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QUO VADIS... ?
http://hetq.am/eng/opinion/27106/quo-vadis--?.html
10:51, June 6, 2013
The latest fashionable trend , in the odd Armenian world - Village
of Asterixian, fragmented and spread around the entire planet -,
is to open wide your mouth and your terrified eyes, and to hit your
knees with your palms, crying that Armenia is being emptied from its
population, because of massive emigration.
The paradox, in this industry of lamentations, is that it is riding
on some Grand Ideas and Big Principles which could easily compete
with Sassountsi Tavit's Kourkig Tchalali, but at the same time,
it pretends to be situated on the most realistic, clear-headed,
close-to-the-people level. The contradiction is that, for those
pathological weepers or professional cry-babies, said Ideas and
Principles should especially exclude any notion of patriotism, thus
considering that the latter is not only obsolete, old-fashioned and
laughable, but downright irrelevant.
In this false debate, this abstract - and intellectually fratricide
- extreme fighting, for which the Armenians hold the secret recipe
(just like the one for the magic potion), what is missing is a serene
analysis, based on modern and contemporary, historic realities,
on irrefutable facts.
Lebanon, 1975 to 1986. An endless, infernal civil war. In the absence
of an independent Armenia at that time, the Armenian community of that
country - which had actually ceased to be one - decided, resolutely,
to stay.
Can anyone really pretend that the conditions in which the majority
(in fact, the quasi-totality ) of the Armenians of Lebanon were
living during that period, were better than those of the Armenians
of Armenia, today... ? No work, no school, shortage of everything -
often including even bread -, lack of water, gas and electricity,
continuous shooting and bombings, kidnapping, torture, rape,
confiscation of belongings, invasion of properties, looting, a totally
dark and clogged future... They stayed. The largest majority put up
with it, endured, and knowingly decided that they shall not leave,
they shall not run away, they shall not abandon.
Why? Because they assessed that the survival and the future of the
nation dictated it. Considering the particular specificity of that
community during that era, this was actually true, on several levels.
Even today, the same phenomenon is happening with Syria. The logic
is less true, since there is Armenia now. But it is the same idea,
the same principle, the same profound conviction. Somewhere between
stoicism and patriotism. When the sense of collective interest
supersedes obtuse individualism. Despite horrifying conditions,
ultimate and daily risks and dangers, many are hanging on, and are
determined to stay. Even if that means losing their lives.
By studying the subject of emigration from Armenia from this point
of view, in the name of all those who, in every sense of the word,
sacrificed their lives in the Diaspora, for the love of the nation, and
also on behalf of all those who have chosen to renounce a substantial
portion of their tranquility, their comfort, their pleasures, their
personal affairs, their business, their career, their leisure and their
financial success, in foreign countries where they can very well relax,
enjoy their lives and prosper, without worrying about anything else,
and instead, have dedicated and devoted themselves to the painful and
laborious emergence of the Motherland, we are entitled to say to some
of our compatriots of Armenia: enough with the whining already. Love
her, or leave her.
Haytoug Chamlian, Montreal
June 06, 2013
From: A. Papazian
http://hetq.am/eng/opinion/27106/quo-vadis--?.html
10:51, June 6, 2013
The latest fashionable trend , in the odd Armenian world - Village
of Asterixian, fragmented and spread around the entire planet -,
is to open wide your mouth and your terrified eyes, and to hit your
knees with your palms, crying that Armenia is being emptied from its
population, because of massive emigration.
The paradox, in this industry of lamentations, is that it is riding
on some Grand Ideas and Big Principles which could easily compete
with Sassountsi Tavit's Kourkig Tchalali, but at the same time,
it pretends to be situated on the most realistic, clear-headed,
close-to-the-people level. The contradiction is that, for those
pathological weepers or professional cry-babies, said Ideas and
Principles should especially exclude any notion of patriotism, thus
considering that the latter is not only obsolete, old-fashioned and
laughable, but downright irrelevant.
In this false debate, this abstract - and intellectually fratricide
- extreme fighting, for which the Armenians hold the secret recipe
(just like the one for the magic potion), what is missing is a serene
analysis, based on modern and contemporary, historic realities,
on irrefutable facts.
Lebanon, 1975 to 1986. An endless, infernal civil war. In the absence
of an independent Armenia at that time, the Armenian community of that
country - which had actually ceased to be one - decided, resolutely,
to stay.
Can anyone really pretend that the conditions in which the majority
(in fact, the quasi-totality ) of the Armenians of Lebanon were
living during that period, were better than those of the Armenians
of Armenia, today... ? No work, no school, shortage of everything -
often including even bread -, lack of water, gas and electricity,
continuous shooting and bombings, kidnapping, torture, rape,
confiscation of belongings, invasion of properties, looting, a totally
dark and clogged future... They stayed. The largest majority put up
with it, endured, and knowingly decided that they shall not leave,
they shall not run away, they shall not abandon.
Why? Because they assessed that the survival and the future of the
nation dictated it. Considering the particular specificity of that
community during that era, this was actually true, on several levels.
Even today, the same phenomenon is happening with Syria. The logic
is less true, since there is Armenia now. But it is the same idea,
the same principle, the same profound conviction. Somewhere between
stoicism and patriotism. When the sense of collective interest
supersedes obtuse individualism. Despite horrifying conditions,
ultimate and daily risks and dangers, many are hanging on, and are
determined to stay. Even if that means losing their lives.
By studying the subject of emigration from Armenia from this point
of view, in the name of all those who, in every sense of the word,
sacrificed their lives in the Diaspora, for the love of the nation, and
also on behalf of all those who have chosen to renounce a substantial
portion of their tranquility, their comfort, their pleasures, their
personal affairs, their business, their career, their leisure and their
financial success, in foreign countries where they can very well relax,
enjoy their lives and prosper, without worrying about anything else,
and instead, have dedicated and devoted themselves to the painful and
laborious emergence of the Motherland, we are entitled to say to some
of our compatriots of Armenia: enough with the whining already. Love
her, or leave her.
Haytoug Chamlian, Montreal
June 06, 2013
From: A. Papazian