Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

The Armenian Orphan Rug: A Relic Or An Insult?

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • The Armenian Orphan Rug: A Relic Or An Insult?

    THE ARMENIAN ORPHAN RUG: A RELIC OR AN INSULT?

    The News Tribune, WA
    Nov 14 2013

    By Michael Doyle
    McClatchy Washington BureauNovember

    WASHINGTON - A rug woven long ago by Armenian orphans is presenting
    the White House with a tough political knot.

    Dozens of lawmakers from California and other states with large
    Armenian-American populations want the rug put on public display.

    White House officials insist the rug, for now, must remain in storage.

    The rising tension, reminiscent of past fights over congressional
    Armenian genocide resolutions, crosses both domestic and international
    borders.

    "I'm sure it's a touchy subject to some," Rep. David Valadao, R-Calif.,
    said in an interview Wednesday, "but this rug is important.

    This is something that's important to a whole community."

    Valadao and 32 other House of Representatives members from both
    parties, including a dozen from California, signed a recent letter
    to the White House urging release of the rug from storage. They want
    it displayed, as some had originally hoped would happen at the famed
    Smithsonian Castle as part of a proposed reception for a new book,
    "President Calvin Coolidge and the Armenian Orphan Rug."

    Published by the Armenian Cultural Foundation, the 75-page book
    recounts the history of the roughly 12- by 18-foot rug that was
    presented to Coolidge in 1925. More than a poignant floor-covering, the
    rug commemorated U.S. aid for an orphanage that served young survivors
    of what the congressional letter termed "the Armenian Genocide."

    This is where the rug rekindles a long-running fight, as the
    rug's congressional champions have been among those pushing a
    congressional Armenian genocide resolution that likewise faces
    high-level resistance. California Democrat Adam Schiff, who helped
    lead the rug letter-writing campaign along with Valadao, explicitly
    attributed the White House decision to diplomatic fears.

    "It's hard for me to reach any conclusion but that they don't want
    to offend Turkey," Schiff said in an interview Wednesday. "If that's
    their motivation, that's completely unacceptable."

    White House officials, though, discount speculation about their
    curatorial motives.

    "Displaying the rug for only half a day in connection with a private
    book launch event, as proposed, would have been an inappropriate use
    of U.S. government property, would have required the White House
    to undertake the risk of transporting the rug for limited public
    exposure, and was not viewed as commensurate with the rug's historical
    significance," Laura Lucas Magnuson, a spokeswoman for the National
    Security Council, said in a statement Wednesday.

    A White House official added Wednesday that the decision to keep
    the rug in storage, first reported by The Washington Post, "does not
    preclude" the possibility that it might be displayed sometime in the
    future. Schiff said he will be testing that proposition, as he plans
    to organize another event for which he will be seeking the rug or
    another one like it.

    Randall Kremer, spokesman for the Smithsonian Institution National
    Museum of Natural History, stressed in an interview Wednesday that a
    Smithsonian cultural anthropologist, the U.S. ambassador to Armenia
    and a White House curator had only engaged in preliminary talks about
    the possibility of displaying the rug as part of a reception for the
    book. When the White House curator said it would not be possible,
    planning stopped.

    "The event never got beyond the discussion stage," Kremer said.

    The event that never was, though, has since incited more debate over
    diplomacy, remembrance and political clout.

    By some estimates, upward of 1.5 million Armenians died during the
    final spasms of the Ottoman Empire, between 1915 and 1923. Historians
    and a number of governmental elected bodies have characterized the
    catastrophe as genocide, a term first recognized in international
    law in 1948 as referring to actions that are intended to destroy in
    whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.

    This year's House version of an Armenian genocide resolution,
    introduced by Valadao and Schiff in May, has attracted 45 co-sponsors
    so far. That is far less than is needed to move the measure along,
    especially in the face of a skeptical administration and a sensitive
    NATO ally.

    Turkey strongly opposes any resolution that includes the phrase
    "Armenian genocide," and the country's officials have warned of dire
    diplomatic consequences if such a measure were to pass. The country
    has hired lobbyists, such as former House Majority Leader Richard
    Gephardt, to help make its case. Between mid-March and mid-July of
    this year, for instance, Gephardt personally called or met with some
    40 House members on various Turkish issues, according to Justice
    Department foreign lobbying filings. Many other contacts were made
    by Gephardt's co-workers.

    Mustafa Sungur, a press counselor for the Turkish embassy, said
    Wednesday that Turkey did not have any communication or engagement
    with the U.S. government on the rug issue.

    Behind the scenes, State Department and Pentagon officials have
    traditionally resisted such commemorative resolutions as well. The
    last time an Armenian genocide resolution came close to reaching the
    House floor, in 2007, 25 House members abruptly reversed course and
    dropped their support.

    "The closer we've come to a vote, the more informed I've become,"
    then-Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark., said at the time.

    http://www.thenewstribune.com/2013/11/13/2889618/the-armenian-orphan-rug-a-relic.html



    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
Working...
X