Borderline Beads
I have a fascination with borders. Movement, escape, freedom, confinement, walls, death, the Rio Grande River, and legal and illegal crossings, are just some of the realities that hover around and on borders. Generally, a border is a fine line where a high level of intense activity occurs, not only geopolitically, but emotionally and socio-culturally as well. I see the idea of a borderline as a contradictory space of both possibility and containment.
As scattered beads living throughout the Armenian Diaspora on surrogate lands, I feel as though we often find ourselves on various borderlines. On a daily basis, Armenians, like other ethnic communities trying to hang on, are confronted with dominating cultures and influences, integration vacuums, tempting distractions, and especially an ingrained (either assumed or rejected) struggle to preserve ones Armenian culture and identity. In this sense, assimilation, emancipation, and cultural conservation are just some of the phenomena unfolding separately or sometimes simultaneously on a virtual borderline for us diasporans.
Already a subscriber?Log in here
This story is FREE for you...
Create a free account to access this and four more articles, and get more sent to you with our e-newsletter.By submitting your email address you agree for Hairenik Association, Inc. to send you communication by email.
very true, very interesting, very well expressed! I very much enjoyed it Lalai, keep it up!
Ahhh, a breath of freash air. Opennes and borderless. Lalai, your instincts and your voice are bang on! I hope this column is well read and distributed.
Congratulations on being ‘YOU’… we are all greatful and lucky.
Cheers!
Elize
The concept of beads is insightful and the tone of your thoughts bright and lively. And beautiful name, Lalai. The beauty of the beads is in their veriaty and the fact that each is formed under different environmental conditions; exposure, pressures, depth of origin etc. that define their color, texture and complexity. While they seem scattered there is an invisible string loosely keeping them together. The string is what drives you to write what you have written. There is no such thing as an optimal number or critical mass of parameters that determine “Armenianness” or any “otherness”. History, culture, homeland, and language are all resources that you can absorb to the extant of your breath. The measure is individual enrichment and complexity. Learn to be and be all you can.
Great read, fascinating elaboration of the invisible borders in our lives, of being Armenian.
My current fascination of borders involves those in the world which are unnatural: the afghan/pakistan border splitting the Pashtun, the pakistan/india border splitting the Punjab, the Shia muslims split between Iraq/Iran. This hits close to home to as our border with Azherbejian splits Armenians from Nagarno-Kharabah. The common thread between all these borders: remnants of imperialism. It will be interesting to see how these border will continue in the future, as I doubt they will remain so.
Look forward to the next article.