TWO ARMENIAN DOCUMENTARIES TO AIR ON PBS
14:44, 15 Apr 2015
Siranush Ghazanchyan
Two Armenian documentaries, by the same filmmaker, will be shown
back-to-back on a Los Angeles PBS station. Such will be the case,
on KLCS-TV, on Sunday, April 19 at 5 PM and on Tuesday, April 21 at
8 PM, according to armenianlife.com.
Emmy award-winning journalist Peter Musurlian will debut, on
non-Armenian television, “Historic Armenia” and “The 100-Year-Old
Survivor.” The documentaries will be seen by about 40,000 people,
at least a third of whom, will not be Armenian.
The documentary highlights families that came to the San Joaquin
Valley after the 1915 Genocide. Those immigrants became involved in
the Valley’s agriculture, education, arts and culture, politics and
government and business communities.
Those interviewed for the film include the family of basketball
coach Jerry Tarkanian, television journalist Stefani Booroojian,
retired California Supreme Court Justice Marvin Baxter, Fresno County
Supervisor Debbie Poochigian and Honorary Counsel of the Republic of
Armenia Berj Apkarian.
Special guests will be in the KVPT studios during the broadcast to
talk more about their experiences.
Peter Musurlain (PM) discussesed hope for the future and why the world
should never turn a blind eye to injustice in a Q&A with Dan Lothian
(DL) of Heart Beings.
DL: How significant was the Pope’s declaration calling the slaughter
of Armenians “the first genocide of the 20th century?”
PM: This Armenian Genocide, of 1915 to 1923, is unique in that it is
unresolved, with more than 1.5 million innocent people killed and
500,000 others fleeing for their lives, ending up in places like
France, England, Australia, the Middle East, and North and South
America. As a cardinal, the Pope was a beloved friend of the Armenian
community of Argentina. Some 20 countries and 43 of our 50 state
legislatures have recognized as “genocide” what Turkey has never
acknowledged. So, there have been no apologies, no reparations, no
restitution. Having someone as significant as Pope Francis effortlessly
pay tribute to the victims of “the first genocide of the 20th century,”
left Armenians around the world tearful and grateful.
Email and social media instantly sent reaction to the Pope’s comments
to hundreds of thousands of Armenians who are the children and
grandchildren of genocide survivors.
DL: The Pope used the analogy of “a wound bleeding without a bandage”
when he spoke about evil being concealed or denied. Is that the
reality of this event for Armenians?
PM: Armenians, even 100 years later, might be better off not thinking
about these things. But how do you ignore the fact that you are here
today, because someone in your immediate family survived an effort to
wipe out two-thirds of the Christian Armenians living in the Ottoman
Empire? How do you forgive, forget, and move on when the Turkish
government has spent a hundred years cleansing their history books
of the crime and even putting people in jail for suggesting that
it was a genocide? The wound is two to three generations removed,
but it is still as fresh as it was in 1915.
DL: What is your message to political leaders and others who have
been afraid to speak boldly on this issue because of diplomatic risks?
PM: Overwhelmingly, politicians and historians have nothing to argue
about. The denial of the events, as most know them to be, would be
almost laughable in any other context. But Turkey is a NATO ally.
Turkey has an air force base in an unstable part of the world. There
are members of congress who aggressively deny the Armenian Genocide
to curry favor with the well-financed Turkish lobby. The example
of an unrepentant and unpunished Turkey no doubt has emboldened
lawless governments to do what we have seen in Cambodia, Bosnia,
and far-too-many regions in Africa. We know Hitler said, “Who today
speaks of the annihilation of the Armenians?” as he prepared his
Final Solution.
DL: What can we all learn from this?
PM: We all see, in our everyday lives, the good in people, and that
gives us a sense of hope for the future. But we can also see how bad
people can succeed at executing the most vile crime on Earth and then
see good people rationalize a tempered reaction. It is disheartening
to see it, but it is a reality.
DL: Why is acknowledging one word, “genocide,” so important?
PM: “Genocide” means it was an organized, systematic government plan
to cleanse the crumbling Ottoman Empire of its Christian Armenian
subjects. Armenians had lived on that land for thousands of years. It
took less than a decade to eliminate them. The Turks want you to
believe there were atrocities on both sides and that the deaths were
due to civil war during the confusion of WWI. No one believes that,
but that is their story, and they’re sticking to it. To call it
anything short of what it was would be a lie.
DL: Why should people around the world who are dealing with their
own battles for truth and justice care about this?
PM: No doubt, history repeats itself, and it has. It also makes us
less human to turn a blind eye to such injustice. That noted, it
is difficult for people, in their everyday lives, to keep track of
everything that is happening in the world, let alone what happened 100
years ago. But our leaders should not be distracted or disinterested.
When that happens, you have military leaders in Bosnia, in the
1990s, in Europe of all places, think they can get away with ethnic
cleansing. Bill Clinton was proud of stopping the atrocities in Bosnia,
but he believes he could have saved 300,000 lives in Rwanda if his
administration had acted sooner.
DL: You have two new documentaries on Armenia. Why did you do these
projects?
PM: I have been shooting, writing, and editing short- and long-form
news stories for 30 years. It is what I do. I have come to a point in
my life where I have the time, resources, and perspective to report
on the Armenian Genocide, in documentary form, in ways not often seen
or ever attempted. The result, I hope, will educate every person who
sees the films and leave them searching for their own truths.
From: A. Papazian