Garen Mouths Off
Population Matters
The matter of how many people live on Armenian controlled land has been something I’ve wanted to address for quite some time. Yerevan’s recently enacted increase in benefits to families having more children provides just the context needed to broach this subject.
All the jokes about size mattering are no laughing matter when it comes to population. Without enough people, a country cannot have a strong military, a very pressing aspect of life for the Republic of Armenia given its hostile and belligerent neighbors. Intellectual life, innovation, cultural development and progress also rely on having a larger base of people for support.
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NIce Garen: and in the Diaspora like here we keep saying there are 1 million or 1.5 million Armenians while the US census–one of the most accurate in the world–says there are 493,000….which sounds more accurate to many people, if you look at our strong but spread out achievements as a people.
That being said Garen, I am a bit shocked at the comment “let’s not buy luxury cars, let’s have more than two children.” I currently have none. How many do you have???:)
P.S. : The UN Population Office in Yerevan predicts that the population of Armenia will be 1.8 Million in 2100.
Thank you Garen for including official data. Looking at the table we see that the worst birth rate since the 1950’s occurred during the Levon Ter Petrossian years and the best birthrate since the 1950s occurred immediately after LTP during Robert Kocharyan’s years. The recovery under Kocharyan from bad to good was colossal in 1998 and continued to improve until Serz Sarkisyan ruined things. The Artsakh ceasefire was signed in May 1994 when we were absolute victors which raised the nation’s morale and pride yet the birthrate continued to plummet for the next 4 years until LTP was finally evicted. The misery and poverty that occurred during LTPs years was largely artificially induced when electricity generated was sold over the border while the locals froze to death, the factories and mines were plundered and looted and food & fuel supplies were deliberately cut. Incidently the largest portion of the 1.2 Million emigrants occurred during those LTP years.
Yet what have we done as a collective people? We have voted the right-hand man of LTP back into office and we have imprisoned the one president that truly gave Armenia and economic recovery. Don’t believe me? Study the data, not just the one shown in this article but all the official data. The emigration rate actually reversed and Armenia saw a rise in population during Kocharyan’s time. Armenia recorded unprecedented economic growth and went through a construction boom, the likes of which we haven’t seen since.
Which brings me to to my final point – people don’t emigrate or stop having children only due to poverty. They do so because they lack hope in the future of the country. If Armenians remain politically illiterate and emotion driven animals that continue to be manipulated by negative forces then the hope in a positive future will not develop. At the moment I dont see any hope of reversing that trend.
And don’t be fooled by the so-called recent drop in emigration rates. The 40,000 Indians entering the country every year with thousands of them given official residence in Armenia don’t count. From February onwards the same will apply to the Chinese since the visa regimes have been liberalised from Jan 21st. In the last calendar year 37,000 Armenians left Armenia for good. Check to bloody data and don’t listen to the lies this government is telling you