Archive for the 'Armenia' CategoryBorat of Karabakh?
The Christian Science Monitor has an article about Artsakh (The Republic of Nagorno Karabakh) with its Prime Minister Anoushavan Danielyan depicted with Armenia’s flag (the actual Artsakh flag is slightly different) in a Borat-fashioned cartoon. Army CrimesOne of my acquaintances in Armenia – only 19 years old – has been acquitted from the army after having a heart attack. This was after several months of service during which he was apparently tortured. The army has forbidden him from being treated in a hospital perhaps fearing that could initiate a charge against his superiors. I have never heard of a teenager having heart attack, especially that the particular person used to be a hard worker and did everything to support his single mother and two sisters from a young age. Oppressed people are often triple persecuted almost anywhere (this is why you have poor kids from America fighting in Iraq)… Media violence and real life tragedies – such as the ongoing genocide in Darfur – may have desensitized us all. I remember telling my class earlier this year that I felt horrible for having become desensitized. I guess stories like the following have “contributed” to my desensitization (after having heard this one, I became “immune” to other stories): During the genocide in Rwanda, one way of killing women was throwing them down the toilet. How? Well, the “toilets” were actually wells in the rural areas used as restrooms. There was no sanitary or water system at some places. Some Tutsi women, after they saw their family killed, were thrown down these wells. But before that, there fingers were chopped off so that they could not climb up and would drown in the toilet. This particular incident has really stayed in my mind from my 2005 genocide studies course where one of the witnesses to the Genocide shared the story with us. Yesterday, nevertheless, I was told of another particular crime against humanity that shocked my conscience. An American colleague told me that her step-grandfather had participated in Operation Phoenix in the Vietnam war and used small Vietnamese children as protection. I was not sure what she meant so I had her to explain it to me again. Apparently, the American soldier tied live Vietnamese children to his chest so that when he was shot at the kids would get shot instead and he would survive. I was too disgusted to ask more particulars (such as how many kids he had killed this way), but I managed to find out that he has not been charged for these crimes against humanity. No wonder why the U.S. did not sign on to the 1948 U.N. genocide convention until the late 1980s. I also remember that America refused to sign it until it was guaranteed that no American would be charged under that! What the… Anyhow, I had changed my mind and was not planning to share this story at Blogian until a few minutes ago until I heard of a similarly disgusting and largely unreported crime that happened in Armenia a few days ago. A young soldier of the Armenian army was shot to death on his forehead after laughing at one of his superiors in Karabakh. The teen was from the Republic of Armenia and was transferred to serve in the Republic of Nagorno Karabakh – a de jure part of Azerbaijan and a de facto part of Armenia. In case you didn’t know, largely sons of poor families in the Republic of Armenia get to serve in Karabakh because their parents cannot bribe the officials to have their children assigned to nearby bases. This particular family is even poorer – to the extent that they cannot travel to Karabakh for the trial. Having left with no choice, now they are saying that their son is not a citizen of Karabakh and he should not have been taken to Karabakh in the first place. This is an argument used by the Azerbaijani government and they will most likely take a note of this incident to their propaganda. Unfortunately, Azerbaijani soldiers are treated no better – if not worse – in their own army to the extent that some of them choose to stay in Armenian prisons (after being captured for crossing the border) than to go back to the Azerbaijani army. One reason is perhaps Azerbaijani soldiers tend to get a long jail time after being turned back to Azerbaijan from Armenia. The xenophobic conspiracy theory says they must have cooperated with Armenians otherwise they wouldn’t be arrested in the first place. An Azerbaijani journalist was similarly placed to jail for traveling Karabakh and talking to Armenians. I guess the bottom line is that both Azeri and Armenian soldiers are facing torture in their own armies. This is really scary and sad and makes one wondering of the crimes they would commit against each other if the war restarted. This is a poorly organized entry with few transformations… I guess I just tried to share feelings and thoughts that had been bothering me in the last few days. A Critical View on Armenia’s ElectionsA reader of Blogian has sent a very critical letter in regards to Armenia’s praised-as-democratic elections suggesting that the reason there was no major outcry against the elections among ordinary Armenians was because people have completely lost their hope toward democracy in Armenia and predicted the exact turnout of the vote – people who are in charge staying in charge – long time ago. I guess the critic is right in the sense that “everybody knows” who is Armenia’s next president and it doesn’t really talk about democracy. Anyhow, you read and judge.
I guess the bottom line of the e-mail is a challenge to the status-quo of neo-liberalism where “free trade” and other forms of governance are hailed as democratic while ordinary people are getting poorer and poorer. A perfect example of this would be India. Armenian Elections “More White Than Black”
Photo: Members of the election committee count ballots at a polling station during parliamentary elections in Yerevan. Western observers on Sunday said parliamentary elections in Armenia were the fairest yet in the ex-Soviet state, now set to be run by a coalition of parties close to the current government that swept the vote.(AFP/Karen Minasyan) Hailed as the first democratic election in Armenia’s 15-year-old independence after breaking up from the Soviet Union, the results of the parliament votes are in:
Cartoon, showing political party slogans saying “we are the best” in several different ways, by Pavel Jangirov from http://echannel.am/?topic_id=690. Although pro-government Republicans and Prosperous Armenia party have led the polls, western observers are saying the elections generally met international standards. They still say there were isolated instances of double voting and falsification of results, but overall it was an improvement from previous undemocratic elections.
Photo: Armenia’s Prime Minister Serzh Sarksyan listens to a journalist’s question after casting his ballot during a parliamentary election in Yerevan May 12, 2007. REUTERS/David Mdzinarishvili (ARMENIA) A local, foreign-born Armenian blogger served as an observer of the vote and was shocked by the fact that “Everything went so smoothly, I can’t tell you.”
Meanwhile, it is not too encouraging (at least for me) to see that an oligarch widely known as “stupid” got to the second place with 15.1 percent votes. It is not impossible that he actually earned the votes, but it kind of shows that the Armenian society is not, how should I say, very different from the rest of the world. I guess if George W. Bush got reelected in America than Dodi Gago could easily get 15.1% in Armenia… Overall, from my personal conversations to friends and relatives in Armenia I was surprised (in a very nice way) with the high turnout and interest of voters. One cousin, for example, who barely turned 18 went and voted early morning. I don’t care who she voted for, but she still voted! My sister and her husband voted for different political parties, and I felt I lived in utopia when they calmly discussed on the phone why and how they voted for different parties (one opposition; one pro-government) and were not upset with the other’s choice at all. I hope more Armenian women become independent and eventually participate not only in voting, but also in being voted in. Even my 4 ½-year-old niece was involved in the elections and lobbied, I should note unsuccessfully, her Mom to vote for a particular party that she liked (I am glad she can’t read my blog yet). I guess we all should be glad that another country in the world is becoming more democratic. Maybe Armenia’s future is much brighter than we think it is. Talk about SEXOK my title got some of you. I meant talk about SEX SLAVERY. I was viewing the YouTube profile of Ara Manoogian, an investigative journalist at Hetq and a blogger who has traveled undercover to Dubai to report the human trafficking of Armenian women and children, and found out something that made me very sad – a 19-year-old female user from Armenia had posted a comment urging Ara to remove his videos about the trafficking of Armenian women and children:
The young woman’s comment shows that human trafficking is a taboo in Armenia. “Don’t talk about it, it makes us look bad.”
Photo from Polaris It doesn’t make us look bad because we are organizing it, but makes us look bad because there are prostitutes among Armenians. After all that awareness people still don’t get what human trafficking means. Last week, when I interviewed a random lady in downtown Denver for an upcoming school-project documentary, she thought human trafficking meant “lot’s of people walking on the street.” You say it is slavery, they answer slavery doesn’t exist. You say it is sexual slavery, “macho” men jump in and say, “wow, where?” I guess women are the “best” audience to raise awareness about human trafficking in. So please, especially Eastern European and Armenian women, TALK ABOUT SEX SLAVERY, let your friends know that it exists, and watch videos about Armenian women and children trafficked to Dubai. Trafficking is when people are tricked or forced into slavery and kept in it with threats and torture. It is not a woman’s or a child’s fault to be a human trafficking victim. TALK ABOUT SEX SLAVERY. TALK ABOUT IT. Hate in Art: Touring Worst of anti-Armenianism
Cartoon source: “Ermenistan,” seen on the shirt of a Ku Klux Klan member, means Armenia in Turkish and Azerbaijani What do Ku Klux Klan, Terrorism, Narkomania, Snakes, Swastika, Evil, blood thirsty Scarpions, Weapons, Death, Beasts and Big Nose devils have in common? They equate to Armenians and their country, according to a supra-talented Azerbaijani oil “investigator” and cartoonist who has received many honors from his government. In October of 2005 I posted an article from Agence France Press telling about the president of Azerbaijan’s National Geophysicists Committee, Kerim Kerimov, who, the article said, is better known for signing treaties to open Azerbaijani oil to American and western markets than for his anti-Armenian cartoons.
If you are surprised that you have not heard of Kerimov before, don’t feel bad. I mean what is wrong making hundreds of cartoons depicting Armenians as snakes, scorpions and Ku Klux Klan members? After all, Armenia has won the war over Azerbaijan, hasn’t it?
Cartoon: Azerbaijan holding Armenia’s swastika knife This is exactly what you hear all the time. Azerbaijan hates Armenians to death, smashes their ancient monuments to dust, jail its own Azeri journalists for writing the truth about the war with Armenia, and even deports a Turkish pianist with Armenian roots because of the war of Nagorno-Karabakh in the early 1990s. Who dares to ask why the war started in the first place? Who dares to remember the anti-Armenianism in Azerbaijan and the pogroms against Armenian citizens and the destruction of monuments before there was even word about war? If you are still surprised that you have not heard of Kerimov before, you are missing something big. According to his official website, “Prof. Kerim Kerimov for the first time in the world found the right way and method for prediction earthquake approximately 4-5 hours before the starting of this process.” This is not Borat, it is true.
Pretty amazing. Did you catch the part that he is “author of more than 4500 political cartoons”?
Cartoon: Turkic countries – Kazakhstan, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kirgizstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan – killing the Nazi snake, Armenia. The cartoon is reflective of Pan-Turkism, a racist-linguistlic idea to establish a pan-Turkish Empire from Turkey to Kazakhstan that some scholars have argued has contributed to the planning of the Armenian Genocide. I must admit I have not seen all 4,500, although I had the displeasure to go through hundreds of them available at his website (added in October of 2006). Besides the boringly self-repeating few figures, there is something else that Kerimov’s cartoons have in common. Most of them say in four different languages, “Terrorism, narkomania and armenism are the same diseases.” These ones are worth no words:
Environment Not a Campaign Issue in ArmeniaAn echannel.am column in Armenian by Harut Kbeyan gives some tragic-comedy-style insights to the May 2007 parliamentary elections in Armenia. A cartoon from another column at echannel.am Talking about the platform of all participating political parties, Kbeyan writes:
The columnist is surprised with the fact that the never-ending Although the rest of the promises will most likely stay promises in any case, not talking about the environment means Armenia’s voters are not concerned about the issue. Ironically, environment was one of the major issues for Armenia’s independent movement in the late 1980s and the early 90s. And environment may as well become the TOP issue in 2024 – a little too late though – when Armenia will be totally forestless. State Department Had Fabricated ‘Apology’The ‘apology’ quoting America’s Ambassador to Armenia John Evans for saying he shouldn’t have referred to the Armenian genocide as such, turns out, was a fabrication by the State Department.
My Right to A Promise for Justice – In ActionA simple legislation can save lives As unholy campaign of parliamentary elections has started in Armenia, all voters get is either a bribe or promise for justice. If they don’t get the first, the second one is absolutely guaranteed. A promise for justice has sort of become a fundamental right in Armenia. I remember a professor at my University in Denver complaining last semester about Stephan Demirchyan – a popular opposition politician in Armenia – who kept saying “Justice!” when the professor asked him about his presidential campaign platform during an interview. After the professor asked Demirchyan that he wanted to know about his plans, the popular politician – who came to stage after his famous father was assassinated in 1999 – repeated again, “Justice!” Few would argue that Demirchyan is not, how shall I say this, very bright, yet he is not the only “justice” politician in Armenia. Economic theorists suggest that there is no supply without demand, so there must be demand for justice in Armenia. So there is no question that ordinary Armenians want justice – especially economic and social. There has been much discussion about the first issue and I am not sure I have enough knowledge yet to give suggestions for economic improvement (it seems it is easier to attack globalization and neoliberalism for world poverty and I can do a good job in that – but I don’t think it would be fair and productive in this post). Nevertheless, it seems social justice may have better chances for certain improvement – one reason is that it has so many issues involved. Human trafficking, for example, is a social problem in Armenia caused by economic depression and, from the first look, it seems there is no solution/or even reduction without solving economic problems first. But economy is not the only problem for creating conditions for human trafficking. There is domestic human trafficking in the United States, for example, where runaway and homeless youth are often victims of sexual slavery.
This is true for Colorado, the state I currently reside in. Colorado is also both a destination and a transit for human trafficking, because it has the largest airport in the United States and two nationwide highways crossing each other. One way Colorado has tried to fight human trafficking is to punish with life imprisonment or death penalty for trafficking in children (it is the only state as of now to give capital punishment for this crime). The law is in effect just for several months, but I think tough laws and regulations are important. Coming back to Armenian elections and social justice. I think civil society groups should drop the maximalist call for justice – because all they will get is a promise for “justice” – and initiate and request specific legislation promises (it seems this could be done through lobbying, but not in Armenia). For example, an act to make t-announcements on flights between Armenia and direct trafficking destinations – such as Dubai/UAE – can be a possible legislation initiated by civil groups in a campaign – if there is any – to fight/stop human trafficking. (A campaign for severe punishment for traffickers could be of help, too.) In November of 2006 I wrote of new direct flights between Yerevan (Armenia) and Sharja (United Arab Emirates) that will apparently make it easier for traffickers to “import” women and children from Armenia directly to UAE – the largest market of Armenian sex slaves – and enhance Armenia’s role as a transit country for human trafficking. On November 3, 2006, I sent an e-mail to Air Arabia – the operator of the flight – asking
I received a fast response from an Air Arabia representative arguing that not all passengers will be trafficking victims and that they can’t do anything about it:
So I thought a few days for a way to help Air Arabia to fight human trafficking. I wrote in my second letter:
The e-mail was never answered, and I was not too hopeful in an airline company to be interested in fighting human trafficking – a large portion of their passengers and, therefore, revenue. So I sent e-mail to some of the few female parliamentarians in Armenia suggesting airplane announcement legislation with the hope that they might show more solidarity to slave women. I never got response from them. Unfortunately, at this time I don’t live in Armenia and cannot lobby much for “t-announcements” on flights between Armenia and Dubai. But I think specific legislation requests and, thus, promises may be a better way for promoting justice, at least for several issues, in Armenia. And why not start with human trafficking? Vote 2007The unholy campaign of parliamentarian elections has started on holy Easter in Armenia, writes OneWorld.am. It is said that the holy father of all Armenians – the catholicos – will be “blessing” one of the unholy political parties headed by an infamous oligarch.
Cartoon via echannel So what happened to “Give unto Ceasar what is Ceasar’s, give unto God what is God’s”? Oh, I guess the Armenian pope can use the 1,706-year-old license of being the head of the first Christian nation and lose the line – if there has been any in the last five years – of mafia and church. If you want to stress out and find the response of an ordinary Armenian, though, and if you read Armenian – check this short story out about Armenian elections. |
