Tag: ararat

  • From Ararat to Europe

    From Ararat to Europe

    This historical documentary tells how the Armenians have been forerunners in spreading Christianity throughout Europe.

    ararat 210For centuries the Armenians have been the forerunners in spreading Christianity in the world and have been sanctified by different European nations. It is remarkable that, thanks to Leonardo da Vinci’s travels to Armenia, European church construction adopted Armenian architectural traits.
    This film aims to reveal how that Armenian mark of influence spread from Ararat to Europe.

    Producer: Arsen Hakobyan and Sargis Petrosyan
    Director: Artak Avdalayan
    Languages: Armenian, Russian, English
    Subtitles: Armenian, Russian, English
    Duration: 52 min.

  • Model of Internationalism: Istanbul Bazaar no place for ethnic differences

    Model of Internationalism: Istanbul Bazaar no place for ethnic differences

    Gayane Abrahamyan
    ArmeniaNow reporter, writing from Istanbul, Turkey
    Photo: Gayane Abrahamyan/ArmeniaNow.com
    Photo: Gayane Abrahamyan/ArmeniaNow.com

    Istanbul’s Laleli market is the most liberal place in Turkey. It is an international trade area where migrants from almost all former Soviet states work side by side with complete disregard to whatever differences on ethnic grounds they may have for one sole reason – commerce.

    One of Turkey’s national symbols – its language – has even been sidelined; if in other districts of Istanbul one can hardly find road signs and signboards in any language other than Turkish or people that would agree to give directions to a tourist in English, in Laleli all signs are in Russian, which is also the common language of communication there.

    Turkish vendors, too, learn and speak Russian.

    Ramazan, 68, in quite a fluent Russian invites to his shop, presents the merchandize and explains that if he hadn’t learned Russian he wouldn’t have been able to do his business.

    “It might seem strange that living in my own country I have to learn a foreign language in order to succeed in my business, but it’s the reality: in our work we are mainly dealing with representatives of former Soviet countries, and so we have adjusted to the rule,” Ramazan, who was born in Izmir and has worked as a salesman at the Istanbul market for the past 15 years, told ArmeniaNow.

    Laleli, which looks like a small model of the Soviet Union, consists of several streets where clothes and footwear are mainly for wholesale; the area also boasts restaurants and hotels, like a giant shopping mall.
    Although smaller by its size when compared to the famous tourist destination – the Grand Bazaar with its historic part that was built back in the 15th century as commissioned by Sultan Mehmed – it is, nevertheless, unique and important by its internationalism.

    Laleli is the first haven of labour migrants arriving in Istanbul, since the language is not an issue and there is a demand for Russian-speaking workers.

    “Only those who cannot find a job elsewhere end up coming here: if through acquaintances they are able to get employed at factories or locals’ houses – as cleaners, nannies or nurses for sick people – they can earn more, between $800-1,000 per month,” says Nana, a Georgian woman who has been working in Turkey for a year: her husband and she lost their jobs in Tbilisi following a reform in the police system there.

    Azeri Mursal Ismamedov says that the best working partners are Armenians: “They are the ones mostly selling my merchandise, bringing major buyers from Armenia, so no ethnicity issue matters here, we have other things to worry about.”

    Ismamedov has lived in Turkey for the past decade and lists the names of his friends among whom there are more Armenians than Turks or Georgians.

    “When I was starting my business, my Turkish friends’ first piece of advice was to work with Armenians as they are the most reliable. So I followed their advice and have not once regretted since,” Ismamedov told ArmeniaNow. (At the market the Azeri translates for many of the Turks and teaches them Russian.)

    There aren’t so many Armenians at this market. Sona, from Vanadzor, says Armenians are mainly at the market of another district, although the majority finds employment at factories and private houses.

    “Armenian new-comers, who do not know the language, instead of coming here rather prefer working at the houses of Istanbul Armenians, whereas Georgians, Uzbeks, Moldovans do not have such an opportunity,” says Sona, adding though that it is not only a matter of language.

    “Strangely so, but Turks trust Armenians more,” she says.

    Labour migration has become one of the main survival means for many in post-Soviet countries after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

    However, if in the beginning the main country for labour migration was Russia, during the past decade Turkey, too, has become a country providing jobs and earning opportunities.

    According to the data of the Turkish Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, there are around one million migrants working in the country, although experts believe the actual number is even higher.

    “This phenomenon has two sides to it: on the one hand we are proud of our country to have developed such an economic capacity to be able to receive so many migrants, but on the other hand, since migrants are a more affordable manpower, they literally take away jobs from citizens of Turkey,” Fatih Osman, an expert at Sabanc university’s center for economic research, told ArmeniaNow.

    If in the 1970s Turkish citizens were migrating en masse from the country (mainly to Germany), today Turkey has become a country that attracts migrants.

    However, in the early period of the global financial-economic crisis, when jobs were cut by 15 percent in 2009 only in this country with a population of 70 million, the government decided to do the lay-offs at the expense of migrants.

    According to the 2009 study by the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, if the state got rid of illegal migrants, it would have opened up an additional 500,000 workplaces, however this plan was never implemented because of the criticism it evoked on the part of major factory owners who were able to overcome the economic crisis due to non-expensive manpower.

    “For a period of time it was rather tense here, deportation cases were frequent, but no matter how tense it might be, it is still much safer here than in Russia, and Caucasians, even Armenians, get a much better treatment here,” says Sona.

    Gayane Abrahamyan is reporting from Turkey with the support of the Global Political Trends Center (GPoT) and Internews Armenia

  • ETHICS GROUP ASKS FOR FEDERAL INVESTIGATION OF ARMENIAN ORGANIZATION

    ETHICS GROUP ASKS FOR FEDERAL INVESTIGATION OF ARMENIAN ORGANIZATION

    Armenian-American group accused of lobbying violations

    // 18 Feb 2009
    McClatchy Newspapers as published on MiamiHerald.com, SacramentoBee.com, AnchorageDailyNews.com

    18 Feb 2009 // Michael Doyle // Fresno Bee – WASHINGTON – A high-profile ethics organization on Wednesday asked federal agencies to investigate the Armenian National Committee of America for alleged campaign finance and lobbying violations.

    In a seven-page complaint, the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington asserts the Armenian-American group failed to register either as a domestic lobbying group or as a foreign agent despite its political work and its close ties to an Armenian political party.

    The Armenian National Committee of America is one of the country’s most prominent ethnic organizations, and has worked closely with San Joaquin Valley lawmakers on Armenian genocide commemorative resolutions.

    “We’re not saying they should be out of business,” said Melanie Sloan, a former federal prosecutor who heads the private Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “We’re saying there are laws, and they should be following them.”

    Sloan attached 161 pages of exhibits in support of the allegations.

    Armenian National Committee of America officials denounced the charges as unfounded.

    “We’ve taken a preliminary look at [the] allegations, and they are without merit and full of inaccuracies and misrepresentations,” ANCA Communications Director Elizabeth Chouldjian said.

    Chouldjian declined to undertake a point-by-point rebuttal of the complaint, but she said “the real story is why this is being brought up now.” She noted the complaint was filed about two months before the annual April 24 Armenian genocide commemoration; she did not elaborate on a potential motive for the complaint’s timing.

    The Armenian National Committee of America describes itself on its web site as “the largest and most influential Armenian American grassroots political organization.” It is active in regions with large Armenian-American populations, including New Jersey, Florida and California.

    Currently, Rep. George Radanovich, R-Mariposa, and other ANCA allies are rallying renewed support for an Armenian genocide resolution that collapsed last Congress. Under presidents of both parties, the Pentagon and State Department have opposed the resolution as an insult to Turkey, which denies that mass deaths between 1915 and 1923 amounted to a genocide.

    “Circumstantial evidence indicates that ANCA and its current or former executive directors … have lobbied Congress and the executive branch heavily with regard to perennial congressional Armenian genocide resolutions,” the complaint states.

    The complaint cites interviews and press releases, in which ANCA leaders tout their efforts to sway Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., among others.

    The Armenian National Committee of America has not registered as a lobbyist with either the House or Senate. Failure to register can be a felony offense, though Sloan said potential problems are often resolved simply by registering after the fact.

    The Armenian Assembly of America, the nation’s other prominent Armenian-American organization, is registered and reported spending $182,000 on lobbying last year.

    “These are the rules, and everybody has to follow them,” Sloan said.

    The complaint asks the Internal Revenue Service to review potential tax violations and the Justice Department to open a criminal probe. The complaint also asks the House and Senate to open “companion inquiries” into the lobbying allegations.

    Citing press accounts, a U.S. embassy study and the research of Heather Gregg, a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, the complaint contends ANCA is “an arm” of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation. The latter is a political party that is part of Armenia’s ruling coalition.

    Agents of foreign political parties are required to register with the Justice Department. ANCA can endorse political candidates, as a group organized under section 501 (c)(4) of the federal tax code. The affiliated ANCA-Western Region, based in Glendale, cannot because it is a 501 (c)(3) organization. The complaint alleges the Western Region office nonetheless participated in the national organization’s candidate endorsements, in part by sharing a Web site.

    Sloan said the complaint arose from a tip received late last year.

    Sloan’s non-profit, six-year-old ethics group claims no partisan affiliation and has previously filed ethics complaints about both Democratic and Republican lawmakers. Its past targets have ranged from former Tracy area GOP congressman Richard Pombo to former Vice President Dick Cheney.

    A WORD FROM CREW EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR MELANIE SLOAN
    “ Since 2003, CREW has closely monitored government ethics, bringing egregious conduct to light and holding public officials accountable for their misconduct. On our website you’ll find exhaustively investigated reports on corruption prepared by our research staff, high-impact lawsuits filed by our legal team, as well as the latest national ethics news. Thank you for your support. “
    Melanie Sloan, Executive Director
    WALLS ARE GETTING CLOSER AROUND THE ARMENIAN FALSIFIERS
    For decades, the Armenians lobbies lied, cheated, falsified, deceived, begged, screamed, demanded, and destroyed, without shame, remorse, or consequences. I don’t know about the first two, but it seems, the last item is finally being taken care of.
    I want to know, for instance, if, when, and how much financial help these Armenian front organizations provided to some vile politicians known for their passionate support of bogus Armenian genocide and how those monies helped shape American policy toward Armenian and Turkey. That would be a gross violation of US laws that say non-profit NGOs cannot engage in politics in a manner to influence policy or support candidates .
    Armenians falsifiers arrogantly and shamelessly made the bed; now they should lie in it!

  • DISCOVER THE RAT IN ARARAT

    DISCOVER THE RAT IN ARARAT

    World renown historian Guenter Lewy in his article titled “Revisiting the Armenian Genocide” published in Fall 2005 edition of Middle East Quarterly ( https://www.meforum.org/895/correspondence ) states:

    “…Most of those who maintain that Armenian deaths were premeditated and so constitute genocide base their argument on three pillars: the actions of Turkish military courts of 1919-20,…, the role of the so-called “Special Organization” accused of carrying out the massacres, and the Memoirs of Naim Beywhich contain alleged telegrams of Interior Minister Talât Pasha…. Yet when these events and the sources describing them are subjected to careful examination, they provide at most a shaky foundation from which to claim, let alone conclude, that the deaths of Armenians were premeditated….”

    How can you argue with the truth? Lewy called it as it is.

    Then, Lewy penned the following review of a book by Richard Hovannisian (ed)., The Armenian Genocide: Cultural and Ethical Legacies, , another hole-in-one:

    “ BOOK REVIEW BY GUENTER LEWY

    Readers familiar with Russian and Turkish history will experience the same sense of unreality in reading Hovannisian’s insistence that the Armenian disaster in 1915 was entirely unprovoked and the result of a xenophobic nationalistic mindset and a total war ethic on the part of the Young Turk regime. In this narrative there is no place for the decades-long armed struggle of the Armenian revolutionary movement for independence or for the thousands of Turkish Armenians who fought a guerrilla war behind the Ottoman army in 1915, cut roads and lines of communications, and generally aided the Russian invader. Henry Morgenthau, the American ambassador in (Istanbul), reported to Washington on 25 May 1915 that nobody put the Armenian guerrillas at less than 10,000, and that 25,000 was probably . . closer to the truth.

    All this took place in a situation of extreme danger for the Ottoman regime caused by serious military setbacks. Bragging about the Armenian contribution to the Allied war effort, Boghos Nubar, the head of the Armenian delegation, told those at the Paris Peace Conference on 18 March 1919 that the Turks had devastated the Armenians in retaliation for their unflagging devotion to the Allied cause. None of this can justify the brutality and extreme callousness with which the Young Turks carried out the deportation of the Armenian community from their ancient homeland in Anatolia at a huge cost in innocent lives, but it provides the indispensable historical context for the human catastrophe that ensued.

    According to Hovannisian and other contributors to this volume, the scholarly world has accepted the Armenian genocide, and all those who question the Armenian version of these tragic events are “genocide deniers.” Yet while many historians indeed speak of the first genocide of the twentieth century, other historians, including well-known scholars of Ottoman history such as Roderic Davison, Bernard Lewis, and Andrew Mango, while not questioning the horror that transpired, have raised doubts about the appropriateness of the genocide label for the occurrences of 1915.

    Ignoring this formidable array of learned opinion, Armenians continue to assert with superb arrogance that the Armenian genocide is incontrovertible fact and established history that can be denied only by lackeys of the Turkish government or morally obtuse individuals. Unless there is a change in this attitude and Armenians accept the existence of a genuine historical controversy, I see little hope for ending this almost century-old conflict.

    Guenter Lewy
    University of Massachusetts, Amherst “

    DR. GWYNNE DYER

    Dr. Gwynne Dyer simplified the expression of the above scholarly findings so succinctly and eloquently that I think all honest writers should quote it in their fight against Armenian falsifiers:

    “… The deafening drumbeat of the propaganda, and the sheer lack of sophistication in argument which comes from preaching decade after decade to a convinced and emotionally committed audience, are the major handicaps of Armenian historiography of the diaspora today…”

    The Armenians have defined the Turkish-Armenian conflict one way, their way, for 93 years. Even this could be understood within the context of ethnic and/or religious fanaticism. After all, it is a free country, you can believe whatever you want, even that the world is flat. Problem arises when the Armenians demand their claims be declared as settled history with zero tolerance for the other side of the story, coming from Turks and non-Turks alike. The problem turns into a criminal conduct when these Armenian demands turn to Armenian violence, as in Armenian terrorism that claimed 70+ innocent lives (three right here in Southern California) since 1973, aimed at imposing the Armenian will on others.

    Whether the Armenian claims of genocide are recognized by this country or that, does not change the fact that Armenians engineered, provoked, and waged a civil war within a world war; took up arms against their own government; killed their Muslim/Turkish neighbors; joined the invading enemy armies; demanded territories where they were a minority to create Greater Armenia; and did all that with the help of active allies (Russia, Britain, France), passive allies (U.S. diplomats, Protestant missionaries, the New York Times) and others.

    Furthermore, the ubiquitous Armenian propaganda cannot change the

    “6 T’S OF THE TURKISH-ARMENIAN CONFLICT : ”

    1- Tumult (Armenians taking up arms against their own government,)

    2- Terrorism (by Dashnaks, Hunchaks, and other Armenian terrorist organizations,)

    3- Treason (Armenians joining the invading enemy armies)

    4- Territorial demands (where Armenians were a minority)

    5- Turkish suffering (at the hands of Armenian revolutionaries and terrorists; number exceeds half a million Muslims, mostly Turks)

    6-Tereset (temporary resettlement triggered by the above 5 T’s and misrepresented by Armenians as genocide.)

    SWEDISH EYEWITNESS BELIES ARMENIAN CLAIMS OF “RED RIVER”

    Here, for instance, is the eyewitness report refuting and devastating the Armenian claims and deception once and for all:

    “…For fourteen days, I followed the Euphrates; it is completely out of the question that I during this time would not have seen at least some of the Armenian corpses, that according to Mrs. Stjernstedt’s statements, should have drifted along the river en masse at that time. A travel companion of mine, Dr. Schacht, was also travelling along the river. He also had nothing to tell when we later met in Baghdad… …In summary, I think that Mrs. Stjernstedt, somewhat uncritically, has accepted the hair-raising stories from more or less biased sources, which formed the basis for her lecture…”

    Source: H.J. Pravitz, A Swedish officer, Nya Dagligt Allehanda, 23 April, 1917 issue (A Swedish Newspaper published from 1859 to 1944)… This is the right side of history… This is where Armenian deception is exposed…

    BOGUS ARMENIAN PRESS REPORTS

    Here are the bogus Armenian press reports from WWI that were refuted by a rare missionary whose heart was in the right place:

    “…In some towns containing ten Armenian houses and thirty Turkish houses, it was reported that 40,000 people were killed, about 10,000 women were taken to the harem, and thousands of children left destitute; and the city university destroyed, and the bishop killed. It is a well- known fact that even in the last war the native Christians, despite the Turkish cautions, armed themselves and fought on the side of the Allies. In these conflicts, they were not idle, but they were well supplied with artillery, machine guns and inflicted heavy losses on their enemies….”

    Source: Lamsa, George M., a missionary well known for his research on Christianity, The Secret of the Near East, The Ideal Press, Philadelphia 1923, p 133… This is the right side of history… This is where Armenian deception is exposed…

    “…Few Americans who mourn, and justly, the miseries of the Armenians, are aware that till the rise of nationalistic ambitions, beginning with the ‘seventies, the Armenians were the favored portion of the population of Turkey, or that in the Great War, they traitorously turned Turkish cities over to the Russian invader; that they boasted of having raised an Army of one hundred and fifty thousand men to fight a civil war, and that they burned at least a hundred Turkish villages and exterminated their population…” Source: John Dewey, The New Republic, 12 November 1928. This is the right side of history. This is where Armenian deception is exposed…

    “…In all the countries, under all the regimes, the staff of the armies in the field evacuate towards the back, the populations which live in the zone of fights and can bother the movement of the troops, especially if these populations are hostile. Public opinion does not find anything to criticize to these measures, obviously painful, but necessary. During the winter of 1939-1940, the radical – socialist French government evacuated and transported in the Southwest of France, notably in the Dordogne, the entire population of the Alsatian villages situated in the valley of the Rhine, to the east of the Maginot line. This German-speaking population, and even sometimes germanophil, bothered the French army. It stayed in the South, far from the evacuated homes and sometimes destroyed until 1945….And nobody, in France, cried out for inhumanity…”

    Source: Georges de Maleville, lawyer and a specialist on the Armenian question, La Tragédie Arménienne de 1915, (The Armenian tragedy of 1915), Editions F. Sorlot-F. Lanore, Paris, 1988, p 61-63. This is the right side of history… This is where Armenian deception is exposed…

    Armed with the rock solid truth, fortified with honesty and fairness, let’s expose the Armenian propaganda for what it is: ethocide, mass-deception for political/personal gain…