Vayri7X

Armenian-Aryan Fist, et al and RACE: As to what this has to do with Armenians, I conjecture that we are at a crucial point in our collective history in Armenia and the diaspora in shaping our identity. I say that this is a point of high flux for us not only because of the newness of the Republic, and all that comes with it in social and political change,. I also say this because of the identity fluxes in the diaspora. Scientific ideas have credibility, and thoughts and themes of race/ethnicity are crucial to the UStates in particular in popular and political life , ( ideas have have influence abroad through globalization) . We shoudl be conscious of the consequence of this/ So much was lost in historic Armenia with the genocide.. where can those voices be now in the great identity debate? Where are those ways of seeing? We lost entire worlds out there.. entire worlds and possibilities... I never thought I would ever come across this whole "Armenian-Aryan" myth. Especially as a legitimixed , organized political party. Never. Now it seems fairly spread out among Armenians. Armenian-Aryan Fist, indeed!!! What news is this? Imported white supremacism? EH? I know there is alot at stake. It seems to me that those who adhere to the Aryan myth have the agenda of trying forge solidarity with certain types of Europeans and Americans in a push to gain access to European goods ( we're just like you, O Masters of the Universe!! just like you! ) Aryan myth adherents make the social capital ( purported Aryan-ness blather) to get the economic capital. Internalized racism seems to be the norm, and any method is allowable with the favoring of co-opting scholarly turns of thought and logic to prop up illogic. The Armenian freedom fighter and trained anthropologist Monte Melkonian ( for all the problems of his sympathies with authoritarian communism- give him some room for error, he doesn;t have retrospect now, being deceased) wrote a very good piece on Armenian identity and the whole Indo-European ( where hidden dimensions of the Aryan myth sometimes come associated) putch by some Armenians trying to garner creds from Europeans in our history. It did not work then , he wrote, and it will not work now.

well- not just hair signfies sexuality-- but anything else.. I agree with what yousaid about that.

Good point on the practicality of short hair. I am not making a value/aesthetic judgement on either long or short hair . Afterall, I had a good portion of mine shaved off during my teen years- but it grew back with a vengeance . I have also seen/heard of some Armenian women who had their hair cut as a type of punishment. I don't think this has much to do with shorter hair in specific stages of life, though. I *do* wonder if hair is some sort of (unconscious) signifier of sexuality, and hence the expectation of moderation at a certain stage in life. Maybe the best place to refer is poems, songs, proverbs and so forth. Any one got some novel Armenian proverbs, poems, songs referring to women's hair? Poetic associations? Personally, I refuse to ever cut my hair , despite if this is a rule or not

Let's bury this 19th century pseudo-scientific Aryan and racial non-sense once and for all with a little education in *contemporary* scientific consensus. I. A Statement from the American Anthropological Associaton on Race In the United States both scholars and the general public have been conditioned to viewing human races as natural and separate divisions within the human species based on visible physical differences. With the vast expansion of scientific knowledge in this century, however, it has become clear that human populations are not unambiguous, clearly demarcated, biologically distinct groups. Evidence from the analysis of genetics (e.g., DNA) indicates that most physical variation, about 94%, lies within so-called racial groups. Conventional geographic "racial" groupings differ from one another only in about 6% of their genes. This means that there is greater variation within "racial" groups than between them. In neighboring populations there is much overlapping of genes and their phenotypic (physical) expressions. Throughout history whenever different groups have come into contact, they have interbred. The continued sharing of genetic materials has maintained all of humankind as a single species. Physical variations in any given trait tend to occur gradually rather than abruptly over geographic areas. And because physical traits are inherited independently of one another, knowing the range of one trait does not predict the presence of others. For example, skin color varies largely from light in the temperate areas in the north to dark in the tropical areas in the south; its intensity is not related to nose shape or hair texture. Dark skin may be associated with frizzy or kinky hair or curly or wavy or straight hair, all of which are found among different indigenous peoples in tropical regions. These facts render any attempt to establish lines of division among biological populations both arbitrary and subjective. Historical research has shown that the idea of "race" has always carried more meanings than mere physical differences; indeed, physical variations in the human species have no meaning except the social ones that humans put on them. Today scholars in many fields argue that "race" as it is understood in the United States of America was a social mechanism invented during the 18th century to refer to those populations brought together in colonial America: the English and other European settlers, the conquered Indian peoples, and those peoples of Africa brought in to provide slave labor. From its inception, this modern concept of "race" was modeled after an ancient theorem of the Great Chain of Being, which posited natural categories on a hierarchy established by God or nature. Thus "race" was a mode of classification linked specifically to peoples in the colonial situation. It subsumed a growing ideology of inequality devised to rationalize European attitudes and treatment of the conquered and enslaved peoples. Proponents of slavery in particular during the 19th century used "race" to justify the retention of slavery. The ideology magnified the differences among Europeans, Africans, and Indians, established a rigid hierarchy of socially exclusive categories underscored and bolstered unequal rank and status differences, and provided the rationalization that the inequality was natural or God-given. The different physical traits of African-Americans and Indians became markers or symbols of their status differences. As they were constructing US society, leaders among European-Americans fabricated the cultural/behavioral characteristics associated with each "race," linking superior traits with Europeans and negative and inferior ones to blacks and Indians. Numerous arbitrary and fictitious beliefs about the different peoples were institutionalized and deeply embedded in American thought. Early in the 19th century the growing fields of science began to reflect the public consciousness about human differences. Differences among the "racial" categories were projected to their greatest extreme when the argument was posed that Africans, Indians, and Europeans were separate species, with Africans the least human and closer taxonomically to apes. Ultimately "race" as an ideology about human differences was subsequently spread to other areas of the world. It became a strategy for dividing, ranking, and controlling colonized people used by colonial powers everywhere. But it was not limited to the colonial situation. In the latter part of the 19th century it was employed by Europeans to rank one another and to justify social, economic, and political inequalities among their peoples. During World War II, the Nazis under Adolf Hitler enjoined the expanded ideology of "race" and "racial" differences and took them to a logical end: the extermination of 11 million people of "inferior races" (e.g., Jews, Gypsies, Africans, homosexuals, and so forth) and other unspeakable brutalities of the Holocaust. "Race" thus evolved as a worldview, a body of prejudgments that distorts our ideas about human differences and group behavior. Racial beliefs constitute myths about the diversity in the human species and about the abilities and behavior of people homogenized into "racial" categories. The myths fused behavior and physical features together in the public mind, impeding our comprehension of both biological variations and cultural behavior, implying that both are genetically determined. Racial myths bear no relationship to the reality of human capabilities or behavior. Scientists today find that reliance on such folk beliefs about human differences in research has led to countless errors. At the end of the 20th century, we now understand that human cultural behavior is learned, conditioned into infants beginning at birth, and always subject to modification. No human is born with a built-in culture or language. Our temperaments, dispositions, and personalities, regardless of genetic propensities, are developed within sets of meanings and values that we call "culture." Studies of infant and early childhood learning and behavior attest to the reality of our cultures in forming who we are. It is a basic tenet of anthropological knowledge that all normal human beings have the capacity to learn any cultural behavior. The American experience with immigrants from hundreds of different language and cultural backgrounds who have acquired some version of American culture traits and behavior is the clearest evidence of this fact. Moreover, people of all physical variations have learned different cultural behaviors and continue to do so as modern transportation moves millions of immigrants around the world. How people have been accepted and treated within the context of a given society or culture has a direct impact on how they perform in that society. The "racial" worldview was invented to assign some groups to perpetual low status, while others were permitted access to privilege, power, and wealth. The tragedy in the United States has been that the policies and practices stemming from this worldview succeeded all too well in constructing unequal populations among Europeans, Native Americans, and peoples of African descent. Given what we know about the capacity of normal humans to achieve and function within any culture, we conclude that present-day inequalities between so-called "racial" groups are not consequences of their biological inheritance but products of historical and contemporary social, economic, educational, and political circumstances. [Note: For further information on human biological variations, see the statement prepared and issued by the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, 1996 (AJPA 101:569-570).]

What of the historic and present Armenian community in Palestine? Beit Sahour, Al Quds, et al. Baron Der? Armenian concerns you think? " forceable transfer" of people off of their historic lands ( ethnocide) , and being closed in by walls , and vicious land and resource confiscation .. Do *any* of these occurences ring a bell with Armenians?

I have a question about an unstated rule on women and hair length. I thought of this at St. Sarkis this last Sunday while trying to find a brush to get ready, and notice this trend among odars as well. Why is it that women at a certain age seem to have to abide by an unstated rule of cutting off their hair , and often getting it permed ? Someone told me this is common, I noticed it and thought "EH" ? What does hair represent that it needs to be shorn at a certain stage in life? Why the cutting? Is it some sort of unstated feminine "rite of passage"? Thoughts, please? And please... no " long of hair , short of sense " nonsense.

THOTH- For some reason, I can't conujure the Bill narrative out of my mind just yet. " such as nutrition and even random factors that may act to spark brain development (usage) where if some particuar encounter or environmental circumstance fail to occur - this stimulation might never kick in etc...What do you think?" I agree with the nutrition factor, as an -element- of physiological components of intelligence. Ecology and systems theory inegrate this in accounts of performance of the organized application of knowledge. If we were to take a reductive stance as a *model* ( not the bottom-line) to understand intelligence capacity dynamically ( not fixed), then we could find ourselves in the arena of neuroscience & among other areas of science focusing on the brain. I.e, questioning the role of neurochemicals which constitute one of many biological variabilites of cognitive dynamics in learning and performing knowledge. The role of nutrition is Very important , I agree. Simply, how can one apply the capacity for intelligence with "deficient fuel"? Malnutrition ( and stress) alters brain chemicals that impact learning ability ( the specifics of recent reasearch , I am uncertain- but I'll bug my best friend, a PhD in neuroscience ). It also has been shown that stressful or violent environment alters the application of intelligence ( positive and negative). My neuroscience buddy claims that stress alters neurochemicals significantly - the jury is out for how permanent , the exactness of the process and what the specifics of the chemicals involved are,-aside from the elementary neurochemicals, which are widely known/ I agree then, that the symbiotic relationship between biology and environment should be accounted for . On that note, ( here's a controversey when thinking of the implications - I'll leave it ambiguous enough for folks to think of examples) Much has been said about the role of "class" and ideals of intelligence. Working -class/underprivileged kids may be subjected to variables of stress that middle- & upper-class kids are not, and as a result, *may* not have access to environments that allow for the application of knowledge that upper-class kids do, and hence, not get the ability to *exercise* capacity through application. Likewise, they may have opportunities of intelligence application that privileged kids don't. What do you think?

When I think of happiness, I think of a *dynamic* state, as opposed to an emotional stasis. Happiness , like joy, occurs with a free flowing and uninhibited emotional state of experience. However, a positive emotional stasis may be "contentment". To me , happiness is related to ecstasy .. to "stand outside of one's self" and reflexively -observe and experience- the subjective good, however one defines it.

Nancy Agabian is (was?) the lead singer of a punk/industrial group called " Guitar Boy" in the states. She also wrote a book called " princess freak" . I read a while back of a hardcore group whose members were fr. yerevan.. If I find the e-mail, i'll post it.

bell- Where did you hear of such blasphemy as an American remake of The Wicker Man? I first saw it when I was around 15, and several years later, I can't get that damn , corny opening music out of my head " corn leaves and barley leaves and.... BAH! ? Other than that, I cocnur, it was quite a perfect moive , with a surprise ending. Captured the pre-Manichaen ethos of paganism (i.e., lack of body-spirit split , and reverance for sexuality and women). Yet the ending was a bit of bad agitprop for present types like this. The film " Black Cat/White Cat" by director Emir Kusturica made me laugh so hard, I bruised ribs. Especially the techno music beloved by the film's bully " pity bull- terrier , etrrier " .. Man, it hurt. Considering the zeitgeist of our time, I have been preferring to watch acritical bsurdist movies like Kusturica's ( underground) or Spike Lee's works like 25th hour. For folx who liked "Bowling for Columbine" , check out " We Interrupt this Empire" ( yeah, some friends worked onit, maybe i'm pluggin ) and the AMAZING , incredible work "Fourth World War". I saw it previewed at a film festival. Very moving ... amazing graphics and contenct.. very susbstantial , global issues from a humanist perspective.. http://www.bignoisefilms.com/4ww/index.htm Very inspring. Not preachy, and takes one's perspective to happenings on every continent .

Off- the eyes has him lookin like something out of a b-movie !

Ahh-Canada! The closest I saw here in the states was " The Spirit of the Armenians" on PBS about 3 weeks ago. I am thinking about moving to Canada. Must check out their PhD social anthropology programs. Sidenote: Are there Armenian stalls in Kensington Market up there ? OR is that a thing of the past?

Hehe. Yeah, I was Down before there was a Sytem. My dad was all up on me for that , and was excited when he saw other unusual -lookin Armos in System of a down - " akchk- where were they when you were 15? " he cried.

And what is the "test" for passing as European?

Intelligence is socially defined. It is measurable in "rightly" applying knowledge in a socially appropriate context ( such as an I.Q. test). It is highly subjective, IMO. Were I to gauge my intelligence in accordance to , say, Yanomamo standards ( an indigenous society in S. America) of what is a right and appropriate application of knowledge in a certain social context, then I would certainly be regraded as ignorant. However, I might ( through capacity and learning) aquire the knowledge ,and adequately or even exceptionally apply that knowledge. This sounds like it could be fodder for the classical debate of nature versus nurture- inheritance versus aquired knowledge. Yet it appears that more scientists are going recently with nature via nurture. Perhaps-- perhaps capacity is inherited. However it finds its vehicle of expression in an aquired manner. I.e., the nature via nurture arguement. Take this as an (unfortunate ) example used in communication and linguistic studies. A young girl named(?) Genie was rescued from years of neglect by social workers. When they found this young girl, her muscles associated with speech had atrophied, and she had no language skills whatsoever after having been left in a room with no human contact. Did she have the capacity for "intelligence" and "speech" ? Certainly. However, it could not be applied in social context, because for her there was none. BTW- she did undergo rehabiliation and eventually learn to speak, etc.

What should happen if a YOB and a Fob/F.O.B. mated? Or

THOTH, fascists do not have an unchallenged fashion-right to Doc Martens ! They stole it from the anit-fascists- & I hope folks do not to confuse the two I have knee-highs that I've had for several years, with Armenian colors painted on the side . Besides, my style as a woman - if unconventional- is flexible and not limited by the sole objective of trying to please narrow-minded folx. Give me red velvelt over mass-produced Spearish insipid styles anyday!

These words are commonplace amongst fascist racialists ,and white supremacists who use debunked anthropological data to bolster their "Cause" to save a so-called " white race". No anthropologist uses these terms, either physical anthropologists or cultural anthropologist. Please visit the American Anthropological Association for more information. http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/racepp.htm One such author, Coon, utilized the Armenoid term quite frequently, and was solidly debunked by more scientific-minded anthropologists. The human genome project has revealed the constructedness of "race" , with most differences occuring within ethnic groups as opposed to without. One of the recent manifestations of white supremacist ideology is seen in sites like " skadi.net", and an agenda to unite so-called " european races" to wipe-out a la turkish style " uncivilized races" or as they say " mud people". They also go under ideologies such as "legion europa". Moreover, they have set up a recent agenda to recruit within European ethnic groups by passing off " Eurpean heritage festivals" in the U.S. as modes of fascist and racialist recruitment. Fortunately, they meet quite a bit of resistance , such as that in New Jersey , and elsewhere. They also engange in rewriting the history of ethnic groups to advance their agenda. This is in essence , *intellectual ethnocide* . Because they are anxious to claim moral authority , many have hijacked our history of genocide by claiming it as an example of " white genocide". They debate in their forums about us by posting pictures of Armenians as " specimens" when playing the guessing game of " is this person in this picture white?" We are a guessing game for them, and they can;t make up their minds whehter to integrate us as " Meds" to be pawns in their fascist politics, or to wipe us out as " mud people". They see that we have dwelled historically near the "Caucasus". As people of Western and European heritage, in the U.S. , they have been called by demographic census " Caucasians". The history of this is one besodden by ignorance, racial supremacy and bunk science- and a confused geographer and naturalist who thought that Georgian women were beautiful , and hence this was where Western/Eastern Europeans must originally come from , he thought( see Stephen J. Gould' s" Mismeasure of Man") We Armenians should be more than wary of this agenda. After all, what about Krasnodar? What about Armenians and others who from south of Russia's borders are called "churky" and beaten by skinheads and other racialists? Because we Armenians exist in a world with a history of conquest and borders where the lines of East and West are seen as indelible ( instead of constructed to suit the powers that be, -consider the Balfour delcarations) , many have been confused as to where to put us. Are we "Eastern"? Are we "Western"? Well, **WHO decided what was East and what was West? Is this something of *our* Armenian creation? I 'd say, that if we accept those boundaries ( which I think we should examine carefully , question and challenge) then we would be a "crossroads culture", and take our strength from that. Or challenge Orientalist ideas sucha s this altogether. Beware of the innatist arguments, and debunked theories of racialists and fascists. We cannot allow for others to hijack our history from us, and engage in ethnocide.

I've heard said " aman!" as a type of exclamation pronounced by Armenians ( my father and musician uncle) , Rromanis and Arabs. I 've always thought it was like " d3#$MN!!" or " MERCY!!" due to the contexts, and as a kid, said it when exasperated along with other strings of unmentionables .

Another Armenian invention ( for the tallies) An Armenian underwrote a Christmas Carol . Evidence? " BAH! HUMBUG!!" ,----------- Scrooge.

My apologies if this does not go in this section. I was replying to aman's post. Also, what is the issue of privatization in Armenia ? How do you think this affects people's access to water, electricity and other public servies that ger privatized?

What is your opinion on worker-controlled factories, like Burkman in Argentina, or the anarcho-syndicalized ones in Spain ( during the SPansih revolution)? I think people who detest socialism do so because it has been abused by *authoritarian* means- basically, the new boss is the same as the old boss. In an AUTHORITARIAN socialist system , there is still room for a power-elite to reproduce oppression. Dissent is stifled, and the power-game continues albeit in the name of so-called "socialism". However, one can have in place a means of organizing the economy that is non-capitalist, that is sustainable, that disseminates wages more equitably & that limits authoritarianism. One that is based on consensus and works for the betterment of all. Moreover, on a neighborhood level, people can organize in an a collective and anti-authoritarian fashion, without being led around by bosses, head(men) et al. Take a look at the assembalistas in Argentina ( who I think we all have alot to learn from) , or the collectives in Chiapas, Mexico, or the innumberable small-scale socieites and projects around the world. Moreover, one that challenges sexism , racism and all those tired ism's. I am very interested in Robert Hahnels and Michael Alberts theory on PArecon, - i.e., the participatory economic model. You can find it on Zmag.net's site www.zmag.net under economics. ( as a side note, some of Barsamian's work is here , too.) see http://www.parecon.org/ WHat I am trying to say in plainspeak ( without heavy theoretical rhetoric) is that while capitalism ( particualrly in its neo-colonial and neoliberal manifestations ) does not work ( skeptics witness Argentina, et al) Idon;t think that old-style authoritarian socialism works either. I think an anti-authoritarian and apporoach is necessary to have a more just and sustainable, non-capitalist economy and society. On a sidenote, should anyone consider this a "fringe" view, please review your news on what happened in Cancun during the WTO meetings, and similar trade meetings the world over ( and since the 70's ). People are definitely agistating on a wide-scale for change. In Cancun, the campesinos ( farmers) and opponents of neoliberla cpaitalism struck a win when the talks collapsed.

Why all the concern about new arrivals economic strategies? Hell, they're just gettin by - and it's not like they got the power to pull an Enron and f*ck over a ton of folks in the process. So somebody steals some time away from the State . Bravo! I 'd better it go to them then some SOA-trained death squad in Columbia, or corporate welfare. "I detect in this thread an undercurrent of the "boot-strap" theory ( aside from the obvious racism { re: comments about blacks and hispanics & welfare, although it is documented widely that poor whites constitute the largest demographic on the welfare rolls <_< } and straight-up classism. Note: I'm *not* designating the posters who typed this as inherently being so, I am just observing that the lines of thought expressed can be traced to popular ideas that embrace race and class to bolster ideas to separate "good" workers and groups from "bad" workers and groups. Make it a "moral" issue, and you miss other factors to better understand folks strategies. This ( boot-strap theory) is the idea that one should " pull themselves up by the boot-straps" , and dismisses other factors that contribute to the choices people make to survive. A certain "keep-up with the Jones'" je ne se quois, where we are horrifed that our idealized positive "model minority" image would be blemished by the new arrivals taking up behaviors that associate them with activities normally ( and wrongly) associated with demonized minorities. I like what has been said about "survival skills" ,as it seems to make the most sense considering the conditions my fellow armos speak about ( like mind-warping bureaucracies and chintzy nepostism).