In countries such as Armenia where the mainstream broadcast media is firmly under the control of government-connected businessmen and/or officials, while the traditional print and online media largely reflects the opposition in the country, there is no doubt that blogs have an important role to play in the dissemination of information, news and views.

[…]

But rather than change as the result of alternative, opposition voices seeking to involve themselves in the internal political life of the country, the situation might now be changing because of four bloggers who protested on and offline against an event staged early this week at a Yerevan school to promote peace and reconciliation between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

[…]

The four Live Journal bloggers — Uzogh, Pigh, Aerial_vortex and Akunamatata_ser — were however angered by the attempt to hold such an event at a school run by Armenia’s former Minister of Education, Ashot Bleyan, who is notorious for what many consider to be “anti-Armenian” positions on Nagorno Karabakh and Genocide recognition. Speaking to Global Voices for this post, Uzogh explains why the four bloggers staged the action.

On December 14, the day when the press release announcing the event at Bleyan’s school was sent to public, I wrote a post [RUS] expressing my anger towards the organizers and sponsors of this event. The post resulted in many comments and a rather long discussion with Mark Grigoryan (Armenian journalist now residing in UK).

Some of the participants of this discussion suggested doing something to make this event a failure, but I preferred to take some time out for reflection before resorting to action. A day later, I concluded that an aggressive action would not result in the failure of the event, but would rather turn the organizers into some kind of victims which would lead to increased publicity and additional fund raising opportunities.

That’s why I instead preferred to pursue a tactic of mockery and shared this idea with a few bloggers that had already expressed their intention to join any protest action. We had a brainstorming at my house on Sunday and figured out what could be done.

I didn’t want to make this a public protest action, and none of us are members of any political party or non-formal group etc, so we did not aim to attract a lot of supporters. This was the protest by a few men and citizens, and not a civic action. At its core was the concept that we didn’t like the strategy of unilateral reconciliation through the brain-washing of children.

The full post is available on Global Voices Online.

I’ve just received an email from Scott Jaschik, Editor of Inside Higher Ed, who has requested that I post a link to an article on the Armenian Genocide his magazine has just published. Following on from the passage last week of House Resolution 106, the piece looks at the work of scholars in the continuing debate over whether the massacre of Armenians living in Ottoman Turkey constituted Genocide.

Jaschik specifically invites readers of this blog to comment on the piece over on the Inside Higher Ed site. Here’s a brief preview of the full article:

In the buildup to last week’s vote by a House of Representatives committee officially calling for U.S. foreign policy to recognize that a genocide of Armenians took place during World War I, at the behest of the “Young Turk” government of the Ottoman Empire, a flurry of advertising in American newspapers appeared from Turkey.

The ads discouraged the vote by House members, and called instead for historians to figure out what happened in 1915. The ads quoted such figures as Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, as saying: “These historical circumstances require a very detailed and sober look from historians.” And State Department officials made similar statements, saying as the vote was about to take place: “We think that the determination of whether the events that happened to ethnic Armenians at the end of the Ottoman Empire should be a matter for historical inquiry.”

Turkey’s government also has been quick to point American scholars (there are only a handful, but Turkey knows them all) who back its view that what’s needed with regard to 1915 is not to call it genocide, but to figure out what to call it, and what actually took place.

Normally, you might expect historians to welcome the interest of governments in convening scholars to explore questions of scholarship. But in this case, scholars who study the period say that the leaders of Turkey and the United States — along with that handful of scholars — are engaged in a profoundly anti-historical mission: trying to pretend that the Armenian genocide remains a matter of debate instead of being a long settled question. Much of the public discussion of the Congressional resolution has focused on geopolitics: If the full House passes the resolution, will Turkey end its help for U.S. military activities in Iraq?

But there are also some questions about the role of history and historians in the debate. To those scholars of the period who accept the widely held view that a genocide did take place, it’s a matter of some frustration that top government officials suggest that these matters are open for debate and that this effort is wrapped around a value espoused by most historians: free and open debate.

“Ultimately this is politics, not scholarship,” said Simon Payaslian, who holds an endowed chair in Armenian history and literature at Boston University. Turkey’s strategy, which for the first 60-70 years after the mass slaughter was to pretend that it didn’t take place, “has become far more sophisticated than before” and is explicitly appealing to academic values, he said.

[…]

Probably the most prominent scholar in the United States to question that genocide took place is Bernard Lewis, an emeritus professor at Princeton University, whose work on the Middle East has made him a favorite of the Bush administration and neoconservative thinkers. In one of his early works, Lewis referred to the “terrible holocaust” that the Armenians faced in 1915, but he stopped using that language and was quoted questioning the use of the term “genocide.” Lewis did not respond to messages seeking comment for this article. The Armenian National Committee of America has called him “a known genocide denier” and an “academic mercenary.”

[…]

Among the scholars attracting the most attention for work on the genocide is Taner Akçam, a historian from Turkey who has been a professor at the University of Minnesota since 2001, when officials in Turkey stepped up criticism of his work. Akçam has faced death threats and has had legal charges brought against him in Turkey (since dropped) for his work, which directly focuses on the question of the culpability of Young Turk leaders in planning and executing the genocide. (Akçam’s Web site has details about his research and the Turkish campaigns against him.) Opposition to his work from Turkey has been particularly intense since the publication last year of A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility.

[…]

Another scholar from Turkey working on the Armenian genocide is Fatma Müge Göçek, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Michigan. Until she came to Princeton to earn her Ph.D., Göçek said that she didn’t know about the Armenian genocide. For that matter, she said she didn’t know that Armenians lived in Turkey — “and I had the best education Turkey has to offer.”

Learning the full history was painful, she said, and started for her when Armenians she met at Princeton talked to her about it and she was shocked and angry. Upon reading the sorts of materials she never saw in Turkey, the evidence was clear, she said.

As mentioned above, Inside Higher Ed invites everyone reading this blog to go over there to read the full article and to leave comments if they feel so inclined.

Father Hovsep, Mkhitarist Seminary, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / CNEWA One Magazine 2006-7

It was meant to have been published in the January issue of the CNEWA One magazine, but unforeseen circumstances pushed publication back until March. However, I didn’t check my email while on assignment in Georgia’s second largest city, Kutaisi, so couldn’t respond to some last minute questions from the One’s editor.

However, my story on the return of the Mkhitarist Fathers to Armenia has now been published in the May edition. I briefly blogged about them, quoting a number of academic sources and posting some photos, here.

The Mechitarists (Armenian: Մխիթարեան), also spelled Mekhitarists, are a congregation, founded in 1712 by Mechitar, of Armenian Benedictine monks in communion with the Catholic Church.

Their eponymous founder, Mekhitar, was born at Sebaste in Armenia in 1676. He entered a monastery, but under the influence of Western missionaries he became possessed with the idea of propagating Western ideas and culture in Armenia, and of converting the Armenian Church from its alleged monophysitism (a christological heresy in Roman Catholic viewpoint) and reuniting it with the Latin Church.

[…]

Much like his contemporary merchants Mkhitar was a bridge between the East (his people and his homeland) and the West (his religion and final home). His followers continued this tradition and became key agents in the disemination of many European ideas and approaches (particularly in cultural, historical, linguistic and of course religious related matters) into Armenian thinking, especially in Ottoman Armenia. Mkhitarists, however, were not only trading in intellectual products, but also creating them. They were instrumental in retrieving Armenia’s ‘golden age’ and putting it in the service of nationalism.

Anyway, the article and photographs are available in the physical edition of the magazine, but are not yet available online. When they are, I’ll post a link, although they’ll eventually materialize online here.

Have literally stepped in the door from six days in Georgia where I worked with the Newport Kutaisi Association, EveryChild and the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Georgia documenting social services and the process of deinstitutionalization in Armenia’s northern neighbour.

Deinstitutionalisation is the focus of EveryChild’s work across the region, providing alternatives to the old Soviet style institutional care. EveryChild has been responsible for training all of the current social workers in Georgia and has also enabled over 500 children to date to be removed from institutions. The total number of children ‘deinstitutionalised’ or prevented from being abandoned to institutions in last three years equals approximately 10% of all children in institutional care of which over 100 have been reunited with their biological families while others have been found homes with foster carers.

(more…)

HIV/AIDS Awareness Class, School No. 43, Erebuni, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / UNICEF 2005

Over at Armyouth, Pradafreak posts about a recent action aimed at raising awareness of the dangers of HIV/AIDS among youth in Armenia. The action was held on 12 December 2006 in cooperation with the APEC NGO who I wrote about for UNICEF in 2005. However, despite recent attempts to raise awareness, the action revealed that most young Armenians are uninformed about HIV/AIDs and especially with regards to how to prevent infection.

A lot of students from the faculty of sociology volunteered for the project, so we could manage it. Special mini - test forms were designed, and our volunteers asked those questions to the students. At the end of the questions the right answers were given to them, so they can read them after being intrigued from the questions.

So here are the results: Out of 916 surveys - Only 5% was fully informed about the case, 14% is enough informed about the issue, 73 % has a very little and wrong knowledge , 8% doesn’t have any idea about this big issue.

So as the results showed our students are not informed about the case, and I should admit they were not that interested in the presentation, some of them even thinks that its not a problem for the Armenian society, some girls found it offensive to answer to the questions about HIV / AIDs and STDs etc.

(more…)

Mkhitarist Seminary, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / CNEWA One Magazine 2006

I’ve been a little quiet of late because of work and in particular an article and photos that I had to produce for One Magazine, a publication of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA). After viewing my Lightstalkers portfolio, the magazine’s photo editor approached me for a story on the return of the Mkhitarist Fathers to Armenia.

As I like stories on subjects that are seldom covered here, I jumped at the chance. The Mkhitarist Fathers are particularly interesting as Wikipedia explains.

The Mechitarists (Armenian: Մխիթարեան), also spelled Mekhitarists, are a congregation, founded in 1712 by Mechitar, of Armenian Benedictine monks in communion with the Catholic Church.

Their eponymous founder, Mekhitar, was born at Sebaste in Armenia in 1676. He entered a monastery, but under the influence of Western missionaries he became possessed with the idea of propagating Western ideas and culture in Armenia, and of converting the Armenian Church from its alleged monophysitism (a christological heresy in Roman Catholic viewpoint) and reuniting it with the Latin Church.

(more…)

Gohar Saroava, a Moslem Kurd, helps a Yezidi child prepare for a cultural event, Shamiram, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2004

The Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR) has just published my article on new problems for Armenia’s largest ethnic minority. As mentioned in an article I wrote for Transitions Online in 2004, and as I recently posted on this blog, what some see as the artificial division of the Yezidis in Armenia has manifested itself as problems in the area of minority language education.

At the beginning of September, at an event staged in the Yezidi village of Alagyaz, government officials said that new textbooks in minority languages would be distributed to schools in minority-populated villages, while UNICEF said it would provide stationary and other supplies.

Less than a month later, however, Yezidis in Alagyaz and ten surrounding villages were complaining. Their language is the Kurmanji dialect of Kurdish, but the books funded and provided by the government were instead written in Ezdiki. While the latter is still Kurdish by another name, the alphabet chosen for publication was in the unaccustomed Cyrillic alphabet instead of the more usual Latin or Arabic scripts.

“All schools have at present is old Soviet-era textbooks,” said Gohar Saroava, a young journalist with the Mesopotamia newspaper in Yerevan and one of the few Muslim Kurds remaining in Armenia. Others, however, are more outspoken. “These [new] books are a shame and we don’t want to have this rubbish,” said Torkom Khudoyan, vice-president of the National Committee of Yezidis of Armenia.

Speaking to IWPR, both UNICEF and Hranush Kharatyan, head of the Armenian government’s department for national minorities and religious affairs, confirmed reports that the new textbooks are being rejected, but said that it was outside their remit to intervene. Critics, however, argue that the situation should never have arisen in the first place and allege it is part a continuing attempt to promote a non-Kurdish identity among Armenia’s Yezidis.

[…]

Nahro Zagros, an ethnic Kurdish PhD student from Iraq studying the ethno-musical traditions of Yezidis at the University of York, concurs. Zagros says that he also stumbled upon what many consider to be the artificial division of the community on a recent visit to Armenia. “The school in Shinkani has refused these textbooks, and teachers from Rya Taze, Alagyaz, Dirik, Orta Chia, Amri Taze and Jamushlow have also rejected them,” he said.

[…]

Some experts believe that the government has only succeeded in alienating the Yezidis through its education policies. One academic from Europe speaking to IWPR on the condition of anonymity said, “The state seems to be distinctly encouraging the Ezdiki faction and has not latched on to the fact that Kurmanji and Ezdiki, which were the same language for the entire Soviet period, are still the same. The most obvious and cost-effective compromise would be to produce Ezdiki-Kurdish schoolbooks in a mutually agreed alphabet.”

The full article is here. Incidently, supporting interviews on the division in Armenia’s Yezidi community can be found here.

Via Google’s News Alerts an excerpt from a news item just arrived in my mailbox. Seeing the mention of the surname, Sanjian, I knew the main focus of the article had to be an old friend from London, and it was. Ara Sanjian, a Lebanese-Armenian, has been appointed Director of the Armenian Research Center at the University of Michigan-Dearborn.

An internationally influential center for Armenian studies in Dearborn is changing the guard this week and installing only the second director in the center’s nearly two decades of scholarship.

[…]

Sanjian, 38, was born in the large Armenian community based in Beirut. He studied in Lebanon and Armenia, then earned a doctorate in Middle Eastern history from the University of London in England. He moved to Dearborn from Beirut earlier this year. He is fluent in English and also works professionally in Armenian, Arabic, Russian, Turkish and French.

“In coming to the center, I do represent a kind of bridge in a number of ways,” Sanjian said last week. He is settling into Dearborn, the heart of Michigan’s Arab-Muslim community, already familiar with Middle Eastern issues from his many years in Lebanon. Plus, he has dedicated his scholarly life to bringing cross-cultural lessons from Armenian-Christian history to the larger world.

(more…)

Yezidi School, Alagyaz, Aragatsotn Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2006

As I mentioned in a post last week, there have been reports that new books provided to Yezidi schools in Armenia are being returned because they are written in a language called “Ezdiki” and use Cyrillic. However, the language spoken by Yezidi worldwide is the Kurmanji dialect of Kurdish and is usually written in Latin or Arabic.

“The Yezidi religious and cultural tradition is deeply rooted in Kurdish culture and almost all Yezidi sacred texts are in Kurdish […] The language all Yezidi communities have in common is Kurdish and most consider themselves to be Kurds, although often with some reservations.”

(more…)

Yezidis, Alagyaz, Aragatsotn Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 1998

UNICEF in Armenia have an interesting press release on their web page highlighting new moves to tackle the problem of minority education in the Republic. For sure, school drop out rates are higher among rural minority communities than for Armenian ones with the exception of villages made up of refugees. Not surprisingly, the UNICEF press release makes for happy reading.

YEREVAN, 1 September – UNICEF and the Ministry of Education & Sciences of Armenia joined their efforts Friday in promoting education for ethnic minority groups, living in Armenia.

“The right to quality basic education is fundamental right of all children in all communities,” UNICEF Representative, Sheldon Yett said in a ceremony marking the start of a new academic year in a Kurdish-populated community of Alagyaz, 50km north of Armenia’s capital.

“Investing in the education of all its citizens is one of the best investments a country can make. It is the lever with which children can lift themselves out of poverty and participate fully in their communities.”

The UNICEF Representative noted that the Ministry of Education & Sciences has promoted basic education for minority groups through the distribution of textbooks in minority languages and through the training of teachers in minority schools.

(more…)

Don’t you just love the local Armenian media? No sense of how to work properly at all, and once again my images have been taken off the Internet and used without permission or even a credit. Worse than that, the news item by ArmenPress is something that doesn’t reflect the reality behind the story.

YEZIDI PUPILS HAVE THREE TEXTBOOKS IN NATIVE LANGUAGE

YEREVAN, AUGUST 30, ARMENPRESS: When Yezidi schoolchildren in Armenia will go to school on September 1, when academic year here begins, they will find, for the first time, three text-books in their native language. They are the ABC, and textbooks on Yezidi language and literature.

Hasan Tamoyan, head of a radio program broadcast by the Public Radio for Yezidis, said the Union of Yezidis was instrumental in helping to develop and print the textbooks. Yezidis have now media outlets- a 30 minute radio program and an official newspaper run by the Union of Yezidis.

Yezidis, also known as Yezidi Kurds, are Armenia’s largest minority community, numbering officially more than 40,000. Many Yezidis began to settle in Armenia during the Russian-Turkish wars of the 19th century and more fled with Armenians during the massacres of 1915.

Neither Christian nor Muslim, practicing their own ancient rites, the Yezidis stayed when Azerbaijanis and Muslim Kurds fled Armenia at the beginning of the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute in 1988-90. They keep an ancient nomadic lifestyle and live by breeding cattle and sheep.

(more…)