Author: Baghdasarian Karlen

System of a Down review – noir-rock epics and the history of genocide

Wembley arena, London

The American-Armenian skull-pummelers deliver some worthy political
messages amid a messy sprawl of intricate, disjointed hardcore

Barrage of ballast … Shavo Odadjian of System of a Down. Photograph:
Joseph Okpako/Redferns

Mark Beaumont
Sunday 12 April 2015 13.47 BST

The entry queues are chaotic, the toilets are overflowing, and the PA
pours out a relentless two-hour bombardment of math metal, violent
thrash rock and Armenian folk anthems. Yet, if it feels as if
Californian skull-pummelers System of a Down are trying to make
Wembley feel like its own downtrodden mini-state, we’re soon put in
our place. The Wake Up the Souls tour marks the 100th anniversary of
the 1915 Armenian genocide – a subject close to the hearts of these
four politically voracious Armenian-Americans – and animated histories
of that and subsequent genocides in the second world war, Rwanda and
Cambodia are played out on the screens during interludes in the set,
narrated by Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello. So, suitably
humbled, we endure.

Singer Serj Tjankian is an arresting presence, part hardcore Zappa,
part minaret muezzin, part Russell Brand gone feral. As he entreats us
to “change this planet so we’re deserving of it” and yowls, “a whole
race, genocide, taken away – revolution, the only solution,” on
solidarity anthem PLUCK, you salute his, well, pluck. Otherwise, his
worthy messages on drink-driving and police brutality (Mr Jack),
pulling the heroin “tapeworm out of your ass” (Needles) and war (War?)
are buried beneath a messy sprawl of intricate, disjointed hardcore
that, like the average First Dates participant, never seems to know
how fast it should be going.

With the prospect of SOAD’s first album since the companion releases
ofMezmerize and Hypnotize 10 years ago looming, the faithful and
studious – this is rock that rewards only total immersion – circle-pit
with a semi-religious fervour. But the band only sparingly cohere on
the odd noir-rock epic such as Spiders or Hypnotize, moshpit
electrifiers Bounce and Toxicity, or when guitarist Daron Malakian
takes the spotlight for his crafty homage to House of the Rising Sun,
Lonely Day. Spots of relief in a barrage of ballast.

From: Baghdasarian

EDITORIAL DANS LES INROCKS
Génocide arménien : le mensonge du siècle

24 avril 1915 : grande rafle des intellectuels et des notables
arméniens de Constantinople? ; le génocide peut commencer. Cent ans
plus tard, le président de la République de Turquie, Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, continue d’exiger des preuves. Barack Obama, lui, a déjÃ
déclaré que le génocide arménien était une incontestable vérité
historique. Mais les Etats-Unis d’Amérique ne sont pas prêts à une
reconnaissance officielle, aujourd’hui moins que jamais. La Turquie
demeure un allié trop important, puissant et ombrageux, depuis trop
longtemps, un verrou stratégique qu’il convient de ménager. Cent ans
après le début des massacres, seule une vingtaine de pays ont reconnu
officiellement le génocide et la Turquie s’arcboute sur son
négationnisme d’Etat, fondateur de son existence même, sa colonne
vertébrale idéologique, comme si elle craignait de s’effondrer en
cessant de nier une si vieille évidence, pourtant irréfutable et
documentée.

La suite sur le lien plus bas

dimanche 12 avril 2015,
Ara ©armenews.com

D´autres informations disponibles : LES INROCKS

From: Baghdasarian

Great Britain encourages its satellites to attend Gallipoli-related
events – Vardan Khachatryan

14:43 * 12.04.15

In an interview with Tert.am, former member of Armenia’s Parliament
Vardan Khachatryan spoke of guests who are expected to visit Armenia
to attend events marking the 100th anniversary of the Armenian
Genocide.

If Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President François
Hollande, as well as numerous French Armenians, arrive in Armenia, one
should consider the fact each of them has his “satellites” in global
politics, who are expected to arrive as well.

“In this respect, it is clear that representatives of Great Britain,
with its satellites, are going to Turkey to attend Gallipoli-related
events. That is, Great Britain encouraged the states in question to do
it in defiance of everything. It should also be noted that the leaders
of other states that plan to accompany British leaders in Turkey are
criticized for their decisions, in their own countries,” Mr
Khachatryan said.

He advises Armenia’s authorities to focus on other regions.

“I mean the Far East, which will be represented by a delegation,” Mr
Khachatryan said, mentioning China and Japan, which have a most
favorable attitude to the Armenian people and admit the fact of the
Armenian Genocide.

In response to a remark that too much attention has been focused on
who is coming, Mr Khachatryan said:

“The symbol of the Great Massacre has been exposed. In this respect,
it is clear that a watershed is in the making in this territory.
Whether we like it or not, it is a watershed in global politics when
the nations, assuming moral responsibility, announce their position in
the region and further steps to the world. This makes the situation
predictable for us.”

From: Baghdasarian

NBC Bay Area
April 12 2015

Pope Fancis Calls Armenian Slaughter “1st Genocide of 20th Century”

The pope’s comments amount to a politically explosive pronouncement,
and will likely stoke anger in dominantly Muslim Turkey.

By Nicole Winfield

Pope Francis on Sunday honored the 100th anniversary of the slaughter
of Armenians by calling it “the first genocide of the 20th century,” a
politically explosive declaration that will certainly anger Turkey.

Francis, who has close ties to the Armenian community from his days in
Argentina, defended his pronouncement by saying it was his duty to
honor the memory of the innocent men, women, children, priests and
bishops who were “senselessly” murdered by Ottoman Turks.

“Concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding
without bandaging it,” he said at the start of a Mass Sunday in the
Armenian Catholic rite in St. Peter’s Basilica honoring the centenary.

Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by
Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, an event widely viewed
by genocide scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century.

Turkey, however, refuses to call it a genocide and has insisted that
the toll has been inflated, and that those killed were victims of
civil war and unrest.

Turkey’s embassy to the Holy See canceled a planned news conference
for Sunday, presumably after learning that the pope would utter the
word “genocide” over its objections.

Several European countries recognize the massacres as genocide, though
Italy and the United States, for example, have avoided using the term
officially given the importance they place on Turkey as an ally.

Francis is not the first pope to call the massacre a genocide. In his
remarks, Francis cited a 2001 declaration signed by St. John Paul II
and the Armenian church leader, Karenkin II, which called it as the
first genocide of the 20th century.

Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI, whose ties with Turkey and the Muslim
world were initially strained, avoided the “g-word.”

Francis said the Armenian killings were the first of three “massive
and unprecedented” genocides that was followed by the Holocaust and
Stalinism. He said others had followed, including in Cambodia, Rwanda,
Burundi and Bosnia.

“It seems that the human family has refused to learn from its mistakes
caused by the law of terror, so that today too there are those who
attempt to eliminate others with the help of a few and with the
complicit silence of others who simply stand by,” he said.

Francis has frequently denounced the “complicit silence” of the world
community in the face of the modern day slaughter of Christians and
other religious minorities by Islamic extremists. And while he was
archbishop of Buenos Aires, the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio
referred to the Armenian “genocide” on several occasions, including
three separate citations in his 2010 book “On Heaven and Earth.”

The Armenians have been campaigning for greater recognition of the
genocide in the lead-up to the centenary, which will be formally
marked on April 24. Sunday’s Mass was concelebrated by the Armenian
Catholic patriarch, Nerses Bedros XIX Tarmouni, and was attended by
Armenian Orthodox church leaders as well as Armenian President Serzh
Sargsyan, who sat in a place of honor in the basilica.

Francis also honored the Armenian community at the start of the Mass
by pronouncing a 10th-century Armenian mystic, St. Gregory of Narek, a
doctor of the church. Only 35 people have been given the title, which
is reserved for those whose writings have greatly served the universal
church.

From: Baghdasarian

Al Jazeera America
April 12 2015

Pope says Armenian massacre ‘genocide,’ prompting protest from Ankara

Turkey summoned the Vatican’s ambassador in Ankara to demand an
explanation for uttering phrase at Mass

April 12, 2015 9:24AM ET

Pope Francis described the massacre of as many as 1.5 million
Armenians as “the first genocide of the 20th century” at a 100th
anniversary Mass on Sunday, prompting immediate protest of Turkey,
which recalled its ambassador to the Vatican in response.

It was the first time a pope has publicly pronounced the word
“genocide” for the massacre, repeating a term used by some European
and South American countries but avoided by the United States and some
others to maintain good relations with an important ally.

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry told the Vatican that it viewed the
statement with “great disappointment and sadness,” adding that the
Pope’s message was discriminatory as it only mentioned the suffering
of Christian Armenians and not that of Muslims or other groups.

It added that the Pope’s comments were “null and void” to the Turkish people.

Turkey accepts that many Christian Armenians died in clashes with
Ottoman soldiers beginning in 1915, when Armenia was part of the
empire ruled from Istanbul, but denies hundreds of thousands were
killed and that this amounted to genocide.

Past papal statements have alluded to the massacre as being genocide.

In 2001, Pope John Paul II and Armenian Apostolic Church Supreme
Patriarch Kerekin II called it “the first genocide of the 20th
century” in a joint written statement.

Francis, who has disregarded many aspects of protocol since becoming
pope two years ago, also uttered the phrase during a private meeting
at the Vatican with an Armenian delegation in 2013, prompting a strong
protest from Ankara.

As the archbishop of Buenos Aires before becoming the leader of the
world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, Jorge Maria Bergoglio had already
publicly characterized the mass killings as genocide.

But Sunday’s statement was the first time the word “genocide” has been
spoken aloud by the head of the Catholic Church in relation to the
massacre.

At the start of the Armenian rite Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope
Francis described the “senseless slaughter” of 100 years ago as “the
first genocide of the 20th century,” which was followed by “Nazism and
Stalinism.”

“It is necessary, and indeed a duty, to honor their memory, for
whenever memory fades, it means that evil allows wounds to fester.
Concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding
without bandaging it,” he said.

Francis’s comments were also published by Armenian President Serzh
Sargyan’s office on Sunday.

“We are deeply grateful to His Holiness Pope Francis for the idea of
this unprecedented liturgy … which symbolizes our solidarity with
the people of the Christian world,” Sargyan said in a speech at a
Vatican dinner on Saturday evening.

The pope said genocide continues today against Christians “who, on
account of their faith in Christ or their ethnic origin, are publicly
and ruthlessly put to death — decapitated, crucified, burned alive —
or forced to leave their homeland.”

His statement referred to the killings by members of the Islamic State
in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) of Shia Muslims, Christians and others
who do not share their violent ideology as they carved a self-declared
“caliphate” out of swathes of Syria and Iraq, which share borders with
Turkey.

Francis also urged reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia, and
between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed Caucasus mountain
region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The appeal came in a letter handed out
during a meeting after the Mass to Sargyan and the three most
important Armenian church patriarchs present.

Wire services

From: Baghdasarian

France 2
Télé Matin : Frédéric Gersal explique le génocide des Arméniens

Le 7 avril, dans l”émission de William Leymergie Télé Matin (France
2), le chroniqueur, spécialiste en Histoire, Frédérick Gersal a
développé en quelques minutes le destin du peuple arménien en 1915.

dimanche 12 avril 2015,
Jean Eckian (c)armenews.com

È8zW-APYuk

From: Baghdasarian

East Idaho News
April 12 2015

Controversy Over Pope’s ‘Genocide’ Comments

Posted on April 12, 2015

VATICAN) — Pope Francis’ Sunday mass on the second Sunday of Easter
sparked controversy when he referred to the slaughter of Armenians at
the hands of the Ottoman Turks “the first genocide of the 20th
century.”

The pope touched on the “three massive and unprecedented tragedies” of
the human family in the past century — Nazism, Stalinism, and the
slaughter of Armenians. He also mentioned the more recent tragedies
calling events in Cambodi, Rwanda, Burundi and Bosnia “mass killings.”

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said on Twitter Sunday that
the pope’s statement was “out of touch with both historical facts and
legal basis,” calling it “unacceptable.”

—–
Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu ✔ @MevlutCavusoglu Follow

The Pope’s statement, which is out of touch with both historical facts
and legal basis, is simply unacceptable.
—–
Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu ✔ @MevlutCavusoglu Follow

Religious offices are not places through which hatred and animosity
are fueled by unfounded allegations.
—–
“Religious offices are not places through which hatred and animosity
are fueled by unfounded allegations,” he said.

Turkey plans to recall its ambassador to the Vatican over the comments.

From: Baghdasarian

Armenia president: We will see who will choose human values on April 24

23:09, 11.04.2015
Region:World News, Armenia, Turkey
Theme: Politics

Armenians will see on April 24 which countries will choose human
values and which – their own interests, Armenian President Serzh
Sargsyan said in an interview with Italy’s Rai television and radio
company.

Asked about his assessment of Turkey’s plans to hold the Gallipoli
events in parallel with Armenian Genocide commemoration, Sargsyan
noted that Ankara’s calculation is very simple.

“Their goal is to divert attention of the international community. By
doing so, Turkey once again demonstrates the policy of denial. Every
time they use different methods to deny historical facts. At this
time, their calculation was very simple. If the United States, France,
Germany, Italy have high level representatives in Turkey, at a higher
level than in Armenia, the Turks will be able to say: ‘Look, they do
not recognize the Genocide,” President Sargsyan said.

So, the Armenians will understand who prefers human values, and who
his own interests, Sargsyan stressed.

Asked why there are still countries that do not recognize the events
of 1915 as genocide — the intent to destroy an entire nation — the
Armenian leader said some countries avoid or refrain from recognizing
for a clear reason: relationship with Turkey.

“Unfortunately, such states are governed by interests and geopolitical
assessment, rather than values. The value of human rights are
sacrificed to political interests. Nevertheless, I am convinced that
one day Turkey will recognize the Armenian Genocide,” President said.

Armenia News – NEWS.am

From: Baghdasarian

NewsHub.org
April 12 2015

Pope: Armenian slaughter ‘first genocide of 20th century’

12 April, 2015 8:12 AM

“Concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding
without bandaging it,” Pope Francis said.

Pope Francis on Sunday honoured the 100th anniversary of the slaughter
of Armenians by calling it “the first genocide of the 20th century,” a
politically explosive pronouncement that will certainly anger Turkey.

Francis, who has close ties to the Armenian community from his days in
Argentina, defended his declaration by saying it was his duty to
honour the memory of the innocent men, women, children, priests and
bishops who were “senselessly” murdered.

“Concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding
without bandaging it,” he said at the start of a Mass on Sunday in the
Armenian Catholic rite in St. Peter’s Basilica honouring the
centenary.

Turkey, however denies that the deaths constituted genocide, saying
that the toll has been inflated, and that those killed were victims of
civil war and unrest.

Turkey’s embassy to the Holy See cancelled a planned press conference
for Sunday, presumably after learning that the Pope would utter the
word “genocide” over its objections.

Source: thehindu.com

From: Baghdasarian

Crux
April 12 2015

The pope called the Armenian slaughter a genocide, and Turkey’s not happy

By Inés San Martín
Vatican correspondent April 12, 2015

ROME — While honoring the memory of Armenian martyrs Sunday, Pope
Francis said they had been killed “in the first genocide of the 20th
century,” prompting Turkey to recall its Vatican ambassador in
protest.

Crux confirmed by phone with the Vatican’s embassy in Ankara that
Turkey had recalled its ambassador, although the embassy to the
Vatican declined comment. The diplomatic row comes despite the fact
that Pope Francis was simply quoting a 2001 declaration by Pope John
Paul II and the head of the Armenian church.

Meanwhile, Turkey said it conveyed to the Vatican its loss of trust in
their relationship, according to the Associated Press. In a statement,
Turkey said the Pope’s message had contradicted his message of peace
and dialogue during a visit to Turkey in November. It said that a
response would be forthcoming. The Foreign Ministry said that it had
expressed “great disappointment and sadness.” The statement also
called the Pope’s message discriminatory because he only mentioned the
pains suffered by Christian Armenians and not Muslims and other
religious groups.

It’s a matter of duty, Francis said Sunday, to remember “that immense
and senseless slaughter” whose cruelty Armenians had to endure, “for
whenever memory fades, it means that evil allows wounds to fester.”

The pontiff was referring to the death of an estimated 1 million to
1.5 million Armenians as the Ottoman Empire crumbled at the end of
World War I, which Armenians term a “genocide” and Turks insist was
the result of a civil conflict. Turks typically also claim that the
Armenian death toll has been inflated.

Francis was speaking during a Vatican Mass with a number of Armenian
dignitaries present for the 100th anniversary of Armenian suffering.

The pontiff linked that calamity to contemporary anti-Christian
persecution, since the vast majority of the Armenian victims a century
ago were Christians. He said that today, too, the world is indifferent
over “a sort of genocide” as Christians and other minorities are
decapitated, crucified, burned alive, or forced to leave their
homeland.

“Concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding
without bandaging it!” the pontiff said.

From: Baghdasarian