Los Angeles Times
April 24, 2009 Friday
Home Edition
CALIFORNIA;
Music joins the protest over genocide;
Among today’s events drawing attention to Armenia’s past is a
concert. Organizers hope it will spread the word to young people.
by Teresa Watanabe
The feelings flow out of his heart, through his fingers and onto the
strings of his guitar.
Sometimes, said Armenian American songwriter Shant Bismejian, he feels
anger over Turkish denial of the genocide of his people in the early
20th century. Sometimes he feels sadness over stories of children
forced to witness the massacre of their parents. And sometimes he
feels joy that the Armenian people survived the atrocities and rebuilt
a nation.
Bismejian, 22, expects all of those emotions to flow tonight as he and
his band, Visa, perform a concert to memorialize the Armenian
genocide, one of several commemorative events planned in the Los
Angeles area.
The concert, called Silence the Lies, Rock the Truth, scheduled for 8
p.m. at the Troubadour in West Hollywood, will also feature other
Armenian American musicians and poets in what activists say reflects a
growing youth movement to raise awareness about the genocide.
The Armenian genocide of 1915 to 1918 claimed the lives of about 1.2
million Armenians under the Ottoman Empire, which became the modern
republic of Turkey. The Turkish government disputes that a genocide
took place.
This year’s memorials are punctuated with the drama of whether
President Obama will make good on his campaign pledge to recognize the
genocide in his expected statement today.
Armenian Americans overwhelmingly backed Obama for president, in part
because of his outspoken and unequivocal recognition of the genocide,
said Andrew Kzirian, a band member and executive director of the
Armenian National Committee’s Western region office in Glendale.
The Armenian community plans political protests at the Turkish
Consulate on Wilshire Boulevard and a laying of wreaths at a genocide
memorial monument in Montebello. Band members say they hope
particularly to raise awareness among young people through music.
The band plans to play as its opening number "Adana," an Armenian folk
song that laments the suffering during the genocide, band members say.
"There’s nothing wrong with speeches, but music is the easiest way to
connect to people because everyone can relate to music," said Alex
Khatcherian, a 22-year-old UC Santa Barbara student and bass player.
The band, which plays a mix of world music featuring hints of rock,
Mideastern rhythms and traditional Armenian instruments, such as the
flute-like duduk, has attracted fans beyond the Armenian community.
Setareh Mortazavi, a 21-year-old UCLA senior of Persian heritage, said
she was captivated by the band’s music the first time she heard it a
year ago. That prompted her to attend Visa’s genocide memorial concert
last year and do her own historical research on the massacres. She
then join a protest against the refusal to recognize the genocide.
"Usually political speeches seem a bit boring," Mortazavi said. "The
entertainment aspect is more effective to get non-Armenians interested
in the issue."
Arek Santikian of the Armenian Youth Federation’s Western regional
office in Glendale said bands such as Visa and System of a Down, which
also addressed the Armenian genocide and other human rights issues
before breaking up two years ago, reflected growing youth activism in
raising awareness. The federation’s members have grown from 350 to 500
in the last decade and have staged several events, including a
215-mile march from Fresno to Sacramento in 2005, a five-day Fast for
Remembrance in 2007 and an 11-mile bike ride from Encino scheduled
this Saturday.
Part of the enhanced activism, Kzirian said, was prompted by
then-President Bush’s opposition to genocide recognition legislation
in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2007. The community expects
Obama to behave differently and will be furious if he does not,
Kzirian said.
But Hakan Tekin, Turkey’s consul general in Los Angeles, urged
Armenian Americans to focus instead on progress in Turkish-Armenian
relations, illustrated by an agreement this week on a framework to
normalize relations.
"We hope especially that the Armenian community in California supports
these talks rather than get involved in activities that instigate hate
and poison the minds of young Armenians with what we see as distorted
history," Tekin said.
Visa was started in 2000 by K’noup Tomopoulos, a native of Greece. He
moved to Los Angeles in 2002 and eventually hooked up with his current
band of nine members, five of whom are ethnic Armenians. Tomopoulos
said Greece’s history with the Ottoman Empire, which ruled his native
land for four centuries, has helped him connect with Armenian pain.
"Getting out the message about the manslaughter that took place in
1915, which is so important to Armenians, is also important to me," he
said.
Bismejian said his family history inspires his music. His grandfather
and great-grandmother were sent by the Turks on a death march to the
Der Zor desert, where mass killings took place, he said, but they
escaped and moved to Syria. The emotions triggered by those stories
influence nearly all of the songs he writes.
But there are also songs of joy. He calls one of them "Look at Us Now"
because every time he plays it he thinks:
"After everything that happened, we’re still here and look how strong
we are," he said.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress