Restructuring the Armenian Diaspora – Part 2

NORAYR EBLIGHATIAN

The Importance of the Armenian Diaspora

It is interesting that the Armenian government through a number of successive administrations (and this last administration in particular) have stressed the importance of the Armenian Diaspora. Now some ‘cynics’ will immediately point to the self-interest factor involved in this approach, and I understand that. It is the function of these administrations to seek help from all sources possible for their nation-building effort. They also ask for support from European states, the Russian government and even from the Georgian government.

If we start from the premise of the interrelationship of Armenia-Diaspora-Artsakh and their mutual support for survival and consolidation; then paying attention to the Diaspora is a pressing concern. Diaspora-1 is showing signs of age and fracturing of its structural integrity. At the same time, there are some units e.g. France, Western US and Canada that are in a revival stage.

The Armenian Diaspora is as important to the survival of our nation as Artsakh is for Armenia. I understand that some ultra-nationalists believe that Armenian independence would be jeopardized if we are forced to secede Artsakh, because of geopolitical reasons. But a similar rationale would make the Diaspora into a vital constituent of the Armenian nation. The Diaspora is the reservoir for human resources with multinational knowledge and experience. Very few nation-states have such an asset. Furthermore, we live in an age of mass media and the Diaspora has potential beyond Armenia itself in expounding our narrative.

Some Remedies & Prescriptions

It is immediately apparent that different clusters have different challenges and one solution does not fit all. My immediate focus is the question: Can we introduce structural changes to resolve some of the challenges we are facing in the Diaspora clusters? In other words, what would be the structure of Diaspora-2?

Let’s focus on specific examples of the Middle Eastern cluster which is on the verge of collapse and no traditional approaches seem to even slow this disintegration. One is reminded with Albert Einstein’s quote that says, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”

1. Our schools are getting weaker and are not self-sustaining anymore.
   1. The raison d’être of schools is to teach Armenian language and develop a community with common values.
   1. Traditional schools are based on population density and thrive when their education quality is high (at least compared to other local schools). When either of these 2 factors are non-existent, school attendance drops and the economy of scale is gone.
   1. The Asset ownership of these schools, the administration and overseeing educational organizations are a maze themselves. Do they belong to the church? Are they supervised by political parties?
2. We can start with consolidating the core Armenian curriculum of our schools and publish common regional educational material. This way, even home schooling can be achieved.
3. We can utilize internet information communication platforms by developing e-schools, where even a Hamshen family (or a family in Massachusetts USA) can teach their children. And the curriculum does not have to be restricted to school age children; it can also cover the needs of adults with different levels of language proficiency.
4. Our traditional media (newspapers) have lost readership and are on the verge of collapse.
5. Our traditional media was erected during the cold war competition. However, the cold war is over and the Berlin wall fell down in 1989. Do we need so many party organs in every Middle Eastern country? I am trying not to make a derogatory remark about the content of our traditional media.
6. We can consolidate and modernize our media:
7. National events, news, and issues are common across all of them; therefore, a centralized staff can serve all these needs, while local bulletins can be addressed with much reduced personnel.
8. Digitization of our media should be the core platform of our media (not an afterthought).
   1. A Middle Eastern Armenian news portal will service all the constituents of Syrian, Lebanese and other Armenian media.
   1. Similarly, A North American Armenian news portal will service all the constituents of Eastern & Western USA plus Canada.
9. We can organize Diasporan trade unions, professional unions (including a Teacher Union) and other trans-Diasporan associations.
   1. These organizations can have their own web presence and help their constituents. For example, a family in England can seek an Armenian tutor in Lebanon (when the electricity gets stabilized) and conduct language tutoring sessions.
10. Our political, cultural and athletic organizations can start collaborating to produce higher quality public events. There is absolutely no reason left to clinging to a cold war mentality anymore.
    1. Which party will have the political courage to extend its arm in a reconciliation process? We do not need president Erdogan’s prodding to make proclamations of party and Armenian organizational solidarity. We need to do it in a calm environment with mutual respect and understanding.
    1. If political integration is ‘difficult’, what about cultural and athletic organizations? What stops us from combining our talents under one umbrella and producing higher quality cultural events. We were all proud of Ararat club in 1973 when they won the ‘Top League’ as well as the ‘Soviet Cup’. A combined athletic organization can elevate our athletic prowess to new heights.
11. Our Western Armenian literature is disappearing in front of us. Let’s start digitizing these myriads of volumes before they vanish completely. Book scanning technology is widespread and inexpensive. The suggestion is that each community select an author, a topic, or any grouping of books and digitize it. This decentralized approach to developing e-books can be leveraged by collecting all these digitized books in an e-library where our compatriots can download these books in pdf format (or other formats) to read.

More reform examples will not add substantial value to the proposition of reevaluating and restructuring our Diaspora. This is a long arduous process. Serious thought and the use of modern technologies can resolve some of our challenges, while others are unattainable.

Finally, we need to stop exporting our Diasporan assets to Armenia (AGBU comes to mind). This reference is about the liquidation of assets and transferring the proceeds to Armenia, as opposed to building new resources in Armenia. When the leadership of Armenia (with their governmental institutions) are stressing the need of the Diaspora as an entity for cross collaboration and mutual help; why are we disassembling assets that our forefathers took years and years to accumulate? What is the purpose of weakening the Diaspora any further?

Very simply, we can start working on the platform of a new, stronger Armenian Diaspora and that restructuring can start with collaboration, integration and renewed structures.

How can we erect the structure of Diaspora-2?