From: Oflazian, Kevork
 Sent: Friday, February 06, 2004 5:20 PM
 Subject: Recent posting

On February 6, an unsigned letter was posted on the savemelkonian wb site.
This letter had several questions regarding the AGBU and had quite a negative tone.
Although it is certainly OK to express opinions in a free forum, let us  keep several important factors in mind.
1) A.G.B.U has for about 98 years done a highly commendable job of serving  many Armenian Diasporan  communities with schools, orphanages, clinics, scholarships cultural  programs and many other  means.

2) AGBU has for over 75 years supported Melkonian and has assisted  thousands of students in attaining  a higher education after graduating from MEI.

3) It is always easy to critisize from the outside. The hard task is to be  inside and try to understand  why and how certain things are done and then try to fix them as much  as possible.

4) Let us try to keep in mind that although the current situation is  certainly very upsetting to most Melkonian alumni, nothing good will be achieved by trying to undermine the AGBU.

Quite the opposite, a great disservice will be done to the Armenian  nation by attempting to weaken an organisation that has done so much and has the potential  to be of further great  servie to the Armenians both in the homeland and in the diaspora.

5) The issues being discussed can be emotional, and for most Armenians it  is difficult to control our passions.

To repeat, it is not only acceptable, but in fact encouraged that  all express opinions freely.
However, be  carefull of what you say and let's try to be constructive. Otherwise  we will be playing into our enemies  hands...and they are many and are everywhere...
They would like nothing better than to see Armenians self-distructing  as we have been so good at in the past.
Be calm, objective and  constructive.
We should be be mature  enough to 'agree to disagree' in a civilized manner.

 Kevork Oflazian
 Fresno