Will Trump Ignore a Visit from the President of Nagorno-Karabakh?

John Evans (*)

 

In 451 A.D., Armenian warriors, having just lost a fierce battle with the superior Persian Empire, retreated into the forests of Artsakh in the South Caucasus. They had lost the war, but preserved their Christian faith, and thus considered it a victory. Armenia was the first nation to embrace Christianity, in the year 301.

In 2018, a small but determined Armenian democratic republic, the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh (or “Artsakh,” as Armenians call it) is attempting to survive, threatened by a militarily superior power that wishes to crush it. Professor Audrey Altstadt, in her recent article about Azerbaijan did not mention Nagorno-Karabakh, but perhaps ought to have, as the plight of the citizens of that unrecognized de facto state constitutes a serious violation of human rights.

National Center of Armenian Memory in Décines, France Promotes Armenian Studies and Culture

Aram Arkun

 

One of the largest centers of Armenian population in France is in Décines, a suburb of Lyon in the Rhônes-Alpes region. Here along with other Armenian institutions, all located on the same Rue de 24 avril 1915 (“April 24, 1915 Street,” a street name symbolically given on the 50^th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide in 1965), is the new Centre National de la Mémoire Arménienne, or National Center of Armenian Memory (CNMA, www.cnma.fr).

The goal of CNMA, according to its brochure, is “to restore to the populations of Armenian origin in France and Europe their capacity of cultural transmission, encumbered by systematic destruction and their deterritorialization of one hundred years ago.” Its target audience includes French Armenians, researchers, students, and any person interested in history and culture.

A Conversation with Collectif Medz Bazar’s Sevana Tchakerian: Music that Transcends Borders

Katherine Berjikian

 

I met Sevana Tchakerian a couple times before I got the opportunity to interview her.

I had been in Armenia for a couple days and out of boredom I went with a couple friends to a fancy, kind of tourist café. Half way through the meal, Sevana and a person I never really caught the name of, sat down.  After a little while, kind of out of boredom, I stood up to make my round of kisses and leave. However, Sevana stopped me before I left, and insisted on talking to me about my outfit.

Medz Bazar Collective: a dynamic vision of Armenian identity

Vahan Kerovpyan, 30, is a musician in the collective Medz Bazar. Created in May 2012, this band is a cluster of eight musicians from various origins (French, Armenian, Turkish, Kurdish, American) who revive traditional classics and play their own original compositions. In this interview, Vahan recalls his travels around Turkey and Armenia, how he felt in relation to Armenians living in those two countries and to the Turkish civil society. He also comments on the lyrics of the Medz Bazar songs and shares his vision of the future of Armenians, in the Diaspora and elsewhere. His rather positive outlook stands in contrast with the ambient pessimism of part of the community who think that Armenian identity and culture are dying out.

The Genocide of the Armenian People, Three Flies, and Pierre Nora

Varoujan Sirapian

Translated by Vartan Matiossian
 

Last June 24, the Committee of Culture of the [French] Senate heard Mr. Pierre Nora, director of studies at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales [EHESS], member of the French Academy, to have him give his advice on the reform of high school programs of history within the frame of a project of reform led by Minister of Education Mrs. Najat Vallaud-Belkacem.

Mr. Nora is naturally opposed, in coincidence with his previous standpoints, to the proposal of the Higher Council of Programs to include the question of the genocide of Armenians in the more general subject of World War I. He repeats, thus, in this occasion his principled opposition to any "intrusion of politics in the qualification of the past. [Because] in democracy, history belongs to historians."

France: A Constitutional Council Quite Turcophile?

Anne Dastakian

Translated by Vartan Matiossian

 

In its first issue of 2015, the year of the centennial of the genocide of the Armenians of 1915, always officially unrecognized by Turkey, Les Nouvelles d'Armenie Magazine (NAM), the biggest French magazine dedicated to Armenia, publishes an investigation which is at least worrisome. An exchange of emails (see below) from February 2012 between a French, Hubert Haenel, former senator and member of the Constitutional Council, and a Turk, Yasar Yakis, former minister of Foreign Affairs, ardent Francophile and Turkish lobbyist in France, tends to prove very dangerous relations between our "sages," independent and guarantors of the French Constitution in principle, and an eminent agent of foreign influence. The exchange was held at the moment of the invalidation, on February 28, 2012, by the Constitutional Council of the Boyer law which looked for penalizing "the denial of genocides recognized by France," namely, the Armenian genocide. 

The Armenian Identity in France in the Grip of Memorialization

Tigran Yegavian

Four generations have succeeded the first wave of refugee survivors of the Genocide who ended up settling along the Paris-Lyon-Marseille axis in the 1920s. Formerly at the forefront of political activism in the Diaspora, the Armenian structures of France are now plagued by a general sclerosis, whose effects became apparent in the mid-1990s.

France’s Stance on Armenian Genocide Unchanged, Hollande Says in Turkey

On a visit to Turkey, French President Francois Hollande has made it clear that France’s fundamental stance on the Armenian genocide was unchanged.

At a joint press conference with Turkish President Abdullah Gul both sides stuck to their positions in a row over France’s official recognition of a genocide by Ottoman Turks of Armenians in World War I — something Turkey contests, AFP reports.

Eduardo Eurnekian is Armenia's Largest Foreign Investor

The volume of foreign investments in Armenia in the first half of 2013 comprised $293.1 million, showing a 34.7 percent decrease as compared with the same period last year, National Statistical Service said.

Jerusalem Patriarch vs. Catholicos of All Armenians: Setting the Record Straight

In an unprecedented and tersely-worded letter, Jerusalem Patriarch Archbishop Nourhan Manougian criticizes His Holiness Karekin II, Catholicos of All Armenians, urging him to reinforce the Armenian Church’s “spiritual foundations,” which the Patriarch says have been waning.

The letter comes as a protest of recent events in the France Diocese, which prompted the resignation early last month of the popular Primate of France Archbishop Norvan Zakarian, which has created across-the-board and collective outrage from the French-Armenian community.

The Exodus of Musa Dagh Armenians: From the Sanjak of Alexandretta to Anjar, Lebanon

Vahram Shemmasian

 



The Sanjak of Alexandretta/Iskenderun was an autonomous province within Syria during the interwar years. Its inhabitants included a significant number of Armenian natives and refugees, among them the indigenous population of Musa Dagh near Antioch. A political crisis beginning in 1936 shook Sanjak society to its core, as winds of change from a French mandate to Turkish suzerainty increasingly caused panic. The turmoil grew to alarming proportions for the Arabs, Alawites, and Christians when a farcical “election” in the summer of 1938 installed a Turkish majority in the Sanjak’s legislature. A year later Turkey annexed the area. This was the final straw that compelled the overwhelming majority of Armenians, among other groups, to seek refuge in other parts of Syria as well as Lebanon, refusing to live under Turkish rule.

Sarkozy Asks Government to Re-Draft Genocide Denial Law

French President Nicolas Sarkozy asked the government to prepare a new law on criminalizing genocide denial. The call came less than an hour after the French Constitutional Council issued a statement on February 28, 2012, considering the bill penalizing the denial of genocides unconstitutional with the argument that it curbs freedom of speech.

The bill would have rendered punishable the denial of genocides France has officially recognized, like the Armenian Genocide. France already has a law in place penalizing Holocaust denial.

Turkey welcomed the ruling of the Constitutional Council. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the cabinet would meet to consider restarting contacts with France, which were frozen after the French parliament passed the bill on January 23, reported Reuters.

On February 1, Sarkozy vowed to redraft a law that criminalizes the denial of the Armenian Genocide, if the country’s highest judicial body finds an earlier version unconstitutional. While making the statement, Sarkozy reportedly criticized those in cabinet who had opposed the bill, saying they “did not see past the ends of their noses.”

He also said a rejection of the bill by the Constitutional Council could open the door to questioning a law that penalizes denial of the Holocaust.

Archag & Anahid: Cultivating Armenian Literature in France

Jennifer Manoukian

With so much attention focused on the French-Armenian community in recent weeks, it is an excellent time to remember the role that France once played as the center of Armenian literary and cultural activity in the diaspora.

France Criminalizes Denial of the Armenian Genocide

(BBC, The Jerusalem Post).- The French Senate, after 10 hours of debate, approved the law Boyer to criminalize denial of the Armenian Genocide on Monday, January 23, 2012 by 127 votes against 86.

On Tuesday, France urged Turkey not to overreact. Speaking on Canal+, Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, who was personally against the move, said the new law was "ill-timed," but called on Ankara to remain calm.
The lower house had backed it in December, prompting Ankara to cancel all economic, political and military meetings with Paris and recall its ambassador for consultations.
"We need good relations with it and we need to get through this excessive phase," Juppe said. "We have very important economic and trade ties. I hope the reality of the situation will not be usurped by emotions."
President Nicolas Sarkozy is expected to sign the bill into law before the end of February. It is reasonable to ask whether Juppe would remain on his post given his public opposition to a law impulsed by the president himself.

Turkey Says French Law Damages Freedom of Expression

Zvi Bar el

A Holocaust must not be denied, according to France, be it the Jewish Holocaust or the Armenian. While the French Parliament passed a law in 1990 against denying the Jewish Holocaust and against manifestations of anti-Semitism, the Armenian Holocaust has not won identical status. The lower house last week passed a bill defining denial of the slaughter of the Armenian people as a crime, but it still needs the Senate's approval to become law.

Freedom of Ignorant Speech?

Vartan Matiossian

 

The December 21 editorial of The Los Angeles Times, "France Considers Armenian Genocide Bill," continues the American time-honored tradition of taking the First Amendment to the utmost extreme and senselessly complaining about those narrow-minded and headstrong Europeans who do not understand the gist of it.