If you take a look at the “Regnum” media web site, you will see that on May 19-21, Armenia took part in the “Book Expo 2006” international exhibition held in Washington D.C., where it represented about 50 historical, artistic, children’s, as well as encyclopedic books by Armenian authors. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs had informed “Regnum” that 46 countries were participating in the exhibition. What about the CIS countries…?
“Besides Russia, Armenia will be the only CIS country with its own pavilion at the “Book Expo 2006” international exhibition,” said the ministry representative.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to check up on the list of 46 countries; that way I could inform the reader about the countries competing against Armenia with its 1500-year old culture and literature.
Since the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia had stated that Russia and Armenia are the only countries from the CIS participating in the exhibition, we can assume that Georgia and Azerbaijan were not going to be there. This is obvious due to the fact that Armenia doesn’t like to be somewhere where it has contact with its neighboring countries.
The left list below is a list of the countries that participated in the “EuroVision 2006” and they are listed based on the number of votes.
Finland Afghanistan
Russia Armenia
Bosnia-Herzegovina Bangladesh
Rumania Bolivia
Sweden Burundi
Lithuania Congo
Ukraine Djibouti
Armenia Ethiopia
Greece Gambia
Ireland Guinea Bissau
Turkey Honduras
Macedonia Kenya
Croatia Liberia
Norway Madagascar
Germany Malawi
Latvia Mongolia
Switzerland Mozambique
Denmark Nicaragua
Great Britain Nigeria
Moldova Senegal
Spain Sierra-Leone
France Sri-Lanka
Israel The Philippines
Malta
As you can see, Armenia came in eighth. Leader of the Armenian Ramkavar Liberal Party didn’t mention the amount of money spent to be in the list during his interview given to the “Iravunk” paper, but he did say that it is impossible to participate in such a contest with a little amount of money. He also didn’t mention the payment and membership fees paid to the “European Union of Broadcasters” and considered that it’s not that much for Armenia’s Public Television/Radio.
The list on the right-hand side is the alphabetical list of the countries receiving aid from the U.S. within the framework of the “Provision for Progress” program. In this case, it’s not important where Armenia is on the list. The important thing is that it’s actually next to the world’s poorest countries. It’s not by chance that the “Regnum” media agency let everyone know about the fact that our poverty-stricken but proud country was in the list on May 20, 2006 at 8:42 p.m., just when our singer Andre was performing his number to become number one.
Let’s suppose Andre (Armenia) won. Was Armenia, which is in the list of poor countries, really going to become the country hosting the next “EuroVision” for the other competitors? Basically, the U.S. would have to finance the “EuroVision” in Armenia. With what-provisions?
I would just like to make a reference to the translated sentences taken from “Regnum” in order to bring the issue into the light.
“The “Provisions for Progress” program is foreseen for the countries that have taken on the responsibility of developing and stabilizing free entrepreneurship in the field of agriculture. The participants must meet some requirements, including democratization and provision of political freedoms.”
Being listed in the right-hand list didn’t give Armenia the opportunity to feel the sense of pride as in the left-hand list. It’s not about which list is the best for us. The thing is that, in general, we are excluded from all lists. I didn’t mention the absence of Georgia and Azerbaijan in the beginning of the article for nothing because Armenia isn’t included in the list where it is next to its neighboring countries.
Armenia has its own map of the world; it even has its own globe. As you can see in the picture, on one side you have the Armenian national bourgeoisie and on the other you have the farming/working class. Whereas the first group rotates the globe to see where they can go for summer vacation, the second group is trying to look for a suitable country to live in.
There was one more interesting piece of news on the May 20 news on “Regnum”. The news with the title “We talk and sing in Russian”, which was published three hours before the news about the U.S. aid, shows that the globe is not round, thus Armenia’s globe isn’t round either.