The 100th Anniversary - and Events to Mark it

[bell-the-cat]

This year in Turkey a few Turks were asking me about 2015, if big things were being planned for the 100th anniversary of the genocide. Some had trepidation about it, others were looking forward to what they hoped would be a large increase in Armenian visitor numbers. I told them that I think very little that is new, and almost nothing that is substantial or important, will be happening.

[Haykakan]

Re: The 100th Anniversary - and Events to Mark it

EVGENY KISSIN SAYS WILL NOT PERFORM IN TURKEY UNTIL ANKARA RECOGNIZES ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

14:35, 15 Dec 2015
Siranush Ghazanchyan

Photo: Sasha Arutyunova for The New York Times

World-known pianist Evgeny Kissin said in an interview with The New
York Times that he would not perform in Turkey until its government
acknowledges that the mass murder of Armenians in 1915 was a genocide.

"I personally believe that if people in such countries learn that some
musicians refuse to play there because they are dismayed by what their
rulers do, that will make intelligent-thinking people more aware,"
he said.

He hastened to add that he does "not judge or condemn colleagues who
perform in totalitarian countries. -- it's a personal choice."

Kissin will perform in a concert devoted to Jewish composers on
Wednesday at Carnegie Hall.

http://www.armradio.am/en/2015/12/15...nian-genocide/

[londontsi]

Re: The 100th Anniversary - and Events to Mark it

England has not been pursuing her national interests since that airhead Victoria(spat on her husband's legacy) sold the country. England has not been able to pursue her own interests since the end of the Napoleonic wars when it declared bankruptcy and Rothchild took ownership of that country. Very few countries can honestly claim that they are strong enough to pursue their own national interests.

Fair point, however when I said national interest I did not have in mind a shepherd grazing his sheep by the hill side.

I still maintain the national interests are defined and presented to the politician who justify and execute.
As to who defines and on what criteria this national interest, is colloquially referred to as the establishment.

Million miles away from the ordinary folk.

[Haykakan]

Re: The 100th Anniversary - and Events to Mark it

I remember his first appearance on the scene in London during the days of the independence euphoria.

He was also very motivational personality, in the patriotic sense.
London embassy was the first Armenian embassy post soviet collapse and independence which also contributed to that euphoria.

We also found out ( proudly) that he is an astrophysicist.

Star gazer to you and me.

Some habits die hard.


PS.
I wish we understood that personal friendship gets you nowhere in politics beyond a polite hello and a smile.
The British or any mature and professional government do not give any value to an individual friendship.
Their whole political infrastructure, civil servants, pursues its national interests.

The politicians are the articulators of those policies not the decision makers but the executioners.
If the political establishment find themselves in a contradictory situation like in this case they will push forward the Royalty, Church leaders or any other entity of protocol to create excitement like “ isn’t it exciting that Prince Charles attended church with our President. “ or " we got couple of paragraphs in so and so paper ..."

Please give me some space I am going to puke.

England has not been pursuing her national interests since that airhead Victoria(spat on her husband's legacy) sold the country. England has not been able to pursue her own interests since the end of the Napoleonic wars when it declared bankruptcy and Rothchild took ownership of that country. Very few countries can honestly claim that they are strong enough to pursue their own national interests.

[londontsi]

Re: The 100th Anniversary - and Events to Mark it

The Queen almost Knighted Gul.....now that makes me mad, that they are still afraid of the hordes of Turk with swords overrunning them.

LOL

Only her Majesty's subjects are Knighted.
Non subjects receive honorary knighthoods and protocol expects them not to be addressed by the SIR title.

As far as I can remember Ronald Regan received an honorary knighthood but nobody addressed his as Sir Ronald Regan.

.

.

[Eddo211]

Re: The 100th Anniversary - and Events to Mark it

The Queen almost Knighted Gul.....now that makes me mad, that they are still afraid of the hordes of Turk with swords overrunning them.

[londontsi]

Re: The 100th Anniversary - and Events to Mark it

UK - Prince Charles greets Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian and
Catholicos Garegin II during an ecumenical service at Westminster
Abbey, London, 28Oct2015.

.....

One of the likely reasons why Queen Elizabeth's heir apparent took
part in the Westminster Abbey service is his close rapport with Armen
Sarkissian, the Armenian ambassador to the United Kingdom who has
lived in London since the early 1990s. Sarkissian was instrumental in
Charles' 2013 visit to Armenia.

Statements by the press offices of President Sarkisian and Westminster
Abbey did not list any senior British government officials among those
who attended the service. Their apparent absence reflected the current
and previous British governments' refusal to recognize the Armenian
genocide.

I remember his first appearance on the scene in London during the days of the independence euphoria.

He was also very motivational personality, in the patriotic sense.
London embassy was the first Armenian embassy post soviet collapse and independence which also contributed to that euphoria.

We also found out ( proudly) that he is an astrophysicist.

Star gazer to you and me.

Some habits die hard.


PS.
I wish we understood that personal friendship gets you nowhere in politics beyond a polite hello and a smile.
The British or any mature and professional government do not give any value to an individual friendship.
Their whole political infrastructure, civil servants, pursues its national interests.

The politicians are the articulators of those policies not the decision makers but the executioners.
If the political establishment find themselves in a contradictory situation like in this case they will push forward the Royalty, Church leaders or any other entity of protocol to create excitement like “ isn’t it exciting that Prince Charles attended church with our President. “ or " we got couple of paragraphs in so and so paper ..."

Please give me some space I am going to puke.

[Haykakan]

Re: The 100th Anniversary - and Events to Mark it

UK - Prince Charles greets Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian and
Catholicos Garegin II during an ecumenical service at Westminster
Abbey, London, 28Oct2015.

The service was part of worldwide events marking the 100th anniversary
of the genocide, which began on April 24, 1915 with mass arrests of
Armenian political leaders and intellectuals in Constantinople. Up to
1.5 million Armenian subjects of the Ottoman Empire were murdered or
starved to death in the following years.

The most important events marking the genocide centennial in and
outside Armenia took place on April 24, 2015. The Turkish government,
which strongly denies that the 1915 massacres constituted genocide,
tried to deflect the resulting international spotlight by holding its
annual commemoration of a major World War One-era battle on the same
day.

Ankara had traditionally celebrated the Turkish victory in the
1915-1916 Battle of Gallipoli on April 25. The Armenian government
condemned it for moving up this year's Gallipoli ceremony by one day.

Charles was among a host of mostly Muslim foreign leaders who took
part in the ceremony at Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's
invitation. His participation upset many in Armenia and its worldwide
Diaspora.

One of the likely reasons why Queen Elizabeth's heir apparent took
part in the Westminster Abbey service is his close rapport with Armen
Sarkissian, the Armenian ambassador to the United Kingdom who has
lived in London since the early 1990s. Sarkissian was instrumental in
Charles' 2013 visit to Armenia.

Statements by the press offices of President Sarkisian and Westminster
Abbey did not list any senior British government officials among those
who attended the service. Their apparent absence reflected the current
and previous British governments' refusal to recognize the Armenian
genocide.

[Haykakan]

Re: The 100th Anniversary - and Events to Mark it

"MY HOME, MY ARMENIA"

The Sunday Times (London), UK
October 25, 2015 Sunday

This 105-year-old man is one of the last survivors of the Armenian
genocide. The photographer Diana Markosianpresented him and other
survivors with images of the land they were forced to leave a century
ago and have not set foot in since

Movses Haneshyan, 105, approaches a landscape produced by Diana
Markosian. He pauses, looks at the image, and begins to sing:
"My home... my Armenia."

It's the first time Movses has seen an image of his home village,
Kebussieh, in Turkey, in a century. He fled in 1915 at the age of
five. He now lives across the border in the Republic of Armenia.

Markosian says that even though her subjects were very young at the
time of the genocide, they have powerful memories of the traumatic
events These beautifully composed pictures are a stark reminder of one
of the most controversial and disputed episodes of the last century:
the armenian genocide, which began 100 years ago. the tragic story of
the armenians is etched deeply on the faces of the people photographed
here. they can neither forgive, nor forget.

it is widely accepted that between 800,000 and 1.5m ottoman armenians
were killed as the ottoman empire crumbled - though the figure has
been fiercely disputed by successive turkish governments, who have
always denied that a genocide took place.

the campaign against the armenians started in the spring of 1915
and it quickly turned into mass murder. While turkey accepts that
deportations of armenians took place - they were suspected of colluding
with russia as the empire collapsed - it insists that killing happened
on both sides. they say there was no premeditation in the deaths,
no systematic attempt to destroy a people. it remains illegal in
turkey for journalists to call it a "genocide".

the european parliament recognises that a genocide took place, but
the Un won't go so far, calling it an "atrocity crime". neither the
british nor american governments describe it as "genocide".

For this project, the armenian-american photographer diana markosian
travelled first to the republic of armenia to meet some of the
remaining survivors. since the massacres began in 1915, she knew she
would find only a handful of people who witnessed the horrors.

tracking them down was a Herculean task, she says.

"the armenian government was unable to provide any information; it said
this was confidential. so i looked for armenian voter registrations
online to see who was born before 1915. i had a few dozen names and
the villages in armenia where they lived."

once she found them, she asked about their lives in their former
homeland - part of present-day turkey - from which they were expelled.

then she travelled into turkey to photograph the landmarks and villages
they described. born in moscow, but educated in the Us, markosian spoke
to the survivors in russian. she interviewed them at length about their
experiences and they were able to recall the events in great detail.

"When i met movses, mariam and yepraksia, they guided me back to their
past. i told them i was travelling to their native lands, and they
asked me to help fulfil their wishes. movses gave me a hand-drawn
map of his village in turkey and asked me to find his church and
leave his image there. He hadn't seen his home in a century. When i
returned to his village, not too far from syria, i found everything
movses had described to me: the sheep, the fruit he remembered eating,
the sea. i even found his church, which is now in ruins."

movses fled his birthplace of kebussieh in 1915, aged five. He
remembers when ottoman soldiers entered his village. "i was with my
father, holding his hand. Half the road was covered with dead people."

Like movses, markosian's other subjects had personal requests to make.

"mariam asked me to bring back turkish soil, so she could be buried
with it. and yepraksia wanted help finding her older brother, from
whom she was separated after the genocide. i never found him, but
i did come back with a story for movses and a container of dirt for
mariam. When she opened it, she thanked me and said, 'you've brought
the smell of my village to me.'" once she had taken pictures of their
villages, markosian made large prints of them, brought them back to
armenia and photographed her subjects with them.

"they are still angry," markosian says.

"they witnessed deportation and death and now they face continued
denial of the genocide. i am not sure if they will ever forgive the
turks." n these pages Yepraksia gevorgyan, who is believed to be 110 -
she fled the massacres in 1915 with her family and no ID documents -
is pictured in present-day armenia, with a picture of the ruins of
the medieval armenian city of ani, which lies in modern turkey's Kars
province. her father was killed as they fled, and her mother died
shortly after they reached their destination. "I remember the river,"
she says. "I saw the turks kill the armenians, throwing their bodies in
the water" above Movses Haneshyan, 105, touches a picture of Kebussieh,
his former home in Turkey below Movses at home in armenia.

"Half the road was covered with dead people," he recalls above Mariam
Sahakyan, 101, was born in the village of Sason, in Turkey, in 1914.

when the genocide began the following year, the infant Mariam
and her family were sheltered by a local Kurdish family, before
they eventually fled to Syria in 1918. She later moved to armenia,
where she is pictured here below Mariam's family present her with
Markosian's picture of Sason. She had also asked the photographer:
"bring back soil for me to be buried in" Mariam, who now lives in
Armenia with her family, sits in front of the image of Sason

[Artashes]

Re: The 100th Anniversary - and Events to Mark it

I am really surprised that no one seems to care about this ruling.

They (Europe) sold us down the road so they could share in the spoils of the 1915 genocide committed against us. What you saw in the ruling was yet another confirmation of the selling out of the Armenian people's. It (the ruling & the court) was nothing more than a dog & pony show.
After a 100 years of the 2nd most studied genocide , this self serving ?court? couldn't figure out it was a genocide ???
Nothing but a dog & pony show.

Consider ... USA/Europe , are engaged in the criminal act of destroying Syria. Do you think this sickening excuse for a court is not also part and parcel a criminal institution designed to ligitemize the criminal behavior of Europe/USA ?
Fraudulence and criminality go hand in hand.