KeghartProf. Z. S. Andrew Demirdjian, Los Angeles, 24 April 2023
You are successful the moment you start
moving toward a worthwhile goal.
Chester Carlson
The Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) is at risk of being massacred by Azerbaijan. The international community must rise up to save them from this impending brutal fate after having been sieged by Azerbaijani forces since December 12, 2022. As a result, the people have run out of food, fuel, and medicines. A number of international organizations have already reflected on this matter including the International Court of Justice, the European Parliament and the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention.
Armenians should catch at a straw to help avoid this tragedy from happening to the Armenian people again. Avaaz.org can help. It adheres to a simple democratic mission to organize citizens of all countries to fight injustice. Avaaz means “voice” in several languages.
I have known Avaaz for a number of years. It is a U.S-based not-for-profit organization launched in 2007, which promotes global activism on issues such as climate change, human rights, animal rights, poverty, corruption, and conflict.
In 2012, The Guardian referred to Avaaz as “The globe’s largest and most powerful online activist network”. Thus, over the years, its focus of operation has been global community and political activism. The organization boasts about 68,000,000 members.
When Avaaz sent me a notification (listed below) about the imminent massacres of octopus in a Spanish farming project, the idea popped up in my mind that they may want to help the Armenians as well from human rights standpoint.
Once the Avaaz leaders adopt a cause, this activist group turns into a tidal wave to achieve their goal.
When I read that the octopus would be killed in a cruel manner by freezing it to death, it occurred to me that Azerbaijan is doing the same thing to the 120,000 people of Artsakh –either succumb to President Ilham Aliyev’s will or die slowly as a result of the siege starvation.
If Avaaz leaders decide on pursuing a goal and direction, their whole army would move in that direction.
So, I wrote to Martyna Dominiak, one of the leaders.
Hopefully, many of the Keghart.org readers will decide to write letters to Avaaz leaders for their intervention to avert a new Armenian Genocide.
Please send your letters to 27 Union Square West, Suite 500, New York, NY 10003. Ideas have changed the world; ideas, new or old, may also help Armenians. Alternately write to www.avaaz.org/en/contact .
April 21, 2023
Dear Martyna,
Thank you for notifying me about the pending “Octopus Massacre”, which should be immediately banned by the international community as being an exceedingly cruel treatment of a very “intelligent” creature.
As I have done it in the past, I shall support your campaign for a worthy cause to save the octopus from torture by the Spanish commercial outfit to raise it in captivity and to sell this interesting animal for food.
As ever, I am proud of your energy, efforts, and principled position on this and other important matters by using online campaigns to advocate and mobilize for critical issues pertaining to environmentalism, human rights, Palestinian statehood, censorship, etc.
I would also be proud of you if you would enlist Avaaz’s world followers to stand up against nefarious leaders, such as President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan, who are genocide-prone. Aliyev intends to wipe out right now 120,000 indigenous people of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (aka Artsakh) from their ancestral land.
While we find it quite imperative to save the octopus from inhumane treatment, it would be equally, if not more, urgent to avert the brewing of another genocide on these brave Armenians, whose only crime is to want to become free again in their ancestral land.
As you may know, there are nearly seven million Armenians in the Diaspora, the result of dispersion of the survivors of the first 20th Century Genocide (1915-1923) of the world during which 1.5 million people perished –perpetrated by the callous Ottoman leaders.
Seven million Armenians, plus 3 million currently living in the Republic of Armenia will gladly join Avaaz’s 69 million followers around the world.
In attempting to avert a genocide lingering on the horizon, Avaaz would also gain the reputation of being the guardian of human beings beleaguered by an abominable siege starvation since December 12, 2022 for the sole purpose of ethnic cleansing by Azerbaijan. Please search for the following editorial article at Keghart.org, titled Weaponizing Siege Starvation to Subdue Artsakh (February 10, 2023) for an updated narrative of the impending human catastrophe.
Avaaz must enlarge the scope of its operations to include activities in order to save those people at risk of genocide. Avaaz’s most urgent priority must also be the stopping of a new Armenian Genocide.
Martyna, Bert, Joanna, Nax, John, Anneke, Christoph and the entire team at Avaaz, please consider working on another worthy cause to establish Avaaz as the champion of human rights, the environment, animals, and humans needing protection from clandestine goals and objectives of egocentric leaders of rogue nations.
I look forward to working with you all on saving the 120,000 indigenous people of the Republic of Karabakh (Artsakh) by enlisting the international community to stop the cruelty and to sanction Azerbaijan from carrying out its brutal intentions.
Warm regards to all.
Andrew Demirdjian
PS: To Keghart.org readers: Please write to Martyna at www.avaaz.org/en/contact or send your message to 27 Union Square West, Suite 500, New York, NY 10003 to show your support of their activism.
On April 24th of every year, Armenians everywhere in the world come out in droves to remember the martyrs of the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923. Stopping a new Armenian Genocide would be one of Avaaz’s greatest human rights activism. Preventing Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleansing of the 120,000 indigenous people of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh in Armenian) is the duty of the civilized international community. Saving Artsakh from the brutal fate of the Western Armenia would be the crowing achievement of Avaaz since its launching in 2007 based on noble goals and objectives to help right what is wrong on this planet Earth.
Keghart
Keghart
3 comments
There is a typo in the date that the siege startes. It states 2023 which is a date in the future.(KEGHART – Thank you for pointing out. It’s corrected)
It has been over 150 years Armenians have used this rhetoric to drum up international sympathy and support for the plight of it’s people who suffer at the hands of oppressors on their historic homelands. For a nationalist to his core, this positioning is sickening as it demonstrates our communal weakness. It is mot imploring to the international community that we voice our concern but by becoming the concern itself to the international community that they will hear our voice. As the beloved Patriarch, Kherimian Hayrig said in. 1878 “ The Armenian delegation’s turn came.
I approached and presented the petition given to me by the National Assembly and I begged that they fill my bowl with harissa, too. Just then, the plenipotentiaries standing at the head of the cauldron asked me, “Where is your iron ladle? Harissa is indeed being distributed here but those without an iron ladle may not approach.”
“If in the near future harissa is again distributed, do not come without a ladle otherwise you will again return empty-handed.”
Well, dear Armenians, I could have surely stuck my ladle made of paper into the cauldron of harissa! But it would have become wet and stayed there, in the cauldron. What business did requests and petitions have in a place where weapons are what talked and where sabers shone? In fact, I saw that the Gharataghian, the Bulgarian, and the other delegates had beside them warriors from whose swords, hung from their sides, there dripped blood. Just then, I turned my head and I looked for my warriors from Zeytun, Sassoun, Shatakh and from the other mountains and valleys – but where were they? Tell me, fellow Armenians, where were those warriors?
Shouldn’t one or two of them have been by my side so that in showing the politicians of the Congress the warriors’ bloody swords I could have called out, “Behold! Here are my iron ladles! Here they are, at the ready!”
Alas, I had but a petition. A petition which became wet in the harissa – and we returned empty-handed.
In truth, if you compared me with the other delegates to the Congress, I was taller than them – and better looking, too! But to what end? A piece of paper was placed in my hand and not a sword. That is why we did not get any harissa.
However, with the future in mind, going to the Congress of Berlin was not useless.
Fellow Armenians, you have certainly well understood what weapons could have accomplished and what they do accomplish! Thus, my dear and blessed Armenians, hailing from the provinces, when you return to the Homeland, as a gift to your friends and family, take them each a weapon. Buy weapons upon weapons – and then buy more.
Before all else, place the hope of your liberation upon yourself. Give your mind and arms strength – a person must depend on himself in order to be saved. “. It is time our warriors step up to the table with our iron ladle and show the world what makes Armenians so important to this world.
I went to http://www.avaaz.org/en/contact but saw no way of sending a letter to Martyna. Could someone provide more instructions on how to do it? Thanks.
Dear Mr. Vahe Balabanian,
1) You may scroll down the front page of Avaaz website and click on “Contact”. It will open a window. It asks, “Do you have a question?”. Post the word “write” or something similar; a new window opens with pre-determined options. Chose the one that suits your query.
I found the process extremely awkward for a website of an organization that boasts having millions of followers. It’s interesting that (apparently) it permits you to create your own petition. Someone should try it.
2) I think a sure way to forward a letter is to write to the address provided in the text: 27 Union Square West, Suite 500, New York, NY 10003