As one of our readers has noticed, I will be on a panel discussing the recent post-election unrest in Armenia at the City University of New York later this month.  It is organized by Armenians and Progressive Politics symposium (formerly known as Armenians and the Left).

So if anyone will be in New York on Saturday, May 31, I hope to see you there.

Although I knew a year ago that I’d be asked to participate in the symposium (perhaps discussing environment or human trafficking or even the destruction of Djulfa), my (I guess non-partisan) blogging on the unrest was the main reason I was asked to talk about the political developments in Armenia. And since I will graduate with my BA in Political Science next week, this is a panel I am really interested in.

Onnik Krikorian has an excellent analysis of the rise of blogs amid the March post-election clashes in Armenia.

Turkey has apparently banned an 11-year-old organization that has been promoting Turkish-Armenian reconciliation through business. 

The Turkish-Armenian Business Development Council (TABDC), according to its website, “is the first and only official link between the public and private sectors in each of the two countries’ communities.”

A TABDC press release, received in e-mail, states:

TURKISH-ARMENIAN BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL – EUROPEAN UNION

Brussels, Belgium

May 9, 2008

TABDC-EU calls for Turkish government to reconsider ban On February 26, 2008, the Turkish-Armenian Business Development Council – EU was ordered by the Turkish Ministry of Interior to cease its activities in Turkey.

The TABDC is a unique organization seeking to establish links between Turkey and Armenia. As one of the rare links between the two countries and one working for the common good, TABDC-EU asks the Turkish government to reconsider its unfortunate decision.

Some media organizations have begun to cover this story and expressed an interest which the TABDC welcomes. In apparent contradiction to the recent diplomatic overture by Foreign Minister Babacan to his Armenian colleague, the banning of TABDC-EU is sending mixed signals regarding the Turkish government’s intentions. This is particularly unfortunate at this stage of Turkey’s accession process and on the eve of another European Parliament report on Turkey’s accession.

“The rejection letter by the Ministry of the Interior in Ankara is all the more surprising as this same [AKP] government had sought help from the TABDC a few years ago to establish contact with Armenians in Armenia and the Diaspora”, said TABDC Co-President Kaan Soyak.

The ability of civil society organizations such as TABDC to build contacts and confidence over time and to promote a common understanding in Armenia, in Turkey and in the EU is beyond question. Particularly in such tense relationships as that between the Turkish and Armenian governments, civil society initiatives are indispensible and must be allowed to operate freely.

Kaan Soyak wishes to correct some press misstatements however. TABDC, since its foundation, has never lobbied one way or the other on the genocide issue. Although the organization recognizes the significance of the issue, it has not included it within its remit. This decision came after careful consideration, and we continue to believe that that it is the most appropriate. We call upon all involved to respect this decision.

While TABDC-EU asks the Turkish Government to re-consider its decision, it will continue to act at its level to promote understanding between the two societies and to help reestablish relations between the two countries.

As the press release alludes, the ban might have to do with the group’s de facto recognition of the Armenian genocide, a crime official Turkish and many nationalists vehemently deny. Soyak himself, for instance, refers to the Armenian genocide as such. TABDC, nonetheless, repeatedly makes clear that their work does not deal with the issue of the genocide.

My sister, who lives in Armenia, has ripped her husband’s passoport into many pieces in front of him. Her action has nothing to do with patriotism or anarchy. She just prevented her husband from traveling to northern Europe for five days at a time when she is getting closer to having her second baby.

She had apparently overheard her husband’s friend convincing him to definitely make the trip because they could have fun with women. While my sister had been reluctant about the this business trip, hearing the conversation she knew it was not going to happen. Her husband’s response? He laughed and, well, he is not going.

Although my sister never uses words like feminism or women’s rights, she resembles a not-so-much discussed traditional feminism that exists in some, but not most, Armenian families.

This story reminded me of what I once read in Armenian-American expressionist Arshile Gorky’s biography. Here is an excerpt as posted at 16Beaver:

“Arshile Gorky’s grandmother, the widow Hamaspiur, had brought the family together to hold a vigil for her youngest son, sixteen-year-old Nishan, who had vanished several days earlier. She suspected that he had been abducted by Kurds, for he had fallen in love with a Kurdish girl whose brother took offense. . . .

Only five years earlier, her husband, Sarkis Der Marderosian, the last of a long line of Armenian apostolic priests, had been nailed to the door of the church where he served in Van
City.”

As the family prayed, there was a thud at the door. Outside, they found Nishan’s blood-drenched  body. Months of wild grief later, “to revenge herself against God,” Hamaspiur set the monastery church on fire.

Images: Pope Benedict XVI (L) greets Supreme Patriarch Catholicos Karekin II of the Holy Armenian Apostolic Church during a weekly general audience at the Vatican May 7, 2008. REUTERS/Osservatore Romano (VATICAN)

Hetq.am, a popular investigative news source in Armenia, has published an article covering the role of blogs in delivering information during the state of emergency in Armenia in March 2008. This blog is also mentioned.

A Spanish journalist, who was accidentally injured in an 80s attack by Armenian fighters in their radical efforts for recognition of the Armenian Genocide, has written another book on a forgotten topic that almost had him killed.

Image: The cover of “Armenia: The Forgotten Genocide” from José Antonio Gurriarán’s official website

According to the Spanish-language El Pais, José Antonio Gurriarán’s second book on the extermination of Ottoman Armenians during WWI, “Armenia: The Forgotten Genocide,” was released on May 2, 2008 in the Cultural Club of Barcelona.

Telling the forgotten history of the Armenian Genocide to a Spanish audience, Gurriarán’s new book on the subject is the second one two and a half decades.

Back in 1982 Gurriarán had published “La Bomba,” a book referencing his injury in an attack by ASALA (Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia) members that opened his heart to a silenced story he has not been able to forget.

According to Wikipedia, in December 1980 José Antonio Gurriarán, a 39-year-old journalist at the time:

“left the building of the newspaper “The People” (Pueblo) and entered a telephone booth to talk to his wife. The plan was to go to see a movie by Woody Allen and then to have a dinner at a restaurant. It was the end of the year. When Jose Antonio put down the headset two bombs exploded in the nearby headquarters of airlines Swissair and TWA was. Nobody died but among the 9 injured was Jose Antonio.

As soon as he was released from the hospital, Jose Antonio wanted to know who made that attack. Still in the hospital, where he struggled to save both his legs, he started to read books and materials about the case and the history of the Armenians.

Combining therapy recovery with the detailed study of a nation, in 1982 he found and met the leaders of ASALA (Armenian Liberation Army for the Liberation of Armenia) in Lebanon. Militants were covered their faces with balaclavas and never left the Kalashnikov throughout the day. The Spanish journalist, relied on his cane, gave a gift, a book by Martin Luther King, to the leader of the Armenian group, to think about the path they have chosen.

Soon after the incident, “La Bomba” was released, telling the personal experience of a Spanish journalist and the tragic story of survival of a whole nation.”

Although a Turkish columnist criticized the opening of Akhtamar island’s Surp Khach church as “cultural genocide” due to its conversion to a museum, last year’s restoration of Van lake’s ancient Armenian church in eastern Turkey was an unprecedented event in a country where thousands of Armenian monuments have been either deliberately destroyed or neglected.

The one-year-old story of the reopening ceremony of the church is told in detail by VirtualAni in a post accompanied by photographs and speech transcripts.

In a country where few disabled are seen in the general public due to inaccessibility and perhaps shame, it is interesting to learn that there are beauty pageants held for handicap women in Armenia.

Although the news is from 2005, I have come across to a Flickr photograph, posted above, that shows “Ms. Beauty for Disabled Women of Armenia.”

Although on an individual level there is much support for disabled persons (for instance, in the area where I grew up in Yerevan our family would often visit a young hadicap girl and socialize with her) in Armenia, there is no required accessibility for the disabled.

The photo above provoked me to do a brief Googsearch on disabled organizations and I came across to Pyunic’s website. The website has a gallery of some activities and also a devastating photo of the organization’s building.

ArmenianHouse.org, a trilingual virtual library, has posted several old Armenian jokes. As one would expect, these jokes don’t actually seem funny. The closest that gets to being funny, in my opinion, is the following (written by Vartan Aygektsi, 12-13 century):

Մի շատ ժլատ ու հարուստ մարդ մարմար քարից պատրաստել է տալիս իր արձանը։ Ցույց տալով քանդակը բարեկամներից մեկին, նա հարցնում է.

— Ինչպե՞ս է քանդակված, նմա՞ն է արդյոք ինձ։

— Եվ հոգով, և մարմնով շատ է նման քեզ,— պատասխանում է բարեկամը։

[A cheap but rich person has his statue made of marble. Showing the statue to some of his relatives, he asks, “How is It? Does it look like me?”

– It does! Physically and spiritually, answers the relative. ]