moogey

If you live in the UK this is for you. In case you have not seen this petition, here it is. Many more signatures are needed to show we care. Also below, is a list of the countries that have acknowledged the genocide. It's useful, if you want to convince friends, family, colleagues and get them to sign. We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to officially and publicly condemn the Armenian Genocide as such. Please sign the 10 Downing Street petition now by clicking on http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/genocide2010/ List of Countries Argentina (2 laws,[28][29] 3 Resolutions[30][31][32]) Armenia[33] Belgium [34] Canada (1996,[35] 2002,[36] 2004[37]) Chile [38] Cyprus [39] France (2001 Act of Parliament[40][41][42][43][44][45]) Greece [46] Italy [47] Lithuania [48] Lebanon [49] Netherlands [50] Poland [51] Russia [52] Slovakia [53] Switzerland [54] Uruguay (1965,[55] 2004[56]) Vatican City [57] Venezuela [58]

Here is some more information: The story of St. Minas has all the ingredients of one of those first-class stories of the saints -- an Armenian prince serving in the Roman army under the Emperor Decius, who leaves his soldiering to become a hermit, but who is then arrested for being a Christian and is thrown to the wild beasts, but of course the beasts won't attack him and so he's beheaded, and not to be thwarted, Minas picks up his head and walks across the River Arno, as would be expected of any self-respecting saint. He walked up to the top of the hill. A small shrine was built on this spot in the 8th century, but by the beginning of the 11th century construction on the large church was begun. The wonderful marble façade was started in the late 11th century and finished in the 12th century.

This is interesting. I visited San Miniato in 1992,(before Googledom), and was curious about the name Minas, an Armenian sounding name. Then I forgot all about it. It was thrilling to think that there was this magnificent and beautiful building in honour of him. Poor man, to die for his beliefs. Here's a photo.

An American decided to write a book about famous churches around the world. On his first day he was inside a church taking photographs when he noticed a golden telephone mounted on the wall with a sign that read '$10,000 per call.' The American, being intrigued, asked a priest who was strolling by what the telephone was used for. The priest replied that it was a direct line to heaven and that for $10,000 you could talk to God. The American thanked the priest and went along his way. Next stop was in Europe. There, at a very large cathedral, he saw the same golden telephone with the same sign under it. A nun told him that it was a direct line to heaven and that for $10,000 he could talk to God. 'O.K., thank you,' said the American. He then traveled to Africa, Australia, ..... In every church he saw the same golden telephone with the same '$10,000 per call' sign under it. The American,  traveled to Armenia to see if Armenia had the same phone. He arrived in Armenia, and again, in the first church he entered, there was the same golden telephone, but this time the sign under it read '40 cents per call.' The American was surprised so he asked the priest about the sign. 'Father, I've traveled all over the world and I've seen this same golden telephone in many churches. I'm told that it is a direct line to Heaven, but  the price was $10,000 per call. Why is it so cheap here?' The priest smiled and answered, 'You're in Armenia now, son - it's a local call.'

Two new items: Ayse Gunaysu is a translator, human rights activist, often writing for Armenian papers. It's a very interesting article. The Armenia Weekly Gunaysu: Turkish Perception of the Recent US Court Ruling By Ayse Gunaysu • on August 27, 2009 • Among thousands of news items showering down from international agencies, none of the Turkish dailies or TV channels skipped the news about a U.S. Federal Court of Appeals ruling against Armenian demands for unpaid insurance claims. Many headlines revealed a hardly concealed note of victory, reporting that the U.S. Court had dealt a “big blow” to Armenians. Some of them were a little bit more professional, reflecting only a satisfaction: “Court decision to anger Armenians. ” Even the most seemingly “objective” ones used wording that presented the issue as a defeat on the part of the “Armenians” —not a violation of the rights of legitimate beneficiaries, the clients of insurance companies that profited from a government’s extermination of its own citizens. Even the daily Taraf, considered to be waging the most courageous struggle against the “deep state,” used the headline: “Bad news to Armenians from a US court” (Aug. 22, 2009, p.3), a headline that, intentionally or not, reinforces the essentialist conception of Armenians widespread in Turkey and reflects a cold-hearted pseudo-impartiality —“bad news”!—in the face of an infuriating usurpation of one’s rights. Apart from a handful of people, no one in Turkey, watching the news or reading the headlines (often without reading the full texts), knows that at the turn of the century several thousands of Armenians in the provinces of the old Armenia were issued life-insurance policies, with benefits amounting to more than $20 million in 1915 —dollars still unpaid to the legal heirs of the victims who perished under a reign of terror. This is not surprising because this audience is even ignorant of the fact that on the eve of World War I, there were 2,925 Armenian settlements in the old Armenia, with 1,996 schools teaching over 173,000 male and female students, and 2,538 churches and monasteries—all proof of a vibrant Armenian presence in the Ottoman Empire. When I tried to explain this to my 83-year-old mother, who thought the U.S. court had done something good for Turkey, she couldn’t believe her ears. She was quite sincere when she asked: “Western insurance companies? At that time? In Harput, in Merzifon, in Kayseri? Are you sure?” Because she could not even imagine that what is now to us the remote, less-developed cities with rural environs where pre-capitalist patterns still prevail—places more or less isolated from today’s metropolitan centers—were once, before 1915, rich and developed urban centers, with inhabitants much closer to the Western world than their fellow Muslim citizens, in their economic activities, social structure, and way of life. Although a university graduate (something unusual for a woman in Turkey at that time), a person of culture with a real sense of justice in everything she does, my mother was brought up in a system of education based on a history that was rewritten to reconstruct a national identity of pride, and which turned facts upside down. This was the result: an “enlightened” individual who knew nothing about how things were in her own—beloved—country and what had happened just a decade before her birth. So, how can one expect my mother to know that Talat *****, a member of the PUC triumvira and one of the top organizers of the Armenian Genocide, had shocked Henry Morgenthau, the U.S. Ambassador to Istanbul in 1915, with his audacity when he said: “I wish, that you would get the American life insurance companies to send us a complete list of their Armenian policy holders. They are practically all dead now and have left no heirs to collect the money. It of course all escheats to the state. The government is the beneficiary now. Will you do so?” The Turkish audience, apart from that handful of people, that received the message about the U.S. Court of Appeals ruling against the Armenians’ right to seek justice, didn’t stop to think that this was something about one’s most basic rights. But the reason is simple: National ideology blocks people’s minds. There is a special meaning attributed to the word “compensation” in Turkey. It is believed that recognition will be followed by demands of compensation, which will naturally lead to demands of territory. So, the reference to “compensation” (to be paid to “Armenians”) in these reports is directly connected in their minds to Armenians’ claim to territory. This is all about denial. Denial is not an isolated phenomenon, not a policy independent of all other aspects. Denial is a system. An integrated whole. You don’t only deny what really happened; in order to deny what really happened, you have to deny even the existence of the people to whom it happened. In order to deny their existence, you have to wipe out the evidence of their existence from both the physical and intellectual environment. Physical refers to the 2,925 Armenian settlements with 1,996 schools and 2,538 churches and monasteries that are non-existent now. Intellectual corresponds to my mother’s perception of the U.S. Court of Appeal’s ruling as something good for Turkey. I watched a film on TV tonight, Akira Kurosawa’s “Rhapsody in August,” a film about an old lady, a hibakusha (the Japanese word for the victims of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II) and her four grandchildren. Watching the film, I saw people commemorating their dead ones with great respect, taking care of their monuments with endless love, raising their children in the same spirit, observing Buddhist rituals, praying for their losses. The details showing all these were elegantly and very impressively depicted. Watching a blind hibakusha gently cleaning the marble platform of the monument with great care, I thought of Armenians of my country, who are deprived of this very basic right to publicly honor the memory of their lost ones. This ban is woven into the very structure of Turkish society, because the founders of the new Turkish Republic and their successors built a nation and successfully put into practice an “engineering of the spirit” whereby the people are convinced, made to sincerely believe, that such commemorations are a direct insult to themselves. The outcome of such engineering, this whole complicated system of denial, is very difficult to dismantle. The Turkish ruling elite will not recognize the genocide, not in the short-term, not in the mid-term. In the long-term, maybe. But how “long” a term this will be is something unknown. The dynamic that would step up the process is the recognition from below, i.e. recognition by the people—a very slow process, but much more promising than an official recognition in the foreseeable future. People in Turkey are one by one going through a very special kind of enlightenment—meeting with facts, learning more about the near history, getting into closer contact with Armenians here and elsewhere (for example, meeting and listening to Prof. Marc Nichanian speaking in the language of philosophy and literature, hearing his words about how meaningless an apology is when what happened to Armenians was “unforgivable,” about the meaning of the “usurpation of mourning” and the “impossibility of representation” of what Armenians experienced. More and more stories are appearing in the dailies and periodicals in Turkey of our grandmothers and grandfathers of Armenian origin who were stripped of their Armenian identities, at least in the public sphere. More and more books are being published about the genocide, enabling the readers to try and imagine what is unimaginable. This will turn the wheels of a long process of recognition from below, a recognition in the hearts of people that will inevitably interact with the process of official recognition—a must for true justice—no matter how distant it may be for the time being. ANCA CALLS ON PRESIDENT OBAMA TO REJECT MISGUIDED FEDERAL APPEALS COURT DECISION ARMENPRESS: August 26, 2009 Yerevan Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) called on President Barack Obama to reject a misguided federal appeals court decision striking down a California law to allow for the return of Armenian Genocide-era assets, and encouraged him to immediately and publicly affirm that it is not the "express federal policy" of the United States, as the court argued, to prohibit the recognition of this crime by the Congress or the states. Representative of the ANCA Elizabeth Chouljyan told Armenpress that the letter follows a August 20th ruling of a three judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in the case of Movsesian v. Versicherung A.G. (No. 07-56722), that struck down a California law providing remedies for Armenian Genocide-era wrongs. The ruling contended that state level recognition of this crime contradicts "express federal policy" and is therefore unconstitutional. "You bear direct responsibility, Mr. President, by virtue of your failure to keep your repeated, crystal clear pledges to recognize the Armenian Genocide, for the Court's judgment that it is the official policy of the Executive Branch of the United States government to actively oppose proper recognition of this crime and, upon this basis, to thus prohibit states from passing laws to help Armenian Genocide-era victims seek to reclaim lost or stolen property," said Hachikian in an August 25th letter to President Obama. The California Legislature passed a law in 2000 giving heirs of those who died or fled to avoid Armenian Genocide-era persecution until the end of 2010 to file claims for old bank accounts and life insurance policies. Class-action lawsuits brought by Armenian descendants in California and other states led to a $20 million settlement with New York Life Insurance Co. in 2005 and a $17 million settlement the same year with French life insurer AXA.

CALIFORNIA COURT DENIES ARMENIANS RIGHT TO OTTOMAN LIFE INSURANCE POLICIES hetq.am2009/08/21 | 13:12 Diaspora Yesterday's Associated Press reported that a California court has overturned a law that would have allowed descendants of Armenian Genocide survivors to seek compensation for life insurance policies issued by German insurance companies to Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. Here's the article. A federal appeals court invalidated a California law Thursday that allowed heirs of Armenians killed in the Turkish Ottoman Empire nearly a century ago to seek payment on the life insurance policies of dead relatives. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the law amounted to unconstitutional meddling in U.S. foreign policy. (Hah! this is tantamount to admitting that they are not at all concerned about justice, rights etc, but in political expediency - Moogey) It based its 2-1 ruling on a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down another California law designed to help Holocaust survivors collect on Nazi-era insurance policies. The federal government does not recognize the mass killings of Armenians during World War I as genocide, but the California Legislature did in 2000 when it enacted the disputed law. About half of the people of Armenian descent living in this country reside in California. Lawyer Brian Kabateck, who represents Armenian-American heirs, plans to appeal. "The ruling is wrong. It's a disaster," Kabateck said. "The one million Armenians that live in California today have been told by the court that even the use of the word 'genocide' by a government is illegal." If the ruling is not set aside, it would prevent Armenian heirs from claiming inheritances and prohibit California and other states from marking the anniversary of the onset of the ethnic bloodshed that claimed the lives of up to 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and 1919 in what is now eastern Turkey, Kabateck said. He alleges European banks and insurers illegally retained assets valued in 1915 at about $15 million, a sum worth substantially more at today's value. The California Legislature passed the law giving heirs of Armenians who died or fled to avoid persecution until the end of next year to file claims for old bank accounts and life insurance policies. Class-action lawsuits brought by Armenian descendants in California and other states led to a $20 million settlement with New York Life Insurance Co. in 2005 and a $17 million settlement the same year with French life insurer AXA. William Werfelman, a spokesman for New York Life, said the company had no intention of trying to get back any of the money it paid out under the 2005 settlement. "By acting honorably, and in keeping with our company values of humanity and integrity, New York Life made many friends in the Armenian community and we cherish these friends," Werfelman said. Thursday's ruling reversed a lower court judge who refused to dismiss another class-action suit against the German life insurance companies. Turkey long has denied the loss of so many Armenian lives constituted genocide and instead describes the deaths as resulting from civil unrest that accompanied the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The appeals court agreed with the German companies that California's policy improperly conflicted with the federal government's foreign policy aims. Neil Soltman, the lawyer who represented the German insurance companies that prevailed in the case, said his clients had stood to lose in payouts to Armenian-Americans in California. Soltman said it was not clear the companies ever sold life insurance policies to victims of the Ottoman Empire violence. "We are very pleased with the decision. We think it is entirely consistent with recent Supreme Court cases and 9th Circuit cases which have held that California and other states should not be passing legislation that deals with questions of foreign affairs," he said. The court recounted successful efforts by former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to defeat congressional legislation that would have recognized an Armenian genocide. U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Pasadena, who as a state assemblyman co-wrote the law that was overturned by the 9th Circuit, was perplexed by the court's reasoning. "You have a group of people that has a government that hasn't had the will to recognize the genocide and as a result of that failing, are being told they don't have valid insurance claims," he said. DESCENDANTS OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE VICTIMS CAN'T SUE FOREIGN INSURANCE COMPANIES, US COURT OF APPEALS RULES PanARMENIAN.Net 21.08.2009 19:51 GMT+04:00 /PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenian Americans descended from victims of the 1915-18 massacre by Ottoman Turks can't sue foreign insurance companies for unpaid claims because the U.S. government doesn't legally recognize that an Armenian genocide occurred, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday. A Glendale priest and thousands of other Armenians whose relatives were among the 1.2 million killed had won a partial victory two years ago. U.S. District Judge Christina A. Snyder said then that a 2000 law passed by the California Legislature gave the descendants standing to sue three German insurance companies. But a divided three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that ruling, saying the California law attempted to undercut the president's diplomatic authority and had to be preempted by the federal policy against acknowledging the genocide. Congress has considered resolutions three times in the last decade that would have provided official recognition of the genocide. Each time, the White House has stepped in to urge that the bills be scuttled, out of fear that passage would damage relations with Turkey, whose government disputes that a genocide took place. "I think the decision is outrageous. If taken to its logical extension, what this decision means is that all 40 states that have recognized the Armenian genocide have to set aside that recognition," said Brian S. Kabateck, a Los Angeles lawyer representing the plaintiffs whose own maternal grandparents died in the genocide. "This is a sad day for Armenian Americans," he said, adding that the decision would make recovery of victims' bank accounts, insurance proceeds and other property impossible. He vowed to appeal for rehearing by a larger panel of judges. Vartkes Yeghiayan, the lawyer for lead plaintiff Father Vazken Movsesian of St. Peter Armenian Church, described the ruling as "devastating." The attorney representing the German insurers, Neil M. Soltman, called the decision "a straight-down-the-middle determination that in the area of foreign affairs, federal power has to prevail." Judge Harry Pregerson dissented from the majority opinion by Judges David R. Thompson and Dorothy W. Nelson. Pregerson wrote that the District Court had correctly judged the California statute as "within the state's traditional area of competence" in regulating the insurance industry. The plaintiffs sought settlement of claims under policies issued by German insurers Victoria Versicherung and Ergo Versicherungsgruppe, as well as their parent company, Munchener Ruckversicherungsgesellschaft.

What a transparently fiendish plot, to misdirect searches to ads such a History, propaganda etc. People and countries must be really naive to believe people who behave like that. And well done Google! Let's hope it won't be swayed - the Turkish Coalition of America are not going to go away.

Very skilfully done. I would have liked more colourful pictures too.

Thank you, NC. I have visited this marvellous site, but did not see the film and video section, which I'll explore. Bravo la France!

Click on the link below for details of this remarkable film, most of which has unfortunately been lost. Some pictures were discovered in the late 1990s and are shown. http://www.genocide-museum.am/eng/online_exhibition_6.php

Vakh/Avakh/Vay sekhaletsah - It's Tsakhkadzor (or Dzaghga dzor) which has a legend: When a young woman's cherished garden with its flowers was swept away into the ravine, time and time again, she decided to have a church built so that people could pray for her garden and flowers to be restored. Still, Vayots Dzor is interesting, too.

This is good, an Armenian in Wales, and married to a Greek. I'm sure you will find more Armenians in Wales. I live in Berkshire, UK, and am lucky to be able to travel easily to London, where most Armenians live. There are a few Armenians here, and we get together. We have found each other, thanks to a friend who contacts whoever happens to have a name ending in -ian and is perhaps mentioned in the local paper. Have you heard of the Armenian Centre? www.caia.org.uk I was married to an Englishman, and he was very interested in the food, the music etc. As for William, I wish you luck and please let us know when you finish your book We need more of you. For me, as for a lot of Armenians, the Genocide is very important, as it's part of our history that is being denied us. Like Nanor, I don't often mention the Genocide, as it becomes tedious for those listening. Sometimes, I feel like carrying a map of the region with me, so that when the question of my origins comes up I can show them where Armenia is. Then you also have to explain the history, as they all assume you come from Armenia proper, whereas my ancestors probably came from Turkey. It's sad to think that some of us don't know who our great grandparents were, what they did. Never mind, maybe it helps us to adapt more easily to our surroundings. It makes us more resilient. Another thing about Armenians - they tend on the whole to keep a low profile - shadows of what happened during World War I, passed on by parents and grandparents.

Yes, you're right, it's Vayots Dzor, a region SE of Armenia. I found out from Armenopedia that it's The Gorge of Woes. On wikipedia, it shows you where it is - bordering on Azerbaijan and Nakhichevan.

Does anyone know why Vayadzor came to get its name? Are there stories associated with it? I was told of a story involving a girl and a garden.

thank you Kakachik, This is what started me off in the first place - a friend said, is your name linked with Shah Abbas of Persia. One of my theories is that, as all those Armenians were displaced and made to live in New Julfa, Persia, a few of them adopted the name of the King. In Egypt, a lot of new born boys were named after the king Farouk, as a form of tribute. Yet another theory is that one of my ancestors was keeper of the king's falcons. Another theory I like is the one that links me with King Abbas Bagratuni of Armenia. (928-951) Moogey

thanks a lot - this is very interesting and informative. It's not only names that are difficult to explore - what about the personal history of our forebears? It gets more and more complicated. In the end, it will be a question of guesswork. I think I would rather be the King Falcon/Hawk than the court jester. Moogey

Hello, Is there anyone out there who can throw some light my way? I have heard all the meanings of my maiden name, Chahbaz - King Falcon/hawk in Persian, etc. Someone who was taught in a school in Armenia, said that there was a province in pre-Christian times called Chahbaz, on the border between Persia and Armenia. I have several theories about the name, some more appealing than others, but this one intrigues me. Moogey