Armenia's Membership in the EEU Raises More Questions than It Answers

Babken Dergrigorian

 

Upon reading Harut Sassounian’s latest article “The West Must Offer Armenia Incentives Rather than Decry its Ties with Russia,” I have been compelled to write a response addressing its shortcomings and inaccuracies, increasingly common also within the broader narratives regarding Armenia’s accession into the EEU in the Armenian community.

Bashar al-Assad Did Not Recognize the Armenian Genocide, Period

 Vartan Matiossian

As the readers of this blog know, Syrian President Bashar-al Assad has gone on record comparing the Armenian genocide to the brutal killing of civilians by foreign fighters in Syria during an interview with Agence France Press (AFP): "In more recent modern times, it reminds us of the massacres perpetrated by the Ottomans against the Armenians when they killed a million and a half Armenians and half a million Orthodox Syriacs in Syria and in Turkish territory." 

What I Choose It to Mean: On ‘Yeghern’ as the Armenian Translation of ‘Genocide’

Vartan Matiossian

 

“The term Yeghern, or Medz Yeghern, is the only word that really captures the essence of what happened in 1915. The survivors used that word. It is the only word that could really explain what happened in 1915. In a world without genocide denial, it would be the best word.”
–Khatchig Mouradian (2009)¹

 

‘Medz Yeghern’: the Proper Name of the Genocide

In the concluding installment of this study on the semantics, history, and politics of the phrase Medz Yeghern, it is crucial to underscore that the exhausting search for recognition should not block the use of the words that our ancestors have bequeathed us. It has been argued that recognition has been sufficiently ensured by two resolutions of the House of Representatives, 3 federal court rulings, 42 state declarations by legislation or proclamation, a sentence in a document filed in 1951 by the U.S. government to the International Court of Justice and another sentence in Ronald Reagan’s proclamation,² along with official declarations by 20 countries and statements of a host of scholars. “We don’t say that this is the end and the work of recognition has been done; simply, the emphasis should be put on reparation and the rights,” Giro Manoyan, the head of the ARF Bureau Armenian Cause office, declared recently.³

Armenians should not be obfuscated by denial, whether mainstream or from a lunatic fringe, which will probably be as lasting as affirmation. Another worrisome trend—misuse—should not obfuscate them either.

Word Atrocities: Of Little Phrases and Great Crimes

Vartan Matiossian

Like the genocide of the Armenians before it, and the genocide of the Cambodians which followed it—and like too many other such persecutions of too many other peoples—the lessons of the Holocaust must never be forgotten.

–Ronald Reagan (1981)(1)

I brought up matter of Holocaust Museum. It seems someone has approved a room dedicated to 1915 massacre of some Armenians by the Turks. I’m against it but don’t know what we can do.

–Ronald Reagan (1988)(2)

The "Exact Translation": How "Medz Yeghern" Means Genocide

Vartan Matiossian

Yes, until World War II, the Medz Yeghern of 1915 was unprecedented not only in the history of our people, but in the entirety of humankind. An entire people, an entire nation coming from the depths of millennia was killed, was dying.

We condemn genocide [genotsid] or zhoghovrtasbanutiun with all our heart and soul.

There is and there cannot be either juridical justification or any motion of prescription for genocide.

Genocide, be it the horrifying slaughter of Armenians in Der or in the banks of the Euphrates in 1915, or the torturing death by massacre of the other peoples during World War II in Majdanek and Büchenwald, must always be condemned without reservations, and its perpetrators must be condemned by all of humankind.

Nagush Harutiunian (1965)¹

 

The president of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic proclaimed these words at the official commemoration of the genocide on April 24, 1965 in Yerevan. Harutiunian did not hesitate to pair “genocide” (he used the Russian loanword genotsid and the Armenian translation zhoghovrtasbanutiun, literally “democide”; tseghasbanutiun was not yet commonly used in Eastern Armenian) and “Medz Yeghern.”

When Dictionaries Are Left Unopened: How ‘Medz Yeghern’ Turned into Terminology of Denial

You may want to know that ‘Meds Yeghern’ does not mean genocide;
it means “Great Calamity.” Armenians used that term before the word
‘genocide’ was coined by Raphael Lemkin in the 1940′s.

–Harut Sassounian¹

These explanatory words appeared after President Barack Obama used “Medz Yeghern” in his April 2009 statement: “The Meds Yeghern must live on in our memories, just as it lives on in the hearts of the Armenian people. … Nothing can bring back those who were lost in the Meds Yeghern.”² He repeated Medz Yeghern twice or three times—always without translation—in each of his April 24 statements between 2009 and 2012.

In this article, we will discuss the use of the phrase and some of the reactions it triggered in Armenian and Turkish quarters, and in one of the many realms of public debate: Wikipedia.

Mamma Mia, Here We Go Again

 Vartan Matiossian

We are on the brink of the American presidential elections and the subject of the U.S. recognition of the Armenian Genocide has heated up again. On August 15 and August 17, the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) issued letters calling on presidential candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney to make their position clear on this and other issues relevant to the Armenian community. As of the time of this writing, no response has been publicized.