Author: Kalantarian Kevo

MU LECTURE SPURS CONVERSATION OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

Miami Student, FL
March 25 2015

By Krista Savage, The Miami Student

The remains of thousands of Armenians lay forgotten in the Syrian
Desert in a place called Deir-ez-Zor, also referred to as the
“Armenian Auschwitz.”

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, the
first genocide of the 20th century. In the spring of 1915, the Ottoman
Empire expelled Armenians living in eastern Turkey from their homes,
forcing them on death marches into the Syrian Desert.

Somewhere between 600,000 and one million Armenians were killed.

Author and expert on the Armenian Genocide, Ronald Suny, shared his
research with Miami University at an on-campus lecture March 18. Suny
is also the Director for the Eisenberg Institute for Historical
Studies at the University of Michigan.

Erik Jensen is a professor at Miami and a member of the Genocide
and Holocaust Education committee. He invited Dr. Suny to speak on
the Armenian genocide. The Center for American and World Cultures
at Miami will host more events throughout April dedicated educating
students about tragedies throughout world history.

In 1915, the leaders of the Ottoman Empire began to question
the loyalty of Armenians living in eastern Turkey; they claim the
Armenians were rebels aiding the Russians against them. This led the
Turkish Government to take authoritative actions. First, they disarmed
Armenian soldiers fighting in the Turkish army. Then, they rounded up
Armenian politicians, journalists and professors, and slaughtered them.

“With the muscle and the brains gone, left were women, children and
elderly who were then sent on death marches through the Syrian Desert,”
Suny said.

Today, the Turkish government does not recognize this genocide. In
fact, the word “genocide” is forbidden when speaking of the Armenians.

Several other nations, including the U.S. and Germany, speak cautiously
of the event, and avoid the term “genocide” in order to preserve ties
with Turkey.

Even though there is substantial evidence and many survivors and
witnesses of the genocide, the Turks refuse to take blame, often
trying to provide alternative reasons for the deaths. Turks put blame
on the Armenians, claiming they were the victims. In fact, there is
a museum in Turkey acknowledging Turks killed by Armenians.

“…Armenians were actually loyal to the Turks, and hundreds of
thousands of them joined the army. Then, they were demobilized and
killed,” Suny said. “If any Turks were killed it was purely out of
self defense by the Armenians who were getting their families torn
apart or were starving to death.”

Today, the Armenian Genocide isn’t covered in many history classes.

It’s often overlooked, partly due to the events of WWI and the Jewish
Holocaust. Some historians even claim that Hitler was inspired by
the massacres of the Armenians.

“Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”

Hitler said during his dictatorship in 1939.

Caroline Schube, a junior history and political science double major
at Miami, didn’t know anything about the Armenian Genocide until her
professor mentioned Suny’s lecture.

“I am shocked more people do not pay respect to this tragedy,” Schube
said. “There is a forest of bones that lies forgotten.”

However, present-day Armenians don’t take the subject lightly. Sadie
Zazian, from Allen Park, Michigan, is the mother to a staff member
at Miami. She remembers in detail her mother’s stories from the
Armenian Genocide.

Her mother was one of the few survivors.

Zazian’s parents lived in a city called Govdooun, in Sepastia, Turkey.

They married in 1914 when her mother was 18 years old. Shortly after,
Zazian’s father escaped in hopes of avoiding serving in the Turkish
army. However, her mother and aunt remained in Govdooun.

“My mother and her sister were forced out of their homes by the Turkish
government,” Zazian said. “They were tortured, starved and they had
to endure many tragic experiences. They were tortured. Plain and
simple. My grandparents were murdered and thrown into the Black Sea.”

Zazian accredits her mother’s survival to the Syrians, who fed large
groups of the survivors in the desert. Eventually, through efforts
made by the American Red Cross Association, the survivors were rescued
and brought to the United States.

“My mother told me stories of her travels every day. I always wondered
why she never got sick of talking about it and she would say, ‘When
you wake up next to your nephew, and realize that he had starved to
death overnight, it’s hard to forget,'” Zazian said. “At that point,
I realized that you can’t ever move on from something like this.”

For the last 100 years, Armenians have struggled to raise awareness
of the murders of their people. April 24 is recognized as Armenian
Genocide Awareness Day. This year, Istanbul will host a large memorial
service.

ZHOGHOVURD: PASSENGERS FLYING TO ARMENIA NOT ALLOWED TO SHOP AT DUTY FREES

11:08 27/03/2015 >> DAILY PRESS

Since Armenia’s accession to the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU),
Armenian citizens cannot shop at the duty free stores at Russian
airports, Zhoghovurd reports.

“Since the beginning of this year, passengers flying to Armenia
via Russian airports are not allowed to shop at duty free stores. It
doesn’t matter whether the passenger flies from Moscow or from another
country. If his/her destination is Armenia, he/she is not allowed to
shop,” the newspaper notes.

Source: Panorama.am

CENTENNIAL RENEWS K STREET BRAWL OVER ARMENIAN ‘GENOCIDE’ RESOLUTION

The Hill, DC
March 25 2015

By Megan R. Wilson – 03/25/15 06:00 AM EDT

Lawmakers in the House are pushing to mark the 100th anniversary of
mass killings of Armenians during World War I with a controversial
resolution that would officially label it an act of genocide.

Coming at the centennial, the proposal — which dates back decades
— has reignited a lobbying battle, with each side more resolved
than ever.

ADVERTISEMENT “We’re going to see a level of grassroots activism
all across the country that will be unprecedented: huge marches and
protests and commemorations, a national campaign to try and move
the Congress and the president to recognize the genocide on its
centennial,” said Rep.

Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), one of the resolution’s initial sponsors. “If
not after a hundred years, then when?”

Opponents of the measure, led by the Turkish government, have
supporters outmatched.

Turkey recognized last year that Armenians faced “inhumane” treatment
at the hands of the Ottoman Empire, but its leaders refuse to refer
to the mass killings that began in 1915 as genocide.

Unsatisfied, the Armenian National Committee of America spent $120,000
last year lobbying the U.S. government, the most it has spent in at
least seven years.

Since 2006, the group has spent $840,000, according to records.

But before lawmakers introduced the Armenian Genocide Truth and
Justice Resolution last week, Turkey renewed its contract with Gephardt
Government Affairs, run by former House Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt
(Mo.), for $1.7 million.

Signed on March 1, the contract also includes payments to four other
firms working on behalf of the Turkish government, including Dickstein
Shapiro and Greenburg Traurig. The two firms enlist help from former
Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), former Sen. Tim Hutchinson (R-Ark.)
and former Rep. Albert Wynn (D-Md.).

Armenian groups also have public relations operations in place,
something the resolution’s supporters hope will make a difference.

“There’s going to be a lot more attention this year,” Aram Hamparian,
the executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America
said of the events planned to mark the centennial. “Issues like this
— human rights issues — tend to do well in the spotlight. They tend
to be defeated in the shadows when no one’s looking.”

The issue has been debated in Congress for three decades. Although
the resolution has never come to a full vote in Congress, it received
as many as 212 co-sponsors in 2007. In 2010, it had under 200. This
month, it was introduced in the House with 43.

Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) is passing around a “Dear Colleague” letter
to urge members not to support the nonbinding resolution. He says
its adoption would be “cataclysmic.”

Turkey, a strategic U.S. ally in the Middle East, lobbies on many
issues involving its reputation and relationships with American
politicians and groups. But its outspoken disapproval of the term
“genocide” to describe the mass killings has garnered the most
attention. Since 2008, the Turkish government has paid lobbyists more
than $12 million.

“Every cycle of Congress, there is a draft resolution,” a Turkish
official, who requested anonymity to speak freely, told The Hill.

“We are not happy, because our position has not changed, in two ways:

The fact that [the resolution] does not help anyway, to bring a
fair memory or to actually bring reconciliation between Turks and
Armenians,” the official said. “To politicize a debate is not helpful
at all. … The two communities have suffered.”

A new U.S.-based advocacy organization, Turkish Institute for Progress,
recently registered with Levick — and former Rep. Connie Mack
(R-Fla.) — to lobby on its behalf in regards to Turkish-Armenian
relations. While it does not agree with the resolution, the group
said it would not be lobbying against it.

“We believe the resolution introduced last week is shortsighted and
only serves to exacerbate the division between two countries that
have so many strategic and economic interests in common,” said Derya
Taskin, the president of the organization, in an email.

However, the dispute between the two countries may not be solved
without a more public debate.

“We are confident that, as has been the case for the 30 years, the
U.S. Congress will do the right thing and not get involved in this
historical debate,” the Turkish official said.

“The genocide issue is the central issue between the Armenian and
Turkish peoples,” said Hamparian. “Ignoring it, or forcing others
into silence about it has not worked. It’s beyond being just being
morally wrong; it practically hasn’t worked.”

This April marks 100 years since the Ottoman Empire, partly composed
of present-day Turkey, began a massacre and relocation of ethnic
Armenians, whom it accused of supporting its Russian enemies in World
War I. More than 1 million people perished.

How the events are described has caused tension, not only between
the two countries but between those countries and the U.S.

As a senator and presidential candidate, Barack Obama promised to be
the first commander in chief in 30 years to use the term “genocide”
to describe the killings. However, since being elected president,
he has avoided the word.

Opponents have said that referring to the events as an act of genocide,
which is a punishable crime, as opposed to an act of war could cause
an undue rift between the United States and Turkey. In past years,
Turkey has threatened to recall its U.S. ambassador and restrict
U.S. access to a geographically important military base.

ARMENIA FOCUSED ON HAMPERING BILATERAL RELATIONS, SAYS TURKISH PARLIAMENT SPEAKER

Journal of Turkish Weekly
March 25 2015

25 March 2015

Turkish Parliament Speaker Cemil Cicek has said that even though
Turkey is “approaching Armenia with candidness in an effort to resolve
the 1915 incidents,” Yerevan focuses on the events to hamper the
normalization process between the two countries.

“We see that Armenia chooses to focus on intensifying its anti-Turkey
events organized within the concept of the centenary of the 1915
incidents, rather than carrying the normalization process further on
the path towards April 24. This is despite all the well-intentioned
initiatives coming from our country,” said Cicek during a speech titled
“Turkey-U.S. Relations in the 21st Century” at the Center for Strategic
and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington on March 24.

He said there was “no change” in Turkey’s stance toward normalizing
relations with Armenia, adding there was still hope for it to improve.

“The condolences messages and statements about these issues by our
president and prime minister are important steps taken in this way,”
Cicek said, referring to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s message
issued in April 2014.

Cicek also said Turkey had opened all of its archives to researchers
and wished that the Armenians would do the same.

“We want the exploitation [of the subject] to be removed and for
peace to be supported by enlightening historical facts. We are ready
to give support to any kind of research,” he added.

The year 2015 marks the centenary of the 1915 Ottoman Armenian mass
killings during World War I.

While Armenia and a number of other countries and international
organizations legally refer to the incidents as genocide, the Turkish
state does not accept the term.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry’s view of the issue, published on its
website, states that Turkey “does not deny the suffering of Armenians,
including the loss of many innocent lives, during the First World War.

However, a greater numbers of Turks died or were killed in the
years leading up to and during the War. Without belittling the
tragic consequences for any group, Turkey objects to the one-sided
presentation of this tragedy as genocide by one group against another.”

25 March 2015

TURKEY, ARMENIA AND BEYOND

Hurriyet Daily News, turkey
March 26 2015

William Armstrong

‘There Was and There Was Not: A Journey Through Hate and Possibility
in Turkey, Armenia and Beyond’ by Meline Toumani (Metropolitan Books,
286 pages, $28)

In 2003-04, the late Turkish Armenian journalist Hrant Dink wrote
a series of articles on the psychology of the Armenian diaspora. The
series, titled “On Armenian Identity,” caused a stir by suggesting that
diaspora Armenians were blinded by such hatred that it had become like
“poison in their blood.” Rather than waiting for Turkey to change,
Dink argued, they should rid themselves of feelings of hate toward
Turks, put aside counterproductive genocide recognition campaigns,
and focus their efforts on helping the country of Armenia.

In a willful misunderstanding of what he had actually written, he was
later prosecuted under the Turkish Penal Code’s notorious Article 301
for “insulting the Turkish identity.” Though Dink was later acquitted,
Ogun Samast, the teenage triggerman who shot him dead in January 2007,
would later cite these “insults” as motivation for the killing.

Despite his courage, Dink was viewed with suspicion by Armenians in the
diaspora, some of whom disparage the Istanbul Armenians as afflicted
with a kind of Stockholm syndrome that weakens their necessary hatred
for Turks. Many diaspora Armenians saw Dink’s call for debate beyond
the cul-de-sac of genocide recognition as an unforgivable betrayal.

A similar reaction has greeted “There Was and There Was Not” by U.S.

journalist Meline Toumani, which turns a highly unflattering light
on American Armenians. Responses have ranged from criticism of
exaggeration, to clichés about her being a “self-hating Armenian,”
to angry calls for a boycott. It is not hard to see where the anger
comes from. Toumani’s book paints a portrait of a diaspora community
full of single-issue zealots, where there are few safe shelters from
“politics, lobbying, hatred, nationalism, protests.” As the diaspora
evolved and assimilated in countries across the world, she writes,
“there was only one thing that everybody agreed on: the Turks hated
us and we hated the Turks. This trumped everything … From as early
as I knew anything, I had known Turkey only as an idea: a terrifying
idea, a place filled with people I should despise.” On reflection, her
childhood experiences at summer camp – where children were encouraged
to celebrate the ASALA terrorist group, which killed dozens of Turkish
diplomats and members of their family through the 1970s and 80s –
were deeply troubling.

Though uncompromising in referring to events in 1915 as genocide,
Toumani wondered whether such single-mindedness about genocide
recognition was “worth its emotional and psychological price.”

Slightly melodramatically, she writes that “our obsession with 1915
was destroying us,” and looks instead for a “way to honor a history
without being suffocated by it.”

The resulting book explores this question, describing the author’s
experiences in the U.S., Turkey and Armenia itself. She decided to
move to Istanbul and travel around Turkey for two years because she
“could no longer live with the idea that I was supposed to hate,
fear, and fight against an entire nation and people.” In Turkey, she
mixed in diverse circles, and at one point even arranged a meeting
with Yusuf Halacoglu, the “denialist-in-chief” who was head of the
Turkish Historical Society (TTK) at the time and is now an MP for the
Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). Toumani has the courage to admit
that she floundered in their meeting, reflecting that “certainty is
always more powerful than doubt.”

She started out intending to research and write about Armenian-Turkish
relations, “with the idea that some kind of ‘soft reconciliation’
was important and valuable,” but ultimately her project is a bit
of a failure. Though gaining sympathy for the Turkish predicament,
she finds that in Turkey not only are people more intolerant than
she had expected, but her own prejudices had not gone away either:
“Although I had started out looking for a way around the Armenian
diaspora’s fixation on genocide recognition, I was starting to realize
that in my interactions with Turks, if we didn’t already agree on
what had happened in 1915, the barrier between us was too great.”

Still, to quote Michel de Montaigne, there are some defeats
more triumphant than victories. Toumani manages to say plenty of
illuminating things throughout her book, which sometimes resembles an
Armenian counterpart to Turkish journalist Ece Temelkuran’s 2008 title
“Deep Mountain.” In that book, Temelkuran tried to chart a delicate
course in the fraught territory between the nationalism of both sides,
reaching out to Armenians in Armenia and in the diaspora. As a former
reporter for the New York Times, Toumani is a more fluid writer than
Temelkuran and also a less annoying persona. Perhaps surprisingly
given the subject matter, “There Was and There Was Not” ends up being
quite a page-turner.

Of course, plenty will scorn Toumani’s search for “soft reconciliation”
as naïve, when Turkish officials continue to issue uncompromising
calls on the Armenian diaspora and disingenuously exhort everyone to
“leave history to the historians.” But on the 100th anniversary of
1915, people on all sides could do worse than read this brave book.

March/26/2015

ISTANBUL-BASED ARMENIAN CHURCH DAUBED WITH HATE MESSAGES

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
March 25 2015

This image circulated on Twitter shows one of the messages on the
wall of the Armenian church, which reads: “What does it matter if
you are all Armenian when one of us is Ogun Samast.”

March 25, 2015, Wednesday/ 16:02:30/ ZEYNEP KARATAÃ…~^ / ISTANBUL

The Surp Astuanzazh Armenian Church in Ä°stanbul’s Bakırköy
neighborhood was daubed with hate speech on Tuesday as “1915, blessed
year” was written on the side of the building in reference to the
massacre of more than 1 million Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire
during World War I.

Tensions have been growing since Turkey announced in January that
it would host international events to commemorate the centennial of
the Gallipoli Campaign on April 24, a date that overlaps with the
annual commemoration of the massacres, which many countries consider
to be genocide.

In addition to “1915, blessed year,” further graffiti on the church
stated, “What does it matter if you are all Armenian when there is
already one Ogun Samast.”

The message echoes a demonstration slogan that commemorated the murder
of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink who was assassinated in
2007 by then-17-year-old ultranationalist Samast. In the aftermath
of the murder, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets to show
empathy for the slain journalist with signs reading “We are all Hrant,
we are all Armenian.”

Today’s Zaman visited the site on Wednesday morning and found that
the graffiti had been painted over. But an administrator at the
church said, “This type of thing happens all the time.” The Armenian
Patriarchate of Ä°stanbul refused to comment on the matter. No criminal
complaint has been filed.

The incident comes hot on the heels of another racist slur against
Armenians in Turkey. It was reported on Tuesday that Ankara Mayor
Melih Gökcek had filed a criminal complaint against Turkish-Armenian
journalist Hayko Bagdat on defamation charges after Bagdat posted
lighthearted tweets on his Twitter account referring to the mayor as
an Armenian after the March 2014 local elections.

Gökcek appears to believe it an insult to be called an Armenian
as his lawyer petitioned the Ankara Prosecutor’s Office, saying,
“The statements [by Bagdat] are false and include insult and libel.”

AZERBAIJAN BEARS FULL RESPONSIBILITY FOR MILITARY ESCALATION OF CONFLICT – ARMAN KIRAKOSSIAN

12:30 27/03/2015 >> POLITICS

On March 26, Permanent Representative of Armenia to the OSCE,
Ambassador Arman Kirakossian delivered a speech at the Meeting of
the OSCE Permanent Council, the press service of Armenian Foreign
Ministry reported.

Ambassador Kirakossian touched upon the military infiltration on March
19 of the Azerbaijani armed forces along the Line of Contact in the
Martakert region of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, which resulted in
four casualties of the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army. He stressed that
the response of the armed unit of the Defense Army inflicted numerous
losses on the Azerbaijani subversive group and that Azerbaijan tries to
hide its military losses, officially restricting access of journalists
and representatives of civil society to borderline settlements.

Mr Kirakossian noted that for the first time since the ceasefire was
established Azerbaijan used artillery with caliber of 120 mm, which
indicates Baku’s intention to further escalate the situation. Such
deliberate actions of Azerbaijan are aimed at undermining of the
ceasefire regime, established by the trilateral ceasefire agreements
in May 1994 and February 1995, shifting the military balance.

Ambassador Kirakossian stressed that this alarming development
should be a matter of close attention of Minsk Group Co-Chairs and
the Personal Representative of the Chairperson-in-Office.

Ambassador Kirakossian noted that while the world marks the
International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the
Azerbaijani leadership sends the messages of hatred and xenophobia. In
this regard, he quoted the statements by the President and Minister of
Defense of Azerbaijan, where they voiced claims to the territory of
the capital of Armenia and other territories and overtly expressed
their intention to settle the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict through
military aggression.

The Permanent Representative of Armenia highlighted that physical
survival of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh and protection from
mass atrocities are under responsibilities of the Nagorno-Karabakh
authorities. He recalled that no indigenous population survived
in those parts of Nagorno-Karabakh which fell under the control
of Azerbaijani armed forces. In this context, Arman Kirakossian
stated that Azerbaijan strives to resume the military phase of the
conflict to suppress the right of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh to
self-determination through use of force.

Condemning power policy of the Azerbaijani leadership, the Ambassador
stressed that Azerbaijan bears full responsibility for the military
escalation of the conflict and its consequences. He reiterated
Armenia’s firm position that consolidation of ceasefire by implying
confidence-building measures is crucial to advance peace talks.

COLLOQUE INTERNATIONAL SUR LE GENOCIDE DES ARMENIENS : DISCOURS DE NAJAT VALLAUD-BELKACEM

Publie le : 27-03-2015

Info Collectif VAN – – Le 25 mars 2015, Najat
Vallaud-Belkacem, ministre de l’Education nationale, de l’Enseignement
superieur et de la Recherche ouvrait le colloque international

Aujourd’hui, l’echo de ces voix-la resonne encore a nos oreilles.

Je souhaite remercier le .

Cette reconnaissance est essentielle car c’est aussi la reconnaissance
due aux 500 000 francais d’origine armenienne, descendants de
survivants ; a tous ceux d’entre eux qui, refugies en France, comme
Missak Manouchian, se sont battus pour la France et sont morts pour
elle en heros.

Cette reconnaissance est, de facon universelle, la reconnaissance
due aux individus persecutes, aux minorites opprimees et aux peuples
menaces dans leur existence.

C’est aussi ce qui conduit la France a affirmer que le negationnisme
est intolerable, car le droit est ce qui protège contre toutes les
formes de manipulation. Et c’est la position de la France auprès de
la Cour europeenne des droits de l’homme.

Les diasporas armeniennes vivant dans des pays libres ont
magnifiquement illustre a quel point la connaissance scientifique
est une arme essentielle pour la reconnaissance et contre le
negationnisme. A l’image d’Archag Tchobanian, arrive a Paris en 1895
pour prendre la defense de son peuple precipite dans les massacres
hamidiens, les intellectuels armeniens ont fait du livre et de l’ecrit
un combat pour la verite.

Dans le domaine de la recherche, nous devons beaucoup aux historiens
d’origine armenienne, que ce soient les grands historiens francais
Anahide Ter Minassian, Raymond Kervokian et tant d’autres, ou les
historiens americains comme par exemple Vahakn Dadrian et Richard
Hovannisian.

En Turquie, les Armeniens travaillent main dans la main avec des
intellectuels et historiens turcs, dont certains ont paye de leur
vie ce combat pour la verite : je pense en particulier a Hrant Dink,
assassine le 19 janvier 2007. Je veux remercier la politiste Bursa
Ersanli [prononcer Ersanleu], l’editeur Ragip [prononcer Ragueup]
Zarakolu ou encore Fethiye [prononcer Fetiye] Cetin [prononcer
Chtetine] d’etre presents aujourd’hui.

Mais les chercheurs d’identite armenienne n’oeuvrent pas seuls. Et
ce centenaire de l’evenement installe les historiens armeniens au
coeur de l’histoire globale des sciences sociales des genocides ;
il est l’occasion, et ce colloque en est la manifestation, du passage
du genocide armenien a un statut d’objet historique global. En France,
le desenclavement de cet objet d’etudes, dont Yves Ternon, puis Pierre
Vidal-Naquet, ont ete les precurseurs, s’est poursuivi avec l’apport
des specialistes de la Première Guerre mondiale : les historiens
de la Grande Guerre l’incluent desormais pleinement l’etude et la
comprehension des phenomènes extremes de violence guerrière.

L’apport de la turcologie a lui aussi ete determinant, les specialistes
du monde turco-ottoman ayant su aborder l’evenement sans concession.

Enfin, en France, l’etude comparee sur les genocides a permis
d’eclairer l’evenement a la lumière de la recherche sur la Shoah,
mais aussi de la recherche, en plein essor, sur le genocide des Tutsi
au Rwanda.

Aujourd’hui, c’est forts de la somme de ces recherches que nous
pouvons nous souvenir collectivement, et rendre hommage aux victimes.

La recherche, le livre, la creation, sont aussi un apaisement a la
douleur des memoires. Ce sont autant de ponts jetes entre le passe
et l’avenir.

Mais le travail des historiens est, enfin, ce qui permet a une nation
de regarder plus loin, vers l’avenir, et d’empecher les massacres de
se reproduire.

L’histoire, en tant que science du passe des nations, en nous apprenant
d’où nous venons, nous permet aussi d’eclairer notre avenir.

Parce que, grâce a elle, nous pouvons nous projeter collectivement,
elle nous aide a construire notre citoyennete.

L’histoire n’est pas que celle des puissances et des empires : elle
est aussi celles des peuples et des gens, elle est aussi l’histoire
sociale et l’histoire populaire.

Parce que la citoyennete republicaine est fondee sur le savoir,
la connaissance, le refus de la fatalite, l’ecole a un rôle central
a jouer pour cette transmission. C’est elle qui peut rendre reelle
la promesse de la Republique a ses enfants de les faire grandir dans
l’egalite et la tolerance. C’est elle qui peut semer les germes d’une
memoire partagee.

Je veux ici rendre hommage a tous les professeurs d’histoire-geographie
de France qui y contribuent au quotidien. Le genocide des Armeniens de
l’Empire ottoman, qui fait partie de notre memoire a tous, est etudie
par tous au cours de la scolarite obligatoire, en classe de 3ème.

A l’ecole, nous transmettons l’eveil de la citoyennete, la culture du
debat d’idees, la lutte contre les prejuges et contre toutes les formes
de persecution. Nous apprenons la difference entre la controverse,
le dialogue, qui est a la source meme de la connaissance, et la
manipulation ou la falsification.

A l’ecole, les elèves doivent apprendre a comprendre le monde, mais
aussi apprendre a vouloir le changer, pour prendre pleinement leur
place de citoyen. C’est le sens des reformes que nous adoptons, avec
la mise en place dès la rentree prochaine d’un enseignement moral et
civique tout au long de la scolarite obligatoire.

Mais cette transmission ne peut se faire seulement a l’ecole, sans
l’appui de la recherche.

Elle doit se poursuivre dans l’enseignement superieur et la recherche,
où les etudes sur les genocides doivent pouvoir encore mieux trouver
leur place, comme les > ont pu trouver la leur
outre-Atlantique notamment.

Par l’ampleur des questions qu’elles recouvrent, elles concernent de
très nombreuses disciplines scientifiques, dans les sciences humaines
et sociales et au-dela. Alors que nous entrons dans le deuxième siècle
de recherches sur le genocide armenien, je souhaite lancer une mission
d’etude dressant un etat des lieux de la recherche sur les genocides
pour permettre a celle-ci de se developper.

Confronter les points de vue, comprendre ce qui a conduit aux
evenements tragiques du passe, c’est ce qui nous permettra de prevenir
la possibilite de leur repetition demain. C’est ce qui nous permettra
de continuer le combat contre l’oubli.

C’est le sens je crois que le President de la Republique a souhaite
donner a ce colloque, qui se tient sous son haut-patronage.

En attendant le 24 avril, où je me rendrai a Erevan aux côtes du
President de la Republique pour une commemoration internationale
exceptionnelle, j’aime a voir dans la tenue de ce grand colloque
international a la Sorbonne une promesse d’inscription durable de
cette histoire dans le present et dans l’avenir : la definition
meme de l’histoire selon Thucydide, qui l’appelait

HOTEL PRICES IN YEREVAN UP 15-20% AHEAD OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE CENTENARY

YEREVAN, March 27. /ARKA/. Accommodation in Yerevan’s hotels became
15-20% more expensive ahead of the centenary of Armenian Genocide,
Sona Yeghiazaryan, head of Joel Travel Agency, said on Friday.

“NEVER AGAIN” – FILMS TELLING ABOUT GENOCIDE OF ARMENIANS SCREENED AT SOFIA FILM FESTIVAL

by Karina Manukyan

Friday, March 27, 16:05

Films telling about the Genocide of Armenians were screened at the
19th Sofia Film Festival in a special program “Never Again.” The
program is implemented by the Golden Apricot International Film
Festival with the support of the Culture Ministry of Armenia and the
Committee to coordinate events commemorating the centennial of the
Armenian Genocide.

According to the Golden Apricot International Film Festival
press-office, three films were screed at the Sofia Film Festival:
“ENDLESS ESCAPE, ETERNAL RETURN” by Harutyun Khachatryan, “THE LARK
FARM” by Taviani Borthers, and “THE CUT” by Fatih Akin. The films
were screened also in Plovdiv and Varna.