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BurlingtonFreePress.com
Dec 7 2014
White House Visitor Center missed opportunity
CHRIS BOHJALIAN 5 a.m. EST December 7, 2014
You know your moral compass is a little off when you censor a story
about a gift to a U.S. president from a group of orphans -- even though
that story makes your grandparents and great-grandparents look like
Mother Teresa.
But this is essentially what the White House Visitor Center did for
six days in November. After a year of congressional pressure and the
pleas of Armenian-Americans, the White House pulled the Ghazir Orphan
Rug from storage and allowed us to see it -- but swept under the rug an
explanation for its origins.
On the surface, it's hard to understand why it should have taken such
a Herculean effort to allow the rug to see daylight in the first
place. Here is the abridged story of the carpet. During the First
World War, the Ottoman Empire systematically annihilated 1.5 million
of its Armenian citizens, ethnically cleansing its Armenian minority
from almost all of what today we call Turkey. Three out of every four
Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire were killed. Americans were
horrified by the slaughter as it was occurring, and a newly organized
American group, Near East Relief, tried to save the survivors of the
genocide -- including the children, scattered now across the Middle
East. The group's accomplishments, especially the 135,000 orphans it
cared for, were breathtaking.
And among the thanks to America from those orphans was ... the rug. It
was woven by a group of Armenian orphan girls from the orphanage in
Ghazir, Syria (now Lebanon) and designed to be worthy of a world
leader. It was. It's massive and beautiful. It was presented to
President Coolidge on Dec. 4, 1925. A year later, two of the Armenian
girls who helped weave the rug journeyed to Washington and met the
Vermont-born president.
Cut to the autumn of 2013. The Smithsonian Museum asked the White
House for the rug so it could be displayed. Hagop Martin Deranian had
written a book, "President Calvin Coolidge and the Armenian Orphan
Rug," and there was talk of an event. The White House said no. They
wouldn't release the rug. The event was "not viewed as commensurate
with the rug's historical significance," said National Security
Council spokeswoman Laura Lucas Magnuson at the time.
The real reason was likely real politik: We did not want to antagonize
Turkey, which, despite all historical evidence, continues to deny the
reality of the Armenian Genocide. So even though the rug was a
testimony to American ideals at their very best, it was better to let
the thing sit and molder.
In the last five months, however, Turkey hasn't played nice with the
U.S. in the Middle Eastern sandbox and our relationship has been
strained. So, how did we express our frustration with our ally? For
six days in November we trotted out the Orphan Rug. We listened to the
appeals of House Representatives -- and Armenian-Americans.
But we didn't want to push this too far, so we put this extraordinary
rug in a corner of the White House Visitor Center, rather than the
Smithsonian Museum.
And we certainly didn't use the word genocide in any of the materials
explaining why the rug matters. The caption explains simply that it
was made by girls "orphaned during World War I." It was given as an
endorsement of "Golden Rule Sunday." There is no explanation of why
the girls were orphaned. Could have been a factory fire. And there was
obviously no mention of the 1.5 million dead.
And so as I stood before the rug the other day at the Visitor Center,
I was at once moved and enraged. I'm a descendant of survivors of the
Armenian Genocide, and the rug's existence is a reminder of that
cataclysmic period in my people's history when we were nearly erased
from the globe. The rug in this regard will always hold totemic power
for me. But I was frustrated by the censorship -- at the way the rug
was made a pawn in power politics. I was saddened that the
accomplishments of Near East Relief were not celebrated.
Next April marks the centennial of the start of the Armenian Genocide.
I hope the rug will be set free once again, and this time the story
behind it authentically and accurately rendered. The orphans deserve
better -- as do we.
Write to Chris Bohjalian care of Free Press Media, 100 Bank Street,
Suite 700, Burlington, VT 05401, or visit him on www.facebook.com or
www.chrisbohjalian.com.
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/local/2014/12/07/white-house-visitor-center-missed-opportunity/20021595/
Dec 7 2014
White House Visitor Center missed opportunity
CHRIS BOHJALIAN 5 a.m. EST December 7, 2014
You know your moral compass is a little off when you censor a story
about a gift to a U.S. president from a group of orphans -- even though
that story makes your grandparents and great-grandparents look like
Mother Teresa.
But this is essentially what the White House Visitor Center did for
six days in November. After a year of congressional pressure and the
pleas of Armenian-Americans, the White House pulled the Ghazir Orphan
Rug from storage and allowed us to see it -- but swept under the rug an
explanation for its origins.
On the surface, it's hard to understand why it should have taken such
a Herculean effort to allow the rug to see daylight in the first
place. Here is the abridged story of the carpet. During the First
World War, the Ottoman Empire systematically annihilated 1.5 million
of its Armenian citizens, ethnically cleansing its Armenian minority
from almost all of what today we call Turkey. Three out of every four
Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire were killed. Americans were
horrified by the slaughter as it was occurring, and a newly organized
American group, Near East Relief, tried to save the survivors of the
genocide -- including the children, scattered now across the Middle
East. The group's accomplishments, especially the 135,000 orphans it
cared for, were breathtaking.
And among the thanks to America from those orphans was ... the rug. It
was woven by a group of Armenian orphan girls from the orphanage in
Ghazir, Syria (now Lebanon) and designed to be worthy of a world
leader. It was. It's massive and beautiful. It was presented to
President Coolidge on Dec. 4, 1925. A year later, two of the Armenian
girls who helped weave the rug journeyed to Washington and met the
Vermont-born president.
Cut to the autumn of 2013. The Smithsonian Museum asked the White
House for the rug so it could be displayed. Hagop Martin Deranian had
written a book, "President Calvin Coolidge and the Armenian Orphan
Rug," and there was talk of an event. The White House said no. They
wouldn't release the rug. The event was "not viewed as commensurate
with the rug's historical significance," said National Security
Council spokeswoman Laura Lucas Magnuson at the time.
The real reason was likely real politik: We did not want to antagonize
Turkey, which, despite all historical evidence, continues to deny the
reality of the Armenian Genocide. So even though the rug was a
testimony to American ideals at their very best, it was better to let
the thing sit and molder.
In the last five months, however, Turkey hasn't played nice with the
U.S. in the Middle Eastern sandbox and our relationship has been
strained. So, how did we express our frustration with our ally? For
six days in November we trotted out the Orphan Rug. We listened to the
appeals of House Representatives -- and Armenian-Americans.
But we didn't want to push this too far, so we put this extraordinary
rug in a corner of the White House Visitor Center, rather than the
Smithsonian Museum.
And we certainly didn't use the word genocide in any of the materials
explaining why the rug matters. The caption explains simply that it
was made by girls "orphaned during World War I." It was given as an
endorsement of "Golden Rule Sunday." There is no explanation of why
the girls were orphaned. Could have been a factory fire. And there was
obviously no mention of the 1.5 million dead.
And so as I stood before the rug the other day at the Visitor Center,
I was at once moved and enraged. I'm a descendant of survivors of the
Armenian Genocide, and the rug's existence is a reminder of that
cataclysmic period in my people's history when we were nearly erased
from the globe. The rug in this regard will always hold totemic power
for me. But I was frustrated by the censorship -- at the way the rug
was made a pawn in power politics. I was saddened that the
accomplishments of Near East Relief were not celebrated.
Next April marks the centennial of the start of the Armenian Genocide.
I hope the rug will be set free once again, and this time the story
behind it authentically and accurately rendered. The orphans deserve
better -- as do we.
Write to Chris Bohjalian care of Free Press Media, 100 Bank Street,
Suite 700, Burlington, VT 05401, or visit him on www.facebook.com or
www.chrisbohjalian.com.
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/local/2014/12/07/white-house-visitor-center-missed-opportunity/20021595/