Hesaid-Shesaid Disease

58. Hesaid-Shesaid Disease (30 April 2023)

It's springtime, and the Mediterranean is not
too cold for a swim. (2 Apr. 2023 - AUB, Beirut)

Supermarkets in the U.S. have (or used to have) bulletin boards near the entrance, a place to post community activity announcements, job advertisements, lost dog posters, Fire Prevention Week fliers, you name it. Occasionally I would notice someone standing and examining each notice; but usually these bulletin boards were merely something to pass on your way out or your way into the store. Now, times have changed, and the bulletin board as well as its relative, the newspaper gossip column, have transformed into a new, electronic format, eagerly consumed by people the world over.

“Lake Laziza” – stagnant waters
collecting in the site of yet another
useless construction project.
(27 Mar. 2023 - Mar Mikhael)

            Social media platforms guide the thinking of so many people, young and old. Sometimes it guides its users to access well-thought-out writings about important issues or events. Often it entices us into habits that divert us from looking deeply or critically into topics. I would propose that our God-given minds and consciences are also “platforms” to help us consider what is true, or beautiful, or healthy, as well as what is “good, acceptable and perfect” (cf. Romans 12.2). The condition of today’s “marketplace of ideas” – a condition that predates the Internet – swarms with lies and half-truths, as well as with vested interests, mixed together with Truth. Separating the worthwhile from the worthless is akin to trying to separate the ingredients of a tabbouleh salad once it is mixed.

            But effort must be spent in separating the good and bad, no matter how painstaking the task. The discipline of deep thinking, including research and debate, is crucial to avoiding a relativism, antagonism and shallowness. And it is a rare, perhaps endangered, species.

Another sign of spring, high in the mountains
of Lebanon (10 Mar. 2023 - Azzounieh)

            At one time newspapers and periodicals bristled with the pointed tips of journalistic and academic inquiry. They played an essential role in in piercing shells of deceit and kept the “He said-She said Disease”, so prevalent in partisan and entertainment “news”. It pushed back the waves of mendacity of the powerful, and challenged vested interests. Where there should be courageous truth-telling, too often news reports are filled with “he said this, but, on the other hand, she said that”. A shrug of the shoulders, and on to the next story.

             And this is why April is the bitterest month for Armenians. They suffer from the “Hesaid-Shesaid Disease” that runs rampant in popular and populist media. Their just cause, and the unacknowledged and unpunished crime against them, has been turned into a target of the propaganda war by those responsible – the governments of Turkey and Azerbaijan. The Armenian nation, in its struggling Eastern portion, and its exiled Western portion, has been seated at a table replete with impotent statements of sympathy from world powers demonstrating their prowess in verbal gymnastics.

And this is why we now have 24-hour
electricity. And a working elevator.
(6 Apr. 2023 - Geitawi, Beirut)

           Caught in such a worldwide web as this, it is no wonder that militant groups have emerged from among all subjugated people groups, and not just from Armenians. Those who are silenced or sidelined from public forums can often see no other way than this: to force the powerful to pay attention to (and sometimes feel on their own skin) the injustices that are freely roaming the streets of every city and country, easily ignored by an otherwise occupied public. Sadly, the chronic disenfranchisement of such people groups leads to their disarray, dismemberment and dissolution, something widely observed among my people. 

        Allowing “Hesaid-Shesaid Disease” to spread unchecked may be intentional. It enables genocidal regimes to bend the wills of “great powers” who don’t want to endanger their access to resources. It allows Turkey and Azerbaijan to declare historic Armenian lands and culture as its own. It emboldens them to claim that Armenia and Armenians never existed. It gives them a green light to persist in their genocidal policies, both “soft genocide” and “hard genocide”. It gives credence to Hitler’s dismissal of concerns over his genocide against the Polish people, telling his generals in 1939 to abandon their humanitarian scruples: “Who speaks nowadays of the annihilation of the Armenians?”

Armenian scouts headed to their Saturday
meeting, while street lights are being
replaced with solar-powered LED fixtures.
(15 Apr. 2023 - Khalil Bedawi, Beirut)

            The disease has no cure. It is as old as the dialogue between Adam and God in the Garden of Eden (cf. Genesis 3.9-13) and ingrained within the human heart. Although it cannot be eradicated, it can – and must – be kept at bay. As mentioned earlier, deep and rigorous thinking is one of the necessary treatment regimens. Another is careful and considerate listening, something that takes time and commitment. And time is one of the casualties of the information/entertainment glut engulfing the world. The third treatment is to “make love your aim” or to “follow the way of love” (cf. I Corinthians 14.1). Loving others as yourself. Loving the truth. Loving (including a fear of) God. 

LebCat 58 - Not sure how I got into this
building (UAECNE HQ). Could you provide
me with an escape route? Please?
(26 Mar. 2023 - Geitawi, Beirut)

                            April 24th – Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day – has come and gone, with various and sundry observances here in Lebanon and in many places throughout the world. It was noted by the diseased as well. The governor of Istanbul forbade its observance for the second year in a row. Azerbaijan increased its propaganda about the nefarious designs of the Armenian government, and intensified its military aggression against Armenia and Artsakh. Therefore, I have no choice but to do my part to combat this disease with faith in God, for the sake of my descendants and the inheritance of their rightful legacy.   [LNB]

Keeping Promises

4.Keeping Promises (23 April 2017)

            Since Armenians found a safe haven here in Lebanon and other Arab countries, following their branding as an “undesirable element” in their ancient, ancestral homelands, the Armenian population has been “branded” as a positive, constructive, industrious, artistically-gifted element in their respective adoptive homes. I can’t count the number of times since I’ve arrived, when people ask my name, they say, “Oh, like the (local) television personality Nishan!” I smile and nod…

The very first Armenian Genocide monument in Lebanon (erected 1929), showing bullet damage from Lebanon’s civil war (Armenian Apostolic Cemetery, Furn el Shebbak)

            Once upon Ottoman times in Turkey, Armenians were known as the “loyal nation”. They didn’t have aspirations to take over the world – they just wanted to live and flourish in their various locations, whether villages or cities. They dreamed of being able to take a deep breath without being taxed for breathing too much. But Armenians made the mistake of thinking that their overlords would modernize their thinking. Now, a hundred and two years after the Armenian Genocide, and a week after Turkey acquiesced (by only a 51% majority) to its president’s power-grab, the whole world can see how ill-prepared Turkey is to abandon its repressive ways.

            But that 49% is a hopeful sign that things are changing in Turkey, albeit slowly. Turkey will continue to jail journalists and beat protesters. It will continue to allow the wanton destruction of Armenian cultural heritage in the eastern “interior” locations (i.e., western Armenia), far from where mainstream media employees like to hang out. Turkey will continue to play with fire, hosting and lending material support to radical movements like the foreign militias who today again (as they did in March 2014) attacked the Syrian-Armenian village of Kessab. Why attack today, and why attack a village where there is no military presence? Why, except to continue the Genocide that they began over a century ago?

            It is not outside the realm of possibility that this is a “Happy Armenian Genocide Day” card from Turkey, with a postscript “thank-you” for the release of the motion picture, “The Promise,” this weekend. If, as Jesus says in John 8.32, "the truth (i.e., his truth, in its completeness) will set you free," then those who deny the truth are in a prison of their own making. A pathetic, miserable prison. A prison from which those Turkish-sponsored extremists attacked Kessab again today.

Statues of Armenian orphans seated on the ground with their food bowls, outside the Bezikian Orphans’ Museum at the “Birds’ Nest” Orphanage in Jbeil (Byblos)

            Yet, the more inflamed with denialism the Turkish leadership and their radicalized citizens become, the clearer Turkey’s picture becomes to their “friends” (like the U.S.). And who knows? Maybe that awareness will translate into action for what is right, and true, and good… but I’m not holding my breath. Every U.S. presidential candidate, pandering to the Armenian constituency, has made the promise to call it a “Genocide”, and, once elected, they have all (except for Pres. Reagan) broken that promise, for reasons they find justifiable. And so, people groups, their languages and their cultures continue to be destroyed. And not just Armenians, either.

            Maria and I went to a cinema in Ashrafieh (Beirut) this weekend to see “The Promise,” currently playing throughout Lebanon. It is worth seeing, whether by someone completely uninformed about the subject, or by people like us, for whom the narrative was a painful reminder of a history we know all too well. It weaves through its dramatic story-line vignettes of actual events and persons. One of the most powerful aspects of the story was how the main character Mikael was determined to keep his promise to his betrothed, to his home village, and to his people. Do yourself a favor; go see it.

LebCat 3 has expensive taste in cars (1 Mar. 2017)

            Tomorrow morning, April 24, the entire Lebanese Armenian community will gather in the various churches of their various denominations to observe this somber anniversary. In the evening there will be a joint rally (organized by the three Armenian political parties) at Martyrs’ Square in the center of Beirut. Non-Armenian Lebanese will take note of how many Armenian businesses there are, because they will be shuttered tomorrow in observance of the day, and most (though not all) Lebanese will comment on how much the Armenian community has contributed to the well-being of Lebanon. Armenians have indeed been fortunate in Arab countries to maintain their Armenian identity while giving back to the places that welcomed them after the Genocide. It’s quite a different experience and a different outcome than where I grew up, with Armenians forever teetering on the edge of the “melting pot”.

            My next post will be something lighter. I promise.   [LNB]