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Controversial Armenian rug will go on display

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  • Controversial Armenian rug will go on display

    Hilton Head Island Packet, South Carolina
    May 1 2014

    Controversial Armenian rug will go on display

    By Michael Doyle
    McClatchy Washington Bureau
    April 30, 2014


    WASHINGTON -- A lobbying campaign led in part by California lawmakers
    has borne fruit, with a White House agreement to allow display of the
    politically contentious artifact known as the Armenian Orphan Rug,
    though where has not yet been determined.

    Lawmakers with large Armenian-American constituencies pressed
    administration officials to liberate the 89-year-old rug from storage.
    Their success marks the latest turn in the conflict over remembering
    an Armenian catastrophe.

    "We've been in a constant course of discussion," Rep. Adam Schiff,
    D-Calif., said in an interview Wednesday. "It's been a long process."

    That's because the rug surpasses mere decoration.

    Measuring somewhat more than 11 feet by 18 feet, the rug contains more
    than 4 million hand-tied knots. Armenian girls in the Ghazir Orphanage
    of the Near East Relief Society, located in what is now Lebanon, took
    10 months to complete it before it was presented in 1925 to President
    Calvin Coolidge.

    The rug was meant to thank the United States for relief provided to
    victims of what President Barack Obama last week called the Meds
    Yeghern, which is Armenian for "great calamity."

    By some estimates, 1.5 million Armenians died at the end of the
    Ottoman Empire, between 1915 and 1923. Historians and governmental
    bodies have characterized the catastrophe as genocide, a term first
    recognized in international law in 1948 as referring to actions
    intended to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial or
    religious group.

    Diplomatically and militarily, the term is loaded.

    Turkey, a key NATO ally, vigorously disputes the accuracy of the
    genocide term and pays lobbyists a lot of money to fight perennial
    congressional efforts to pass an Armenian genocide resolution.
    Pentagon and State Department officials likewise have raised concerns
    about antagonizing Turkey.

    Last fall, the conflict seemed to stain the rug, after the Washington
    Post reported that the White House would not allow it to be displayed
    at the Smithsonian Castle for the launch of a 75-page book titled
    "President Calvin Coolidge and the Armenian Orphan Rug." At the time,
    a White House spokeswoman said it would be "inappropriate" to bring
    out the rug for a private book event, but many saw other influences at
    work.

    "I was concerned that the holdup was related to Turkish concerns," Schiff said.

    Like his White House predecessors, Obama has steered clear of the term
    "genocide" in the annual commemorative statements issued April 24. In
    light of all this history, Armenian-Americans consider the decision to
    display the rug, with its vivid associations, as progress.

    "The display of this tangible expression of gratitude for America's
    humanitarian intervention to save the survivors of the Armenian
    genocide is a positive development," said Bryan Ardouny, executive
    director of the Armenian Assembly of America.

    Working with allies like Schiff and Rep. David Valadao, R-Calif., the
    organization helped rally more than 30 House of Representatives
    members to sign a letter urging the White House to display the rug.
    Schiff followed up with the White House congressional liaison, while
    the Armenian Assembly ramped up pressure by displaying a "sister rug"
    in Boston and Boca Raton, Fla.,

    >From Massachusetts, a state whose notable Armenian-American population
    includes Hagop Martin Deranian, the author of "President Calvin
    Coolidge and the Armenian Orphan Rug," freshman Democratic Sen. Edward
    Markey weighed in as well.

    On Wednesday, Markey declared in a statement that the rug's display
    will "serve as reminder that we will never forget the Armenian
    Genocide and highlight the continued need to work towards its proper
    recognition."

    The rug has previously been displayed in the White House in 1984 and
    1995. It could be shown as early as the fall, Schiff said. The precise
    Washington location remains uncertain, though both Schiff and Markey
    used nearly identical language in saying the location would be
    appropriate, sensitive and open to the public.

    http://www.islandpacket.com/2014/04/30/3086571/controversial-armenian-rug-will.html

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