From The Turks To The ‘Titanic:’ One Armenian’s Fateful Escape
April 13, 2012, by Daisy Sindelar, EurasiaNet
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Neshan Krekorian was barely in his twenties when his father urged him to emigrate from western Armenia and start a new life far away across the Atlantic Ocean.
Thousands of Armenians were doing the same, in a bid to escape rising violence and persecution at the hands of Ottoman-era Turks.
So Krekorian fled, making his way across Europe and purchasing a third-class ticket for what would prove a fateful ocean journey.
“His father told him to leave the country and seek a new life in Canada and hopefully bring his brothers over,” says Krekorian’s grandson, Van Solomonian.
“He had two younger brothers who stayed behind. My grandfather gathered four other compatriots from Turkish Armenia in the area that he lived in, which was Keghi. And they got to France in Cherbourg, and by pure fate got on the ‘Titanic.’”
Krekorian was one of over 700 third-class passengers on board the maiden voyage of the celebrated ocean liner.
Immigrants from across the British Isles, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East paid the equivalent of $1,000 for a steerage-class ticket entitling them to modest sleeping quarters and meals in the third-class dining hall for the duration of what was meant to be a weeklong voyage. READ…..
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Why Afghan Women Risk Death to Write Poetry
By ELIZA GRISWOLD, April 27, 2012, New York Times
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In a private house in a quiet university neighborhood of Kabul, Ogai Amail waited for the phone to ring. Through a plate-glass window, she watched the sinking sun turn the courtyard the color of eggplant. The electricity wasn’t working and the room was unheated, a few floor cushions the only furnishings. Amail tucked her bare feet underneath her and pulled up the collar of her puffy black coat. Her dark hair was tied in a ponytail, and her eyelids were coated in metallic blue powder. In the green glare of the mobile phone’s screen, her face looked wan and worried. When the phone finally bleeped, Amail shrieked with joy and put on the speakerphone. A teenage girl’s voice tumbled into the room. “I’m freezing,” the girl said. Her voice was husky with cold. To make this call, she’d sneaked out of her father’s mud house without her coat.
“I can’t say any poems in front of my brothers,” she said. Love poems would be seen by them as proof of an illicit relationship, for which Meena could be beaten or even killed. “I wish I had the opportunities that girls do in Kabul,” she went on. “I want to write about what’s wrong in my country.” Meena gulped. She was trying not to cry. On the other end of the line, Amail, who is prone to both compassion and drama, began to weep with her. Tears mixed with kohl dripped onto the page of the spiral notebook in which Amail was writing down Meena’s verses.
Rahila was the name used by a young poet, Zarmina, who committed suicide two years ago. Zarmina was reading her love poems over the phone when her sister-in-law caught her. “How many lovers do you have?” she teased. Zarmina’s family assumed there was a boy on the other end of the line. As a punishment, her brothers beat her and ripped up her notebooks, Amail said. Two weeks later, Zarmina set herself on fire. READ…..
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Germany prepares to print Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ after 70 years
April 26, 2012, The Independent
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Bavaria has announced plans to publish a specially annotated version of Adolf Hitler’s manifesto Mein Kampf in an attempt to prevent neo-Nazis exploiting the book for propaganda purposes when its copyright expires in three years’ time.
The racist autobiography has been effectively banned in Germany since the end of the Second World War. The state of Bavaria, which owns the copyright, has repeatedly blocked attempts to publish new editions of the book because of fears it would encourage a rebirth of the far right.
However the copyright expires at the end of 2015. Bavaria says its plan to publish a “commercially unattractive” copy is designed to prevent the book being used for propaganda.
“We want to make clear what nonsense it contains and what a worldwide catastrophe this dangerous body of thought led to,” said Markus Söder, the Bavarian Finance Minister. He said the state’s version would contain additional information which would debunk and “demystify” the manifesto. READ…..
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German Jews agree with travel ban on author Grass
By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL, JERUSALEM POST, April 11, 2012
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BERLIN – Leading German Jewish intellectuals expressed support on Tuesday for Interior Minister Eli Yishai’s decision to ban Günter Grass from visiting Israel because of the writer’s anti-Semitic poem.
The Munich-based Jewish historian Michael Wolffsohn told the daily Tagesspiegel that the ban was “absolutely legitimate.” Wolffsohn, a contemporary history professor at the Bundeswehr University in Munich and Israeli native, said it is important to show the world that criticism is permitted ”but not from former SS people.”
It is unacceptable that an author who was silent about his history for over 60 years and has not really processed it “is now elevated to a moral authority in general and over the descendants of the victims of the Nazis in particular,” he said.
Grass covered up his WWII membership in the SS – a unit that played a key role in murdering Jews – for six decades until 2006 when he confessed in an interview that he was a member of the Nazi organization.
The Jewish journalist and author Ralph Giordano told the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper that he could “absolutely understand the Netanyahu government” and its reaction to Grass. Giordano survived the Holocaust in hiding and has authored books on Germany and its failures and successes in working through its Nazi history. READ….
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Stories of abortion: by people who have been through it
The Irish Times – Saturday, March 24, 2012
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KATHY SHERIDAN recently wrote about the tens of thousands of Irish women who have had abortions abroad, and invited readers to share their experiences. About 100 people responded. Here are some of their stories
A MONTH AGO in these pages we featured two very different abortion stories. One was about a couple, “Rachel and Tim”, who had terminated a much-wanted pregnancy after a catastrophic prognosis for the baby. The second was about a woman who had already checked into an English abortion clinic when she discovered that her pregnancy was more advanced than she had thought, and was by a different father.
We invited people who had experienced abortion to share their stories with us. The response was immediate and almost overwhelming. They ranged from women, now in their 60s, who had taken the often hair-raising route to England 40 years ago, to a desperate young student who bought pills on the internet a few months ago and induced her own lonely abortion in a Dublin flat; and from (a few) distressed and baffled men who had felt overlooked in their partners’ decision, to husbands who took the heartbreaking flights to Liverpool or Birmingham with their wives to terminate longed-for pregnancies. READ….
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Yes, Sir?
By Dana Glaser, February 21, 2012, Yale Daily News
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I may have been the first one to notice him in the doorway. I had just stopped by for a quick drink; I only knew one other person in the room; I still had on the requisite plaid button-down I had worn in the A&A library. These things made it feel inappropriate to point out that there was a cop in the room, or anyway halfway in the room. During the awkward moment between his arrival and the hush of realization, I watched him poised there like a bemused newcomer scanning the room for the friend of a friend who had texted “yeah, its not so bad, come. you can have a beer.”
The officer asked whose room it was, and the called-for individual stepped forward. The rest of us assumed the silence of school children in penance. Is this your room? he asked the host again. Yes, sir. Is this your alcohol? Yes, sir. How old are you? Twenty, sir. No, sir, not everyone, sir. Sorry, sir. Yes, sir, we will sir, we’ll do it right away sir.
I marveled at his deference. Was it real? There was not the tiniest trace of irony in those “sirs.” He didn’t say them the way they say “sir” in the military; he said them passively, quietly. READ…..
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A Story Called Sheikh Abdulaziz al Tuwaijri
by Mshari Al-Zaydi
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One wonders how to approach the subject of Sheikh Abdulaziz al Tuwaijri. Should it be dealt with from a political perspective? And if so, should one tackle his role, or rather roles in internal policy or perhaps foreign policy? But if we were to overlook politics, should we speak about Sheikh Abdulaziz al Tuwaijri as the man of letters who is a great admirer of al Mutanabbi and al Ma’ari [10th Century Arab poets among the greats]? Or as the writer of the eloquent letters sent to his son?
Or perhaps one could discuss the historian behind the priceless masterpieces ‘Li Surat al Lail Hatafa al Sabah,’ and ‘Fi al Sabah Yahmadu al Qawm al Sara’. Both books are the crown jewels of Tuwaijri’s writings and include rare scrolls and crucial correspondence written in the early years of the Saudi state, which was founded at the hands of the venerable King Abdulaziz.
What gateway can one enter to access the illustrious life of Sheikh al Tuwaijri?
It is my belief that anyone who was destined to see Sheikh al Abdulaziz, even if only once, will have retained a special memory of him. He knew how to reach people and using his foresight was a master at knowing who to bring close and who to keep at an arm’s length. He was an unforgettable man whether as cabinet minister, advisor, nobleman, or writer, as all of these traits are simply secondary to the man he was. READ….
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Arabs And The Sea
by Aramcoworld
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By the time Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope, Arab sailors were already masters of the Indian Ocean.
“Master navigator,” said Vasco da Gama, “we have a strong wind behind us. How long will it blow?”
“Sir Admiral,” replied Ahmad ibn Majid, “it will continue for another month. It is what you Europeans call the monsoon, which in turn comes from our word mausim, meaning ‘season.’ This monsoon blows steadily toward India for six-months of every year. We will ride it straight on to the Malabar Coast.”
The words of the Arab pilot were exactly what the Portuguese sea captain wanted to hear. Vasco da Gama was in a hurry. It was April of 1498. He and his men had rounded the Cape of Good Hope in search of a sea route to India. They had reached Malindi below the Horn of East Africa and then were forced to drop anchor, for, as the first Europeans in these Islamic waters, they dared not venture out onto the broad expanse of the Indian Ocean without a navigator schooled in the sea. READ…..
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Amanda Knox gets $4-million book deal
February 16, 2012, Los Angeles Times
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Amanda Knox, the American student who was cleared of murder charges in October 2011 after spending four years in an Italian jail, will tell her story in an upcoming memoir. HarperCollins paid $4 million for the book, it was announced Thursday.
“Knox will give a full and unflinching account of the events that led to her arrest in Perugia and her struggles with the complexities of the Italian judicial system,” HarperCollins said in a statement. “Aided by journals she kept during her imprisonment, Knox will talk about her harrowing experience at the hands of the Italian police and later prison guards and inmates. She will reveal never before-told details surrounding her case, and describe how she used her inner strength and strong family ties to cope with the most challenging time of her young life.” READ….
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Short Stories Haunted by the Holocaust
By Barbara Chai, February 07, 2012, WSJ
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The writer Nathan Englander says when he wrote the title story to his new collection, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank,” he tapped an idea that’s been in his head for the past 20 years.
When they were kids, he and his sister played a game in which they pretended it was the Holocaust and they turned and looked at people in their lives and asked, if they were Christian, would they protect us?
“It’s not entertainment, and it’s not a game,” he says. “We can’t be any more different, my sister and I—life choices, politics, everything, and yet we might as well be twins and also share the same pathologies. This idea of it’s not a game.” READ…
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