The 30 years of Armenian independence have been at best bittersweet for the global Armenian nation. The euphoria of sovereignty was short lived as the geopolitical reality of Turkish aggression was immediately highlighted with the Artsakh liberation struggle. The windows of freedom for Armenians have been limited and unpredictable. Who would have forecast the First
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The 10 million dollar question: How to facilitate unity. A united Armenia cant be stopped. But at the same time a united Armenia, Artsakh and Diaspora cant seem to get started. I have always said lets start a system where diaspora youth can serve a 2-4 year service in the Armenian Artsakh army. At first I believed many would join. It would create a large body of combat ready trained army. Many would stay and repopulate after service. And image the support from the diaspora like non other, when your kids are on the front lines? But would you enlist in a Pashinyan run military? Hardly. Hes a proven loser. Almost purposeful but again after the last year of blunder its clear he isn’t that intelligent to pull that off. With all the divisions in the diaspora however, it still seems clear that most all of the diaspora’s intentions are the well being of Armenia proper. The diaspora isn’t looking to enrich themselves at Armenia’s expense. Hardly. Yes the diaspora does include justice for the genocide which Armenia proper unfortunately doesn’t seem to have the stomach for and actually views it as a detriment. Would Israel not care about the Holocaust? How absurd. Again just more division. Armenia’s divisions seems based on whose going to be politically in charge as an avenue to enrich themselves. This is not a diaspora inclusive mentality sorry to say. Even worse Pashinyan currently has avoided going to Artsakh at all, at the request of Azerbaijan. Image that? It seems Arstakh’s well being isn’t included in Armenia proper’s current landscape.. SO again how do we unite this? Where do we start? That is the question.
I enjoy reading your articles because they are hopeful in a time where things seem hopeless. Thank you.
The short answer is that most Armenians do not have a national vision of a worldwide diaspora united and working with the Armenian state. Otherwise they would have developed such structures during the past 100 years and especially during the past 30 years after independence. I thought that Darwinian survival instincts would have kicked in after the 1915 genocide and made Armenians work together, but instead they wasted their energies fighting ideological battles that ultimately had nothing to do with national survival. We have organizations such as AGBU, ARS, Armenia Fund , COAF etc but they are mainly focused on philanthropy rather than state building in Armenia or building community structures in diaspora. Now, there are belated calls and attempts, for example the essay by Dr. Arshavir Gundjian ( The Armenian Mirror Spectator , Jan 14, 2022), and the call for a diasporic parliament by Mr Harout Sassounian. (HyeID, Dec 13, 2021). I think that it is imperative that Armenians work together to strengthen Armenia and their diaspora communities, otherwise we will lose Armenia and become stateless like the Kurds.
Yet another good article by Piligian, thought provoking and nationalistic. Thank you very much for your optimism. We greatly need it.Yes it is very true that we as a nation like to act as the victim and blame other nations for their lack of support in our hour of need. We are not alone in this. All nations behave similarly, yet they go on to solve their problem and emerge victorious at the end or perish.Now that we have diagnosed our problem we are half way there. Let’s do something positive about it for a change. We in the diaspora are in a little position to do much about it to influence homeland politics because we suffer from the same problem of divisionism. Our various political parties need to have the same common vision of “unity brings power”. Our party leaders should take that leap of faith and advocate national unity to their counterparts in the diaspora. Once we in the diaspora speak with one voice the homeland will listen because so far we have been talking in cross purposes and the homeland didn’t know who to listen to. We also need to offer our services to the homeland collectively as well. These should include financial, technical, business, tactical, political etc to mention a few. We have these expertise in the diaspora and the scientists to design and produce world class weaponry ourselves in Armenia so we are not dependant on others’ charity or political gains. Our moto should be “one for all and all for our homeland”. Let’s take a leaf from other nations who have achieved this where the diaspora has singular loyalty to their homeland. Once we achieve this the homeland will take us seriously and invite us to the “round table” for diaspora/ homeland talks and inclusive politics.