The claim that Hillary Clinton has received support from an ultra-nationalist Turkish filmmaker, that I wrote about on February 2, 2008, has made it to the New York Post:

February 11, 2008 — SEN. Hillary Clinton has gotten cozy with a Turkish-born businessman whom some have described as anti-Semitic. Clinton’s campaign Web site identifies Mehmet Celebi as one of her “HillRaisers” – someone who has raised at least $100,000 for her presidential bid. This despite Celebi’s controversial producing credit on “Valley of the Wolves: Iraq” – a 2006 movie that depicted a Jewish doctor removing the vital organs of civilian prisoners to sell to wealthy transplant patients overseas. “In accordance with the old anti-Semitic canard, the movie portrays Jewish-American doctors as forcibly harvesting organs from Muslims to give them to Jews,” noted Detroit lawyer and columnist Debbie Schlussel observes on her blog. Clinton spokesman Jay Carson didn’t get back to us for comment.

According to Debbie Sclussel’s blog, who is quoted in the New York Post article, the story was broken by Gateway Pundit who wrote about the story on February 6, 2008. The latter blog’s reference to the story was The Kurdish Media that wrote about the Clinton affair hours after my original post.

Not that I want to become a breaker of a Clinton scandal… Anyhow, the actual credit should go to the people who made the YouTube video that was my source when I first wrote of the affair.

Discussing nationalism and particularly the fascist Turkish group known as the Grey Wolves, Mental Notes from a Feisty Turkish Girl, a blog I wrote about a few days ago, concludes that denial of minority rights in Turkey and the persecution of those who publicly acknowledge the Armenian genocide is the continuation of the latter. 

The blogger also raises the question of Turkish-European identity stating that she herself is very confused:

[…] 

Well, 99% of Turkish people claim to be Muslim. Most of these people cannot recite anything from the Koran, explain Islamic history or advances in technology nor can they truly explain what secularism is, or even democracy for that matter. I have asked. Secularism in Turkey means there can be no other religion except Islam, but it should be kept to oneself. Completely confusing. Turkish Democracy means secularism.

Authors and journalists like, Orhan Pamuk and Elif Shafak, have been systematically targeted in Turkey simply for speaking their truths. The genocide continues, my friends. Turkey’s only hope for an honest EU membership, is acceptance of the past and the rebuilding of the many burnt bridges. Turkey at this juncture is not ready for the EU. Turkey first needs to accept and protect its own diversity, as the Copenhagen Criteria calls for, before it can even dream of calling itself European, if indeed that is who she really is.

I don’t know about everybody else, but I can say for myself, I am tired of pretending to be European. I don’t even know who I am anymore.

I can relate to the issue of European identity especially when some Armenians militantly proclaim themselves Europeans and other claim the exact opposite. But it becomes more frustrating when “real Europeans” ask you whether you consider yourself European.

Past summer, for example, I met two Dutch visitors in Armenia who asked me whether I considered Armenia part of Europe or Asia. I told them that I refused to answer that question because of its Eurocentric connotation. “European” is unreservedly thought to be “progressive” and “positive” something that reflects the actual cultural oppression of the rest of the world by Europe. The latter often forgets that many of its “inventions” didn’t start in Europe – including much of women’s rights, which started – or were first institutionalized – in some of the Native American communities.

Had the Turkish blogger from Seattle been a nationalist, she would feel better about being European since as Native Americans are Turks, women’s rights come from Turkey! OK just kidding 🙂

I only noticed today that Azg Daily, a Yerevan-based publication, published my latest Armenian column on human trafficking and oppression of women in Armenia in its Nov 29, 2007, issue.

Այսօր, 2007 թվականին, աշխարհում կան ավելի շատ ստրուկներ, քան 200 տարի առաջ: Ի տարբերություն 1600-ականներին եւ հետագա տարիներին Աֆրիկայից բռնի փախցրած եւ Ամերիկայում ստրկության մատնված միլիոնավոր մարդկանց, մերօրյա ստրուկները հաճախ լքում են իրենց տները հոժար կամքով՝ բարեկեցիկ ապագա ստեղծելու երազներով:

[Today, in 2007, there are more slaves in the world than 200 years ago. In contrast to the millions of people kidnapped from Africa and forced into slavery in America in the 1600s, modern slaves often leave their homes with their own will with dreams for a better future.]

[…]

Անապահով ընտանիքներից լինելուց բացի թրաֆիկինգի զոհերին միացնում է նաեւ այլ փաստ՝ կին լինելը: Լինելով հանցանք ամբողջ մարդկության դեմ՝ թրաֆիկինգը նաեւ կանանց ճնշման միջոց է եւ ինչ-որ չափով այդ ճնշման հետեւանք: Հայաստանը նախկին սովետական երկրների հետ համեմատած ունի կանանց նվազագույն ներկայացուցչությունը օրենսդրական մարմնում. Հայաստանի Հանրապետության Ազգային Ժողովի անդամների հինգ տոկոսն է ընդամենը կին, երբ կանայք կազմում են նույն հանրապետության բնակչության կեսից ավելին:

[Aside from being from impoverished families, there is something else that unites victims of human (sex) trafficking – being women. Being a crime against all humanity, human trafficking is also a way of oppression against women and a result of the same oppression. In comparison to other former Soviet countries, Armenia has the lowest percentage of female lawmakers: only 5% of members of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia are women while females constitute more than half of the population of the same republic.]

[…]

Բայց կանանց հանդեպ բռնությունը ժխտելու մեջ կա նաեւ ինչ-որ պատվի խնդիր, ու եթե ժխտում են, ուրեմն գիտեն, որ սխալ են: Անցած տարի, երբ որոշ հասարակական կազմակերպություններ պարզեցին, որ հայաստանցի կանանց մոտավորապես կեսը ֆիզիկական բռնության են ենթարկվել, Ազգային Ժողովի 95 տոկոս կազմող տղամարդ անդամներից մեկն ասաց, որ ճնշման հարցը բարձրացնող կազմակերպությունները պարզապես գրանտներ են ուզում եւ իջեցնում են Հայաստանի վարկը հանուն իրենց գրպանների: «Նրանք չպետք է ներկայացնեն Հայաստանն ինչ-որ աֆրիկյան ցեղ, որտեղ մարդիկ իրար ուտում են»:

[There is some “pride” in the denial of (the fact of) oppression against women. And if there is denial, then [men] know they are wrong. Last year, when several NGOs found out that about half of Armenia’s women had been subjected to physical brutality in the past year, a member of the 95% men-controlled parliament said that these non-profits simply seek grants and hurt Armenia’s image for the sake of their pockets. “They shouldn’t present Armenia as some African tribe where people eat each other.”

[…]

Interestingly, I had originally written this piece for the newsletter of one of Armenia’s university student governments. The student leaders, all exclusively male, refused to publish the opinion piece in a newsletter that is perhaps not read by more than a few dozen students.

Although in the same month that I wrote this short column I had been published in the world’s leading historic magazine -which recently contacted me asking if I were ready to submit another article – I thought that even reaching to one student in Armenia would have been important.

Anyhow, I never heard of any reaction to my piece on human trafficking but I am still glad that Azg published something that would be generally considered radical feminism in Armenia (and humanism in most of the world).

During a visit to Germany Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyid Erdogan has denied the deliberate annihilation of late Ottoman Turkey’s Armenian population stating that it is not in Turkish culture to commit genocide.

According to the TurkishPress:

Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan said [in Munich] on Saturday there was no such thing like genocide in Turkish culture and civilization.

Erdogan replied to questions on several matters after his speech at the 44th Munich Conference on Security Policy in Germany.

In regard to Armenian allegations regarding the incidents of 1915, Erdogan said, “there is no such thing like genocide in our culture. We cannot accept it. We are ready to discuss the matter by the means of documents.”

[…]

Erdogan’s racist explanation for his government’s denial of the Armenian genocide must have raised eyebrows in Germany since the statement suggests that committing genocide is in the perpetrator’s group culture and civilization.

Bloomberg also reports Erdogan’s denial of the Armenian genocide but doesn’t reference the Turkish PM’s reference to culture.

Asked about the massacre of Armenians in Turkey in 1915, Erdogan said Armenia should open its archives on the period.

”There was no genocide and there is no way we can accept this,” Erdogan said, adding that declarations of some western parliaments that the killing of Armenians had been a genocide ”is not acceptable.” The parliaments of France and a number of other countries have passed resolutions declaring the Armenian massacres were genocide.

Ironically, the automated Google ad on the TurkishPress.com page on Erdogan’s nationalist comments links to the DNA Ancestry Project. Perhaps Mr. Erdogan should form an international commission to prove that it is not in Turkish DNA to commit genocide.

Interestingly, the topic of being capable of committing genocide was in the Armenian press last week. A Hetq.am columnist askes (in Armenian) whether Armenians are capable of genocide and argues that Armenia’s poor democratic record, the government’s treatment of its people and the people’s treatment of each other (especially on regional basis) suggests that Armenians are, indeed, capable of genocide.  In terms of Armenia’s largest minorities, especially the Yezidis, the author says that they have been denied opportunity to be part of Armenia’s socio-economic culture and are, thus, not “important” enough to be considered for elimination. (I must add that Armenians have committed cultural genocide against the Roma (“Gypsies”) who are known in Armenian as “Bosha” – but almost every Armenian thinks Bosha is an insult and not an ethnic group.)  

So, Mr. Erdogan, if you consider Turks human (and you should) then they are, too, capable of genocide.

via Political Humor:

“Bill Clinton lashed out at Barack Obama yesterday, he accused him of running a fairy tale campaign. It’s a fairy tale in which a horny king tries to get his queen elected to the White House so he can go out and fornicate with maidens, and then a handsome black prince comes along and screws the whole thing up for him. So, you can see why he’s very upset.” –Jimmy Kimmel

“Well, congratulations to Barack Obama, the big winner of the Democratic caucus. Stunning victory. He got 57% of the youth vote, 35% of the female vote, and 100% of Iowa’s black vote, a guy named Larry.” –Jay Leno

“Isn’t that amazing, Obama and Cheney related? Dick Cheney now has more blacks and gays in his own family than in the entire Republican Party.” –Jay Leno

“During an interview, Vice President Dick Cheney’s wife said that Vice President Cheney and Barack Obama are actually distant cousins. When Dick Cheney found out, he said, ‘I knew there was something creepy about that guy.'” –Conan O’Brien

“Senator Barack Obama was in Los Angeles last night for a huge campaign fundraiser. That shows you what a great country this is — when an African-American with a Kansas mother and a Kenyan father, who spent time growing up in Indonesia and is running for president, spending time in a state where Spanish-speaking people have elected an Austrian governor.” –Jay Leno

“Senator Hillary Clinton is back from her fact-finding trip to Iraq. She had to cut the trip short because she had to address a growing threat here at home — Barack Obama.” –Jay Leno

“Barack Obama said today that politics has become too gummed up by money and influence … and then he had to leave to attend a fundraiser.” –Jay Leno

From an anonymous contributor:  

While caucusing in a small Midwestern town, some Obama supporters changed their mind.

“Clinton has more experience than Obama,” said one. “I think Clinton deserves a 3rd term.”

Another one suggested that voting for Hillary will be like killing two stones with one bird (well, democrats like birds) or something like, “Vote one, get one free.”

And someone mentioned this cartoon from Politico:

Eurasianet has a story on Azerbaijan’s arrogant war rhetoric and Armenia’s response.

EU officials touring the South Caucasus this week were confronted by heated words from President Ilham Aliyev, who told them Azerbaijan is ready to “wage war” with neighboring Armenia over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Azerbaijan’s recent windfall of oil and gas revenues appears to have persuaded Aliyev that he could turn the tables on Armenia, which has long held the military upper hand in the dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh, a predominantly ethnic-Armenian territory located within Azerbaijan.

In talks on February 4 with Slovenian Foreign Minister Dmitrij Rupel, who was representing the current EU Presidency, Aliyev indicated Baku was contemplating waging war for control of the disputed territory, which together with a strip of adjacent Azerbaijani territory has been under Yerevan’s control since a 1988-94 war between the two countries.

Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the EU’s external relations commissioner, tells RFE/RL that Brussels firmly rejected Baku’s “inflammatory” rhetoric. “I clearly said, not only to the authorities, but also at the press conference, that I think it is highly important that they avoid any inflammatory speech at the moment of presidential elections,” she says.

Both countries are holding a presidential vote this year — Armenia on February 19, and Azerbaijan in October. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which has spent more than 15 years mediating talks between the two sides, has indicated an election year is not likely to see major progress on the issue.

Baku, however, appears impatient. The Azerbaijani leadership, Rupel said, appears to feel that “time is not on Armenia’s side.” Nor is money. Azerbaijan’s defense budget this year will exceed $1 billion; Armenia’s is just one-third of that figure.

Azerbaijan has enjoyed spectacular economic growth over the past few years. The country’s GDP grew by 25 percent in 2007, almost exclusively on the strength of oil and gas exports.

Azerbaijan’s minister for economic development, Heydar Babayev, says he expects his government to generate upward of $150 billion in oil and gas revenues by 2015.

Armenia, meanwhile, has no lucrative natural resources. It is landlocked, blockaded by neighbors Turkey and Azerbaijan, and — at Baku’s behest — bypassed by oil and gas pipelines, as well as rail and road projects, which originate in Azerbaijan.

’Winning The Peace’

But, as Rupel notes, Armenia has “alliances that speak for it.” This is a reference to Russian backing. Throughout the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Russia is rumored to have given Armenia military equipment worth $1 billion. Russia provides for most of Armenia’s energy needs and has bought up most of its energy infrastructure.

The Armenian government did not appeared cowed by Baku’s fighting words. Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian tells RFE/RL that Armenia is confident of its military capability. “No matter how strong the Azeris will be in the next 15 years, even with this kind of spending, even [if it] doubled every year, to catch up with Armenia’s commitment to defend itself and Karabakh, that will require [as a] minimum 15-20 years,” he says.

Oskanian says that Armenia would not be intimidated in any event. More importantly, he adds, he does not believe there can be a military solution to Nagorno-Karabakh. “We fought twice with the Azeris, we prevailed, but we never claimed that we won the war,” he says. “Unless we win the peace, we will never claim that we won the war.”

[…]

Onnik Krikorian reports on the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) presidential candidate Vahan Hovhannisian’s rally in Yerevan’s Liberty Square pointing out that the traditional political party is today best organized and is “more mature in terms of actual campaigning.” This is not the first time that Hovhannisian’s campaign gets positive review for respecting the electorate.

(c) Onnik Krikorian 2007, Yerevan Liberty Square, Armenia

Krikorian also discusses the somewhat partisan news coverage of Radio Free Europe/Armenia Liberty, a U.S.-sponsored news media, that has previously seemed to suggest support for former president Levon Ter-Petrosian’s candidacy.

Incidentally, RFE/RL says that many of those in attendance [of the ARF rally] were “bused from outside the capital,” which is true, although it never seems to mention that the same was also true for last week’s Artur Baghdasarian rally. Levon Ter-Petrossian’s Liberty Square rally on 22 January was also made up mainly by supporters from the regions. Again, this unfortunately seems to be apparent bias from RFE/RL albeit dressed up as very sophisticated pro-Ter-Petrosian propaganda.

The RFE article on the ARF rally has also omitted the “nationalist” label that the news organization almost always adds to ARF. Although ARF is, indeed, nationalist compared to most Armenian political parties, the label has a quite negative connotation in western politics and doesn’t entirely reflect ARF’s position on many things. ARF has many wings, including one that sponsors the annual Armenians and the Left symposium, that are quite far from being nationalist.  I have myself used the term ‘nationalist’ to describe ARF at least once but I am not convinced that in covering political elections the vague term’s repeated usage by self-perceived objective media is justified.

RFE has been previously accused of selective reporting on the subject of “Days of Azerbaijan” in Armenia.

Vladivostok News has posted a data of hate crimes committed in Russia from 2005-2007. According to the report, Moscow is the most dangerous place for its immigrant communities where the number of registered hate killings has grown from 16 in 2005 to 42 in 2007.