News & Views (Jan 16, 2012)

This is our second edition of News & Views, which is a weekly summary of some of the week’s most important stories, links and material of interest to Ararat readers.

— An astute Turkish columnist, Orhan Kemal Cengiz, asks a very important question, “Why can’t we solve the murder of Hrant Dink?” The readers’ comments are worth a look.

— Armenian-American tech leader Alexis Ohanian, who we featured earlier this year, has been leading the fight against SOPA/PIPA in the US Congress. Ohanian famously declared that the anti-piracy bill will “Break the Internet.”

— Last Wednesday, January 11, Qatar-based news giant Al Jazeera broadcast Suzanne Khardalian’s Grandma’s Tattoos documentary. In the process of documenting her family story, Khardalian unraveled the shocking story of how many female victims of the Armenian Genocide survived.

Even if the broadcast was groundbreaking for the region, the television channel tweeted out the following on Jan 14, which is a cause for concern:

More than 1 million #Armenians died during the First World War – was it a #genocide?

Was it a genocide? Surely the social media denizens at Al Jazeera know it was.

— A few weeks ago, reporter Olivia Kantrandjian penned an article for ABC News website titled “7 Great Offbeat Places to Go in 2012″ (though the article is incorrectly dated, January 8, 2011). Among her picks was the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Now, surprisingly, the list has been altered to only six choices, and Karabakh is no where to be seen. The Armenian Reporter has a possible explanation for the removal: Azerbaijani pressure.

— The Oman Daily Observer tells the story of  Arsene Tchakarian, the last survivor of the Manouchian Group, which was one of France’s legendary World War II Resistance groups.

In other Oman-related Armenian news, the youngest daughter of famed Lebanese-Armenian painter Paul Guiragossian, Manuella Guiragossian, is having an exhibition in the sunny Sultanate on the Indian Ocean.

— Last week, Michael Berenbaum wrote in the English edition of Israel’s Haaretz newspaper that perhaps Israel should be silent on the Armenian Genocide:

Israel is now in a lose/lose situation. The longer the politicians debate the issue, the more it diminishes the country’s moral stature and the more dangerous it becomes for the memory of the Holocaust. Not to acknowledge the Armenian genocide puts it on the side of historical deniers, yet to acknowledge it now, out of anger, as punishment for the Turks, is the ultimate of politicization of history. Sometimes, as the Talmud tells us, silence is wisdom.

This week, Holocaust historian Israel W. Charny shot back as Berenbaum’s “sad call” with a post on Groong, the Armenian news listserv, titled “No Decent Jew Would Deny the Holocaust of Any People.” In it he writes:

Surrender to denial of any genocide disgraces the memory and meanings for the future of the Holocaust.

— Azad Hye reports on the situation of Iraqi-Armenians. According to Iraqi Archpriest Nareg Ishkhanian, which he says, numbers:

… 12,000, including 7,000-8,000 in Baghdad … At least 45 Armenians have been killed in the post-Saddam years of rampant insurgency, sectarian warfare and often unbridled crime, while another 32 people have been kidnapped for ransom, two of whom are still missing.

— Noravank reports on the current situation of the 1,000 or so members of the Evangelical-Armenian community in Russia, which is predominantly centered in Moscow and the Krasnodar region, where most Armenians live.

— Business Insider reminds us of the story of a Soviet-Armenian spy, Gevork Vartanian (no relation), who foiled a Nazi attempt to kill Joseph Stalin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill.

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News & Views is published every Monday afternoon EST. It is a summary of the week’s most interesting, provocatiove and thought-provoking links to articles, videos, photos and commentary of interest to the readers of Ararat.