Peter Balakian, Professor of Humanities at Colgate University, recently wrote a thought-provoking commentary, titled: “A Broken Connection: The Armenian Financial Community and the Making of Culture.”
In his article, Balakian deplores the Armenian-American community’s failure to support a proposed Armenian Genocide
exhibit at the Illinois Holocaust Museum, on the eve of the Genocide Centennial in 2015.
The exhibit, “The Shadow of Mount Ararat: The Armenian Genocide,” would have been in display not only at the Illinois Holocaust Museum — the second largest such institution in the United States — but also throughout the country, and possibly in Europe and South America.
Balakian expresses his disappointment that the Chicago Armenian community could not raise the necessary $600,000 to fund the project, resulting in the cancellation of the planned exhibit. In his view, this incident “reflects a larger failure of the Armenian community in the United States to create culture, by which I mean: to use financial means to conceive and engineer cultural production.” Balakian believes that Armenian-Americans “have almost nothing to show in the domain of cultural production and representation in the mainstream.” With few exceptions, “Armenians have created no mainstream cultural foundations, museums, [and] performing arts centers.”
Balakian complains that “the Armenian financial community has not been able to bring to fruition one feature film about the Armenian Genocide or other aspects of Armenian history.” He quotes a Jewish scholar who told him: “There seems to be a disconnect between the Armenian business community and the Armenian arts community; the business people don’t see that investing in the arts is investing in the core continuity of Armenian civilization. Investing in the community’s culture should be understood as a celebration of the life of Armenians past and present, something that the Turkish perpetrators tried to extinguish. This is certainly the philosophy of a lot of Jewish investment in Jewish arts. It’s a ‘f-you Hitler’ attitude.”
While I share Balakian’s concerns, I would like to express some additional thoughts regarding this important topic:
1) Most Armenian benefactors prefer to contribute and attach their names to tangible brick and mortar projects like churches and schools rather than more abstract endeavors such as public relations and the arts. Yet, everyone should realize that wealthy Armenians are entitled to spend their hard-earned money as they see fit. It’s their money and they decide how to spend it!
2) The needs of the Armenian Diaspora and the Armenian Republic are so massive that it is practically impossible for even generous benefactors to satisfy everyone’s demands.
3) There are no established mechanisms to prioritize the community’s need and assess their merit. Benefactors and charitable organizations are bombarded with requests to fund movies, publications, artwork, aid to Armenia, monuments, memorials, churches, schools and orphanages. Few benefactors have the time and expertise to judge the quality and utility of the proposed projects in so many diverse fields.
4) Projects are sometimes funded not on merit, but on the basis of the personal relationship between the donor and the recipient. It could boil down to who is doing the asking!
5) Even though Armenians are quite generous in supporting their community organizations, the requests often outstrip the available funds. One cannot name a single category of needs that receives adequate funding, including social, cultural, religious, political, athletic, and humanitarian activities. Can anyone say that there are sufficient funds to:
— Print all the books that are worthy of publication?
— Digitize ancient manuscripts and other valuable archival materials before they are lost forever?
— Produce professionally-made movies and documentaries on the Armenian Genocide and other topics?
— Fund Genocide Centennial projects?
— Provide funds for electing political candidates who endorse Armenian issues?
— Support concerts, art exhibits, museums, medical, scientific and countless other worthy projects?
— Meet the basic needs for the survival of Syrian Armenians, and the poor and needy in Armenia, Artsakh and the Diaspora?
Donors could certainly do more to support the seemingly endless needs of Armenians worldwide. However, a mechanism must first be established to prioritize the various needs, judge their merit, and make a professional presentation to potential donors. Finally, after the donation is made, periodic reports on the progress of the project must be given to the donor, demonstrating that the allocated funds are being properly spent to accomplish the promised objectives.
Harut Sassounian
In the course of the past decades many families, individuals, and organizations have succeeded in accumulating wealth and success. As a national group, however, Armenians have yet to wake up from the stupor of the orchestrated Turkish Genocide.
So far, we have failed to create a sustainable bridge between the business and art communities to build/rebuild our nation.
Prof. Balakian deplores the Armenian-American community’s failure to support a proposed Armenian Genocide museum, while Sassounian hails benefactors, as he lists some of the reasons why they generally give.
Should we remember that:
We face insurmountable challenges paused by Turkey’s stolen wealth and brain drain;
We lack dedicated spiritual leaders like Khrimian Hairig.
We lack Jewish and Zionist style understatement to build/rebuild our nation.
We lack political leadership and diplomacy.
We could and would have successfully built on the wealth and leadership we had until the Genocide, to benefit the nation and outshine other successful nations.
Rather than blame/accuse, and/or analyze results, let us remember that the longer we take (more than 100 years?) to “wake up”, the more we will forget the needs of a viable Armenian nationhood.
Diaspora Armenian communities display the same insularity that the Armenian enclave in Jerusalem displays. Activities are focused upon churches and schools catering exclusively to Armenian students. Those of us raised in Protestant or Catholic non-Armenian churches, are able to realize how inward-looking disporan Armenian communities are directed. Almost all prominent disporan government officials have come from the Armenian Protestant and Catholic communities. The Apostolic churches need to leave the 4th century and transcend the modus operandi fostered by centuries of victimization by foreigners. A “circle the wagons” mentality does not foster dissemination of our struggle for justice.
What Mr. Sassounian is suggesting sounds like centralized planning! It’s not gonna happen, thank god (we’re not living in Stalin’s times after all).
Every benefactor has to decide on the merits of their donations using, certainly, proper presentation and reasons for a project from people who are requesting the money.
But the fact is the Armenian rich or not so rich do not live or die for Armenians or Armenia. As a matter of fact, great majority of Armenians do not live or die for Armenians or Armenia. They simply go about their every day life. But since that every day life is in a foreign country, their activities benefit that foreign country.
If Armenians lived in Armenia and went about their daily life that would have organically, naturally, benefitted Armenians and Armenia without anyone having to think about any of that.
What I am trying to say is that the issue, the problem is deeper. The likes of Mr. Sassounian (this is not meant to be a negative criticism of him, it’s an observation) need to think deeper about the Armenian issues. This is a problem of living in the Diaspora and not living in Armenia. We need thinkers who would be willing to think deeply and to think on the foundational issues, not just on the superficial issues, facing us Armenians.
It is the only way to get out of the predicament facing us as a nation.
I fully agree with prof, Peter Balakian’s appreciations about the poor interessement of today\s armenians with the art.
Pure art with his performance it’s not only our past and present. It is a fundamental message to pass to generations to come in future.
Unfortunately nowadays two kind of armenians are existing worldwide :
the first is Homo Sovieticus , the second Homo Mercatus.
We have seen the rise and fall of the Imperium of Evil. That’s for sure that someday it will happen the crash of ” The american dream ”
Awaiting in the meantime the birth of ” The new armenian ” that I will call ” Homo Prunus Armenicus ” as the third color of our Tricolor.