Wednesday, May 6,1992-The Michigan Daly Summer Weekly- 5
Viewpoint
*Daily mishandles, censors Armenian Genocide ad
by Peter Kupelian
The Daily's refusal to run in full
the ad commemorating April 24,1915
as Armenian Martyrs Day is a very
serious matter. We believe that the
refusal to print the ad reflected an
abject failure of the business staff of
the Daily to comprehend the grave
nature of the matter at hand - the
documentedandunassailable factthat
approximately 1.5 million Armenians
weremassacredby theOttomanTurk-
ish government from 1915 to 1923.
At noon on Friday, April 17, the
proposed ad was submitted to the
Daily. The timing of the ad was care-
fully planned for the final edition of
the Daily, which would be published
two days prior to the commemoration
date of April 24. Numerous govern-
Kupelian, a 1980 Law graduate, is a
former president of the Armenian
Students' Cultural Association.
ments acknowledge the significance
of the April 24 date. President Bush
issued a statement on April 20, 1990
whichreferences"terrible massacres,"
"crime against humanities," "acts of
inhumanity" in acknowledging the
Armenian Genocide and declared
April 24, 1990 "as a day of remem-
brance for the more than a million
Armenian people who were victims."
Moreover, the state of Michigan re-
cently issued an Executive Declara-
tion which called for April 24 to be "a
day ofremembrance for the Armenian
Genocide of 1915-1923."
Until Tuesday, April 21, at 5 p.m.,
it was understood that the ad would
run as submitted. At that time, Beth
Warber, the Daily's Business Man-
ager, contacted the Armenian Stu-
dents' Cultural Association (ASCA),
stating thatthead wouldnotbeprinted
without drastic, last-minute changes.
The disturbing position of the Daily
was:
1. The Armenian genocide was
"debatable."
2. The Daily was under pressure to
avoid controversial ads due to the re-
visionist Jewish Holocaustad thatBra-
dley Smith had placed a few months
earlier.
3. The Daily would refuse to run
theadunlesskey wordssuchas"geno-
cide"and"massacred"wereremoved.
Warber advised the ASCA that
there was a 6 p.m. deadline for going
to print and the matter had to be re-
solved immediately. Against his will,
Carl Bardakian, the President-elect of
the ASCA, negotiated the revisions,
which ultimately led to the printing of
an ad which was extremely disap-
pointing and, in fact, embarrassingly
equivocal in tone and substance.
From our perspective, we would
be interested in informing the Daily of
the significanceof the historicalevents
in question, which the business staff
of the Daily believes to be "debat-
able." Although the Association's ini-
tial reaction is that Armenians should
not be placed in the demeaning posi-
tion of having to advocate the histori-
cal fact of the genocide, a more rea-
soned approach dictates that we ac-
knowledge the need to be continually
vigilantastomisinterpretationsofhis-
tory.
We understand that the Daily is
faced with certain delicate issues re-
garding advertisements.TheDaily has
faced substantialcontroversy over Ho-
locaustrevisionism directed attheJew-
ish people. We also know that the
Daily has demanded independence,
and has criticized MSA for disregard-
ing the newspaper's necessary au-
tonomy from student government.
With this demand for autonomy
comes a level of responsibility. The
Daily must take the steps necessary to
educate itself on significant events of
history. Itneed lookno further than its
own print for historic documentation
of the Armenians' tragic suffering at
the hands of the Ottoman Turks. On
Sunday,November7,1915, the Michi-
gan Daily reported that "...fully half
the Armenian race has been extermi-
nated, and this report is supported by
sufficient evidence to make it con-
vincing..."
The Daily must acknowledge that
Armenian students comprise a legiti-
mate group within the student body
and, as such, are deserving of having
some method of expressing their po-
litical views through the Daily in an
uncensored fashion. The ASCA de-
mands that the Daily give the Arme-
nian students, and their murdered an-
cestors, the respect they deserve. To
date, the business staff of the Daily
has refused to meet with the Associa-
tion and its legal counsel.
Letters
Nightmare in LA
Armenian ad 'slain'
To the Daily:
I am embarrassed to admit that be-
fore your final edition on April 22,
1992,Iheldanounceofrespectforyour
paper. Now, after the slaying of the
Armenian ad, I will never think highly
of your efforts again.
I, along with several members of
my family,gave money in order that the
ad be printed, and now I am faced with
explaining what happened. I would not
have had this problem had you used a
dictionary and the "liberal" sense you
claim to have.
According to Webster, the defini-
tion, of the word "genocide" is, "the
systematic killing of a whole people or
nation." Michigan Governor John
Engler and the University of Michigan
recognize the Armenian Genocide be-
cause they know of the 1.5 million
Armenians whowere murdered by gov-
ernmentdecree.Idon'tunderstand why
the Dailyhassuchaproblemwithsome-
thing that is a fact.
I am here today because my great-
grandfather escaped from the Turkish
concentration camps twice and made it
to the UnitedStates,a country wherehe
could escape persecution. Yet, in this
same country where I attend a"liberal"
institution, the truth isn't allowed to be
printed. My relatives gave money to
remember my great-grandfather's
struggle and also those Armenians who
were not fortunate enough to escape. I
now have to try to explain why our ad
was not printed as we wished, some-
thing that I still cannot believe.
I would like to say that if you be-
lieve thatyouhave a"victory"overour
group,youaresadly mistaken. Ibelieve
that this has fueled our group even
more,notonlyinremembering thegeno-
cide, but also inourquest for the Arme-
nian cause.
Finally, I would like to quote Will-
iam Saroyan, an Armenian author and
playwright:
"I should like to see any power of
the world destroy this race, this small
tribeofunimportant people,whose wars
have all been fought and lost, whose
structures have crumbled, literature is
unread, music is unheard, and prayers
are no more answered. Go ahead, de-
stroy Armenia. See if you can do it.
Sendthemintothedesertwithoutbread
orwater.Burntheirhomesandchurches.
Then seeif they willnotlaugh, sing and
play again. For when twoof them meet
anywhere in the world, see if they will
not create a New Armenia."
I hope in the future the Daily will
recognize the truth and let our voices be
heard.
Kristina Lutz
LSA first-year student
Shirtless without shane
To the Daily:
Whatrightdomen have that women
don't but that few women have thought
to question? The right to be "topfree"
- that is, the right to be shirtless with-
out shame.
Only 50 years ago, the law said men
couldn't expose their chests in public.
They werearrestedallover theU.S. for
going shirtless. But they refused to ac-
cept this dictation of dress code. They
took their shirts off day after day until
the authorities backed off. They real-
ized it was insufferable oppression for
the dress code to be dictated to them.
At the present time, only a few
womenhavetakentherighttobetopfree.
The majority still feel the need to keep
theirbreastscovered.On theotherhand,
we have more businesses than ever
beforeexploiting thenudefemalebreast,
from mens' magazines and movies to
topless bars and car washes. It is no
longer only "certain men" who patron-
ize these businesses. The businesses
have become so accepted that they are
advertised on radio stations, billboards
alongside major highways, and in the
skies, trailing behind airplanes at major
sporting events. This shows the chang-
ing attitude of society.
When the sight of shirtless women,
of all ages, sizes, and shapes becomes
commonplace, the benefits will be nu-
merous:
The breast fetish of American
men will diminish. There willno longer
be an unhealthy obsession with breasts
as sexualobjects. Presently, this obses-
sion interferes with the formation of
relationships of equality between men
and women.
More women will feel comfort-
able breast feeding their babies,leading
to healthier babies and fewer medical
bills.
Women and men will know what
a normal breast looks like. This will
lead to less unnecessary breast surgery,
reducing medical expenses and sick-
ness due to implants.
Women willhaveamore positive
body self image and therefore fewer
mental health problems.
Women will feel more comfort-
able doing breast self exams leading to
earlier detection of breast cancer.
There will be adecrease in female
breast exploitation.
Boys will grow up with arealistic
image of what women look like, view-
ing women not as objects to be ex-
ploited, but as competent equals.
Girlswill grow up with a positive
body self image unexploited by the
media and unharmed by the tyranny of
ideal beauty. This will lead to less
bulimia and anorexia.
Topfree equality for all is an idea
whose time has come. The advantages
are many, the disadvantages are non-
existent. The control of our bodies was
stripped away by forcingus tocoverup.
It is unfair and illegal to require one sex
to cover up and not the other.Let's take
breasts back from the pomographers,
topless joints, and Madison Avenue.
Reinstate our dignity as nurturers with
equal genderrights. Men won'tdoitfor
us, but many will join with us in doing
it.
Go ahead. Be brave. Go shirtless
when you want. When itis appropriate.
Just as men have done for 50 years!
Janet Martin
Coalition for a Topfree Equality
by Mike Fischer
Five years ago, Los Angeles Police
Chief Daryl Gates- who once praised
the Philadelphia police forcefor bomb-
ing an entire neighborhood block and
killing 11 people in the process -
dismissedcivil libertarian protests con-
cerning a Los Angeles Police Depart-
ment (LAPD) drug bust by insisting
"This is war... we're exceedingly an-
gry... This is Vietnam here."
Today, with 4,000 National Guard
troops already in Los Angeles while
rumors fly that federal troops are soon
to follow, Los Angeles is indeed com-
ing to resemble Vietnam. And now, as
then, the would-be villains of the piece
- the peoples of color successfully
evoking white America's worst night-
mares of racial turmoil - are the real
victims.
Watching motorists get dragged
from their cars and beaten while local
stores are pillaged and burned, one can
see why both President Bush and pro-
spective Democratic nominee Bill
Clinton -not to mention every televi-
sion anchor and scores of talk-show
hosts - are more interested in piously
condemning suchrandom violencethan
in purposefully searching for its under-
lying cause.
I am not referring to the infamous
verdict in the Rodney King trial, al-
though that was certainly the catalyst
for this carnage. King's case, after all,
wasdifferentonly becauseit was caught
on video; as Amnesty International
pointed out in its press release on the
verdict, it was "just one of many such
cases we know of in Los Angeles." As
Gates himself has said, "I think people
believe that the only strategy we have is
to put a lot of police officers on the
street and harass people and make ar-
rests forinconsequentialkindsofthings.
Well, that's part of the strategy, no
question about it."
Fischer is a Rackham graduate
student and an editor of the Detroit-
based magazine Against the Current.
My question is why?We won't find
an answer by perpetuating polarized
caricatures of demoniac gangs on the
onehand and anOrwellian police force
ontheother. IfL.A.'sgangsareparticu-
larly violent - and if the LAPD is
notoriously brutal-itis because of the
significantly more brutal, exception-
ally betterorganizedeconomicviolence
being perpetrated against the city's pre-
dominantly non-white poor.
A few years back,50,000 primarily
African-American and Latino youth
lined up for miles to apply for ahandful
of unionized jobs in the L.A. harbor.
Between 1978 and 1982, ten of the
city's 12 largest plants shut down, dis-
placing 75,000 blue collar and pre-
dominantly African-American work-
ers. Three-hundred and twenty-one
firms fled Los Angeles for southern
California growth poles like northern
San Diego and eastern Ventura coun-
ties - both with African American
populations of one percent or less.
By the late 1980s, unemployment
had climbed past 50 percent in Watts
while regional population growth
reached a whopping 45 percent. With
few options and no viable future, itisno
wonder that so many of L.A.'s non-
white poor choose gangs. "Gangs are
never goin' to die out," asserts a 16-
year-old member of the lethal Grape
Street Crips. "You all goin' to get us
jobs?"
It is a probing question - one that
demands better answers than the
LAPD's 50 French Aerospatiale heli-
copters or its six severely overcrowded
prisons - housing 25,000 inmates -
within a three-mile radius of the down-
town. It is also a question demanding
more fromleaderslikeBush andClinton
than pious condemnations of looters
and calls forrestored order. For thereal
nightmare in Los Angeles is the orga-
nized economic violence making pos-
sible the guns and the fires, the broken
glass and the broken lives invading our
living rooms and pervading our lives.