I recently had the opportunity to spend a few days in Erbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), in the north of Iraq. The generosity of the KRG, in cooperation with the institution where I study, allowed for around 15 graduate-level students of international affairs to meet with regional officials and to explore some of the sights of that part of Iraqi Kurdistan.
As someone born and raised in India, Erbil seemed rather familiar to me. The layout of the city, the architecture, and the general flatness and climate were reminiscent of my native Delhi. But the people, their outlook, their culture, and certainly their food, spoke far more to my Armenian heritage, to say nothing of their dances. I was expecting as much. I just wish their shourchbar was faster-paced, but maybe they were toning it down for us foreigners. What I was not expecting was how very similar the countryside in Kurdistan would be to that of Armenia: the same rolling hills and valleys, more or less rocky, craggy, without all that much greenery. We saw a fair number of waterfalls as well. Plus, there was a brand-new téléphérique (I made sure to note how long it was, just to confirm that the record set up in Tatev remains unbeaten).
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A Slice of Wiener Life, According to an Ausländer
An honour system. For riding the metro? This was something new. How can you allow people to just wander onto a platform without bothering to check their tickets? And what’s with pushing buttons or yanking handles to open the wagon doors?
These were some of my very early impressions when I first found myself in Vienna, back in the autumn. But while I couldn’t believe the city would organise itself this way – it seemed rather naïve – on the other hand, I still haven’t taken a free ride on the U-Bahn myself. I keep saying that I have never seen a ticket-checker (and it’s true that I haven’t). But I also keep telling myself that I can’t risk getting Vienna upset at me. She’s too pretty.
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“My Soul is Young”: An Encounter with Dr. Gerhard Freilinger
Gerhard Freilinger is not your average doctor. He has led a life that is immediately enviable, but at the same time, one that has called for a great deal of courage. Having lived through wars and being exposed with the effects of conflict – both tangible and intangible – Dr. Freilinger has seen every side of both guns and operating tables in a whirlwind that has spanned seven decades. Nareg Seferian caught up with the man at the Kurdistan Regional Government representation in Vienna.
“I was born in Upper Austria, in Linz [in 1927]. I became a soldier at the age of fifteen,” Dr. Freilinger recalls. But his military career during the Second World War did not last long, as he ended up as a prisoner of war in Yugoslavia at just 17 years old. “I was in very, very bad condition after two and a half years of prison in Yugoslavia. I came home in 1946, very heavily damaged. My soul was sick, my heart was sick.”
Interested in being a doctor at a young age, Dr. Freilinger recalls how, at 12, he told his parents, “I would like to see this hospital [in Linz], but not only the operating room.” This was surprising to a family of lawyers. It was during his recovery in Salzburg, which took more than a year, where he decided to take on medicine as a profession. He finished with his schooling and then studied medicine at Innsbruck, followed by a fellowship in the United States. Notably, he ended up working in the field of plastic and reconstructive surgery, helping people deal with the physical scars of war.
He used his education and skills in a wide-ranging manner. While both working and teaching full-time in Vienna over the course of the following decades, he was among the first who specialized in plastic and reconstructive surgery in Austria. Dr. Freilinger juggled his time and efforts to travel, lecture and operate all over the world, with special interest in conflict areas.
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Media In Armenia: Fast Connections, Slow Change
As with most of the post-Soviet world, the Armenian press did not have much to go on in terms of a real journalistic tradition after the USSR collapsed. There may have been a lot of publications in the Armenian world-within the country and in the organized diaspora outside of it-but as far as the new Republic of Armenia was concerned, its journalists and broadcasters were coming out of decades of censorship when independence came in 1991. That legacy can be felt to this day, as numerous media outlets clearly toe the line of national policy, while others go to the other extreme of spreading scandals. Very few have the courage, the resources, and the professionalism to carry out objective and meaningful reporting.
The Internet has been a major factor in shaking things up recently. In just a handful of years, an online explosion has provided Armenia with a whole new medium of expression, one that has the capacity, among other things, of being much less immediately accountable to the powers that be.
Arsen Kharatyan, a journalist at Voice of America’s Armenian service, based in Washington, DC, explains the fallout: “We can register significant progress within the last four to five years. There are at least two dozen websites which produce news on a daily basis from Armenia. he number of the Internet users in the country has also grown during the last three years, which I believe can be explained by a more competitive Internet market, which ultimately lowered the prices for Internet and became available to average citizens of the country.”
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Forty Years on: Gourgen Yanikian and Us
On Jan. 27, 1973, two diplomats of the Turkish Republic traveled to Santa Barbara, Calif., to meet with an individual claiming to possess Ottoman artifacts he wished to donate to the country for posterity. Mehmet Baydar and Bahadir Demir played into the hands of Gourgen Yanikian, who had planned their murder as an act at once of vengeance, of retribution, and of justice.
It is hard, as an Armenian today, to write about Yanikian without judging his actions using those three less-than-consistent characteristics noted above. Vengeance is not exactly a Christian concept, is it? Justice is ordered by a legitimate, recognized authority. As for retribution, well, it is not for no reason that “Operation Nemesis” was the name of the immense undertaking following the Armenian Genocide to do away with those responsible for that horrific crime: Nemesis is the Greek deity of divine retribution.
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Turkish Review occasionally opens its doors to students from outside Turkey, inviting them to stay for brief internships at our journal. This summer we were joined by Nareg Seferian, a young Armenian of Marashtsi lineage (that is, with Armenian roots in Ottoman Maraş) who received his education in India, Armenia and the US, where his studies have focused on law and diplomacy. During his time with Turkish Review, Nareg visited his ancestral town of Marash/Maraş. This is his account of that journey.
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Among the samples of Yerevan’s architecture is the bridge at the end of Kievian Street.
It unfortunately has the reputation of being a favourite drop-off point for the suicides of the city. Walking across it the other day, however, I saw a series of markings on the railings that evoke happier times and thoughts.
It appears that there is a young man who is quite infatuated with a young lady. So infatuated, in fact, that he can barely express his words … Read more…
Transforming Turkey: pluralism and reform
‘Democracy, Islam, and Secularism in Turkey’ features eight essays born out of two major conferences at Columbia University. Editors Kuru and Stepan address key questions in exploring the concept of state-religion relations in the context of Turkey’s evolving democracy: What place does religion have in public life? Does it even need to be addressed, and, if so, how can it be accommodated?
Let it be said once more: Turkey has changed a lot in recent years, especially over the course of the past decade. Alongside the nation’s economic growth, its society has witnessed significant transformations that have affected the way it views itself, as well as the way the world sees it.
What the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) has brought about is not simply policies that encourage the generation of wealth or more proactive steps in diplomacy. Turkey is undergoing a philosophical shift. Things are changing in a way that does not just make people feel better about themselves as Turks or as citizens of Turkey; rather, they are being made to re-evaluate the very basis of the Turkish state — what it means, where it has been, where it is headed. And that is not always an easy task, especially given étatisme’s importance as a tenet in the foundation and organization of the Republic of Turkey. Questioning the heretofore unquestionable can provoke powerful challenges.
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A ‘Close Creative Encounter’ between İstanbul and Yerevan
A creative format born in Japan that allows people to present and discuss ideas recently helped foster creative dialogue between two neighboring peoples who do not always see eye-to-eye: Turks and Armenians.
Pecha Kucha — Japanese for “chit-chat” — was conceived by two architects in Tokyo in 2003, originally as a means for young designers to showcase their work while giving them a chance to meet and network with one another. It has since grown immensely in popularity, with presenters from all artistic genres, and even academia, participating in regular franchised Pecha Kucha Nights in over 500 cities around the world.
Two of those cities are İstanbul and Yerevan. Organized with the support of USAID, the Eurasia Partnership Foundation and the Global Political Trends Centre at İstanbul Kültür University, the Yerevan Pecha Kucha franchisee — associated with Yerevan’s The Club, a well-known eatery that is not just a restaurant, but also a gallery and gathering space — worked together with the İstanbul franchisee, 34 Solo, a design consultancy, to put together what was described as “probably the first” inter-city, international Pecha Kucha Night, entitled “Close Creative Encounters.”
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Why the Armenian Genocide Matters for America
It’s that time of the year again. The run-up to the 24th of April – Armenian Martyrs’ Day – usually sees a slew of activity in Washington with one of the nation’s most persistent ethno-national lobbies clashing with the millions spent in counter-advocacy efforts by an active long-time member of NATO and close ally of the United States. It is not a balanced battle, but even though American citizens of Armenian descent have been a presence in Washington since the 1970s, all the political and financial clout coming out of Turkey has managed to stop short a presidential acknowledgement of “the g-word” (even if it was sort of slipped in a speech by President Ronald Reagan to commemorate the Holocaust). And even though the US Congress has twice, in 1975 and 1984, gone ahead with condemning “man’s inhumanity to man,” the recognition and commemoration of the Armenian Genocide at the national level has never been implemented as a federal policy.
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