About a week ago, a friend of mine, who is not Armenian, made a comment about the Artsakh blockade and Armenia’s historical challenges with the Turks. He said these issues have been present for generations, and we should consider them “normal.” I would usually consider such a comment insensitive, but I knew he had a more substantive message.
On September 19, Armenians in the western hemisphere woke up to the news of another barbaric and criminal invasion of Artsakh by Azerbaijan. Give
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Artsakh is not just a failure of the current Armenian government, but it’s a failure of the Diaspora. We have been getting fat off of wealth and expensive toys out in the Diaspora. G-wagons. 150K dollar weddings. Ridiculously expensive jewelry and fashion accessories. And when it comes to Artsakh and Armenian situations we then complain or go stop a freeway and wave some flags around as if we are doing something to help. Losing NK for Azerbaijan in the 90s was a big wake up call and they did everything they could for 20+ years after to prepare to take it back. They earned it. We need to start changing our mindset about how Armenia should be managed not just internally from a failed government but also externally from a Diaspora that is extremely rich and extremely powerful and extremely large, but stuck on spending their money on personal unneeded items. Until that changes. Until we look ourselves in the mirror and realize our errors. We can’t expect a different outcome from what is happening now.
I was thinking on how we can leverage the diaspora. Citizenship should be granted to diaspora. But with an inverse tea party concept. No representation without taxation.
Azerbaijan has a defense budget of 3000 million usd per year. Armenia 800 million usd per year.
If 20% of diasporans become citizens and pay 1700 USD per year we could match Azerbaijani expenses. The 800 million in current budget could be redirected to internal affairs.
The Voting rights should be only for president who is to handle foreign affairs.
A diplomatic professional corps should be formed that depends on the president.
All domestic policies will remain with the prime minister.
There should be Benefits for diaspora citizens apart from Voting rights. Passport. Proactively seek for this to be a golden passport with no visas. Can part of the taxes be discounted in their home country? Network and justice system for members?
An axiom of international relations–the weak have no friends. The densest person could see that the first Artsakh War was just round one. Armenians did not invest the time and effort to build Armenia/Artsakh into a hardened target. Sure efforts were made but far less than possible. Many lament that the USA or France or the EU etc. have not invested the time and resources to save Armenia. It may provide some comfort to point the finger at others rather than face our own faults. Maybe if we had made the best possible effort to make Armenia a tough nut to crack then others would be more willing to invest their time, materials, and people in our defense. We all know it will not stop with Artsakh. Let’s hope Armenia and Armenians will rally to make defense the top priority as shown by actions not just words.
Brothers and sisters!
What’s with all the complaints and sadness? We won! We finally got what we wanted in 2018? Come on dear people dont, tell me you didn’t know who you were supporting back in 2018. We all knew who Nikol was back then. Remember his essays about Gharabagh and Russia going back to the early 2000s? Remember his role in trying to bring democracy to Armenia in 2008, hand in hand with our great statesman Levon Ter Petrosyan? We knew who our democratic prime minister Nikol was. We knew what our dear leader Nikol wanted. We voted for him not once but twice. Remember? So why are you all complaining now? The honest man did what he said he will do. We empowered him to do what he said he will do. We democratically elected our great and glorious leader Nikol Pashinyan not once but TWICE for two purposes – free Armenia from the 30 year old proble called Gharabagh and free Armenia from those oppressive and utterly undemocratic Russians.
Forget that little troubled region called Gharabagh, it was just a headache. Gharabagh stopped Armenians from being happy with their wonderful neughbors. Wake up. The real problem Armenia has is Russia. We need to make friends with Turks and unite with the civilized world (i.e. freedom and democracy loving West) and defeat aggressor Russia. Anyone watching BBC and CNN to see what’s going on in the world? Russia wants to takeover the whole world and stop all people from being westernized and happy. Putler (i.e. Putin+Hitler=Putler) must be stopped – now! Armenia must be liberated from Russia – now! This is the most important thing in the universe – now!
Our freedom loving and democratically elected leader Nikol Pashinyan started the process to free Armenia from Russian rule in 2018 with all our help, but the poor man is not done yet. So please stop the silly complaining and protests and just let our duly elected, freedom loving and enlightened Pashinyan finish his sacred work of freeing Armenia of its Gharabagh problem and start valiantly fighting the Russian Bear, side by side with our freedom and democracy loving brothers and sisters in Slava Ukraine!
This is simply not the time to complain and protest. Besides, we won. Rememner? We won! We got what we wanted in 2018. We got what we wanted in 2020. We got what we wanted in 2021. Now, just relax and let our wonderful prime minister finish his work. There will be plenty of time afterwards to protest Armenia’s and Gharabagh’s disappearance from the world and feed and shelter Armenian refugees.