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article: Armenians Are Their Worst Enemies!

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  • article: Armenians Are Their Worst Enemies!

    Hope some people take the time to read this.

    Armenians Are Their Worst Enemies!
    From: Sebouh Z Tashjian <[email protected]>
    Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2006 00:08:21 -0800 (PST)

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    AZG Armenian Daily #226, 25/11/2006


    Editorial

    ARMENIANS ARE THEIR WORST ENEMIES!

    Is this headline offensive?

    It certainly is. It hurts reading it; it hurts even
    more to write it. But it reveals the unpleasant truth.

    Most of the times Armenians are bright and successful
    individually, but not so collectively. They are
    charitable and kind when they meet destitute fellow
    Armenians, but try to see if they help each other
    professionally.

    A true story may illustrate these statements better.
    Years ago, the American Armenian International College
    honored the celebrated movie director Rouben Mamoulian
    by bestowing an honorary doctorate degree upon him. As
    the speaker left the podium, after lavishing all kinds
    of praise on the honoree, another Armenian, who had
    spent a lifetime in Hollywood's movie industry,
    approached him and said: "Why do you honor this man?
    He has not helped a single Armenian in the movie
    industry."

    Another case in point is the Armenian screenplay
    writer Steve Zaillian who upon receiving the Oscar for
    his "Schindler's list" screenplay, failed to mention
    the Armenian Genocide, in front of billions of
    viewers.

    Not helping a fellow Armenian may be dismissed as
    selfishness, but what to make of an Armenian in a
    position of power who denigrates other Armenians or
    undermines any Armenian cause, in the name of a higher
    noble cause? Unfortunately, there is an abundance of
    such cases.

    In 2003, Dr. Raymond Damadian, the inventor of MRI,
    was bypassed by the Nobel Prize committee, which
    awarded the prize to Paul C. Lauterbur and Peter
    Mansfield, who had mainly improved the invention. When
    Damadian reacted angrily, a New York Times editorial
    ridiculed him, while a media debate was raging. One
    person, among the Armenians who was the best qualified
    as a scientist to defend a fellow Armenian, Dr. Leon
    A. Saryan, wrote an article saying why he did not
    deserve the Nobel Prize.

    The trend continues even today. When the French
    Parliament passed a resolution to adopt a law
    punishing Genocide deniers, we saw a number of
    Armenians opposing or ridiculing it, in the name of
    freedom of speech. The opposition to that resolution
    may water it down, or even defeat it at the Senate or
    presidential level, given the media outcry that
    followed its adoption. Unfortunately major news media
    in Europe and the US opposed the move and they enjoyed
    the benefit of supporting a sacrosanct principle -
    that of freedom of expression. That effectively
    disguised their main intent of facilitating Turkey's
    accession to the European Union.

    No one has yet protested the Loi Gaysot, which the
    same French Parliament has adopted to punish the
    Holocaust deniers, because xxxs have a very strong
    antidote or weapon: they label such individuals as
    anti-Semites.

    It was predictable that many Armenian leaders in
    Turkey would oppose it, to save their own skin. Since
    already the reverse law (Penal Code 301) exists, in
    Turkey and has been used extensively to prosecute
    writers like Orhan Pamuk, Elif Shafak, Ragip Zarakolu
    and Hrant Dink.

    But it is difficult to comprehend the position of some
    Armenian writers and scholars in the West who decide
    to become more Catholic than the pope in their zeal to
    defend freedom of speech. Rather than using that
    position of power to defend an Armenian cause, they
    join the Turkish chorus, crying wolf in the name of
    freedom of speech. The Turks are the worst violators
    of human rights and freedom of speech but they seem to
    have found a goldmine in the otherwise-unassailable
    principle of the freedom of expression and they
    believe that the louder they shout about that
    principle, the more successful they will become in
    denying the Armenian Genocide.

    Of course, for academic purposes, it sounds very
    healthy to find Armenian dissenters who defend that
    principle. However, we have yet to hear one xxx object
    to the Loi Gaysot in principle.

    One such dissenter seems to be journalist and UCLA's
    Bruin Standard Editor Garin K. Hovannisian, who,
    having accessed the forum of the Christian Science
    Monitor, signed an article on November 7 titled "The
    folly of Genocide deniers." Hovannisian has used his
    superb talent to castigate the French, to ridicule the
    Armenian supporters of the bill and in the final
    analysis, to provide ammunition to the Turks.

    He begins his argument with the following statement:
    "The bill reminds us that France's socialist party and
    many European elites believe truth is decreed, not
    discovered." The writer is not very happy either that
    "The news drove Armenian communities into raptures."
    Then, he tries to lambaste Hilda Tchoboian, president
    of the European Armenian Federation who has welcomed
    this "historic step," noting that "The hydra of denial
    is a tumor on freedom of expression" and then he
    defines that statement as proof "that you can mix
    metaphor and talk nonsense in the span of five nouns."
    Then he pontificates: "Genocide denial might be a
    tumor on the truth, memory or even human dignity, but
    it's not even a pimple on the freedom of expression."

    He continues in the same condescending tone: "That
    lesson, sadly, is lost on some French parliamentarians
    and the Armenians Diaspora, whose notion of politics
    ends where Genocide begins." Indeed, Armenians must be
    grateful to count amongst them pundits like Mr.
    Hovannissian whose bright ideas contribute to the
    sophistication of our political maturity, which
    otherwise would have been painfully primitive.

    The writer uses even catchier phrases to press his
    point: "It is easier to shut up the deniers than to
    make them stop believing." "Censorship has long been
    the tool of people who are threatened by the facts,
    who can't win a debate on equal terms. Censors have
    sought to gain through power what they lack in
    arguments."

    The powerful have always used noble principles to
    commit the most atrocious crime; like Turkey today, by
    exhorting the principle of freedom of speech in France
    - while cynically denying the same principle at home -
    is only fighting the recognition of the Genocide.
    Additionally, Turkey has been using its state machine
    and powerful resources to fight that recognition. The
    French law is only a mild reaction to the Turkish
    campaign. In the same fashion, our own president tries
    to convince us that "democracy is on the march" in
    Iraq over the bodies of 655,000 casualties and 2500 US
    servicemen. Who can argue that "democracy" is not
    worth that kind of carnage? After all it is a noble
    idea. Had the Turks recognized the Genocide, there
    would be no need to pass a law to punish the deniers.
    Therefore, we have to go to the root cause of this
    debate, if we really prize the principle of the
    freedom of speech.

    Armenians have paid the price for noble ideas and
    principles as the cost of their survival. Even in our
    earliest history, Ara the Handsome was killed and
    Assyria's Semiramis over ran Armenia, because we
    upheld family values over survival. By the same token,
    Vartan Mamigonian sacrificed his life to uphold the
    Christian faith. In more recent times, when in 1918
    Armenian volunteers regained Cilicia, we were asked by
    the Allies to lay down our arms and we followed their
    instructions, but Cilicia was overrun by Kemalists
    hordes who challenged the same request.

    Also General Antranik was on the verge of conquering
    Karabagh, when the British government stopped him,
    promising a positive outcome for that enclave at the
    Versailles Treaty. He abided by the request and
    Karabagh's fate is still in limbo to this date. Even
    today Karabagh Armenians are being named "aggressors"
    because they liberated their homeland and they
    determined their own destiny. Had they waited for
    brownie points from the international community for
    "good behavior," 150,000 Karabagh Armenians would be
    laying dead next to the Armenian victims of the
    Sumgait.

    Without being cynical, all noble principles are made
    to fit the feet of the powerful like boots to xxxxxle
    the rights and existence of weaker nations.

    The Turks must have rejoiced in finding allies
    indirectly contributing to their case as many
    Monitor's editors have rejoiced.

    When the blood of 1.5 million martyrs is on the scale,
    freedom of speech becomes academic. Let others fight
    for that principle when our priority is the survival
    of our people.


    By Edmond Y. Azadian


    http://groong.usc.edu/news/msg170100.html
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