Pomposity to Mask Ineptitude

Yes, I’m sure Putin, Aliyev, and Pashinian arranged their schedules to coincide with the date of the summit, which was set in late August. Very suspicious, indeed!

And I’m sure the organizers of the summit sent invitations to individuals so that they could check their organizational allegiances at the door. Who would expect an individual to represent the interests of an organization, after all? (Not the ARF, I suppose…)

Perhaps there’s another dynamic at work here: Just maybe, the organizers didn’t invite organizations because many of them are (and have been for some time) pompous and discredited themselves. Let’s face it, otherwise decent people are often misled by the discredited and failed political and economic policies of these organizations who think of themselves as the saviors of Armenia. Individually, decent people may be quite willing to collaborate for a better future for Armenia without their organization to get in the way.

There’s more than enough foolishness to go around.

Lets face it . The old model of diaspora run by ARF-AGBU types is failing in the West and is not helping Armenia very much. It is not surprising that past Armenian diaspora conferences have not been very useful. It may have worked in the Middle East in the past where society was run along sectarian lines and opportunities for economic development were limited. Those organizations may have been run by “those with principled, consistent, ideas, positions and approaches”, full of political rhetoric but short on economic development. How does that help an Armenian growing up today in LA or Paris? How does that help Armenia survive against Turkey/Azerbaijan? We need much greater financial resources than what is currently being generated by volunteer donations and telethons. Recently the Armenian government announced a budget of 6 billion dollars for 2023. Surely the diaspora’s goal could be to generate one tenth of that number i.e 600 million dollars per year. This can come from voluntary taxes on every Armenian and also donations from large corporations. In return Armenians can expect services such as high quality Armenian schools and universities, and communities where people can grow and meet each other to form families. These funds can also be used for capital improvement projects in Armenia in collaboration with the government. Such a world wide organization , which is actually the combinations of many national entities representing US, France, Russia etc, can also have representation in the Armenian parliament. So then the Armenian diaspora is not just talking heads, nor a talent pool nor volunteer fighters , but an actual economic engine that works side by side with the government. From economic power flows political, technical and defense power.