BAKU: “Residents of houses in occupied regions may have been relocat

Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
March 7 2005

“Residents of houses in occupied regions may have been relocated”

Baku, March 4, AssA-Irada

The OSCE fact-finding mission, which held a one-week monitoring in
seven occupied regions of Azerbaijan early in February, confirmed
numerous facts relating to the illegal settlement of Armenians, the
President~Rs special envoy on the Upper Garabagh conflict, Deputy
Foreign Minister Araz Azimov, told a news conference Friday.

The mission members did not see residents of the refurbished houses
while visiting the Lachin, Zangilan, Jabrayil, Kalbajar and Gubadly
regions. These people may have been instructed to temporarily leave
the area prior to the mission~Rs arrival, Azimov said.

The mission is expected to make public its final report on March 16.*

ASBAREZ Online [03-07-2005]

ASBAREZ ONLINE
TOP STORIES
03/07/2005
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WEBSITE AT <;HTTP://

1) ANCA Web Fax Campaign Urges Pres. Bush to Speak With Moral Clarity on the
Armenian Genocide
2) ARF Bureau Member Meets with PES Secretary General
3) EU Raps Turkey on Police Violence
4) Former US Envoy Backs Armenian Genocide Recognition
5) Turkey Accused of Misleading EU over Resettlement
6) Turkey Renames ~QArmenian~R Animals

1) ANCA Web Fax Campaign Urges Pres. Bush to Speak With Moral Clarity on the
Armenian Genocide

WASHINGTON, DC–In light of discrepancy in policy of US complicity in Turkey’s
denial of the Armenian genocide in recent weeks, the Armenian National
Committee of Armenia began its WebFax Campaign asking for moral clarity and
principled leadership in the coming weeks.
On the 90th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, send a free ANCA WebFax
urging President Bush, once and for all, to bring an end to the shameful
policy
of US complicity in Turkey’s denial of the Armenian genocide.
The letter asks Pres. Bush ~Sto adopt a new approach to our nation’s policies
on the proper recognition, official commemoration, and contemporary
implications of the first genocide of the 20th century.~T
It also urges the President to ~Sabandon the policy of opposing legislative
and
other initiatives–in Congress, at the state level, and by municipal
governments–to recognize and commemorate the Armenian Genocide, as well as
end
all forms of official US complicity in Turkey’s campaign of genocide denial,
and use the full moral standing and geopolitical influence of the White House
to press Turkey to acknowledge this crime, accept its responsibilities, and
come to terms with the Armenian nation.~T
In February 2000, then presidential candidate George W. Bush (campaigning for
votes among Armenian voters in the Michigan Republican primary) pledged to
properly characterize the genocidal campaign against the Armenian people. In
subsequent statements, Pres. Bush has consistently evaded references to the
Armenian genocide and consistently opposed legislation marking this crime
against humanity.
In February of this year, US Ambassador to Armenia John Marshall Evans, in
town hall meetings with Armenian communities in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Los
Angeles, Fresno and San Francisco, spoke openly and candidly about the
Armenian
genocide. Under apparent pressure from the Turkish government and its
surrogates, he later issued a statement noting that his private views on this
subject did not represent a change in official US policy.
Send an ANCA WebFax asking the President to honor his pledge to properly
recognize the Armenian genocide by visiting
<;

2) ARF Bureau Member Meets with PES Secretary General

YEREVAN (Yerkir)–ARF Bureau Member Mario Nalbandian met with the Secretary
General of the Party of European Socialists (PES), Philip Cordery, at the
organization’s headquarters.
The two Socialist leaders spoke about the political situation in Armenia,
Turkey’ accession to the European Union (EU), and the EU’s “New neighborhood
Wider Europe” policy.
After a brief presentation about the ARF, Nalbandian discussed the ARF’s role
in the governmental coalition, stressing the party’s aim of promoting
stability
and democracy.
Regarding Turkey’s European Union candidacy, Nalbandian noted the importance
of the recognition of the Armenian genocide by Turkey during the negotiations
between Brussels and Ankara. He said that “this issue is not emotional, but
rational.”
He explained that Turkey’s aggressive policy against Armenia and Armenians is
linked to the genocide itself, and asked the Party of European Socialists to
closely scrutinize Turkey’s actions as part of the broader effort to guarantee
the security and stability of the South Caucasus.

3) EU Raps Turkey on Police Violence

ANKARA (Reuters)–The European Union has condemned the use of violence by
Turkish police against women demonstrators and urged Turkey to fully implement
all human rights reforms aimed at preparing the country for EU membership.
Television footage showed Turkish police kicking and beating women’s rights
protesters on Sunday during an unauthorized demonstration in Istanbul just as
senior EU officials arrived in the country for three days of talks on Turkey’s
EU bid.
“We have been very concerned to see such disproportionate use of force
against
demonstrators,” said Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn. Luxembourg
holds the EU’s rotating presidency.
Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul promised a full investigation into the
incident and said Turkey remained fully committed to meeting all EU norms
as it
prepares for entry negotiations, which are due to start on October 3.
Asselborn urged Turkey to keep up the momentum of its reforms, including a
‘zero tolerance’ policy towards torture and full property rights for
non-Muslim
religious groups.
Gul rejected recent criticism by EU officials and Turkish media that Ankara
has been dragging its feet over the EU process since winning its October 3
date
for talks at a historic summit in Brussels last December.
He attributed the impression of recent inactivity to the big reform push
ahead
of the December summit, jokingly comparing Turkey to a “doped-up” athlete
racing for the finishing line.
“Now we continue our work at a more normal pace,” he said.

4) Former US Envoy Backs Armenian Genocide Recognition

YEREVAN (RFE-RL)–A retired diplomat who served as the United States’ first
ambassador to Armenia has joined calls for the international recognition of
the
Armenian genocide, echoing surprise statements on the subject made by the
current head of the US mission in Yerevan.
Over the weekend, Ambassador Harry Gilmore said the extermination of an
estimated 1.5 million Armenians in Ottoman Turkey fits the definition of
genocide set by the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of
Genocide.
“There is no doubt that the Armenian events were genocide,” Gilmore said.
“Of course, we have to bear in mind that the Genocide Convention came well
after the events in the Ottoman Empire,” he added. “I think legally there
is no
question of the convention applying retroactively. But the key point is that
the convention sets up a standard and the massacres and deportations of the
Ottoman Armenians meet that standard fully.”
Gilmore argued that Raphael Lemkin, the Jewish author of the word “genocide,”
referred not only to the Jewish Holocaust but also the events of 1915-1918
when
he came up with the concept following the Second World War. “In fact, when Mr.
Lemkin coined the term genocide the Armenian events were one of the two
archetypes he used in his work,” he said.
Gilmore, who served as ambassador to Armenia from 1993-1995, was the first US
government official to visit and lay flowers at the genocide memorial in
Yerevan. But both he and his two successors consistently avoided calling the
systematic deportation and massacres of the Armenians a “genocide” in line
with
Washington’s policy on the highly sensitive subject.
Successive White House administrations have been anxious not to upset Turkey,
a major US ally which strongly denies that the government of the crumbling
Ottoman Empire pursued a premeditated policy of exterminating its Armenian
population. Ankara also claims that the Armenian death toll is inflated.
John Evans, the current US ambassador in Yerevan, therefore took many
observers by surprise when he declared at a series of meetings with members of
the Armenian-American community last month that the Turks did commit “the
first
genocide of the 20th century.” The remarks fueled speculation about a
pro-Armenian shift in the US government’s position on the issue.
But Evans denied it, saying in a statement last week that he expressed his
personal opinion. A senior official from George Bush’s administration stated
that Evans’s statements “absolutely contradict the policy of the US
government.”
Gilmore declined to comment on possible implications of Evans’s statement.
“Because I am outside the US government now, I have no insider knowledge of
what his communication with the US government might be on the issue,” he
said.
“From my thorough study of the events of that period I am persuaded that they
do indeed constitute a genocide,” he added.
Evans likewise told members of the Armenian-American community that he
studied
the subject in detail and consulted with a State Department lawyer before
going
on record. Leading Armenian-American organizations were quick to commend him.

5) Turkey Accused of Misleading EU over Resettlement

ANKARA (HRW)–Turkey’s government was accused on Monday of misleading the
European Union about progress made in resettling nearly 400,000 people
displaced by the civil war between the army and Kurdish separatists in the
1980s and 1990s.
Human Rights Watch alleged the government had exaggerated the number of
people
returning to their villages and farms in the southeast of the country last
year, just as EU political leaders were deciding whether to invite Turkey to
join the EU. The organization said the government’s claim that one-third of
the
estimated 378,000 mainly Kurdish refugees were being helped to return home was
“unreliable.” It said its own investigation showed that in some places, the
number was less than a fifth of the official estimates.
“Our analysis found that the official statistics are not entirely reliable,
and that permanent returns are running at a much lower rate than indicated,”
Human Rights Watch said in a report issued on Monday.
It said many villagers were reluctant to return because their homes and
villages had been destroyed and were often without electricity, telephone
lines, education, or health facilities. Assistance with reconstruction was
“minimal or non-existent.”
Rachel Denber, acting executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Europe and
Central Asia division, accused paramilitary village guards of “attacking and
killing” returnees in some parts of the region. She said a visiting EU
delegation should put the issue of returnees at the top of its agenda.
The resettlement of people displaced by the civil war is a benchmark of
Turkey’s chances of joining the EU, and the government has pledged to
facilitate their return. The refugees were forced out of villages and farms
across a swathe of the south-east by the armed forces in their campaign
against
PKK rebels.

6) Turkey Renames ~QArmenian~R Animals

ANKARA (AP)–Turkey is renaming three indigenous animals to eliminate
references to Kurdistan and Armenia, the Environment and Forestry Ministry
announced Friday, saying the old names were given by foreigners with
designs on
the country’s unity.
A species of red fox known as “Vulpes Vulpes Kurdistanica” will now be known
as just “Vulpes Vulpes,” a species of wild sheep called “Ovis Armeniana” was
changed to “Ovis Orientalis Anatolicus,” and a type of deer known as
“Capreolus
Capreolus Armenus” was renamed “Capreolus Cuprelus Capreolus,” a ministry
statement said.
“Unfortunately, foreign scientists, who for many years researched Turkey’s
flora and fauna, named plant and animal species that they had never come
across
before with a prejudiced mind-set,” the statement said. “Unfortunately, there
are many species in our country that were named in this way with ill intent.
This ill intent is so obvious that even species that are endemic to our
country
were given names that are against our unitary structure,” the statement
added.
The ministry said the new names were chosen through scientific research. It
was not clear why Turkish authorities have waited until now to change the
names. It was also not clear if the name changes would be internationally
recognized.

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The land where lemons taste like almonds

Daily Iowan , IA
March 7 2005

The land where lemons taste like almonds

Film Review: Vodka Lemon
By David Frank – The Daily Iowan
Published: Monday, March 7, 2005

** out of ****

Vodka Lemon opens on an amusing shot of a sick geezer lying on his
bed as it’s being pulled along a snowy road. This extreme bed
sledding concludes at the village’s cemetery, where the man removes
his dentures and begins playing a squawky wind instrument for a
funeral. Quirkiness and misery butt heads throughout Vodka Lemon as
the film’s characters carve out meager livings in a poverty-stricken
Armenian village that’s but a speck on the barren white landscape.

Hamo (Romen Avinian), a leather-faced widower, spends his days
selling the sentimental belongings of his past for chump-change and
visiting his wife’s tombstone. Even outside the graveyard, he still
talks to his wife’s portrait located on his otherwise bare
living-room wall. Hamo lives a lonely existence with only a few
neighbors, a lowlife son, and an apathetic granddaughter to keep him
company while they all eagerly wait for Hamo’s other son to send
money from Paris.

Nina (Lala Sarkissian), a middle-aged widow and single mother, also
treks to the cemetery on a daily basis. She works at a roadside booze
stand (that looks similar to a Dairy Queen) that specifically sells
Vodka Lemon – the almond-flavored drink of choice for the film’s
characters. Why does it tastes like almonds? Because that’s the
Armenian way, according to Nina. Yet, even with a job, Nina still
finds it difficult to pay bus fare for her daily graveyard venture.

After taking notice of Nina’s inability to shell out cash for bus
rides, Hamo begins to pay her way. Eventually the two characters
begin smiling and glancing at one another like two sheepish kids with
a schoolyard crush; it’s a romance of small gestures.

However, Vodka Lemon meanders into half-baked and separate subplots
involving Hamo’s granddaughter getting hitched and Nina’s pianist
daughter secretly whoring herself out to a fat boar of a man. Not
only do these scenes overstay their welcome with their extraneous
nature and labored construction, they also cut the legs out from
underneath the film with surprising violence.

>>From start to the finish, Vodka Lemon stuffs oddity into its
narrative – such as an unidentified horse rider who gallops in and
out of frame during unexpected moments. And it seems director Hiner
Saleem desires to run two opposing atmospheres throughout the film –
one fluttering with whimsy and the other sunk deep into unyielding
gloom – but he never finds a way in blending them so the quirkiness
isn’t forced and unnatural when placed next to the morose. What we’re
left with is an oil-and-water tone in which neither of the two
elements are compelling.

BAKU: CIS may play role in conflict settlement – Executive Committee

Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
March 7 2005

CIS may play role in conflict settlement – Executive Committee
chairman

Baku, March 4, AssA-Irada
The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) may take certain steps
at settling the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Upper Garabagh if a
relevant instruction is issued, says chairman of the CIS Executive
Committee Vladimir Rushaylo.
The OSCE Minsk Group is playing an active role in settling the
conflict, however, a number of other international organizations have
lately become involved as well, he said.*

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Tbilisi: European Commission rep explains path to action plan

European Commission rep explains path to action plan
By Anna Arzanova

The Messenger, Georgia
March 7 2005

The European Commission is recommending a “significant strengthening”
of relations with Georgia through the development of an Action Plan
under the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP).

Head of the Delegation of the European Commission, Ambassador Torben
Holtze, told a press conference on March 4 that this recommendation
is based on the commission’s Country Report published on March 2.

“This process has been under preparation for already several years,
but has become active only since last year,” he stated. In June
2004, Georgia as well as Armenia and Azerbaijan, were included
in the European Neighborhood Policy as a result of a request and
recommendation made by the European Commission.

Last Wednesday the Commission released a 32-page report on Georgia,
which gives a broad summary of the political, social and economic
situation in Georgia and the state of its bilateral relations with
the European Union.

According to HE Holtze, the ENP has much deeper targets than the
existing Partnership and Cooperation Agreement to offer the prospect
of a progressively closer relationship with the European Union,
involving a significant level of economic integration and a deepening
of political cooperation.

The EU requested special reports for each country, which would
reflect the existing situation in the countries aspiring to European
integration.

“This work is now finalized and the reports are also made not only for
the Caucasus region but for those countries which are included in the
ENP,” Holtze said. The reports were presented by the Commissioner
for External Relations and European Neighborhood Policy, Benita
Ferrero-Waldner last week.

In her press release, Ferrero-Waldner, commented: “The European
Neighborhood Policy gives us an opportunity to take relations with
Georgia up a gear. I very much hope that the Council will give the go
ahead to negotiate an Action Plan, so that we can work out a joint
agenda for action in the coming years. Progress in our relationship
will reflect the efforts and successes of the country itself”.

According to Ambassador Holtze, the country report concludes that
there should be progress in the development of political institutions
based on the values of democracy, the rule of law, human rights,
regional stability and cooperation in justice and internal affairs.

He added that economic and social reforms will create new
opportunities for development and modernization of Georgia, for
further liberalization of trade and for gradual participation in the
EU’s Internal Market.

Holtze described the reports as a big step forward and “the next step
will be that the report regarding the current situation in Georgia
should be approved by the Council of Ministers of the European Union,”
which will be convene on March 22.

“It is now for the Council of Ministers to decide the next steps
and it is expected this council will like this report and then the
recommendation will be given to the European Union to work out the
action plan,” Holtze said.

Action plans will be tailored for each country depending on the needs
of the country and the EU’s opinion on the country. “For Georgia,
we continue to focus on strengthening respect of rule of law, reform
of judiciary, law enforcement agencies, penitentiary, and enhanced
human rights protection,” HE Holtze stated.

Holtze also thinks that the key objectives for an Action Plan should
include strengthening of democratic structures and pluralism through
reform of Parliament, strengthening independence of media, reform of
local self government, and electoral reform.

HE Holtze also explained that it would be several months before the
EU and Georgia would have a fully prepared action plan: “We expect
that the action plan will be ready by the end of the year or in the
beginning of the next year.”

“One more aspect is improvements in the business climate as well as
public sector modernization, reform of tax and customs administrations
and legislation and strengthening the fight against corruption and
fraud,” he added.

Asked what should be more of a priority for the Georgian government –
economic development or rule of law and strengthening of the democratic
institutes – Holtze stated that one cannot exist without the other.

“It is very important that the economy develop in the country but of
course, the supremacy of law is also very important because otherwise,
it is unimaginable to attract investors to the country,” he said.

Tbilisi: Porous borders, poor cooperation fuel smuggling

Porous borders, poor cooperation fuel smuggling

The Messenger, Georgia
March 7 2005

Conference examines issues of smuggling and officials reveal two
cases of smuggled radioactive goods in 2004
By Christina Tashkevich

Smuggling remains an acute problem for Georgia destroying internal
markets and healthy competition, analysts concluded at a recent
conference addressing how to address the issue.

The Georgia Enterprise Growth Initiative, a project funded by USAID
and implemented by BearingPoint, organized the conference on
contraband and organized corruption together with the Georgian
Federation of Businessmen and the Association of Petrol Products
Importers ‘Nia’ on Friday in the Tbilisi Marriott Hotel.

According to the Head of the Budgetary-Financial Committee of
Parliament, MP Roman Gotsiridze, the latest budget revenues show that
the scale of contraband reduced in Georgia. He warns, however, that
while a large decrease of smuggling was noticeable in first several
months after the Rose Revolution, it has rebounded in resent months.

“There are two sources of smuggling: uncontrolled territories and
corruption,” Gotsiridze said on Friday. A large source for smuggling
in recent years was the Ergneti market on the border of South Ossetia
which analysts state had an annual turnover of USD 120 million.
According to Gotsiridze, Ossetians, Russian peacekeepers as well as
Georgians participated in smuggling via that now closed market.

On Friday, Gotsiridze said that smuggled goods still come from South
Ossetia but following the closure of Ergneti, the level of smuggling
in the region fell by nearly 80 percent.

The deputy head of the Georgian Border Guard Department Korneli Salia
presented a list on Friday of what he said here the main sources of
smuggled goods. “Tobacco, scrap metals, oil products come to Georgia
from Abkhazia, radioactive products and timber go in both directions
from Armenia to Georgia and back… and drugs from Turkey,” he said.

He also named the major elements that facilitate smuggling, including
the existence of markets near border checkpoints at the Red Bridge
and Sadakhlo, the large amount of smuggling roads, a poor information
exchange between countries and services inside Georgia, and
underdevelopment of border structures. Salia lamented that money his
department receives from gets from the state budget is too little.

Discussing what can be changed, Salia said the government could
develop interstate cooperation plans, allot enough money to buy
proper equipment and transport, reinforce the border guards and make
business registration more accurate.

He also said that border checkpoints must be modernized to eliminate
weaknesses like vehicle scales that lack the capacity to weight large
multi-ton trucks.

“When there is no coordination between services, it’s very hard to
fight with contraband,” Salia said at the conference. He department
also claimed success in 2004, nothing that the amount of fines
collected on smuggled goods exceeded GEL 2 million in the past year.

The first deputy head of the Customs Department, Nugzar Kevlishvili,
pointed to some major improvements underway in 2005. In March the new
Red Bridge customs facility constructed with U.S. assistance will be
opened. In the Tbilisi airport and at the Sarpi checkpoint with
Turkey, the department has also activated red and green corridors to
ease Custom’s procedures.

According to the Georgian Border Guard Department, it recorded more
than 60 cases of smuggling in 2004, including 40 facts of diesel
smuggling and 2 facts of smuggling radioactive goods. The department
also recorded intercepting 14 foreign ships carrying contraband and
confiscated 150 tons of contraband fish.

The smuggling of oil products and tobacco prompted the most
discussion at Friday’s conference. The head of the Association of
Petrol Products Importers, Giorgi Kotrikadze, appealed to the
government to consider decreasing the excise tax on diesel.

“Petrol quality and standards are another issues of concern,” he
said. Georgia still adheres to former Soviet fuel standards and
Kotrikadze hoped that at the end of the summer the country could
transfer to EU standards.

The Founder of the Eliz tobacco company, Tamaz Elizbarashvili, also
expressed concern about smuggling in the tobacco industry. He stated
that if the government does not combat smuggling, tobacco companies
in Georgia will be threatened with closure.

“The government closed markets for cigarettes, but now how can you
fight contraband when the smugglers go underground,” he pleaded on
Friday.

Also participating in the conference, the presidential representative
to Shida Kartli Mikheil Kareli described problems that contribute to
a losing fight with smuggling in his region.

“In our region, 12 employees in the Financial Police are not enough
to control the border,” he said. Kareli also mentioned it is
difficult to monitor the border in South Ossetia because Ossetian
criminal groups are located in the area.

Loose borders were one explanation MP Roman Gotsiridze offered for
the increase of car-theft. “The presence of this business means that
there is no control at the borders,” he said during the conference.

The MP also stated that the recent increase in excise taxes on
tobacco, alcohol and oil products has decreased local production and
in turn increased the amount of smuggled goods. “I cannot say it was
the right decision or not, but at this stage the negative effects are
more than the positive ones,” he said.

–Boundary_(ID_GWcPZCUS2UxpK4f5h3cl5w)–

ANKARA: Separatist animals curbed

Separatist animals curbed
Monday, March 7, 2005

Turkish Daily News
March 7 2005

Environment and Forest Ministry acts on animal names considered a
threat to Turkey’s unitary state

ANKARA – Turkish Daily News

The Environment and Forest Ministry has announced that it has changed
animal names that contain the words “Kurdistan” and “Armenia,” which
they considered threatened Turkey’s unitary state. Meanwhile, a United
Nations Development Program official objected, noting that the change
needed to be cited in relevant literature to come into effect.

Some animals, whose Latin names included “separatist” words, have
become a source of concern.

The names of red fox, wild sheep and roe deer were officially changed
by the ministry on Friday.

>From now on, the Latin name of red fox will be Vulpes Vulpes, instead
of Vulpes Vulpes Kurdistanicum, wild sheep will be known as Ovis Orien
Anatolicus, instead of Ovis Armeniana and Roe deer will be called
Capreolus Caprelus Capreolus, instead of Capreolus Capreolus Armenius.

In a ministry statement, it was said that the changes were made,
because the names were selected intentionally to pose a threat to the
unitary state, and the foreign academics had acted very prejudicial.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

One city under the chupah

Glendale News Press
Published February12, 2005
86p-4306c.html
FROM THE MARGINS
One city under the chupah

PATRICK AZADIAN

Many of my Armenian friends have an idealistic vision of the
Jewish-American community. Comments such as: “There is a lot to be
learned from Jewish-Americans. They help each other when they
can. They do not stab each other in the back. They don’t have
‘zillions’ of organizations doing the same thing. And most
importantly, they have assimilated into the American mainstream while
maintaining their distinct culture,” are not uncommon among some of my
friends.

In general, glorification of any group, including the Armenian Ameri-
cans, makes me feel uncomfort- able. So, when I had the opportunity
during my undergraduate days at UCLA, I took a few courses on Judaism
and the Jewish Diaspora offered by the Department of Sociology. I
wanted to demystify some myths for myself.

The courses gave me a better understanding of the Jewish
community. But as I had suspected, there are no perfectly organized
communities or peoples. As with most ethnic, religious and racial
minorities, the Jewish community has its own set of unique
accomplishments as well as issues and concerns. And yes, they also
have “zillions” of organizations, which are a reflection of their
community’s diverse background. And no, there is no magic formula of
full assimilation into the American mainstream while maintaining one’s
ethnic roots fully. What the courses did not teach me, however, was to
have a feel of the Jewish community. So when my Moroccan-Jewish friend
rang me up to send me her wedding invitation, I was excited. I asked
her: “Is it going to be a traditional wedding?”

“Somewhat,” she said. “We have to respect the backgrounds of both of
our families. He comes from a European background and I have Sephardic
roots.”

The wedding ceremony was held outside under the chupah, or canopy. And
based on what I remember, the Rabbi said the chupah symbolizes the
home to be built and be shared by the couple. The chupah is open on
all sides to welcome friends and relatives with unconditional
hospitality. It is also open because you are here of your own free
will, he said.

The Rabbi elaborated.

We are under the stars, as a sign of the blessing given by God, so
that his children shall be as the stars of the heavens, he said. Later
as the ceremony continued, I was under the impression that the Rabbi
made eye contact with me while he was on the topic of jewelry and
materialism: “You see, the chatan [groom] and the kallah [bride] are
wearing no jewelry. Their mutual commitment to one another is based on
who they are as people not on their respective material possessions,”
he said.

My nonclinical paranoia kicked in. Did he know I was Armenian? And was
he aware of the Armenian love affair with jewels and jewelry. I looked
around nervously and mumbled to myself, “I am not the official
representative of the Armenians. And I am only wearing silver.”

Soon, I remembered, I was not the center of universe and the eye
contact was a pure coincidence. Before the rings were presented, the
couple sipped wine. I had always thought the beverage was there to
numb the nerves and warm up the cold feet. But the Rabbi had another
take on the matter. “God has given us grapes, but it is humans who can
make it into wine. God has brought you together, but it is up to you
to make your marriage work. It is up to you to accept the grapes as a
gift and transform them into distinguished wine.”

There was so much tradition and symbolism, I had to come up with some
of my own. I could not help but draw a parallel between the wedding
and the city we live in. And as the Glendale elections’ season is
drawing near, the opportunity for the analogy has arrived.

For starters, we all have chosen Glendale as a home of our own free
will. Our connection to our city, to our neighbors and to our
community is very much like a marriage. As subcommunities and as
individuals, we don’t necessarily share common backgrounds, we all
have our pluses as well as character flaws, and whether we entered the
marriage in search of love, respect, family, convenience, friendship,
security, peer pressure or all of the above, we are here, together.

What is not clear, however, is whether the gift that has been given to
us in the form of an opportunity to pursue happiness, freedom and
progress, will ever be turned into reality.

The question remains: What is our vision for the future of our city?
What kind of wine do we want? Are the grapes gifted to us capable of
producing that particular type of wine? And last, but not least, are
we willing to get our feet discolored as we stomp the grapes?

I’ll be voting on April 5. But before that, I’ll be asking a question
or two from the candidates that require answers beyond the rhetorical
slogans of “no congestion, no crime.” It is the bare minimum I can do
to bring about a positive change to our city and community.

http://glendalenewspress.com/columns/story/29

L’Armenie survit grce aux transferts de fonds de sa diaspora

Agence France Presse
5 mars 2005 samedi 8:16 AM GMT

L’Arménie survit grce aux transferts de fonds de sa diaspora (PAPIER
D’ANGLE)

Par Mariam HAROUTIOUNIAN

EREVAN 5 mars 2005

L’économie arménienne, exsangue depuis la chute de l’URSS et la
guerre du Haut-Karabakh, dépend en grande partie des transferts de
fonds des membres de sa diaspora, lesquels n’ont cessé d’augmenter
ces dernières années et devraient dépasser le milliard de dollars en
2005.

“Les transferts de l’étranger permettent à nos citoyens de conserver
un bon niveau de vie, ce qui favorise en retour la croissance du
produit intérieur brut” (PIB), souligne le président de la Banque
centrale arménienne, Tigran Sargsian.

En 2004, les transferts des Arméniens expatriés à leurs proches
demeurés au pays ont augmenté de 55% pour s’établir à 740 millions de
dollars, surpassant le budget du pays de 600 millions de dollars.

Selon la Banque centrale, ces transferts de fonds génèrent un quart
de la croissance économique.

M. Sargsian explique l’augmentation des transferts par le fait que
les Arméniens établis à l’étranger ont vu leur situation économique
s’améliorer. Les liens entre la diaspora et sa patrie d’origine se
sont également renforcés.

“La croissance économique rend l’Arménie plus attrayante pour les
Arméniens de la diaspora, lesquels investissent dans l’immobilier et
retournent vivre dans leur patrie historique”, explique le chef de la
Banque centrale.

Depuis l’effondrement de l’URSS en 1991, près d’un million
d’Arméniens ont quitté l’Arménie, un pays du Caucase dépourvu de
ressources énergétiques et qui fait l’objet d’un blocus économique de
la part de la Turquie et de l’Azerbaïdjan en raison du conflit du
Haut-Karabakh, une province azerbaïdjanaise passée sous contrôle
arménien au début des années 1990.

La plupart ont émigré en Russie, aux Etats-Unis et en Europe.

Une grande partie des quelque 3,7 millions de personnes demeurées en
Arménie dépendent aujourd’hui pour vivre de l’argent que leur
envoient leurs proches travaillant à l’étranger.

“D’autres pays peuvent compter sur des ressources complémentaires
comme le pétrole. Pour l’Arménie, cette ressource est son importante
diaspora” et ses travailleurs émigrés, dit l’économiste Levon
Barkhoudarian.

M. Barkhoudarian estime que les fonds rapatriés permettent de
diminuer les tensions sociales et politiques dans le pays.

Mais d’autres experts mettent en garde contre les effets pervers de
tels transferts.

Vagram Avanessian estime qu’en plus d’handicaper la production locale
et d’augmenter les importations, ces transferts créent une
dépendance.

Beaucoup d’Arméniens risquent ainsi de devoir encore longtemps vivre
loin de chez eux même s’ils souhaiteraient rentrer.

“Pendant des années, mon mari a cherché vainement du travail en
Arménie et a dû partir travailler à l’étranger, même si c’était très
difficile pour lui de quitter sa famille”, raconte Anna, 36 ans, mère
de deux enfants. “Chaque fois qu’il téléphone, il demande s’il y a du
travail pour lui au pays”.

Le mari d’Anna travaille depuis cinq ans dans la construction dans
une petite ville de Russie et envoie tous les mois entre 300 et 400
dollars à sa famille.

Vardan, 60 ans, vit de l’argent que sa fille aînée lui envoie des
Etats-Unis: “Ma fille Marina travaille comme nourrice depuis deux ans
bien qu’elle soit diplômée de l’Ecole polytechnique d’Erevan”,
explique-t-il.

“Personne ne s’étonne plus qu’un ancien instituteur fasse du commerce
dans les rues de Moscou ou qu’un scientifique soit chauffeur de taxi
à Madrid”, ajoute le vieil homme.

Les Arméniens qui ont émigré pour des raisons économiques depuis 1991
travaillent principalement dans les services, le commerce et la
construction, selon des données de la Banque centrale.

How America has become a multicultural nut-house

How America has become
a multicultural nut-house

————————————— ————————-
Posted: March 7, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern
WorldNetDaily
MONDAY
MARCH 7
2005

2005 WorldNetDaily.com

How America has become
a multicultural nut-house

Posted: March 7, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern

This is a true story about America, about how the magnificent
Judeo-Christian culture of my youth – which represented the hope of liberty
for the world’s oppressed – was so easily turned into mush in my lifetime.

Let me begin with a brief story about my father. When he was only three
years old, my dad was sentenced to death. That’s right. The Turkish
government was engaged in a deliberate campaign to force him, his mother and
infant sister, along with hundreds of thousands of other Armenians, into the
Syrian desert where they would die of starvation, disease, or worse –
torture and death at the hands of brutal soldiers or roving bandits.

It was 1915, at the peak of Islamic Turkey’s gruesome, premeditated genocide
of the Christian Armenian population in that country. Those not butchered
outright – the men were often killed immediately – were driven into the
Derzor, the Syrian desert east of Aleppo, to perish. My father’s father, a
doctor, had been pressed into the Turkish army against his will, to head a
medical regiment.

“One of my earliest recollections, I was not quite three years old at the
time,” my dad, Vahey Kupelian, told me shortly before he died in 1988, was
that “the wagon we were in had tipped over, my hand was broken and bloody,
and mother was looking for my infant sister who had rolled away. The next
thing I remember after that, mother was on a horse, holding my baby sister,
and had me sitting behind her, saying, ‘Hold on tight, or the Turks will get
you!”

The three of them rode off on horseback, ending up in Aleppo, one of the
gateways to the desert deportation and certain death. Once there, my
grandmother Mary, always a daring and resourceful woman, realized what she
needed to do.

After asking around to find out who was in charge, she bluffed her way into
getting an audience with Aleppo’s governor-general. Since her Armenian
husband was in the service of the Turkish army – albeit by force – she
played her one and only card, brazenly telling the governor-general, “I
demand my rights as the wife of a Turkish army officer!”

“What are those rights?”

“I want commissary privileges and two orderlies,” she answered.

“Granted.”

In this way, by masquerading as a Turkish officer’s wife, Mary bluffed her
way out of certain death, saving not only her own life and those of her son
and daughter, but also the lives of her husband’s two brothers, whom she
immediately deputized as “orderlies.” The group then succeeded in sneaking
several other family members out of harm’s way, and my grandmother kept them
all from starving by obtaining food from the commissary. Thus was my family
spared, although little Adolphina, my father’s infant sister, was unable to
survive the harshness of those times, and died shortly thereafter.

As for my grandfather, Simeon Kupelian: After an unusually bloody battle
between the Turks and the British, he and the other doctors, all Armenians,
tended to the Turkish wounded as best they could. Immediately after this, a
squadron of Turkish gunmen came and killed them all, including my
grandfather.

One and a half million Armenians perished in those years at the hands of the
Turkish regime, the 20th century’s first genocide.

On returning to their beautiful home in Marash a couple of years later, Mary
and son Vahey, who was then about 6 years old, found it had been ransacked.
Their fine tapestries had been pulled off the walls, ripped and urinated on.
Everything that could be carried out had been stolen, and everything else
had been deliberately broken. Everything. Every single pane of glass in the
French doors was broken, even handles on drawers were destroyed.

Eventually, the hardships of their life led my father and grandmother to do
what millions of persecuted people have done over the last few hundred
years. They made the long voyage to the one country that welcomed them and
offered them freedom and an opportunity for a new life – the most blessed
nation on earth, their promised land: America.

Life wasn’t easy in this new land, but both mother and son managed to
overcome many obstacles, learned English eagerly, built a life for
themselves, went to college and pursued careers. Dad got married and had a
family. I was the middle of three children; he provided for us, protected
us, worried about us, loved us. He also rose to the top of his chosen
profession – aeronautical engineering – becoming the Army’s “Chief Scientist
for Ballistic Missile Defense.” He lived a good and full life in a blessed
land.

That’s just one story – my story. Now multiply it by millions of similar
cases of dispossessed and persecuted people coming to America, and you’ll
have a vague idea of what America has long represented to the freedom-loving
people of this world.

Born Greek-Armenian, my dad became an American, as did thousands of other
Armenians fleeing the genocide. As did Jews fleeing the Nazi Holocaust,
Chinese seeking freedom from totalitarianism, Vietnamese and Cambodians
escaping from their war-ravaged land, and countless others coming to America
for a better life – starting with the English Pilgrims that came here to
escape religious persecution. In short, the “huddled masses yearning to
breathe free” have come to these shores from every land, speaking every
language – but wanting to become Americans.

‘Mother of exiles’

Inscribed in bronze at the base of the Statue of Liberty, Emma Lazarus’
transcendent 1883 poem, “The New Colossus,” captures the spirit of America’s
big-heartedness and generosity perhaps more than anything else, except for
“Lady Liberty” herself.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from
land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty
woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild
eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she With silent lips. Give
me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The
wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless,
tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

There has always been something different about America, which enabled this
magnanimous nation to wrap her arms around the “wretched refuse” of other
nations.

This nation of immigrants was bound together by a spirit, you might say. For
although one cannot become French or Chinese or Russian, one can become an
American – by embracing that spirit.

Becoming a naturalized American citizen therefore meant more than passing
the federal government’s screening process and stumbling through a few
civics questions. It meant an implicit and heartfelt agreement to abide not
only by the nation’s laws, but by its hidden, unwritten “laws” as well – the
principles that made up the invisible but vital fabric of Western
Civilization: the individual as citizen-sovereign; a balance of freedom and
responsibility; unlimited opportunity – to succeed or fail; independence and
self-reliance; tolerance; the work ethic; equality under the law; and other
core Judeo-Christian values.

Underlying all of this, in turn, was the common belief – a belief so deep
and unquestioned that it underpinned all of our major institutions – that
there is a God, that He is the God of the Bible, that the 10 Commandments
and the Sermon on the Mount are the foundation of a good life and a great
society, and that America had been uniquely blessed by that God. These were
the underlying assumptions infusing America’s dominant culture.

All that started to change in the 1960s. Actually, the nation’s moral and
cultural foundation had been under attack for decades, but the ’60s is when
the attacks literally spilled out into America’s streets, resulting in
unprecedented cultural chaos by decade’s end.

One of the first times I personally remember feeling the foundations of
America tremble was in 1964 during my 9th-grade civics class. A girl – I
don’t remember her name, but I think she was from Tennessee and she had a
very thick southern accent – answered a question from the teacher by
mentioning something about God.

“How do you know there is a God?” the teacher shot back.

It was like an earth tremor – just a faint quiver really, a precursor to the
tidal waves to come a few years later – a smiling, casual, off-handed swipe
at “the world as we knew it.”

How did the little southern girl know there was a God? Clearly taken aback,
she answered the teacher earnestly, incredulously, her voice breaking:
“Because … there is!” She had, quite naturally, offered up the best answer
anyone could possibly give.

The teacher had questioned the unquestionable, injecting doubt into a room
of impressionable young boys and girls. It was one of those moments you
remember 40 years later because it created a spark, a momentary contact with
another dimension – that alien dimension of cynicism and disbelief.

Within a few years, the gathering tides of rebellion against traditional
America would come crashing down with great ferocity and on many shores. One
key area was the Civil Rights Movement.

Despite the fact that America had long-since forsaken slavery, and – thanks
to the movement led by Martin Luther King Jr., which culminated in the
landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act – had outlawed segregation and made great
strides in moving beyond racism altogether, a demand for “black studies”
nevertheless arose in the nation’s colleges.

The idea was that past denigration and mistreatment of blacks necessitated
special emphasis on their culture and accomplishments. “Black pride” was
born and “black studies,” “black history” and the like proliferated through
the nation’s university campuses.

Although most people didn’t comprehend it at the time, “black pride” and
similar “liberation movements” did not arise out of the mainstream of the
Civil Rights Movement, which had arrived, in King’s famous “I have a dream”
speech, at the ultimate solution to racism: the “color-blind” society where
people would “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of
their character.” This enlightened vision of America – which would have
completed the promise of the Declaration of Independence that “all men are
created equal” – was hijacked by forces of the ’60s radical left. These were
people who did not want peace and racial harmony. They condemned racial
integration as “Uncle Tomism” and “co-optation.” Their aim was to indict
America as a racist oppressor as a means to foment division, revolution and
societal transformation.

But all this was off the radar of most Americans, who, under the sway
perhaps of the nation’s collective guilt over slavery and segregation,
cautiously accepted “black studies.”

It didn’t end there, however. Soon there were “women’s studies” and “gay and
lesbian” studies. Before long, the world of academia was awash in
“multiculturalism.”

Wait a minute, you might ask, what’s wrong with multiculturalism? Doesn’t
exposing students to other cultures and values serve to enrich their
understanding of the world and its peoples?”

Of course. And there would be nothing wrong if that was what was actually
going on.

In reality, however, as Robert Bork explains in “Slouching Towards
Gomorrah,” multiculturalism had been conjured up solely to serve as a
battering ram, “a philosophy of antagonism to America and the West,” an
“attack on America, the European-American culture, and the white race, with
special emphasis on white males …” The proof, he noted, is evident in the
multicultural curriculum choices:

A curriculum designed to foster understanding of other cultures would study
those cultures. Multiculturalism does not. Courses are not offered on the
cultures of China or India or Brazil or Nigeria, nor does the curriculum
require the study of languages without which foreign cultures cannot be
fully understood. Instead the focus is on groups that, allegedly, have been
subjected to oppression by American and Western civilization – homosexuals,
American Indians, blacks, Hispanics, women, and so on. The message is not
that all cultures are to be respected, but that European culture, which
created the dominance of white males, is uniquely evil. Multiculturalism
follows the agenda of modern liberalism, and it comes straight from the
Sixties counterculture. But now, in American education, it is the dominant
culture.
To fathom what’s been happening to America, you simply must understand that
during the 1960s, the moral foundation of America came under a full-blown
assault. The radicals of the ’60s – including, by the way, Bill and Hillary
Clinton – have today either taken over or profoundly altered the key
institutions they originally wanted to destroy, from government to the news
media, from education to religion.

A generation later, the various “liberation” movements – “sexual
liberation,” “women’s liberation,” “gay liberation” and so on – have
blossomed into rampant infidelity, divorce and family breakdown, gender
confusion, AIDS, abortion and other mammoth problems. Moreover, the
multicultural madness that started in the ’60s has infused virtually all of
American society with unending confusion.

Today, in the rarified but toxic air of multiculturalism and political
correctness, all cultures and all values are of equal value: The most
ignorant, oppressive, suffocating, women-hating culture, where young
people’s hands and feet are amputated as punishment for petty offenses, is
now worthy of equal respect to Western culture, which has provided most of
the world’s knowledge, progress, food, medicine, technology, quality of
life, representative government and liberty.

This virtual brainwashing of a generation has had its intended effect. New
York Times journalist Richard Bernstein spent two years documenting the
effects of multicultural ideology. The result, notes Bork, “is not an
impressionistic book or one based on an ideological predisposition; it is a
report of empirical findings.”

He points, for example, to the remarkable change in attitude towards
Christopher Columbus between 1892 and 1992. Though not a single new fact
about Columbus’s life and exploits had been uncovered, the country’s mood
swung from one of uncritical adulation to one of loathing and condemnation,
at least among the members of the “intellectual” class. The change was
accomplished by the aggressive ideology of multiculturalism. The Columbus
turnaround is merely a specific instance of more general alterations in our
moral landscape.
Another example: Thanksgiving visitors to historic Plymouth Rock should be
prepared for a shock, writes Douglas Phillips, president of Vision Forum.
“If you walk fewer than a hundred yards from Plymouth Rock and ascend to
Cole’s Hill, the magnificent burial ground of the 50 Pilgrims who perished
during the first cold winter of 1620, you not only will encounter hundreds
of demonstrators who gather on the last Thursday of every November to
disabuse the memory of the Pilgrim fathers. But you also can read the new
monument plaque that describes the devastating effect of Christianity on
North America, the ‘genocide’ of Native Americans by the Pilgrims and the
importance of treating Thanksgiving as a ‘National Day of Mourning.'”

This moral inversion caused by multiculturalism, which proclaims that all
cultures are equal, has extended to virtually every area of society:

All religions are equal: Witches and Satanists are now afforded the same
respect as Christians and Jews. As just one example, U.S. District Court
Judge Dennis W. Dohnal ruled in 2003 that officials in Chesterfield County,
Va., discriminated against Cyndi Simpson, a Wiccan, when they barred her
from opening the board of supervisors’ meetings with prayer.
Britain’s Royal Navy went a step further, allowing an officer to conduct
satanic rituals on board one of its ships. Chris Cranmer, a 24-year-old
naval technician and non-commissioned officer on the frigate Cumberland, was
given his own satanic altar where he could dress up in black robes and
perform ceremonies to worship the devil using bells and candles. Cranmer
says he’s a “Magistrate of the Society of the Onyx Star Black Guard,” and
believes he is evil.

“From a military perspective, I believe in vengeance. If I were asked if I
were evil, I would say yes,” he told London’s Daily Mail newspaper, which
notes that permission to worship on board was granted the Satan-worshipper
under equal-opportunities legislation.

As with religion, where good and evil now are afforded equal respect, so in
the area of sexuality, what was bizarre and unmentionable a generation ago
is today a civil right:

All sexuality is equal: In 2004, thousands of same-sex marriage ceremonies
were conducted throughout the U.S. – in open defiance of the law – under the
banner of fundamental fairness and non-discrimination.
Even adult-child sex – euphemistically called “intergenerational sex” – is
making surprising headway into the mainstream, based on today’s pervasive
climate of moral equivalence among all forms of consensual “love.”
Self-righteous child-molesters claim their cause is simply the latest in a
long line of civil rights movements and eagerly anticipate the day society
will shed its ancient taboos and grant full “sexual rights” to young
children and the adults that “love” them.

This worldview whereby we declare all human cultures and moral codes, from
the fairest to the foulest, to be equal in value is made possible only by
the total abandonment of any objective standard of right and wrong.

Despite the fact that multiculturalism has rewritten history, demonized
Western culture and turned civilization on its head for a generation,
Americans for the most part just floated along with this charade, year after
confusing year – until Sept. 11, 2001.

The otherworldly shock and horror that we experienced on that particular
Tuesday morning was followed by a crash course in radical Islam – a very
strange and menacing culture indeed.

We learned that those who wantonly murdered thousands of American civilians
and threatened even greater destruction justified their acts as being
required of them by Allah. We learned that “shaheeds” (martyrs) – those
Muslims who die while killing “infidels” (“unbelievers,” primarily Jews but
also Christians and Americans generally) in “jihad” or holy war – are
indoctrinated, often from an early age, by radical Islamic clerics.

And what is the jihad message taught in so many mosques and madrassas
(religious schools) throughout the Middle East? Just this: As soon as the
first drop of your blood is shed in jihad, you will feel no pain, all your
sins will be forgiven, and you will be transported instantly to paradise
where you will recline comfortably for eternity on plush green cushions, to
be lavished with the choicest meats, the finest wines and endless sex with
70 virgins. In addition, all of your family members will be admitted into
heaven, as part of your reward.

We learned that our nation’s borders were scandalously unprotected and our
immigration policies full of holes easily exploited by terrorists. We
learned that our beloved country was targeted for even more horrific terror
attacks – using biological, chemical or even nuclear weapons – by a maniacal
cult of jihadists spread out over 60 nations. We learned that “terror cells”
and “sleeper” suicide warriors were already in the U.S., intending to strike
and inflict indiscriminate terror and death. We learned that a
well-developed network of Islamic terror supporters was operating freely
within the open American system, conducting fundraisers and providing
support for known terror groups – in their mosques, meeting halls, and even
on American college campuses.

How exactly did the United States of America “become the scene of one of the
most hideously bedeviled conflicts of all time?” asked New York University
literature professor Carol Iannone in the New York Press.

Quite simply, it happened because America lost its grasp of its own historic
character, and embraced “diversity” as a national goal. In the name of
equality and nondiscrimination we invited mass immigration from every part
of the globe, and made no demands on the newcomers to become Americans. In
fact, we gave up our American core, adopted multiculturalism and declared
all cultures equal. We invited the new groups to celebrate themselves while
we cravenly permitted libelous denigration of our own past. Like fools we
prated that diversity is our strength, when common sense and all of history
tell us that strength comes from unity.
Absolute nondiscrimination meant we no longer enforced standards, made
judgments, distinguished between good and evil, friend and foe. We grew
lazy, stupid and careless – about our borders, about national security, even
about previous terrorist attacks against us. We worried over our “hate
crimes” and our “racial profiling,” while men resided in our midst who
seethed with murderous fury even against our children and plotted our
destruction. Now we have a fifth column, fear further assaults and labor
under a draconian security regime that is changing the nature of our lives.

Marketing multiculturalism

It’s easy to blame ’60s radicals, university Marxists, cowardly politicians
and an elitist press for today’s multicultural madness. But the fact is,
millions of Americans have bought into it. Why?

Isn’t it obvious? Since the 1960s, America – from her government to her
schools and even to her churches – has steadily fallen away from the
Judeo-Christian values that previously illuminated and gave life and
strength to the nation’s institutions. This is equivalent to turning out the
country’s lights: And when you turn out the lights, everything looks the
same color in the dark – that’s multiculturalism.

Moreover, no longer guided by universal standards of right and wrong,
Americans have had nothing more reliable than their own feelings to guide
them in the moral realm. And as modern marketing well knows, when people are
operating primarily on the basis of feelings and emotions, they’re wide open
to every sort of manipulation imaginable.

Remember, marketing is the application of the knowledge of human psychology
to the task of persuasion. And what psychology has taught the marketing
world is that the most powerful persuasion of all takes place not through
above-the-board appeals to reason, but by directly targeting the emotions.

By way of illustration, cigarettes were once sold on the basis of “great
taste” and “fine tobacco.” Not all that convincing – but then, there aren’t
a whole lot of “benefits” and “features” to sell with cigarettes. Then along
came the “Marlboro Man.” Created in 1955 for Philip Morris Co. by
advertising giant Leo Burnett, this icon of the quintessential American
cowboy is probably the most famous brand image to appear in our lifetimes.
The rugged, masculine trademark made Marlboro the world’s best-selling
cigarette.

What does the “Marlboro Man” – a rancher on a horse – have to do with
cigarettes? Nothing, except that the ubiquitous cowboy evoked within
millions of men feelings of masculinity, independence, wide open spaces and
freedom. So successful has been the decades-old campaign that on some ads
the image is reduced to little more than a saddle and a splash of red, but –
like Pavlov’s bell – it still subtly makes people salivate for the mythical
place called Marlboro Country.

For the last generation, commercial marketing has aimed not so much at
extolling the intrinsic value or usefulness of a product to consumers, but
rather, at conditioning the consumer to associate the product with a
particular feeling.

Bottom line: If the marketer can elicit in you a feeling – the right feeling
– he has won. Game over.

With this principle in mind, let’s look at how the public is so easily
persuaded to abandoned long-held loyalties. How are people so easily
persuaded that Columbus, a national hero for 500 years, and the Pilgrims,
revered and studied by generations of school children, were actually
genocidal racists? How are our former sentiments opposing homosexuality or
Wicca so readily transformed into “enlightened tolerance” and open support?

Pick a topic – let’s say, same-sex marriage.

Imagine you’re participating in a televised one-on-one debate. You’re
defending traditional marriage. There you are on one side of the set, and
facing off against you is a lesbian. Not just any lesbian, but an
attractive, young, eloquent, educated, sensitive, well-dressed lesbian – and
to all appearances a fine human being. She looks you right in the eye and
says, in a disarmingly mainstream and reasonable tone: “I love my country, I
obey its laws and I pay my taxes. I’m an American, and have all the same
rights you do. In fact, I’ve served my country in the military and have put
my life on the line. I’ve lived monogamously with my partner for 18 years.
We truly love each other and want nothing more than to be married and to
live out our lives in peace and happiness – just like you. What’s the matter
with that? Why shouldn’t we be allowed to be married? How does it hurt you?”

You have 30 seconds to respond before the commercial break.

How can you neutralize the powerful, positive emotions your opponent has
skillfully invoked? Will you offer up a statement about the dangers of
altering the traditional definition of marriage? Will you point out that
children do better with both a mother and father? Will you say the Bible
clearly condemns homosexual acts?

The debate will be won by whoever touches the most feelings, the strongest
emotions of sympathy in the audience.

Therefore, unless you’re an extraordinarily gifted and charismatic debater –
you lose. And when you lose, millions of people out in TV land are pulled a
few inches further away from common sense values, and a few inches closer to
embracing, or at least resigning themselves to accepting, same-sex marriage.

The lesbian debater appeals to Americans’ basic traits of tolerance,
inclusiveness, fair-mindedness and honor toward veterans. Every statement
she makes tends to create in the viewer positive feelings, not toward
same-sex marriage per se, but toward her – yet it’s the viewers’ attitudes
toward same-sex marriage that will change.

Each hidden persuasion is like “money” accruing in the “emotional bank
account” of the listener – and when there are enough funds (strong feelings
of sympathy) in the listener’s account, he or she has been “persuaded” of
the justness of these two women being married. Of if not persuaded, at least
“neutralized” in terms of offering any effective opposition to same-sex
marriage.

Watch how the feelings accumulate in the listener’s “bank account” until
they reach critical mass: “I love my country” (patriotism – cha-ching). “I
obey its laws and I pay my taxes” (responsible citizen – cha-ching). “I’m an
American, and have all the same rights you do” (appeal to fairness –
cha-ching). “I’ve served my country in the military and have put my life on
the line” (she’s a veteran! – double cha-ching). “I’ve lived monogamously
with my partner for 18 years” (loyalty – cha-ching). “We truly love each
other and want nothing more than to be married and to live out our lives in
peace and happiness – just like you” (true love – cha-ching). “Why shouldn’t
we be allowed to be married? How does it hurt you?” (personal intimidation –
cha-ching).

Now imagine how the television viewers are reacting to this debate.

Many of us in the audience find our feelings have been stirred by the
lesbian’s touching appeal. We like her. We want her to be happy. Our
positive feelings toward her start to subtly eat away at our long-held
conviction that same-sex marriage is wrong. Those warm emotions give rise to
a stream of thought-whispers that orbit our minds at light speed: Maybe I’ve
judged these people too harshly just because they’re different. Maybe they
could make each other happy if they were married. After all, heterosexual
married couples have lots of problems, and half of them get divorced – so
what difference does it really make? We start to doubt our prior beliefs,
wondering if they’re as hallowed as we’ve thought, or rather just some
antiquated religious notions about sex and sin that don’t really apply in
today’s world. Then the thought occurs to us, as though from divine
revelation: Don’t we all long to love and be loved? Maybe that is the
ultimate truth. She’s right, it doesn’t hurt anyone else for her to be
married to her partner. It’s mean-spirited to deny other human beings their
happiness. I like her. I want her to be happy.

Seduction complete.

If we were anchored in the Judeo-Christian moral standards that are
responsible for the singular success of the Western World, all this
emotional persuasion would be for naught. We’d easily discern the truth of
the debate and just be amused at the feeble attempts at manipulating our
feelings. But after several decades of public education that reflects not
the values of the nation’s founders, but those of ’60s radicals and
reformers, millions of Americans are just plain confused.

The farther we stray from the rock of unchanging spiritual principles, the
easier it is to get swept away by clever appeals to our feelings – including
the need to prove to others that we are “tolerant.” Increasingly, that means
“tolerant” of evil.

There’s no end to the variety of emotional manipulations to which we fall
prey, and there are no words to describe the stunning ease with which we
have been seduced to throw away that which is most precious to us.

In C.S. Lewis’s seven-volume “Chronicles of Narnia,” the poignant and
brilliantly insightful final book, “The Last Battle,” describes how the
good-hearted but naïve inhabitants of Narnia throw away their cherished
civilization – losing both their lives and their world itself – by falling
for a shabby ruse perpetrated by a few cunning and unprincipled characters
When you read it, you can’t help thinking, “Oh my gosh, this isn’t even a
very clever con game; it’s crude, full of contradictions, and easily seen
through from a thousand different directions.” You just want to shake them
and say, “Don’t you see what you’re falling for?”

Nevertheless, as the con men ruthlessly play on the doubts and fears of the
Narnia folk, their lies take hold and the light of civilization goes out.

Haven’t we in America done exactly the same thing? Look at the shabby ruse
we’ve fallen for. We’ve traded Western Civilization for vain delusions,
cheap thrills and laughably illogical doctrines. Like the townsfolk in “The
Emperor’s New Clothes,” we all know the king is wearing no clothes – we can
plainly see the truth – but we play along out of fear and intimidation.
We’re afraid of confrontation, of losing the love and approval of others, of
being labeled “judgmental,” “racist,” “bigoted” or “homophobic.” So, we
quietly allow our minds to be twisted, as we surrender our former beliefs
and bequeath an unknown country to our children and grandchildren.

How strange. Out of the thousands of years of suffering and oppression that
comprise human history, a light burns brightly for just a couple hundred
years. The American experiment – a revolutionary idea that the common man
can be free, master of his own government, so long as he himself is ruled by
God. For a short time this brilliant young country dazzles all the world and
all of history, not just with its power and productivity and progress, but
with its goodness.

And then, out of pure hatred – the same rage and rebellion institutionalized
in communism, Nazism and all the other “isms” that have paved the world’s
roads with corpses throughout the last century – haters of Truth scheme to
extinguish this shining light. So they concoct an absurd, fantastic ruse –
that cannibal societies are as worthwhile as Western ones, that animals
should have the same rights as human beings, that white people are
inherently racist and oppressive, that sexual perversion is perfectly normal
and noble, each passing year bringing new and more bizarre delusions to be
held up as truth.

How much stranger still that we’ve bought it.

Can we get the real America back? Only time will tell. But if we do, it very
likely will be due to the efforts of the current generation, which still has
some memory of the real America.

The “great melting pot” – E. pluribus unum – depended on an ideal. But the
melting pot become corrupted without this guiding spirit. Millions now
residing here are not loyal to American values. Rather than unified and
“color-blind,” the nation is divided and segregated. On top of everything
else, America literally has been invaded and we are at war.

Recognizing they must take rapid steps to reverse course, policy makers
entertain options for better policing the nation’s borders, screening
potential immigrants and re-evaluating those already in. But just over the
horizon is the more painful work – of revisiting the madness of
multiculturalism, political correctness, rebellion against America’s
founding values and the spiritual confusion that rebellion has caused. But
revisit them we must, since it is they that have led to both the present
invasion and the resulting near-paralysis over how to deal with the problem.

If we don’t change course, America will end up the loser. Even if the
current “terror war” went away – if it were all only a bad dream from which
we awoke with the World Trade Center towers still standing – we would still
lose America to the long-term invasion and conversion of our basic identity
that has been under way for decades.

Epilogue

Toward the end of her life, my grandmother Mary Kupelian wanted to travel
overseas one last time to visit her old-country relatives. I went with her,
as her bodyguard, you might say. I will never forget the time I spent with
her and those in her village – virtually all of whom, it seemed, were
somehow related to me. I will never forget her stories about what she and my
father went through during the Armenian genocide, and I’ll never forget what
a survivor she was, to pick up the few shattered pieces of their lives and
to come to America to start over.

And I will never ever forget the night we finally returned to the United
States. Our plane from Athens arrived at New York’s Kennedy Airport too late
for us to make our connection to Washington, D.C., so Grandmom and I slept
in the airport terminal that night, up in the second floor lounge. We were
both tired, and very happy to be back in America.

After a while, Grandmom shuffled off to the ladies’ room. On her return, she
described for me – her old woman’s voice brimming with excitement – how
everything in the restroom was so clean and shiny and modern, how there was
hot and cold running water, how everything worked properly – so totally
different from where we had just been. And she said she felt like kneeling
down and kissing America – right there on the floor of the restroom of JFK
airport – so grateful was she for being back in the USA.

My grandmother, who decades earlier as a “homeless, tempest-tossed”
immigrant had found refuge in this generous land, had once more come home
through the “golden door.”

To this day, whether due to some special blessing from God or just because
there’s so much contrasting darkness throughout the rest of the world,
America remains – despite unrelenting assaults by enemies within and without
– the national light of the world. May she always remain so.

——————————————————————————–

The preceding has been excerpted from the February edition of WND’s monthly
Whistleblower magazine, a comprehensive expose of multiculturalism and its
effects on America. The article is an abbreviated version of a more in-depth
exploration of multiculturalism from the forthcoming book by David Kupelian,
“The Marketing of Evil.”

——————————————————————————–

David Kupelian is vice president and managing editor of WorldNetDaily.com
and Whistleblower magazine, and author of the forthcoming book, “The
Marketing of Evil: How Radicals, Elitists, and Pseudo-Experts Sell Us
Corruption Disguised as Freedom.