Unzipped: Gay Armenia: June 2016

Tuesday, 28 June 2016

Pope Francis in Armenia presented with the “gift of the Armenian people” created by openly gay American-Armenian designer Michael Aram

During Pope Francis visit to the country, Armenian social networks were full of praise and admiration of Pope. Thousands and thousands took to the streets across the country to greet him. Most comments, whether by ordinary people or state officials, were of superlative nature and pretty much idolised the Pope and the fact of him visiting Armenia.

Towards the end of his visit, Pope was presented with the “gift of the Armenian people” on the occasion of his visit to Armenia.

This “Noah’s Ark” sculpture was created by renown metalware, homeware and fine jewellery designer, openly gay American-Armenian Michael Aram.

Michael Aram’s Twitter wall is pretty much incredible on this occasion, as his tweet greeting New York’s Gay Pride follows by picture of his “Noah’s Ark” sculpture for Pope Francis which was gifted to him by the Armenian people”.

Michael Aram’s husband Aret Tikiryan reflected this on his Instagram too.

Btw, his Instagram headline reads: “2 dads with 2 amazing kids”.

Here is their beautiful family picture.

No wonder, en route from Armenia, Pope Francis made this remarkable statement, that church ‘should apologise and ask forgiveness from gays for their past treatment’. Truly, a miraculous gift, one may speculate :))

And this picture with accompanied headline is pretty much incredible for all the right and wrong reasons. Here you see Armenian president & his wife, head of Armenian church, Pope Francis and the headline: Pope Francis: Catholic Church Should Seek Forgiveness from Gay People, Women

***
Michael Aram posted more details on background of this sculpture on his Facebook page.

Sunday, 26 June 2016

Istanbul Gay Pride: my diary of a powerful LGBT civil rights march

Last year Istanbul Pride was violently dispersed. This year it was banned altogether.

I dedicate this post to all the activists who struggle for human rights in Turkey. In solidarity with LGBT people in Istanbul.

I was lucky enough to be in Istanbul on 29 June 2014, with my Armenian friends. We witnessed and participated in perhaps the biggest and unfortunately the last peaceful Pride event happened there.

It was a great inspirational Pride event, a powerful civil rights march. Very political. Very colourful. Very diverse. Like in previous years, there was an abundance of posters in Armenian too.

There was police presence there too, but in contrast to last two years, police was there to protect, not to attack.

Participants of the march were quite critical against increasingly autocratic Erdogan rule. I witnessed quite a few anti-Erdogan messages, slogans and anti-Erdogan mocking during the march. No surprises that Turkey president Erdogan could not bear such displays of freedom, and started crackdown on Istanbul Pride using the full force of his repressive regime.

Below is my photo story from June 2014. I highly recommend Adrineh’s blog post reflecting the event too: A World of Pride or More Like Hüzün?

[...] I was lucky this year to be in Istanbul for gay pride. It was my first time in the city that is so close to Yerevan and yet so far. My girlfriend and I, along with a couple of our gay Armenian friends, planned a short, four-day visit not only to see the city, but also to be there for the pride march. Because unlike other cities where I’ve been that celebrate Pride (Toronto, Montréal, New York, Reykjavik, Dublin), it wasn’t a parade but a march. And there’s a clear difference between the two.

It reminded me of the origins of Pride, of what was fought for and what was gained. And it reminded me of how far we still have to go. […]

Just thousands and thousands of people of all stripes marching, holding signs in Armenian and Turkish (probably in Kurdish too) and so many rainbow flags. […]

And the music that stayed with me the most was the beat of the drums. Men and woman playing various types of drums at different points in the march. This is the sound of a struggle, and this is how you know that what we saw, what we were swept up in (my gay Armenian friends and I) was a march for human rights. [...]

It is therefore with great sadness I note how quickly and to what a devastating effect the situation with human rights has been deteriorated in Turkey, with each passing day under the Erdogan rule.