RECKLESS JOURNALISM
By Armen K. Hovannisian

PR-Inside.com (Pressemitteilung)
ss-journalism-r461191.htm
Feb 28 2008
Austria

In his editorial of February 21, 2008, Appo Jabarian of USA Armenian
Life Magazine criticized Raffi Hovannisian, Armenia’s first Foreign
Minister and current member of the National Assembly (Parliament).

Jabarian also considered it both ethical and professional to ridicule
Raffi’s father Richard, son Garin, and the ‘Hovannisian household.’
We know that Jabarian strongly inferred that Hrant Dink was an agent
of the Turkish government. But what charge does he bring against
Hovannisian?

Jabarian is not quite bold enough to utter the words himself. So he
quotes. He quotes Hayots Ashkharh, the Armenian tabloid assigned to
conduct the government’s official propaganda.

He quotes an unidentified, but immediately identifiable, ‘Armenian
activist.’ He quotes one Ashot Grigoryan from Slovakia.

They claim, in one way or another, that Raffi Hovannisian has committed
‘treason!’ That, supposedly, was Hrant Dink’s crime, too.

The crime here?

In an August 2007 letter to Turkey’s president Abdullah Gul,
Hovannisian’s use of the term ‘Great Armenian Dispossession’
instead of the term ‘Armenian Genocide’ is condemned as ‘highly
insulting.’ Jabarian views Great Armenian Dispossession as
‘more acceptable to the Turks.’ In other words, Hovannisian was
‘pandering’ to the ‘enemy.’ Here is Hovannisian’s ‘pandering’: In an
article published in European print media on the occasion of the 90th
anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, Hovannisian wrote: ‘The Armenian
Genocide and its final act turned ninety last week-The lessons,
risks, and dangers flowing from the Genocide and its contemporary
continuation are all the more poignant because the Armenian case
was not only the physical murder of most individuals making up the
nation, but also the violent interruption and forcible expropriation
of its millennial homeland and way of life-Can the heirs to Turkish
perpetration translate self-interest into seeking atonement, and can
the descendants of the great Armenian dispossession agree to move
on? Will we, or our children, ever see the light, let alone reflect
back from the heights, of the post-Genocide world?’ Hovannisian used
that same phrase-the Great Armenian Dispossession-in his writings in
the Wall Street Journal: ‘The Young Turk leaders of the Ottoman Empire,
for example, were responsible for the great Armenian dispossession
of 1915, which included all the components of the crime of genocide,
the destruction of the historic Armenian homelands, and the murderous
finality for millions of human lives.’ There’s more. In The Middle
East Times and in United Press International in 2006, Hovannisian
wrote: ‘The catastrophic dispossession of the Armenian homeland by
the rulers of the Ottoman Empire; the subsequent Bolshevik-Turkish
pact partitioning Armenia and effectively ten dering Karabagh,
Nakhichevan and other integral parts of the Armenian patrimony to
Soviet Azerbaijan-‘ Do these sound like treason?

The Young Turks did not merely claim the lives of several million
people. Though its consequences continue, the massive killing of
Armenians is finished. But it was not only the wholesale massacre
of a people. The usurpation of the homeland was no less egregious
and persists to this very day, making modern Turkey complicit in the
crimes of the Young Turks.

Jabarian relieves himself of some high and mighty rhetoric, accusing
Hovannisian of ‘ruining the work we have done for years and decades.’
We?

There may be occasional interest in Jabarian’s opinions, despite his
complicity in the silencing of Hovannisian’s own activities. Surely,
if Jabarian was so eager to ‘expose’ Hovannisian’s letter to Gul,
which has been publicly available and accessible since it was written
six months ago, he would have also come across other newsworthy
events and reports, including ‘Armenian Cultural Resolutions in the
Council of Europe’ and ‘Raffi Hovannisian at the Council of Europe.’
On January 25, 2008, in Strasbourg, Hovannisian authored and introduced
a motion, cosponsored by 25 members of the Parliamentary Assembly of
the Council of Europe. The motion begins with the following words:
‘The genocide of the Armenian people-resulted not only in the death
and dispossession of more than two million human beings but also in
the decimation of the Armenian patrimony, its ways of life, and its
foundational contributions to western culture and world civilization.’
(assembly.coe.int/Main.asp?link=/Do cuments/WorkingDocs/Doc08/EDOC ..)
This, not in a letter to Gul, but on the highest international
platform-on his own initiative, suppressed by the Armenian
government-controlled media, including the Hayots Ashkharh of which
Jabarian seems to be so fond.Ignored, too, by Jabarian’s own newspaper.

There is much work ‘we’ have done. Some of us advocate for
the recognition of history in the most influential chambers of
international politics.

Others seem to bask in yellow journalism and personalized campaigns
of character assassination.

Raffi Hovannisian didn’t leave the United States for Armenia because
Armenia had a better political system. He moved to the homeland to
participate in transforming the system-from what it is not to what
it should be. The greatest contribution an Armenian can make to his
homeland is to love it while acknowledging its flaws and helping to
change it for the better.

In spite of the fear and envy of some in official circles in Armenia
and the scorn of the likes of Mr. Appo Jabarian, Raffi Hovannisian will
be back in Strasbourg next month to keep pushing for the recognition
and reversal of the Great Armenian Dispossession.