St. Vardanants, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2008

This being the official pre-election campaign period it’s probably no surprise to discover that it’s impossible to escape campaigning for the presidential election to be held in less than three weeks time. Technically, the appearance of the prime minister, Serge Sargsyan, at the celebration of St. Vardanants today had nothing to do with the election, but of course in reality it did.

And because, also technically, the procession down Khanjian Street in central Yerevan was not political, it was almost certainly a sanctioned march. Even if it disrupted traffic the presence of Yerevan’s mayor, Yervan Zakarian, doubtless made the delays experienced by drivers worthwhile although it’s unlikely that anybody bothered to ask them. E-Channel has more.

On January 31, in relation with the St. Vardanants feast, the Araratyan Patriarchal Diocese and the Yerevan administration organized a crusade from St. Zoravor church to the Vardan Mamikonyan monument.

This crusade is a traditional one. Since the last year, the event is being conducted with the youth wing of Republican Party of Armenia (RPA.) This year, the Yerevan city administration was among the organizers, too. However, the main characteristic feature of the St. Vardanants feast crusade was prime minister, presidential candidate Serzh Sargsyan’s participation.

The presidential candidate had arrived to St. Zoravor church 10 minutes prior to the crusade and was waiting for the start with the gathered people. Among the attendees were numerous students wearing the jackets of ULNP – United Liberal National Party – supporting the nomination of Serzh Sargsyan.

There were lots of women, students, schoolchildren that approached Serzh Sargsyan, asking to have a picture with him. The candidate did not turn anyone down.

Navasard Archbishop Kchoyan, the Araratyan diocese vicar, arrived, and the crusade started. In the first line were the priests taking the cross, a rider on a white horse symbolizing Vardan Mamikonyan, and military people. During the whole crusade, the brass band of the RA Police Forces was playing a march.

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

Yesterday marked the first anniversary of the murder of ethnic Armenian newspaper editor and journalist Hrant Dink in Istanbul, Turkey. Dink was shot outside the office of the Agos newspaper on 19 January 2007. A prolific advocate for civil, human and minority rights in Turkey, Dink was killed by 17-year-old Ogun Samast. His murder shocked the world and marked one of few times when Armenian, Turkish and other bloggers spoke about an event making headline news across the world with one voice.

A year on and the conversation in the blogosphere might be less, but many people the world over — and not least in Armenia and Turkey — remember Dink. A rare voice calling for reconciliation between Armenians and Turks, Dink’s message and legacy is still remembered today. A week ago, Blogian posted information on Hrant Dink memorial events to be held the world over.

Internations Musings makes a short but to the point post consisting of just two photographs taken in Istanbul with the title “I believe darkness will one day reunite with light.” Rastî simply posts various quotes and photographs, including one from the Armenian Foreign Minister, Vartan Oskanian.

The brutality, the impunity, the violence of Hrant’s murder serves several political ends. First, it makes Turkey less interesting for Europe, which is exactly what some in the Turkish establishment want. Second, it scares away Armenians and other minorities in Turkey, from pursuing their civil and human rights. Third, it scares those bold Turks who are beginning to explore these complicated, sensitive subjects in earnest.

The full post is available on Global Voices Online.

Simon Maghakyan at Blogian just sent me an email to draw my attention to a new site he’s partly responsible for — the Djulfa Virtual Memorial and Museum. Interestingly, and somewhat commendably in my opinion, there’s also a blog component, Djulfa Blog: Sacred Stones Reduced to Dust.

While there are many reasons to criticize the situation the country found itself in under the former president, Levon Ter Petrosian, there is perhaps one area of policy which might endear himself to the international community and which could result in dramatic changes inside Armenia and the South Caucasus. That is, when it comes to foreign policy, Ter Petrosian is said to favor a concessionary peace deal with Azerbaijan to resolve the long-standing conflict over Nagorno Karabakh and normalized relations with Turkey.

When Ter Petrosian held his first pre-election public meeting in Yerevan’s Liberty Square in October, such a possibility was not lost on the international news wires. The Associated Press was particularly upbeat on the prospect for regional stability and integration.

If successful, his return to office could signal a major shift in Armenia’s fraught relations with neighbours Azerbaijan and Turkey.

Ter-Petrosian, 62, is an advocate of compromise with the two countries, which have closed their borders and imposed economic embargoes over Armenia’s support for the breakaway Azerbaijani region of Nagorny Karabakh.

[…]

Armenia needed to end its regional isolation by normalising relations with Azerbaijan and Turkey, he said.

“Until we have resolved the questions of the blockade of Armenia, relations with our neighbours and Karabakh, Armenia cannot develop and strengthen,” he said.

“As a result of the criminal policies of the current government, Azerbaijan has only toughened its position and will not seek compromise,” he added.

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

After this week saw the first action of note by a group of bloggers in Armenia, others outside of the country have started to weigh in. In particular, Simon at Blogian is particularly upset about the staging of a Days of Azerbaijan held at the school of controversial former minister of education, Ashot Bleyan. What is most interesting about Simon’s post is that he is not a nationalist opposed to any peace deal and that he mentions the fact that the event came during the second anniversary of Armenian khachkars (stone crosses) in Nakhichevan.

The selective Radio Free Europe report on a British Embassy-sponsored event called “Days of Azerbaijan” in Armenia has been brought upon fierce criticism from bloggers after the U.S. State Department-sponsored news agency failed to mention that a group of bloggers in Armenia had protested the event by handing a soap to the Armenian organizers of “Days of Azerbaijan” as reported by sources such as PanArmenian.net and ArmeniaNow.

Being one of the few bloggers that has spoken for Armenian and Azeri rehumanization, I still have to protest “Days of Azerbaijan” for my VERY PERSONAL reasons.

VERY PERSONAL, because I treat every medieval Armenian cross-stone that Azerbaijan reduced to dust two years ago as my own dead relative and I don’t want a group of idiots organizing ”Days of Azerbaijan” in Armenia during the second anniversary of Djulfa cemetery’s destruction.

[…]

If “Days of Azerbaijan” included commemoration and condemnation of Djulfa’s destruction I’d be for the event. But since one of the organizers, Ashot Bleyan, has suggested in the past that Armenian students shouldn’t learn about the Armenian Genocide, one can’t expect much from morons like him.

The full post is here.

Yesterday a friend told me that I had too much politics on my blog even though not only is it election time in Armenia, but it’s also part of my work. Nevertheless, perhaps it’s time for a break if only for one post, and as music plays an important part in my life, what better a subject to cover and not least since in the past few months, the monotony of the type of music being produced in Armenia has really gotten to me.

With one or two exceptions, even the rock scene is mundane, predictable and lacking in any spirit. Music for the masses is just as bad, although many would argue that the same is true in the even more commercially-driven Western market. Still, what we do have in Europe and the U.S. is a more diverse selection and five decades of pop and rock music — some of which stands the test of time.

Of late, for example, I’ve rediscovered the Sex Pistols, England’s most notorious punk rock band of the 1970s. Arguably manufactured by music impresario Malcom McLaren, whatever people might think of the Sex Pistols, I remember that they turned the country upside down. Aged seven when they were formed, even now I can remember the shock and outrage that accompanied the very mention of their name in the British media.

Sex Pistols are an English punk rock band that formed in London in 1975. The band originally comprised vocalist Johnny Rotten, guitarist Steve Jones, drummer Paul Cook and bassist Glen Matlock (later replaced by Sid Vicious). Although their initial career lasted only three years and produced only four singles and one studio album, the Sex Pistols have been described by the BBC as “the definitive English punk rock band.” The Pistols are widely credited with initiating the punk movement in the United Kingdom and creating the first generation gap within rock and roll.

The Sex Pistols emerged as a response to what was perceived to be the “increasingly safe and bloated” progressive rock and manufactured pop music of the mid-1970s. The band created various controversies during their brief career which captivated Britain, but often eclipsed their music. Their shows and tours repeatedly faced difficulties from authorities, and public appearances often ended in disaster and riot. Their 1977 single, “God Save the Queen”, was widely regarded as an attack on the British monarchy and British nationalism.

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Reuters reports the expected. The Armenian Genocide Bill due to be put before the U.S. Congress next month has been suspended at the request of its co-sponsors. Well, they say “suspended,” but it’s unlikely that the situation with Iraq or Turkey is going to change anytime soon.

The sponsors conveyed their decision in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, after support for the controversial resolution support faltered in the face of vehement protests from NATO ally Turkey.

[…]

The sponsors asked Pelosi not to schedule a vote “at this time,” but said they would continue to work for “consideration sometime later this year, or in 2008.”

Right, but a word of advice. Don’t hold your breath.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that the big guns are still out against House Resolution 106 recognizing the Armenian Genocide which is or was scheduled to be put before the U.S. Congress for a full vote next month. As has been mentioned on this blog time and time again, such resolutions are not new and the outcome has to date always been the same.

That is, citing national security concerns and foreign policy objectives, whoever is in the White House — Democrat and Republican alike — kill such bills before they can reach the floor. Now is no exception, with AFP reporting that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is urging U.S. lawmakers to drop the bill because of a strategic relationship with the modern-day Republic of Turkey.

“This is a very delicate time with Turkey,” she told the House of Representatives Foreign Relations Committee, which voted two weeks ago to label the Ottoman Empire’s World War I massacre of Armenians as genocide.

“We have extremely important strategic interests with the Turks,” Rice said, appealing to the House as a whole not to vote on the controversial resolution.

“This was something that was a horrible event in the mass killings that took place, but at the time of the Ottoman Empire. These are not the Ottomans,” she said of the modern-day Turkish state.

Rice on Tuesday held talks with Armenian Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian, and she told the House panel that she had urged both the Armenians and Turks to work together on bridging their historical differences. “But I continue to believe that the passage of the… Armenian genocide resolution would severely harm our relationships with Turkey,” the secretary of state said.

[…]

Some of the House members told Rice that the resolution was never intended to be a slight on Turkey itself. But in any case, support for the genocide tag appears to be waning in the full House following Turkey’s threat to cut off its logistical support for U.S.-led war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As the U.S. Congressional House Resolution 106 recognizing the Armenian Genocide continues to make headlines around the world, The Economist has published a piece on Armenian-Turkish, U.S.-Turkish, and Armenian-Diaspora relations. While covering the larger picture, it looks at the difference on approaches to Genocide recognition between Armenians in the Republic and in the Diaspora as well as the Turkish response to H.R. 106.

Genocide is a tricky subject in Washington. Six weeks after the Rwandan genocide began in 1994, when 500,000 people had already been murdered for belonging to the wrong tribe, the American government still hesitated to call it what it was. The trouble with calling genocide “genocide” while the blood is still spilling is that, under the terms of a UN convention, one is obliged to do something to stop it.

The Armenian killings incur no such awkwardness. Obviously, Congress cannot do much about a massacre that happened nearly a century ago. But that does not mean that its words carry no cost. […]

[…]

A recent poll conducted by the International Republican Institute, a pro-democracy pressure group, suggests that the people of Armenia—unlike their brothers and sisters in the diaspora—may be ready for change. Only 3% of respondents said that recognition of the genocide was their first priority. A mere 4% listed it at all. For many, finding a job is their chief worry.

Meanwhile, Turkey has looked the other way as thousands of illegal Armenian migrants have sought work in Istanbul, the former Ottoman capital. Mutual suspicions are beginning to fade as these newcomers are recruited by Turks to care for babies and ageing parents. Armenian tourists, too, braving accusations of treachery back home, have been heading by the thousands to Turkey’s Mediterranean resorts. “Until I met a real Turk, I rather feared them,” confesses Tevan Poghossian, an Armenian pundit, who runs projects to promote Turkish-Armenian dialogue. “Now I go out drinking with them in Yerevan.”

[…]

Despite this burgeoning spirit of reconciliation, however, Turkey has balked at establishing formal ties and insists that Armenia must make the first move. Armenia retorts that it is up to Turkey to prove that its overtures are not designed solely to kill the genocide resolution; to prove its good faith, Turkey should act first. Mr Erdogan’s lieutenants blame the impasse on Turkey’s meddlesome generals, who insist that Armenia must make peace with Azerbaijan before it can make peace with Turkey.

[…]

[…] If Turkey wants to fulfil its dreams of being a regional power and an inspiring example of how Islam and democracy can co-exist, it must make peace with all its citizens, including its Kurds. And it should find a way to face up to its past. It could do worse than seek inspiration from Ataturk who, as Mr Akcam noted in a recent book, once called the Armenian tragedy “a shameful act”.

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Via Amerikan Turk, I stumbled upon an open letter to the Armenian Diaspora by Turkish writer, Mustafa Akyol. Of course, the subject of the letter is not hard to guess. It concerns the Armenian Genocide and is obviously written as a result of House Resolution 106. Before quoting from the letter which was also published by the Turkish Daily News, however, it’s interesting to read up on Akyol.

Mustafa Akyol is a Turkish Muslim writer, who argues both against Islamic extremism and extreme secularism and is an outspoken promoter of intelligent design.

Akyol was born in Ankara in 1972 and had his early education there. He later graduated from the Istanbul Nişantaşı Anadolu Lisesi and the International Relations Department of Bosphorus University. He earned his masters in the History Department of the same university.

[…]

In the past years he has given seminars in several universities in the U.S. and the UK on issues of faith, science, religious tolerance or inter-faith dialogue.

Mustafa Akyol’s articles on Islamic issues, in which he mostly argues against Islamic extremism and terrorism from a Muslim point of view and defends the Islamic faith, have appeared in publications like The Weekly Standard, The Washington Times, The American Enterprise, National Review, FrontPage Magazine and Islam Online. He lives in Istanbul and is currently working on a book titled An Islamic Case for Liberty, which he plans to have published in 2007.

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It should come as no surprise, especially considering the political fallout from the adoption last week of HR 106, that U.S. Congress Speaker Nancy Pelosi is reported to be backtracking from the resolution that would recognize the Armenian Genocide. This always happens, cynics would argue, and The Financial Times reports that now is no different.

As recently as the weekend, Ms Pelosi said she planned to take the bill, denouncing mass killings of Armenians during the Ottoman Empire as genocide, to the full House this year.

Ms Pelosi is a longstanding backer of the measure, despite the anger it has caused in Turkey.

But, on Wednesday, facing increasing criticism and high-profile defections from among the bill’s supporters, she toned down her commitment to take it to a full House vote. “Whether it will come up or not and what the action will be remains to be seen,” she said.

This week declared support for the bill fell below the level needed for House approval – at least 10 members of Congress withdrew their backing, in addition to several others who peeled off earlier this year. As of Wednesday, the bill had 215 sponsors or co-sponsors in the 435-member House.

[…]

The legislation, backed by the House’s foreign affairs committee last week, has sparked concerns that US influence on Ankara could be weakened at a time when the Turkish government is contemplating a large military incursion into northern Iraq, to Washington’s dismay. The US military is also alarmed that the Turkish government could reduce logistical support for its troops in Iraq.

“Congress has more important work to do than antagonising a democratic ally in the Muslim world, especially one that’s providing vital support for our military every day,” said President George W. Bush yesterday. after having made a phone call to Ms Pelosi on the issue the day before.

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