Filed under: Iran
Ahmed Dabashi, the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, and the author of the definitive work on the Islamic Revolution in Iran (Theology of Discontent) has written a perceptive article on the current crisis in Iran.
In a short essay that Abbas Amanat, a scholar of 19th-century Iran at Yale University, was asked to write for The New York Times on the current crisis in Iran, he asserted that what we are witnessing is “the rise of a new middle class whose demands stand in contrast to the radicalism of the incumbent President [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad and the core conservative values of the clerical elite, which no doubt has the backing of a religiously conservative sector of the population.”
Filed under: Armenian Genocide, Jewish Genocide, Liberalism | Tags: Raphael Lemkin; genocide
Aish.com has an article on the etymology of the word genocide:
The man who coined the term ‘genocide’ was fighting to make it an international crime decades before the Nazis rose to power. … Lemkin entered the University of Lvov in 1920 and majored in philosophy, hoping to find answers to his questions. While he was there, an incident occurred that greatly altered his direction. In 1915 he was shocked to read about the massive slaughter of Armenians by the Ottoman Turkish Empire resulting in the massacre of over a million innocent people. Six years later, a young Armenian assassinated the Turkish Chief of Police in retaliation. “That is for my mother,” he said, before giving himself over to the police. Lemkin asked one of his professors why the Chief of Police had not been brought to justice for the grotesque perpetrations that he sanctioned against the Armenian people. The professor responded that he had not transgressed any international law and that it was an impingement of a nation’s sovereignty to interfere with their internal affairs. He compared it to a farmer who has a right to slaughter his own chickens whenever he wishes.
This time he decided that the only way to find an answer was to become an expert in international law.
An interesting if provocative take by Anatol Lieven on the liberal movement in Russia. Very insightful and and spot on in many cases, will certainly infuriate a lot of people, but he at least seems to have his feet on the firmament, which is not to say that he is unbiased. Link to the National Interest article here.
Over the last several days, two pieces attacking the realist approach to Russia were published in prominent media outlets in the United States and Russia. One, co-authored by Lev Gudkov of the Levada Center, Igor Klyamkin, vice president of the Liberal Mission Foundation, Georgy Satarov, president of the Russian NGO the Indem Foundation and Lilia Shevtsova, a senior associate at the Carnegie Moscow Center was featured on the editorial page of the Washington Post. The other, by Andrei Piontkovsky, a visiting fellow at the Hudson Institute, was released in the Moscow Times.
I read these pieces concerning the moves to improve relations between America and Russia with a profound feeling of depression. This is not just because there is something bizarre and twisted about pro-Western Russian liberals attacking the recommendations of the Hart-Hagel Commission or statesmen such as Henry Kissinger and James Baker. It is also because their criticism serves as a mouthpiece for the agendas of the most bitterly anti-Russian and geopolitically aggressive liberal interventionists and neocons who help maintain tensions between Russia and the West—and actually between the United States and the rest of the world.
Filed under: Armenian Genocide, Armenian Genocide Denial, Genocide and Holocaust Denial, Hate Monitoring
Toronto,
Ontario; On February 18, 2009, The Department of Sociology at Ryerson
University, and the Federation of Canadian Turkish Associations
organized an evening lecture on campus titled “Elaborations on Turkish
strategies to dealing with issues around Armenian Allegations and
beyond”. The lecture was delivered by Professor Turkkaya Ataov, a
leading denier of the Armenian Genocide. The lecture was equivalent to
Neo-Nazi propaganda presented to deny the Jewish Holocaust. Prof. Ataov
trivialized the reality of the Armenian Genocide and presented the
usual Turkish Government’s views.
Ryerson University’s
student body was outraged by the fact that such an event had been
cosponsored by a department of their university and raised concerns
through letters and by signing petitions which included names of
approximately 300 Ryerson students.
After several meetings
with department heads and administration, Dr. Sheldon Levy, the
president of Ryerson University, in a letter to Sally Sahagian, the
president of the Armenian Students’ Association at Ryerson University,
apologized to the Ryerson community by stating, “On behalf of Ryerson
University, I would like to apologize for the pain and suffering
experienced in particular by the members of the Armenian Community
as a result of this event” He then assured the student body that the
university’s views were in line with that of the Canadian Government,
the International Association of Genocide Scholars and the hundreds of
historians and experts researching the topic internationally. Dr. Levy
stated, “Ryerson University supports Prime Minster Harper’s statement
on behalf of all Canadians that the Armenian Genocide is a historical
fact, unquestionably part of the historical record with tremendous
suffering.” LINK
Ynetnews.com is reporting that a “Turkish court on Wednesday sentenced a man to five months in prison for “insulting a section of society”
after he put up a banner saying Jews and Armenians were not allowed to
enter his business.” I would say a good beginning, and here is hoping this is not just another cosmetic effort meant to cover yet another “oops” moment. LINK
Filed under: Armenians
Their political apparatus is a model of discipline. Their vast array
of social services is a virtual state within a state. Their enemies
accuse them of being pawns of Syria and Iran. They are the Armenian Christians of Lebanon, one of the Middle East’s most singular and least-understood communities. And if they sound a bit like Hezbollah, the Shiite militant group based here, that is no accident.
Last
month, the main Armenian political bloc decided to support Hezbollah’s
alliance in the coming parliamentary elections in Lebanon against the
pro-American parliamentary majority. Because of their role as a crucial
swing vote, the Armenians could end up deciding who wins and who loses
in what is often described as a proxy battle between Iran, Hezbollah’s
patron, and the West.
That fact has brought new attention to the
Armenians, a distinct and borderless ethnic group that is spread
throughout the region much as the Jews once were. In Lebanon, they have
their own schools, hospitals and newspapers. They speak their own
language, with its own alphabet.
Their main political party, Tashnaq, operates in 35 countries and has a
secretive world committee that meets four times a year. Their
collective memory of the genocide carried out against them in Turkey
from 1915 to 1918 helps maintain their identity in a far-flung diaspora.LINK
Azeri News agency, and I am saying this with a bit of tongue in cheek, is reporting that Nino Katamadze, one of Georgia’s best jazz musicians is traveling to Baku for a concert. Nothing extraordinary right? — a jazz musician doing a gig, but no Azeris have to politicize this one as well. It turns out Nino had given concerts in Armenia, (a mortal sin for Azerbaijan), and moreover during one of her shows she had dedicated one of her songs to Yerevan, the capital of Armenia and now the Azeri Ministry of Culture is investigating whether these facts are indeed true and if they prove to be so he will cancel Nino’s concert. What idiocy!!! What’s next I wonder.
Here is the offending song, enjoy!
Georgian jazz singer Nino Katamadze known for her song dedicated to Armenia to give concert in Azerbaijan
Baku. Ulkar Gasimova – APA. Posters of the
Georgian jazz singer and artist Nino Katamadze’s two-day concert in
Baku were installed in the capital, which announce that Katamadze will
perform concerts in Baku on May 30 and 31. The city residents have been
already informed that the Georgian jazz singer will perform at the
Azerbaijan State Philharmonic Hall and the Face Club.
APA correspondent learned that Katamadze was known in the world for her
song “Olei” dedicated to Armenia. The song was composed in the genre of
vocalise and its b-roll contains the views of Armenia. The song is
presented on Internet as “Olei Yerevan” and its b-roll is available at
http://eho.blogrus.ru/post/246/3948. Katamadze attended the jazz
festival in Armenia and said she dedicated this song to Armenia.
www.armeniajazz.am said that the Georgian performed a large concert
program in Armenia and it was great happiness for the Armenian people
to listen her. Deputy Director of the Azerbaijan State Philharmonic
Hall Afat Mikayilov told APA that they would investigate the issue and
if the facts were confirmed the concerts would be delayed. LINK
Here is a trailer of Robert Guediguian’s upcoming new film L’Armée du crime about the Missak Manouchian led resistance against the Nazi occupation of Paris during the World War II. Looks really good. Hopefully it will be released in the States.
George Avakian probably has done more to influence the way jazz has
been heard over the past 70 years than anyone else alive. Mr. Avakian,
who celebrated his 90th birthday in March, may not have single-handedly
invented the jazz album, but in 1939 and 1940 he got the concept off
the ground. He is responsible for essential albums by Louis Armstrong,
Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck and other jazz greats — a
list much too long for this column. And he ran the first jazz reissue
program.
Born in the aftermath of the Armenian Genocide, Mr. Avakian arrived
in New York in 1923. The first jazz record he distinctly remembers
hearing was of the Casa Loma Orchestra in 1933, when he was 14, and the
first jazz star he remembers seeing in person is Lucky Millinder, at a
theater in New York’s Washington Heights, the part of upper Manhattan
where Mr. Avakian grew up. He got hooked on jazz via the radio, hearing
Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and others. By 1936, when
attending the Horace Mann School in the Bronx’s Riverdale neighborhood,
he contrived to interview Benny Goodman for the school paper; in 1962,
Mr. Avakian accompanied Goodman on his ground-breaking tour of Russia. LINK
Filed under: Current News
Reuters is reporting that the celebrated Turkish novelist and Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk is to stand for trial the second time for his remarks about the massacres of the Armenians in Turkey at the turn of the twentieth century.
Orhan Pamuk, Turkey’s Nobel Prize-winning author, said he may face
new compensation claims for remarks he made about the World War One-era
killing of Armenians, despite an earlier acquittal in a criminal trial,
the Anatolian news ageny said on Saturday.
Turkey’s Court of Appeals this week overturned a lower court
decision that had dismissed the claims of personal damages against
Pamuk, 56, paving the way for a new case. LINK
Russian online newspaper Gazeta.ru is reporting that Charles Aznavour was in Karabakh where his daughter Seta Aznavour also performed in the main square in Stepanakert. Paging Baku.
Filed under: Armenia, Armenian, Azerbaijan, Broadcast & Breaking News, Caucasus | Tags: sirusho
Filed under: Azerbaijan
Here is an article in Russian on the prospects of the newly formed military industry cooperation between South Africa and Azerbaijan. The gist of the article basically states that the prospect of the cooperation is basically dim for the following reasons: Azerbaijan and SAR are hoping to provide post-soviet armies in the region, excepting Armenia of course with whom Azerbaijan has a ton of unresolved issues, with light military transportation vehicles for waging mobile combats. The problem is that the cost benefit margin will be such that the armies of the region will still have to buy Russian military hardware since Russia is going to heavily discount comparable vehicles for countries it is in alliance with through the newly formed military umbrella structure of the CSTO. LINK in Russian
In case you have missed with all the CIA Pelosi Obama Notre-Dame Eurovision hoopla here is for you a macabre ending to an already sad story.
WSJ report with video:
A video left by a slain Guatemalan lawyer, in which he blames his death on the president of Guatemala and several close presidential associates, has plunged the country into political crisis.
The lawyer, Rodrigo Rosenberg, was gunned down Sunday morning as he bicycled in the capital, Guatemala City. In a video distributed to the media after his funeral Monday, Mr. Rosenberg named four people he said were responsible for his killing: President Álvaro Colom; his private secretary, Gustavo Alejos; the president’s wife, Sandra de Colom; and a businessman, Gregorio Valdez.”If you are hearing or seeing this message it’s because I was assassinated by President Álvaro Colom, with the help of Mr. Gustavo Alejos and Mr. Gregorio Valdez,” says Mr. Rosenberg. Later in the video, he repeats the accusation, adding Ms. Colom to the list of his alleged assassins, and says they were also responsible for the deaths of two of his clients. The 47-year-old made the tape Wednesday, according to a close friend. LINK
Filed under: Music
One of the most anticipated allbums of the year and one of the best albums to come out this year by far. An incredibly visionary collaboration between Danger Mouse, Sparklehorse and … David Lynch is now freely available for your listening pleasure on NPR at this link.
