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Garen Yegparian

Garen Yegparian

Asbarez Columnist
Garen Yegparian is a fat, bald guy who has too much to say and do for his own good. So, you know he loves mouthing off weekly about anything he damn well pleases to write about that he can remotely tie in to things Armenian. He's got a checkered past: principal of an Armenian school, project manager on a housing development, ANC-WR Executive Director, AYF Field worker (again on the left coast), Operations Director for a telecom startup, and a City of LA employee most recently (in three different departments so far). Plus, he's got delusions of breaking into electoral politics, meanwhile participating in other aspects of it and making sure to stay in trouble. His is a weekly column that appears originally in Asbarez, but has been republished to the Armenian Weekly for many years.
Garen Yegparian

Latest posts by Garen Yegparian (see all)

4 Comments

  1. Hey Garen,
    You say that ”Culture is of course another grave concern—art, church (unfortunately this too must be included since it has become the repository for many things Armenian that predate its existence) […] and values (particularly those that are specific to us rather than Christian or village-life based), yerazahan (our dream interpreting book).”
    Why do you say unfortunately? What are these values that you are talking about which are specific to us rather than Christian? Complete non-sense…
    A reminder to you, it is thanks to the Church that the Armenian people exist today. It was the Church which created the Armenian alphabet as a means to avoid the Armenian people being assimilated into one of the two camps (Byzantine and Persian) which were occupying and had split the historical homeland in two. Without the Church’s efforts, we would have been assimilated into either camp and today we would be calling ourselves Turks.
    Good old traditional Armenian values are Christian values, certainly not those of our pagan ancestors who worshipped stones, fire and had a loose sexuality like we see in America today.
    You refer to traces of the “if you don’t speak Armenian, you’re not Armenian” mindset, but truly, if you are not a Christian, you are not an Armenian.
    And if you haven’t forgotten, we were persecuted during the Genocide not because of our language, alphabet and DNA, but because we were Christian. We paid a high price to retain our cherished Christian religion and values, so you should revisit your anti-Christian and anti-Church bias if you want to inspire your compatriots.

  2. “We have always said we have to “maintain” or “preserve” these. That’s a tough one. With few exceptions, these components of culture are all fluid and evolving.”

    Yes it is tough, but if one does not preserve ones ethnic group identity and ethnic consciousness, then they as a group will become disunited and in disarray. A homogenous and hive-like mind is key to success. Just look at Japan for example. No one there is saying that speaking Japanese should not be a prerequisite to living in Japan leg alone working there. As an Armenisn it is imperative that you speak Armenian. Just even for the sake of proving the Turks wrong. Armenian’s tongue’s were cut out in Turkey if they spoke their mother tongue in public. Why would Armeniand in the free west no speak Armenian. It’s s disgrace.

    Culture should not be ultra fluid, but should be fairly consistent and have a protective quarantine around it. Just look at what Sweden is facing now- a cultural genocide of sorts, be used it doesn’t phasise that foreigners learn Swedish and states that anyone born in sweden is Swedish even if they don’t speak the language or have a vastly different culture from the native swedes. Don’t promote this crap for Armenia.

  3. When I was young I went every Sunday to the Armanian church in Paris
    with my grand’mother. Now I live far from any armenan church. I am 92
    years orld. I am grand mother. My children are very goog but but they do not go to any church. Il feel like an orphan.

  4. That “unfortunately” addition is the writer’s assumption that his readers are as anti-Christian as he is. According to Khorenatsi, we were barbarians before Christianity and there is no reason to doubt this. Our atheist or pagan intellectuals have brought us nothing but destruction since the 19th century.

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