And for this we are thankful.... - Armenian Reporter

More documents

Recommendations

Info

22 The Armenian Reporter | November 22, 2008EditorialAmenia’s new Diaspora Ministry:Looking to build even closer tiesOn October 1 of this year, the government of the Republic of Armenia launched the DiasporaMinistry.Armenia’s prime minister, Tigran Sarkisian, has spoken repeatedly about the significance,in the global marketplace, of firms that transcend national boundaries. He argues that theexistence of thriving global networks of Armenians gives “the Armenian World” a competitiveadvantage that it should exploit. This is one reason the Armenian government seeks tostrengthen the Armenian diaspora and its relations with Armenia.It is certainly not the only one.The reputation Armenians around the world build for themselves through their talent andhard work enhances Armenia’s prestige.The organized diaspora gives Armenia political support in Washington, Moscow, and Europeancapitals. It provides financial support to Armenia through charitable giving as well as investmentsthat might not have been made in Armenia were it not for the investors’ Armenianconnections. Ethnic Armenians constitute an important part of Armenia’s tourist industry.The diaspora also includes hundreds of thousands of people born in Armenia who sendmoney home, come back to visit relatives and friends, and in some cases return to Armeniawith capital to start businesses.The government realizes that Armenia, in turn, can help Armenians around the worldas they try to build and nourish identities and communities that are connected to eachother and to Armenia. Indeed, one of the main ways Armenia can and does help is to bringtogether, in Armenia, schoolteachers or athletes or filmmakers or writers or young peopleor dentists or any other group of people, facilitating networking. This is a service to the diasporaand, at the same time, enhances tourism to Armenia.The networking, visiting, investing, charitable work, and, yes, marrying happen for themost part on the initiative of individuals and organizations.December 7, 198820 years onCommentaryBut the Armenian government, too, over the last two decades, has taken a variety of initiativesto enhance the Armenia-diaspora relationship. Some of these initiatives are institutional,such as the establishment of the Armenia Fund and the Pan-Armenian Games. Some are legal:ethnic Armenians can get a special residency status that entitles them to live and work in Armeniawithout a work permit, and allows them to own land, a privilege otherwise reserved forcitizens. And they can become citizens while maintaining their existing citizenship.By establishing the Diaspora Ministry, President Serge Sargsian is raising the profile ofthe Armenia-diaspora relationship within the Armenian government and thus acknowledgingthe value and importance of that relationship. The ministry offers an additional way forArmenian-Americans and Armenians elsewhere to connect to the homeland.At the helm of the new Diaspora Ministry is an experienced, dynamic, and capable leader,Hranush Hakobyan.In an interview with the Armenian Reporter (see page 18), Ms. Hakobyan says she is lookingfor capable Armenians from the diaspora to be part of the ministry staff. (In fact theUnited Nations Development Programme is recruiting people for six-month stints withthe ministry.)She urges Armenians from around the world to go to the ministry, where “they can be assuredto receive any assistance that they might need.”Meanwhile the ministry has come to the United States. Ms. Hakobyan is visiting one ofthe largest diaspora communities, that of Southern California until the end of the month.We urge readers in the area to take this opportunity to reach out to the minister, hear herout, and share with her their thoughts and concerns.fconnect:armeniadiaspora.amthe armenianreporterThe ground under the Soviet system was shakingby Sylvie TertzakianLOS ANGELES – I will never forget Christmas1988. One morning in mid-December of thatyear, I asked my then-eight-year-old daughterTaleen what she wanted Santa Claus to bringher for Christmas. She answered, “My Daddy.”A few days earlier, my husband Garo hadleft on the U.S. State Department’s rescueplane, for an earthquake relief mission toa traumatized Armenia. He was one of twoArmenian doctors invited by the U.S. StateDepartment to join its rescue team for theirmedical expertise as well as knowledge of thecountry and the system. Six weeks prior tothe devastating earthquake of December 7,1988, Garo and I had taken our young kids,Taleen and Aram, with us to Armenia, on hissecond medical mission.History was being made that October, asSoviet tanks circled Yerevan’s Lenin Squarewhile thousands of people demonstratedin front of the Opera House for Karabakh’sfreedom. Demonstrators included groups ofenvironmentalists who wanted the governmentto shut down the Nairit rubber plant,Christians with Bibles in their laps, andmany others with various anti-Soviet agendas.Some of these impassioned demonstratorscamped out for weeks and partook in ahunger strike in a desperate yet successfulattempt to have their voices heard and to gettheir messages across.While viewing the demonstrations in frontof the Opera House juxtaposed with the endlessline of Soviet tanks, I remember thinkingthat the ground under the Soviet system wasshaking. And then, sadly and ironically, lessthan two months later, a massive earthquakeshook the ground of Spitak, in northern Armenia.The collapse and destruction of thebuildings, caused by the earthquake, was followedby the collapse of the Soviet systemitself in 1991. The Armenia earthquake, whichfollowed the disaster of Chernobyl two yearsearlier, helped expose the weakening coreof the Soviet system. The Soviet state couldnot respond to the earthquake on its ownand needed to reach out to other countries,specifically the West, for support. Garo, alongwith the U.S. rescue team, landed in Yerevanon December 11, 1988 to lend a helping hand.Amid the shock and trauma, Garo wouldcall from Armenia at odd hours of the dayand night, essentially whenever a line wouldbe available. He would report total chaos, explainingthat the system was not at all preparedfor an earthquake. Even transportingrescue teams was a problem. With the help ofa friend, Garo had been able to organize a busto take the doctors to an earthquake site.However, despite such transport and otherlogistical problems, Garo would exclaim appreciationfor how the international communityshowed organization and willingness tocome to the rescue and exclaimed, “a Libyanplane, an Israeli El Al, the State Departmentplane, they were all parked on the tarmac,side by side. It was quite a sight!” And then,the phone lines would go dead, and I wouldwait anxiously for his next phone call.On the next call, he would describe theearthquake zone as a scene from Dante’s Inferno.On the next call, he would request dialysismachines and Bovie cautery machinesfor surgery. He would ask me to reach out tothe local hospitals in Orange County, California,for donations.During his absence, people would call ourhome in search of “fresh” news. Pharmaceuticalcompanies, such as Baxter, would call at3:00 a.m. to find out what was needed. Ourhome had become an emergency center fornews and requests.In the meantime, the death toll in Armeniakept rising. With each of Garo’s calls, thenumber would rise. It reached an estimated25,000.In the afternoon of December 18, as hisflight touched ground at Los Angeles InternationalAirport, an anxious reporter fromthe Los Angeles Times was waiting for him toexit the plane. Equipped with a recorder, thereporter nudged Garo with questions duringthe ride from the airport to a hall in Glendale,where hundreds of Armenians had gatheredto hear an eyewitness report from the earthquakezone. “I saw people carrying on theirbacks and on trucks any belongings theycould salvage from their destroyed homes. Itreminded me of pictures from the Genocide,except for the fact that the perpetrator wasnot Turkey, but the force of nature.”Later that evening, in the privacy of ourhome, Garo wondered if the Soviet systemwould survive the Armenia earthquake.For Taleen, Santa Claus had listened to herrequest. Her daddy had come back home forChristmas.fRemember December 7, 1988?A devastating earthquake struck the ArmenianSoviet Socialist Republic 20 yearsago on December 7. Do you rememberthat day? What were your reactions?What did you do in the hours, days, andweeks that followed? What did your familyand your community do? Were youamong the hundreds of thousands whogave what you could and prayed? Wereyou among the thousands who reachedout, collected donations, and sent themforward? Were you among the hundredswho flew to the earthquake zone to volunteer?Share your stories with us! And perhapsyou have an album or box of photographsfrom those days, gathering dust somewhere.Share your pictures with us! We will poststories and photographs on our website,www.reporter.am, and include a selectionin the newspaper.You don’t have to be a great writer, andthe photos need not be masterpieces. fThe email address to use is quake@reporter.amIf you have many pictures, you might postthem to flickr and use the keyword “armenian-reporter”The exact time that the earthquake struck.Photo: Photolure.Armenian Reporter (ISSN 0004-2358), an independent newspaper,is published weekly by Armenian Reporter llc.Gerard L. Cafesjian, President and ceoPublisher Sylva A. BoghossianOffice manager Lisa KopooshianCopyright © 2008 by ArmenianReporter llc. All Rights ReservedPeriodicals postage paid at Paramus, N.J., andadditional mailing offices.POSTMASTER: Send address changes to PO Box129, Paramus, NJ 07652-0129.The views expressed, except in the editorial, arenot necessarily those of the publishers.Editor Vincent LimaWestern U.S. Bureau Chief andArts & Culture editor Paul ChaderjianWashington editor Emil SanamyanAssociate editor Maria TitizianAssistant to the Editor Seda StepanyanCopy editor Ishkhan JinbashianArt director Grigor HakobyanLayout assistant Nareh BalianThe Armenian Reporter is your newspaper. We urge you to send us your news and yourviews.News. Please send your news to .Letters. Please send your letters to Letters should be no morethan 250 words long and may be edited for clarity. Please include your mailing addressand daytime telephone number.Commentary. Please send your essays to Essays and articlesnormally should be no longer than 900 words.Photos and artwork. We require high-resolution originals. All photos and artworkmust include a credit to the photographer and a signed statement granting us permissionto publish.Advertising and subscriptions. Please direct questions to orcall us.Our officesPO Box 129Paramus NJ 076521-201-226-1995 phone1-201-226-1660 fax2727 West Alameda BlvdBurbank CA 915051-818-955-9933 phone1-818-955-8799 fax1 Yeghvard Hwy Fl 5Yerevan 0054 Armenia374-10-367-195 phone374-10-367-194 fax
The Armenian Reporter | November 22, 2008 23CommentaryLiving inArmeniaWomen of the worldby Maria TitizianNUEVO VALLARTA, Mexico – We live in extraordinarytimes, to be sure.I have contemplated the women in my life,the women in Armenia, and the women ofthe world with pride, with anger, with love,with anticipation, and loss and rage and expectation.They have given me the opportunityto feel moved, profoundly. They haveinspired me with their strength and courage.I have been blessed to meet women whohave shown me that it is possible to havechange and progress and above all else, hope.Their experiences in this very male-dominatedhome of all men and women have inspiredme. And sometimes it has crippled me. Theirvoice has been so strong and articulate that ithas made mine sound like a whisper.This is a poem written for the women ofMexico, but its message resonates with everyfemale soul in the world. It begins like this…Mothers, daughters, sisters, Native Americans,half breeds, white, black. Multiracial. Multicolored.Polyphonic.Several…bravely…departed many or a fewyears ago to carry out revolutions, their deathclearing the way for us; others, some years ago,raised their voices, their eyes, their body andsprinting like a gazelle or a panther, left theirmark along the way.We still have a lot to do.Not mince our words.Not be afraid.Eradicate opportunism and compromises.Be tolerant, ever tolerant.And demand, always, at every moment,in ever greater numbers,with a whisper,with a word,with a song,with a slogan,with a poem,with a prayer,with a shout,with a howl,Freedom.bookreviewFreedom.To be.To decide.To act.To fight.To continue with the ceaseless, recurrent, neverending struggle to be able to live.As women,as individuals,as citizens.This excerpt was written by a rural woman,who silently yet courageously rose toprominence in a country rife with poverty,injustice, inequality, crime, and desolation.Beatriz Paredes rose to the highest officein politics in her country. She leads millionsof supporters. She is the leader of the PRIparty of Mexico, yet she has never forgottenher sisters dying in the fields that feed herpeople. She has never forgotten the womenwho are abused and ignored and marginalized.She is not afraid to raise her voice to beheard so that she can help the women whocame before her and those who will come afterher. She is not afraid to speak of women’srights.And Armenia?Where are the women leaders of Armenia?Some women are members of parliament,some work in the executive branch of thegovernment, but most of these women haveforgotten where they came from. They haveforgotten the stories of their mothers. Theyhave forgotten that their daughters will haveto struggle for something that they shouldhave resolved in their lifetime.And what about Armenian women?From access to healthcare, to poverty, toignorance, to abuse, to silent systematic barriersto their advancement in society, Armenianwomen have lost their voice. Yes, thereare organizations in the diaspora that claimto speak about women’s issues, but I wonderwhat they have done for the women in Armenia.Yes, there are nongovernmental agenciesin Armenia who work in the field of women’srights but they are few and unable to create areal movement.Show me don’t tell meBeatriz Paredes. Photo: Wikipedia.Reports are published from time to timeabout the status of women in Armenia. AmnestyInternational, on November 12, releasedthe following report: “National surveys suggestthat more than a quarter of women inArmenia have faced physical violence at thehands of husbands or other family members.Many of these women have little choice butto remain in abusive situations as reportingviolence is strongly stigmatized in Armeniansociety. Violence in the family takes manyforms, ranging from isolation and the withholdingof economic necessities, to physicaland sexual violence, and even murder, yetwomen have few options to escape situationsin which they are at risk.”Armenia’s penal code does not even mentiondomestic violence. Shelters for abusedwomen are not encouraged. People see themas an infringement on family life. Domesticviolence, sexual abuse after all is a familymatter, is it not? We are afraid to say loudlyand publicly that which is taking place in thehomeland. It is a national shame. It makesme sick. It enrages me. And yet, here I am, awoman, not doing much other than writingabout it.And where are you? Where is that Armenianwoman I thought existed? The one whowasn’t afraid to shout from the rooftopsagainst the aggressions forced on her people.Why is she not shouting for her own rights?Why are we so afraid to look into the face ofabuse and say, “No more”?Why are we not talking about the reproductivehealth of women in this country?Why are we not talking about the thousandsof women in Armenia using abortion as ameans of fertility regulation? Why are womendying when they can be living, raisingtheir children, helping to create a better society?Why is it that women in other societiesand countries are not afraid to engage theirpublic about the issues affecting women?These are questions I pose for whoeverwants to listen. These are problems I lay atour feet.I am not a poet. But I want to write a poemfor the women of Armenia.I want to tell them that they are therulers of their lives. I want them to knowthat they must find the inner strength, thefortitude to face down all those who wishto oppress them. I want them to live andlaugh and cry and rejoice. I want them tobe empowered. I want them to love and beloved, genuinely, unconditionally, faithfully.I want them to raise their sons anddaughters equally. I want them to fear nomore. I want them to be able to forge a futurefor our people, for this tiny homelandnestled amongst mountains, to walk sideby side with the men who claim to havethe answers to all our misfortunes. I wantthem to look in the mirror and feel prideand confidence. I want them to know thatthe world awaits them. That their peopleneeds them. That their children deservethem.fby Salpi H. Ghazarian“Show me, don’t tell me” is pretty good advicefor parents and others very passionate abouttheir beliefs and anxious to raise kids in theirown image.This is not what we experienced growingup – those of us who heard sermon afteradmonition about being a good Armenian,growing up a good Armenian, marrying agood Armenian, learning to speak good Armenian,and just generally being told to lovea country and a people for the sake of theparents we loved.For some, the consequence of this kind ofparent-child relationship has been a kind ofstandoff between two generations whosememories began and ended with storiesabout growing up deprived, poor, and inseemingly hopeless conditions.In other words, childhood memories consistedof parents we loved telling us storiesabout a country we were told to love, and apast we were told to respect.No one showed us; they just told us. That’snot likely to work with this generation, andthankfully, there are books on the marketthat try to tell the difficult stories in a waythat young people can understand and absorb.The Canadians, who pride themselves ontheir multiculturalism, have, through theCanada Council for the Arts and the OntarioArts Council, supported a publishing programcalled New Beginnings. Aram’s Choice isone of the titles in this series and it’s a storyof an Armenian boy, exiled to Greece, on hisway to Canada as one of the original GeorgetownBoys. This group of Armenian orphanswas brought to Georgetown, Ontario, in theearly 1920s to live in yet another orphanage.Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch tells a fictionalizedversion of a real story that begins inSalpi H. Ghazarian, formerly editor and publisherof Armenian International Magazine, is director of theYerevan-based Civilitas Foundation.The cover of Aram’s Choice.Corfu, Greece, and ends up in “paradise.” Agroup of young boys, orphans, joined togetheron the deportation route, find themselves ina missionary-run orphanage in Greece. At 12,Aram is among the oldest, and both his grandmother– his only living relative – and the directorof the orphanage fear for his safety.So when a group of 50 boys is selected tobe moved to Canada, Aram is among them,against his wishes. Once he is persuaded byhis grandmother that there is no alternative,the adventure begins – by ship to Marseille,by rail to Cherbourg, by ship again to thePort of Quebec, to a country where there wasgold on the trees. Actually, it was gold leaveson maple trees, but they didn’t find that outuntil they arrived.On the way, the challenges are many.Learning to eat soup with a spoon, and withoutslurping. Trying to collect enough moneyto bring along their teacher, too old to bean orphan, but too Armenian to return toa country where his safety was threatened.In Canada, there were even more challenges.The white cold drink they were given wasn’tthe familiar cold yogurt tan, but a non-sourfresh milk. The boots they wore were forsnow, not war.The quintessential picture of Armenianorphans after the Genocide was AntranigZaroukian’s Men without Childhood. Writtenin Armenian, translated into English by JackAntreassian, what a different sort of storythat was. Then, about a decade ago, therewas David Kherdian’s award-winning TheRoad from Home. The stories of many mothersand grandmothers wrapped into one, itwas a story about the human spirit. ThoseLettersPrayers no moreanswered not utteredby SaroyanSir:At the time I addressed the Knights andDaughters of Vartan on October 20 (seeArmenian Reporter, November 15), I had notbeen successful in tracing the origin of theSaroyan poster. I was therefore gratified toread Mr. Zaven Khanjian’s account of itsprovenance. (Armenian Reporter, November1).Mr. Khanjian points out correctly a significantdifference between the wording ofthe text of the poster and the wording ofthe text in the original story written in 1935.are for older readers, in their teens and up,ready to deal with pain and suffering.Aram’s Choice, in 80 short, easy pages, withcolor illustrations by Muriel Wood, is a storyUnder reviewMarsha Forchuk Skrypuch, Aram’s Choice(New Beginnings), ill. Muriel Wood(Markham, Ontario: Fitzhenry and Whiteside,2006).However, Mr. Khanjian neglects to address asignificantly more egregious departure fromthe original text, and that has to do with thewords, “and prayers are no more answered”as it appears in the poster and the words,“whose prayers are no longer uttered” as itappears in the original.In my attempts to uncover the source ofthe deception, I had the opportunity to communicatewith Mr. Paul Kalinian, who hadmade a documentary film about Saroyan.He, too, had no idea who had produced theposter, but confirmed the use of the originalwords referenced above, “no longer uttered,”as they were recorded by Saroyan in his ownvoice.Very truly yours,C.K. GarabedTeaneck, N.J.Tell us what you think.Write to letters@reporter.amor call 1-201-226-1995 (N.J.), 1-818-955-9933 (Calif.),374-10-367-195 (Armenia)
Page 1 and 2: Lunar Swaybreaks themold, reachesne
Page 4 and 5: The Armenian Reporter | November 22
Page 6: The Armenian Reporter | November 22
Page 23: The Armenian Reporter | November 22

And for this we are thankful.... - Armenian Reporter

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?