It’s not that anything really unpleasant has happened to us yet in 2011, it’s just that 2010 ended so badly. Here’s how, in no particular order.
President Obama screwed us with the recess appointments of Bryza and Riccardione. As a friend observed, it’s probably his way of saying to us “upstarts” in the Armenian community of the U.S. “Don’t get too big for your britches, bitches!” Matt Bryza is the worst of the pair. The guy is so deep in Azero-Turkish pockets he can’t see daylight, and he’s supposed to represent American interests in Baku. Ridiculous! Unbelievable! No fair-minded person could argue otherwise. There’s no other way to interpret this than a slap in our collective face. Why? Because if he’s so competent, he could easily have been given another, equivalent appointment, where he had no conflict of interest.
As if those appointments weren’t bad enough, we have Javid Huseynov— Director General of the Azerbaijani American Council, adding insult to injury by lecturing the Armenian community about not pursuing narrow, “ethnic” interests. You see this electrical engineer type from Orange County, California knows all about defending American, over parochial interests. And why, you ask, does this paragon of American patriotism think Armenians are bad? It has nothing to do with his being an Azerbaijani government shill, of course… It’s just that these bad-old-Armenians keep introducing Genocide resolutions and obstructing international diplomacy to pursue “their” vile agenda.
While in Orange County, I should also mention that someone’s offering “Turkish” cooking classes there. Isn’t that just great? Not only do we have to contend with Turkey usurping and “Turkifying” the Armenian, Greek, and other cultural legacies of Asia Minor, but now we have Turks in the U.S. passing off as their own the cuisines they stole from the peoples they murdered!
Orange County serves as a locus (maybe I should say a plague of locusts) of Turkish activity of all types because of the large Turkish community there. But more interesting is a remark from a Huseynov interview in which he claims there will be more cooperation among all Turkic groups. This is a sign of the beginnings of political maturation of those communities in the U.S. and we should expect more challenges from that quarter and prepare for them. Of course I don’t believe that people from the central Asian Turkic countries will be in on this to any great extent, since the Armenian-haters, ideologically and historically, largely hail from what is today called Turkey and Azerbaijan.
On a broader, non-exclusively Turkic front, you can add to all this the Kobe Bryant fiasco (and the inability of many in our community to get over their addiction to the Lakers and appreciate the depth of this depravity and the damage it does us) and the ongoing bad judgment of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s leadership as evidenced in their coddling of Genocide denier Lewy.
Need I mention the fate of H. Res 252? And of course the utterly embarrassing, sniveling, brown-nosing press release issued by the Armenian Assembly that followed that fate? Here’s the offending quote:
“’We applaud the tenacity of the resolution sponsor, Congressman Adam Schiff, and we also particularly commend the steadfast leadership of Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who along with Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair and White House Liaison Congressman Chris Van Hollen provided guidance and invaluable assistance throughout this process,’ stated Executive Director Bryan Ardouny.”
Would someone please explain to me how this outfit justifies its existence to our community? How could anyone laud the person (Pelosi) who just screwed you? A friend came up with a very apt analogy, “The Assembly is to the Armenian community what Vichy was to France.”
Our work is cut out for us, so get busy. Perhaps one of our top areas for improvement this year ought to be the realm of public opinion, both pro-Armenian and anti-Turkey/Azerbaijan. In this vein, watch Wikileaks. It has been VERY informative about our enemies. Who knows, maybe even the Assembly’s doings will pop up somewhere among those documents.
Garen Yegparian
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Mr. Mouradian et al [of the Editorial Board]:
This post is written directly to you and the three other members of the editorial board.
I notice that so far, once again all of my posts have been censored and deleted. I don’t know if you consider yourselves jounalists, but by your actions, you constantly show that none of you on the board has any journalistic integrity! That’s really a shame! You don’t allow for any healthy discussion. You’re simply doing a major diservice to your people by isolating them from the opinions of others (many of which are constructive). Still, I keep posting because I sincerely believe that at some point, this concept of integrity will have to set in with at least one of you. If that can occur, then we can all move on to the next step of dialogue and positive communication. Think about it before you reflexively hit the delete key! Thank you.
Assembly, ANC, all the same dead-end self-delusional politics leading American-Armenians nowhere. Get over it already. Kobe Bryant, Kardashian – -what utter rot. So now you want us to boycott Turkish cooking classes? Please, go into mainstream American politics and get coopted further.
Robert writes:
I notice that so far, once again all of my posts have been censored and deleted.
This isn’t going to become a dialogue but your post has seen the light of day and doesn’t really contribute anything significant.
Robert also writes:
You don’t allow for any healthy discussion. You’re simply doing a major diservice to your people by isolating them from the opinions of others…now Robert, go try to sell that rationale in Turkey, and that’s not sarcasm.
Mediocre articles like this can only distance friends of Armenians or better create more Armenian haters! SHAME!
Nanci Pelosi did all for Armenians when she had full term nomination.
And you can’t gain anything by backstabbing other Armenian organizations!
SHAME AGAIN!
Thanks for the article and your analysis Garen. I liked it.
Garen writes: President Obama screwed us with the recess appointments of Bryza and Riccardione. As a friend observed, it’s probably his way of saying to us “upstarts” (we’re not ‘upstarts,’ we’ve been here longer than most Turks) in the Armenian community of the U.S. “Don’t get too big for your britches, bitches!” (I’m sorry to say not the best choice of wording.)
While what you write is true, how we put what we want to say creates an impression in the reader to foster support or otherwise might question the writer’s sensibility, (I’m being easy). I think it’s very important to be less careless with some of the words we use, it will help with creditability and I was a bit unhappy to see that the Weekly printed it.
How it’s written is good for friendly conversation or preliminary drafts but in the bigger picture it really does not make anyone look better/stronger.