Posted on 25 March 2003
I met some people who were congratulating themselves and their colleagues on the results of the Armenian Temagan (Prelacy) Elections, which took place in Kuwait, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah in December 2002.
Unfortunately, there is little to celebrate in the way these Elections were conducted here. For example, Since 1994 three such Elections have taken place in Abu Dhabi, the immediate consequence of each, was the withdrawal of a score of compatriots from community life.
Another lose is the many hours spent during 6-7 months of endless talks and intrigues related to the Elections (calculated as thousands of accumulated hours). If we consider the time needed to prepare a typical Armenian cultural event (diasporan replica style) is about 10 hours (up to 50 hours for extravagant events), those who are willing to throw hundreds and hundreds of community hours to the trash, are, the least to say, badly informed about the purpose of these Elections.
The third but not final lose of the Temagan Elections is the schism in relations between the families and friends of the directly involved ones. Such a big disruption cannot be absorbed easily by small societies.
There are other negative results of the Temagan Elections, which I will not discuss today, as I do not want to dishearten the active members or provide pretext to the skeptics. The good news is that these Elections take place once every four years.
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