I'm sorry for being away from the blog so much, but the constant state of flux Armenian international relations has been in this past year is at least partly to blame (and the fact Google Blogs is now blocked at work, where I do most of my analysis!) You see, in the run up to football diplomacy, it was easy and fun to speculate the various potential outcomes and meanings of what that truly unprecedented event was all about. News was always braking and the story took numerous twists and turns. Not long after though, the entire thing went dormant, appearing to the outside as if this diplomacy was like a shooting star which had burned too bright too soon. In actuality though, the business of bringing two age old enemies into agreement on issues is not an easy one or something you want to do out in the light of day with all sorts of radicals waiting to cut you down at every step, so the negotiations certainly continued but completely behind the scenes. In fact we saw nothing at all until suddenly, two days before April 24, a "roadmap" of an ambiguous nature was announced. We all know what happened next with Obama not keeping his pledge to say the g-word (though what we don't know if what went on, once again, behind the scenes, which I believe was deep and in the direction of solving this issue one day). After the roadmap was announced, everything went silent again with most Armenians (diasporans at least) bewildered and confused at what they were seeing from Armenia. The major complaint was that Armenia handed Turkey the ability to knock the genocide off the agenda for another year in exchange for... well for nothing apparent. Meanwhile Azerbaijan ratcheted up the heat calling on Turkey to cancel all contact with Armenia until Karabakh was solved, going to the extent of threatening it. Turkish officials indeed went to Azerbaijan to smooth things over, reassuring Azerbaijan nothing would come between them and that Armenia would be made to pay numerous concessions before anything moved forward.
Where are we today? Well everything is not as it seems because suddenly talks between Turkey and Armenia are being talked about again as if that never happened. The blow-up now appears to have been a face-saver for Azerbaijan to look like it was going to make gains as well from what otherwise would be a blow to it, as it is easy to see how rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia could be interpreted as a lose-lose situation for Azerbaijan vis-a-vis Karabakh. What has kept me from writing about any of this is the fact that the true nature of all these discussions are still hidden and it is almost impossible to know at any time how much we see is just a carefully choreographed dance between the countries (in my opinion most of it!) and what is not artificial. Most Armenians don't seem to know what to think about this, because it seems every major political party in Armenia supports the talks in theory- though of course the Dashnaks have pulled out of the government in protest of the April 22nd statement and Heritage Party found and MP Raffi Hovannisian resigned his seat in Parliament just yesterday as a response to the negotiations. As I said though, despite these moves these parties still seem to support the talks in principle, just not aspects of them as they exist today. For me, it is almost impossible to analyze what is going on because it is impossible to know what the final agreement will look like. On August 31st Turkey and Armenia formally committed to the process and said negotiations will last 6 weeks. This clearly looks extremely artificial because coincidentally football diplomacy part II is scheduled for exactly 6 weeks from now when Sargsyan is scheduled to go to a match in Turkey. To get some heat off from an angry public in the wake of football diplomacy I with little to show for it, Sargsyan said he would not go to Turkey unless the border was open or close to being opened. For most of 2009 however it looked like chances of the border being opened had become even more remote since Football Diplomacy I, not close, meaning Sargsyan would either have to break his word and go or would not be going. The President of Turkey does not make a landmark visit to Armenia for no reason though, so clearly there must have been something more to this whole thing all along. And here it is, 6 weeks to go until the match and suddenly it is announced major issues will be worked over in 6 weeks. At that point it will be up to the countries respective parliaments to pass the agreement and things should pick up from there.
Or will they? Sargsyan certainly has the power in parliament to get the agreement passed if he wants, but the question is whether Gul and Erdogan can. This fall they also will be working to make Kurdish reforms passed through parliament, which will certainly take a lot of political capital to get through. Some are of the opinion that the Armenian issue might need to be sacrificed for the sake of the Kurdish issue at the moment, but that remains to be seen. Just to prove that the wonders never cease, Today's Zaman is just reporting that Azerbaijan may also open borders with Armenia. What?! Wasn't that the country making a huge anti-Armenian fuss just a few months ago? Well of course it was, but if one attributes the real reason for Turkish-Armenian relations to it being used as an alternative transit route instead of unstable Georgia, it doesn't really do much good if travel isn't open between Azerbaijan and Armenia as well, as proposed pipelines begin there. What's interesting about this article is that it says open borders are possible if Armenia surrenders 5 regions it captured in the Karabakh war. The article implies, via an Azeri Foreign Ministry statement, that Azerbaijan is agreeable to moving forward with relations without the immediate release of Lachin and Kelbajar regions as well, leaving them until future negotiations. These two regions are the major bone of contention as if they were given up Azerbaijan would have easy access to cutting Karabakh from Armenia in the future. If true, this would be a huge leap forward towards thawing this conflict in the region.
When it comes to peace negotiations, it also bears mentioning that the whipping boy of my previous entry, Minsk Group co-chair in charge of Karabakh negotiations Matthew Bryza, will be replaced by Ambassador Robert Bradtke. Bryza might not be going far though as the long-running rumor is that he will become the US's new ambassador to Azerbaijan, meaning he will still very much be involved with this situation. In short, it is very hard to know where everything is going. After a mostly frozen years suddenly negotiations are appearing to race ahead publicly, though in fact it seems most of this was likely agreed upon at least as early as April in private. It took until shortly before the game to be the right time to start talking about it in public though as clearly this is not a popular move with many in Turkey or Armenia or the diaspora. Armenia is certainly taking a big risk and it must be extremely careful. Personally, I am trying to feel confident that we won't look back on all this as some major blunder which resulted in Armenia being taken advantage of, and I feel like in the end it won't and cannot be so, though anything is possible. Much is still left to be said and worked out publicly, so perhaps I will have a lot more to write about in the coming weeks. Until then let us all pray for a safe and peaceful process to sound agreements which are beneficial to all.
Showing posts with label Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Obama. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Emotion
I didn't intend to write here about the American election results but after hearing President-elect Obama's speech I couldn't help but be moved to write something spontaneously:
It's quite something.
Before I get ahead of myself, this victory by no means fixes our myriad problems. There will be lots of difficult times ahead and it isn't going to be easy on Obama- sure people are cheering now but as he said tonight he will have to do a lot of things many people disagree with. I almost fear the fever pitch built up around him that expectations are basically unmeetable. However I have come to feel the past 8 years have been nothing short of a rape of our nation and the most poisonous time since Watergate and Vietnam and while there will always be a segment attached to the Bush wing of the Republican party I sincerely hope in the coming years we can move past the horror and pain of the opening years of this century and onto something brighter. There's no doubt we need it.
Barack Obama. That's our new president's name? That's certainly going to take some getting used to, especially since I've long had all 43 of their names memorized and it certainly doesn't come close to resembling them. Is that a bad thing? An unfortunate aspect of this campaign and so many past ones is that this candidate was not eligible for office due to an innate part of his being. Whether because the candidate was Catholic, female, or this time around a Muslim or someone with a funny name... they've all been seen as not "American" enough or not presidential. Guess what, no matter how we look back on the birth of America through our vantage of hundreds of years later, we have never been a homogenous country and we've been made up of immigrants since day one. I am so sick of these idiots who try to say something about you disqualifies you from anything- whether it be your name (Barack or Hussein or Obama) or your religion (like Islam, and while Obama is not Muslim no one until Colin Powell finally spoke up found anything wrong with the "he's not Muslim he's a good person" explanation). There is insidious fear which permeates our nation. Fear is a reaction above all else to the unknown and breeds prejudice. Nothing erases prejudice, as a poster on the school wall said as I stood in line to vote, like familiarity. Is it naive to think having one of these "different" people as the face of our nation for the coming years might help to bring that much needed familiarity? As one of those "different" people who has at least a couple of those 'disqualifying' factors going against him (weird name, anyone?), I don't see anything wrong with hoping. I was actually inspired seeing those long lines everywhere waiting to exercise their right to vote. There just wasn't this sort of feeling in the past two national elections- I waited in line almost an hour and a half this year at the same polling station where I went right up and voted without a line at all four years ago. After the electoral messes of the past two elections I felt like America was giving up on the process, I certainly was rather disillusioned, but to see the dedication people poured into this cycle was absolutely inspiring. Yes, it is premature to say, we will return to politics as usual at some point, likely soon, but at least for tonight I feel like we're a new nation, and just a bit prouder.
Our generation has a rendezvous with destiny. Here's to a hopefully healing, safe, and almost assuredly a fascinating four years.
And one last message to those of you who think Obama's a Muslim, or that if he was a Muslim he somehow would not be an American, or that he's a traitor who hates America, or that if someone don't have the same complexions of our past presidents that person isn't presidential material, or that certain backgrounds disqualifies our right to call ourselves an American:
"We are a nation of many nationalities, many races, many religions--bound together by a single unity, the unity of freedom and equality. Whoever seeks to set one nationality against another, seeks to degrade all nationalities." -FDR
It's quite something.
Before I get ahead of myself, this victory by no means fixes our myriad problems. There will be lots of difficult times ahead and it isn't going to be easy on Obama- sure people are cheering now but as he said tonight he will have to do a lot of things many people disagree with. I almost fear the fever pitch built up around him that expectations are basically unmeetable. However I have come to feel the past 8 years have been nothing short of a rape of our nation and the most poisonous time since Watergate and Vietnam and while there will always be a segment attached to the Bush wing of the Republican party I sincerely hope in the coming years we can move past the horror and pain of the opening years of this century and onto something brighter. There's no doubt we need it.
Barack Obama. That's our new president's name? That's certainly going to take some getting used to, especially since I've long had all 43 of their names memorized and it certainly doesn't come close to resembling them. Is that a bad thing? An unfortunate aspect of this campaign and so many past ones is that this candidate was not eligible for office due to an innate part of his being. Whether because the candidate was Catholic, female, or this time around a Muslim or someone with a funny name... they've all been seen as not "American" enough or not presidential. Guess what, no matter how we look back on the birth of America through our vantage of hundreds of years later, we have never been a homogenous country and we've been made up of immigrants since day one. I am so sick of these idiots who try to say something about you disqualifies you from anything- whether it be your name (Barack or Hussein or Obama) or your religion (like Islam, and while Obama is not Muslim no one until Colin Powell finally spoke up found anything wrong with the "he's not Muslim he's a good person" explanation). There is insidious fear which permeates our nation. Fear is a reaction above all else to the unknown and breeds prejudice. Nothing erases prejudice, as a poster on the school wall said as I stood in line to vote, like familiarity. Is it naive to think having one of these "different" people as the face of our nation for the coming years might help to bring that much needed familiarity? As one of those "different" people who has at least a couple of those 'disqualifying' factors going against him (weird name, anyone?), I don't see anything wrong with hoping. I was actually inspired seeing those long lines everywhere waiting to exercise their right to vote. There just wasn't this sort of feeling in the past two national elections- I waited in line almost an hour and a half this year at the same polling station where I went right up and voted without a line at all four years ago. After the electoral messes of the past two elections I felt like America was giving up on the process, I certainly was rather disillusioned, but to see the dedication people poured into this cycle was absolutely inspiring. Yes, it is premature to say, we will return to politics as usual at some point, likely soon, but at least for tonight I feel like we're a new nation, and just a bit prouder.
Our generation has a rendezvous with destiny. Here's to a hopefully healing, safe, and almost assuredly a fascinating four years.
And one last message to those of you who think Obama's a Muslim, or that if he was a Muslim he somehow would not be an American, or that he's a traitor who hates America, or that if someone don't have the same complexions of our past presidents that person isn't presidential material, or that certain backgrounds disqualifies our right to call ourselves an American:
"We are a nation of many nationalities, many races, many religions--bound together by a single unity, the unity of freedom and equality. Whoever seeks to set one nationality against another, seeks to degrade all nationalities." -FDR
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Palin Rant
I know this is an Armenian issues blog, but after watching tonight's RNC I can't help but rant. I consider myself an independent but found myself utterly sick from Giuliani's and especially Palin's speeches.
I don't know what's worse- might as well start with the country blathering coming out of someone on stage named "Cowboy Troy"- ever since circa 2001 to be Republican means to be a cowboy rockin' out to country music. Anyway here are the main four things which have been festering in my brain since seeing this spewing of filth otherwise known as these convention speeches:
1. What else? The speeches- I didn't even watch the earlier ones, but I did hear Mike Huckabee's utterly vapid story involving some kind of absurd vignette involving musical chairs and soldiers. It illustrated how easy it is to make a crowd of people cheer, it doesn't have to make sense, just mention terrorism, troops, fight, freedom, and end it with a U-S-A chant and watch as people go nuts. I'm not even kidding, I defy anyone to contend Huckabee's story made actual sense and wasn't just an exercise in proving that dropping keywords can set any group on fire. Giuliani was just screaming something incomprehensible about Obama loving Islamofascist terrorists and how he's allegedly afraid to call them Islamofascist terrorists but good old Rudy calls 'em as he sees 'em and believe it or not they really are Islamofascist terrorists! Horray for Rudy!
As for Palin, sure she did a good job in getting the crowd riled up, but she said absolutely NOTHING of substance what-so-ever. This is the candidate with zero experience at anything or has ever done a single intellectual pursuit (ala president of the Harvard Law Review, say what you will about Obama's 'executive' experience but he certainly isn't short on intellectual accomplishments). If anything Palin should be proving to us why she is capable of being VP and possibly president, but no. Instead this was 40 minutes of trashing the other party with LOUD empty rhetoric and showing how tough she can be despite being a woman as a way of forgetting we ever doubted her. Great job showing you're tough, now how about showing you're... anything?
2. Virulent attacks- look, I know part of politics are the attacks, but between Rudy's and Palin's the hits didn't stop!! I'm sure the democratic convention had attacks in speeches too but I can't really remember anything all that huge. Those two speeches were just sickly low, most of them were of absolute no substance and were just attacks for attacking's sake. I can't even provide examples because I don't know where to begin, wait for the transcripts. As a random aside, I got to hang out with Giuliani in '06 when he was making the rounds campaigning for others in order to lay the groundwork for his own '08 presidential run. I was on "security detail" in a room with about 20 VIPs he was meeting with and he was so busy that night doing anything and everything possible essentially running for president that he shook my hand three times within 15 minutes without even realizing it.
3. Palin- not only is she totally unqualified and probably the worst VP pick in decades, having clearly passed over NUMEROUS more qualified candidates not to mention quite a few women, but after her speech the commentators seemed to LOVE it, WHAT?! It was masterfully crafted to give Palin a much needed boost by making her appear... competent? What better way to make someone look like they know what they're doing and get loved by the audience better than having them sound strong saying a bunch of empty virulent things that'll whip up the base in attendance and throw in a few big words like "Caucasus" to give the appearance she knows... anything... about a little thing called foreign affairs. It wouldn't be politics if they didn't jab at each other, but there was nothing to this speech EXCEPT jabs. Oh and some Palin fawning over McCain and how he saved the world a thousand times or something. But mostly totally empty attacks like that Obama is a "community leader" instead of a governor and we don't need a community leader or something... (actual quote: "i guess being a mayor is kinda sorta like being a community organizer except that i actually had responsibility")... and of course how he's a member of that "do-nothing Senate" (unlike McCain, who clearly belongs to some other Senate...). Those weren't even the tip of the iceberg, I was too busy being disgusted by attack after attack to keep track.'
4. AND THE MOST DISTURBING OF ALL (and least noticed?)- alright so we all know about the Trig-is-actually-the-daughter's-baby-gate, which was promptly dispelled by the brilliant Shyamalan twist of "that baby can't be her out of wedlock at 17 years old lovechild because SHE'S PREGNANT WITH THIS OUT OF WEDLOCK AT 17 YEARS OLD LOVECHILD! GOTCHA SUCKERS!" Anyway as we know in the week since Palin became VP her recently-old-enough-to-drive daughter is suddenly totally in love with the baby's father and they're getting married. Awww, isn't that sweet? According to one 24-year old convention official, as heard on NPR today, this makes it "all good". Nothing forced at all about that solution, right? Well to PROVE that there's nothing forced check this out- go to about 1:10 into this video, the part where McCain totally feels up the young man who also happens to be the VP's future teenage son-in-law: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4booZ3CABo (which I got from Wonkette). Now just after the marriage announcement it was said he was joining his future family at the convention. Hmm I wonder why? Notice how in the video, completely unprompted, the boyfriend/fiancee/whatever is holding hands with with Palin's ultra-fertile daughter for the ENTIRE time. They aren't trying to prove anything to their mother's conservative masses, right? Well tonight on stage after the Palin speech I couldn't help noticing the two were at it again, holding hands the ENTIRE TIME they were on stage. Seriously, at one point their hands separated briefly until they realized it and grabbed back at each other again, as if they forgot the rule to 'never let go Jack' or else the country won't think they aren't truly in love and are actually some of those sinful out of wedlock teenage parents! Heaven forbid!
Someone should be eviscerated for manipulating these children like that. And does this reaction from the crowd and tv people mean it's ok to like Palin now? You mean she's NOT going to be withdrawn in shame? Disappointment of the week, there were 5 to 1 odds on it this morning! OK you might have won this battle McCainiacs but just wait 'til you win in November and something happens to him and we have a hockey mom fresh off the PTA leading our nation. Then the joke will be on not just you, but on all of us, ALL OF US.
I don't know what's worse- might as well start with the country blathering coming out of someone on stage named "Cowboy Troy"- ever since circa 2001 to be Republican means to be a cowboy rockin' out to country music. Anyway here are the main four things which have been festering in my brain since seeing this spewing of filth otherwise known as these convention speeches:
1. What else? The speeches- I didn't even watch the earlier ones, but I did hear Mike Huckabee's utterly vapid story involving some kind of absurd vignette involving musical chairs and soldiers. It illustrated how easy it is to make a crowd of people cheer, it doesn't have to make sense, just mention terrorism, troops, fight, freedom, and end it with a U-S-A chant and watch as people go nuts. I'm not even kidding, I defy anyone to contend Huckabee's story made actual sense and wasn't just an exercise in proving that dropping keywords can set any group on fire. Giuliani was just screaming something incomprehensible about Obama loving Islamofascist terrorists and how he's allegedly afraid to call them Islamofascist terrorists but good old Rudy calls 'em as he sees 'em and believe it or not they really are Islamofascist terrorists! Horray for Rudy!
As for Palin, sure she did a good job in getting the crowd riled up, but she said absolutely NOTHING of substance what-so-ever. This is the candidate with zero experience at anything or has ever done a single intellectual pursuit (ala president of the Harvard Law Review, say what you will about Obama's 'executive' experience but he certainly isn't short on intellectual accomplishments). If anything Palin should be proving to us why she is capable of being VP and possibly president, but no. Instead this was 40 minutes of trashing the other party with LOUD empty rhetoric and showing how tough she can be despite being a woman as a way of forgetting we ever doubted her. Great job showing you're tough, now how about showing you're... anything?
2. Virulent attacks- look, I know part of politics are the attacks, but between Rudy's and Palin's the hits didn't stop!! I'm sure the democratic convention had attacks in speeches too but I can't really remember anything all that huge. Those two speeches were just sickly low, most of them were of absolute no substance and were just attacks for attacking's sake. I can't even provide examples because I don't know where to begin, wait for the transcripts. As a random aside, I got to hang out with Giuliani in '06 when he was making the rounds campaigning for others in order to lay the groundwork for his own '08 presidential run. I was on "security detail" in a room with about 20 VIPs he was meeting with and he was so busy that night doing anything and everything possible essentially running for president that he shook my hand three times within 15 minutes without even realizing it.
3. Palin- not only is she totally unqualified and probably the worst VP pick in decades, having clearly passed over NUMEROUS more qualified candidates not to mention quite a few women, but after her speech the commentators seemed to LOVE it, WHAT?! It was masterfully crafted to give Palin a much needed boost by making her appear... competent? What better way to make someone look like they know what they're doing and get loved by the audience better than having them sound strong saying a bunch of empty virulent things that'll whip up the base in attendance and throw in a few big words like "Caucasus" to give the appearance she knows... anything... about a little thing called foreign affairs. It wouldn't be politics if they didn't jab at each other, but there was nothing to this speech EXCEPT jabs. Oh and some Palin fawning over McCain and how he saved the world a thousand times or something. But mostly totally empty attacks like that Obama is a "community leader" instead of a governor and we don't need a community leader or something... (actual quote: "i guess being a mayor is kinda sorta like being a community organizer except that i actually had responsibility")... and of course how he's a member of that "do-nothing Senate" (unlike McCain, who clearly belongs to some other Senate...). Those weren't even the tip of the iceberg, I was too busy being disgusted by attack after attack to keep track.'
4. AND THE MOST DISTURBING OF ALL (and least noticed?)- alright so we all know about the Trig-is-actually-the-daughter's-baby-gate, which was promptly dispelled by the brilliant Shyamalan twist of "that baby can't be her out of wedlock at 17 years old lovechild because SHE'S PREGNANT WITH THIS OUT OF WEDLOCK AT 17 YEARS OLD LOVECHILD! GOTCHA SUCKERS!" Anyway as we know in the week since Palin became VP her recently-old-enough-to-drive daughter is suddenly totally in love with the baby's father and they're getting married. Awww, isn't that sweet? According to one 24-year old convention official, as heard on NPR today, this makes it "all good". Nothing forced at all about that solution, right? Well to PROVE that there's nothing forced check this out- go to about 1:10 into this video, the part where McCain totally feels up the young man who also happens to be the VP's future teenage son-in-law: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4booZ3CABo (which I got from Wonkette). Now just after the marriage announcement it was said he was joining his future family at the convention. Hmm I wonder why? Notice how in the video, completely unprompted, the boyfriend/fiancee/whatever is holding hands with with Palin's ultra-fertile daughter for the ENTIRE time. They aren't trying to prove anything to their mother's conservative masses, right? Well tonight on stage after the Palin speech I couldn't help noticing the two were at it again, holding hands the ENTIRE TIME they were on stage. Seriously, at one point their hands separated briefly until they realized it and grabbed back at each other again, as if they forgot the rule to 'never let go Jack' or else the country won't think they aren't truly in love and are actually some of those sinful out of wedlock teenage parents! Heaven forbid!
Someone should be eviscerated for manipulating these children like that. And does this reaction from the crowd and tv people mean it's ok to like Palin now? You mean she's NOT going to be withdrawn in shame? Disappointment of the week, there were 5 to 1 odds on it this morning! OK you might have won this battle McCainiacs but just wait 'til you win in November and something happens to him and we have a hockey mom fresh off the PTA leading our nation. Then the joke will be on not just you, but on all of us, ALL OF US.
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