Imagine what the Armenian diaspora might have accomplished had it worked as hard for democracy in Armenia as it did for congressional recognition of the genocide Armenians suffered nearly a century ago. It's even possible that modern Armenia would be as democratic as modern Turkey.
The Armenian American community notched a political victory last week when the House Foreign Affairs Committee voted 27 to 21 for a resolution demanding that the U.S. government officially acknowledge that Turkey committed genocide against the Armenian people early in the 20th century. The Turkish government insists that, while terrible things happened, there was no genocide. The Bush administration, reluctant to offend an important ally, lobbied hard against the resolution.
There are passionate arguments on both sides of this fight: the urgency of facing history honestly, on one hand; unease over attempting to resolve such matters by political declaration, on the other. But what is sad, when members of Congress are hailing the vote as a victory for human rights, is how poorly human rights fare in Armenia today.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, none of its 15 component republics seemed better poised to evolve democratically than Armenia. A beautiful country of mountains and pastures and vineyards, it had a clearer sense of national identity than most, with a long pre-Soviet history as a nation; its own language, alphabet and church; and a passionate diaspora, many of whose members were ready to bring not only their skills but also their habits of democracy and civil society to Yerevan. Of an estimated 10 million ethnic Armenians in the world, only 3 million dwell in Armenia; more than 2 million live in Russia, but about 1.5 million are in the United States.
Things began well, with the honest election of a former dissident as president. But authoritarian tendencies soon emerged, the former dissident rigged his reelection in 1996, and things went downhill from there. As Freedom House noted last year, "all national elections held in Armenia since independence have been marred by some degree of ballot stuffing, vote rigging, and similar irregularities." Meanwhile, opposition politicians have been jailed, protests have been brutally suppressed, and broadcast media have been taken under government control.
Conditions in Armenia are better than in some post-Soviet republics. Though corruption is endemic, the economy is growing and ranks relatively high in some measures of freedom for private enterprise. A parliamentary election in the spring was conducted more fairly than past polls. The ruling oligarchs tolerate some opposition parties, nongovernmental organizations and non-official newspapers.
But conditions also are a lot worse than in some republics, notably Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Many members of their diasporas also returned to their ancestral homelands, where they became passionate advocates not only of national rebirth but also of democracy and corruption-free capitalism.
Why the difference? Armenia was sidetracked early on by a war with neighboring Azerbaijan over an Armenian enclave inside that country. The enclave is under Armenian control today, but a cease-fire has not given way to a peace settlement. Consequently, the two main Armenian American lobbying organizations in Washington have focused more on security questions -- opposing arms sales to Azerbaijan, for example, and opposing Turkey, Azerbaijan's ally -- than on promoting democracy in Yerevan. Armenia's rulers have known that, no matter how they trample on individual rights at home, the lobbying groups will cover for them here.
The heads of both U.S. organizations told me that their groups have worked, sometimes quietly, to promote human rights and civil society in Armenia. Undoubtedly their influence would be limited, no matter how hard they tried.
But what if they had tried as fervently as they did to win Wednesday's vote? It's hard not to think that 3 million Armenians might be less poor and more free than they are today.
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ppha... "It's even possible
koko 50 weeks 1 day ago
ppha... "It's even possible that modern Armenia would be as democratic as modern Turkey." ... Things in Armenia are bad, no doubt about that. But Turkey's record on human rights and democracy has a long way to go before it can even start to be in the same league with Armenia.
This article is another example of West's attitude of double standards as we saw after the 2008 elections and March 1: "Armenian elections were upto standards, and by standards we means the standards of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan and Afghanistan, not France, US, Great Britain and all other, so called, "civilized" places"
Yeah, it is possible to
nazarian 50 weeks 1 day ago
Yeah, it is possible to catch up with Turkey. But we still have a long way to go and it's gonna require hard work. March 1 proved that the road is even going to be bloody as the despots in charge of Armenia do not shy away from spilling the blood of their compatriots.
Yeah, but the Turks didn't
Armen Filadelfiatsi 50 weeks 2 hr ago
Yeah, but the Turks didn't fight against any bloody despots. They were ruled by a despot that ruled them so completely that he single-handedly picked them up from the middle ages, carried them over the grand canyon of transformation, and placed them squarely in the middle of modernity, complete with western dress and phoenician alphabet, all happy and enlightened, quoting Rousseau and Voltaire and "parlez-vous francais"-ing all over the place--if you believe the official story. And I don't.
I think what happened was that Ataturk gave Turkey the 5 minute make-over, and the make-over is starting to fade. Part of the Turkish population wants to stay "Westernized," and another part hates it. Turkey is very confused right now. That much is clear. But anybody who would draw clear-cut conclusions about this crisis ought to consider that, at least in the last decade, and, come to think of it, in significant proportions during the genocide, the religious Turks have had an appreciation for human life that the nationalist-fanatic Turks altogether lack, something that the Turkish powers-that-be exploit to full effect. Care to make any bets as to who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? I don't.
In any case, Armenia's situation with regard to Democracy and modernity is very different. Armenia's problem is government corruption. And, to disagree again, the solution to Armenia's corruption problem isn't simply a popular demand for ethically sound government: Ethical government doesn't exist in a vacuum: Real Democracy has a price, a monetary price, and Armenia can't afford it because it is simply too small a country between very powerful countries that are in competition. To put it bluntly: Like everybody knows, Kocharian and Sargsyan are working for the Russians. They could be working exclusively for Armenia, but that would require several hundreds of billions of dollars that Armenia doesn't have. Ergo, you could fill Freedom Square with thousands of people demanding democracy, and all you would end up with are innocent dead and beaten people. I don't want to sound fatalistic about the whole thing, but that is what happened, and the European states that had the responsibility of fighting such corruption did nothing. They're too expensive.
The way you guys are talking, everybody should be glued to the news biting their nails about whether Switzerland is all of a sudden going to take over all of Europe tomorrow. That's not going to happen. And, in the same way, Armenia isn't going to become the powerhouse of West Asia any time soon, and just because of its size.
...On the other hand, the Armenian diaspora is pretty fucking huge. But that's a different story that can wait until people other than sycophants come into power, at which point, I suspect, things will become much more complicated than they are now.