Editor’s Note: Alex Agabap, a member of the AYF New Jersey “Arsen” Chapter, was one of six winners in the 2022 Junior Seminar Council AYF Camp Haiastan Campership Essay Competition. The winners were announced at Junior Seminar late last month. The winning authors received prize money and publication of their essays in the Armenian Weekly. Agabap’s essay, which won second place in the older group (ages 15 to 16), answered the following prompt: How has the recent Artsakh War affected the global Armenian nation? Despite the Armenian Genocide being recognized, the results of the war are continuing. How do we feel as American Armenians?
Since the liberation of Artsakh in the early 1990s, Armenians everywhere have dreamt that one day, the Nagorno-Karabakh region could reunite with Armenia and bring us one step closer to our goal of a free, independent and united Armenia. However, the 2020 Artsakh War and the continued aggression of Azerbaijani military forces through violations of ceasefires have not only hampered those plans, but have also severely affected day-to-day life in both the Nagorno-Karabakh region and in Armenia proper. Although recent successes such as the effort to gain recognition for the Armenian Genocide invite cause for celebration, the impacts of the war look to be long lasting, making it obvious that there is far more work to be done.
Over the course of the war, tens of thousands of civilians in the Artsakh region have been forced to relocate to Armenia, as the war proved too violent and dangerous for them to stay in their homes. Observing from the comfort of my home, through the blurred lens of a news article or Instagram story, it is nearly impossible to understand what these families endured. Not only were they forced from their homes, but the war left them for months without a steady source of income or a timetable for when they could return. On a much larger scale, territorial losses in the war have brought about glaring issues that will continue to affect life in the region. For example, a majority of the region’s hydroelectric plants, which provided the high energy quality as well as independence, are now under the control of Azerbaijan, forcing the region to look for new alternatives to fix its power supply problem. These are the kinds of issues that will quite possibly continue to affect life for Armenians in the region for years to come.
The war also created a lasting impact on Armenian politics. The war took a relatively inexperienced and fragile government, already preoccupied with countless domestic issues, and thrust it into the blazing fire of attempting to navigate a major military conflict against a formidable opponent with sizable advantages. In just a few short weeks, the state of Armenian politics completely changed leaving the nation lost and confused. While Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s pre-war policies were far from perfect, his actions during the war, especially the decision to sign the ceasefire agreement that resulted in major territorial losses, only magnified the shortcomings of his regime as opposition toward him continued to grow and has resulted in continued calls for his resignation.
Throughout this rough and confusing period, there have been successes that are worthy of celebration. The official recognition by President Biden as well as all 50 US states of the Armenian Genocide are massive wins for the Armenian community. While this recognition is great, it is hard to ignore that the politicians who supported these resolutions are also the same ones turning a blind eye to the US State Department’s continued financial and military support of Azerbaijan providing them with the confidence and willpower to continue to violate ceasefire agreements and commit war crimes against the Armenian people. As an Armenian American, I am outraged to see people from my homeland with such a rich history and culture get treated as second class citizens. I begin to question the validity of the morals of the very country that I have grown up in. How could a nation that prides itself on being the “police officer of the world” encourage this sort of behavior? How could a country whose founding principles were based on the belief that everyone should be afforded the same natural rights, stand by and let this happen to any group of people, much less my people? It is obvious that major world players such as the US continue to play both sides of conflicts across the globe, only intervening out of their own self-interest. It is time to turn our support to those who we believe will stand for what is right and take action not only with regards to aiding Armenia, but in any issue across the globe.
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