*'Winter Wonderland', Hyde Park, London
Tuesday, 28 December 2010
Monday, 27 December 2010
‘Top’/’bottom’ Arthur Baghdasaryan, homophobia, political prostitution and ‘European values’ in Armenia
Read more on Unzipped: Gay Armenia
*source of photo: Photolur, via A1+ (from my archive: Disgrace of the Day - Arthur Baghdasaryan)
Tuesday, 21 December 2010
Obituary (The Telegraph): Michael Hagopian - "Film maker who sought to prove that the Armenians had suffered Genocide"
Only today, reading The Telegraph, I learned this... RIP, Michael Hagopian...
Below is his Obituary as it appears in The Telegraph.
***
Michael Hagopian
Film maker sought to prove that the Armenians had suffered genocide
Michael Hagopian, who died on December 10 aged 97, survived the massacre of Armenians by the Turks during the First World War and went on, as a documentary film maker, to campaign for the killings to be recognised officially as “genocide”.
According to historians, between 1915 and 1918 some 1.5 million Armenians died in a series of wholesale massacres and deportations which took place amid the chaos of war and the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire. Turkey maintains that the deaths (which it estimates at 300,000 Armenians and about as many Turks — many of them victims of famine and disease) occurred within the context of a civil war sparked after Armenians, backed by Russia, rose up against the Ottomans. It remains a crime in Turkey to portray the killings as “genocide”.
Hagopian was determined to refute the Turkish claims. Among several documentaries, The Forgotten Genocide (1976), the first full-length feature on the killings, involved nearly 400 witness interviews and 20 years of research and received Emmy nominations for best documentary writing and production.
The River Ran Red (2008) told how hundreds of thousands of Armenians were forced into the Syrian Desert, where most of them died of starvation, and was voted best international historical documentary by the New York International Film & Video Festival in 2009.
To date, 20 countries have officially recognised the events of the period as genocide. Earlier this year a resolution to that effect was narrowly approved by the American congressional Foreign Affairs Committee. On several recent occasions, however, similar resolutions have been adopted by the committee only to fall short of endorsement by a vote of the full House.
In 2007, for example, a committee resolution branding the massacre of Armenians as genocide was greeted by a jubilant Hagopian as a sign that “representatives in Congress now realise the Armenian community has a lot of political power”. But in the end support for the bill ebbed away as Ankara recalled its ambassador to Washington and politicians within Congress feared that ties to Turkey – whose airspace was a crucial corridor to supply US troops in Iraq – would be irreparably damaged. Turkey is again lobbying America to prevent any vote in the present instance.
The son of a prominent physician, Jakob Michael Hagopian was born on October 20 1913 in the ancient Armenian town of Kharpert, in what was then the Ottoman Empire (now Turkey). One night in June 1915, after his parents heard that Turkish soldiers were on the rampage nearby, he was hidden in a well behind their home. “To save my life, [my father] placed me in it, hoping the Turks would not find me, that by a miracle I would survive,” Hagopian recalled in 2001. “He had great faith in Providence.” The soldiers did not come that night. But when they did several days later, the family was spared because his father had treated local Turks.
The family remained in Turkey until 1922, when they fled to the United States. They lived in Boston before settling at Fresno, California, in 1927.
After studying Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, Hagopian took a doctorate in International Relations at Harvard. He then served in the US Army Air Forces during the war before teaching at several universities, including the American University of Beirut, where he began teaching himself to make films. He later took film classes at the University of California, Los Angeles.
In 1952 he founded his own film production company, initially making films about the cultures of the Middle East, Nigeria, India and the American Indians. In 1979 Hagopian founded the Armenian Film Foundation, which was dedicated to preserving the visual and personal histories of the witnesses to the massacres.
Hagopian wrote, directed and produced 17 films about the Armenians . As he recalled in Voices From the Lake (2000): “I remember my mother saying, 'You can kill a people, but their voices will never die’.”
Michael Hagopian is survived by his wife, Antoinette, and by a daughter and three sons.
Below is his Obituary as it appears in The Telegraph.
***
Michael Hagopian
Film maker sought to prove that the Armenians had suffered genocide
According to historians, between 1915 and 1918 some 1.5 million Armenians died in a series of wholesale massacres and deportations which took place amid the chaos of war and the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire. Turkey maintains that the deaths (which it estimates at 300,000 Armenians and about as many Turks — many of them victims of famine and disease) occurred within the context of a civil war sparked after Armenians, backed by Russia, rose up against the Ottomans. It remains a crime in Turkey to portray the killings as “genocide”.
Hagopian was determined to refute the Turkish claims. Among several documentaries, The Forgotten Genocide (1976), the first full-length feature on the killings, involved nearly 400 witness interviews and 20 years of research and received Emmy nominations for best documentary writing and production.
The River Ran Red (2008) told how hundreds of thousands of Armenians were forced into the Syrian Desert, where most of them died of starvation, and was voted best international historical documentary by the New York International Film & Video Festival in 2009.
To date, 20 countries have officially recognised the events of the period as genocide. Earlier this year a resolution to that effect was narrowly approved by the American congressional Foreign Affairs Committee. On several recent occasions, however, similar resolutions have been adopted by the committee only to fall short of endorsement by a vote of the full House.
In 2007, for example, a committee resolution branding the massacre of Armenians as genocide was greeted by a jubilant Hagopian as a sign that “representatives in Congress now realise the Armenian community has a lot of political power”. But in the end support for the bill ebbed away as Ankara recalled its ambassador to Washington and politicians within Congress feared that ties to Turkey – whose airspace was a crucial corridor to supply US troops in Iraq – would be irreparably damaged. Turkey is again lobbying America to prevent any vote in the present instance.
The son of a prominent physician, Jakob Michael Hagopian was born on October 20 1913 in the ancient Armenian town of Kharpert, in what was then the Ottoman Empire (now Turkey). One night in June 1915, after his parents heard that Turkish soldiers were on the rampage nearby, he was hidden in a well behind their home. “To save my life, [my father] placed me in it, hoping the Turks would not find me, that by a miracle I would survive,” Hagopian recalled in 2001. “He had great faith in Providence.” The soldiers did not come that night. But when they did several days later, the family was spared because his father had treated local Turks.
The family remained in Turkey until 1922, when they fled to the United States. They lived in Boston before settling at Fresno, California, in 1927.
After studying Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, Hagopian took a doctorate in International Relations at Harvard. He then served in the US Army Air Forces during the war before teaching at several universities, including the American University of Beirut, where he began teaching himself to make films. He later took film classes at the University of California, Los Angeles.
In 1952 he founded his own film production company, initially making films about the cultures of the Middle East, Nigeria, India and the American Indians. In 1979 Hagopian founded the Armenian Film Foundation, which was dedicated to preserving the visual and personal histories of the witnesses to the massacres.
Hagopian wrote, directed and produced 17 films about the Armenians . As he recalled in Voices From the Lake (2000): “I remember my mother saying, 'You can kill a people, but their voices will never die’.”
Michael Hagopian is survived by his wife, Antoinette, and by a daughter and three sons.
Saturday, 11 December 2010
Armenian + Emo = Armo?
Related: Degradation and stupidity. Police in Armenia hunts down perceived emo teenagers, confiscates ‘weapons of mass destraction’, oh, sorry, souvenirs
*via Gawker
Armenian Police: Emo Music Can "Distort Our Gene Pool"
A full-blown panic over emo music has taken hold of the Armenian capital of Yerevan, after a 15-year-old "emo" kid committed suicide. The Chief of Police warns that kids being into emo music will somehow produce a generation of mutants.
Here's how EurasiaNet describes the reaction of the Armenian Chief of Police:
(thanks to Walter (& Katy) for the title of my post)
*via Gawker
Armenian Police: Emo Music Can "Distort Our Gene Pool"
A full-blown panic over emo music has taken hold of the Armenian capital of Yerevan, after a 15-year-old "emo" kid committed suicide. The Chief of Police warns that kids being into emo music will somehow produce a generation of mutants.
Here's how EurasiaNet describes the reaction of the Armenian Chief of Police:
No law prohibits people from being emos, but police have left little doubt that their tolerance for emo fans is in short supply. In a December 6 interview with the newspaper Hraparak, Armenian Chief of Police Alik Sargsian commented that "emos are dangerous" and can "distort our gene pool."
"I do not like emos, in fact. I absolutely don't like them. I do not understand or accept them," said Sargsian.Some Armenian scientist should probably do a study where they expose rats to three Fallout Boy EPs a day and see what happens.
(thanks to Walter (& Katy) for the title of my post)
Monday, 6 December 2010
Outrage as Armenia Fund Telethon promotes homophobia
UPDATE 29 April 2011: VO.X frontrunner Aram Rian has re-edited and replaced the controversial portion of the band’s "I Love Armenia" music video, by removing the reference to homosexuality as “perversion”. We have reached a mutual understanding with the group and consider this matter resolved as dialogue has taken place. We no longer have reason to believe either Aram Rian or VO.X is homophobic, and we wish them success in their future endeavors.
***
UPDATE 7 December 2010: Contrary to Twitter and Facebook reactions, the Executive Director of Armenia Fund, Inc. and the Executive in Charge of Production for Telethon 2010, officially denied that VO.X music video was aired during the Telethon 2010 (see comments section on Unzipped: Gay Armenia)
***
Think of donating to Armenia Fund?
Think again!
Why?
Read my post on Unzipped: Gay Armenia
***
UPDATE 7 December 2010: Contrary to Twitter and Facebook reactions, the Executive Director of Armenia Fund, Inc. and the Executive in Charge of Production for Telethon 2010, officially denied that VO.X music video was aired during the Telethon 2010 (see comments section on Unzipped: Gay Armenia)
***
Think of donating to Armenia Fund?
Think again!
Why?
Read my post on Unzipped: Gay Armenia
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