Vahe H. Abelian
A few days ago, on January 25, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met with representatives of the Armenian community of Switzerland. The meeting has lasted an hour, five minutes and few more seconds, based on the length of the video recording of the meeting, the Prime Minister posted on his Facebook page. I watched and listened the entire video, twice.
During the meeting, many issues were raised, such as Diaspora-Homeland relations, the need for school in the Diaspora as well as in Armenia, Armenian illiteracy in Diaspora as well as in Armenia, volunteering, the relations between the state and the church, as well as the need to study and understand our history.
As is his custom, the Prime Minister raised issues that, yes, we have not addressed in the Diaspora, such as the alarming exodus from the Diaspora. At first glance, it may seem surprising to claim exodus from Diaspora. The Armenians have a word for the entity that is beyond boarders of Armenia and that word is Ardasahman (արտասահման), which literally means beyond the border. An Armenian may live in ardasahman but may not be part of the Diaspora. The latter implies an entity made up of political, cultural, social, athletic, religious institutions. Indeed, the Diaspora has been experiencing an alarming exodus from Diasproa. There is precipitous decline everywhere, in church attendance, in joining Armenian cultural, social, atheletic organizaitons, in attending Armenian schools.
In terms of recognizing our history, the Prime Minister said the following, almost verbatim: “We need to go back to our history of genocide and understand what happened and why it happened and how we process it and from what sources we process it. How is it that there was no agenda for genocide in 1939, how is it that an agenda for genocide appeared in 1950?”
The Prime Minister alluding going back to our history, was a thirty seconds long reflection. It can be heard between 19 to 21 minutes of the video recording of that meeting. As to the time frame the PM alluded to, it is my impression that the Prime Minister meant the years of Stalinist dictatorship, during which genocide was apparently not on the agenda. Let us not forget that the dates the PM mentioned, 1939 -1950, coincide with the period of the brutal Stalinist persecution and its immediate aftermath.
A few days later, the Armenian diaspora journals reacted to the PM meeting with the Swiss Armenian representiaves, but only to that 30-seconds long reflection. I am refering to Horizon Daily, which sees the light of day in Canada defying its cold and snowy weather. Horizon newspaper criticized the Prime Minister for “making statements that distort the reality of the Armenian Genocide violate the just demands of the Armenian nation.”
It was expected that the rest of the diaspora would soon follow suit. It did. Similar articles appeared critcising the PM in the Armenian Weekly, in the Aztag Daily, in Keghart.com on line journal. The former FM Vartan Voskanian did the same on his Facebook page, but opted to remove it later.
The pundits who penned these articles dismissed the many esteemed Swiss Armenian community representatives assuming them to be stupid or unconcerned that the PM allegedly denied or questioned the genocide to them and they, not only accepted it and let it go, and for the next 45 minutes continued to engage with the PM over issues concerning the Diaspora and the Homeland.
I have already noted that I watched the recording twide. But I cannot assure myself that all the commentators did the same and formulated their own opinions and not reacted echoing each other. Simply said, the opinions expressed in the articles I read, were mirror images. That is how press is nowadays, given to extremism and sensationalism. When reporting on the state of the streets after a heavy rain, reporters stand in the deepest pool of water they can find and report from there. That is how the Diaspora Armenian press is too, resorting to politicized commentaries to the hilt, when the Diaspora press is expected to be circumspect, heedful, Շրջահայեաց in Armenian.
As to the meeting, I found it be constructive. It ended with applause. It is my opinion the applause was not out of common courtesy. Judging from the facial expressions and boyd postures, but there seemed to be genuine rapport between the PM and the Swiss community representatives, over the many issues that were raised in that over one hour long recorded meeting.
Link to the Armenian: Հայ Լրագրութեան մեղսակցութեամբ:
http://vhapelian.blogspot.com/2025/01/blog-post.html
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