"LEBANON IS THE TRUNK OF THE DIASPORA TREE" & "TURKEY HAS DUG ITS OWN DITCH" Says Alecco Bezikian Of The Armenian National Committee Of Europe

Aztag–lebanon
10/05/2008

The interview was conducted by George Krikorian and translated by
Dikranouhi Kusbegian

"Aztag" readers were informed that Alecco Bezikian of the Armenian
National Committee of Europe paid a short visit to Lebanon on the
occasion of the premiere of the movie "The Lark Farm".

So, we had an interview with the representative of the Armenian
community of Italy. Our talk was a good opportunity for our guest to
remember his early days in Lebanon, where his national and ideological
basis was formed, as well as to shed a light on the efforts made for
the recognition of the Armenian Genocide in Europe and Italy and the
linking Turkey’s European Union accession to certain preconditions.

Here is the complete transcript of our interview.

Aztag – Let’s start with the motivation of your visit to Lebanon.

Alecco Bezikian – Upon the request of the Armenian National Committee
of Lebanon, I came to Lebanon to attend the premiere of Taviani
brothers’ "The Lark Farm", during which I was given an opportunity to
share my thoughts. This visit was a great joy for me; it was also a
little emotional for me, because I was born and raised and educated
in this country moreover, my intellectual, ideological, literal and
career background is here. I later moved to Italy, where I started to
get involved in the community activities and serve in it. Therefore
my true investment has been in the Italian Armenian community.

Aztag- Did you as the Armenian National Committee of Europe notice
that "The Lark Farm" turned out to be an effective propaganda tool
for our cause. I mean the movie is really good, however, did the
European public opinion react to it? Did they get it?

Alecco Bezikian – The Italians showed a great appreciation both in
Italy and in France. When the movie showed in Germany, movie critics,
who where evaluating, made some minor remarks. But the reason for that
was the fact that we and the Taviani brothers hadn’t been campaigning
for the movie, therefore, the ground wasn’t prepared for it. On
the other hand we indirectly achieved good results, without putting
special effort into it, when a few thousand Turks protested against
the movie. The media covered it and the movie was freely advertised;
they spoke about it a lot during their riot! Indeed that was a wide
propaganda for us since all the Europeans who didn’t know about the
Armenian Genocide got informed and they went to see the movie. But
let me say that Antonia Arslan’s book is well known in all of Europe,
and the movie helped confirm Armenian history and the reality of the
Genocide to the European and specially the Italian mind. The same
thing happened in France. Now we are trying to show the movie in other
countries as well, and that’s why we wanted to contact the Tavianis
and Grazia Volpi., the producer of the movie. We want to see without
an Armenian involvement what impact would the movie have on societies.

We welcome the initiative taken by the Armenian National Committee of
Lebanon for promoting the movie in Lebanon, and of course the impact
of the movie will go beyond Lebanon as the Italians and the foreign
guests will report about the movie and the local media coverage of it.

To tell you the truth, the Armenian National Committee of Europe
hasn’t yet organized an event for the promotion of the movie and it
has neither made up its mind to support the movie and promote it
in different countries since it has already been shown in so many
of them and has made a great impact on a large audience. People are
interested in this movie because there’s an educational aspect to it;
so many people had no idea about the Genocide or the scale of it and
the inhuman acts committed by Turkey.

For that reason when I was given a stand to share my thoughts on the
premiere of the movie, I didn’t talk about the movie but I talked
about accession of Turkey into the European Union and its Armenian
Genocide denial policies. On my meeting with Oli Rhen, the European
Union Expansion Commissioner, I explained about the fact that the
European countries already have so many problems among each other
so, what would happen if a country of seventy million people, with a
totally different culture and a very small link to Europe is made a
part of it. Months ago this man used to insist on Turkey’s accession
to the European Union but now as a result of the efforts of other
ministers and personnel he has changed his stance.

Officials have started to be afraid and cautious about accepting Turkey
into the Union considering the implications of such an action. I
made a similar point to the Ministry of Economy saying that they
themselves make remarks to countries like Germany, France and Italy
when they don’t show a fair balance sheet. I pointed out that how
can the European Union accept a country that has a population of over
seventy million and sixty million of whom live on two hundred dollars
or less? In that case the other member states will have to take care
of them. They already have Romania and Bulgaria, who are new members
and who have internal debts. Europe can no longer reach out to help
all these countries. It has already started to change its position
and is acting more strictly with all the countries so that it can
exert more pressure on other countries. It is still unclear how will
that work out.

On the other end of the horn there’s yet another matter which seems
very simple to public opinion, at least in Europe. We all know too
well that European countries, more accurately the Political Committee
of Europe, is under a great deal of pressure from the United States
in regards to Turkey.

Given the fact that in the past Turkey bordered the Soviet Union
and has been a NATO member, the United States wants to keep it
alive, specially that it has a large population and a great military
power. Nevertheless, the Europeans see this military might as a threat,
because in their culture the European countries are anti-military
and they lean on dialogue. Therefore, it’s better for the Turkish
military to become more assertive. For that reason during our last
protest in Brussels in February 2007 I assured the protester that
they don’t need to be worried since Turkey has dug its own ditch and
it cannot become a part of Europe. However we must pursue our demand
for the recognition of the Armenian Genocide, because if Turkey
wants to become a civilized country and act according to European
standards, it can no longer deny the Armenian Genocide. In its
present situation it is not among the advanced countries of the world
regardless of what they are saying. Nothing is accomplished by words;
everything must be manifested in actions on the ground. Therefore,
in Turkey’s case it’s very difficult for that to be understood
and accepted positively by the European public opinion which is
already against Turkey; it’s the governments that are with Turkey
and that’s due to political pressure. If we do a statistics in around
twenty-five European countries it will clearly turn out that all of
them are against Turkey’s accession and they are horrified about that
membership. It’s the same thing with the economy. Today there are so
many industries in Turkey that produce goods that are quarter of the
prices in Europe. That in itself is a threat as it may cause European
businesses to close down which in its turn will cause the working
class to deteriorate. The Workers’ Unions won’t accept this; to have
thousands of workers unemployed is unacceptable, and all this for a
country to become a member? The membership of a few small countries
does not cause a big disturbance, since they are insignificant;
however, in case of Turkey, we’re talking about seventy million
population. According to studies we did with the German Democrats,
by 2015 the population of Turkey will reach ninety million. It’s true
that what I’m going to say now isn’t a written law in the European
Constitution but there’s a tradition that the country with the largest
population has the right for veto. Imagine Turkey someday having the
power of veto over the other European countries.

In that case the image of Europe will be very bad.

Aztag – But years ago as a precondition, and a primary one, for the
membership of Turkey in the European Union the European Parliament
demanded the recognition of the Armenian Genocide. Was that a way to
show that Turkey was an advanced and reformed country? In the last few
years we see that the European Parliament isn’t putting the same kind
of emphasis on that precondition, and on the contrary, it has taken
a few steps backwards. Do you think that impression of ours is true?

Alecco Bezikian – That impression of yours is very true for two
reasons; one of them is the pressure from the United States with the
intention of marginalizing the Armenian issue and the second reason is
the self-centeredness of the Jews. The Jews don’t want to see another
genocide besides the Holocaust mentioned in the 20th century. Obviously
they rejected the Genocide twice in the Kneset. If you look close
enough you’ll see that the pieces of the puzzle are automatically
coming together and the picture is getting clearer. The United States
don’t want Turkey to face any problems. Third , the United States
want the European countries to stay in turbulence so that they won’t
emerge as an international power. If they increase the number of the
European Union countries to twenty seven or twenty eight it’s because
they want the bloc to be weakened; the larger its number gets, the more
dispersed its abilities and strengths will be. The United States are
trying to do that right now. We can go even farther and say that the
increase of the value of euro has the same motive behind it. There’s
an effort to take the Europeans to a place where they can produce
nothing so that the United States can lay their hands on everything.

Aztag- And in all this turbulance is the Armenian Genocide one of
the cards to be played?

Alecco Bezikian – The Armenian Genocide is the smallest card in the
hands of the Europeans and the Americans, and that card is being used
in not so obvious ways. However in my dealings with the European
Parliament officials, sometimes I notice that they want to promote
the Genocide issue simply to delay Turkey’s European Union membership
a little more.

Aztag- At this stage what are the previsions of the Armenian National
Committee of Europe concerning the coming April 24? Also, what vision
do you have for the next stage?

Alecco Bezikian – As for April 24, small events are being organized
in European countries; we usually wait for the round numbered years,
for example, the ninety fifth anniversary, to organize a pan-European
big event.

We start preparations a while before. Of course it would be much more
effective if we could have them in the parliaments. If we succeed
in that we would be giving the greatest honor to our martyrs
and the biggest and toughest blow to Turkey and its denialist
supporters. However, we must act cautiously on that. In 2009 the
European Parliament will hold its elections.

We must wait and see if our friends will win in those elections
and we will be able to accomplish that cooperatively. Therefore, we
must first work in small groups in each country and try to win the
support of the people through deputies who are close to us. For this
reason I have always expressed my conviction that April 24 should not
be introduced by Armenians to Armenians but we must penetrate into
foreign societies and work with them for bringing our candidates into
power. Nevertheless no one is exempt from pressure, but our friends are
trying to escape them. It is for this reason that the Armenians must
learn to be integrated in their environment and to respect the laws
of the countries their living in so that we can win the foreigners
and take our messages through them to wherever we want.

Aztag – Any conclusive words for the Lebanese Armenians?

Alecco Bezikian – There’s one major thing I would recommend the
Lebanese Armenian community and it’s this: let us cherish this
country and show the children of the other communities (religions)
how a motherland must be loved. You don’t love your country by just
holding up its flag.

We must act very carefully in Lebanon because it’s the trunk of
our Diaspora tree. All our activists abroad have their roots in
Lebanon or Syria. Those who come from other places don’t take part
in national activities or services. It’s from here that our future
manpower will arise, therefore, we must serve this country well to
be able to benefit from it as much as possible. The financial incomes
and contributions coming from this community must be directed to the
internal institutions, foundations, various structures and families of
this community. Today we must realize that Armenia is an established
state, it has many of its citizens working abroad having left their
families back in Armenia; therefore, a considerable amount of money
is being sent to the homeland. The same thing used to happen in
Lebanon and still is today; so many Lebanese go to work in the Gulf
countries leaving their families behind, and then they send money to
their families.

It’s very important for the Lebanese Armenian community to manage
its finances well so that this community, too, will have its worthy
standing and share. There are Armenians who have helped foreigners
so that those foreigners in their turn would give a hand to the
Armenians. In life everything is mutual or reciprocal, there’s giving
and taking; highways have two directions, going and coming, everything
is the same; you need both palms to clap. The Armenian people must
learn the best ways to contribute to their nation. The Lebanese
Armenian community must stand behind its structures and churches,
not forgetting that the yeast of the Diaspora bread is Lebanon.