While talking about the opportunities granted by the constitutional amendments in the numerous speeches dedicated to Constitution Day, Armenian government activists placed emphasis on the fact that those amendments give the opportunity to develop the relationship between Armenia and the Diaspora. However, that opportunity is put to practice as much as the Constitution, for example, article 17, which states that nobody should be subjected to torture, inhumane or humiliating treatment or punishment, that imprisoned people have the right to be treated as humans and the respect for dignity. Hovik Tamanyan can talk more about this in detail.
It is evident that Armenia-Diaspora relations are becoming more and more active throughout the year, and by the day, with the “Armenia-Diaspora” conferences. However, even when the Armenians of the Diaspora and Armenian businessmen, political and cultural activists gather in the same hall, it is evident that there are very few things in common between these two groups of Armenians – not counting their memory of Armenian history. After each conference the sides leave disappointed because of the mechanical relationship between Armenia and the Diaspora. The Armenians of Armenia and the Armenians of the Diaspora have different cultural backgrounds, different preferences, goals, values and even spelling. Neither the Constitution nor any serious legislative action program can fortify that relationship or maintain it. Any local Armenian can tell you that the cultures of the Diaspora and Armenia often don’t share anything in common when you ask him how many Armenian-Diasporan writers he knows. But the essential part of this question is not the difference in spelling as much as the content of the material presented by the Armenian-Diasporan writer. For example, the “ArmenAkob” television station often broadcasts the songs sung by a choir under the direction of conductor Karen Durgaryan. The choir performs the songs written based on the poem of a Armenian-Diasporan poet. It is evident that the songwriter is not a local Armenian judging from the music and that he is just trying to enter the music scene. The words of the song are presented along with the singing (perhaps to get the TV viewers involved in the patriotic songs), but I have to say that it is difficult to remember the melody even for those who have good musical tone. Thus, we present the lyrics to one of the songs:
Enough is enough (four times, arrogantly showing repulsive hand movements)
such illegal, dark times
enough is enough, we don’t want anymore (two times)
they are trampling our pretty flower fields (eight times)
enough is enough (four times) we don’t want
any foreigner on Armenian land (two times)
so that our wheat fields will freely understand (two times)
like Aragats, like Aragats (grandiose music)
it’s enough, enough is enough…enough of
illegal dark days.
The lyricist is Jack Hakobyan and the music is by Hakob Jampazyan. By the way, the author preferred not to preserve the punctuation and the “tradition” of starting each line with a capital letter. We are sure that no Armenian-Diasporan would have been surprised to hear this song. We are also sure that no local Armenian would listen to this song with interest, or try to have the karaoke version. But there is another side to the problem. On one occasion, one of our Armenian linguists said that when he had tried to teach Eastern Armenian to an Armenian scientist from the Diaspora, the latter had not been able to understand neither the “Steam bath of Neso” or the “Death of Kikos” by Tumanyan. He didn’t understand the logic of the material and couldn’t understand why they hadn’t lowered the temperature of Neso with antibiotics and had taken such an inhumane step.
We have no state program that will deal with trying to create some general cultural field to better understand each other instead of dealing with keeping the instinct of self-consciousness and self-preservation of the Armenian-Diasporans alive. In the meantime the Diaspora, in particular the Armenians in America, to be honest, is considered to be a center with a low level of Armenian culture. If you have noticed, it is not always pleasing to see the beloved and valued artists of Armenia upon their return from America after emigrating and living many years in the Armenian community. For example, it is difficult to understand actress Violet Gevorgyan, singer Flora Martirosyan, or singer Grisha Aghakhanyan. It turns out that our Constitution and legislation observe the connection between Armenia and the Diaspora only in the narrow political subtext when it comes to dual citizenship; in other words, the solution to the problem of counting heads when it comes time for elections. But in order to take more serious steps, it is necessary to have experts, knowledge and an understanding of the issue at hand. We Armenians look at or imagine Armenian-Diasporans in Armenia as tourists whom we can meet in Garni, Echmiadzin or at the outskirts of the city, near the Tsitsernakaberd memorial complex. But no politician talks about creating conditions for their return and elaborating programs in his pre-election platform. Recently, when Sarkozy was elected president of France, his first item on the agenda was to create a ministry that would be involved with issues concerning immigration. But since we have written several times about this topic and, as it turns out, fruitlessly, it is better to continue to listen to the choir:
We the entire nation
Constructive and peaceful
We the great country
A piece of land and marvelous land of Armenia (here we see pictures of the elite buildings in the heart of Yerevan-L.A.)
The color of light on our building
Our smile will shine
Our talent will flourish
Look at our land
Fruits and wheat will grow again.
The lyricist is once again Jack Hakobyan, and the song was written by Hakob Jampazyan.