Armenian News
King John at the Globe Theatre
16 & 17 May
Tickets for the 17th evening performance are selling steadily.
Do purchase soon to avoid standing only.
Tickets for the 16th afternoon performance are selling more slowly, possibly because of the 14:30 start.
It does mean that you avoid a potential cool evening.
You will also be able to follow the play from the English text
as there are no sur-titles, only a side screen will indicate which act/scene the performance has reached.
IWPR COMMENT
DESPITE ODDS, CONFIDENT MOOD IN KARABAKH
Armenian residents still as determined as ever to win international acceptance.
By Richard Giragosian
After 20 difficult years living in Azerbaijan’s shadow, Armenians in Nagorny Karabakh
appear increasingly confident about the future.
Although the conflict remains unresolved and Karabakh has not won international
recognition as a separate state, people there remain steadfast about holding onto their
hard-won independence.
Progress on building a new state and establishing a political process continues
regardless of the problems. In fact, Nagorny Karabakh’s electoral record suggests its
democratic credentials are better than Armenia’s, let alone Azerbaijan’s.
Such developments tend to be ignored by outsiders, for whom Karabakh is either a
focus for geopolitical competition or the subject of mediation by major powers like
France, Russia and the United States.
On the ground, though, perspectives and priorities are quite different.
For most people in Karabakh, the most pressing concern is the state of the economy,
rather than the dormant peace process. While proud of their republic, they struggle to
make ends meet, and many rely on money sent back from relatives working abroad.
And as the situation has deteriorated in recent years, some residents will admit
– albeit reluctantly and in private – that they too are thinking of leaving in search of
work. Young people, too, acknowledge that they worry about finding work once they
graduate.
Take Anna, a 23-year old holding down a job in one of the better hotels in the local
capital Stepanakert. Her sense of satisfaction with having a steady and reasonably
well-paid job is tempered by frustration and regret.
“I like my work and I’m happy – but I am also ashamed,” she told me.
“I am sad because I do have a job while my brothers and my father can’t find work.
And my friends are jealous. I feel guilty sometimes, and sad too.”
The general lack of optimism about the economy and job prospects also applies to
politics. Asked about the upcoming parliamentary election in neighbouring Armenia
in May, very few people expressed much interest.
“Sure, the Armenian election is obviously important, but not so much for us,”
Tevan, 21, a university student studying politics and international relations, said.
“In any case, everyone knows the outcome – the Republican Party will win. But
that doesn’t really affect us here in Karabakh. The real difference is that here in
Karabakh, every election that we’ve ever had has been free and fair, whereas in
Armenia, I can’t remember any free or fair election.”
This strong sense of pride in Karabakh’s democratic credentials – which many feel
is not sufficiently appreciated elsewhere – is widespread.
As Anahit, a middle-aged housewife put it, “We are never going to leave our lands,
and you must understand that we’ll never ever accept anyone trying to hand us back
to the Azerbaijanis. After all, we are free, strong, and living in a democracy. Why we
would we ever want to revert to Azerbaijan?”
As justification for this position, other residents noted that February 19 marked the
eighth anniversary of the murder of an Armenian army officer by an Azerbaijani
soldier while both were attending a NATO course in Hungary. Memories of the
incident reinforce fears of Azerbaijan, especially as some officials there hailed the
murderer as a true patriot.
The escalating tensions along the front line that separates Armenian-held territory
from Azerbaijan, with sniper fire that is now almost routine, only seem to make
Karabakh’s residents more determined to claim independence.
The threat of renewed conflict is never far from people’s minds. This underlying
mood continues to permeate Karabakh. People living in border areas believe an
Azerbaijani attack is increasingly likely, although they believe the Karabakh military
would be able to fend off any assault.
In urban centres, the possibility of war in nearby Iran is also a preoccupation.
According to Hamlet, a father of four, “It isn’t like we are siding with the Iranians.
But we don’t want war to return to this region. We can remember what war is really
like, and no one deserves that again.
We trade with the Iranians, and Iran has never betrayed us by supporting Azerbaijan
as the Turks did. But I am worried.”
War with Iran would, Hamlet said, harm Karabakh’s already frail economy.
“If there is war, the [Iranian] trucks will stop coming and, God forbid, the Azeris may
think they can attack us if there is a war going on nearby,” he said.
The danger of renewed hostilities with Azerbaijan is real enough. The divide between
how Armenians and Azerbaijanis see Karabakh’s future remains insurmountable.
And since the Karabakh Armenians are blocked from participating in the peace talks,
which involve Yerevan and Baku only, the chances of progress seem remote.
For the people of Karabakh, the next two decades are likely to be full of challenges
just as daunting as those they have weathered over the past twenty years.
Richard Giragosian is director of the Regional Studies Centre, an independent think
tank in Yerevan, Armenia.
azatutyun.am
More Armenians Seek Asylum Abroad
Heghine Buniatian
29.03.2012
The number of Armenian citizens seeking asylum in developed countries has been
on the rise in the past two years, according to a UN refugee agency.
In a recently published report the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees says more than 11,000 citizens of Armenia, a three-million-strong nation in
the South Caucasus, have asked the governments of wealthy nations in the West to
grant them asylum during the period in question.
Thus, according to the report, the number of applications for asylum from Armenians
in France doubled in 2011 to more than 3,600 as compared to the previous year’s
figure, making citizens of Armenia the third largest group of asylum seekers in France
after citizens of Russia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which, by contrast,
have populations of around 140 million and 70 million, respectively.
Apart from France, such countries as Australia, Germany, Canada and Poland have
also reported an increase in the number of asylum applicants from Armenia.
Armenia is the 16th among the world’s 40 nations whose citizens most frequently seek
asylum in Europe. Remarkably, it has the smallest population among the top 20 countries
on this list. In 2011, more than 6,000 Armenians applied for asylum in European countries,
an increase by a thousand as compared to the year before.
In contrast, the number of asylum seekers in Armenia has been steadily on the decline
in the past five years. Whereas the number of foreigners applying for asylum in Armenia
in 2007 was 300, then in 2011 it dropped to 70.
In general, analyzing the global trends, the authors of the report conclude that the number
of people seeking asylum from the governments of industrialized nations has increased
by 20 percent in the wake of the revolutions that started in the Arab world in 2011, with the
number of Arab refugees in Europe reaching a record high.
Harvard Political Review:
March 25, 2012 11:14 pm
France, Turkey, and the Politics of Genocide
By Joe Mazur
From an American perspective, one could be forgiven for thinking
that the French don't understand freedom of expression. After all,
it was only last year that a bill banning the public wearing of a
burqa or niqab drew the support of roughly four out of five French
citizens. Denying the Holocaust has been illegal in France for
more than twenty years, and the "positive presentation of drugs"
is punishable by massive fines and up to five years in prison.
Most recently, both houses of the French legislature have passed a
bill that would make the public denial of the Armenian Genocide of
1915 to 1923 punishable by a whopping fine of 45,000 euros ($57,000)
and a year in jail. The bill's inexorable advance was halted only when
it was referred to the country's highest court, the Constitutional
Council, where it was ruled unconstitutional in February.
But this setback might not spell the end for the criminalization
of Armenian Genocide denial. President Nicolas Sarkozy has asked
his government to redraft the bill, his office explaining that
"The President of the Republic considers that [genocide] denial is
intolerable and must therefore be punished." Sarkozy's dogged pursuit
of the bill's passage has his critics wondering about his angle.
Accusations leveled against Sarkozy at home range from attempting
to curry favor with French voters of Armenian descent (a small but
influential minority of about 500,000) to outright Islamophobia and
an effort to prejudice the French people against Turkey's possible
accession to the European Union.
The Turkish response to the legislation can best be described as
apoplectic. In the wake of the bill's initial approval by the National
Assembly last December, Ankara cancelled all bilateral talks with the
French government, suspended joint military operations, and denied
French warships and military planes permission to dock or land in
Turkey respectively. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has
even gone so far to accuse France of having committed genocide in
colonial Algeria and threatened further, unspecified action against
France if the bill becomes law.
Turkey's righteous indignation might be more convincing if it was not
also glaringly hypocritical. When Erdogan, in a speech to parliament,
insisted that the French bill "murdered freedom of thought", he seemed
to have forgotten that Article 301 of the Turkish penal code makes
it illegal to insult the Turkish nation, ethnicity, or government.
Since its implementation in 2005, Article 301 has been used on
many occasions to prosecute writers, journalists, and scholars who
have criticized Ankara's policy of vehement genocide denial or who
have otherwise run afoul of the regime. It would seem, therefore,
that Erdogan's definition of "freedom of thought" is as fluid as is
politically convenient. Whatever the French motives for promulgating
its genocide denial legislation and regardless of whether or not such
legislation truly suppresses freedom of thought, Turkey simply cannot
claim the moral high ground when it comes to free expression.
Moreover, Turkey's hysterical reaction to the bill has made it
abundantly clear that the country is being forced to confront its
own checkered history. In an interview with HPR, Harvard Professor of
Armenian Studies James Russell shed some light on why the legislation
elicited such a strong Turkish response: "In Turkey itself, denial
of the genocide is one of the cornerstones of the culture. There
has been a very systematic effort by the Turkish state not only to
deny that the genocide took place, but also to eradicate signs that
[Armenians] lived there." Russell further believes that the French
legislation represents an important and long overdue reality check
and rejects Turkish claims that the bill is intended to be racist
or Islamophobic. "This isn't a matter of anti-Turkish bigotry. [The
Bill] stems from a desire for historical recognition." Indeed, Russell
views recognition as a move that would ultimately benefit Turkey and
expressed optimism that such recognition would take eventually gain
acceptance. "One has to encourage a change in Turkish civil values
... I think Turkey's viable future depends on this issue. There has
been a lot of progress and there will be more progress."
But ultimately, the controversy surrounding France's bill ceases to
be about the skeletons in Turkey's closet or even about the Armenian
Genocide specifically. Rather, it is a facet of a larger debate between
those who would recognize and learn from historical fact and those
who would stubbornly continue to deny the undeniable. As important
as it is for Turkey and other governments to acknowledge the truth
of the Armenian Genocide in order to reconcile the descendants of
the victims with the descendants of the perpetrators, the true value
of recognition is as a bulwark against future abuses. "The Armenian
experience was one of the signal dangers of the twentieth century"
explains Russell. The longer a crime is concealed, the longer lies
take the place of truth, the easier it is for subsequent crimes
connected to the first to proliferate and find acceptance."
While France's methods for ensuring the perpetuation of historical fact
might run counter to the American concept of constitutional liberty
and be perceived by Turks as a grave insult to their national identity,
its government is addressing a hugely important issue that deserves the
world's attention. In the almost 100 years since the extermination of
Armenians by the Ottoman Empire and the seven decades that have elapsed
since the Holocaust, the world seems no closer to the abolition of
mass murder. Tragic chapters on Cambodia, Rwanda, Yugoslavia, and
Darfur have instead been written in the annals of history with the
blood of millions. If "Never Again" is to be anything more than just
a mantra, perhaps the governments of the world would do well to play
an active role in preserving the memory of calamities past.
After all, it was Hitler who wondered on the eve of his genocidal
invasion of Poland, "Who still talks today of the extermination of
the Armenians?"
ARMENIAN PRESIDENT EXPOSES AZERI COUNTERPART'S
DISINFORMATION
Tert.am
27.03.12
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan delivered a speech at the Nuclear
Security Summit in Seoul, South Korea.
"I am not at all surprised at the disinformation on the Armenian
nuclear-power plant the Azeri president has just spread here.
Slandering Armenia has for a long time been Azerbaijan's style,"
the Armenian leader said.
Moreover, at the highest international level, Azerbaijan is
spreading disinformation not only on the developments related to
Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, but also on the documents approved by
the international community - the well-known UN resolutions on the
Nagorno-Karabakh problem. Azerbaijan has forgotten it unleashed war
and refused to put an end to hostilities. Moreover, Azerbaijan goes
on issuing threats, refusing to settle the Nagorno-Karabakh problem
in conformity with international law.
The Chernobyl disaster and Fukushima tragedy aroused doubts about
nuclear security. In special cases, like Armenia, steady development
and improvement of social conditions depends on nuclear energy,
and hardly any alternatives are available, the Armenian president said.
The Armenian leader pointed out the advisability of discussing
nuclear security issues along with related ones. He also stressed
the importance of preventing energy resources from turning into
harmful political capital. Consequences may be grave, especially
for the countries not rich in natural resources, which have to seek
alternative ways to energy independence.
Two of Armenia's four neighbors, in defiance of international law,
go on blockading Armenia. Among other problems, the blockade does
not leave any choice for Armenia to find ways to energy independence,
President Serzh Sargsyan said.
ARMENIAN COMPOSER ALEXANDER HARUTYUNYAN DIES AT 92
March 28, 2012 - 12:19 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net - Renowned Armenian composer Alexander Harutyunyan
passed away on March 28 morning at the age of 92, Armenia's Composers
and Musicians Union told PanARMENIAN.Net
Alexander Harutyunyan was born in 1920 in Yerevan. He graduated from
Yerevan Conservatory's creative and piano departments in 1941, then
improved his skills in Moscow Center of Armenian Culture in 1946-48.
In 1954-91 he has been artistic head of Armenian Philharmony, and
lecturer with Yerevan Conservatory in 1970-2008.
Harutyunyan authored concerts featuring national classic and folk
music, as well as symphonic pieces; he also composed music for theatre
and movies (Hayfilm's "About my friend", 1958, "My heart sings"
jointly with Konstantin Orbelyan, 1956, "Nahapet", 1977, etc).
Composer was honored with numerous medals.
EARTHQUAKE HITS IN ARMENIA
Vestnik Kavkaza
March 28 2012
Russia
Armenia was hit by an earthquake 5 km north of Artashat of the Ararat
Region at 11.43 am today. It had a magnitude of 2.7, Aysor reports.
The earthquake center was registered 7 km deep 40.030 north latitude
and 44.550 east longtitude with a magnitude of 3-4.
An earthquake with a magnitude of 3 points was sensed in Artashat,
Verin Dvin and Aygestan.
Various tools for the Armenian language
www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/armenian.php
www.omniglot.com/writing/armenian.htm
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