HARUT SASSOUNIAN: TRUE TO THE PAST
Patt Morrison

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Ap ril 23, 2010 | 5:07 p.m.

The Armenian American is a high-profile figure on the genocide.

Today isn’t so much a red-letter day on the Armenian calendar as a
black-letter one: the commemoration of the Armenian genocide in Turkey.

The Armenian American names Saroyan and Deukmejian, California writer
and governor, respectively, might ring a bell. Here’s one that sounds a
klaxon: Harut Sassounian, one of the most visible Armenian Americans in
a dozen time zones. As president of a major charity, he has delivered
above half a billion dollars in medical supplies, computers and
vital equipment to Armenia. As publisher and columnist of the weekly
California Courier, he presses for full, official acknowledgement of
the 1915 massacre as genocide, a knifepoint balancing act for the U.S.,
which counts Turkey as a major strategic ally.

He comes, he says, from a family of warriors – including his
grandmother, garlanded with a bandolier of bullets in a 1920s
photograph made in Syria, where he was born. His weapons are words and
paper; speaking for and to a sometimes fractious Armenian community,
he quotes an old line: "Bring two Armenians together, and they will
form three political parties."

April 24, 95 years ago, was the beginning of the genocide. What
happened?

Every important Armenian leader in Istanbul – writers, poets,
intellectuals, scholars, you name it – [the Turks] arrested them and
killed them. The Turks were thinking, "Once we kill off the leaders,
the rest are sheep without the shepherd."

The California Courier has been around since 1958 – and when you
arrived in 1983, you changed it.

The paper was started in Fresno by two gentlemen; one was an Armenian
by the name of George Mason. There were a handful of Armenian-language
papers at the time but not a single newspaper in English. It caught
like wildfire. It was a social newspaper; it wasn’t political at all.

So it went for 25 years. Then Mason hired me.

The first week, I wrote that the Turkish ambassador [to the United
States] should be expelled as persona non grata for the Armenian
genocide. Mason got tons of complaints – who is this radical terrorist
you hired? The column created such a reaction – initially a negative
reaction. They asked Mason to fire me immediately.

Why?

[Readers] were used to babies being born, vacations….. Many were
cultural Armenians, not political Armenians. Their Armenianism was
lifestyle Armenianism.

What’s wrong with that?

Nothing, but Armenians are also a nation [with] a long history and
culture, and genocide was committed against them. The newcomers,
it matters to them. They want to right the wrong; they feel strongly
about this injustice. If somebody wants to leave their history behind,
that’s their choice. But if somebody wants to struggle to regain what
we lost in the old country, he also has that right. You can protest,
you can petition your congressman, the president.

There’s a current news story about a bone marrow drive for a little
girl in Glendale who’s a quarter Armenian. The search focuses on
Armenians because they have a distinctive genetic makeup, being less
likely to marry outside their ethnic group. Why is that?

If you know what Armenians have been through, then you start
appreciating why. Armenians are an ancient people with an ancient
civilization. At one point basically every Armenian lost just about
everything – their grandparents, their language and culture. I cannot
go back and fight the genocide – I cannot bring back those people. I
cannot declare war against Turkey. So the only thing I can do is
to hang on to whatever little is left of the culture, as my way of
getting back at those who tried to wipe it out.

Armenians abroad dreamed of a free Armenia – and it happened after
the collapse of the Soviet Union.

We thought we wouldn’t see it in our lifetime. But all of a sudden
we woke up and behold, there’s a free Armenia. So part of our dream
is realized, but that’s not the full dream. The land west of current
Armenia, where Mt. Ararat [stands, along with] thousands of churches
and monuments, that’s where the real Armenian homeland is. Now we have
10% of what was Armenia historically. We’re looking forward to 90%.

There’s a very powerful Armenian brain trust here and around the
world. Would it help the Republic of Armenia for those people to
go back?

Some Armenians have gone back. But there are very practical
considerations. The country is so destitute, there basically are no
jobs. So unless you’re financially independent, you’re going to be
a burden. It takes a very hardened person to really go there and live.

Secondly, people have their lives, their families here. It really is
a hardship to pull up your roots.

Even if all Armenians want to move there, that’s not necessarily a
good thing. [The diaspora has] turned the tragedy of the genocide
inadvertently into a blessing because when the homeland needs
something, Armenians have contacts in terms of trade, import-export,
neighbors and colleagues. If it wasn’t for the Armenian Americans
lobbying Congress, Congress would be allocating much less aid to
Armenia. It would be worse off.

Armenia and Turkey are doing unprecedented work to normalize
relations. Why would Armenians abroad take a harder line toward Turkey
than the Armenian government does?

Running a country is different than being an individual in the
diaspora. If I were the president of Armenia, I would be making
decisions based on certain constraints that I don’t have sitting in
Glendale right now. As an individual I can take a very hard line.

In some instances, Armenia’s leadership would like to take a position
on something but they know it would have negative repercussions if they
became a little more demanding. The diaspora is much freer to make such
demands, so we make those demands. Sometimes, us taking a hard line
is very helpful to Armenia, because they look much more accommodating.

You once told The Times’ editorial board you wouldn’t talk to Turkish
officials, but you would talk to Turks.

What I said was, I do not speak with Turkish officials who deny the
genocide. There’s no point in arguing with them. They’re going to
deny it, no matter what I say. But regular Turks – I talk to them,
we communicate. Someone in Turkey now who’s 30, 40, even 70, 80 years
old, they have not committed any crime. I have no hatred or animosity
against the Turkish population at large. These people have not done
anything against me or my people. The Turks who did the crime are
dead. What is really sad and unhelpful is today’s Turkish leaders
denying such an event took place, sort of linking themselves to the
earlier crime by covering it up.

[Recently] on Turkish CNN, four prominent scholars [said they were]
for the recognition of the Armenian genocide. One line was just a
killer line: "In Turkey, we have Armenians desperately trying to prove
to the world that they were killed, and Kurds desperately trying to
prove that they’re alive, that they exist."

What are the misconceptions about Armenians here?

[That] they’re clannish and don’t integrate into the larger society.

In Glendale there’s always a dispute which goes like this: Why do you
have to speak Armenian to each other? This is America – speak English.

You hang around each other; it’s like a little Armenian clique.

By all means we should be fluent in English, we should participate
in the Lions Club, we should go to football games and partake in
everything American. But if somebody chooses to speak only Armenian,
go to an Armenian grocery store and go to Armenian barber, that’s
his business; no one should force him. If [anyone] doesn’t want to
speak English, and he has a life he can live just knowing Spanish or
Armenian or Hebrew, that’s his business.

There are a lot of Armenians who are integrated into society – many
of them change their names; you can’t even go by the "ian" at the end.

Gov. George Deukmejian didn’t change his name to "George Duke."

The governor is a very unusual person. Not only is he fully integrated
into American society and mainstream politics, but he kept his long
Armenian name. A lot of people advised him [not to].

What is Armenian Americans’ sense of President Obama now?

It’s a very sad situation. We passionately supported his candidacy
because he’s not the typical politician – he comes from a minority
background, he knows what it is to be suffering, so we identified with
him right away. When he was a senator, he spoke fervently in defense
of the Armenian cause, in defense of recognition of genocide. He even
gave a speech when he was a candidate [and] said: "America deserves
a president who will tell the truth about the Armenian genocide. I
intend to be that president." So we all believed in him. And the minute
he becomes president, he does not say genocide, he finds a euphemism
the way Bush and Condoleezza Rice did. He even went so far as to use
an Armenian word to describe [it], which was really ridiculous. He’s
done everything that he said he would not do.

patt.morrison@latimes.com

This interview is edited and excerpted from a longer taped transcript.

An archive of Morrison’s interviews is online at latimes.com/pattasks.