Jerusalem has lost one of its most endearing sons. Intellectual Albert Aghazarian, a Palestinian of Armenian descent, died there on Thursday January 30 at the age of 69. Historian, educator, storyteller, guide and interpreter, endowed with a flamboyant and mischievous personality at the same time, he had the gift of humanizing the Old City of Jerusalem, this maze of cobbled alleys, padlocked by religions and politics, including he knew every corner.
"He had this exceptional civility and tolerance, characteristic of the ancient Jerusalemites, says Hoda Al-Imam, the founder of a study center located near the Esplanade des Mosques. In an increasingly stifling city, which many intellectuals reluctantly leave, he displayed fascinating lightness. "
Albert Aghazarian was born in 1950, in the Armenian quarter of the Holy City, to parents who fled the 1915 genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman government. He studied first in Jerusalem and Ramallah, before leaving for Beirut, where he obtained a bachelor's degree in political science, then at Georgetown University in Washington, where he obtained a master's degree in contemporary Arab studies.
Right to education
Opening up to abroad was a constant in the career of this citizen of the world, who spoke seven languages - Arabic, Armenian, French, English, Hebrew, Turkish and Spanish – "But only one at a time", as he liked to say. To Palestine, his homeland of heart, he offered his boundless energy, his Rabelaisian verve and his encyclopedic culture.
He was the deputy editor of the daily Al-Quds, between 1973 and 1976 and a founding member of the Arab Intellectual Forum, in 1977, in Jerusalem. Then, between 1980 and 2002, he headed the public relations office at Bir Zeït University, north of Ramallah, a center of activism, subjected to harassment from the Israeli occupation army.
Faced with soldiers' raids, arbitrary arrests and closure orders which intensified during the first intifada (1987-1993), Albert Aghazarian defended loud and clear, with foreign diplomats and the international press, the right to education of Palestinian youth.
His brilliance in this position earned him the appointment of co-spokesperson for the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid Peace Conference in 1991, alongside Hanan Ashrawi, a professor of English literature from Bir Zeït, now a member. of the PLO executive committee. An experience he liked to relate, recalling how he stood up to his Israeli counterpart, a young quadra from Likud, promised to a long career: Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister for more than ten years of the Hebrew State .
