The Diaspora and Democracy in Armenia
I’ve just found an excellent quote from RFE/RL’s Emil Danielyan on Blogrel. During a radio interview on democratization in Armenia, Danielyan touched upon the involvement of the Diaspora in Armenia. It’s so good that it deserves to be read again. I’m guessing the “dramatic events in Yerevan” were last year’s 5 April attack on journalists and the 12/13 April attack on opposition supporters, including the seizure of party offices by police.
The Diaspora influence on Armenia’s political, economic and social life has been marginal. They have rightly poured millions of dollars worth of assistance into this country since independence, but have done little to promote Armenia’s democratization and make its post-Soviet rulers respect human and civil rights. For example, the only Diaspora reaction to the dramatic events in Yerevan was a toothless statement by an Armenian-American lobbying group calling for “dialogue” between the two rival camps.
Many Diaspora Armenians fail to understand that their historical homeland can not become prosperous without having free elections, freedom of speech, an independent judiciary and things like that. They often dismiss international criticisms of the Armenian authorities’ human rights record as being part of a U.S. ploy to make us stop campaigning for international recognition of the 1915 genocide of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire and become dependent on modern-day Turkey.
For them, the recipe for development is nationalism, not liberal democracy. The Diaspora organizations in the US and Europe must stop ignoring this country’s fundamental flaws.
Nice one, Emil. Pity the full transcript is no longer available. We do, however, still have a briefing paper from Human Rights Watch detailing how the authorities react to dissent within society.
What is the way of promotion of democracy by the Diaspora in Armenia?
One possibility was to participate politically in the internal life of Armenia. That idea was rejected by the former (strongly) and present government of Armenia and rightly I must say.
Doesnt matter how much diasporan Armenians want well to the country if they do not live there, do not feel beat, heat and pulse of the country they can not take right decisions. In addition, the most influential and powerful party outseide of Armenia is hardly a democratic organization itself and their methods actually made more harm than good to the republic when it was barely getting on its feet. On the other hand, even those Armenians in diaspora who were born in Armenia and emigrated in recent years become unattached and unrealistic as their participation showed during couple of times in elections. Majority of them voted for Demirchyan (father or son) because thats what they know…life was good at the end of 70’s begining of 80’s.
The next way or level of participation is financing. There are two ways of financing from Diaspora: investments and philanthropy. The former hardly can promote democracy, because those who invest into enterprises without government connections quickly and painfuly undergo fiasco and loose their investments. The connected ones just increase the corruption levels. Philanthropy unfortunately is also channeled usually through state structures which insures that the cause will not be entirely lost: part of the money gets stolen but parts goes where it was destined. And of course when you give money to the government your name recieves corresponding publicity, which is important element in most of the cases.
In order to promote democracy one needs someone of the Soros magnitude, with corresponding resources and vision. We do not have such figures in Diaspora.
Comment by Գագիկ — August 14, 2005 @ 9:03 am
Well, all good points, Gagik. However, many Diasporans also attack any calls for democracy in Armenia or the struggle against corruption. While I agree with many of your points, I think that the most active or vocal parts of the Diaspora don’t even understand the need for democracy, accountability and transparency in Armenia. I do, however, think that some more critical statements from the two main lobbying groups in the U.S. could have an effect. We even saw the success of a combined action against the road through Shikahogh. Then, activists here and individuals in the Diaspora did achieve a victory.
Comment by Administrator — August 14, 2005 @ 9:15 am
BTW: You say that the Diaspora does not involve itself in the internal political life of the republic. However, I would disagree and say that it does. The Diaspora has ALWAYS supported the incumbent president whether that be LTP or Kocharian and always justified the actions of the government even to the extent of disseminating misinformation and propaganda. That to me is involving itself in the internal political life of the republic.
Comment by Administrator — August 14, 2005 @ 10:37 am
Thanks Keyser! Give my regards to Kobayashi…
Anyway, ok, so Matt over at Blogrel got the source of the transcript wrong and I forgot that I had seen this quote before.
For those of you interested, the full transcript of Danielyan’s online interview can be found at http://www.tol.cz/q-a/index.php?IdD=16
Comment by Administrator — August 14, 2005 @ 11:07 am