It is time for Armenian-American organizations to check with all the U.S. presidential candidates about their views on Armenian issues.  Some things can be negotiated but one thing cannot.

No, not the genocide resolution but Section 907 – the ban of U.S. assistance to Azerbaijan that G.W. Bush has been waiving since 2001.

According to Wikipedia:

Section 907 of the United States Freedom Support Act bans any kind of direct United States aid to the Azerbaijani government. This ban makes Azerbaijan the only exception to the countries of the former Soviet Union, to receive direct aid from United States government under the Freedom Support Act to facilitate economic and political stability.^[1].

The Act was strongly lobbied for by the Armenian American community in the US^[2], and was passed in response to Azerbaijan’s blockade of Armenia. which was at full scale war with Azerbaijan over the predominantly Armenian populated Nagorno Karabakhregion of Azerbaijan. Since 1994 cease-fire agreement Nagorno Karabakh has established a de-facto independent republic, which is not recognized by any country.

On October 24, 2001, the Senate adopted a waiver of section 907 that would provide the President with ability to waiver the Section 07^[3]. He has done so since then.

In a sense, American taxpayers have paid for the destruction of the largest medieval Armenian cemetery in the world.  The destruction of old Djulfa in December of 2005 was carried out by soldiers of the Azerbaijani army, as seen in film, using heavy technology.  This is the same army that the current American administration has been giving money since October of 2001.

Thus, the question posed to all U.S. presidential candidates should be:

Dear candidate, in December of 2005 Azerbaijan’s army reduced to dust world’s largest medieval Armenian cemetery.  Since 2001, the current administration has been waiving Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act, legislation that bans military aid to the Republic of Azerbaijan.  If elected a president, will you or will you not waive Section 907?

The fact that America’s “Holidays” don’t extend to millions of Orthodox Christian Americans who celebrate Christmas in the first week of January is not as disturbing as the fact some of the Orthodox are treated as “non-Christians” in the United States.

According to a local American newspaper, for instance:

Puccini said the Bibles, each worth about $28, were purchased through the Assembles of God program Light for the Lost. Light for the Lost provides funds for missionaries traveling around the nation.

“Our son, Nicholas, is a missionary in Armenia and is working to translate the Bible into Armenian” through Light for the Lost, Puccini added.

Missionary Nicholas is, well,  roughly 1,600 years late because the Bible was translated into Armenian in the 5th century A.D.

But apparently, Armenian immigrants to the United States also get the opportunity to become, hm, Christians. According to Baptist Press, an Armenian immigrant has “surrender[ed] to Jesus.” I thought the Armenians surrendered to Jesus in 301 A.D., or am I missing something?

I realize that many Armenians, especially from the Republic, are not religious and may know little about their centuries-old Christian heritage but it is quite ignorant for the good American people to think that they ought to teach other Christians how to be Christians.

What the good American Christians should do is to keep up the Christmas or whatever tree it is up until January 8 because there are millions of Americans who don’t celebrate Christmas on December 25.  “Happy Holidays” shouldn’t stop on January 2.

The current issue of The Armenian Reporter (January 5, 2008), a newspaper in the United States, has my latest article on the destruction of the Djulfa cemetery discussing the politically safe “both sides are guilty” argument and its effectiveness.

The article, with a front page preview, also features a satellite image from the Djulfa cemetery before its final destruction showing marks of pre-2003 destruction.  To see the satellite image and the article in the actual paper format, download the January 5, 2008 issue of The Armenian Reporter from http://mark.armenianreporteronline.com/generating/pdf/2008/jan05/A0105.pdf. 

The full article is also available at the Djulfa blog.

[…]

While on a one-day visit to Nakhichevan last November, the U.S. Ambassador in AzerbaijanAnne Derse was confronted by angry Azeri students who were unhappy that an exhibit at Harvard Universityfeatured photographs of Armenian cultural heritage – today completely vanished – in Nakhichevan. During Mrs. Derse’s visit, the Nakhichevani branch of Azerbaijan’s National Academy of Sciences issued an official statement proclaiming that “there is no Armenian historical or cultural monument among those registered” in the region.

In fact, these Armenian monuments no longer exist. One of the largest – the medieval cemetery of Djulfa – was wiped off the face of the earth two years ago, in December 2005, in a well-documented case of vandalism that was condemned by the European Union.

And according to what Jonathan Henick, Public Affairs Officer at the American Embassy in Baku, told this writer, “[t]he Ambassador and others at the Embassy have raised the issue of the Djulfa cemetery with Azerbaijani officials.”

But during her short visit to Nakhichevan, Mr. Henick said, “The Ambassador did not have the opportunity to travel outside of the capital city. She did visit a number of interesting cultural monuments in Nakhichivan city, but our understanding is that none of those monuments were of Armenian origin.”

Perhaps the Ambassador missed a chance to visit the site where the world’s largest Armenian cemetery existed not too long ago. Instead, the American Embassy, as articulated by Mr. Henick, offered an important message to Armenia and Azerbaijan that “joint efforts to preserve monuments in both countries would serve the interests of safeguarding the shared cultural heritage of this fascinating region and might also be a valuable confidence- building measure in the ongoing efforts to find a peaceful resolution to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.”

The well-intentioned statement of the Embassy resonates with a popular Western sentiment that “both sides are to blame” for the cultural destruction that is happening. This argument is in a way a form of political correctness and seeks not to dehumanize any ethnic group.

Yet this approach avoids analysis of specific cases and unintentionally supports the prejudiced “barbarian” argument – “Azeris are barbarians they have always destroyed Armenian monuments,” and vice versa. It suggests that if we accept that a certain aspect of an ethnic conflict – such as destroying the other’s culture – may be an official policy or a norm among one side and not necessarily and equally among the other then this one side is more “civilized” than the other.

In reality, cultural destruction during ethnic conflict and who destroys how much and how it goes about destroying is not a reflection of “clash of civilizations,” but a representation of a slew of historical and social circumstances. These do not demonstrate the “humanity” of one people or another but whether one or the other perceives the opposite side as much human.

[…]

Armenia’s leaders have no such reasons to rewrite history and instead try to contrast their policies to what Azerbaijanhas done to Armenian monuments. The restoration of two mosques in Karabakh with government funding is the most recent such example.

A more realistic picture of Azeri monuments in Armeniais one of neglect and ignorance, as Vanadzor-based journalist Naira Bulgadarian reported for the IWPR Caucasus Report in September 2007. There is also an effort to present Muslim monuments on Armenian territory as belonging only to the Persians, and not the Azeris – while both groups, as well as Kurds, Turkmen and Arabs, can lay claims to these monuments.

Yet, as Ms. Bulgadarian reported, the Armenian government has also allocated funds to catalogue and to safeguard Azeri cemeteries. An exhibit in Stepanakert late last year featured photographs of about 30 Muslim monuments in Karabakh.

Azerbaijani officials and activists, on the other hand, have to a large degree ridiculed the discussion of monuments in the South Caucasus. Last October and November, as part of the effort to thwart the Nakhichevan exhibit at Harvard, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry distributed letters and statements claiming that “Armenians destroyed over 100,000 cultural monuments, hundreds of cemeteries and 1,000-2,000-year-old archaeological monuments in the occupied Azerbaijani territory.”[…]

A friend was telling me yesterday that a certain field of psychology, developed in France, studies the memory of the  perpetrator group in genocides.  In a hundred years, it is thought, the forgotten crime evokes discussion and condemnation of the genocide among the descendants of the perpetrators.  

Only seven years before the centennial anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, there are still only a handful Turkish scholars who openly write and acknowledge the Armenian Genocide.  But given the fact that these scholars literally risk their lives and everything else they have, their existence is amazing.  Moreover, Turkey’s millions-of-dollars-campaign to attract non-Turkish scholars in the genocide denial “scholarship” has produced a pool of few professors who, I guess, don’t mind being the devil’s advocate as far as the devil is paying well.

This is, perhaps, the reason that the ultra-nationalist “deep state” apparatus in Turkey is freaking out that the list that has included Taner Akcam, Fatma Gocek, Elif Shafak and others is growing.

Mehmet Sait Uluışık, a Turkish-born Circassian, has only recently started researching the role of his own ethnic group – the Circassians – in perpetrating the Armenian Genocide although Mr. Uluışık is careful not to use the word ‘genocide.’

But Turkish nationalists already know that they can’t label Uluışık a “traitor” because the Circassian researcher is not investigating the genocide as a whole but is instead specifically looking into the role that his own people – a Muslim group from the Caucasus – played in the massacres.  Moreover, in Turkey’s attempt to deny, justify and downplay  the Armenian Genocide some have talked about “the Circassian genocide,” with a reference to persecution of the Circassian people under Tsarist Russia.

So yes, Mr. Mehmet Sait Uluışık is more dangerous for the Turkish apparatus than any other scholar so far.  And, so, he was recently denied entry to his homeland.

Here is a press release, received in e-mail, from Mr. Uluışık about what happened at the Turkish airport:

Notice to Press and Public

      My name is Mehmet Sait Uluışık and I was born in Eskişehir (Turkey) on July 10, 1959. On November 20, 2007, at Yeşilköy Airport (Istanbul), without presenting any justification but based upon an order from the Ministry of the Interior, I was declared a suspicious person, denied entry into Turkey and sent back to Berlin on the first return flight.

      I have been living in Germany since 1984 and have worked as a journalist and publisher since 1992. Because of my Circassian ethnic background I have been interested in Circassian history and since 2005 have stopped working actively as a journalist and publisher and started devoting all of my time to gathering documents on the subject.

      I was stripped of my Turkish citizenship in 1991 because of my failure to perform obligatory military service (based on Order #1956, dated June 7, 1991, supported by Statute 403, Section 25, paragraph ç). Since 1997, the year I became a German citizen, I have been entering and exiting Turkey regularly without incident.

      I was not provided with the official reason for denying my entry into Turkey. Despite this, based upon information that I was able to gather from contacts I made, the reason I was denied entry into Turkey is apparently to prevent my performing research at the Presidential Ottoman Archives (Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşiv, hereinafter “BOA”) in Istanbul.

      There is a very simple reason why my entry to Turkey was blocked instead of directly prohibiting my research at the archives. If the latter had occurred, it would have made an obvious statement that would have belied the arguments of the governing AK Party administration that “Our archives are open to all. Everyone’s welcome to come in and examine them,” or “let the historians form a commission.” By using a different strategy and preventing my entry into the country, it allows for the raising of a suspicion that there are perhaps other issues in my personal background.

      Recently, I started to wonder about the history of Circassians and I want to write a book about the subject. The actual topic that interests me is “Did the Circassians play any role in the events of 1915 and if so, what?” Also, I have been trying to find the answers to the question, “What was the relationship between Circassians and other minorities during the period in question, prior to that and afterwards?” For the past two years, I have been working in a regular, disciplined manner at the BOA and systematically gathering documents on the subject. A large part of my life during the past two years has been taken up this way at the archives in Istanbul.

      During my work at the archives I was frequently blocked in my efforts by the employees, who are known as followers of Turkish-Islamic synthesis (mostly supporters of the Turkish nationalist party). I believe that the denial of my entry into Turkey was the result of efforts by these same individuals. At the airport I was presented with a “Record of Denial of Entry” form. On the form was all of my identification information. This information taken from my German ID card is available in only one place, and that is the Presidential Ottoman Archives.

      The police officer at the airport informed me that the order [to deny entry] came directly from the Ministry of the Interior, not from the General Directorate of Security. Based upon his investigation of the issue, parliamentarian Mr. Ufuk Uras informed me that the entry denial did not come from the Ministry of National Defense nor did it have anything to do with military service.

      Since the issuance of the entry denial on Nov. 20, 2007, I have made no effort to broadcast this information. I believed that the ban was an effort to discredit the AK Party administration. I had hoped that the AK Party administration would quickly rectify the situation when it so obviously contradicts the government’s policies as stated to the public. I tried to remain silent because if the incident were revealed, it would create an obstacle in Turkey’s relations with the European Union and lead the way to lowering opinion towards the current administration and Turkey in general, especially after recent discourse regarding the events of 1915. I tried to resolve it through private channels.

      Unfortunately both my own efforts and those of my attorney to reach the authorities within the AK Party have come to a standstill. I was unable to get anywhere with my efforts. That leaves only one option: letting the public know, through the media, about a mindset that attempts to prevent an individual from conducting research in the archives by denying them entry into the country.

      It is obvious what sort of difficulty is going to befall someone like me who is doing nothing other than gathering documents in a systematic manner from the archives, if a government that claims “Our archives are open to all; we welcome the formation of a historians commission” turns around and not only denies that person access to the archives but even entry to the country itself. Nothing that Turkey and its administrations say on the subject can be considered credible. One can only smirk at a statement like “Let’s solve our problems from the past” when it comes out of a mindset that views working in the archives and gathering documents as criminal. This can only be answered with the statement, “Do your homework first, then open up the archives to everyone.”

      I want this disrespectful action against me resolved immediately and my work, which has been delayed because of it, compensated for as soon as possible.

      Respectfully,

      Mehmet Sait Uluışık

      Jan. 2, 2008 – Berlin

Armenian-dominated Nagorno Karabakh is de facto independent from the Republic of Azerbaijan, but the infamous leader of the latter country has now said Karabakhis need to leave if they don’t want Azeri rule raising questions about the legitimacy of Azerbaijan’s claim to territorial integrity and supporting Armenian fears that Karabakh’s return to Azerbaijan would be suicidal.

According to Armenia Liberty, a news source funded by the United States government:

Azerbaijan’s tough-talking President Ilham Aliev has said that Nagorno-Karabakh’s predominantly Armenian population must agree to return under Azerbaijani rule or emigrate from its homeland.

“We will never allow the creation of a second Armenian state on Azerbaijani soil,” Aliev said in his New Year’s address to the nation cited by Azerbaijani media. “If the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh want to self-determine, they should do that within the framework of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. If they don’t want that, they should leave Nagorno-Karabakh and create their second state elsewhere.”

Needles to say, this is the exact attitude that has made Karabakh Armenians’ mind up to never ever live under Azeri rule which basically says you like it or leave it. 

If Nagorno-Karabakh were returned to Azerbaijan under the current leadership and ideology full-scale genocide against the Armenian population would be inevitable.  Azerbaijan’s current regime is as cruel as any dictatorship is in the world punishing its own journalists for challenging any official line and destroying property of its own citizens so that the latter use the monopolized industries.  Along with Saudi Arabia and Dubai, Azerbaijan should be the third country in the true company of “evils,” but of course America’s foreign brown-nose policy would not consider even asking for restraint to a country that gives oil.

Mr. Aliev, as far as there is one Armenian alive in this world Nagorno-Karabakh will never become part of Azerbaijan.  No conscience person would volunteer for a murder experience.   On the other hand, you are not man enough to attack Armenia and you know that.  All you can do is to reduce to dust defenseless Armenian monuments in your territory and then retardedly deny that these monuments existed.  You are not even man enough – unlike the fucking Taliban – to say you destroy monuments out of hatred or beliefs. 

I wish that in 2008 your father’s grave, Mr. Aliev, is bulldozered and reduced to dust. Then maybe we will be on the same page about appreciating memory. 

According to Today’s Zaman, a moderate newspaper from Turkey:

Renowned pianist and composer Fazıl Say will compose a ballet piece for the romantic and tragic love story referenced in legends of Akhtamar Island in the eastern Anatolian province of Van. Say, with this piece, intends to create an international project in which 100 Turkish and 100 Armenian dancers will take to the stage together in the performance of the work.

With an intent to bring Armenians and Turks closer to reconciliation, the project at its face needs to be applauded. 

 Moreover, the fact that Today’s Zaman now consistently uses the historically correct name for the Armenian island – Akhtamar – as opposed to the distorted Turkish “Akdamar” is a sign of progress.  

But what makes me uncomfortable is the following:

The Akhtamar legend, which is considered the origin of the name of the island, is about Tamara, the beautiful daughter of the clergyman residing on the island. According to the legend, Tamara fell in love with a Muslim shepherd from a nearby village. Every night, the shepherd would swim to the island in order to meet Tamara. To show her location to him, Tamara would light a candle at night. Having learned of his daughter’s love affair, the clergyman lit a candle on a stormy night and went down to the coast, but he frequently changed his location to exhaust the shepherd. Finally, the young boy drowned, but he shouted in his last breath, “Oh Tamara.” The girl heard his last shout, and she, too, committed suicide, throwing herself in the lake. The island’s name is said to come from the boy’s last words, “Oh Tamara.”

I am not uncomfortable about a Muslim and Christian getting married, but the tradition about the name “Akhtamar” doesn’t scientifically explain the epitology of the term which many scholars rightly argue should be written as Aghtamar. 

Whatever the case, the island of Akhtamar was mentioned in Armenian history in the 4th century A.D., centuries before Islam was established.  So this romantic legend about Armenian-Turkish marriage and its name for the island, although poetic, is historically unjust.  I am not sure whether historic distortion is the price for peace.  

The ballet project overall sounds a good one – IF the place of Akhtamar in Armenian history is presented without deliberate distortions for a romantic reconcilliation.

The murderer of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink wasn’t a minor at the time of the assassination in January of 2007:

According to Turkey’s NTV:

The man standing trial for the January 19, 2007, slaying of Dink has been named as Ogun Samast. Till now, the media have been forbidden to publish Samast’s name as he was believed to be under the age of 18 when he allegedly shot Dink outside the office of the newspaper Argos, of which he was the editor.

However, the results of medical tests conducted on Samast revealed he is currently 19 years of age, meaning he was not a minor when the allegedly gunned Dink down in Istanbul.

Samast is standing trial for the murder of Dink along with a number of other men accused of involvement in the crime or inciting Samast to commit the shooting.

Detained a few days after the shooting, Samast, who has links to far right wing Turkish groups, admitted to killing Dink.

The Media Line remembers the assassinations of 2007 from Hrant Dink to Bhutto. 

The year 2007 ended in the Middle East on a dramatic note, with the assassination of Pakistani opposition leader, Benazir Bhutto. Bhutto’s killing by a gunman last Thursday was no isolated assassination.

This year was marked by a number of political killings, which could shape the political future of the region and affect the rest of the world.