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18 The Armenian Reporter | February 7, 2009 Editorial Commentary the armenian reporter Armenia and diaspora alike pursue affirmation Speaking of efforts to improve relations between Armenia and Turkey, the Turkish prime minister said a few days ago, “The Armenian diaspora is plotting.” The Turkish government could “see very clearly and sharply” that the diaspora is “utilizing” against Turkey the issue of the Genocide, he said. “This is obvious. But I also see that the current administration in Armenia doesn’t take part in this” (Today’s Zaman, Jan. 29). Is there any truth to the prime minister’s assertion Is the quest for universal affirmation of the Armenian Genocide primarily the diaspora’s issue Are Armenia and the diaspora are at odds over this issue Does Armenia not support universal affirmation of the genocide The prime minister certainly knows that almost the entire population of Armenia comes out every April 24 to make the pilgrimage to the Armenian Genocide memorial at Tzitzernakaberd. And that Armenia’s national security strategy explicitly calls for pursuing universal affirmation. But perhaps he wants us to think that “the current administration in Armenia” doesn’t really take this commitment seriously. A fund-raising event in Dubai on February 2 showed clearly that the Turkish prime minister was mistaken. What was remarkable about the event, organized by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation in support of its advocacy activities in Europe and the Middle East, was the range of support it got from Armenia. First, the fund-raiser was supported by the president of Armenia, Serge Sargsian. In a letter dated January 25, Mr. Sargsian reminded participants in the event of the importance of united support for “our collective national goals,” including the “international recognition of the Armenian Genocide.” Second, the head of the Prosperous Armenia Party, a prosperous entrepreneur, attended the event and made a significant donation. Thus, the heads of the two political parties with the largest delegations in the National Assembly – the president’s Republican Party of Armenia and the Prosperous Armenia Party – set aside partisanship to support the efforts of another political party, the one with the third-largest parliamentary mandate, to pursue the “Armenian Cause,” and above all, universal affirmation of the Armenian Genocide. Add to this the fact that the event also had the support of prominent Russian-Armenian and Middle Eastern Armenian figures, and the message is unmistakable: when it comes to affirmation of the Armenian Genocide, there is no distance between Armenia and the Armenian diaspora. But who would have thought otherwise f Erdogan’s verbal assault pits Turkey against Israel Genocide recognition seen as leverage But groups signal willingness to move on by Emil Sanamyan WASHINGTON – Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s public squabble with Israeli president Shimon Peres was welcomed in Turkey and the rest of the Middle East, but created anxiety in Israel and the United States. During a January 29 panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Mr. Erdogan became increasingly agitated as Mr. Peres defended the recent Israeli military action against Palestinians in Gaza. During his speech, the Israeli president raised his voice and pointed his finger at Mr. Erdogan, who had earlier condemned Israeli action as a “crime against humanity.” In response Mr. Erdogan angrily described Israeli leaders as murderers and sadists. “When it comes to killing, you know well how to kill,” he told Mr. Peres. “I know very well how you killed children on the beaches. Two of Israel’s prime ministers personally told me that they felt happy when they [invaded] Gaza.” The Turkish leader condemned those present for applauding Mr. Peres and stormed out. The packed audience at the forum included a number of foreign officials, including Valerie Jarrett, senior advisor to President Barack Obama. “New World leader” who “humiliated the Zionists” Thousands of Turks welcomed Mr. Erdogan as he arrived at Istanbul airport in the early hours of January 30. Waving Turkish and Palestinian flags, crowds held signs that read “welcome conqueror of Davos” and “a new world leader,” according to the Jamestown Foundation’s summary of Turkish TV and press reports. In Davos, Turkey’s Prime Minister Erdogan points his finger at Israel’s President Shimon Peres. “I only know that I’m responsible for protecting the honor of the Turkish Republic, the Turkish nation from A to Z,” Mr. Erdogan said at the airport, the New York Times reported. “It was a matter of my country’s respect and prestige. I couldn’t have allowed anyone to hurt the prestige and especially the honor of my country.” Leader of Turkish ultra-nationalists Devlet Bahceli praised Mr. Erdogan, expressing hope that his assertive tone would also be reflected in dealing with Kurds and “relations with Armenians against the so-called genocide claims.” Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad chimed in, welcoming the Turkish premier’s demarche, saying it “humiliated the Zionists” and “disgraced” Israel, Press TV reported. One of the Iranian ayatollahs suggested that Mr. Erdogan deserved a Nobel Peace Prize for his activism. But Artak Shakarian, an Armenian expert on Turkey, argued that Mr. Erdogan’s rhetoric was meant in part to sideline Iran and position Turkey as the “leading defender of the Muslim world,” Regnum news agency reported on February 2. And Cengiz Candar, a Turkish expert on the Middle East, told Radikal newspaper that Turkey gained “moral leadership” in the region, even though the region’s Arab leaders themselves appeared to be less than thrilled with Mr. Erdogan’s rhetoric. Victim of “biased” moderation In a press conference after the panel and before departing Switzerland, Mr. Erdogan stressed that he condemned anti-Semitism and that he had no intention to sever Israel- Turkish ties. Instead, Mr. Erdogan channeled his anger toward the panel’s moderator, David Ignatius of the Washington Post, complaining that he had allocated less time to him than to Mr. Peres. Several Turkish and Azerbaijani media outlets focused on Mr. Ignatius’s ethnicity. Azeri Press Agency (APA) ran a short story with the revealing headline, “Moderator of panel cutting Erdogan off is of Armenian origin.” In tortured English APA alleged that “Ignatius [was] supporting socalled Armenian genocide did not want his nationality was on the agenda. He bewares of opinions casting shadow upon his objectivity.” One of the leading Turkish newspapers, Hurriyet, suggested that Mr. Ignatius was in cahoots with the “Armenian lobby” and described him as “Jewish American journalist of Armenian descent.” The latter description is not surprising since, according to a recent opinion poll, a significant portion of Turks believe that Armenians are of Jewish faith, and Turkish nationalists tend to target both Jews and Armenians. (In reality, Mr. Ignatius is of Armenian descent and has written about it. His father Paul Ignatius, born Poghos Ignatosian to a family of immigrants from Kharpert, served as Secretary of the Navy in the late 1960s and was president of the Washington Post.) Misunderstood “friend of Israel” In aftermath of the incident both Turkish and Israeli officials were at pains to suggest that nothing extraordinary had happened. Israel’s ambassador to Turkey, Gabby Levy, was quoted on Turkish television as saying: “There can be a difference in opinion between close, friendly countries from time to time, and we, Turkey and Israel, especially have different views on Hamas and Iran.” Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League repeated the argument to the Jerusalem Post, saying cooperation would continue despite the “inappropriate harsh statement by the [Turkish] leadership.” He told the New York Times that the league had not changed its opposition to the Armenian Genocide bill in Congress. The Economist noted that “Israel has invariably chosen to turn a deaf ear to Turkey’s occasionally fierce rhetoric for the sake of that strategic liaison,” recalling that Mr. Erdogan called Israel a “terrorist state” back in 2004. Nevertheless, Turkey and Israel have continued to enjoy growing commercial ties, with more than half a million Israelis vacationing in Turkey last year. But this time around, a number of Western commentators argued the unprecedented level of mutual rancor undermined Turkey’s Continued on page 19 m Armenian Reporter (ISSN 0004-2358), an independent newspaper, is published weekly by Armenian Reporter llc. Gerard L. Cafesjian, President and ceo Publisher Sylva A. Boghossian Office manager Lisa Kopooshian Copyright © 2009 by Armenian Reporter llc. All Rights Reserved Periodicals postage paid at Paramus, N.J., and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to PO Box 129, Paramus, NJ 07652-0129. The views expressed, except in the editorial, are not necessarily those of the publishers. Editor Vincent Lima Western U.S. Bureau Chief and Arts & Culture editor Paul Chaderjian Eastern U.S. editor Lou Ann Matossian Washington editor Emil Sanamyan Associate editor Maria Titizian Assistant to the Editor Seda Stepanyan Copy editor Ishkhan Jinbashian Art director Grigor Hakobyan Layout assistant Nareh Balian The Armenian Reporter is your newspaper. We urge you to send us your news and your views. News. Please send your news to . Letters. Please send your letters to Letters should be no more than 250 words long and may be edited for clarity. Please include your mailing address and daytime telephone number. Commentary. Please send your essays to Essays and articles normally should be no longer than 900 words. Photos and artwork. We require high-resolution originals. All photos and artwork must include a credit to the photographer and a signed statement granting us permission to publish. Advertising and subscriptions. Please direct questions to or call us. 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The Armenian Reporter | February 7, 2009 19 Commentary Living in Armenia Taxi drivers – from the comical to the ridiculous by Maria Titizian As the taxi was hurtling along the winding lanes of the main highway leading into Yerevan, I could no longer control my rising anger. “Would you please slow down” I asked a little too loudly. The Michael Schumacher wannabe finally released his lead foot from the accelerator and we slowed to a much more normal speed. Two minutes later the driver turned to me and asked if I thought he had done something wrong. Had he committed a single traffic violation, he asked, while in the same breath informing me that he was a “first class” driver – a category harking back to the days of the Soviet Union, which for some illogical reason gets my back up. I was so angry at his erratic speeding, that even after several minutes of calm coasting I didn’t have the patience to answer his question. I did remind him that at the outset of our journey we had told him that we were in no rush and for him to drive within the speed limits. He ignored what I said and repeated his question once again. Had we not been in the middle of nowhere, I would have told him to stop the car so that I could get out. My girlfriend, who as it turned out, was much more level-headed than I was, attempted to explain to the now irate driver that it wasn’t his driving necessarily that was a concern, but that other drivers on the icy roads may not be as experienced as he, may cut in front of him, and due to the law of physics, that would increase our chances of being seriously hurt if he was driving too fast, and on and on. I stared at her rather incredulously wondering where she found the well of patience to deal with such behavior after living in Armenia for over a decade now. Instead of apologizing for speeding and making us, his paying passengers, nervous and uncomfortable, he was accusing us of being unreasonable. Taxi drivers in Armenia are a special breed. Their cars are a completely different matter. When we first moved to Armenia, every piece of junk with four wheels had been converted Erdogan’s verbal assault n Continued from page 18 image as a pro-Western country. Anonymous figures in the Israeli government and Jewish- American groups sought to remind Turkey of potential repercussions. List of possible punishments According to the Jerusalem Post, the Israeli Defense Ministry was considering imposing restrictions on types of weapons systems Israel sold to Turkey. “Just like we don’t sell advanced military platforms to Jordan and Egypt [Arab states that signed peace agreements with Israel], we may decide not to sell to Turkey,” the newspaper cited a senior defense official as saying. It also cited a senior diplomatic official as saying that Turkey “lost all credibility as an honest broker” in negotiations between Israel and Syria. And, furthermore, that “there won’t be any [Israeli] communication with Erdogan himself. He went too far, and we simply can’t trust him again.” And “an official with a leading American Jewish organization” warned that “next time” Jews and Israelis “might not come to Turkey’s aid or equivocate quite so much on the issue” of congressional resolutions on the Armenian Genocide. Similarly, the Economist predicted on January 29, “if anti-Israeli rhetoric in Turkey persists, the Israeli lobby in the United states could hit back by backing a congressional resolution to call the mass killings by Turks of some 1m Armenians ‘genocide’.” The British newspaper further revealed, “the Israelis persuaded the Turks to cancel a proposed essay and drawing contest for schoolchildren to air their feelings of hatred towards Israel [over the war in Gaza]. “Israeli officials were apparently poised to respond by proposing a programme in Israeli schools for discussing the genocide of Armenians by Turks in the first world war.” f into a taxi. The signs placed on top of their cars were usually imported from Turkey and read TAKSİ. All taxis back then had the mandatory wool carpets, usually cheap imitations of oriental rugs, covering the seats, purportedly to protect the upholstery; but in Yerevan’s sweltering summers, sitting on one of those carpets was like being burned at the stake. I remember one time climbing into the back seat of a taxi that had been parked on a street corner. As soon as I sat, the seat sank about half a foot. It’s a pretty safe bet to say that the coil springs were no longer operational. I tolerated sitting in the sagging back seat of a 1972 Russian-made Volga, with oriental carpets covering the upholstery – until about 50 flies appeared mysteriously and started buzzing around me. Thankfully, those days are for the most part over. The overriding majority of taxicabs today comply with most international standards, with a few exceptions. The cars and any of their mechanical deficiencies are bearable in the face of cynical, opinionated, and unreasonable drivers. It’s certainly not fair to lump all taxi drivers in one category; there are those who are familiar with the city and don’t get lost. There are those who don’t smoke when there are passengers in the car with children. There are those who don’t make very primitive traffic violations, who don’t speed, and who don’t start driving until all passengers are safely in the car and all doors are closed. The tendency with most cab drivers in Yerevan is to strike up a conversation with their passengers, especially if they’re repats, diaspora Armenians, or tourists. The locals have learned not to engage drivers because once they have your attention, they just don’t let up. We have a taxi company that we regularly use, and one of their drivers, Arsen, who is usually on the morning shift, picks me up from home and drives me to work. He just had his first child, a son they named Arman, who is now 7 weeks old. His wife, who is 35 and who was told by family, friends, and doctors alike that she would have a difficult delivery because of her very “advanced” age, delivered Reading Morgenthau by Kay Mouradian Prior to writing my novel, A Gift in the Sunlight: An Armenian Story, I spent several months researching the life of Henry Morgenthau, Sr., in an effort to learn more about the Armenian Genocide and the harrowing experiences of my family during the Catastrophe. As the American ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1916, Morgenthau championed the Armenian Cause, and I wanted to know more about him. What kind of man was he and how much of what he said about the events of 1915 could be trusted, considering there were those who had tried to question his motives After reading through ten microfilmed reels of Ambassador Morgenthau’s State Department papers in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress, I went to Hyde Park, New York, to spend a week researching Morgenthau’s personal papers, which had been donated to the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library. That particular adventure took my breath away because the documents had not yet been microfilmed. As a researcher delving into history, my very act of touching and feeling the texture of the paper on which those personal letters were written jolted me back into Morgenthau’s family – as if I had been there watching and observing. I quickly read the letter on top of the first stack of papers presented to me. It was a short note to her father from Helen, Morgenthau’s eldest daughter, who at the time was ten years old. The family was vacationing in the Pocono Mountains while Morgenthau continued working through the hot and humid summer in New York City. As I read the salutation, “To my sweet little Papa,” my eyes welled. I felt the deep love of a child for her father and a tear rolled down my cheek. Helen then complained that her mother said Arman in three hours flat and is doing fine. She’s staying with her mother for a couple of days, because it was her mom’s 60th birthday and she was feeling under the weather, so Arsen’s wife went to stay with her along with the little Arman. Arsen smokes Marlboros; can’t go for more then a few minutes without lighting one up; doesn’t intend on being a taxi driver for the rest of his life, because the hours are long and the pay is measly. He has had three tickets in the last month, because all the traffic police are “corrupt.” Why do I know this information Why I don’t initiate conversation with them. I just get in the car and tell them where to take me. But then they ask a question, and I hate being rude or uninterested, so I answer. Then they make a comment about a driver or a pedestrian, or a past presidential candidate, and then they have me in their hooks. And then I end up knowing everything about drivers like Arsen, his seven-week-old son, his 35-year-old wife who had him in three hours flat, and on and on. The most comical thing about Armenian taxi drivers in Yerevan is their cynicism. I have yet to come across a driver who is more or less content with his life. Nope. Nothing doing. It was better during the Soviet years, one older taxi driver was telling my son and me one day. Everybody lived like princes. We never had to worry about anything. What is this now We have to pay for electricity, water, gas! Who ever heard of such a thing We could go to the Black Sea for two weeks for 50 rubles. That was the life. I try not to get engaged, but how can I remain silent when someone says things like she was getting fat and wouldn’t let her eat in between meals. “She’s making me starve,” Helen wrote and underlined the word “starve.” She ended the letter with, “Your loving daughter, Helen.” The next letter that graced my hands was from Morgenthau to his wife. He advised her not to mention Helen’s weight gain but instead to encourage the youngster to play tennis and ride horses, and then the weight would take care of itself. That pragmatic advice told me much about him. In fact, the more I read as the days progressed, the more I realized Morgenthau had an acute ability to see the long view and that astuteness guided the choices he made throughout his life. He became a diplomat extraordinaire and a noble humanitarian, and his power resonated from steadfastness in truth. As I scoured those reels of microfilm from the Library of Congress, I read and reread Morgenthau’s succinct explanation of the Armenian Question in reel 22. Here he discussed the Armenian religion and churches as well as the numerous Armenian massacres. In relating the acts of oppression, he categorized them as political, economic, social, and religious, and depicted the methods used by the Ottoman Turks to exterminate the Armenian population. “The Turks want Turkey for the Turks alone,” he stated. “Therefore by all imaginable means they have tried to exterminate the Armenians. A misconceived, narrow, nationalism – combined with a fanaticism of the blindest and darkest kind – has been one of the chief causes of these unprecedented persecutions.” There have been those who have suggested that one of the reasons for the Genocide was the fact that the Armenians’ outstanding cultural and commercial achievements and, ultimately, great affluence created resentment among the Turkish masses. I never felt that reasoning constituted the relentless depth of threat felt by those Turks in power who that Don’t you think that’s the reason that the Soviet Union collapsed, I ask. Bah! he says and in the same breath continues, You know, Levon wasn’t as bad as they are telling you he was. I don’t know what the anti- Soviet activist Levon Ter-Petrossian had to do with living better in the Soviet years, but I guess he felt he had to show his support for the former president of Armenia. Today everything is miserable, he goes on. I tell him to tone it down, that my impressionable son is in the car and it’s not good that they poison the new generation’s mind. Unyielding, he turns to my son and says, “My son, this country is going to hell!” On top of the cynicism and discontent, is their severely opinionated position on everything. One cabbie bragged to me that he has driven a representative of practically every nationality on earth. Turning to face me while driving, he said that in his opinion Americans were the most sloppy race. How is it that you came to that conclusion, I asked him. “Ha!” he says. “They put their feet up on the seat. I tell them, ‘What about my next customer You dirty my seat and then the next customer will dirty his or her clothes,’” he tells me like he has just discovered the secret to enriching uranium. “Ha!” I say. “You complain about people putting their feet on your car seat but by the same token, you wouldn’t think twice about throwing your empty cigarette box or an empty Coke bottle out the window, no” But what does that have to do with their feet on my seat, he asks emphatically. I say, never mind. You’re right. Just take me to work, please. f feared losing Armenia just as they had lost the Balkans in 1912. But Morgenthau suggests that the progress of the Armenians in Asia Minor did play a role and cites the example of the Province of Sivas, where the Armenian population was not as large as in some other vilayets. He writes: “Of the 153 factories in the vilayet of Sivas, 130 belonged to Armenians, 20 to Turks. “The number of workmen amounted to 17,000, of these 14,000 were Armenians. “Of 316 merchants, 268 were Armenians, 36 Turks, and 12 Greeks. “Of 37 bankers, 32 were Armenians and five Turks. As the Turks could not overtake the Armenians, the government would periodically organize massacres and hamper them all the time in order to check their progress.” Morgenthau also mentions differences in education. Just before the deportations, there were “785 Armenian schools in Turkey, with an attendance of 82,000 students, while there are only 150 Turkish schools, with an attendance of 17,000. “The Kurds do not have a single school. “This ignorance of the Turks, coupled with religious prejudices, has been another cause of disagreement between the Turks and the Armenians, and has rendered the masses of the Turks a ready tool of persecution in the hands of wicked leaders.” In 1878–79, Sultan Abdulhamit II had been forced to cede two-fifths of Ottoman territory. Between 1908 and 1913, under the Young Turks, another 425,000 square miles, or over one-third of the remaining empire, was lost. Resolved not to give up more land after the Ottomans were defeated in the Balkan War, Interior Minister Talaat Pasha told Morgenthau, “We will not lose Armenia.” Today what used to be Western Armenia is part of Turkey. f connect: aGiftInTheSunlight.com
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