Via Unzipped:

The Women’s Resource Center in cooperation with other NGOs is launching the activites for the Month dedicated to women’s issues in Armenia.

While all the events sound great, there is one event in particular of interest to AGLA members & friends:

MARCH 12
FILM and DISCUSSION on lesbian women @ 5pm – Zarubyan 34

Recently the Women-Oriented Women’s (WOW) Collective (Queering Yerevan) in Armenia published an Open Letter against homophobia, hate and intolerance spread by the Armenian media and in statements made by some representatives of civil society and politicians in response to Armenia’s endorsement of the UN gay rights statement.

Even though the general absence of any desire to ask fundamental questions about homosexuality, male homosexuality in Armenia has been consistently described as a threat to national security, a result of accepting European decadent values or a pathology and disease, while homosexual women have been denied of existence all together or condemned in not fitting into the image of a “proper” Armenian woman.

Some of the most recent publications which disseminate hatred towards homosexuals and can potentially become a source of violence, include the article “Armenian lesbians are becoming more active” in Aravot daily (Jan. 22, 2009,  http://new.aravot.am/am/articles/culture/54469/view); an interview with the rising star of the Republican Party Edward Shahmazanov in the same newspaper, in which the prominent politician claims that he is anti-gay; and the following statement by the head of the “Sustainable Human Development” agency in Armenia Karine Danielyan: “It’s been always considered that 4-5% of humanity has such pathologies…these should be regarded as a disease.”

Read the entire Letter at: http://queeringyerevan.blogspot.com/2009/01/open-letter-against-intolerance.html

(via: http://gayarmenia.blogspot.com/2009/01/open-letter.html)

Reminder:  There will be an AGLA NY Meeting this Friday January 16th at 8PM at the LGBT Center on 13th St, Btw 7th & 8th Ave.

Come find out what we have planned for 2009, meet fellow LGBT Armenians, and get involved and help organize upcoming events. Help make 2009 the best year yet for AGLA NY!

During the second half of our meeting on Friday, we have arranged for a special presentation by Lala Aslikyan from Armenia about the current state of LGBT rights violations and homophobia in Armenia.

Following the meeting and presentation, please join us for drinks and further discussion at XES Lounge at 157 West 24th Street (near 7th Ave)

View & RSVP on the Facebook Event Page
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=53117082781

Below please find information on the scheduled presentation at 8:30pm. 

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Brutality of Homophobia in Armenia
Presented by Lala Aslikyan, Huys NGO 
Friday Jan 16th, 8:30PM
LGTB Center (Room 104)
208 W 13th St (Btw 7th & 8th Aves)
New York, NY

Lala Aslikyan is a psychologist and a political scientist, human rights advocate. She is a member of “Huys” (“Hope”) NGO in Armenia, dealing with human rights protection and advocacy. Since 2004 she has initiated and organized several public forums, demonstrations, public actions aimed at the protection of human rights, free media and implementation of basic democratic principles in Armenia. Particularly, she was involved in the successful advocacy campaign related to a large number of murders in the Armenian army. She was actively engaged in the protests on March 1 and in following events, which put her in dangerous position while dealing with police and army forces used against people and journalists in Yerevan. 

She works as Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist in the community project, financed by USAID, Armenia.  

Prior to her visit to NY Lala had several meetings in Armenia to prepare a brief presentation on LGBT rights violations in Armenia for the LGBT community in NY. During her 10 minute talk she will give a picture of the LGBT situation in Armenia, highlighting specific problems and the character of violence and harassment based on homophobia in Armenia. She will also bring concrete examples of cases of rape, chasing and murder based on homophobia widespread in the Armenian army. 

For any additional information and further communication please contact
lalakap2000@yahoo.com; +37493447643, Yerevan, H. Emin 82, apt. 29 

Join us on Saturday Jan 10, 2009 for our
Annual AGLA NY Armenian Christmas Party

89 St James Pl
Brooklyn, NY 11238
(view map)

7PM, Pot Luck Dinner
(Please bring a dish and whatever you would like to drink)

Please RSVP to let us know if you can make via our Contact Page at
http://aglany.org/contact/

You can also view & RSVP on the Facebook Event Page

It is rather well known that gay life in the Armenian capital of Yerevan is rather vibrant if still underground, but It is truly remarkable that Armenia’s third largest city Vanadzor (pop. 107,394) is the location for a new gay-themed play, “MetastaZ.”

More info via Unzipped: Gay Armenia:

It’s my personal impression that theatre life in Armenia sees its kind of new revival. And it’s not only classical theatre but alternative one too. Experimental theatre has its regular scheduling at the NPAK or other venues. HighFest festival brings to Armenia cutting edge performances from within the country and abroad, e.g. by English playwright Mark Ravenhill.

Then he quotes PinkArmenia:

The most interesting fact is that a performance based on real facts of two homosexuals was played in the third city of Armenia and not Yerevan.The main goal of the director was not the elucidation of the theme of homosexuality and drugs in general, but the torture of the people, having a pain arisen by treachery. The same can overtake each of us like it happened to the heroes of performance “MetastaZ”. […]

The most part of public has been shocked and admired from professional acting and director’s work of performance, and some others experienced a shock, proceeding from basic reasons and traditional mentality: “How can it be possible, we are Armenians, not homos?” […]

There are video clips of the performance here and one is below:

Dear AGLA NY Members and friends,

It is my pleasure to welcome Veken Gueyikian as the new President of AGLANY.  Veken is an intelligent, energetic and dedicated professional  who served as Vice President for the past year, and without whom we could not have accomplished all that we did. We are looking for a few interested and energetic individuals to work with Veken in the coming year as a member of our organization. Please email Veken through this form if you are interested in volunteering.

I would also like to take the opportunity to thank everyone for their support and help over the past two years that I have had the honor of serving as AGLA NY President.

We are now officially a tax-deductible charity, which means that we can raise funds like any other non-profit. The process took close to two years and I’d like to thank Hadi and Cleary Gottlieb for their help and hard work in processing all the necessary forms.

In the past two years, AGLA NY has built on a strong base to improve the organization in numerous other ways: our new blog is both informative and popular; our new lecture series attracts 20-40 people, both Armenian and non-Armenian at each event; and our coverage and name has expanded in the Armenian community and without. And of course, we continue to host traditionally popular events, such as our annual Armenian Christmas party.

In the coming year, we have many fun and novel events planned, including a winter benefit to raise funds for the organization and a spring conference on LGBT rights in the Caucasus.

We hope you will join AGLA NY if you have not already done so, and that you join us at as many upcoming events as possible. Bring your friends and spread the word!

Sincerely,
Christopher Atamian

Christopher Atamian recently sent a report into Yevrobatsi about one of AGLA NY’s recent events featuring 3 short films by Melissa Boyadjian and a brief talk on travelling to historic Armenia by Hadi Deeb.

On June 22nd at the LGBT Center in New York City, Nor Alik presented an innovative and diverse afternoon of Armenian culture. First Melissa Boyajian, a student at the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts presented three short films, including “Tip of the Tongue Phenomenon” and “Conversational Armenian,” as well as a third film in development. Melissa noted that the last two films were meant as installation video pieces, so that viewing them as films on a screen distorted the intended effects. Still, everyone present was happy to have watched them in either form.

In “Tip of the Tongue Phenomenon,” a unseen hand wraps different material tubing (copper, string etc) around a close-up of a tongue inside an open mouth. The viewer sees the different wires being tied around the tongue over and over again until the mouth is overstuffed with wiring. The film is meant as a statement on the traditional Armenian tradition in which a woman had to keep silent for a year after getting married, but also on the general silencing of women in society, particularly in more conservative (and Armenian) societies. In “Conversational Armenian” Boyajian plays both a man and a woman on a split screen, both repeating remarkably sexist sentences reproduced verbatim from a conversational Armenian tape published a few years back in Beirut. Each lesson is interrupted by a clever riff on Armenian culture, until the last frames when the viewer is in for a little surprise…

After a short break, the 25 or so guests returned for an entirely different presentation, i.e. slides and commentary from Western Armenia, which lawyer Hadi Deeb took while on a trip with Armen Aroyan this Spring. The group that Deeb traveled with visited many historic cities, including Van, Musa Dagh and Hajin. The recurrent themes were of loss, sadness and of an inability to process both what had happened to the towns destroyed in 1915 or Turkish villagers’ ignorance or negligence of historic properties. Churches that have been turned into animal feeding areas, Armenian houses with lettering destroyed and used in re-built housing for new villagers brought over by the Turkish government from the Balkans or for local Kurds. There was also, surprisingly to me, an inability on the part of some audience members during the Q& A to understand that what the Turks have done with Western Armenia is no different from what happened, for example, to the Native Americans and other ethnicities around the world, not that this would justify the former, of course, or that political considerations have always trumped human rights and human justice. “Might makes right” is an adage that Armenians understandably repudiate given their history. There was also a desire expressed by many audience members to take part in the same trip in coming years.

The afternoon’s events were co-sponsored by Nor Alik, a leading Armenian cultural organization, and AGLA NY, which is part of a global network of Armenian gay and lesbian associations.

also see Unzipped: Gay Armenia

Over at Global Voices, Onnik Krikorian has a lot to say about the wealth of LGBT Armenian blogs:

…the number of LGBT blogs from Armenia and the Diaspora has mushroomed. In part, this is probably because of the important precedent set by Unzipped: Gay Armenia. The blogger from Armenia now resident in England truly did cover sensitive issues such as gender, homosexuality and homophobia in what still remains a largely male-dominated patriarchal society with little regard for sexual minorities or women’s rights.

Read the whole amazing article with tons of facts and quotes here.

Here is a list of all the LGBT Armenian blogs mentioned in the article:

• Unzipped: Gay Armenia (the pioneer)
  
• An Armenian Lesbian Blog
• The Thoughts of a Californian Garmo in Europe
• Queering Yerevan
• AGLA NY (hey, that’s us!)
• Hye Trent
• PINK Armenia (which is the only one actually based in Armenia)