As the 9th Annual International Telethon to benefit Armenia and Artsakh is approaching, good news have arrived from Artsakh’s Madaghis village.

Toronto resident Artin Boghossian’s forwarded press release informs that Toronto’s (Canada) Hayastan All-Armenian Fund chapter has opened a 21st-century-like secondary school in Madaghis to serve 150 students with 11 classrooms, a computer lab and a library.

The opening ceremony took place on September 27, 2006 and the ribbon was cut by Baroness Caroline Cox, the Deputy Speaker of the U.K. House of Lords.

Hayastan Fund’s 9th Telethon will take place on Thanksgiving Day, November 23, 2006. Donations can already be made at http://www.armeniafund.org/donate/donations.php or by sending a check or money order to
Armenia Fund, Inc.
111 North Jackson Street, Suite 205
Glendale, CA 91206.

The telethon will be broadcasted at http://www.armeniafund.org and most likely at www.yerevannights.com as well.

According to the official Hayastan Fund website, “Proceeds from Telethon 2006 will benefit the war torn region of Hadrut in Nagorno Karabakh. Among various major projects, the plan calls for the reconstruction of a regional hospital, a series of new schools, new water pipelines and distribution networks, as well a comprehensive regional agricultural development program all designed to enhance the socio-economic standards of the region. The plan will draw parallels to the Martakert Regional Development plan, which is currently underway, after months of planning and fund collection.”

Last year I sent a small donation to the Fund. Our financial situation was, to say the least, not so good but I really wanted to have my contribution. In several months, I found my name listed on their website’s report!

This Fund is truly devoted to reducing poverty and promoting education in Armenia and Artsakh, and I hope every one of you who reads this post will contribute this year.

If you have contributed in the past, double your donation this year or donate at least 20% of your one-month’s salary. We can make Armenia and Artsakh a better place!

Although some people, especially who live outside of the United States, are not crazy about Halloween, I am looking forward to it!

Guess who is going to be the scariest person this year? No, not me.

Cold War propaganda says Halloween is Devil worshiping. Please, people, it is not the case. Halloween is a ghool thing, and especially Armenians have to like it!

Why? Well, a blogger from LiveJournal, has decided to dress up as armo (Armenians from the Republic of Armenia) to scare the crap out of people! Could something be scarier in this world?

Frenshit writes, “I'm gonna dress like an armo (armenian).
I need to get adidas sweat pants and jacket,open half way down so my chest hair can stick out,with some cheap bling bling everywhere,draw me a unibrow,wear some dressed shoes..I also will walk around all over town looking pissed off and staring at people,with a cigarette stuck in my mouth..a scary armo.”

Will I dress up? Of course! In what? Well, most of my friends will know the answer – in Greek toga, of course. Needless to say, I have been dressing up in toga too many times in the last two years. No, no, not for animal parties…

Some pics from last year

Riot police take security measures in front of the French consulate during a protest in Istanbul October 8, 2006. Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has added his voice to a growing chorus of Turkish protests over French plans to make it a crime to deny that Armenians suffered 'genocide' at the hands of Ottoman Turks in World War One. REUTERS/Anatolian News Agency/Erhan Sevenler (TURKEY)

I am not sure when the exact update was made, but CIA’s current (last updated Oct 5, 2006) Factbook on Armenia, https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/am.html, acknowledges that the WWI “forced resettlement” (the Armenian Genocide) took place “in the western portion of Armenia.”

The original 2006 Factbook had no mention of “the western portion of Armenia” (see http://www.theodora.com/wfbcurrent/armenia…roduction.html), but it did refer to “eastern area of Armenia” suggesting that there was also western Armenia.

For many years Turkey has campaigned for the elimination of the phrase “Western Armenia” (or Armenia) from history books and maps changing the 2500-year-old phrase to “eastern Turkey” or “eastern Anatolia” since the Armenian Genocide of 1915.

The Factbook has also been referring to “Armenian Highland” – the thousands of years old geographical name of what are now eastern Turkey, northern Iran, the Armenian Republic and eastern part of the Azerbaijani Republic. Turkish propaganda has worked hard to eliminate the term “Armenian Highland” by calling it “Anatolia,” although by “Anatolia” it is generally meant Asia Minor

You think I have forgotten about your homework? Hell no!
Actually I was kind of disappointed. Only 25 of your examined the tree, but did not bother to write the essay.

Speaking of writing essays, since I am writing this post instead of writing my 10-page essay on democracy in South Asia, I think you should be excused for not writing the first paper (which will not of course happen to me. I mean the excuse).

But I still want to share my thoughts about the picture. I still want you to know why I posted it on Blogian.

As most of you have guessed the picture is a family tree: an Armenian family tree.

You see, I am Armenian and I know a lot about my family. I have seen many pictures of my ancestors and relatives around the world, but one thing I will never see is the tree.

My family tree was cut down to hundreds of pieces between 1895 and 1923, when the powerful Maghakyan family of Urfa (what now Turks call Sanliurfa) was killed, raped, converted, forced to leave and never return back. There are hundreds of Maghakyans (Maghakians, Malakians, Magakians) in the world today, and most of us don’t know we are relatives, and even if we do, we cannot find the tree, guess because why? The tree was destroyed.

The tree I have posted is of an Armenian family the recent history of which traces back to Iran. Yes, they did not become victims of the Genocide because they lived in Iran. So they have a tree (and I am really jealous).

But if you think more of this tree, it will make you think more and more. See, the tree only starts in 1603, the century when Armenians were deported to Persia (Iran) by Persians to make their country better. What is wrong about that? Well, they lost the hundreds of more pieces of their tree.

When you think more, you realize that there is 90% chance that the tree could have been traced back to earlier years, at least in terms of archaeological evidence, a year ago. You see, a year ago there was still a cemetery in Nakhichevan called Hin Jugha, where thousands of medieval hand-carved khachkars (cross stones) were standing as a reminder of the story of Iranian Armenian community’s famous ancestors.

But starting on December 15, 2005, the khachkars were destroyed by bulldozers and axes. Perhaps most of you have seen the video, right? If not, you can still do it at www.julfa.cjb.net.

Now you know why I wanted you to think about the Armenian tree. For the descendants of genocide survivors, the tree is attractive, since we don’t have one (or if we do, it is cut to pieces). But when you continue thinking of the tree, you realize that it only starts in 1603; that it had been cut to pieces in that year or somewhere near that day. And then you realize that the tree could still be traced back had Julfa’s murder not been finalized last year. And you once again tell to yourself,

REMEMBER, REMEMBER the 15th of DECEMBER…

Ed Sadowski’s Fall 2006 “Quick action saves Library from intruders” report includes the details of my participation in ant-terrorist investigation.

It was a dark and not too stormy Thursday night. All was quiet and peaceful in the ACC Library. The peace and tranquility was broken by a startling discovery by Library student assistant Simon Maghakyan. Simon stumbled onto a gang of invaders on the lower level of the Library…

The investigation took place in early 2006, when I was still employed at the Arapahoe Community College Library.

The full report is available on page 2 of http://www.arapahoe.edu/lrc/newsletter8.06.pdf.

The first modern Turkish politician to acknowledge that the Armenian Genocide was indeed Genocide has come forward.

Her name is Nebahat Albayrak, but she lives in the Netherlands.

photo WFA

The Dutch-language NRC.nl reports in its October 4, 2006 issue that Albayrak finds it “correct” to call the Armenian extermination “genocide.”

Albayrak’s public recognition of the Armenian Genocide comes after some Turkish political candidates were removed from Dutch parties for denying the Genocide.

Apparently, the Dutch lesson works.

Today, when Armenians speak of their genocide’s awareness they make frequent comparisons with the Holocaust. Turkish deniers attack the comparison as a “propagandistic technique of advancing the Armenian cause.”

But there is one thing Turkish deniers will never tell you. Starting the 1930s and for the next couple decades to come, Jews themselves would compare their tragedy to the Armenian Genocide to let the world know about the Holocaust.

Raphael Lemkin, a Jew who coined the term “genocide,” would generally start talking about genocide with “Armenians.” For example, in the 1949 CBS Interview with Lemkin, he said, “I became interested in genocide because it happened to the Armenians.”

—

A few days ago, when I wrote about my visit to the Holocaust museum in Washington D.C., I mentioned that Frantz Werfel, the author of the best-selling “Forty Days of Musa Dagh,” was the first in the list of Jewish authors whose works had been destroyed by the Nazis as part of the plan to eliminate every trait of Germany’s Jewish influence.

I also mentioned Prof. Herbert Hirsch’s lecture in which he said “Forty Days of Musa Dagh” was the most-read book in the Nazi concentration camps.

Werfel’s book about the Armenian genocide and the heroic self-defense of the Armenians of Musa Dagh area was already popular among world’s Jewish community in the 1930s.

In 1935 Leon Fram, a Jewish Rabbi in Detroit, talked to a 1000-people-audience about Werfel’s book and Hiterl’s treatment of Germany’s Jews. He said what was happening to the Jews was what had happened to the Armenians.

Rabbi Fram observed, “Hitler is achieving what the Turks hoped to accomplish and failed. They hoped the annihilation of the Armenians would take place so quietly that no one would notice it … In broad daylight, Nazi Germany is carrying out the annihilation of a people and no one does anything about it.”

The entire article (from Hairenik Weekly’s Friday, March 8, 1935 issue) is posted below. Click on it for enlargement in JPEG format.

Thank you to Marc A. Mamigonian, Director of Programs and Publications at National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR), for scanning the article and sharing it.

The Los Angeles Times has an interesting article titled “Duduk: The Instrument That Makes Hollywood Cry.” Duduk, the unique Armenian musical instrument with thousands of years of history is becoming more and more popular day by day and has been featured in movies such as "The Crow," "Dead Man Walking," "Gladiator," "Hidalgo," "The Hulk," "The Passion of the Christ," "Munich" and "Syriana."

Why is Duduk conquering the world? John Ehrlich might have the answer: "I don't think there's anything that sounds as close to the human voice, and there's nothing as compelling to the human ear as the human voice."

Personally, I don’t think the emergence of Duduk in the movies is simply “stylish.” In April of 2005, when my college’s honor society, led by me, organized Genocide and Holocaust Commemoration, we invited Walter Plywaski, a Holocaust survivor, to speak.

Duduk was the music between the brakes of the commemoration ceremony and Plywaski was listening to it for the first time in his life. After the event, the Holocaust survivor asked me to send him a copy of the Duduk CD so that he would accompany his feature talks on how he survived the Genocide of the Jews.

The LA Times article is available at
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/…rack=crosspromo.

Some of the movies that Duduk is featured in:

When I was in D.C. last week, there was one thing I had to do: to visit the Holocaust museum. This was a choice over visiting the Nation’s Capitol, the White House or the museums in the Judicial Square area.

I had to go to the Holocaust memorial; I had to see it.
I went there with Khachik Papanyan, a young Armenian from Austin whom I met at the ANCA Leadership Conference.

Photography was not allowed inside the museum. I found the picture of Hitler’s quote in the net

One thing I will never forget from the museum was the slideshow of various parts of bodies “Made In” German hospitals, and the picture of a Jewish man who was forced to drink water from the ocean to test whether the German soldiers, whose planes crashed on the ocean, could survive with that kind of water.

There are many chances that I would never go to the Holocaust museum, as opposed to visiting the Capitol instead, if I weren’t Armenian; if my own family members had not been burned in Urfa’s church.

But one has no identity in the Holocaust museum. One is looking, as stated in a famous saying, at the story of our people murdered by our people.

A bundle of books in a case attracted my attention. I assumed that these were the books by Jewish authors that Germans had burnt during the Holocaust. This reminded me of the cultural genocide of the Armenian genocide that I did my paper on for the International Institute of Genocide and Human Rights Studies.

I don’t think the bundle included the Bible, although most of it is written by Jews, isn’t it? Later I decided to actually read the entire list of the authors whose works were eliminated in Germany, but I stopped on the first one: Frantz Werfel. Finding Werfel should not have been surprising to me, but to actually see him as the first person on the list of Jewish geniuses was something different.

In the 21st century, Frantz Werfel’s name is mostly familiar to Armenians. In the 20th century, during WWII, his name was way familiar to the Jews of the concentration camps. According to what my Jewish professor Herbert Hirsch told me in Toronto, Werfel’s “The Forty Days of Musa Dagh” was the Bible of the concentration camps.

For those of you who are not familiar, “The Forty Days of Musa Dagh” is the story of a few thousand Armenians who concentrated on Musa mount and defended themselves against the Turkish army during the Genocide. This was the best-known Armenian self-defense during the genocide. If I am not mistaken, this was the best-selling book in Europe, after the Bible, in the 30s and the 40s. Why had Werfel written such a book? Well, he thought the same might happen to his people…

I continue to walk, with the disgusting feeling that Nazis destroyed the “Bible of the concentration camps” just because the author was Jewish. And ironically, that book by a Jew was about the self-defense of other people during other genocide.
I walk ahead and another part of the Museum strikes me: Hitler’s “Who Remembers the Extermination of the Armenians” quote is on the left wall. I stand there for a few minutes, reading it over and over again. Could we, the Armenians, have prevented the Holocaust had we been more successful in having the perpetrators of the Armenian genocide punished?

Took this one from outside

Then I spend another thirty minutes in the Museum, and it is time to go: my flight is pretty soon. I walk down the stairs with the sad and various thoughts about humans, people, my people and my family. I walk with the sad thought that the way we were killed was inspirational for others to kill others, and the way we tried not to be killed was inspirational for others not to be killed too.

Closer to the exit of the museum, I saw the pictures of some prominent Jews that fought against the Nazis. I read one by one. I saw Polish Jew Rayman’s name; I knew I had seen the name before.

I read Rayman’s biography, and here it was. He was one of the members of Armenian survivor Missak Manouchian’s group that organized the French Resistance against the Nazis.

I came back to Denver in a few hours reading Anne Frank.