Twittering

I gave in, finally...

From now on you can follow me on Twitter as well at http://twitter.com/armenianodar. For a long time I didn't want to join Twitter, because I expected it to be another online addiction. In fact I still do, but we'll see what happens. Anyway, expect mainly bookish stuff, Armenian and Caucasus topics, and human rights and gender issues.

Now I'm off to play...

Myrthe on the Radio

Since late last year, I have been giving four short talks/interviews on national Dutch radio about life in Armenia. I am one of a network of some 150 Dutch people living all over the world who participate in Wereldnet, a daily fifteen minute program (or half an hour on weekends) in which two or three Dutch expats are telling about daily life and other topics that usually don't make the media headlines from the country where they now live.

So far, I have given four talks (interviews sounds way too pretentious I think), of which three are available online.

The most recent one is from early May, in which I talk about the rise in people wanting to learn Dutch in Armenia and my experiences in the three and a half years that I have been teaching Dutch in Yerevan. You can listen to that here (starts a little over 17mins into the podcast.

The second one is the one I did on April 4 together with expats from Lebanon and Mexico. Among other things, I'm discussing pro-government youth group Miasin's putting up posters of corrupt university lecturers on the streets of Yerevan's center last March. You can listen to the program here (it's worth listening to the entire 30min broadcast, because the other two contributors have interesting things to say as well).

The other talk that is available online is here (it starts about 20mins into the podcast). Together with a Dutch woman living in Syria we discuss the presence of Armenians in Syria and the presence of Diasporan-Armenians in Armenia among others.

Needless to say I guess, both talks are in Dutch. Sorry for my non-Dutch-speaking readers!

Pictures from Tbilisi

As promised, here are some more pictures from Tbilisi.
On the highway between Tbilisi and Gori, we passed several newly built settlements for the IDPs of last summer's war between Georgia and Russia. I took the picture from the moving bus, so it is not very clear. On the right you can see the white houses with their red roofs. There were long rows of these houses, with nothing else nearby, located on open plains close to the highway. The settlements reminded me very much of the domiks put up in the northern-Armenian town of Spitak after the devastating earthquake of December 7, 1988. Those were supposed to be temporary living spaces, but now, twenty years after the earthquake, people are still living in these prefab constructions. I don't know if the settlements I saw in Georgia are supposed to be temporary or permanent, though I am under the impression they are permanent.

Below are some pictures I took of the opposition's permanent demonstration site on Rustaveli Avenue and the "prison cells" they put up on Rustaveli and on Freedom Square in the center of Tbilisi (the ones on Freedom Square have apparently been removed).

Finally, on a lighter note, I saw this sign in the garden surrounding Metekhi Church.
There are more pictures at my Flickr-page.

Georgia: Gori and surroundings

A couple of weeks ago I spent a week in Tbilisi for a seminar plus some days off. These are some pictures of a day trip we made to Uplistsikhe, an archaeological site near the town of Gori.

Gori is best-known as the birthplace of Joseph Stalin, but it was also the town that got heavily hit in the August 2008 war between Georgia and Russia. Of the latter not very much was visible while we drove through the town, though you could still see bullet holes in some of the houses. Stalin on the other hand is very present and it is obvious that he is the pride of the town.

The main street of Gori is called Stalin Avenue (it's not very visible in the picture, I took it while we were driving past).

The former Soviet leader's statue also graces the main square in town. When we passed the square on our way to Uplistsikhe, some vehicles from the European Union Monitoring Mission in Georgia were parked at the foot of the statue. A sign that we're living in different times now...

For someone who grew up with the Western version of twentieth century history in which Stalin was anything but glorified and a more than average knowledge of the history of the Soviet Union (an MA in Russian Studies did the trick for that one) in which he wasn't glorified either, it felt almost creepy to drive through Gori. Unfortunately we couldn't visit the museum of Stalin's birthplace, but I'll safe that for my next visit.

For my reviews of some highly recommended books on the Stalin era, see here, here, here, here and here.

The final two pictures are from Uplistsikhe, an archaeological site of a city carved out in the rocks on a gorgeous location overlooking the river.


I will post a couple of pictures from Tbilisi as well one of these days. In the meantime, there are more pictures on my Flickr-page.

On the Importance of Contact Between People(s)

This is a fragment of a long and very readable piece on the situation in Iraq. I was struck by this particular quote and how it relates to the Caucasus region. I posted it as a note on my Facebook profile, but I figured I might just as well post it here.

“When people aren't familiar with each other,” Captain Looney [a US Army officer serving in Iraq, MK] said, “they think the worst about each other. They don't realize how much they have in common. I'll sit down with people and say okay, let's talk about our differences. And then let's talk about what we have in common. We want to have a safe environment for our families to live in. We want our children to have a better life than we did. We want to be happy in our profession. We want to be happy with our family. What beyond that makes us so different? Okay, they're Muslims and I'm a Christian. But we talk about this stuff and they realize we aren't that different.”
[...]
Contact between peoples really does reduce tension and can help reduce the chances of war.
[...]
“You've seen Dances with Wolves?” Captain Looney said. “Remember how when they don't know each other, they're scared of each other? But as they get to know each other, they realize they're not that different? They want the same things in life. They want peace. They want prosperity. They want a better life for their children. What culture in the world does not want those things?”

Encouraging contacts between Turkish, Armenian, Georgian and Azeri people (and all those smaller peoples living in the area) on a grassroots or individual level may not be to the liking of everyone in the region, but I do believe that part of solving the conflicts in the region lies in doing just that.

Open Letter Against Intolerance

Below I republish an open letter protesting intolerance against sexual minorities in Armenia, which unfortunately is still widespread. I have added my name. If you want to add yours, you can do so following this link. You can find more about the examples mentioned in the letter here, here and here.
______________________________
After the government in Armenia signed the UN declaration against discrimination based on sexual orientation in December 2008, we have witnessed a resurgence of hostile rhetoric against homosexuals both in official and oppositional media. Many media outlets publish professionally unqualified articles, which at best resemble neighborhood gossips. This phenomenon could have been overlooked if the danger of mass media becoming a platform to disseminate hatred and intolerance did not exist. These publications do not even demonstrate elementary journalistic professionalism and lack any kind of homework or research. Questions, such as what is homosexuality? Who are the homosexuals in Armenia? How do they live? Are they different from larger society (even though the answers to these questions are never simple and straightforward), are never asked?

Even though the general absence of any desire to ask fundamental questions about homosexuality, male homosexuality in Armenia has been consistently described as a threat to national security, a result of accepting European decadent values or a pathology and disease, while homosexual women have been denied of existence all together or condemned in not fitting into the image of a “proper” Armenian woman.

Some of the most recent publications which disseminate hatred towards homosexuals and can potentially become a source of violence, include the article “Armenian lesbians are becoming more active” in Aravot daily (July 22, http://new.aravot.am/am/articles/culture/54469/view); an interview with the rising star of the Republican Party Edward Shahmazanov in the same newspaper, in which the prominent politician claims that he is anti-gay; and the following statement by the head of the “Sustainable Human Development” agency in Armenia Karine Danielyan: “It’s been always considered that 4-5% of humanity has such pathologies…these should be regarded as a disease.”

We believe that such statements are largely a result of illiteracy in issues of homosexuality which is reflected upon the prevalent obsession to defend the patriarchal structure of society and to present it as a national value. Nevertheless, we also realize that such statements uttered by prominent public figures and politicians could be received by mainstream society as the state official policy.

Thus, several civil society groups and individuals, concerned with these developments, strongly condemn the statements which disseminate hatred and intolerance. Before inflicting potentially violent rhetoric, such public figures should realize that they have a responsibility towards larger society and towards its sexual minorities as well, including their safety and well-being.

We urge all officials, politicians, journalists, teachers, doctors and all those who are engaged in public work as well as each and every individual, to get acquainted with problems that homosexual men and women face in Armenia, their socially active initiatives and to the contemporary debates around gender and sexuality.

Please, sign this petition on http://www.queeringyerevan.blogspot.com/. We appreciate further comments and suggestions.

Signed,

[full list is signatories is here].

Unemployed

Most of you probably don't know that for the last 2.5 years I have been working for Lycos Europe, at their Yerevan office. Well, that era will come to an end soon as yesterday it was announced that Lycos Europe is going to close its Yerevan office. It made headlines both in Armenia and abroad, as the closure of the Yerevan office is not the only change at the company.

There is more here (thanks to Artmika for some of the links - I might add if I come across other links):

Unzipped blogged about it here.
A1+ - The number of employees this article mentions is wrong, the Yerevan office employs some 230-250 people. I think Lycos Europe as a whole employs some 700 people.
Reuters
Cnet News
Adotas

This of course means that I will be without work in a couple of months. This seems like a good moment fo rme to take stock of what I want carreerwise and how I want to continue. I will stay in Armenia. I didn't move here because of this job at Lycos (I found it long after I moved to Yerevan), so there is no reason to leave because that job is over. I guess, as my mom texted me yesterday: Change isn't always bad.

So, if anyone has a job for me in Yerevan: I am on the market! ;-)

A review of Ararat by Frank Westerman

On my bookblog I just posted a review of the book Ararat by Dutch writer and journalist Frank Westerman. This book has recently been translated into English and it might be interesting for some of you as well. It is a history of and a travelogue to Mount Ararat, but it is also a personal journey of the writer looking into the role religion plays in his life. The review is here.

Lavash going Dutch?

Over the weekend I was flipping through a Dutch glossy, when I came across this recipe for marinaded lamb kebab with yoghurt sauce. Sounds nice and tasty, but then I saw this (and you don't need to know Dutch for this):
Can any reader from Holland please fill me in here? Since when is lavash so readily available in Holland that it gets included in recipes in magazines?

Blogging for Darfur

I am a bit late at blogging about this, because I was mostly offline last week. This is too important, though, so I still want to mention it here.

Over at Maw Books Blog, Natasha has pledged to blog the entire month of September to create awareness of the genocide that has been going on for years in Darfur. Not only that, she is raising funds as well that will go to helping the people of Darfur.

Hundreds of thousands of people have died, many more are displaced. I can not sit idly by knowing that this blog has given me the opportunity to make a difference. Why choose Darfur as my soapbox of the month? After reading about Darfur and watching documentaries about Darfur, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. Isn’t that reason enough to stand up and do something about it?

So what exactly is Reading for Darfur? During September every book I read, every post I write, every comment left on this blog, and every book that you read about Darfur will make a difference. How? The difference will be you. This won’t work if I’m doing it all by myself. So I ask for everybody to get involved. There are a lot of different levels on which you can do just that, so choose the one that you are the most comfortable with.

Ways to get involved are for example: writing about Natasha's campaign, sponsoring her for every page she reads this month, for every blogpost she writes in September, or leaving comments on Natasha's blog. Natasha put up a whole list of things you can do which will raise money for the people of Darfur.

If you want to find out more about the genocide going on in Darfur, Natasha posted a huge list of books, films and documentaries about that theme here. Reading a book or watching a film/documentary on that list, blogging about it this month and letting Natasha know you did that is one of the ways to raise money as well.

I love that Natasha is using blogging in a different way, as a tool to create awareness and reach out.

Do hop over to Natasha's blog to find out how things are going for her and see how you can get involved. You have no reason not to!

Natasha's post with general information about her action is here.