Castrated Armenian carpets!

[bell-the-cat]

Re: Castrated Armenian carpets!

In a letter sent earlier today to President Obama's Chief of Staff,
Denis McDonough, ANCA Chairman Ken Hachikian reminded the White
House that "upon receiving the rug, President Coolidge wrote,
'The rug has a place of honor in the White House where it will be
a daily symbol of goodwill on earth.' I ask you, in this spirit, to
remove any obstacles to the Smithsonian's display of this historic
artwork and to secure a prominent and permanent public home for this
powerful symbol of America's humanitarian values and friendship with
the Armenian people," continued Hachikian.

Placing this latest controversy in context, Hachikian noted that:
"since taking office, President Obama has not only failed to recognize
the Armenian Genocide, but has actively blocked Congressional
legislation (H.Res.252, 111th Congress) to commemorate this atrocity
and, through his Solicitor General, officially opposed efforts in the
U.S. courts (Arzoumanian v. Munchener Ruckversicherungs-Gesellschaft
Aktiengesellschaft AG) to allow American citizens to pursue
Genocide-era property claims. In addition, the Administration has
regularly sent senior officials to speak at events organized by
Armenian Genocide deniers, while refusing repeated invitations to
simply attend Congressional observances of this atrocity. In these
areas, and, sadly, many more, the President has not simply failed
to honor his pledge, but rather - in both letter and spirit - worked
to fundamentally undermine and reverse the very policies he pledged
to pursue."

According to Dr. Hagop Deranian, the Armenian orphan rug measures
11'7" x 18'5" and is comprised of 4,404,206 individual knots. It
took the Armenian girls in the Ghazir Orphanage of the Near East
Relief Society 10 months to weave. A label on the back of the rug,
in large hand-written letters, reads "IN GOLDEN RULE GRATITUDE TO
PRESIDENT COOLIDGE."

Source: Panorama.am

The above is a perfect example of what I was talking about regarding Armenian organisations and their ability (or lack of ability) to ask proper questions. It is a completely counterproductive letter.

Firstly, it is a letter from a lobbying group (the ANCA). The White House will immediately ask "what business can a lobbying group have with the academic exhibition of an artistic object?" This immediately puts the whole request in a dubious light and makes the proposed exhibition of the carpet seem less than innocent.

The writer talks about "removing any obstacles", so he is admitting that there ARE obstacles! Since some obstacles are NOT removable, his own words will give the White House the wriggle-room it needs to make sure the carpet is not provided to the Smithsonian. I can think of no legitimate reasons why the carpet cannot be supplied, there are no legitimate "obstacles" - so why on earth is the writer giving credability to spurious reasons by talking about "obstacles"? He should just be asking for the reasons or concerns why the carpet cannot be supplied so that those reasons or concerns can be addressed.

Then things get far worse, a completely off-topic descent into "Armenian Genocide/Obama" stuff, put there for no other reason than to satisify what the writer thinks the community would like him to say. This now politicises something that should be a simple request and allows the White House all the wriggle-room it could wish for. And then even worse - he actually mentions law-suits and US courts!

[Haykakan]

Re: Castrated Armenian carpets!

I don't think it matters at all what they say. With special interest groups its either put up or gtfo. Since the ANCA does not have the power/money to get what it wants it blows a bunch of hot air because that is all it can do. If it has to say anything it simply means that it has already lost. Does it ever matter how the xxxish lobby asks for stuff?

[Eddo211]

Re: Castrated Armenian carpets!

The above is a perfect example of what I was talking about regarding Armenian organisations and their ability (or lack of ability) to ask proper questions. It is a completely counterproductive letter.

Firstly, it is a letter from a lobbying group (the ANCA). The White House will immediately ask "what business can a lobbying group have with the academic exhibition of an artistic object?" This immediately puts the whole request in a dubious light and makes the proposed exhibition of the carpet seem less than innocent.

The writer talks about "removing any obstacles", so he is admitting that there ARE obstacles! Since some obstacles are NOT removable, his own words will give the White House the wriggle-room it needs to make sure the carpet is not provided to the Smithsonian. I can think of no legitimate reasons why the carpet cannot be supplied, there are no legitimate "obstacles" - so why on earth is the writer giving credability to spurious reasons by talking about "obstacles"? He should just be asking for the reasons or concerns why the carpet cannot be supplied so that those reasons or concerns can be addressed.

Then things get far worse, a completely off-topic descent into "Armenian Genocide/Obama" stuff, put there for no other reason than to satisify what the writer thinks the community would like him to say. This now politicises something that should be a simple request and allows the White House all the wriggle-room it could wish for. And then even worse - he actually mentions law-suits and US courts!

What you describe is made up of your own assumptions which leads to your own conclusions only real in your own boxed mind.
You say jingle bells knows better than the ANCA team?

I say your litter box is full of cat piss.......and you lost your credibility in this forum a long time ago.

[bell-the-cat]

Re: Castrated Armenian carpets!

What you describe is made up of your own assumptions which leads to your own conclusions only real in your own boxed mind.
You say jingle bells knows better than the ANCA team?

I say your litter box is full of cat piss.......and you lost your credibility in this forum a long time ago.

And you are a jerk and a moron. Too stupid to address (or even understand) any of the points I made. With those qualifications you should be able to progress rapidly up the ranks of the self-appointed "community leaders", and your future will never be short of an honorary dinner or shiney brass medal.

[Siggie]

Re: Castrated Armenian carpets!

What you describe is made up of your own assumptions which leads to your own conclusions only real in your own boxed mind.
You say jingle bells knows better than the ANCA team?

I say your litter box is full of cat piss.......and you lost your credibility in this forum a long time ago.

And you are a jerk and a moron. Too stupid to address (or even understand) any of the points I made. With those qualifications you should be able to progress rapidly up the ranks of the self-appointed "community leaders", and your future will never be short of an honorary dinner or shiney brass medal.

I have a hard time accepting that this is how adults converse and exchange ideas, yet I see it here over and over again. Please tell me that developmentally delayed undercover babies have overtaken the forum.

[bell-the-cat]

Re: Castrated Armenian carpets!

I have a hard time accepting that this is how adults converse and exchange ideas, yet I see it here over and over again. Please tell me that developmentally delayed undercover babies have overtaken the forum.

What's the point of placing ideas and opinions when all that certain members can give as a response is post their stupid insults (they are never even clever insults).

Re, the "honorary dinner or shiney brass medal" bit of my response, I was thinking of the recent events surrounding the opening of the Moscow cathedral - for them, the dinners were especially lavish and the medals numerous and extra-shiney. So at least my insults are clever ones!

[Siggie]

Re: Castrated Armenian carpets!

I know that coming in and essentially saying "well that's just... like your opinion, dude!" and making an ad hominem attack that anything you say is automatically "piss" is inane and seems less of an intelligent argument than a seized-upon opportunity to be a troll, but does adding your own 'wrong' make things right? You can just as easily point out that he didn't really name any valid criticism of your argument or that taking the position that anything ANCA decides must by definition be the correct and optimal course of action is fallacious. Or just wait for a moderator to see the comment (or help it along by reporting it). Lots of options.

[Haykakan]

Re: Castrated Armenian carpets!

OPEN FEUD OVER HIDDEN RUG

Los Angeles Times
November 13, 2013 Wednesday

Lawmakers accuse White House of political motives in blocking the
display of an Armenian genocide 'icon'

by Richard Simon WASHINGTON

In a new twist to efforts to call attention to the Armenian genocide,
a group of lawmakers has accused the Obama administration of blocking
a Smithsonian display of a rug woven by orphans of the mass killings
nearly a century ago.

The lawmakers wrote to President Obama urging him to make the rug
available for exhibition. It was presented to President Calvin Coolidge
in 1925 and has been in storage. The bipartisan group includes more
than a dozen representatives from California, which has a large
Armenian American population.

The roughly 12-foot-by-18-foot Armenian Orphan Rug was to be featured
in a Washington exhibit Dec. 16 at the Smithsonian Institution
Building, known as the Castle, that sought to call attention to a
new book about the rug, which the lawmakers called a "pivotal icon
related to the Armenian genocide."

A White House spokeswoman said Tuesday that displaying the rug
"for only half a day in connection with a private book launch event,
as proposed, would have been an inappropriate use of U.S. government
property, would have required the White House to undertake the risk of
transporting the rug for limited public exposure, and was not viewed
as commensurate with the rug's historical significance."

Aram S. Hamparian, executive director of the Armenian National
Committee of America, attributed the decision to politics, contending
that the administration was "catering to the Turkish government's
sensitivities about the Armenian genocide."

"It is without a doubt a political decision," he said in an interview.

Hamparian was in New York on Tuesday to take up the issue with the
U.S. ambassador to Armenia, John A. Heffern.

An estimated 1.2 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks as
the empire was dissolving during World War I, an episode historians
have concluded was genocide. But Turkey has contended that Turks and
Armenians were casualties of war, famine and disease.

In September, a Smithsonian curator wrote the Armenian Cultural
Foundation and Armenian Rugs Society, which were helping to organize
the exhibit, that the White House decided that "it cannot lend" the
rug for the exhibit. "Needless to say this was a great surprise and
disappointment to us here," wrote Paul Michael Taylor, director of
the Smithsonian's Asian cultural history program.

The rug, composed of more than 4 million hand-tied knots, was presented
to Coolidge in appreciation for U.S. humanitarian assistance. It
features more than 100 images of animals, according to Hagop Martin
Deranian, a 91-year-old Massachusetts dentist whose book "President
Calvin Coolidge and the Armenian Orphan Rug" was to have been featured
at the rug exhibit.

Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), who helped gather the signatures of 30
other lawmakers on a letter to the White House, called the White House
decision "as inexplicable as it is hurtful to the Armenian community."

"It is difficult to express in words how deeply troubling it is that
a historical and cultural treasure accepted by President Coolidge on
behalf of the people of the United States may be being kept behind
closed doors because of Turkish desire to keep discussion of certain
historical facts out of the public discussion," Rep. Frank Pallone Jr.

(D-N.J.), co-chairman of the Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues,
wrote the White House in a separate letter.

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks) also wrote the White House,
urging that the rug be put on permanent display at the Smithsonian:
"We must acknowledge and learn from the tragic crimes against humanity
that orphaned the weavers of this rug to ensure that they are never
repeated."

Neither Schiff nor Sherman has received a White House response.

The controversy over the rug, first reported by the Washington Post,
is the latest development on an issue that has roiled Capitol Hill
for years.

A House panel in 2010 passed a resolution to officially recognize
the mass killings between 1915 and 1918 as genocide, but the measure
never made it to the House floor for a vote after Turkey recalled its
ambassador in protest and U.S. officials warned it could damage U.S.

relations with Turkey, an important ally.

In 2007, after a majority of House members signed on as co-sponsors,
the resolution appeared headed toward approval.

But two dozen lawmakers withdrew their support after the George W.

Bush administration and the Turkish government warned that passage
of the resolution could lead Turkey to block U.S. access to its air
bases used to get supplies to American troops in Iraq.

[Haykakan]

Re: Castrated Armenian carpets!

WHITE HOUSE REFUSES TO DISPLAY 88-YEAR-OLD RUG MADE BY ARMENIAN GENOCIDE ORPHANS, PROBABLY BECAUSE TURKEY MIGHT GET MAD

Matt Welch|Nov. 21, 2013 4:33 pm

Whether in refusing to call a coup a "coup," or declining to call a
genocide a "genocide" (despite multiple promises to the contrary) the
willingness of the American government to torture the English language
and evade basic truths in order to lessen some short-term diplomatic
hassle is indicative of a deeper and more consequential moral rot,
one that enables questionable foreign policy while invariably screwing
over the little guy.

Or, if the White House's largely Democratic critics are to be believed,
the little orphan. Or more accurately still, the great-grandchildren
of genocide-orphans. I wish I was kidding. Here's Foreign Policy:

In 1926, Vartoohi Galezian -- a 15-year-old refugee from the genocide
in Armenia -- arrived at the White House to pay a visit to President
Calvin Coolidge. She had come to view the rug she and 1,400 other
orphans living in Ghazir -- then part of mandate Syria, now in
Lebanon -- had woven as a gift to the United States in thanks for
the humanitarian assistance provided to the refugees of the ethnic
cleansing of Armenians during World War I. In June 1995, the Ghazir
rug, a huge, beautiful work exemplary of the Middle East's legendary
weaving traditions, was shown once more to Galezian and her family,
but it's now been more than 17 years since the White House has
displayed what has come to be known as the Armenian orphan rug. Now
it is unclear when the rug will ever be shown again.

The rug is now caught in a tug-of-war with historians and Armenian
advocates on one side pulling for the rug to be displayed and the
White House on the other, which seems reticent to release the rug
for an exhibit. [...]

"We regret that it was not possible to loan it out for this event,"
Laura Lucas Magnuson, assistant press secretary for the National
Security Council, told Foreign Policy. "Displaying the rug for
only half a day in connection with a private book launch event,
as proposed, would have been an inappropriate use of U.S. government
property, would have required the White House to undertake the risk of
transporting the rug for limited public exposure, and was not viewed
as commensurate with the rug's historical significance."

Huh. So what was this not-appropriate-enough exhibit? A Dec. 16 event
at the nearby Smithsonian to mark the release of A BOOK ABOUT THE RUG
IN THE QUESTION. Swear to God. It is called President Calvin Coolidge
and the Armenian Orphan Rug, by Dr. Hagop Martin Deranian, who the
L.A. Times describes as "a 91-year-old Massachusetts dentist." And
yes, the same administration that is blocking this utterly sensical
request is one that originally came to power by making pious promises
like this:

Samantha Power on Obama and Armenian American Issues

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yNt7XsV-Dg

More from the L.A. Times after the jump:

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank), who helped gather the signatures of 30
other lawmakers on a letter to the White House, called the White House
decision "as inexplicable as it is hurtful to the Armenian community."

"It is difficult to express in words how deeply troubling it is that
a historical and cultural treasure accepted by President Coolidge on
behalf of the people of the United States may be being kept behind
closed doors because of Turkish desire to keep discussion of certain
historical facts out of the public discussion," Rep. Frank Pallone Jr.

(D-N.J), co-chairman of the Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues,
wrote the White House in a separate letter.

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks) also wrote the White House urging
that the rug be put on permanent display at the Smithsonian: "We
must acknowledge and learn from the tragic crimes against humanity
that orphaned the weavers of this rug to ensure that they are never
repeated."

The White House's first public statement in response to this criticism
was as dismissive as it was terse:

The Ghazir rug is a reminder of the close relationship between the
peoples of Armenia and the United States. We regret that it is not
possible to loan it out at this time.

I am sure the historically significant artifact is safely being
studied by Top Men.

http://reason.com/blog/2013/11/21/white-house-refuses-to-display-88-year-o

[Haykakan]

Re: Castrated Armenian carpets!

ARMENIAN ASSEMBLY OF AMERICA
PRESS RELEASE
Date: December 2, 2013

Contact: Taniel Koushakjian
Telephone: (202) 393-3434
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.aaainc.org


ARMENIAN ASSEMBLY OF AMERICA TO DISPLAY ARMENIAN ORPHAN SISTER RUG IN BOSTON


WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Armenian Assembly of America (Assembly) will
display the `Armenian Orphan Sister Rug' at the Assembly's annual holiday
reception and briefing in Boston, Massachusetts later this week. Dr. H.
Martin Deranian, author of `President Calvin Coolidge and the Armenian
Orphan Rug' will be the special guest, where he will talk about the Ghazir
rug, also known as the Armenian Orphan Rug, the Sister Rug and the unique
history surrounding their fate. In addition, the Assembly is delighted to
feature remarks by Shant Mardirossian, Chairman of the Board of Directors
of the Near East Foundation.

The Armenian Assembly's Annual Boston Holiday Reception & Briefing will be
held at the Armenian Cultural Foundation, 441 Mystic Street, Arlington, MA,
on Thursday, December 5 at 6:30 PM.

A part of Dr. Martin Deranian's private collection, the Armenian Orphan
Sister Rug was woven by the same orphans at the Ghazir orphanage. According
to Dr. Deranian, the carpet dates from the 1920's and is 3' 5' x 5' 8'. At
one end, the carpet is woven with beautiful lettering that reads `To Mrs.
D.W. Williams, an expression of appreciation Near East Orphanage Ghazir,
Syria.'

`The Ghazir Rug was presented to President Coolidge and to the American
people as an expression of love and goodwill for America's compassionate
and selfless role in preserving the lives of tens of thousands or orphans
of the Armenian Genocide through the support of Near East Relief,' Dr.
Deranian told the Assembly. `The rug is also a memorial to the
orphan-weavers who wove into its warp and weft a permanent remembrance of
Armenia's darkest years, 1915-1923. It is my hope that the rug will be
placed on public view,' stated Deranian.

As the Assembly previously reported, the Smithsonian Institution in
Washington, D.C. was planning a December exhibition of this historic
treasure symbolizing the proud chapter in America's history. The White
House issued a statement saying that, "The Ghazir rug is a reminder of the
close relationship between the peoples of Armenia and the United States. We
regret that it is not possible to loan it out at this time."

In 1925, Dr. John H. Finley, editor-in-chief of the New York Times and
vice-chairman of the congressionally chartered Near East Relief
organization (today called the Near East Foundation) presented a rug made
by orphans of the Armenian Genocide to then President Calvin Coolidge. The
rug was made in appreciation of America's generosity in aiding the
survivors of the first genocide of the 20th Century.

Established in 1972, the Armenian Assembly of America is the largest
Washington-based nationwide organization promoting public understanding and
awareness of Armenian issues. The Assembly is a non-partisan, 501(c)(3)
tax-exempt membership organization.

###

NR# 2013-025

Photo Caption: Dr. H. Martin Deranian holding the Armenian Orphan Sister
Rug, Worcester Evening Gazette, April 24, 1985

Available online at: http://bit.ly/18WcxKA