Regional geopolitics

[Artashes]

Re: Regional geopolitics

Really hagopn, you do yourself no favours by citing that puffed-up rabble-rouser pseudo-historian Armen Ayvazyan. In another thread, after Artashes claimed support of many legitimate western historians for his opinions, I reminded Artashes that it was his sort who actually oppose the work of legitimate historians. Ronald Suny is a legitimate historian, like all legitimate historians he will not always be right and may alter his opinion over time. Ayvazyan is not a legitimate historian and never will be. Ayvasyan cannot change any of his opinions through study becase his opinions do not derive from facts. For Ayvasyan facts always come second and can be ignored if inconvenient: facts are merely used to fit and support his predefined beliefs and goals. He could find himself a happy home in Azerbaijan, a country where his sort of pseudo-historian enjoys state support. If the defining requirement to be an Azeri or and Armenian pseudo-historian is to be a "nationalist", then all legitimate historians must define themselves as "an anti-nationalist".

This mouthy fraud is full of crap.
All historians I have referred to are honored members of society.
Eli Wiesel is but one example.
What bell refers to is the exact fraud he purports to despise, in other words, bell acts like an historian when in fact he's nothing more than a psuedo intellect.
The 150 or so honored members of society who took out ads in the the New York times to deplore the blatant fraud of the turks as well as the numerous honored & ligitimate Armenian historians are who I have referred to.
Inso far as accusing someone or anyone of ignoring facts that are inconvenient to his fraudulent opinion,
bell does that constantly.
When it's not convenient to supply references, bell simply doesn't respond.
Look at the research that Hrai supplied and then look how bell cherry picked the information provided too falsely claim his bs was proven.
The "as I reminded Artashes it was -- his kind--" statement is standard xxx crap bell spews.
Look to the points Haykakan, Eddo, and Hrai brought up, and look at the response bell used to see the conniving agitator doing exactly what he is accusing others of doing.
Bell, your still a pathetic moron.

[bell-the-cat]

Re: Regional geopolitics

Really hagopn, you do yourself no favours by citing that puffed-up rabble-rouser pseudo-historian Armen Ayvazyan.

"Do yourself no favours!" Why am I so polite?

I remember writing about the time when James Russell was accosted by one of Ayvazyan's thugs and complaining about Russell's response being far to polite, and saying that if I were him I'd have punched the lout. Yet here is me now being polite to this Ayvazyan-loving lout named Hagopn.

Hagopn, I have since looked back at your posts elsewhere, reminded myself of what you are. Even on your first appearance, 10 years ago, people were complaining that you were so eager to remain anonymous and yet so eager to name and to insult individuals, and so eager to never be too detail-specific on anything you state to be true. And always eager to appropriate other people's words or the content of their postings as your own. Nothing has changed on that front. Once an anonymous coward always an anonymous coward, Mr Anonim.

Academia in Armenia today is becoming a joke - what with every oligarch and government official getting doctorates for nothing - but the rot started much earlier. At first Ayvazyan and his type were actively opposed (the stuff Ayvazyan produced for his doctorate was so bad he did not graduate). But corruption quickly set in very rapidly: the maintaining of the dictatorial and criminal control of a country requires a cowed academia and academic institutions controlled by politicians as much as it needs a cowed judiciary and a justicial system controlled by politicians. And it needs its thick-brained thugs armed with pens and keyboards like Ayvazyan as much as the more usually seen thick-necked leather jacket-wearing thugs. But Ayvazyan had better not get too full of himself - he should remember what happened to some of his Turkish equivalents when they became outmoded, like the head of the Turkish Historical Institute, or like Mehmet Perinçek, a dog that forgot who its masters were and tried to get above its intended station.

[bell-the-cat]

Re: Regional geopolitics

"Note that Constantinople was from the outset a Christian city; ."

That is not correct. Constantinople at that time was a pagan city with a Christian veneer. In its physical form it was an entirely pagan city - all the urban forms of Constantine's capital were typical of any pagan city, from its triumphal arches, to its honorary columns, to its forums and stoa, to its hippodrome complete with gladitorial contests and chariot races, to its palaces with floors covered with mosaics full of classical motifs and halls filled with classical statues of gods and goddesses. Its churches were architecturally no different from pagan temples and even their names were derived from pagan concepts: Haghia Sophia is one third of the Three Graces, Haghia Irene another third, the third church has since completely vanished. And all ruled over by an emperor assuming the divine properties of a god, just like all the pagan emperors had done since Augustus.

[Eddo211]

Re: Regional geopolitics

The butchers ran from Movsis Silikian.

Yes....but I think the one that gave them nightmares was Dro

[hrai]

Re: Regional geopolitics

That is not correct. Constantinople at that time was a pagan city with a Christian veneer. In its physical form it was an entirely pagan city - all the urban forms of Constantine's capital were typical of any pagan city, from its triumphal arches, to its honorary columns, to its forums and stoa, to its hippodrome complete with gladitorial contests and chariot races, to its palaces with floors covered with mosaics full of classical motifs and halls filled with classical statues of gods and goddesses. Its churches were architecturally no different from pagan temples and even their names were derived from pagan concepts: Haghia Sophia is one third of the Three Graces, Haghia Irene another third, the third church has since completely vanished. And all ruled over by an emperor assuming the divine properties of a god, just like all the pagan emperors had done since Augustus.

So basically what you're saying is that Constantinople was designed and built using contemporary styles and methods, contemporary architects and building materials.
Christian churches everywhere were built on existing pagan sites and Christianity adopted existing pagan gods into their religion as saints. Still happening today I think.

[bell-the-cat]

Re: Regional geopolitics

So basically what you're saying is that Constantinople was designed and built using contemporary styles and methods, contemporary architects and building materials.
Christian churches everywhere were built on existing pagan sites and Christianity adopted existing pagan gods into their religion as saints. Still happening today I think.

Basically what I am saying is that you were quoting a 6th century text describing a fourth century city as if it were fact and not just the partial the views of a Christian writer composed 200 years after the event. And you were also quoting an American fundamentalist Christian propagandist from 1912 who was claiming, on the basis of that text, that "Constantinople was from the outset a Christian city". You are quoting from an outdated book - nobody would make such a sweeping statement today and it merely shows how backward the knowledge of the late Roman / early Byzantine empire was in 1912.

[hagopn]

Re: Regional geopolitics

interesting analysis, but if Italy and Iran are more or less successful countries then it is right to aspire to their level

David Beg was an example of how an Armenian leader should be. But such examples are few. He was inspired by the possibility of Russian intervention

We have to remember that in the Ottoman and Russian empires Armenian mostly did not trust one another

I tend to agree in part with two of your statements, but particularly the third, concerning the alleged mutual distrust, we cannot verify, as there are many reasons to think just the opposite was true. David Beg showed that this was not true during the Persian control of the eastern part of Armeniandom, and this was just as true during the Zartonk, genocide, and post-genocide periods. The "distrust" was partisan, really, and not based on the fiction of "cultural dimorphism" that supposedly occurred due to the two distinct official dialects adopted by "both sides." This can be argued to death. The fact is that instances of distrust were outweighed by many more instances of trust and cooperation. Artsruni, as an example that I constantly bring to the fore, was a man who was in fact financing the build up toward a Van centered Armenia, but he was based in Tiflis.

As to the comparison made with Iran and Italy, my intention was to illustrate the historical and inherited characteristics of our national identity that caused for such catastrophic political, failures. Particularly in terms of statesmanship, we have had the mentality of a colony for centuries due to the examples, precedence we had been afforded, we have to deal with, with few and notable exceptions. One could also argue that the reason these exceptions were isolated and eventually disregarded** is because of the confederate mindset that was not tempered by a long standing cadre of these experienced sort of statesmen, one that also could lead to revolutionary impulse, one that would ignore planned and time consuming operations, which is precisely what happened (ignored is not entirely true judging by the actions of the Dashnaks against Artsuni, with the important exception of Aram Manukian in Van and his latter cooperation with Armen Yergarian - and by extension Artsruni - during the second Van defensive against de Nogales' forces.) We can agree on the mindset in terms of implementation and methodology of what unfortunately became the majority in the 19th and 20th centuries, but the inspiration for freedom never left our minds and was indeed our own.

David Beg was pragmatic and knew well the odds. The very reason that Israel Ori was going to those drinking binges with Peter I of Russia was to secure Russian assistance, because Armenians were up against established military powers. Nothing less should be expected in that time and context. I cannot simply dismiss his actions as a standard "politically codependent" identity that we seem to excel at. He was simply too capable a leader, but he met with a series of twists that, had he had the level of knowledge that Artsruni had of the Armenian confederate mindset, he would have been able to buffer and increase the chances of our national revival. Unfortunately, as was the case of Agulis, individual Meliks who were in control of trade routes that depended on their relations with the Ottomans, turned against him, and he simply was not prepared for this.

[hagopn]

Re: Regional geopolitics

Italy ans Iran used foreign influences in how to arange their states, and their rulling classes, but they used the past, in particular what they saw as their nation's lost past glories, to move and manipulate their populations. Though how much of a connection to the past those populations really felt is argyuable - ordinary Italians pretty quickly abandoned Mussolini and his attempts to make an Italian empire, and ordinary Iranians just laughed at the Shah's pompous ceremonies at Persepolis. Garibaldi was so eager to become part of the European club of rulling monarchs and for united Italy to be just like any other European country that he sent his army to fight in the Crimea against Russia, rather like Armenia did when sending its soldiers to Iraq and Afghanistan.

There had to have been more to Garibaldi's motives, but that is possible.

Armenian reformers and revolutionaries in the 19th and early 20th century also looked to Armenia's past to motivate Armenians (and had to start from a stage where most Armenians did not know anything much about that past) -

The "Armenians did not know anything about their past" is a false myth that Suny and his sort keep on propagating, and the irony is that the only scholar to object effectively was Armen Ayvazyan. Armenians were aware of their history, as much as their chroniclers had recorded it, as much as Christian bias afforded them, but they were aware of whatever legacy they had inherited. Emin's expedition actually proved that. We know that "legitimate Suny" tries to prove the opposite by offering half the evidence (which certainly would put his "legitimacy" in doubt for those without ulteriior motives), but the reality was that Emin brought back the news that we are ready for liberation efforts, hence the subsequent attempts for liberation that ensued.

but I don't think today's leaders do it except in the very narrow sense of using it to maintain state control over a cowed population (i.e. to allege that obedience to ones "elders", obedience to the Armenian Church, to know ones place, and to conform to behavior defined as proper by your rulers is a requirement for Armenia to be great again). And nowadays almost nothing from outside Armenia is presented as being positive by those rulers, and is in fact often presented as being negative and very dangerous to that goal of being great again. A number of Armenians try the same trick here, and often get away with it.

Today's state model is hardly desirable if only due to the dismal cadre of incompetent and narcissistic leadership, and this above therefore is completely fictitious a statement. The fact of the matter is that the past has not been successfully evoked or used for any semblance of "crowd control."

However, it would be interesting to hear more details as to what "information" we are talking about. Perhaps the individual above is talking about the Ashot Bleyan brand of "outside information" (well, fed from outside interests, yes), such as the utterly mendacious set of arguments brought forth during his campaigning for Ter Petrossyan, where he was almost on the verge of saying that no genocide occurred in 1915 or at any time.

[hagopn]

Re: Regional geopolitics

Really hagopn, you do yourself no favours by citing that puffed-up rabble-rouser pseudo-historian Armen Ayvazyan. In another thread, after Artashes claimed support of many legitimate western historians for his opinions, I reminded Artashes that it was his sort who actually oppose the work of legitimate historians. Ronald Suny is a legitimate historian, like all legitimate historians he will not always be right and may alter his opinion over time. Ayvazyan is not a legitimate historian and never will be. Ayvasyan cannot change any of his opinions through study becase his opinions do not derive from facts. For Ayvasyan facts always come second and can be ignored if inconvenient: facts are merely used to fit and support his predefined beliefs and goals. He could find himself a happy home in Azerbaijan, a country where his sort of pseudo-historian enjoys state support. If the defining requirement to be an Azeri or and Armenian pseudo-historian is to be a "nationalist", then all legitimate historians must define themselves as "an anti-nationalist".

Armen Ayvazyan is quite legitimate and hardly a "puffed up rabble-rouser," and Suny is hardly considered, even now by his American Armenian peers, as anything resembling legitimate.

Suny lied. He didn't merely draw incorrect conclusions about complex subjects due to the impreciseness of historiography as a legitimate scholar is prone to doing. Suny intentionally presented only part of a primary source to suit his outright fraudulent, faulty and blatantly anti-nationalist argument. He then expressed pride in his anti-nationalist stance upon being accused of it. Apparently his State Department sponsors needed him to be precisely that.

Yet, Ayvazyan shows the same Ronald Suny express ultra nationalist sentiments in works that preceded the break-up of the USSR, one dated 1978 for example, which is also in line with the State Department's foreign policy with regards to the USSR. Nationalism in the USSR and the desire to break from it was actively promoted by the US State Department and its sister foreign offices in Europe at the time.

In other words, Ayvazyan proved that Suny is anything but a scholar. In fact, it was proven with little doubt that Suny is in effect a spokesman for the State Department within the Armenian American academic circles.

It was obvious that the globally paraded sympathy toward Armenians in the "Pour Toi Armenie" period, the Golden Age of anti-USSR propaganda for the entertainment muppets of the world, was short lived. Once Armenia gained independence and once Armenians actually succeeded in regaining control of Artsakh, ---> POOF, that pro-nationalism that Armenians were benefitting from evaporated as quickly as Suny's "nationalist binge" did.

The reason why Armen Ayvazyan was so rudely attacked by the likes of Levon Avdoyan and other "wildebeest herd members," is precisely because for the first time ever someone called it as they saw it with proper documentation and evidence.

I would highly recommend that everyone read for themselves the book entitled The History of Armenia as Presented in American Historiography: A Critical Survey. 1998

Trust me. It is quite eye-opening.

[hagopn]

Re: Regional geopolitics

"Do yourself no favours!" Why am I so polite?

Indeed. Why become human at all? A rabid sharp fanged operative is much more comfortable a state of mind for, well, a rabid sharp fanged operative.

I remember writing about the time when James Russell was accosted by one of Ayvazyan's thugs and complaining about Russell's response being far to polite, and saying that if I were him I'd have punched the lout. Yet here is me now being polite to this Ayvazyan-loving lout named Hagopn. [

LOL. The "thug" he's referring to, only one by the way, is Vartan Hovanissian of that old show "Aryakanq." This is the driveling idiocy that was attempted in order to associate Vartan Hovanissian with Armen Ayvazyan by various HHSh stooges, including Armen Javadian, in Los Angeles. Apparently these lies have gone viral and have been quickly adopted by anti-nationalist propgandists. The two have nothing whatsoever to do with each other. Hovanissian, a former RFE/RL radio host during the soviet era, was this petty individual with political motives who was trying to grab at anything to gain popularity.

Hagopn, I have since looked back at your posts elsewhere, reminded myself of what you are. Even on your first appearance, 10 years ago, people were complaining that you were so eager to remain anonymous and yet so eager to name and to insult individuals, and so eager to never be too detail-specific on anything you state to be true. And always eager to appropriate other people's words or the content of their postings as your own. Nothing has changed on that front. Once an anonymous coward always an anonymous coward, Mr Anonim.

The man who is so uncomfortable with my being "so eager to never be too detail-specific on anything you state" is saying quite "unspecific" stuff himself, using that cloudy term "the people", as in "people were complaining that you were so eager to remain anonymous" . What "people" were those, I wonder? Of course, no such thing has ever happened, but the person who tries, in vain, to bring credibility to the most famous of the State Department stooges masquerading as "historian", namely Suny, would have to resort to such fuzzy tactics.

The individual's aim is obviously to stigmatize. Will he succeed? I seriously doubt it. Judging by the feedback on this forum so far, in the last few days alone, one can sense that a grreat number of people are fed up with this fangy feline.

And below here we go on about Armen Ayvazyan. One gets the impression that this fellow has duties to fulfill.

"Let me see, Fifi. What's on the agenda today?

1. Bash Ayvazyan. Check!

2. Bash any nationalist: Check!

3. Bash any Armenian organization and search for pearls in a pigsty: Check!"

Academia in Armenia today is becoming a joke -

This is the standard lie told by anti-Armenian nationalism factions in the US State Department without any evidence. The object of the game is to stigmatize and discredit, a preemeptive academic strike, so to speak.

what with every oligarch and government official getting doctorates for nothing - but the rot started much earlier.

And the Nobel Peace Prize for Obama (for what, exactly?), the Nobel Peace Prize for Ariel Sharon (OH brother, can anyone say Shatila?), and a nomination for Heydar Aliev is not a problem, and that "proves" that American academia, and those of all its allies, is rotten to the core, not to mention any recipient of the Nobel prize and any and all institutions who so have accepted this prize. Is he making any different a broad anti-Armenian statement? No. Of course not. "If some oligarchs have faked doctorates, that means that the entire student body and faculty, and any and all think tanks, are trash." Wrong. It is a stupid, obtuse, and silly "guilt by association" tactic, and it has not worked.

At first Ayvazyan and his type were actively opposed (the stuff Ayvazyan produced for his doctorate was so bad he did not graduate).

This contains not one, but two lies. Ayvazyan does have a doctorate in political science and is a Fulbright scholar, but pressure from the American Armenian "wildebeest herd" and the threat of pulling financial aid to the YSU prompted academics such Babken Harutyunyan to buckle under their threat. it is as simple as that. His doctorate was approved until the campaign mounted.

But corruption quickly set in very rapidly:

It did indeed, but not from the sources that the Propagandist above is implying. The source of corruption actually was the US academia and the yoke in the form of funding.

the maintaining of the dictatorial and criminal control of a country requires a cowed academia and academic institutions controlled by politicians as much as it needs a cowed judiciary and a justicial system controlled by politicians.

Yes, indeed. In this case, American money talked louder than even nationalist minded oligarchs, and Ayvazyan was denied his second doctorate degree.

And it needs its thick-brained thugs armed with pens and keyboards like Ayvazyan as much as the more usually seen thick-necked leather jacket-wearing thugs.

More smearing and name calling, evoking of imagery associated with street thugs, mafiosi, and so on. Quite petty, really. Anyone who has seen and heard Armen Ayvazyan speak knows this to be utter nonsense. The very reasonable fellow that I have come to know as Armen Ayvazyan has managed to create quite the commotion among all those who are in service of "interests" other than the Armenian, such as those of their careers, their fat 401ks, and so on. Careerists in the US are certain to shoot anyone who exposes their bowing to State Department pressure, which is quite common.

But Ayvazyan had better not get too full of himself - he should remember what happened to some of his Turkish equivalents when they became outmoded, like the head of the Turkish Historical Institute, or like Mehmet Perinçek, a dog that forgot who its masters were and tried to get above its intended station.

Here is the standard equalization of Armenians and Turks, which is precisely the line that the State Department adopted after they no longer needed Armenians. Prior to the break-up of the USSR, the word of the day was that Armenians "had just grievances and understandable fears from their fascistic neighbors." After the USSR break-up was accomplished, the line changed to "Armenians and Azeris claim; Ethnic unrest ensued again; Armenians allege genocide" and then CNN broadcasts Khojaly but not Shahumian (where OMON forces had sawed the heads off people) and Maragha, clearly anti-Armenian in leaning. Yes, the "Armenians with justified fears" are still being told to "rejoin Azerbaijan as an autonomous region with security guarantees." In other words, Armenians are being told to go die, that their historical claims do not differ at all from those of Azeris, whereas before the USSR break-up, they were being told they were completely in the right, even by Ronald Suny.

The threat issued to Ayvazyan is rather amusing.

The equalization of Armenians and Turks is then bled over to the historiography of both; The goal is to give both equal credibility, or lack of, by giving the false impression that both make similar, semi-meritorious, biased and "ultra nationalist claims" in equal amounts. For example, an ancient Armenian presence is considered an equal claim as that of the Turk in what is historic Armenia. "Armenian claim territorial rights to Nagorno-Kharabakh", as though they came together with Tatars, set camp, raised some sheep, and then, voila, no longer got along "due to this thing called ultra-nationalist that just cropped up on both sides." Perhaps they fought because of vodka and pigs. "Both just have this ethnic disagreement, both alike, same history, really, both camel riders and such, with burkas on their women."

To say something that is historically more accurate such as "Armenians are an ancient Christian civilization en par to the Western in every way prior to Turkic invasion" is to be an "ultra-nationalist." Armen Ayvazyan's only "sin" in this entire deal is to basically say that "1) Armenians have been in Ancient Armenia far more eras than Turks, 2) that Turks lie about that history, 3) that the NATO block, especially the US, tend to favor Turkish biases, and 4) the academia in the NATO block is consequently influenced by these forces." That is all the man has really said (at least that's the part that has burned the State Department stooges the most).