America’s so-called president George aBush has introduced his glorious budget, that like last year’s, gives reduced economic and military aid to Armenia and much more aid to Armenia’s friendly neighbor and the most tolerant country in the world – Oilzerbaijan. Moreover, the Bushdickcandy administration is apparently cutting humanitarian aid to Nagorno-Karabakh.

Here is why and how, according to Blogian (this is also what exactly happened last year).

1. Bush hates the “Armenian lobby,” which even being not so-powerful (to say the least), can have Congress to keep the aid parity for Armenia and Oilzerbaijan (because it is retarded otherwise).

2. The Turkish foreign minister is in America gulling candy to convince bush to stop the Congress from passing the Armenian genocide resolution. They need something to entertain the loshtak.
3. Bush will swap his own daughter with Borat before recognizing the Armenian genocide.

Bush wants both Armenians and Turks be happy. So he will make Armenians angry as Gull in Bulling in America, but will later let the glorious Armenian lobby convince the Congress to give more aid to Armenia and some aid to Nagorno-Karabakh (by making Turks and Azeris angry). As Armenians will celebrate their unbelievable glory of conquering the Congress (and the Turkish media will condemn The Protocols of Ararat) and convincing them that it is wrong to give more economic and military aid to the most tolerant country in the world than to democratic Armenia, they will find out that the genocide recognition resolution was killed. But hey, they still changed the budget!

In the words of George W. Bush himself, “More and more of our [oil] imports come from overseas.” He was referring to Canada and Mexico.

UPDATE: What Reuters reports as a nationalist demonstration, was actually an anti-Armenian gathering in the Armenian populated district of Istanbul, where Turkish nationalists chanted things like “Armenians should know their limits.” According to a group e-mail I received from a Turk in Istanbul, “Yesterday a crowd of people gathered in the center of Samatya (an area, mostly inhabited by Armenians) and shouted anti-Armenian slogans like ‘Armenians should know their limits.’ Police came and dispersed them.”
Photographs distributed by Reuters via YahooNews show a group of nationalist Turk “protesters carrying a banner that reads, ‘We all are Mustafa Kemal. We all are Turks’ during a demonstration in Istanbul February 4, 2007. A group of nationalist protesters on Sunday demonstrated in reaction to banners that read ‘We all are Armenians’ carried by those who attended the funeral ceremony of Turkish-Armenian editor Hrant Dink last month.”

Several Turkish children were wrapped in Turkish flags and placed in the front of the demonstration. As always, Reuters “forgot” to mention that there was also, at least, one Azerbaijani flag during the apparent anti-Armenian protest.

Why are nationalists using Turkish children again and again? Wasn’t the 17-year-old kid enough?

Time Magazine’s European edition has made a surprising move by spending its own dollars to distribute a free documentary on the Armenian Genocide. This was, perhaps, done to avoid anti-racist and genocide/holocaust denialist laws in Europe and also, as Artyom of iArarat has mentioned, to correct their mistake.

In June of 2005, the European edition of Time magazine distributed thousands of free copies of a supposed Turkish advertisement that included a documentary denying the Armenian genocide. Outrage around the world seemed to bring nothing at first.

Time simply published a response to a letter by saying, “TIME is an independent newsmagazine and does not endorse the views of any organization or government. We regret any offense caused by the advertisements.”

On August 1, 2005, California Courier published an article titled “TIME’s Chief Editor Claims Magazine Was Duped by Turks,” basing the story on a private communcation between TIME Inc.’s chief (now retired) Norman Pearlstine and myself, in which Mr. Pearlstine had answered me that TIME had apologized “for accepting a DVD whose contents were different from what we had been led to believe they would be.”

So what was the letter that had cought the attention? – According to the Courier, my reference to making Nazi flags.

Here is the full letter that I had received response to by Pearlstine:

I hope you have recieved the numerous complaints and
concerns regarding Time magazine's recent cooperation
with the Turkish deniers of the Armenian Genocide.

Are you ever going to respond to my letters?
Are you ever going to apologize for cooperating with
the Turkish deniers?
Are you ever going to publish an article that states
that Time has not intended to deny the Armenian
Genocide?
Are you ever going to admit your magazine's wrong
deed?

Oh, you are too busy to apologize, aren't you? Let me
guess! You are making Nazi flags to distribute in
Europe as a free speech, correct?

Regards, 

Simon Maghakyan

Pearlstine, with whom I later continued to keep private communication for at least another year, had answered me back saying,

Dear Sir,
	Your letters have been referred to the advertising department,
where they should have been sent in the first place. Editors are
responsible for stories and pictures. In addition, we have, of course,
apologized in the magazine for accepting a DVD whose contents were
different from what we had to been led to believe they would be.
	Norman Pearlstine

Interestingly, some Armenian pen pals, whom I had forwarded my letter, told me I was too harsh and yelling would not bring any good.I cannot find my very first letter to Mr. Pearlstine, but I remember mentioning the fact that Time had published a report back in June of 1960 calling Ottoman Turkey’s Talaat Pasha the inventor of genocide – “who introduced genocide to the 20th century by ordering the massacre of500,000 Armenians.”

Talaat introduced genocide by killing Armenians, you are introducing genocidel denial by spreading Turkish propaganda, I wrote.

Later Time (European edition) published full-page statements that condemned the sponsorship of the denialist campaign.

In April of 2006, Time named Orhan Pamuk (who later won the Nobel Prize) one of the top 100 influential in the world who had become “a global cause celebre” for having made a reference to “the genocide of Armenians in 1915 by the Turkish military.”

Orhan Pamuk was actually nominated for the top 100 for solely speaking on the Armenian genocide (and I think the same case could have been for his Nobel Prize award).  Harvard professor Samantha Power had nominated him by saying,

I nominate Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk. He has acknowledged his homeland’s genocide against the Armenians and nearly got himself arrested before the Turks decided their commitment to and pride in their greatest writer exceeded a commitment to killers who died almost a century ago. It could bring a cultural change. Also George Clooney, for the obvious reasons, and the students who led the divestment movement on campuses for Darfur.

Time did the right thing, and it is time for Google to do the same. As of February 2, 2007, Google lists www.ermenisorunu.gen.tr (a website denying the Armenian genocide) as a Google sponsor when “Armenian genocide” is Googled.

Cem Ozdemir, a columnist with the Turkish Zaman, has published a surprising yet very welcoming entry about Armenian and Turkish relations. He asks important questions, and I think his column is the essence of a Turkey that the world wants to see.

Everybody — journalists, party leaders, the president of the republic, the chief of general staff — found harsh words to condemn the murder of Hrant Dink. But don’t they see that there is a link between what they are writing, saying and preaching in their daily professional lives and what happened to Hrant? How can one condemn his murder and still argue for the absurd Article 301, which brought him to court multiple times for nothing but his opinion?
How can one continue to argue that the border to Armenia should remain closed? Some are against opening the border because of the Armenian occupation of Azeri territory. But that’s all the more reason to take the initiative and establish good relations with your neighbors, thereby becoming the good broker in the process to negotiate a fair and just solution.
Those who continue to oppose the recent legislation on foundations don’t understand that treating Armenians and other Christians as second-class citizens was exactly what Hrant was fighting against.
How can one still be against Christians becoming officers, generals and members of parliament?
How can one still continue to declare as an enemy everybody who has another opinion than the official one on the events of 1915?
Just before Hrant was murdered, Sylvester Stallone became the new enemy. What did he do wrong? He supported the views of the majority of historians and experts in the world and described the events of 1915 as genocide. Even if one doesn’t agree with him, has anyone bothered to read the script of the movie he is planning? How many people have actually read Franz Werfel’s book about the 40 days of Musa Dag? Or does the fact that Werfel and Stallone don’t share the official views of the state automatically make them enemies? And if so, is it treason if I watch Stallone’s new film, “Rocky Balboa”? Recent commentaries on TV and in the papers that say this film too is now bad, even though it has nothing to do with his announced movie about Werfel’s book, are incredibly shortsighted.
In case it matters: I am still a fan of Stallone and his movies (OK, except for the Rambo series) and I look forward to seeing “Rocky Balboa,” just as I was looking forward to it only a couple of weeks ago. The difference now, of course, is that since last Friday, I don’t feel much like going to the movies?.
There is enough sadness in Hrant’s death. But it increases my pain even more to watch people talk about him and his heritage who never understood Hrant while he was alive. For all the talk about Hrant’s legacy let’s not overlook Agos, his Turkish-Armenian newspaper, which should persevere. Hrant’s death should not be used to make arguments in favor of or against Turkey’s accession to the European Union. Obviously, Turkey’s EU prospects were for Hrant — and remain for other people of different origins in Turkey — a chance to improve their rights. Nor should the death be employed in the debate surrounding the events of 1915. Hrant did not insist on recognizing the genocide as a precondition for a dialogue as some people in the diaspora do. But remember his words when he said that the Armenians know what happened to them.
One man come in the name of love
One man come and go
One man come he to justify
One man to overthrow
One man caught on a barbed wire fence
One man he resist
One man washed on an empty beach
One man betrayed with a kiss
U2 sang this song for Martin Luther King, Jr. I would like to dedicate it to my brother Hrant Dink.
Do they who betrayed him with a kiss know what they did?
Turkey produced both Hrant Dink and the 17-year-old boy who killed him. And let’s not forget the thousands of people who marched in solidarity and chanted, “We are all Hrant Dink! We are all Armenians!”
This is Turkey, and its future depends on whether it produces more Hrant Dinks — who live in the name of love — or more 17-year-old boys who kill in the name of hate.

An unseen footage of Hrant Dink, the Armenian journalist whose funeral was attended by over 100,000 people in Turkey, shows the journalist saying in November of 2006 he would rather die on feet than in bed.  He smiled while talking about his possible death.

Prof. Levon Marashlian has prepared a short video, posted at YouTube, in Dink’s memory.

Some of the video (seems has not been shown anywhere before) is from November, 2006 in Glendale, California.  As Prof. Marashlian likes videodocumenting almost everything, I believe this was shot by him.

Dink speaks Armenian, but there is English subtitle too.  With his wonderful smile, Dink adds, “If something is going to happen, I’d rather struggle on feet, and die on feet, and not in bed.”

Interestingly, Dink doesn’t pronounce the word “death/die” but Marashlian still puts it in the subtitle, because no other word could fit in the sentence.

Dink didn’t fear death and smiled while talking about it.

Rest in peace, Dink pasha.

Translated from Turkisb by Fatma Gocek (received in e-mail communication):

Below and attached please find my translation of the eulogy Hrant Dink’s wife Rakel Dink delivered in front of his coffin today, on 23 January 2007, in Osmanbey, Istanbul in front of a very large crowd. I have used the text that was printed in the Yeni Safak newspaper.

Muge [Fatma Gocek]

“Letter to My Beloved” by Rakel Dink

“I am here today full of immense grief and dignity. We are all here today with our sorrow. This silence creates within us a sorrowful contentment.

Today we send off half of my soul, my beloved, the father of my children. We are going to actualize a march without any slogans and without any disrespect. Today we are going to generate immense sound through our silence.

Whoever the assasin may be, either 17 or 27 years’ old, I know myself that he too was once a baby. One cannot accomplish anything without questioning first how an assasasin was created from such a baby.

It was Hrant’s honesty, transparency and love that brought him here. They say “he was a great man.” I ask you, Was he born great? No, he too was born just like us. He did not come from the skies, he too came from soil [like us]. It was what he did, the style he chose, the love in his heart that made him great. He became a great man because he thought great things and pronounced great words.

And you too are great for being here today. But do not let this suffice, do not be content with this act alone! One cannot accomplish a great future through hatred, through offense, through holding one blood superior to another. One can only rise through respect for the other.

My beloved!

You departed without having your body age, without getting sick, without spending enough time with those you loved. We too will join you there, my beloved, in that matchless heaven… Only love can enter that domain. We shall live there together forever with true love.

A love that is not jealous of anyone, a love that does not murder, belittle, hold grudges; a love that forgives, respects one’s brothers; a love found in the Messiah….

My beloved, which darkness is capable of erasing your words and your deeds? Could it be fear? Life? Injustice? The temptations of the world? Or death, my beloved?

I too wrote you a love letter, my beloved! It was very hard to write these [words] my beloved!

You departed from those you loved, from your children, your grandchildren, from us, from my lap, but you did not depart from your country, my beloved!”

There seems to be realistic hope that Hrant Dink’s death could be the ultimate price for bringing the Armenian and Turkish people together.  Armenian officials, first time after Turkey closed down the border, are in Turkey to participate in Dink’s funeral.

Some Turkish legislators are saying they will do their best to get rid of Code 301 – the law under which Dink was convicted of “insulting Turkishness.”

Yet the biggest question remains the acknowledgement of the Armenian Genocide – something that Dink was punished for.  And the hope for this last one is a Turkish sign circulated in the Internet for those who want to use it in Tuesday’s funeral.  The sign has the year of Dink’s murder, and the year of the Armenian Genocide.

Maybe Dink was the one?

Adam Garrie, a UCLA student, has written a poem, posted below, in memory of Hrant Dink.  Originally forwarded by Richard Hovhannisian.

On the wall of the Armenian Surp Takavor Church in Kadikoy/ Istanbul
some wrote on Saturday night, ”A Hrant dead, tomorrow more Hrants.
Die, Ugly Armenian!”

Authorities have cleared the wall immediately, but
journalists are not allowed to take pictures.

Cartoon by Kutal.com, the webmaster of which sent the news about the vandalism.
Source: Todays Milliyet newspaper/ Can Dundars article.

http://www.milliyet.com.tr/2007/01/22/yazar/dundar.html

According to the International Herald Tribune, “One of the suspects [in Hrant Dink’s assasination], Yasin Hayal, an alleged Islamic militant who learned to make bombs from Chechen militants at a camp in Azerbaijan and who served 11 months in jail for the bombing of a McDonalds restaurant in Trabzon in 2004, is suspected of masterminding the attacks on both Dink and Father Santaro.”

The Turkish Haber Vitrini has an article on Yasin Hayal and a photo of him.