|
Simon Maghakyan on 11 Apr 2009
Looking for a job? How about making $35,000 a month?
Well, only if you are a former speaker of the US House of Representatives and you want to work for the Turkish regime to deny the Armenian genocide.
In the words of The Hill:
The Turkish government has signed another prominent former congressional leader to join its K Street team.
Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and others at his firm, Dickstein Shapiro, are working on a $35,000-per-month contract for Turkey, according to records on file with the Justice Department.
[…]
One issue Hastert and others lobbying for Turkey will have to deal with this year is a congressional resolution that defines the killing of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks in the early 1900s as genocide. The Turkish government opposes the resolution and has lobbied against it every time it has been introduced in Congress.
The irony, of course, is that Armenian lobbies are indirectly benefiting their enemies by pushing so hard for the genocide resolution through Congress.
Maybe the lobby should prioritize solving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict for one year and put the genocide resolution on hold for a while? If they do so, Hastert and other political sell-outs will no longer be recession-proof – and a return of the resolution in one or two year would meet an unprepared opposition.
Simon Maghakyan on 07 Apr 2009
Barack Obama didn’t pronounce “Armenian Genocide” in Turkey, but he said the following in front of the Turkish parliament:
…An enduring commitment to the rule of law is the only way to achieve the security that comes from justice for all people. Robust minority rights let societies benefit from the full measure of contributions from all citizens.
I say this as the President of a country that not too long ago made it hard for someone who looks like me to vote. But it is precisely that capacity to change that enriches our countries…
Another issue that confronts all democracies as they move to the future is how we deal with the past…our country still struggles with the legacy of our past treatment of Native Americans.
Human endeavor is by its nature imperfect. History, unresolved, can be a heavy weight. Each country must work through its past. And reckoning with the past can help us seize a better future. I know there are strong views in this chamber about the terrible events of 1915. While there has been a good deal of commentary about my views, this is really about how the Turkish and Armenian people deal with the past. And the best way forward for the Turkish and Armenian people is a process that works through the past in a way that is honest, open and constructive…
Earlier in Turkey, during a press conference, Obama had the following Q&A with his hometown newspaper Chicago Tribune’s Christy Parsons:
Q Thank you, Mr. President. As a U.S. senator you stood with the Armenian-American community in calling for Turkey’s acknowledgement of the Armenian genocide and you also supported the passage of the Armenian genocide resolution. You said, as President you would recognize the genocide. And my question for you is, have you changed your view, and did you ask President Gul to recognize the genocide by name?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, my views are on the record and I have not changed views. What I have been very encouraged by is news that under President Gul’s leadership, you are seeing a series of negotiations, a process, in place between Armenia and Turkey to resolve a whole host of longstanding issues, including this one.
I want to be as encouraging as possible around those negotiations which are moving forward and could bear fruit very quickly very soon. And so as a consequence, what I want to do is not focus on my views right now but focus on the views of the Turkish and the Armenian people. If they can move forward and deal with a difficult and tragic history, then I think the entire world should encourage them.
And so what I told the President was I want to be as constructive as possible in moving these issues forward quickly. And my sense is, is that they are moving quickly. I don’t want to, as the President of the United States, preempt any possible arrangements or announcements that might be made in the near future. I just want to say that we are going to be a partner in working through these issues in such a way that the most important parties, the Turks and the Armenians, are finally coming to terms in a constructive way.
Q So if I understand you correctly, your view hasn’t changed, but you’ll put in abeyance the issue of whether to use that word in the future?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: What I’d like to do is to encourage President Gul to move forward with what have been some very fruitful negotiations. And I’m not interested in the United States in any way tilting these negotiations one way or another while they are having useful discussions.
While some Armenians seem unhappy with Obama’s statement – there is now a SHAME ON YOU OBAMA Facebook group – I find Obama’s words tactfully affirmative. He indirectly said that genocide took place but that he won’t use the word “genocide” in Ankara as far as Turkey can demonstrate that there are fruitful negotiations for “full” normalization with Armenia which will itself, hopefully, result in genocide recognition. Specifically, he stated that 1) You know that I think Turkey committed genocide but I won’t use the word genocide since 2) there seems to be real hope for normalizing Turkish-Armenian relations, 3) but Turkey needs to demonstrate that the normalization is process is real and that the normalization is a “full normalization”, and (4) the latter should automatically include genocide recognition by Turkey. In Turkish professor Taner Akcam’s words, “[Obama] really pushed the borders, in a very positive and very smart way.”
Moreover, his comparison of the Native American experience – which is clearly an experience of genocide in the eyes of Turks – was also to the point (not mentioning that it was exactly what I had suggested to do in an earlier post :D).
There can be a lot more said about Obama’s handling of the situation. I am personally satisfied with the way he handled the issue given the place and time restrictions.
Simon Maghakyan on 29 Mar 2009
The ex-Soviet Georgia doesn’t need virgins for holy conception. Instead, in order to boost population growth, Georgia’s holy father has promised to personally baptize every child born to a family with already two kids. The result? Twenty percent increase already.
From BBC (via my friend Artyom’s Facebook post):
At the end of 2007, in a move to reverse the Caucasian country’s dwindling birth figures, the head of the Georgian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Ilia II, came up with an incentive. He promised to personally baptise any baby born to parents of more than two children.
There was only one catch: the baby had to be born after the initiative was launched.
The results are, in the words of the Georgian Orthodox Church, “a miracle”.
[…]
The country’s birth rate increased by nearly 20% during 2008 – a rate four times faster than the previous year.
Many parents say they took the decision to have another child on the basis of the Patriarch’s incentive.
[…]
Simon Maghakyan on 27 Mar 2009
In several days, Barack Obama will visit Ankara. In largely Muslim Turkey, America’s popular president is still a favorite. But how will Obama deal with a human rights issue he has long considered a matter of principle?
President Obama will undoubtedly be asked by journalists in Turkey of his views about a newly introduced Congress bill recognizing the WWI Armenian Genocide.
How will he react? How should he react?
Scenario A: Obama will avoid public questions about the genocide. Asked by reporters if he supports the congressional resolution, Obama will stay away from comment or say he doesn’t oppose it. This is what many Armenian-Americans hope for: if Obama stays out of the genocide resolution, it will pass. But by staying out from such a vibrant development, Obama will let Congress undermine his authority as foreign policy chief. He can’t afford Congress run the show.
Scenario B: Obama will acknowledge in his reaction the Armenian Genocide (like he did in 2005 in Baku when confronted by angry Azerbaijani journalists) and try to justify the move. Obama will have limited time and much pressure in his reaction. It won’t be a good articulation and he may regret the consequences. He can’t afford ruining a press conference in his first foreign policy trip.
Scenario C: Obama will say he doesn’t support the resolution, condemn the Armenian Genocide but use the most elegant linguistic exercise to avoid usage of “genocide” itself. If his does this, he will mimic George W. Bush. Obama can’t afford being George W. Bush.
Is there hope for genocide recognition without nationalist backlash in Turkey and without undermining the presidency in the US? Yes there is – but there may be one and only one option: Obama needs to be proactive.
Most scenarios on Obama’s handling of the Armenian Genocide issue are of reactive measure: how he will respond and what he will answer. Instead, Obama needs a proactive approach.
In his Turkey speech before the Q&A, Obama should talk about honor and genocide. He should say the following:
“I represent one of the best stories on earth, one of the best countries in history, and of the most proud places in the Universe. And the country I love more than anything else has its dark sides. You see, America was founded on the corpses of its native people who were subjected to genocide and destruction. Acknowledging this fact doesn’t make America a worse place. In fact, it is by recognizing history that Americans can claim greatness. It is my hope that the great people of Turkey will do the same – acknowledge and denounce the destruction of the Armenian community during WWI who, like Native Americans, saw genocide and destruction.”
Many Turks have justly noted that America should see its own problems before denouncing others’. If Obama recognizes the genocide of Native Americans in Turkey, he will maximize the chances of finding an audience ready to listen and accept. And after that speech, there won’t even be a need for a congressional resolution.
Simon Maghakyan on 23 Mar 2009
My 6-year-old niece brought up a discussion of societal corruption this week while riding with her parents the public minibus – known as “Marshrutka” in Armenia and in other ex-Soviet countries.
She unintentionally prompted a democratization discussion by singing a song for the passengers who enthusiastically clapped at the end. One of the older woman passengers asked my niece, “When will you be performing on stage?”
“It is $1,000 to perform on stage,” answered my niece – suggesting that the answer was “never.”
The passengers got angry at a society where a 6-year-old talented child knows she has little prospects to succeed since the charge for a single performance is $1,000.
Does talent matter? My niece has been attending a world-famous children’s sing group/school in Armenia for a few years. She is one of the two, if not the only, student who has been continuously receiving straight “A”s, and her teachers call her “a child with exceptional talent.” But to participate in a local national festival with a solo performance, group parents need to pay $1,000 for production, dress, etc. And the only qualification for students to participate in the performance is to come up with the $1,000. So talent, in this case, matters not.
To appease the mashrutka passengers, my niece said, “Don’t worry; I am going to leave Arevik anyway.” The passengers got more concerned, “No, please don’t!” The woman, who had sparked the discussion by asking when my niece was going to perform on stage, said, “You will succeed no matter what. Don’t worry.”
Isn’t something wrong in a society where a 6-year-old knows that the price for “success” is $1,000?
Simon Maghakyan on 09 Mar 2009
The New York Times has an interesting article which details the publishing of a WWI official Turkish source saying that 972,000 indigenous Armenians “disappeared” in the Ottoman Empire between 1915-1916.
[…]
According to a long-hidden document that belonged to the interior minister of the Ottoman Empire, 972,000 Ottoman Armenians disappeared from official population records from 1915 through 1916.
In Turkey, any discussion of what happened to the Ottoman Armenians can bring a storm of public outrage. But since its publication in a book in January, the number — and its Ottoman source — has gone virtually unmentioned. Newspapers hardly wrote about it. Television shows have not discussed it.
“Nothing,” said Murat Bardakci, the Turkish author and columnist who compiled the book.
The silence can mean only one thing, he said: “My numbers are too high for ordinary people. Maybe people aren’t ready to talk about it yet.”
For generations, most Turks knew nothing of the details of the Armenian genocide of 1915 to 1918, when more than a million Armenians were killed as the Ottoman Turk government purged the population. Turkey locked the ugliest parts of its past out of sight, Soviet-style, keeping any mention of the events out of schoolbooks and official narratives in an aggressive campaign of forgetting.
But in the past 10 years, as civil society has flourished here, some parts of Turkish society are now openly questioning the state’s version of events. In December, a group of intellectuals circulated a petition that apologized for the denial of the massacres. Some 29,000 people have signed it.
With his book, “The Remaining Documents of Talat Pasha,” Mr. Bardakci (pronounced bard-AK-chuh) has become, rather unwillingly, part of this ferment. The book is a collection of documents and records that once belonged to Mehmed Talat, known as Talat Pasha, the primary architect of the Armenian deportations.
The documents, given to Mr. Bardakci by Mr. Talat’s wife, Hayriye, before she died in 1983, include lists of population figures. Before 1915, 1,256,000 Armenians lived in the Ottoman Empire, according to the documents. The number plunged to 284,157 two years later, Mr. Bardakci said.
[…]
Interestingly, according to the article, Mr. Bardakci’s grandfather was a member of Talaat Pasha’s Union and Progress Party, the organization that committed the genocide. While Mr. Bardakci says the extermination was not a genocide (maybe because he doesn’t want to be sued?), it is still interesting that he would publish a record that will not be helpful, to say the least, to the “denialist community.”
[…]
Still, it is a measure of Turkey’s democratic maturity that the book was published here at all. Mr. Bardakci said he had held the documents for so long — 27 years — because he was waiting for Turkey to reach the point when their publication would not cause a frenzy.
Even the state now feels the need to defend itself. Last summer, a propaganda film about the Armenians made by Turkey’s military was distributed to primary schools. After a public outcry, it was stopped.
“I could never have published this book 10 years ago,” Mr. Bardakci said. “I would have been called a traitor.”
He added, “The mentality has changed.”
Simon Maghakyan on 05 Mar 2009
Azerbaijani journalist and writer Alekper Aliyev’s latest novel, “Artush and Zaur,” has attracted much interest due to its plot. The novel tells the story of an Armenian and an Azeri lover, who get separated because of the war over Nagorno-Karabakh. The catch is: the lovers are gay men. With homophobia being so big in both Azerbaijan and Armenia, Aliyev’s novel will be discussed for a while. To get answers to questions that interest me, I e-mailed Alekper Aliyev. Below are my questions and his answers (translated from Russian):
1. What feedback have you received in Azerbaijan about your new novel?
I still receive much positive and negative feedback. And that is understandable –the book cannot be accepted universally, not only in Azerbaijan but also in the whole world. Of course, there are more unsatisfied [people] in Azerbaijan. Unfortunately, these people are shocked by the fact that books with gay theme would be written and published. And these people haven’t even seen the book with their own eyes.
2. Are there any plans to translate the novel into Armenian and English?
I am going to translate the book into English. Most likely some in the US are already working on it. The Russian translation of the book is already ready. We will soon start publishing the book in Russia. In Armenian… You know, unfortunately, I don’t know Armenian and I don’t have Armenian-speaking acquaintances in Baku. But I have many friends in Armenia, including writers, translators, and publishers. We will wait for the release of the Russian version and then we will be able to talk about translating the book into Armenian and even into Georgian.
3. What, if any, feedback have you received from Armenia/Armenians?
The feedback from Armenia has mainly been negative. The Armenian society is a homophobic society. In that sense we [Azeris and Armenians] are very much alike. I didn’t except that Armenians would applaud me [in the first place]. Tough they haven’t read [the book] either and are shocked just from the title itself and from the suspected content of the novel.
4. Is there something you would like to add?
I wish our region [Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia] peace and happiness. We have the obligation to live like humans. We don’t have another choice.
Simon Maghakyan on 01 Mar 2009
Simon Maghakyan on 28 Feb 2009
Turkey may be in denial when it comes to human rights and particularly when it comes to the Armenian Genocide. But there are some prominent Turkish dissidents who are sick and tired of nationalist propaganda. In an unprecedented move, a Turkish father is suing the Education Ministry of his country for showing a DVD in class denying the Armenian Genocide.
In the words of The Times, London:
A father is suing the Turkish Education Ministry for forcing his 11-year-old daughter to watch a “racist” and “disturbing” film countering claims that Ottoman Turks committed genocide against Armenians in 1915 with graphic allegations of Armenian atrocities against Turks.
The landmark case takes on what human rights activists have called the State’s militarist policy of brainwashing Turkey’s schoolchildren to the point of racist paranoia, aiming to preserve a nationalist status quo criticised by the European Union, which Turkey is keen to join.
“My daughter was very disturbed and frightened by the documentary and kept asking me if the Armenians had cut us up,” said Serdar Kaya, an ethnic Turkish doctor, who is suing the ministry and the child’s school for inciting racial hatred.
“There are many mass graves, bones and skulls in the DVD. They have interviewed old grandads who inspire confidence and compassion. When they say things like ‘They cut off his head’ and ‘They used it instead of firewood’, that is bound to stay with the children,” Serdar Degirmencioglu, a psychologist, told the Armenian newspaper Agos when news first broke that the documentary was being shown to primary school children – including ethnic Armenian Turks.
[…]
Simon Maghakyan on 26 Feb 2009
Today marks the anniversary of the Armenian takeover of the city of Khojalu in 1992, as a result of which several hundred Azerbaijani civilians were killed.
Caught in the war of words between Armenia and Azerbaijan (one side blaming the other for the massacre), the memory of the killed Azeris in Khojalu has been reduced to a political tool.
Everyone is writing about the “truth about the Khojalu,” whether Armenian or Azeri bloggers.
I don’t know what other’s “truth” is, but innocent people were killed in Khojalu – and whether Azerbaijan’s army had a role in it is not important when it comes to commemorating children who died in a war.
So on the anniversary of Khojalu, I commemorate the victims of all massacres and pogroms during the Nagorno-Karabak war – whether Armenian or Azeri.
May the killed in Sumgayit, Baku, Maraga, Khojalu and many others that we may never hear about, rest in peace. These massacres are not the shame of the “enemy.” These massacres are the shame and loss of all us. May dead Azeris and Armenians rest in peace.
And in commemorating Khojalu, I also would like to remember Azerbaijan’s most famous journalist, Eynulla Fatullayev, who is in prison in Azerbaijan for having visited the town of Khojalu (after the war) and suggesting that Azerbaijan’s army, along with Armenian militias, also had a role in the massacre.
Fatullayev is also a victim of Khojalu – one caught in the war of words and one who has tried to bring Armenians and Azeris together. He is the true hero in the unholy propaganda between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Khojalu and other pogroms/massacres during the Nagorno-Karabakh war.
« Previous Page — Next Page »
|
|