Armenian Political Effectiveness: two analyses

United We Stand...
Keghart.com Team Editorial

22 August 2010

Lack of united Armenian strategy in responding to initiatives that originate

in Turkey, either through the state or private citizens, NGOs and institutions,

is hindering the advancement of the Armenian Cause. Those initiatives are

mostly treated as being destructive with a loss of appreciation of nuances

of substance and heterogeneity of authors. Furthermore, there is a paucity

of creative counter-proposals from the Diaspora resulting in missed

“windows of opportunity”. Add to it the contradictory announcements and

actions of the Armenian state, the church and media you have stasis for the

Armenian Cause.

The latest Turkish action was the announcement of the “celebration” of Holy

Mass at Aghtamar in September. There is no doubt that the Turkish state will

manipulate it for its own interests. Our knee-jerk reaction has been

denunciation, instead of looking for ways to turn the event into our advantage,

such as by mobilizing people to be present not in the hundreds but in the

thousands, and asking friendly Turks, Kurds, Zazas and Alawis to participate

in solidarity with Armenians. All it takes is will, determination and cooperation

among various factions of the Armenian Diaspora.

A memorable event that comes to mind is the publication of I apologize by

thousands of Turkish nationals. How did we respond? Some Armenian media

outlets did not even think the historic document deserved a few lines.

Subsequent invitations to and interviews with key figures who had signed the

document were mostly acts of lip service. Some of us argued that it was a ploy

by the Turkish government. The authors were even accused of being agents of

the state, although that dreaded word was not explicitly used. The "best"

outcome was a diplomatic endorsement of the Réponse des intellectuels

Arméniens aux intellectuels Turcs by a miniscule number of Armenian intellectuals

compared to the number of Turkish signatories of the “apology”. Was there an

opportunity to adopt the campaign and expand its potentials? Probably yes, but

it was missed.

More recently--this past April-- the Genocide was publicly commemorated in

Turkey, albeit by a few intellectuals and their friends. Concomitantly, Diaspora

intellectuals were invited to Turkey by TEPAV (Economic Policy Research

Foundation of Turkey) to discuss the issue at a symposium. Some of the

Armenian participants were rebuked upon their return from the gathering.

Although solid arguments were provided against the event, the matter was

treated in isolation, and not tackled within a larger context. Again no attempt

was made to explore the potential of such encounters which could benefit the

Armenian side.

Considering the above three (out of many) examples leads us to state

unequivocally that the Turkish state and Turkish nationals continue to set the

agenda--some would say they are even dictating it. Turkey will continue to

use every means to place a halo around its denialist thesis. The Armenian

Diaspora cannot afford to allow the Turkish side to determine this vital agenda.

Rather than merely react, and in most cases denounce the Turkish initiatives,

the Armenian Diaspora should be pro-active: it should respond in a

constructive way to the Turkish undetakings or better--it should put forth its own

proposals prior to the Turkish projects. Negative reaction on the part of

Armenian Diaspora will neither generate sympathy nor break new ground in

advancing our Cause.

Of course, the lack of coordinated effort between the Republic of Armenia

and the Diaspora make matters more challenging. As a result, all we hear

is cacophony rather than reasoned, constructive, and practical arguments.

In the absence of a common strategy by Armenian stakeholders, the field

is left wide open for the Turkish side. We have nobody to blame but ourselves.

Let’s be honest with ourselves, and let's ameliorate the situation in earnest.

For starters, Tashnagtsoutune has to realize that it cannot have it both ways,

i.e. present itself as the savior of the Armenians, yet at every opportunity try

to expand its partisan interests. Vis a vis Armenia, it raises red flags only and

only when the party’s prerogatives or positions are in peril. It cooperates with

others when there is a chance of increasing its dividends. This approach

imperils our Cause, alienates people not only from the party but from Armenian

endeavours in general within the party, its sympathizers, and adherents of other

parties, too.

Tashnagtsoutune, being the best organized and most vocal Diaspora entity

has the responsibility to set an example of cooperation in issues that matter

to Diaspora Armenians. Pursuing the Armenian Cause in the legal field, for

example, has been discussed for decades, within the party and with others.

Yet there has been no real attempt to get the interested individuals or the

organizations together. Will Tashnagtsoutune extend its hand to the proposed

Western Armenian National Congress (WAN Congress) when the latter's

legal team becomes operational?

We extend our apologies to the Ramgavar and Hunchak parties for excluding

them in the above recommendations. They have their internal fights still to sort

out. However, they, too, should pursue their efforts by clearly defining what they

see as the priorities for the future of Diaspora, our dreams of recovering some

parts of our occupied motherland, and act accordingly.

Long before the collapse of the Soviet Union, and more so after the collapse,

many leftist individuals “deserted” their party but a few continued to operate

under a variety of organizational names or joined other parties. Some preferred

to be “independent”. This committed and capable contingent has been ignored

by the Diaspora. Doubting their patriotism, ignoring their understanding of world

affairs, and their contribution to Diasporan life is akin to amputating an active

limb from the body. Their participation within the framework of an overall Armenian

body politic is not only necessary but crucial in cultivating relations with progressive

forces primarily in Turkey and elsewhere. Let's invite our free-floating ''leftists'' into

our communities, organizations and projects.

The ideological followers of the generation that employed "unorthodox" means in

the '80s are still around with their own organizations and publications. They too

deserve our attention.

Although statistics are not available, it’s safe to state that the majority of Diaspora

Armenians do not belong to or follow any of the parties. Conventionally they are

referred to as the “silent majority”. Probably a good number of them do not and

will not take part in any Armenian endeavour irrespective of its origin. However,

some “independents” are active and do participate in community affairs in a

significant manner through individual projects or organized forums.

Armenians, at least in the Diaspora, have settled into a lazy and denialist mindset.

In a misguided belief of our nation's immortality, they maintain in the backroads

of their minds the following nonsensical notion: "In our long history, we have

survived war, famine, persecution, exile, genocide... we will somehow continue to

survive whatever fate throws our way." This absurd myth, this belief in miracles

blinds us to the existential challenges Diaspora faces, and may well result in our

disappearance, within a few generations, as viable communities outside the

borders of Armenia.

As mentioned earlier, we sorely lack common strategy to confront initiatives

emanating from Turkey or to reverse the trend of setting the agenda. To that

end awareness of what awaits Diaspora without cooperation among its various

factions enumerated above is essential. The future appears bleak as the years

go by. Numbing fatigue would eventually drown us. We cannot afford to waste

more time.

Will any of the existing organizations take the lead in opening the channels of

communication and coopeation? Or shall we wait for a messiah who will never

show up? Will the proposed WAN Congress have sufficient gravitas, the

intellectual mass and muscle, and the broad sightedness to draw all factions

together? Or will it degenerate into yet another self-serving organization with

special interests or ulterior motives?

What we need is inspired leadership which will win Diaspora's confidence.
What we need is strength of will in Diaspora leaders, parties, and individuals.
What we need is moratorium on pomposity and cant.

It's almost midnight for the Armenian Diaspora.

armenianweekly.com

Astarjian: A Broken Compass
Thu, Aug 19 2010
By: Dr. Henry Astarjian


Poverty of thought, one manifestation of Alzheimer’s, characterizes
the Armenian nation; today we are suffering from it and from global
dysfunction of our collective higher mental faculties.

We have lost our orientation to self, time, and place, and we have
lost our ability to calculate, deliberate, judge, exercise logic,
foresee, and prepare for the future. We have lost our compass. The
nation is drifting, and the winds are not filling our canvas. We live
in the past, we sing its glory, yet we fail to use it as a platform to
spring forward.

Armenianism, for a big sect of ethnic Armenians, begins and ends with
the Red Genocide, yet the White Genocide and the Grey Genocide, like
maggots, keep on munching on the very fabric of our nation. The two
opiates—denial and fatalism—mask the real pain of that destruction.

There was a time when the nation’s heart throbbed with fervor,
determination to survive, with music, literature, theater, creativity,
and shrewd politicians who held the nation together and pumped blood
into our veins. All that is gone! Now we suffer from poverty of soul,
in addition to poverty of thought. Our nationalism has metamorphosed
into eating Armenian food, attending kefs, praising each other’s
achievements, doing municipal work, and donating guilt money through
telethons rather than dirtying our hands with real dirty political
work that requires involvement and sacrifice.

The nation has become disjointed; Armenia does not evoke the same
emotion and does not bring about yearning for the fatherland as it did
during, say, the Second Republic, when Armenia was a forbidden land
for us diasporans, and home for freedom-hungry people of Armenia.
Under those circumstances we were one. We both worked for a Free
Armenia. Our only physical connection was the radio. When it announced
Yerevanneh Khosum・ people’s hearts skipped a beat; it felt as if we
had received another shot of tranquility, hope, and further spiritual
commitment to Armenianism. For people of Armenia, their only hope for
salvation was the Tashnagtsutiun.

Not anymore!

The United States fortified that hope, but only in the context of the
Cold War. Armenian Americans swelled the ranks of the ARF, only to
become oblivious to the organization at the conclusion of the Cold
War.

The nation is on the path of disintegration.

In two generations the nation, including Armenia, has not produced a
single poet, a single philosopher, a single literary giant, a single
serious musical composition, a single drama or comedy, a single opera,
a single military commander, a single political figure, a single
strategist, a single futurist, or a single visionary worthy of
excellence, and therefore praise. Our linguistics and the lexicon have
deteriorated, especially in Armenia, where during the Soviet era
spelling and grammar were bastardized—and the government hasn’t raised
a finger to fix it. The structure has crumbled under the weight of
alienation.

Armenia has ceased becoming our guiding light!

Deterioration is nowhere more obvious than in the conduct of the
government of Armenia and its opposition organizations in the
fatherland. The first president of the Second Republic, Barone
Nakhakah, almost sold Karabagh, cow-towed to the Turks and, ignoring
the memories of a million and a half Armenian martyrs, went to Turgut
Ozal’s funeral in Ankara on our most sacred day, April 24. There he
was caught on camera surreptitiously sharing a laugh with Azerbaijan’s
President Heydar Aliyev. He could not have been discussing the
independence of Karabagh.

His successor presided over a gigantic growth of corruption, and on
his watch criminal oligarchy flourished to unimaginable levels.

Enter the third president, whose era has been marked with the
continuation of official and unofficial corruption, and the blunder of
the protocols with Turkey which, if implemented, would have sold the
country and Karabagh down the pike. But for the diaspora’s firm
objections, the protocols would have been a disastrous reality for the
nation today.

This is a tragic situation!

While Armenia is plagued with institutionalized corruption and
misguided policies, the Armenian Diasporan governments that dominate
Armenian life and span the globe are handicapped. By constraint of
citizenship, they have to conduct themselves pari-passu with the host
country’s stance on issues and their official policies. Though sizable
Armenian communities live in Islamic countries, and despite the fact
that in some instances we have elected Members of Parliament, such as
in Iran, so far they have made no attempt to present their cause to
the Islamic world. For more than a decade now, the Conference of the
Islamic Countries has condemned Armenia year after year and sided with
Azerbaijan on the issue of Nagorno-Karabagh. Despite the fact that the
Arabs had the same fate as Armenians in the hands of the Ottomans
during World War I, still they do not recognize the massacres as
genocide.

Maybe our leaders are green, lacking a background in history,
education, experience, knowledge, and sobriety, not to mention
adherence to the principles of the founding Ungers. Maybe steering the
party away from its original purpose of existence to a rationalized
political direction is the wrong path they are taking to reach the
nation’s goals. I am sure there are many other reasons for this
mediocre performance, even lack of it, which could be discussed
another time.

This is the situation as it exists; however, it is my firm belief that
the nation, which is rich with intellectual capabilities and talent
and regenerative powers, is capable of reforming itself, and
mobilizing all its forces to fend all kinds of threats to its being
and existence.

We need a new compass!