Diasporas, Diasporas, Diasporas…
Tim over at Democracy Guy has some harsh words to say about Diasporas. The former National Democratic Institute staff member in Armenia speaks his mind and is unlikely to win any friends among the “armchair nationalists” generally to be found around Glendale.
Armenians like to compare their lot in the world with Israel’s. Both are small ethnic groups, with a history of both enduring persecution and achieving greatness. Both people suffered a genocide in the last century, resulting in the spreading of a vast diaspora across the world. Both Armenians and Jews have succeeded in America, painstakingly preserving their culture while becoming as American as the next guy at a baseball game.
[…]
And here is where I will now piss off both my Armenian and Jewish friends. Both diasporas have a hardline element, which spend a great deal of time, money and effort stunting the growth of each homeland by forcing their vision of their pet issue on its politics. For Armenians, it is the struggle with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh. For Israel, it is the settlements. Both are ethnic homeland arguments that eclipse every other issue.
[…]
When I was in Armenia, it broke my heart to watch a country with such potential simply rot because American hardliners played out their political pet peaves on the backs of average Armenians. Diasporans who (a) weren’t born there, (b) wouldn’t even live there, (c) would eventually come back to the states and sit in their air-conditioned SoCal living rooms surrounded by their Armenian trinkets, stroke this carefully quilted version of their ethnic destiny at an incredibly high cost…a cost they themselves never actually pay. But it wasn’t really my problem.
[…]
Easy to be brave and uncompromising about some other country’s destiny if you’ve got that American passport in your pocket.
Perhaps he’s being a little too harsh but I’ve said similar things in the past. However, perhaps Emil Danielyan from RFE/RL put it a little more tactfully in a recent online interwiew with Transitions Online.
I think Tim is just going through a Diasporan bashing phase that is what a lot of Americans go through when they visit or work in Armenia and think they’ve bonded with the locals and start to think as themselves as elitists. It may be just a badge earning step to prove to locals and the international community that he is relevant. I suggest he runs back and examines his ethnically diverse shithole they call Cleveland.
Plus, the bashing is much more interesting from you Onnik. At least you are relevant and back up your points with analysis and pictures. And, it is more entertaining and educational.
Comment by Raffi Meneshian — August 18, 2005 @ 3:31 pm
Yes there are similarities between jews and armenians. But scales are soooo different. And that cricisism can be very relevant to what is happening in Israel, but it is far from playing any significance in case of Armenia. As for Diasporas behaviour it is natural, it is one of the ways to preserve diasporas. People unite around extreme ideas, otherwise there is no sence of doing that
Comment by Gagik — August 19, 2005 @ 6:01 am