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.