Merry Cilicia Bashing and a Happy New Year!
Yup, once again these blogs on Cilicia have been trashed, and once again it seems wholly ungrounded to me. This time Nathan, a non-Armenian, complains about the primarily Diaspora logs about Armenia... he complains that they are:
1) RACIST (apparently for the complains about the Jugha cemetary destruction - and he is concerned we sound like rabid Serbs about to commit genocide against the Croats)
2) The Diasporans who are writing on the logs don't have a strong stake in the country's success.
3) We believe "Armenia can do no wrong! Anyone who criticizes it is destroying it!"
and by inference
3) None of us believe there can ever be peace with Azerbaijan.
4) We are incapable of writing anything remotely negative about Armenia
In fact, he finds these logs so distasteful that "he doesn’t link them because he doesn’t want to send them traffic." My god! What are we writing here, people??!?!
Eh, what can I say, it's so obviously not true it would be laughable, if this guy weren't actually editor of a compilation blog about Armenia on an international blog compilation site. Where he comes up with this crap is beyond me, since anyone can clearly see that there is plenty of complaining here about Armenia's problems, we've dreamt out loud about the opening of borders which would come with peace here before, we clearly have a very real stake in the countries success (whether measured in dollars, time or all those remonds we've done), and as far as I can tell, not a single one of us is racist. We could all sit and happily spend time with a non-denialist Turk.
So not a single thing he says about us is true, the insults are quite strong, and I dunno why I even care... read all about it for yourselves.
Aaaanyway, Happy New Year folks, and please don't get caught up in massacring Azeris in all the festivities!
1) RACIST (apparently for the complains about the Jugha cemetary destruction - and he is concerned we sound like rabid Serbs about to commit genocide against the Croats)
2) The Diasporans who are writing on the logs don't have a strong stake in the country's success.
3) We believe "Armenia can do no wrong! Anyone who criticizes it is destroying it!"
and by inference
3) None of us believe there can ever be peace with Azerbaijan.
4) We are incapable of writing anything remotely negative about Armenia
In fact, he finds these logs so distasteful that "he doesn’t link them because he doesn’t want to send them traffic." My god! What are we writing here, people??!?!
Eh, what can I say, it's so obviously not true it would be laughable, if this guy weren't actually editor of a compilation blog about Armenia on an international blog compilation site. Where he comes up with this crap is beyond me, since anyone can clearly see that there is plenty of complaining here about Armenia's problems, we've dreamt out loud about the opening of borders which would come with peace here before, we clearly have a very real stake in the countries success (whether measured in dollars, time or all those remonds we've done), and as far as I can tell, not a single one of us is racist. We could all sit and happily spend time with a non-denialist Turk.
So not a single thing he says about us is true, the insults are quite strong, and I dunno why I even care... read all about it for yourselves.
Aaaanyway, Happy New Year folks, and please don't get caught up in massacring Azeris in all the festivities!
posted by Raffi K. at 12:35 AM
24 Comments:
Any publicity is good publicity.
Happy New Year and Sourb Tznound.
Didn't look to me as though he mentioned this site in his criticism. Don't think you've pushed the idea of massacring Azeris either.
He mentions it in the comments...
Did he?
see comment #7
*chuckle* What a dolt.
Happy New Year!
Nathan may have been confused with my comment on Artyom reader about the three choices Armenia/Azerbaijan have.
http://artyomize.blogspot.com/2005/12/azeri-sheikh-ul-islams-latest-hate.html#comments
Raffi, I clarified a bit in comment 17. I admit that it's a problem that I didn't mention specific blogs or particular posts as it made the post more a product of emotion and frustration rather than a well thought out argument. But then again, I never intended it to be more than venting. There's a reason I rarely do such posts.
(As an aside, I didn't want to name names because I didn't want, well, a post insulting someone like this one.)
One of the upshots of the whole thing is that it's reminded me that I, by an large, like most of the Armenian blogosphere most of the time.
To clarify, I'm Regional Editor for Russia, East Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucasus, not a blog about Armenia.
Since I'm the one who blogged about the Azeri thing and seem to be such a downer on the Diaspora side (as I'm often criticized), allow me to share a few thoughts. Anyone can call out individual comments of mine and turn it into propoganda against them. What Nathan does not understand is that my ancestors came from Nakhichevan and it could have been their gravesites those Azeri soldiers were hacking away at. Yes, there is emotion involved. It's all emotion in this case.
I'm getting tired of defending my rights and reasons for blogging. I'm also completely tired of defending the Diaspora to people who know nothing about it. For those who want to close their minds to viewing Armenia as limited to borders, so be it. I, along with the rest of the Diaspora, understand that Armenia will never be confined to the borders drawn for us by 3rd parties. Do I hate Turks? Some. Not my Turkish friends. Do I hate Azeris? I certainly hate the ones who took sledgehammers to what may have been my ancestor's gravesite khatchkars to erase their entire existance from the land that used to be home to them. I don't hate the ones who mean no harm to me or anyone else unjustly.
As long as we ONLY look towards economic and monetary growth for Armenia, we will never escape the oppression we have face from our neighbors AND ourselves.
Now stop calling us racists and learn a thing or 2 about the diaspora for your own sake.
Nathan, where in this post do I insult you? I do call your accusations crap, but considering how insulting your "venting" was, I'd have to say it was a rather mild response. Can you imagine someone leveling charges of racism, censorship and defending a government for the inexcusable at you, and on top of admitting that not wanting to link to you so as not to send you any traffic, and then just call it venting? No seriously, I don't think you've thought about that. I still haven't seen any explanation from you except to say something about shades of gray and that Cilicia is certainly different, but it's hard to distinguish between us.... Not much of an explanation in other words.
I admit, I just don't get your frustration, your need to vent. We write about what pleases us. If it is the weather or the ice skating rink, that's what we write about. We are not a news site, we are not a task-force, we are just people writing whatever floats our boat. Maybe not your cup of tea, but certainly shouldn't be something so abhorrent that you wouldn't link to it. You link to other peoples posts if they simply watch TV, but our writing here is just too low brow apparently. Whatever.
(As an aside, when you are writing about something like 4 possible blogs, and then eliminate 2, the slim pickings left leave you in a position not to have to name names - especially when we can already see that linking to Cilicia is avoided like the plague on GVO)
Raffi, if memory serves, I have 10 Armenia-related blogs in my aggregator. I don't actively try to avoid linking you guys. It unfortunately has more to do with the kinds of posts they like us to link than anything else. I rarely link to Blogrel either. I almost linked to the first snow post today, but there were a ton of other ones throughout the region that I haven't linked lately. You're more than welcome to email me links to posts you want to highlight and I'll most certainly read them.
There is some concern over at GVO that it's too much all politics all the time. Culture and daily life stuff is great and a wonderful break. So, please do email me posts you like and want to highlight. If I'm really on my game, they'll at least end up on my links page.
As for the insult, I found the tone suggesting I'm somehow unqualified to work for GVO to be insulting. I'm touchy though. It's no big deal though. I have on good authority that you're a very nice guy, and like I said, the positive to come out of this is that I'm reminded that there are plenty of positives in the Armenian blogosphere that I've forgotten about lately.
Hello!
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
I'm very sorry to interrupt your blog but I'm a lawyer in Manchester, England with a friend living in Yerevan and I was interested to learn more about what people from Yerevan are like??
What do you do on a typical Saturday night?
Here's a strange question but one that is asked in England to see what kind of person you are = you go to a concert and there are 3 bands or singers there, past or present, dead or alive, but only 3 - your dream concert .. who is there?
At mine would be Elvis, the Sex Pistols and Frank Sinatra
Best wishes
Jonny
Eeeeeeeeeeh Nathan... I'll let it drop, I've said all I had to on this already.
On the topic of Diaspora in general though I will say you just don't get us - saying genocide recognition is about anything other than justice for us, not understanding the feelings of seeing Jugha being demolished, even saying you don't care how the genocide "arguement" between the Turks and Armenians turns out because your tire of it (and implying that there is some legitimate arguement being made by the Turks) is just mind boggling to me.
As for your perception of some insult from me, it was your imagination. I was merely giving a very brief introduction to you since I doubt "Nathan" would have meant much to readers.
I'm glad we can all be friends. Nathan, I appreciate your sincerity in the matter. I do get frustrated sometimes when non-Armenians who spend time in Armenia begin to judge the Diaspora based on their experiences there, which is a very narrow perspective on hundreds of years of Armenian culture which has existed outside the borders. The fact that non-Armenians and Hayastansis both cannot appreciate that for what it is sometimes frustrates me.
Though the Diaspora tends to focus on genocide issues a lot (including me, for very good reasons), there is a lot of other experiences to blog about, and I do... they just don't get as much attention because they lack controversy. The majority of my blogs this month have been about positive things. I tell it as it happens here, and I hope instead of turning away from the negativity, perhaps people will look deeper into it and learn about the experience on this end of genocide denial, because it is deep rooted, and it tells a lot about humanity.
Thanks for your candor and best wishes for the New Year!
Hi Raffi Kojian,
On one hand, you should not care about what a non-Armenian who has no emotionally vested tie to Armenia thinks. He (Nathan) is just trying to provide entertainment and web traffic to his website in the name of "democracy", "free speech", or whatever the supposed platform is. Akin to muckrakers and tabloid journalists, they aim to create stories out of nothing only to further their career/name in whatever sphere they operate in.
Unfortunately, Nathan and other non-Armenian bloggers who self proclaim themselves as experts drink the same "cool aid" when it comes to the Armenian community and deem the Diasporans as the root cause of everything that goes wrong in Armenia.
To them and others who don't care about Armenia other than to fill their blogs with material they know very little about, I extend both my hands out, raise my middle fingers in the air, and wish them a very happy Nor Dari.
I will agree as a person living in the rural areas of Armenia and seeing both sides of the coin, the rural Armenian has a different view that the Diaspora Armenian in Europe or America. For that matter, I see a large difference in the view of the Armenia from Yerevan based Armenians who call "Kentron" home. This is a complicated issue which I am only beginning to understand. I will say that the groups prioritize things differently. There is an issue with current views and views of the past. There is this whole "Soviet" stigma still hanging on in rural Armenia. I do not believe any group is responsible but I wish for 2006 to see a great dialog and not one that happens in Yerevan. One that happens were the nature is being destroyed by corruption and need. May 2006 hold a great sense of cooperation and brotherhood for all those who care about "Mer Hayastan"!
Arsineh says: "I do get frustrated sometimes when non-Armenians who spend time in Armenia begin to judge the Diaspora based on their experiences there, which is a very narrow perspective on hundreds of years of Armenian culture which has existed outside the borders."
As a non-Armenian who spent time in Armenia, and who has sought to understand Armenia and Armenians (diaspora, expat, rural, Yerevan), my perspective is that Expat Armenians represent a wide range of diaspora views "on hundreds of years of Armenian culture which has existed outside the borders." Therefore I feel justified in making some basic assumptions, judgements, generalizations on the Diaspora, having met diasporans from a multitude of nations, with a multitude of perspectives and interests regarding Armenia (business, eco., IT, political, AAA, religous, etc.).
It is nothing sacriligious to acknowledge that there are some major, common, themes, arguments, issues and particular perspectives among the diaspora.
So I disagree with Arsineh
I guess this is the best time to also question the views and material intent of Blogrel and Katy its current and solo-active contributor/monitor/editor. I've heard from Armenian-Diaporians directly that Blogrel’s Katy is a pleasant person in real-life, but an unyielding and sinister critic of both current day Armenia and the Armenian-Diaspora. Reading Bloggrel during her tenure has often left me somewhat disappointed and disenfranchised with the non-Armenian estimation. I now entirely avoid what "Katy at Blogrel" writes or posts about. In my opinion they are half-truths or straight-up lies. We as a collective Armenian online readership should avoid facilitating strategically ambiguous minded sources for misinterpreting our people’s spirit and entitlements. Armenia with all her challenges will be best resolved without the interference of such distortions or non-Armenian intervention. Thanks and Happy New Year.
Anonymous, I'm glad you disagree with me because that is your opinion. However, allow me to share this. I have also spent a lot of time in Armenia and met Diasporans from all over the world. That opens a very small window into a very rich and alive Diaspora (though it seems very alive and gives a great view on this to an extent, agreed.) But having grown up in Washington DC, lived in NY, Boston, etc., even I don't know the vast extent that this Diaspora has reached as a culture. More of my friends these days are from LA and there's a whole other experience there that is foreign to me. So while I think your encounters with these people in Armenia are wonderful, and also appreciate your interest in Armenia, etc., very few people truly get the Armenian Diaspora until they have lived it (or at the very least experienced the means to that end... as in, had your family go through hell and end up in X city), and even then we never truly understand the beast. Keep in mind there are more Armenians living outside of Armenia than inside its borders. The majority ended up there by force (nothing against those who fled Armenia in recent years). But all are welcome to disagree with me. I just share my thoughts with the hopes that you consider them, and possibly with the hopes that it intruiges you to inquire more.
And I'm done for the year. HAPPY 2006!
The "racism" accusations and even more were directed by Nathan against me and he did indeed single out my blog in his comments on his blog. And I have had a "lively" discussion countering his claims on my blog, but the kid just sticks to his reading of any and every blog with such a degree of dogmatism that seems he has conveniently assumed a pose that reminds me of more-Catholic-than-the-Pope attitude. Anyways, it seems that anybody who dares to question their motives and criticize acts of vandalism are some sort of fundamentalist ethnic pyromaniacs or something. And again they accuse the diasporans as the root cause of some cosmic evil and only the ayatollahs of the blogosphere like Katy and Nathan have a handle on things, despite the fact that time and again I have said that I am a non diasporan Armenia-born and Armenia-bred blogger. Cheers and have some Armenian 5 star brandy for the New Year.
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No Katy bashing! Just have a happy New Year! :-)
What I love about blogs is that everyone can have one!
I think that I have always been straight forward about me NOT being Armenian. Take my view or leave my view, it's cool with me. If I was trying to pretend that I was Armenian, I think it would be worth criticing.
I have lots of Armenian friends - in Armenia, out of Armenia, Hayastantsi, Diaspora from many different groups.
I studied Armenian history.
I studied the Armenian language (Eastern and Western).
I worked in Armenia for awhile.
I lived in Armenia for a number of summers.
I worked at a job involving Armenia 75% of the time.
I worked as a volunteer with Groong for a number of years.
I work on Blogrel as a volunteer.
That's it. My opinions are my opinions. If you don't want to read them, like I said above, that's cool with me.
I'd love if there were more blogs out of Armenia and the diaspora. I'd be very excited to see a growth in both. Meanwhile, if you don't like what I write, don't read it. But please don't bash it or me. I'm just a normal person trying to work and live and be happy.
I feel sorry for Nathan's Karma!
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