One of the activists and a very good friend of mine, Lilit, said that she heard a little boy asking his grandfather why those people were dancing. The old man replied that they were happy. And the kid wondered what made them happy. Then his grandfather explained that free people are always happy.

I don’t know what exactly that wise man meant saying “free”. But what I know for sure is that freedom is not only about speech, confession, assembly and all that we are used to talk and hear about. People can also choose to be free from the stereotypes, from the penniless stability, laziness, fear and whatever else they have too short lives to afford.

PRESENT

an inspiring primiere
“I Have A Friend”

directed by Imagine 2011 Alumni

My studies at CEU along with a short life in the beautiful Budapest were a great school for me full of challenging lessons and amazing discoveries. I learnt a lot and had tons of fun!

IRES 2010/2011 crew

Well, September 4th is over. And the brief flash prolonged for the whole day is still making me smile.
That’s what I love about unlimited human’s memory card.

Freedom Square, Yerevan, Armenia

Judging from the way Breivik talks about his own actions and motivation it seems to be pretty obvious that he is not insane. He even recognized his actions rather cruel, but at the same time named them necessary and inevitable. His manifest “2083—A European Declaration of Independence” reflects on a number of absolutely real historical events (including 1915 Armenian Genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire) and has the proper references to the authors he cites. Besides, the open fight between Islam and the West, the frequent radicalization of the former and the reaction of the latter is not something new for the world. So the terrorist did not probably say something new or totally incomprehensible, but the way he chose to deliver his beliefs introduces him as an absolutely sick person. You know, I think I just want to believe that only a sick one could do that, otherwise the concept of “healthiness” would loose any sense to me.
Therefore:
Yes, everyone has a right to have an own approach to the interpretation and evaluation of the politics, global history, the clash of civilizations or whatever else.
But, everyone is also obliged to take legal and moral responsibility for anything going into the public (whether it is an analytical publication, blog post, public speech or a 1,500 pages manifesto). Today there is a huge threat that if hundreds of thousands condemned the terrorist, there still might be one who can get attracted to his ideas and follow him.
Yes, for achieving the goal one has to be ready to do a lot of things.
But the goal does not always justify the means. As a very good friend of mine Tigran mentioned yesterday, intelligence, purposefulness, commitment to the idea, courage and many other features of a strong personality are nothing unless they serve a humane goal and only through the humane means. I would say they are nothing good, since their presence without an underlying humaneness can easily lead to such well-known cases as Stalin’s 1930s repressions, Hitler’s fascism, Pinochet’s 20-year-long curfew, etc.

The statement posted apparently by Breivik via Twitter a couple of days before the attack that “one person with a belief is equal to the force of 100,000 who have only interests” is actually very true. But having on the one scale non-violent examples of Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King and many others, the history also bears the opposite scale which unfortunately has been recently “enriched”.
Getting back to my initial point, it is of an utmost importance to make sure that our beliefs are going along with the humane values; and our goals (whatever they are about) are implemented through the humane means. Because there is only one real value in a real world and that is a human life.
And there is simply no justification for anyone whose actions contradict this value.

Imagine is a project that
- brought Azerbaijani and Armenian youth to talk face to face about their interpretation of the historical facts related to the conflict and relations between the two societies

Imagine there's no Heaven It's easy if you try No hell below us Above us only sky

- created an atmosphere for us sitting in the circle to share truly personal stories without fear to be misunderstood and without hesitation to look too sensitive or even fragile
- was a 100% blast
- proved that challenges and honesty lead to success
- revealed that imagination should be healthy and pragmatic and then it’s extremely enjoyable
- reminded that even if someone thinks we are just dreamers, yet we are not the only ones, and we are not alone!

I so much did not want the programme to end and at the same time I was looking forward to the last day in order to start the follow up as soon as possible!
Cheers to everyone who initiated and contributed to this programme!
Good luck with all of your follow up projects, Imaginers!

P.s.
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one…

Armenian national team’s goalkeeper Roman Berezovsky, being of Russian origin, takes a special place in the context of the upcoming match with Russians. In order to show how high Armenians value his devotion to the team he has been playing with for a very long time, they prepared a big poster with his picture and two short lines: “Рома, спасибо за все! Ты наша гордость!” – “Roman, thanks for everything! We are proud of you!”

That’s something which is beyond nationalities, politics, and even the game itself. That’s about pure human relations! Regardless of the outcomes of the game, this kind of seemingly minor things make it great.
So let everyone support his/her team and let’s be inspired with the possibility to have somebody/something to sincerely believe in!

*the source of the picture is: www.a1plus.am

I asked Blagi, one of the organizers of the “You&Me for Egypt” initiative, to tell how the idea to make the event true came to their minds. She said that one of their lovely classmates left for home, Egypt, right after the protests in Cairo started. So, “when the Egyptian people were cut off from the rest of the world when the regime blocked their means of communication and when the violence started to escalate on the streets of Cairo, knowing that our best friends are there we decided that we needed to act”, says Blagi. During our talk, Blagi several times mentioned that there were a lot of people standing behind this initiative and putting their efforts to make their Egyptian friend feel their support and love.
So it was not the initiative of the department or the university – not at all. It was an initiative of young people desiring to show their concern about the violation of Egyptians’ fundamental right to assembly and protest.
It was also a message for their lovely Egyptian friend, who left for home, strongly realizing her role in the fate of her country and people.
She just returned to Budapest, and we all are happy to see her safe and as joyful as she has always been.

First of all, both speeches delivered by presidents Aliyev and Sargsyan were absolutely similar with the only difference of the name of the “cruel offender”:
“Armenia destroyed our cities and villages, our houses and places of worship, our graves and cemeteries.” (from Ilham Aliev’s speech)
“[...]All this is accompanied by blatant Armenophobic statements by Azerbaijani leaders, by calls that incite animosity, aggression and violence.” (from Serge Sargsyan’s speech)
Full texts are avaulable at news.az and armnews.com
To me both look like the whinings of two kids before their parents. Guess now who the parents are…

by PanARMENIAN Network

Alright, I am not saying that conflict resolution is an easy thing to deal with. It is comprised with a lot of interconnected obstacles, it requires time and many efforts. So I did not really expect the two presidents to come up with a detailed action plan on the conflict resolution, nor even a constructive negotitation about it. But to be honest I did not expect them to step back either.

And when I am looking at the picture on the right I understand from their faces how far we are from either consensus or even an ability to think beyond the stereotypes.
That’s sad, very sad. Without even being ever excited about the upcoming summit in Astana, I am now totally disappointed with its outcomes.

I am taking her pure peaceful voice to my Train.

And also.. in the comments below the video on youtube, in respond to the discussion about the Soviet Union’s advantages and disadvantages, somebody wrote that this is not about Soviet Union, this is about united South Caucasus. For me this video is also about unity, which was possible before USSR (in 1918 Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic was established by Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia) and it has to be possible in the future. And it is us to decide how soon “that future” should come.