In the first article of this series we discussed the fragility of the Armenian national identity and the distorted perception of ourselves on the example of the artificial and treacherous division of Armenia and Artsakh. No matter how painful the following may be, it is time to return to the third pillar of the Armeniancy – Spyurk (Armenian communities abroad).
One does not have to be an avid Marxist to agree that existence defines consciousness. So, what does the existence of the vast majority of the relatively active stratum of the Armenian world look like now – in between of work and family concerns of their foreign everyday life? News and assessments of the situation on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, Instagram, or party-owned mass media for breakfast, from time to time ‘elections’ between Nikol Pashinyan and Robert Kocharyan at family gatherings, a series of tragic events every April, a summer trip to Armenia with the purchase of the Turkish souvenirs at the ‘Vernissage’ in Yerevan, toasts to Armenia for the New Year, a couple of calls and emails to their representatives in parliament, when Armenia once again finds itself at the direct gunpoint of its neighbours… This list is hardly worth continuing. For, even if more items are performed in someone’s community bingo, this is hardly a reason for joy and consolation.
As in the previous article on this topic, we do not lay the blame on Armenians, who fell victim to this behavioural model imposed on them by republican and community ‘elites’. Despite the alien and treacherous winds, these people carried the value of preserving the Armenian identity and connection with the Armenian national and state project. Alas, for many, this value was measured by big words, limited humanitarian projects, and hundreds (or thousands, millions) of dollars – but not deeds. Many of the most famous representatives of the Armenian world continue to ignore the openly collaborationist policy of Pashinyan’s regime, shake the treacherous hands of the Turkish Sultan’s governors in Yerevan and applaud their presentations against the background of the symbol of ‘Real Armenia’ – Mount Aragats.
However, the purpose of this article is not to teach Armenians to ‘love their Homeland properly’. The author of this article does not claim to have this divine skill either. For too long, the Armenian communities scattered all over the world have been deprived of the examples of leadership and sacrifice in the name of the Armenian statehood, which also means being deprived of the continuation of the Armenian history. The leaders of the Third Republic tried too hard to discourage Spyurk from having any desire to relate to Armenia and the Armeniancy. In the circumstances that have developed both in Armenia and in the communities, the desire to remain Armenian, which means faith in the inviolability of the Armenian historical heritage and the willingness to support such fellow believers, is already a huge contribution to the future of Armenians and Armenia as a political entity.
Problem lies elsewhere. Due to the almost universal lack of a holistic and consistent understanding of our historical heritage, such passionaries unwittingly spend valuable resources and energy on preserving and maintaining false stereotypes and internally contradictory identities. Ultimately, this cannot but lead not only to the waste of valuable assets and liabilities, but also to frustration, disappointment and their distancing from Armenia, Armenians and everything Armenian.
Love for the Homeland is a bright and wonderful feeling, but contrary to popular beliefs about love, it cannot be ‘blind’. What many (not all!) Armenians from Spyurk call and explain as love for the Homeland is, in the best case, an attempt to be a part of something not fully understandable, in the worst case – an intention to boost their own ego or profit from the ‘aborigines’.
We will not list the stereotypes that many Armenians from Spyurk reproduce about ‘local’ Armenians – the main physical guarantors of the Armenian statehood’s existence as such. Greed, laziness, and corruption are a classic set for any community, not just Armenian ones. Of course, such ideas are not unfounded, but we have seen how deplorable their results can be, if one comes to terms with them, on the example of the legacy of the legendary Kerk Kerkorian.
Let us agree that it is easy to pay off a lifetime debt to the Homeland by investing a pretty penny in it, but not one’s own time, and then be very surprised that investments have improved the lives of only a handful of officials, and not thousands or hundreds of thousands of compatriots. It is easy to blame the corrupt government and the people tolerating it (who, actually, have not seen proper self-government and good governance for many centuries). It is much easier to then accuse these people of perceiving Armenians from Spyurk as walking wallets, along with the authorities that seized the state apparatus. It is much more difficult to allocate time and direct one’s expertise and experience to become a reference point rather than a purse, to invest not in short-term benefits, but in nation- and state-building, in sustainable institutions and in the fight against those, who prevent Armenians from loving their Homeland even from afar.
So, what is Homeland? As terrible as it may sound nowadays, it is a real country with real problems of real people. It is the extent, to which these people have felt rejected for decades, that today helps the Turkish Commandant Pashinyan not only promote the shameful concept of the ‘Real Armenia’ motel, but also effectively shut up caring Armenians from Spyurk, exposing them as idealists, hopeless romantics and opportunists, who want to sacrifice local Armenians to their own ideas of beauty. Homeland means every Armenian, regardless of their region of origin, party affiliation, and the standard or dialect of the Armenian language they use.
Of course, Homeland is pleased when its abusers are prevented from promoting themselves at Disney. It cares, even though another American state or European city’s recognition of the Armenian Genocide is useless – after all, small steps are taken for the sake of the goal still stated in the Declaration of Independence of Armenia. Homeland remembers the contribution to the liberation of Artsakh.
But, alas, a significant part of the Homeland has been lost and is under threat, while thousands of young men have died because at the time our famous idols chose to remain silent, simply send money, and get off with publishing a hashtag on social media – instead of systematically working in the interests of the Armenian statehood. The losses were suffered not only by the residents of Armenia and Artsakh, but also by you – Armenian in Spyurk. There is no more victory, thanks to which, generations later, you remembered what it meant to feel proud to be Armenian; there are no more great plans that have motivated you to devote time to your people and heritage; the state, which was designed to protect this heritage and guarantee its transmission to your grandchildren, has been almost completely dismantled. If you hope that they will get acquainted with it from the books and manuscripts that you left in libraries around the world, you are mistaken: Azerbaijanis and Turks are gradually destroying them, getting off with only fines for carelessness and ‘forgetfulness’.
Robert Kocharyan is known as a dictator, Nikol Pashinyan is a synonym for war and wedge, but what unites them, among other things, is what a convenient and convincing excuse both of them provided for Armenians of Spyurk not to even consider life in Armenia and not to change it for the better. Thus, both they and Serzh Sargsyan continued the tradition of Levon Ter-Petrosyan, where the Armenian communities are not equal partners in state-building, but only donors to a bottomless barrel of deficit budgets and internal kickbacks.
There is always the ‘wrong leader’ and the ‘wrong time’ for repatriation in the country, and they will not appear and will not come until the best minds and hearts of the Armenian world form the institution of a transnational political nation and take responsibility for the Armenian state.
Only a true national aristocracy can prevent the next and final stage of the Armenian Genocide – the closure of the Armenian Question. In order to give an Armenian answer to the Armenian Question, first of all, it is necessary to consciously and sincerely answer the question of who we are to each other and why we need a united Armenian state. It is time to overcome ourselves and our own comfort zone, where Armenians are poor, unhappy, defenceless and bereft of allies – and to prevent a new tragedy. Armenia is doomed to have a reliable natural ally – an organised and state-centred Armenian world, or sink into oblivion.
