Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, December 1997, Pages 64-66

Northeast News

Armenian Museum Dedicates Exhibit to Genocide

By David P. Johnson, Jr.

With anger, sadness and hope, a crowd of some 50 people gathered Sept. 14 at the Armenian Library and Museum of America, in Watertown, Mass., to dedicate the opening of the permanent exhibit, "The Armenian Genocide: In Memoriam."

Attired in dark suits and somber, silk dresses, the guests were solemn as they listened to the chanting of the clergy, first in Armenian, then in English. Finally, after the group sang an Armenian hymn, the service was over and the audience dispersed.

Attendees said it was painful to recall the deaths of some one million Armenians from massacres, forced marches and starvation between 1915 and 1922. Yet they were also hopeful that the exhibit at the largest independent museum of Armenian culture in North America would teach others, and especially children, about the worst disaster to befall their people.

Author and Barnard University professor Dr. Marjorie Havsepian Dopkin, who spoke following the dedication ceremony, urged the audience to spread the word about the Armenian catastrophe. Much of her anger, and much of the anger of other speakers, was directed at the Turkish government and some American scholars who have questioned the accuracy of claims that Armenians were specifically targeted as part of a planned genocide. They have also disputed that 1,000,000 Armenians died during and after World War I.

Dopkin said the evidence, both anecdotal, from people's own families, from Protestant missionaries and foreign diplomats, leaves little room for doubt. "We have reams of evidence," she stated. "Turkey is a collaborator after the fact. To do it then and then to deny it, is to do it twice." She said she would be happy to discuss the historical circumstances of the genocide with Turkish speakers, provided they admitted that it happened.

Many Kurds, whom Dopkin said also participated in the slaughter of Armenians, have since apologized. "I have to give them credit for not denying it," the professor said.

During World War I, Dopkin said, Armenians were seen by many Turks as disloyal to the collapsing Ottoman Empire and were ordered to leave their homes. Many men were shot, and women and children were often forced to walk to new homes. They were set upon by Kurdish bandits and many died in the Syrian desert. There were few survivors.

Author of Smyrna, 1922: The Destruction of the City, Dopkin said that many Greek and Armenian residents of that mainly Greek city were literally burned out of their homes and forced to swim into the harbor. Warships from Britain, America and other Western countries were moored in the harbor, she said, but they were ordered not to pick up the swimmers.

She said some Western sailors became increasingly uncomfortable at the situation, forcing their superior officers to rescue more Armenians.

Rev. Vartun Hartunian, pastor of the First Armenian Church of Belmont, Mass., was one of the lucky survivors. "We walked through streets where all the houses on both sides were burning," he recalled. Picked up by the American warship Simpson, Hartunian joined his family, who also escaped, near Athens. He entered the U.S. at Ellis Island in 1922.

Translator of his father Abraham's book, Neither to Laugh nor to Weep, Hartunian was one of the clergy to bless the opening of the exhibit. He called the program an important part of telling the truth of Armenian history.

Former U.S. State Department officer Jeanette John, now living in New Hampshire, agreed. "My mother was a survivor," she stated. "She was 16 years old, a pampered, well-brought-up girl from Bandirma, Turkey. They went through the death march and wound up in a Druze village in Syria."

John said her mother did not talk much about the ordeal. "When I was 19 years old and lost an earring, my mother said, 'We lost so much there [Armenia]. What's an earring?'"

"This [exhibit] is something vital, part of life, it's cross-generational," said Dr. Martin Deranian, a dentist and professor at the Tufts University Dental School in Boston. He explained that his mother had been married to her first husband and had six children, all of whom died. "She was the only survivor," he explained. "She came to America and married my father."

Curator of the museum Gary Lind-Sinanian said he was pleased with the response. He noted that Watertown and nearby Belmont and Newton are home to most of the 35,000 Armenians in the Boston area. Although there are more Armenians in Southern California and in the New York City area, he said, they are more spread out. By contrast, Watertown's 7,000 Armenians comprise one-fifth of the city's population.

The Armenian Library and Museum of America also contains collections of Oriental rugs and old Bibles, among other artifacts. Located at 65 Main St., Watertown Center, the building is open Sunday and Friday from 1 to 5 p.m., Tuesday from 1 to 5 and 7 to 9 p.m., and other times by appointment. Call (617) 926-2562 for information.

Boston's "Arabic Hour" Aims For Accuracy

For Arab Americans or for anyone who differs from the pro-Israeli party line, watching TV or reading the "mainstream" press can be a nightmare. Lies, distortions and omissions are routinely presented as "objective" facts on the Middle East by the American television networks and in the leading newspapers and magazines.

Sixteen years ago a group of Arab Americans decided to take matters into their own hands and start adding some accuracy to Boston's TV coverage. Taking advantage of the federal requirement that local cable TV channels provide a certain amount of public access programming, in an effort to increase diversity, the Boston group founded "The Arabic Hour."

Today, thousands of hours and many struggles later, the program is thriving, providing quality political, economic and cultural information on the Arab world to thousands of viewers throughout the Boston area and Rhode Island over various local cable TV channels. The program is telecast in Detroit and New York City as well. The show used to appear on a regular Boston station, which recently decided to end its ethnic programming, so the "Arabic Hour" switched to cable.

One difference between the Boston show and its counterparts in other cities is that the "Arabic Hour" is presented in English. A businessman and engineer of Lebanese background, Michael Haidar, a founding father of the program, said English was chosen to reach the mass American market, not simply preach to the converted.

"We are not a program for the Arabs, per se," Haidar said. "It's about them, a means for non-Arabs to learn about the Arab world."

In addition, he said that many second- and third-generation Arab Americans have lost touch with their roots, speaking Arabic poorly, if at all, and not being aware of the diversity and richness of their cultural heritage.

"The idea is to fill a gap that exists in the community," Haidar said. "And to communicate and to share a cultural heritage, to provide a venue for the views that are not normally expressed. We are a bridge to the old country."

However, the decision to broadcast in English did create controversy among the 100,000 Arabs, mostly Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian, who live in greater Boston.

"In the beginning there was a lot of criticism," Haidar stated. "The Indian broadcast is in Hindi, the Spanish broadcast is in Spanish." But the group stuck to its decision and today the show is going strong, providing interviews and discussions of events in the Middle East, music, cooking and other cultural programs.

"We target the larger community," explained Nabih Hakim, an engineer from Lebanon who works as the show's cameraman. "During the Gulf war, we got a lot of feedback from people in education. We are not an entertainment program, we are a news and information program."

Working out of pleasant studios in the Roslindale section of Boston, home to many Lebanese and Syrians, some 40 volunteers labor to create the program.

The group illustrates the high socioeconomic levels achieved by Arab Americans. Six of the volunteers have Ph.D. degrees, while engineers, teachers, businesspeople and other professionals predominate.

Hakim pointed out that the volunteers come from various Arab countries and from various religious traditions, both Christian and Muslim. In the past, there also was a Jewish helper. "We represent the character of the community, which is very mixed," Hakim said.

There are also some non-Arab volunteers. "We are open to anyone, not just the Arabs or the Arab Americans," said Jadallah Tamimi, an engineer and authority on classical Arab poetry from Hebron, Palestine. Tamimi is one of the hosts of the show. Karen Aruri, an American of Palestinian and Lebanese background, is another host, and various experts appear from time to time.

Former Simmons College professor Dr. Elaine Hagopian conducts many of the in-depth interviews. Dr. Evelyn Menconi works on the cultural programming, while Dr. Nasir Aruri, Dr. Souad Dajani and poet Lisa Majaj all help with the program.

While many of the guests speak of Palestine and "the enormity of the crisis which we see every day," said Tamimi, other topics are aired as well.

"It's got a lot of avenues to keep the community informed," Hakim said.

Since the "Arabic Hour" is commercial-free, constant fund-raising is required to keep it going. Despite the stereotype of the oil-rich Arab, the money for the show comes not from wealthy potentates, but from the Boston community, with many individuals giving relatively small amounts.

To learn more about the "Arabic Hour" and its extensive film library, call (617) 323-2226.

Film Records Tragic Tales of Palestinian Women in Lebanese Refugee Camp

Much has been written and spoken about the tragic epic of the Palestinian people. But in all the talk, the opinions and feelings of older women have consistently been ignored, according to documentary filmmaker Maha Khatib.

Herself a Lebanese of Palestinian parentage, Khatib, 32, recently completed the film "Then and Now," a documentary look at the lives of six women in their 60s and 70s who fled their Palestinian homes during the war that created the state of Israel and have lived ever since in the southern Lebanon refugee camp of Ein el Hilweh.

The film was recently shown in Cambridge, Mass., at the office of the American Friends Service Committee. Tim Bishopric, an activist with the Boston Committee on the Middle East, arranged the screening. The Committee on the Middle East works for justice in the Middle East, organizing demonstrations, lectures and other presentations.

"Rarely do you have women's stories, especially of this age group," Khatib explained, adding that when women were heard, they were usually well-educated and younger. With degrees from the American University in Beirut and Brown University, Khatib specializes in gender issues in the Middle East. Unable to obtain a grant, she financed "Then and Now" herself, spending a month and a half during the summer of 1996 to shoot it. Khatib said that since the women were generally reticent to tell their stories, "I ended up begging every person I came across," for interviews.

"At some level they didn't think they had anything important to say," Khatib stated. "They were concerned about me wasting my time."

Several women told Khatib that their male relatives knew more about the problems than they did and a couple of times men interrupted the interviews. Khatib did not include those interjections in the film, focusing solely on the women.

Although she had to edit the 13 hours of footage into a 40-minute film, Khatib managed to avoid a slick, packaged product. For instance, she included footage of a young man who interrupts an old woman to ask her to untie his shoe. "How did it get this tight?" the woman asked. Then, looking toward the camera she explained that the man suffers from partial paralysis incurred during an Israeli bombardment. There was no money for a doctor.

Speaking in Arabic with English subtitles, women with sad eyes, broken teeth and wrinkled skin discussed their lives, reflecting both the dramatic changes that have swept the region as a whole in the past 50 years, and their particular difficulties as refugees. They lamented lost relatives, and revealed the emptiness of lives spent confined to the camp.

One woman mourned her son, saying that because she lives alone, she eats and sleeps when she feels like it. There is no one else around to care about her routine. Another speaker remembered that all the men in her village were lined up and shot by the Israeli army. "They said, 'Just leave for seven days,' and we believed them," she recalled. "Those who wanted to go back were shot."

Another woman said her children always played happily with their Jewish neighbors. "We lived together with no problem. But when the Jews came from outside, we both suffered," she stated.

When they first settled into the camps, they were forced to live in tents, often sharing with other families. A speaker said with a shrug," We had to leave [the tent] when the other family wanted to bathe."

Life improved considerably with the advent of the armed Palestinian resistance. They were no longer at the mercy of the Lebanese army, which one women said left everyone in fear of being beaten. The resistance fighters also helped refugees build houses, which provided a higher standard of living until the 1982 Israeli invasion.

"The Israelis did not leave a building intact," one of the women said blankly.

But the refugees rebuilt, and today in the film Ein el Hilweh appeared to be a bustling small town, complete with a business district, book stores and paved roads.

Money from Palestinians who emigrated to Europe, the U.S. and the Persian Gulf brought changes, both good and bad. While overall conditions apparently improved, two economic classes were created, since those with no relatives abroad remained poor. With employment opportunities for Palestinians in the Gulf severely restricted since the Persian Gulf war, as punishment for widespread Palestinian support for Saddam Hussain, the economic situation is uncertain, Khatib said after the movie. It is often difficult for Palestinians to get visas enabling them to work in Europe or the Americas.

In the film, several of the women lamented the decline in manners, and the growing envy and distrust of one's neighbors. They also generally disapproved of social changes sweeping the region. "Young men dress like girls," one of them said. "They wear bright colored shirts and necklaces. We stick to the old ways."

Another speaker explained that in the past, young men often gave up their educations to join the freedom fighters. "They fought and fought and realized it was useless. Now, both boys and girls pay attention to their education," she stated.

Yet another speaker noted the difference between the natural fruits and vegetables of the old days and the chemically-treated produce of today. She said that life is less healthy today, that more people get ill. The woman added that she is often told that people got sick back in Palestine, but didn't realize it. She rejected that argument, saying that if someone is unwell, he knows it.

The film ended on a plaintive note, reinforcing the desire to return to Palestine. "A person outside his country can never be happy," one of the six women said.

Khatib echoed that sentiment, with the dedication, "In memory of my grandparents and the others who could never return."

For more information on "Then and Now," contact Khatib via e-mail at: khatib2m1@aol.com. To learn more about the Boston Committee on the Middle East, call (617) 624-7025 or through e-mail: bcome@salam.org.

Deciphering Hieroglyphics Reveals Egypt's Mysteries

America's growing interest in the Middle East is not confined to current events. Fascination with the region extends deep into the past. For example, one of the popular classes at Boston's Center for Adult Education is on learning to read and write Egyptian hieroglyphics.

While hieroglyphics are not related to Arabic, the two scripts share one thing in common. Each was designed to delight, and each is art as well as communication.

So strongly did the ancient Egyptians believe in the written word that they felt writers, as well as their subjects, were guaranteed immortality, said Robert Emin, teacher of the class. In fact the name, hieroglyphics, is Greek for sacred writing. A public school teacher from suburban Newton, an archaeologist and antique dealer, Emin said that although the glyphs, or pictures, used in ancient Egyptian writing did not constitute an actual alphabet, they do make up a logical linguistic system.

"It is rigid in the way it is written out," Emin said. "They follow the rules. Rarely do you find, as in English, a rule that is contrary." However, deciphering hieroglyphics can be tricky because some pictures represent more than one sound and because of the ancient Egyptian sense of humor. "The Egyptians loved puns," he said and their writings abound in wordplays and double entendres.

Whether written in ink on papyrus or carved in stone and painted with gold and bright colors, hieroglyphics were meant to be beautiful. Letters or words were occasionally omitted so two lines could be of the same length, or to make a phrase fit into a particular space. In other instances, words would be placed out of order or written backwards for stylistic reasons.

Historians, however, have found that hieroglyphics present a detailed picture of Egyptian life. "The Egyptians were great observers of their surroundings," he said. And, since Egypt was an organized, bureaucratic society, everything was recorded, from descriptions of nature to accounts of great battles and affairs of state to ordinary things, such as lists of supplies.

With sets of sentences to translate, just as in any other language, Emin's students appeared a bit overwhelmed. One student, Irene Reiche, a Frenchwoman, compared hieroglyphics to Chinese. Reiche said she and her late husband, who taught the history of science at MIT, had always planned to study the ancient world. "We always said that when he retired we would do that together. He died before we could do it."

For more information on the class, contact the Boston Center for Adult Education, (617) 267-4430.