Armenian Reporter | November 24, 2009

Armenian Reporter | November 19, 2009

Note: If you are unfamiliar with Ambassador Morgenthau and his role in documenting the Armenian Genocide, I hope you will read this article:

Ambassador Morgenthau’s personal library donated to the Armenian Genocide Museum of America
Public Radio of Armenia | November 25, 2009

“Hi Sheri. Well, I don’t have specific towns and dates, but I can tell you that my grandfather survived the Armenian genocide. His family owned a shoe factory and they lived in Armenia. He was a young boy and watched his family be killed before his own eyes. He was on the death march and was saved by a Turkish family. They took him in and wanted him to work in their household. My grandfather ran away 5 times and the last time, was a success. He hid in a well for days and the Red Cross found him. He was taken to an orphanage in Corfu, Greece.

He had two brothers that also survived. Stephen lived in France and died of an illness, before my grandfather could meet up with him. His older brother, Bob, lived in Detroit. After leaving the orphanage, my grandfather was a boxer in Cuba. He saved money to join his brother Bob in Detroit. He came to the USA and got a job at Ford Motor Company. When he came to this country, US customs suggested changing his name to make it more Americanized. He agreed to the name of Edward Harrison. His original last name was Baydarian. He went to school through Ford Motor Company and learned the English language. He went on to marry my grandmother, Marie Rose Narsisian and they had 4 sons. My father is their youngest son, Glenn Anthony Harrison.”

[NOTE: I received this family history from Raechel Harrison Schultz. It is the story of her grandfather Edward Harrison. Raechel found my posting on Facebook and took the time to write. Thank you, Raechel, for giving me permission to share your grandfather's history. I hope more and more Armenians will share their stories and this website with the world. For more information, send your email to armeniangenocide@ymail.com.]

Asbarez | November 13, 2009

• UN debates sanctions on Eritrea for backing Somali Islamist rebels and threatening Djibouti [Times South Africa]
• EU sign $1bn development pact with Nigeria, aimed at tackling corruption and promoting peace [BBC online]
• Rep. Jim McDermott introduces bill aiming to curb that trade US trade in conflict minerals [Seattle Times]
• Officially sanctioned Northern Italian ethnic cleansing [Independent]
• Diplomatic Row between Thailand and Cambodia over Shinawatra [Bangkok Post]
• Armenia will be ready to make concessions on Nagorno-Karabakh problem: Ukrainian analyst [Today.Az]
• Corruption threatens global economic recovery, greatly challenges countries in conflict [Transparency International]
• Bosnia’s Chaos Continues [International Crisis Group]
• Berlin Wall: 223 dead. Wall that separates the USA from Mexico: 5.6 thousand dead [Pravda]
• USSR Still Respected Internationally for Its Bombs and Guns [Pravda]

I came across Book of Reflections–A Celebration of Life online through the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU). It is a beautiful publication of the AGBU Manoogian-Demirdjian School. It is my hope that Armenians follow this model as a means to continue our family, community and worldwide dialogues about our history as a people.

Please click the link to view the electronic file. (It’s worth the wait for your computer to open the PDF document). It is truly inspiring!

Book of Reflections–A Celebration of Life

“In the year since we marked the historic election of the nation’s first African-American president we have seen a tremendous amount of anger and hostility,” Abraham H. Foxman, the National Director of the Anti-Defamation League, recently remarked. “There is a toxic atmosphere of rage in America being witnessed at many levels, and it raises fundamental questions for our society. While not all of America has bought into these conspiracies, they seem to be seeping more and more into the mainstream. And since many of these expressions are interconnected in some significant ways, we wanted to try and connect the dots and ask the basic questions of why the anger, why now, and where might it lead.”

The ADL’s Rage Grows in America: Anti-Government Conspiracies report was released Monday; it can be found in its entirety here. It covers many of the same groups and people that I’ve written about on this blog, in my book CULTS, CONSPIRACIES, AND SECRET SOCIETIES, and elsewhere: Birthers, Tea parties, Glenn Beck, Alex Jones, the militia movement, and the Bizarro-world notion that Obama is a modern-day Hitler. That last one is especially galling since a critical segment of the “patriot” constituency (not all of it by any means–birthers Orly Taitz and Philip Berg are Jewish, for example) denies that Hitler did anything particularly terrible to Europe’s Jews, or nothing, anyway, that they didn’t deserve.

It’s a relief to see the ADL expending its considerable resources on something other than knee-jerk apologetics for Israel or Armenian holocaust denialism; it’s nice too to see that they’ve pissed off Commentary, which scolded them for “choosing to frame its report…..in such a way as to associate all those who have opposed Obama’s policies in one way or another with the far Right.” I wish they’d been more explicit about the implicit, sub rosa Anti-Semitism that does characterize many of these groups, including Jones’, who stridently denies it. “Now that global anti-semitism is on the wane,” he declares in the characteristically self-aggrandizing rejoinder that is posted on his Propaganda Matrix website under the headline Purging the Undesirables: The ADL Attempts to Pin a Yellow Star on Grass Roots America, “the ADL has resolved to ceaselessly fearmonger about ‘conspiracy theorists’ and American taxpayers who merely express anger about how they have been financially raped by the multi-trillion dollar bailout and the continued looting of the economy by private central banks and offshore cartels.”

The ADL has launched a new purge against its political enemies in the form of a major report that equates skepticism and distrust of government with ‘a toxic atmosphere of rage,’ which is threatening to boil over in the form of violence, specifically targeting Alex Jones as ‘The Conspiracy King’ and inferring that people upset with Barack Obama’s policies are potential mass murderers. The tone of the ADL’s hit piece basically implies that Alex Jones and his ilk are such a threat to the establishment that they should be removed from society, which ironically is exactly how Hitler dealt with his political enemies in Nazi Germany. The ADL is allegorically pinning a yellow star on “conspiracy theorists,” Oath Keepers, Tea Party protesters, and anyone else who dares express dissent in response to the financial looting of the country or Barack Obama’s big government agenda.

The article goes on to assert that no American “grass roots” group has ever committed or threatened to commit violence–they have always “urged unity and discouraged division, while promoting a peaceful message of non-violence.” “All the major acts of violence in connection with the militia movement during the 1990’s were committed by the government and federal agents”–at Ruby Ridge, Waco, and in Oklahoma City (Timothy McVeigh, it explains, was trained and “steered” by the FBI when he blew up the Alfred P. Murrah Building).

“International bankers,” “global governance,” and “one world currency” are all memes that allude directly or indirectly to the Conspiracy of the Learned Elders of Zion–as does the notion of a New World Order. Sometimes you don’t have to dig very deep at all into conspiracist literature to find anti-Semitism: Here’s a little something about the origins of the ADL that I just stumbled on at the Conspiracy Planet website.

In Jewish Hate, the Media, and the ADL, Dr. William Pierce concisely explains why and how the ADL was formed: ‘The ADL was organized in 1913 by a group of rich Jews specifically as a response to a notorious child-rape and murder in Georgia. Leo Frank was a Jew who owned a pencil factory in Atlanta.In 1913, he raped and murdered one of his White female employees, 14-year-old Mary Phagan. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. The governor of Georgia, in response to Jewish lobbying — and, most believe, in response to a large Jewish bribe — almost immediately commuted the death sentence.’

Now for Something Completely Different: A Real Holocaust

So, what is the ADL covering up these days?

The Armenian Holocaust of 1915, in which more than 1.5 million Armenians were murdered. You’ve heard the term “young Turks?” Well, it was the “Young Turks” of last century’s Turkey who conducted that little piece of genocide.

What does this have to do with Abe Foxman? Lots. He’s related.

You see, the “Young Turks” almost exclusively were Jews who, as “Donmeh Muslims,” then controlled Turkey.

Dr. William Pierce, by the way, is the author of THE TURNER DIARIES, the novel about an American race war that inspired Tim McVeigh with its account of the destruction of the FBI building in Washington, DC by a fertilizer bomb in a parked truck. The “Donmeh Muslims” were desccended from followers of Sabbatai Zevi–who converted from Judaism to Islam in 1666–a full 250 years before the Armenian holocaust. Some of the Young Turks were indeed Donmeh; but there was no connection–institutional or sentimental–between them and Judaism or the nascent Zionist movement. This hasn’t stopped a number of fringe historians from developing a conspiracy theory in which the Donmeh, working with the Masons, exterminated the Armenians out of jealousy of their superior commercial skills and to clear the way for a future state of Israel (which the traditional Muslim Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II had been opposed to). Some go so far as to say that the Zionists then “created” the Shoah, mostly by propaganda, sometimes by collaborating with Nazis in fratricidal murders, as a means of peopling Palestine with Jewish survivors.

Of course the real reason the ADL–along with the American Jewish Committee, B’nai Brith International, and the Jewish Institute of National Security Affairs–opposed Congressional recognition of the Armenian genocide as genocide back in 2007 was Realpolitik pure and simple. The Jews of Turkey supported their government’s denialist position out of fear of a Muslim backlash; there was concern that a challenge from foreign Jews might jeopardize Turkey’s relatively friendly relations with Israel. It was a shameful stance indeed and one that the ADL has since backed off on.

Excerpt from the New York Times (November 16, 2009):

Henry Morgenthau Sr., one of 12 children born into a Jewish family in southern Bavaria, came to New York in 1866. He was appointed to his ambassadorship in 1913, and is today credited with drawing needed attention to the Armenian genocide.

A telegram written in 1915, by which he informed the secretary of state that ‘a campaign of race extermination is in progress,’ is prominently displayed in the exhibition.

A new exhibit, “The Morgenthaus: A Legacy of Service,” opens Monday at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Battery Park City, New York. It highlights the lives of three Morgenthaus: Robert, Manhattan District Attorney since 1975; his father, Henry Morgenthau Jr., who was secretary of the Treasury under President Franklin D. Roosevelt; and his grandfather, Henry Morgenthau Sr., who was ambassador to the Ottoman Empire during World War I. The exhibit features objects and historical documents.

Read the New York Times article,  Looking Back at the Morgenthau Legacy.

Journalist of the Turkish Akhsham newspaper Nagehan Alchi, who visited Nagorno-Karabakh without the consent of Azerbaijan, was included in the list of “undesirable persons” in Azerbaijan, Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Spokesman Elkhan Polukhov told Trend News.

“Regardless of their professional activities, those who visit the occupied territories of Azerbaijan without the consent of the Azerbaijani side are named in the list of “undesirable persons” because of the actions that contradict the legislation of Azerbaijan. This is also referred to journalists and representatives of non-governmental organizations and others,” said Polukhov.

Journalist of the Turkish Akhsham newspaper Nagehan Alchi visited Nagorno-Karabakh, who declared that Nagorno-Karabakh is a purely Armenian territory, the Armenian media reported.

Foreign Ministry spokesman said that at the same time, according to information received from the Consulate General of Azerbaijan in Istanbul, the editorial office of the Akhsham newspaper appreciated the visit of the journalist to Nagorno-Karabakh as a private visit and said that the visit was not paid on behalf of the newspaper.

Given the official response of the Akhsham newspaper, the issue of cooperation with this newspaper will be re-considered, said Polukhov.

Trend News Agency (Azerbaijan)

(c) 2009 Trend News Agency. Copyright for the present information is reserved, in case of reprint of any part of it reference should be done to the Agency.

Azerbaijan, Baku, November 17 / Trend News [http://news.trend.az], M.Aliyev /

President Obama is meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on December 7, 2009.

To send your letter testifying about your family’s Armenian Genocide-related history to President Obama, click this link:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT/

This is a copy of my letter to President Obama:

November 12, 2009

Dear President Obama,

Thank you for your leadership and the vision you are putting forth for America. I actually cried with tears of happiness when I voted for you.

My late father always celebrated the anniversary of the day he arrived in America and saw the Statue of Liberty for the first time. He called May 15th, “God Bless America Day.” It was more important to him to celebrate that day, than it was to celebrate his own birthday.

President Obama, I am an Armenian-American. I am writing to you today because I understand you will be meeting with the Prime Minister of Turkey, again, before the end of this year. I am speaking up now on behalf of the memory of my mother’s parents and grandparents, who suffered unthinkable personal tragedies at the hands of the Ottoman Turks during the Armenian Genocide. I still believe you intend to keep your campaign promise to call the systematic mass murder and deportation of Armenians, Greeks and other non-Muslims a “Genocide.”

I truly believe you are the right person to find a way to work through this issue because the world respects you. If a man of your principles and moral courage does not speak up to the Turkish Government, who will? Allowing Turkey to perpetuate a denial campaign, so as not to disturb our national interests, is no different than befriending the playground bully and then not speaking up to his assertions that he never abused anyone. In this comparison, the bully would actually make claims that it was he who was assaulted, and he was merely defending himself.

My grandfather’s family did not assault the Turkish government. In fact, my great great grandfather, Dr. Aboujhon Kuzujian, was a prominent medical doctor from Aintab who migrated to Marash. The family name was officially changed from Kuzujian to Kalpakleoglou or Karnoug (in Armenian) when my great great grandfather received a Kalpak (Persian lamb hat) as an honor from the Sultan of Turkey. Dr. Kuzujian was recognized as a hero for saving the lives of children during an epidemic in Marash that took the lives of many children.

My grandfather was Karnig Kalpakian (Dr. John Karnig) and his father was Dr. Janik Kalpakian. In 1920, they escaped the killings in Marash, Turkey, that claimed the lives of my great grandmother Mary Mesrobian, as well as the lives of my great aunts Anais and Armenouhi. During the Ottoman Turks’ mass deportation of the Armenians, Mary Mesrobian’s entire family, with the exception of her brother Kevork, were deported “to the deserts of Arabia” (this is what my grandfather wrote in his letter to our family, but it was most likely Der Zor).

My grandfather and great grandfather were among the ‘lucky’ victims of the Ottoman Turks. Leaving everything behind, they survived. Starting off in a horse-drawn carriage to Aintab, Janik and Karnig set out on their journey to safer shores in America. From Aintab they traveled to Aleppo (Syria); then to Beirut (Lebanon), then on to Jerusalem, and finally to Alexandria, Egypt, where they waited to immigrate to America. In 1923, Karnig, together with his father, new stepmother and a new baby brother, finally arrived at Ellis Island in New York.

Mr. President, in my heart I believe this issue has broader importance than simply serving as a domestic political gesture to a small constituency. The world community is watching and waiting for our leadership regarding genocide. My mother asked why would I want to get involved in documenting the Armenian Genocide as a response to the recent Armenian-Turkish Protocols, when my efforts won’t change anything. But as Henri Frederic Amiel said, “Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be equally outraged by silence.”

Please take my letter under your personal consideration. It would be an honor to share more of my grandfather’s family history, as well as his achievements in, and contributions to, our great country.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Sheri Sona Jordan
New York

My blog address is, http://armeniangenocideblog.wordpress.com

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada), in a recent letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, urged her to meet with concerned groups about U.S.-backed Armenian-Turkey protocols that could call into question the validity of the Armenian Genocide.

The accords, signed Oct. 10, were facilitated with the help of multiple third parties, including Clinton.

The protocols, which were meant to establish active bilateral relations between the countries, have drawn criticism from activists and politicians opposed to a provision that would establish a commission to examine historical records related to the Armenian Genocide.

But Reid raised questions about the accords in his letter, dated Oct. 20:

I am sure you are aware that this agreement has raised concerns in the Armenian community inside the United States. I have received many letters from Nevadans who do not support the creation of an international commission to examine the historical record on the genocide and who believe that the agreements are unfair to Armenia.

Given the serious nature of the community’s concerns, I felt it was important to raise them directly with you. The commission is particularly sensitive to the Armenian-American community since the Armenian genocide has never been recognized by Turkey.

I do:

My grandfather was Karnig Kalpakian (Dr. John Karnig) and his father was Dr. Janik Kalpakian. In 1920, they escaped the killings in Marash, Turkey, that claimed the lives of my great grandmother Mary Mesrobian, as well as the lives of my great aunts Anais and Armenouhi. During the Ottoman Turks’ mass deportation of the Armenians, Mary Mesrobian’s entire family, with the exception of her brother Kevork, were deported “to the deserts of Arabia” (as my grandfather wrote in his letter to our family).

Janik, a dentist, was the son of Dr. Aboujhon Kuzujian, a prominent medical doctor from Aintab who migrated to Marash. The family name was officially changed from Kuzujian to Kalpakleoglou or Karnoug (in Armenian) when my great-great grandfather received a Kalpak (Persian lamb hat) as an honor from the Sultan of Turkey. Dr. Kuzujian was recognized as a hero for saving the lives of children during an epidemic in Marash that took the lives of many children.

My grandfather and great grandfather were among the ‘lucky’ victims of the Ottoman Turks. Leaving everything behind, they survived. Starting off in a horse-drawn carriage to Aintab, Janik and Karnig set out on their journey to safer shores in America. From Aintab they traveled to Aleppo (Syria); then to Beirut (Lebanon), then on to Jerusalem, and finally to Alexandria, Egypt—where they waited to immigrate to America. In 1923, Karnig, together with his father, new stepmother and a new baby brother, finally arrived at Ellis Island in New York.

I promise to share much more of the details of Karnig’s story, but first I need your help:

Please forward this blog link to all Armenians you know:

http://armeniangenocideblog.wordpress.com

Help us respond to the Armenia-Turkey Protocols call for an investigation into our history. We need your family names, stories, pictures, oral personal histories and video testimonials. We are also seeking translators and research assistants to help us with this worldwide Armenian Genocide documentation effort.

Please enter your comments (through the comment link below) or send an email to: armeniangenocide@ymail.com.

Thank you!

November 21st tribute to Dr. Vartkes Broussalian to include screening of Dr. J. Michael Hagopian’s documentary “The River Ran Red”
Armenian Reporter | November 12, 2009

Europe News | November 9, 2009

Renowned artist and Armenian Genocide survivor, Arshile Gorky exhibit
Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Book Review: Cilicia 1909 – The Massacre of Armenians

We need your family names, stories, pictures, oral personal histories and video testimonials. We are also seeking translators and research assistants to help us with this worldwide Armenian Genocide documentation effort. Help us respond to the Armenia-Turkey Protocols call for an investigation into our history.

Please forward this blog link to all Armenians you know:

http://armeniangenocideblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/04/send-your-armenian-genocide-testimonies-and-family-stories/

To contact us, please enter a comment (following the link below) or send your email to: armeniangenocide@ymail.com.

Thank you!

By Levon Marashlian

The dangers of the sub-commission on the “historical dimension” are so obvious that it is difficult to understand why so many supporters of the Armenian-Turkish protocols do not see them. Some Armenians who support the sub-commission do acknowledge the risks, but they also see the possible benefits; some say it will provide an opportunity to discuss consequences of the genocide, others say it may encourage more open debate within Turkey, while others say it may eventually lead Turkey closer to recognition. Supporters do not seem to realize that the chances of benefiting from these possibilities pale in comparison to the probability of suffering the damage caused by the dangers.

One of the consequences will be that when independent scholars and diasporan organizations continue their work for genocide education and international recognition, it will become harder because the Turkish government and some third parties, armed with or misled by the appearance of progress being made, will have the excuse to say that recognition efforts are not necessary for now, since Yerevan is already talking directly to Ankara about resolving the issue. This has already happened, as when President Obama referenced the Ankara-Yerevan talks to justify reneging on his promise last April.

During meetings of the sub-commission, meanwhile, historians and other experts chosen by Yerevan will want to discuss the consequences of the genocide and will try to reject efforts by the “Turkish side” to engage in denial. And if a debate does take place, the “Armenian side” will probably prevail inside the meeting room. Nevertheless, the process can still be a victory for Turkey outside the room—so long as the process continues—because Turkey’s central objective is not to reach a consensus that it was not a genocide, but simply to further distort and delay, to hinder the pursuit of international recognition as we near the year 2015. Turkey will try, but may not expect to “win” the academic argument in the sub-commission. And eventually Turkey might pay a little price in terms of public relations if its true intentions are exposed. Still, Turkey will have succeeded in obstructing—maybe for years—the increasingly successful momentum generated by decades of dedication, sacrifice, sound scholarship, and public advocacy.

Levon Marashlian is a professor of history at Glendale Community College.

For full text see:

http://www.hairenik.com/weekly/2009/10/28/marashlian-accepting-the-history-sub-commission-is-like-snatching-defeat-from-the-jaws-of-victory/

This is a very important time. Whether you volunteer as a translator, contributor of your family’s history, refer this website to people who can help this effort–your time and involvement is greatly appreciated.

Please keep passing the word –

Yesterday, I met with a young woman who works with Armenian Genocide survivors. She told me that just since this past April 24 (Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day), 3 more survivors have passed on at the nursing home she visits.

We are in a race against time to preserve the remaining survivor stories and memories of all those loved ones our survivors (and we) lost during the Armenian Genocide, conducted by the Ottoman Turks.

Please send a message using this blog — Enter your message as a comment (click Leave a Comment – see the link below this post). I will keep your information confidential unless you give me permission to share it.)

Thank you!

Armenian Reporter | October 28, 2009