Tuesday, June 30, 2009

PACE, Postanjyan, Zohrabyan, and Harutunyan

There is quite the uproar about Postanjyan, Harutunyan, and Zohrabyan. The articles abound, RFE/RL has one, as does a1plus, so I won't recap. I'm sure there are details and intricacies that I am not privy to, but why is it not okay for Postanjyan to get support to try to free political prisoners, but okay for Harutunyan to have been at a meeting of the Monitoring Committee and thus have his name on a document that was unanimously accepted and has the following (as pointed out by Postanjyan et al, see the a1plus video):

As regards Azerbaijan’s commitment to the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict:

24.1. the Assembly considers that sustainable democratic development will be extremely difficult in Azerbaijan as long as the country’s territorial integrity has not been restored;

24.2. the Assembly takes note of the United Nations General Assembly Resolution “on the situation in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan”, adopted on 14 March 2008, which expresses serious concern that the armed conflict in and around the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan continues to endanger international peace and security, reaffirms Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, expresses support for its internationally recognised borders and demands the immediate withdrawal of Armenian forces from the occupied territories;
...
Draft resolution unanimously adopted by the committee on 27 May 2008


Things are not so pretty with name calling and unpleasanteries all around, especially by Zohrabyan, with more than just intimations that Postanjyan's actions were non/anti-Armenian. Its much more complicated than saying that working with a Turk is anti-Armenian, but I think that is definitely part of it, and Zohrabyan et al are playing on that.
Many Armenians, especially in the Diaspora, seem to think Anti-Turkism is almost as important a part of their identity as the 3000+ years of history we have. This type of distillation of our identity simply to Genocide Recognition/Anti-Turkism is destructive to our nation and our country. Yet time and time again, those who have tried to make headway, including talking to Turks about such issues, have been called traitors by many Armenians. Until the time when they are killed by a Turk, at which time they become National Heroes to those who once slandered and criticized them.
The question is, why did Postanjyan have to even get support from those representatives? How did things get to this point? It should be the other Armenian representatives signing as well (the other Armenian delegates did not sign, including the ARF's Rustamyan). And, some might argue that, having Armenian authorities degrade and oppress its own Armenian people the way it has for over a year now, is worse in some ways than what has been done to us by outsiders.
There is definitely some type of irony(??) in the fact that Azerbaijan and Turkey signed under a document that would allow discussion/support for releasing political prisoners, some of whom had led in battle against Azeris. Hmmm... Turks signing to free Armenians who fought against Azerbaijan- who's on what side? (A gross gross oversimplification, but one I couldn't help making).

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't confuse anti-Turkism with integrity. There are many Armenians both in Armenia and in the Diaspora who will not forget their history: the good, the bad, and the ugly. It is not about anti-Turkism as much as it is about pro-Armenianism.

And this case is more about Postanjyan just being out of her league.

tzitzernak2 said...

I agree, actually. I will not forget my history.
But what you said is exactly my point. I think many confuse their integrity, their integrity as Armenians, with anti-Turkism.
I do not expect any Armenian to ignore or forget their history, our history.
And she may well be out of her league. It's just not clear to me. But I do think calling someone a Turk-lover (or equivalent) is an easy way to avoid actual discussion and progress.