Muslim world will cease to
democratize, and a brave new literature will die.
Maureen Freely is the author of five novels and the translator of
Orhan Pamuk’s `Snow,’ `Istanbul’ and `The Black Book.’ She teaches
creative writing at the University of Warwick.

ITAR-TASS News Agency
August 12, 2006 Saturday 03:33 PM EST
Monument to plane crash victims erected in Armenia
Tigran Liloyan
YEREVAN
A monument to the victims of Armavia’s Airbus-320 plane crash in the
Black Sea was erected in Yerevan on Saturday.
This is a traditional Armenian khachkar (stone stele with an inlaid
cross) and a water spring at the base. A memorial park will be build
around the monument.
All 105 passengers and eight crewmembers died in the May 3 crash.

The Fresno Bee (California)
Distributed by Knight/Ridder Tribune News Service
August 12, 2006 Saturday
A mobile ministry: Holy rollers help churches reach out to unchurched
car enthusiasts.
by Ron Orozco, The Fresno Bee, Calif.
Aug. 12–Many people have their minds on shish kebab, lulu burgers
and other food on a recent Sunday at the annual congregational picnic
of St. Paul Armenian Church of Fresno.
But in a grassy area nearby, Jackie Phillips of Kerman gets an early
start at the picnic’s classic- car show. She can’t take her eyes off
a 1957 Imperial Crown automobile shining in the afternoon sun.
“It’s the era — big boat,” she says of the car’s appeal. “And the
colors,” she says of the paint job, white with aqua trim.
Phillips, former director of Classic Thunderbirds International car
club, says her interest in classic cars is a key reason she accepted
her daughter’s invitation to the congregational picnic, which follows
the annual Blessing of the Grapes ceremony, at California Armenian
Home in east Fresno.
Many churches and faith-based organizations present car shows as
fundraisers and as bridges to connect with people, such as Phillips,
who normally wouldn’t attend a church event.
The car shows usually are designed to be carnivallike events,
offering food, music and activities for children. Organizers say the
atmosphere makes it easier for visitors and congregants to make
connections.
Northside Christian Church in Clovis has been presenting an annual
classic-car show for six years as a community outreach. Hundreds of
visitors converge each year on the church grounds on East Nees
Avenue. The most recent show was held June 24, when money from 90
car-entry fees helped to raise support to send 10 underprivileged
children to a weeklong summer camp.
“We want people to know Northside is not a stuffy church, but it has
fun, too,” says Bill Lerma, who, as Northside car-show organizer,
joins the fun by showing his purple-blue, 1929 Ford two-door hot rod.
“The shows bring some people to just see our church and what it is
about,” Lerma says. “We tell them our church service times, and say,
‘Bring your family.’ ”
Horacio Aleman Sr., who founded the Reedley-based Cruising for Jesus
car ministry in 1996, says classic-car shows have taken a long road
to popularity.
Ten years ago, not all churches and faith-based organizations bought
into the concept, Aleman says. They were leery of what was perceived
to be potentially rough crowds interested in street rods, motorcycles
and low-rider cars.
“When I first started, I was an abomination to the church,” Aleman
says.
Things have changed, however. Car shows now are designed to appeal to
families. For example, pony rides were available in an area next to
the classic cars displayed at the St. Paul Armenian Church event.
“America is into cars — that’s why the Lord put it in to my heart to
start the shows,” Aleman says. “People love all cars — low-rider,
hot rods, racers. My shows draw to all cultures. When you do that and
bring in Jesus, it works.
“It was a no-no when I first started,” he says. “Now, everyone is so
hungry to have them, I can’t keep up.”
>From its fleet, Cruising for Jesus enters classic cars in shows
nationwide. The ministry also holds its annual classic-car show,
which will be next Saturday at Mueller Park in Reedley. Nearly 300
classic cars will be displayed.
During the summer months, Valley churches or faith-based
organizations present a car show per weekend, sometimes two.
NorthPointe Community Church will hold its annual That ’50s Thing car
show Sunday on its church grounds in northwest Fresno.
Organizers want to trigger people’s memories by providing a live
oldies band and having hamburgers available for sale. Proceeds will
benefit the church’s student ministries department.
The Rev. Bruce Hood, founder of Feed My Sheep Ministries of Fresno,
organizes six classic-car shows a year. He says people’s faces light
up while viewing the cars, particularly custom ones, chromed-down.
“You’ve got to like an array of them all lined up together,” Hood
says. “It’s something that causes people to say, ‘Wow.’ ”
Hood says Feed My Sheep Ministries partners with other faith-based
organizations to hold car shows that also draw attention to community
concerns, such as violence and gang activity.
For example, Feed My Sheep Ministries presented a Stop the Violence
car show at Madera Courthouse Park. More than 2,000 people attended
the event, which featured 100 cars, 40 motorcycles and 30 bicycles.
Members of Victory Outreach Church also gave a dramatic presentation.
Some members also talked about their faith conversions. Proceeds from
car entry fees of $5 to $15 benefited the Madera Rescue Mission.
“Some people can live next to a church but don’t even know the people
who go to the church or the pastor,” Hood says. “The car shows put
the community in touch with the church. It’s a good tool.”
Feed My Sheep Ministries will hold its annual classic car show Sept.
2 at Manchester Center in Fresno.
At the recent St. Paul Armenian Church event, Phillips says she is OK
with churches and faith-based groups holding car shows, in part, to
get to know people who may not normally attend a church event.
“Car shows are of interest to more and more people,” Phillips says.
“They get people to come out.”
More than six years ago, St. Paul Armenian Church member Tim
Kuckenbaker persuaded church officials to try the classic-car show at
the congregational picnic strictly as a fundraiser. He has been
car-show chairman since.
“I just wanted to add something to the event,” Kuckenbaker says.
This year’s proceeds from entry fees will go toward buying new
uniforms and equipment for the church’s high school boys basketball
team, which competes in a church league.
Phillips isn’t the only visitor with a keen sense of classic cars.
Bob Thompson stops to admire the blue 1971 GTO. He owned a 1966 GTO
that he rebuilt himself.
“This brings back memories,” Thompson says.
Thompson’s friend, Janet Crandall, says, “I’d like to get in that and
take it for a ride.”
Thompson and Crandall both say they can understand why some churches
and faith-based organizations hold classic-car shows as a friendly
means to connect with people.
“I’ve been to camp meetings where there was sawdust on the floor,”
Crandall says, adding that her father is a retired Assemblies of God
minister, and her brothers form the Crandall Brothers gospel singing
group.
“I’m just glad churches are doing this,” she says.
Classic-car owners such as Bob Der Mugrdechian, a member of St. Paul
Armenian Church, have feelings similar to Crandell’s.
Der Mugrdechian sits in a lawn chair next to his gray 1951 Plymouth
Suburban. He gives out plenty of smiles and handshakes.
“I just want to share the pleasure of my car with others,” he says.
“It makes them happy.”

A ug 9 2006
A Day in the Life of a Relief Center Volunteer: Armenian Activist
Reports from Beirut

Maral Mgrditchian sent us this exclusive report on her experiences
with Mowatinun, a relief organization staffed by young activists from
across the Lebanese confessional spectrum.
As I try to make my way through a small crowd of people to get to
the abandoned building where Mowatinun has set camp, I hear them ask
for a so-called “Nayla”, whom they have probably never met before,
and wouldn’t recognize if they saw her, but have heard about by word
of mouth. They must have heard, as many have before, that they need
to ask for “Nayla from Mowatinun” to seek for help.

These people standing outside the alley will most probably come to
add to the list of more than 4000 people Mowatinun is already taking
care of, a number which is increasing by the day with each
bombardment of a new area in the South of the country, or in Beirut.

Inside the building, the central hall on the first floor is full of
young volunteers. Everyone is busy. Some are preparing food units to
be sent to the registered families, while the medical unit is taking
care of organizing the medication supplies to be coupled with the
food. Going up, the second floor is bustling with another group
dealing with administrative issues such as fundraising, budgeting,
accounting, web developing, contacting the displaced families…

A volunteer comes running up announcing the arrival a food supply
delivery that needs to be brought to the warehouse. So everyone
leaves his/her assigned original task in order to form a human chain
connecting the supplies truck to the warehouse. The only missing
person is me as I’m off to meet the supplier and settle the invoice.

Looking at the invoice, I notice red dashes on several products.
Those are the products that he (and most probably all our suppliers)
has run out of. No more tuna, sardine, infant milk and diapers for
babies. They are either not available on the market, or they have
become too expensive.

Our supplies are getting scarce, as are the means to transport them.
Volunteers who use their own cars to deliver the supplies to the
families dispersed in Beirut and its suburbs, are currently extremely
worried that if in two days fuel is not delivered to the country, it
will be impossible for them to accomplish their task.
It is really inspiring to see how the spontaneous initiative of a few
devoted Lebanese citizens could attract, in a few days, such a
significant amount of young volunteers working restlessly, and thus
gaining the trust of donors, nationally and internationally. Those
donors are, as a matter of fact, a crucial factor in nurturing
Muwatinun’s ongoing vigor in its commitment to assist our displaced
citizens and to overcome the current humanitarian crisis.
Maral Mgrditchian
Accounts Manager, Mowatinun

A ug 6 2006
Armenian Activist Reports from Anti-War Protest in NYC

Photo by Aramazt Kalayjian On Saturday 8/5/06 at 4 pm, an Anti-War
protest took place in Times Square, NYC. The rally was sponsored by
Al-Awda, NY; the Arab American Muslim Federation; Defend Palestine
NY; International Action Center; NJ Solidarity Activists for the
Liberation of Palestine; Jorge Marin, Martin Luther King, Jr,
Bolivian Circle; Josue Renaud, NE Human Rights Org. For Haiti, Chuck
Turner of Boston City Council.
The attendance was much more significant then at the previous rally
held in front of Israel’s Mission to the UN, not only because it was
held on a weekend day but also due to the fact that the outreach
through emails had been more effective and widespread. The relative
small attendance by the Arab community can be ascribed to this group
having been so closely monitored and persecuted by the US authorities
that many are now afraid (especially those with a precarious visa
status) to be seen as supporters of any Arab cause.

The protesters were easily in excess of a thousand. The Armenian
contingent was made of about 12 individuals, almost all familiar
faces from the Armenian and the Left Conference. Many held signs that
said “Armenians in solidarity with Lebanon.” We discussed the current
political situation, exchanged information, as well as listened to
the speakers.
As was the case with the previous protest-rally, this one too was
packed with energetic slogans and chants. The speeches came from
various ethnic, religious, and human rights groups and the speakers
expressed their solidarity with the Lebanese and Palestinian people
while condemning Israeli and US policies. There were speakers
representing Iranians, Cubans, Palestinians, Arabs, LGBT, Filipino,
African-Americans, Orthodox Jews, etc. as well as those representing
the various leftist organizations that sponsored the rally.
The most memorable and poignant speeches were those by Rashid Khalidi
and Ramsey Clark. The latter asked that we cut US military budget by
70% so the US can offer better education and universal free health
care to children rather than kill children with US made bombs.

Unlike the Boston rally on 8/2 there were no Armenian speakers in NYC
— something that needs to be changed. The rally ended with a march
to the Exxon-Mobile building.
Maro Matossian

A ug 3 2006
Armenian Activist Speaks at Boston Rally for Lebanon
Boston, MA – On August 2, around 200 demonstrators gathered in Copley
Square in front of the monument dedicated to the Lebanese-American
poet Gibran Khalil Gibran, to demand an immediate ceasefire in
Lebanon. This was the third rally held at Copley Square in the past
three weeks. The protestors lined Dartmouth street for several hours,
waving Lebanese flags and chanting “stop the bombing now! ceasefire
now!” or “not another nickel, not another dime, no more funding for
Israel’s crime!” and – for those of you who speak Arabic, “bassita,
shou sar, lubnan metl el nar!”
The first speaker was Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner. Then a
number of young people recently returned from Lebanon spoke about
their experiences of this latest war. The last speaker was one of the
organizers of the Armenians and the Left conference. Her rousing
speech, reproduced below, was one of the best received at the rally.
The protest ended with a candlelight vigil.
Thus spoke Alik:
I am a Lebanese-Armenian-American, and I have five questions to
president George Bush.
Mr. President,
Why is it that you endlessly bring up Israel’s right to exist to
support its barbaric attacks that are destroying Lebanon and the
Lebanese people?
Is it because you think Lebanon does not have that same right to
exist?
Why is it that you are so excited about this UN Resolution 1559 that
you so enthusiastically support Israel’s illegal war on a whole
nation?
How come you and your predecessors didn’t give a damn about UN
Resolution 425, which called for the withdrawal of Israeli Forces
from Southern Lebanon for 22 years, and which was finally imposed by
force by the people whom you call terrorists.
Is it because you think the rights of the Lebanese do not matter?
Why is it that the killing of more than 800 Lebanese civilians does
not move you enough to call for an immediate cease-fire?
Is it because they are dark-skinned?
Is it because some of them wear headscarves?
Or do you think that they were used as human shields and therefore
were responsible for their own deaths?
Why is it that you so easily believe that the Lebanese are able to
use their own family members as human shields?
Why do you so easily believe that the Lebanese sacrifice their women,
children and elderly like sheep?
Is it because you do not think they are human?
And finally, Mr. President,
If the bombing of Israeli civilians is terrorism, why is it that you
call the aerial bombing of a minibus driving Lebanese civilians to
safety COLLATERAL DAMAGE?
What about the bombing of Lebanese children who were sleeping in a
shelter, thinking they were safe?
What do you call the bombing of an ambulance with a giant red cross
on its top?
Why isn’t THAT terrorism?
Is it because the lives of innocent Lebanese civilians are less
valuable than those of Israelis?
Or is it because you are RACIST?
And to us, the people who are horrified when they witness the loss of
innocent human lives, the people who are angered when they witness the
destruction of a whole nation, the people who are outraged when they
witness the indifference of world leaders, here’s what Martin Luther
King Jr. would have probably said to comfort us:
“The arc of history is long, but it bends towards Justice.”

“If We Can’t Use Our Fleet at a Time of Crisis, What’s the Point of
Keeping It There?”

ArmRadio.am
12.08.2006 14:12
Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Defense Committee and the head of
the State Duma Working Group on Legislative Support for the Operation,
Financial Welfare and Social Guarantees of Military Servicemen,
Civilian Personnel and Their Dependents, Mikhail Babich, speaks in an
interview with Gazeta correspondent Madina Shavlokhova about how the
legislative branch plans to solve the problems facing the military.
Q: How many military bases does Russia have in the near abroad now?
A: There are three to four bases in Central Asia. There are bases in
Armenia, Belarus and Ukraine. The Russian Black Sea Fleet is stationed
in Sevastopol.
Q: Has the status of our bases outside the country been determined?
A: Yes. There are international agreements ratified by the parliaments
of all countries where we have our military contingents. Everything is
all right with their legal status. But there are some problems in
details.
Q: Where do we have most of all problems?
A: In Ukraine. But politics have nothing to do with this. There are
other reasons that come to the fore. For example, the size of the
lease payment for the use of the Black Sea Fleet’s base.
Q: Wasn’t the size of the lease payment determined in the middle of
the 1990s when the agreement on the division of the Black Sea Fleet
between Russia and Ukraine was signed?
A: It was. We divided the Fleet in accordance with the previously
agreed-upon terms. The size of the lease payment was determined in
1997. But today our Ukrainian colleagues say the economic situation
has changed and the lease payment should be much higher. This is wrong
because Russia, as a legal successor to the Soviet Union, assumed many
obligations and honors them. Our position is clear: increasing the
lease payment for the Black Sea Fleet’s base is out of the
question. One must not forget whose financial resources have been
invested in the development of this base and who paid Ukraine’s debts
to the European Union for the use of the Black Sea.
Q: Is this where our disagreements with Ukraine end?
A: I wish it were so! There are many disagreements over social
guarantees to military servicemen, the privatization of their housing,
and dual citizenship of our military. The State Duma Defense
Committee, jointly with the Defense Ministry of Russia, has prepared
two bills: “On Social Guarantees for Military Servicemen Undergoing
Military Service in Military Units of the Russian Federation Stationed
in the Territories of the Republic of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and
Kyrgyzstan, and Civilian Personnel of These Units” and “On the Terms
of Mandatory Pension, Social, and Health Insurance of Civilian
Personnel, Members of Military Families within Military Units of the
Russian Federation Deployed in the Territories of CIS Member States.”
The first bill has gone through all stages approval in the government
and will be submitted to the State Duma this fall. The draft budget
for 2007 already envisages funds for its implementation. The second
bill has not yet been discussed with ministries.
Q: Several years ago our ships stationed in the Sevastopol Bay were
not let out to take part in military exercises. Has anything changed?
A: We no longer have such acute situations. But then, the Fleet is
different and Russia’s policy is tougher. I can hardly imagine any
forces trying to prevent our Fleet from carrying out its missions. And
yet from time to time there emerge different frictions over the use of
military infrastructure, airspace or training ranges.
Q: Can the Russian Fleet be used for psychological pressure in an
international conflict, for example in the Georgian-Abkhazian
conflict?
A: This is one of the disputable issues. For example, there is an
emergency situation where the Fleet has to be used for its direct
purpose. Our Ukrainian colleagues think that if Ukraine assumes a
neutral position in such a conflict, Russia may not use its Black Sea
Fleet. And if Russia does otherwise, Ukraine will press for an early
withdrawal of the Russian Fleet from its territory. A fleet or any
military unit is deployed in a certain place in order to be used in
the interests of the state wherever necessary. There are relevant
international practices. If we cannot use our fleet at a time of
crisis, what’s the point of keeping it there.”
Official Kremlin Int’l News Broadcast
August 10, 2006 Thursday