The first English Language Armenian Weekly In The United States
Acting Editor Barbara J. Merguerian Assistant Editors Alin
K.Gregorian Suzanne E. Moranian
755 Mt. Auburn St., Watertown, MA 02472-1509 Tel:(617) 924-4420
Fax:(617) 924-3860 E-MAIL: ArmenMirr@aol.com
08-11-1999
AZG/MIRROR-SPECTATOR ON-LINE
1) Israel Plays Both Sides in Greek-Turkish Dispute
2) Memory as Prologue
3) Armenians in the News
4) Armenian Philharmonic Concert Unites Yerevan and Beirut
5) TEKEYAN CULTURAL ASSOCIATION (TCA), 24th ANNUAL CONVENTION
1) Israel Plays Both Sides in Greek-Turkish Dispute
The Iranian news agency IRNA reported August 5 that Greek Deputy Foreign
Minister Yiannos Kranidiotis held separate meetings in Jerusalem on August 4
with Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy and Minister for the Premier's
Office Chaim Ramon. Kranidiotis, the first Greek official to visit Israel
since the election of Prime Minister Ehud Barak, reportedly discussed
business prospects, as well as the possibility of improving bilateral
military cooperation between Israel and Greece. According to IRNA,
Kranidiotis was assured that both Barak and Israeli President Ezer Weizman
would visit Athens soon.
While this story, if true, may not bode well for Turkey, continued and
expanded Israeli ties with Ankara suggest Israel is attempting to play both
sides.
The Greek news agency ANA reported on August 5 that Israel and Greece had
come to an agreement over the possibilities for improved military cooperation
between the two countries. The agency also reported that Israel's navy chief
will visit Athens later this month and that Greek Defense Minister Akis
Tsohatzopoulos will visit Israel in September.
If these reports are true, they will only further heighten concerns of
Turkey, which is already uneasy about apparently rapidly improving relations
between Israel and Syria. Turkey and Israel, and in particular their
militaries, had grown close since the signing of a series of accords in 1996
aimed at containing a growing Syrian-Greek threat. In fact, Israel and Turkey
had attempted to recruit Jordan and Egypt into the bloc, though with only
marginal success in the former case and none in the latter. Greece, in turn,
has boosted its ties with Armenia and Iran. All three countries have
increased political and economic cooperation, and Greece maintains a military
cooperation agreement with Armenia. Prior to a recent trilateral meeting in
Athens, the Greek and Iranian defense ministers announced the three countries
would sign a defense pact, but that plan has since been officially denied.
Turkey's military cooperation with Israel has seemed less secure with Barak's
election. Barak is pressing for a comprehensive peace settlement involving
Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine - a plan which would strengthen Syria and
potentially decrease Israel's commitment to Turkey. Israel has long
maintained behind-the-scenes relations with Iran, undermining the perceived
Iranian threat as justification for a close Israeli alliance with Turkey.
While Iranian President Mohammad Khatami is unlikely to sign a formal peace
treaty with the "Zionists," he could both facilitate a substantial decrease
in tension with Israel and collaborate on containing Iraq, reducing Israel's
need for involvement in eastern Turkey.
According to the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot, the Kurdish opposition
PKK has even made recent overtures to Israel, in hopes of improving relations
and saving the life of Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan, now facing a death
sentence in a Turkish jail. With Syria, Iran, and the Kurds all potentially
available to counter an Iraqi threat, Israel's need for tight relations with
Turkey diminish.
Still, despite the Israeli opening to Syria and Greece, it continues to hedge
its bets in Turkey. Turkey and Israel are reportedly due to sign a contract
for the joint production of the Israeli Popeye 2 air-to-surface missile.
Turkey, Israel, and the United States are planning to hold naval maneuvers in
the Mediterranean soon, and the Israeli ambassador to Turkey announced August
5 that Egypt and Syria would be welcome to participate.
During a July visit to Israel, Turkish President Suleyman Demirel announced
that the two countries were strengthening their military cooperation, begun
with the signing of a cooperation agreement in 1996, and that the two
countries were looking into a plan under which Turkey could supply Israel
with fresh water. Iran, meanwhile, has curiously toned down its evaluation of
border incursions by Turkey, calling them accidents and emphasizing
improvements in Iranian-Turkish relations. And finally, while the
Israeli-Syrian peace plan reportedly calls for Israel to report to Damascus
on its military cooperation with Turkey, it also allegedly calls for Syria to
prevent the PKK from operating out of Syria or Lebanon.
The Barak government is pushing ahead vigorously with a Syrian peace plan,
and now appears open to improving military ties with Greece. At the same time
it is opening these doors wider than ever, Israel is not closing the door to
Turkey. Bet hedging is one thing, and balance of power politics another; this
may be a bit of both. But in the web of competition and mutual insecurity
that is the Levant, it is not clear that Israel can, in the long run, play
friend to all sides.
-Stratfor
2) Memory as Prologue
Recent summer issues of The Armenian Mirror-Spectator carried installments
from the memoirs of Manoug Bardizbanian, an Armenian orphan from Smyrna who
eventually settled in the US. This Charles Dickens-like tale not only made
for interesting reading, but it gave a detailed sense of what it meant for an
Armenian to be alive in Smryna in the early part of the 20th century. His
story illuminated, among other themes, the life of children, family and
social structures, the sweeping force of politics, economic life and the
power of fate. No work of history can do more than that.
Memoirs such as this are valuable because they help us to know who we are-and
chart our future-by understanding our origins individually and collectively.
The past, as is often noted, is prologue.
Poets, artists, musicians and professional historians are expected to express
the past for us in their distinctive ways. Yet, it is important that ordinary
people tell their stories. Each person's life is filled with meaning, with
lessons for us all. Although histories of the common person are the most
uncommon histories, they are often the most compelling.
The memoirs of the many, much rarer than those of the elite few, show life as
it really was. In the lives of the ordinary, we see the causes of historical
change begin to gather force, and we see the consequences of change. It is
the impact of large events on the lives of the mass of people that makes
those events matter and gives them their size. There is no such thing as "the
force of history" except for the actions of individuals. The lives of the
great are the summary of the lives of the many.
Various Armenian organizations have worked to record individual histories.
The Armenian Assembly, the Armenian Library and Museum of America and the
Armenian International Women's Association, for example, acknowledged the
need for Armenians to document and record their thoughts and actions by
sponsoring oral history projects.
Armenian women's groups, usually associated with churches, have also
contributed to this process for generations with the production of countless
cookbooks-invaluable windows into Armenian family life and culture.
Interviewing Armenian Genocide survivors has taken obvious precedence, as
their ranks have steadily dwindled. Yet, it is extremely important to the
preservation of Armenian memory that we also document the lives of the
descendants of the survivors, who went on to build, and continue to build,
the Armenian community worldwide-and contribute significantly to the world at
large.
Everyone is an eyewitness to history, to a time and place that reveals
information descriptive of his or her experiences. This information, taken
person by person, forms a picture of the larger Armenian society. Such
knowledge is essential to the task of Armenian self preservation. We need to
know about ourselves. Our culture will survive, in part, because we have
memory of our past.
Time is of the essence. The generation who witnessed the most tragic events
in our history is on the verge of extinction. With the challenges presented
to us by truth-altering revisionists, the eyewitness accounts of the
survivors remain the most valuable documents for historical study of the
Genocide era.
Armenians should be recording their lives. Armenian organizations should
feature training sessions on memoir writing. They should sponsor yet more
oral history projects and interview Genocide survivors as well as the
generations of Armenians who followed. Each of us should jot down details and
impressions of our lives, even though we think them ordinary or
unspectacular. They are not. Indeed, they are, put together, the story of all
Armenians.
3) Armenian in The News
A recent mailing by the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center in
Philadelphia highlighted the efforts of Dr. Haig H. Kazazian Jr. Dr. Kazazian
is chairman of the Department of Genetics at Penn and has spent years
studying families affected with schizophrenia. "We expect that there are
probably a dozen or more genes involved in schizophrenia," he says, "and it's
hard to know even what fraction of schizophrenics might have a mutation in a
particular gene."
The Detroit Free Press recently highlighted the Michael and Rose Assarian
Cancer Center in Novi, calling it a "spectacular art-filled building." The
$16 million addition, a partnership of Providence Hospital and the University
of Michigan Medical Center, showcases medical advances as well as the newest
thinking in what patents want in a health center, accessible buildings with
parking, places to meditate, a library and comfortable treatment areas.
Val Asbedian was recently named director of strategic planning in the state's
Division of Information Technology. In effect, his main job these days,
according to a feature story in the Boston Globe on June 20, is being the
state of Massachusetts' "point man for the efforts to prevent any disasters
stemming from the Y2K bug." Asbedian, 60, grew up in Brooklyn and worked on
NASA's lunar landing program in the late 1960s, after earning engineering
degrees at City College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a
math degree at Adelphi University. He moved to Bedford, Mass. in 1975 to be
closer to the family of his wife, Nancy, with whom he has two grown children.
Asbedian was a former chairman of the Board of Selectmen in Bedford.
The heavy metal band System of a Down is going against its name - and rising
in the music industry. The all-Armenian American band - singer Serj Tankian,
guitarist Daron Malakian, bassist Shavo Adadjian and drummer John Dolmayan
chase the dreams of achieving success as a politically aware, intellectual
heavy metal band As their producer they have enlisted the legendary Rick
Rubin, who has signed them at Columbia Records. The band, recently on tour in
Europe, refused to play in Turkey, because they were told that if they refer
to anything related to politics or the Armenian Genocide, they would be
jailed.
Some lucky Armenians were recently pictured in Stuff@Night publication in
Boston munching on some first class caviar at the opening of the Ritz
Carlton's Caviar Lounge. The Boyajian caviar-munching crowd included Zovig
Kaniarian, Rosemary Spearian and Jon Chilingerian.
The Boston Globe did a story on Noubar B. Afeyan, 35, the founder, chairman
and chief executive of PerSeptive Biosystems Inc., which was recently bought
out by Perkin-Elmer Corp. for $360 million. Perkin-Elmer is a rising star in
the biotechnology research systems, and will operate PerSeptive as a separate
division. Afeyan said that PerSeptive expects to have $100 million in
revenues during its current fiscal year ending September 30. Afeyan was born
in Lebanon, raised in Canada and 24 when he started his company in 1987.
David Mugar was pictured proudly mugging in front of the Hatch Shell at the
Esplanade the day before the fireworks which he finances every year in
Boston, during which the Boston Pops perform.
Vartan Gregorian made the cover of the latest issue of Library Journal.
Inside, Editor-in-Chief John N. Berry III in an editorial titled "Vartan Is
Back in Town," expressed his delight that Gregorian was back in New York,
after his stint at Brown University. Gregorian, now president of the Carnegie
Corporation of New York, initiated the magnificent renovation and
beautification of the great New York Public Library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd
Street.
4) Armenian Philharmonic Concert Unites Yerevan and Beirut
BEIRUT - The Armenian Philharmonic last week held a successful, sold-out
concert in Baalbek.
Despite the pressure of maintaining a tight time schedule throughout the
evening, conductor Loris Tjeknavorian decided to play the third movement of
Walid Gholmieh's "Martyr Symphony" a second time so that any latecomers who
missed the concert's beginning could hear it just after the interval.
The Gholmieh piece was attacked with real gusto, bringing out its percussive
qualities as well as the harmonic interplay of wind and strings.
"Viva Armenia," cried a member of the crowd, perhaps one of the many who had
come from Bourj Hammoud. And "Viva Lebanon," replied the maestro. "Thank you
for giving a home to so many Armenian people."
The presence of so many Armenians helped make this and one of the best
concerts of the summer.
Tjeknavorian has conducted Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto many times
with the likes of John Odgen and John Lill. With 32-year-old Armen
Babakhanian at Baalbek, the piano was low in the mix, but this seemed to suit
the setting of Jupiter. At the quiet ending to the second movement, the only
sounds were Babakhanian's playing and the gentle buzz of insects.
"Every time I conduct the Rachmaninov, it's new," Tjeknavorian said
afterward. "It has beautiful orchestration, harmonies and melodies, yet
sometimes can become something of a battle between piano and orchestra."
In the second half of the concert, Tjeknavorian told the audience that "it
was time to go crazy."
After the Spartacus ballet of Aram Khachaturian including its famous "Sabre
Dance" the orchestra launched into a medley of Johann Strauss waltzes and
polkas.
"Even if you can't dance," said a delighted Tjeknavorian, "don't sit
stiffly." He conducted the audience in clapping their hands, building the
sound to a crescendo.
5) TEKEYAN CULTURAL ASSOCIATION , 24th ANNUAL CONVENTION
in
Montreal, Canada, from October 22-24, 1999,
Schedule of Activities
ANNUAL MEETING
Tekeyan Center, located at 825 Manoogian Ave.
Friday, October 22. at 8:00 PM : Hospitality Reception for all delegates
Saturday, October 23 at 9:00 AM: Registration of delegates
9:30 AM to 12:45 PM: First Working Session
1:00 PM: Lunch for all participating Delegates
2:00 PM to 5:30 PM: Second Working Session
A N N U A L B A N Q U E T
Saturday, October 23 at 8:00 PM
Dr. Arshavir Gundjian
Will be recognized and Honored for his 40 years of devoted Services
to the Armenian Community
"Abaka" Weekly Newspaper's 24th Anniversary of Publication
Will be acknowledged and Commended
Maro Bedrosian
Former Chairperson of TCA Chicago Chapter
Mistress of Ceremonies
Raffi V. Balian
Keynote Speaker
"The vision of TCA in the next Millenium"
Presentation of Awards
"Balian Press Award" for 1998 and 1999
"Smsarian Trophy" for most active Chapter
CULTURAL PROGRAM
Sunday, October 24 at 5:00 PM
Commemoration of the Literary Genius of Late Poet Vahe Vahian
Keynote Speakers
Edmond Azadian & Osheen Keshishian,
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