Sirusho, Arabkir, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2008

With the first of the semi-finals in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest in Belgrade, Serbia, just days away, the countries of the South Caucasus are becoming increasingly excited about the international song contest and how their representatives will fair. What makes the situation all the more interesting is that this year will be the first time all three republics compete.

While this will be the third consecutive appearance of Armenia in the competition, Georgia entered for the first time last year, and Azerbaijan will be making its debut. However, of the three contestants, it is Armenia that currently appears to be the favorite not only from the region, but in general as well.

The British bookmaker William Hill currently has 21-year-old Sirusho at 6/1 to win and the popularity of her song, Qele Qele, has extended way past the borders of the country as the Eurovision Blog confirms.

Another tune almost certainly destined for the final is the Armenian entry, Qele Qele. As one of the countries whose national final we paid attention to, we’d heard this one before it was chosen but having heard the other options, we were screaming “Armenia! Choose! This! NOW!!!!!!!!!” before a note of the contest had even been sung. Coming over as Shakira crossed with a healthy dose of Helena Paparizou, only an entirely tone-deaf performance from Sirusho can possibly stop this one from bringing the house down on the night.

All Kinds of Everything for Eurovision 2008 agrees.

ARMENIA : This just gets better and better with every run through. Sirusho sounds confident and looks a lot more confident that before. The choreography is complex and involves a lot more rolling on the floor than I would like, but it is effective for the overhead shots. They have almost all the camera angles right, which is more than can be said for several entries, and even if the song is a tad repetitive, the dancing and fireworks add a bit of variety.

Other people may be less impressed but for me this is an absolutely certain qualifier, and it’s not totally out of the running to win.

The full post is available on Global Voices Online.

Levon Ter-Petrossian Post-Election Demonstration, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2008

Apologies in advance if the title seems a little sexist or flippant, but it’s true. All successful political movements throughout history have involved women, and especially young ones. Indeed, during opposition protest movements staged in 2003, 2005 and 2007, one of the main criticisms and reasons for their failure wasn’t just inadequate and indecisive leadership, but also the lack of young people.

The same is true when it comes to analyzing the makeup of opposition demonstrations based on gender and it’s all part of what WILLisms calls the Babe Theory of Political Movements.

The babe theory of political movements essentially holds that:

Where and when there are hot babes, an exponential number of men will show up. If 100 cute girls with voluptuous bodies are protesting for freedom, you can count on a thousand men being there as well.

If sexy babes are involved in a peaceful political movement, it has a far greater chance of succeeding. If there are no good-looking women involved, the odds of a successful (and peaceful) movement fall dramatically.

Where and when alluring women are excluded from demonstrations, you can expect greater chances of strife, rioting, and failure.

The full post is available on the Armenia Election Monitor 2008.

She might not look much from a distance, but up close I think she’s magnificent. Apparently facing Turkey, she stands overlooking Yerevan from Victory Park with a sword in her hand and resembles something more like a dominatrix rather than the [usually incorrectly stereotyped] gentle Armenian woman.

She’s somewhat fierce, for sure, but Mother Armenia is one of my favourite statues in the Armenian capital and is meant to represent “peace through strength.” Certainly, she’s part of the city’s recent [Soviet] history.

During Stalin’s reign on the Soviet Union, Grigor Harutyunyan, the first secretary of the Armenian Communist Party’s Central Committee and members of the government were carefully seeing to the construction of a monument for Stalin which was completed on November 29, 1950 and unveiled to the people. The statue was considered a masterpiece sculpted by Sergey Merkurov. Realizing that occupying a pedestal can be a short-term honor, Israelyan designed the pedestal to resemble an Armenian church - at least on the inside. In contrast to the right-angled shapes of the outside, inside was light and pleasing to the eye and resembled Echmiadzin’s seventh-century St. Hripsime Church.

In fact, Israelyan’s prediction came true as the Soviet leader’s time came to an end quickly afterwards and his monument was taken down. The monument was replaced in 1967 by the Mother Armenia statue which was designed by Ara Harutyunyan.

“Mother Armenia” statue stands to symbolize peace through strength. It reminds us of some of the prominent female figures in Armenian history, such as Sossé Mayrig and many others who never hesitated to take up arms to help their husbands who would clash with Turkish troops and Kurdish irregulars. It also represents the important status and value attributed to the older female members of an Armenian family. This is in sharp contrast to the treatment of women in some of the Islamic societies surrounding Armenia.

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OSCE/ODIHR Long Term Observer (LTO) Mina Rolovic-Jocic, Territorial Election Commission (TEC) #8, Malatia-Sebastia, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia for EurasiaNet 2007

Again as part of my work documenting the parliamentary election for EurasiaNet, I attended two trainings of Territorial Election Commission in Yerevan organized by IFES as part of the U.S. Government’s technical assistance to Armenia for the 12 May vote. Members of Precinct Election Commissions (PECs) will also be trained under the program.

Under this project, IFES and the CEC have trained 366 members of all 41 Territorial Election Commissions. Beginning in late April, over 17,000 members of all 1,923 Precinct Election Commissions will also be trained. The computers that we are presenting today will be used by the CEC to support communications with TEC and election results processing and help minimize the time between when the polling stations close and results are announced.

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Zarchka has an interesting post on love, sex and marriage over at Life Around Me. So interesting was it that the forum page which resulted in Zara posting has since been taken down. So much for open discussion, but one thing’s for sure, her post had an impact and if discussion was censored and actually stopped on a site established to promote free debate, it’s continuing on her blog.

Comments have been disabled for this post, so if you want to say something on it, please do so over there.

Following on from the recent march in Yerevan by Kanayq Hayots, Armenia Now has a special issue dedicated to women in politics in Armenia. Too tired to write anything on the content so best you go over and take a look yourselves. It’s here.

Kanayq Hayots, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2006

As I recently posted, an albeit small action to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, as well as raise awareness of the arguably regressing role of women in peace-building and society in general in the South Caucasus, was staged yesterday. The demonstration, largely attended by female university students as well as several ethnic Armenians from the Diaspora, was organized by the Kanayq Hayots NGO.

Kanayq Hayots Women’s Center was established on July 1, 2003 by a group of undergraduate women from the Sociology Department of Yerevan State University (YSU), Armenia. The idea was also strongly supported by graduate assistant and Ph.D. candidate, Gohar Shahnazaryan, as well as master’s students Anna Malkhassyan and Gohar Hovhanisyan. The Center’s concept was initiated by Lara Aharonian from the “Centre des Femmes d’ici et d’ailleurs de Montreal Quebec”, Canada, and Shushan Avagyan, a graduate student at Illinois State University, USA. Having made a commitment to YSU’s Sociology department, Kanayq Hayots is located at the University’s Conflict Resolution Information Center, but acts as an independent entity.

The Center adopted its name from the existing socio-literary feminist journal that started publishing in 2000 through YSU’s Sociology Department. One of main reasons of Kanayq Hayots’ establishment was to preserve and revive the publication of this journal, which had ceased circulating in 2002 due to a lack of steady financial support. The Center reunites the journal’s editorial and volunteer staff, and now opens its doors to a larger network of women from other institutions and disciplines.

[…] Our objective is to eliminate all types of discrimination against women whatever their age, race, class, nationality, ethnicity, disability and sexual orientation. More specifically, our goal is to create a safe environment for every woman on the campuses of YSU.

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Anoush from the Armenian Volunteer and Anoush Armenia blogs has forwarded me an announcement about yet another demonstration planned for Yerevan in the next few days. On Saturday 25 November a march is planned from the Cascade to the Minstry of Foreign Affairs on Republic Square. These are the details I have.

On November 25, the International Day against Violence, women from across the South Caucasus will unite to urge government officials and decision makers to include women in the peace building process. During the Kvinna Till Kvinna Thematic meeting on Women in Peace building and Conflict Resolution in September 2006, the Women’s Coalition for Peace in the South Caucasus was formed in order to bring together the efforts of all women and peace activists of Armenia, Azerbaijan, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Georgia in a call for peace in the region.

[…]

In Armenia, the Women’s Resource Center is working to mobilize women and other NGOs to bring the voice of women into policy meetings on conflict resolution and stop all types of violence against women in conflict zones, based on the UN Security Council Resolution 1325. We ask that our colors, red and white symbolizing violence and peace, be worn during the Solidarity March on November 25th to show support for our message.

Peace in the South Caucasus is possible! JOIN US!

WHEN: November 25, 5pm

WHAT: A Solidarity March for Women in Conflict Zones, delivery of an open letter to the Foreign Minister’s office and ceremony of White and red ribbons on Republic square.

WHERE: Meet at the Cascade and end at Republic Square.

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Via The Armenian Odar, news of “an online global exhibit featuring art, photographs, essays and film by young women in their 20s and 30s…” Myrthe points out that only one Armenian woman based in Moscow is participating so far, so head over to her blog for more details. I know a friend of Nessuna’s might submit some art, but there’s room for more contributions.

Nessuna at di cavoli e di re has another interesting post this week, but this time about the benefits of speaking a foreign language in Armenia. As is customary among local males, kerb crawling is the norm here, even when you don’t have a car. That is, many guys here think that there’s a good chance that driving or walking slowly alongside girls on their own — and especially at night — might get them some short-term “company.”

Was walking home, when noticed a car driving at a slow pace next to me. I continued walking and did not even bother to cross the street, which certainly encouraged the driver to follow me for about five minutes. Finally, he got bored with it, pulled over, got out of the car and asked if he could have a few words with me. Of course , I could have said no or yes, and then engage in meaningless chat about why I didn’t feel like talking to him. But I did something else. Without blinking an eye I lied: “I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you’re saying.” And it worked. He muttered “ok”, got back in his car and drove away.

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After Marcella’s debut on di cavoli e di re last week, the Italian student who recently visited Armenia has another post. This time she offers her observations on gender and expectations of women in what many people still consider to be a deeply patriarchal society.

Exposed long legs, beautiful thin ankles, and small feet encapsulated in colourful high shoes. Heavy make up, long and shiny hair, happy smiles. Hands perfectly manicured, they move graciously. You can see them chatting and laughing. They often speak many languages. Many go to University, travel abroad, dream, and even plan brilliant careers, or at least those living in the Armenian capital, Yerevan.

In rural Armenia traditions are more heavily rooted. They have the same make up and wear the same high heels, but freedom doesn’t exist even on the surface. The sun sets and the women disappear. They don’t smoke in public and often cannot leave their village without the permission of their fathers or brothers.

[…]

The fairer sex is weak. It’s a flower that belongs to men, and it’s one that can easily be damaged. Men have the duty and pleasure to help them blossom and grow by protecting their beauty, but while the surface is quiet, underneath lies a deep crack linked to daily life and rooted in traditional culture. Roles are separated and very well defined.

The full post can be read here.