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City will lower flag
Weaver expresses 'deep regret' over last year's decision to half-staff flag for genocide
CITY HALL -- Mayor Gus Gomez approved a proclamation Tuesday ordering the American flag lowered to half-staff in honor of the Armenian Genocide, a gesture some council and community members said might serve more to create division than to heal it.
Artin Manoukian, chairman of the Armenian National Committee Glendale chapter, applauded the move to half-staff the flag April 24, calling it evidence that "our community will not bow down to bigotry and hate."
Many of the residents came to speak on the issue disagreed, arguing the
flag should not be lowered to half-staff for an event that did not take
place
in America.
Richard Helphand, a Glendale resident who said he had Jewish heritage, compared the Armenian Genocide to the Holocaust and said it would not be appropriate to lower the flag for either event.
"It should not happen," he said. "It was not an American event. It is
improper to make [Armenians] special any more than it would be proper to
make
the Jewish people special."
Councilman Rafi Manoukian, in an emotional response to critics of the move, differed sharply with those who said the genocide was not relevant to America.
"I'm here. I'm real," he said. "The reason I'm here is because of the Armenian Genocide."
"The genocide is not over," he continued. "Denial of the genocide is continuation of the genocide. Our U.S. government perpetuates the myth that it didn't happen."
Other council members expressed more ambivalence about lowering the flag.
"It is not doing what we really want it to do," Bob Yousefian said. "We want people to be with us, not against us." He called for the creation of a committee that would explore an alternative method of recognizing "man's inhumanity to man" in the future.
Dave Weaver, who supported lowering the flag as mayor, said Tuesday he had changed his mind about the practice, comparing it to a campfire that starts an out-of-control blaze.
"I never expected such an outcry from the public," he said. "My actions initiated a divisiveness in Glendale that I could never have imagined or wished upon this city. I express my deep regret if I've offended in any way."
Gomez was brief in his remarks, commenting primarily on the lack of civility that has characterized the debate over the flag.
"I'm very disappointed in the tone of some of the messages, the venom
that was apparent," he said.
Armenian, Assyrian and Hellenic Genocide News Archives