Are Armenian organisations conservative and how does that affect our communities?

By Sarkis Seridarian

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As an Armenian I am loathe to criticise or ridicule or in any way negate the effort and work of our organisations in the Diaspora. So from the outset may I take the opportunity to apologise to the reader for any sentiments expressed here which may not be in true keeping with any work they may have done personally or as part of an organisation.

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However, we must of course approach the topic with realism. In the main, the communities in which we live today were shaped by the events of the 20th century after world war two, even though in some cases the communities have existed since as far back as the 19th century. Imagine if you will a Europe ravaged by 6 years of war, starving and in ruins, economies destroyed, the loss of life unimaginable and the thought of rebuilding too enormous to put into context.

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From the ashes of the graves of millions Europe then descended into an even deeper mire. Split in two by ideology, military might and imperialism, the cold war created a world of greater division and mistrust, fear and uncertainty. The Soviet Union moved like an unwanted squatter into the Eastern half of Europe, and the Western half looked at its vast neighbour with a snarl as ever supported by a distant cousin thousands of miles away over a massive expanse of water.

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The Middle East fell further foul of this great stand-off, two giants choosing to fight one another by proxy, using smaller creatures for their own entertainment throwing needless millions into chaos and death.

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Lost amongst the debris was a nation without a country, a proud people upon whom war had been forced but never declared, genocide committed but never acknowledged, their homes taken and never returned. So the Armenians, the perennial travellers charged with the need to find peace anywhere they could, but never where they were. They moved in their thousands as far from the war as they could, from Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Iraq to Western Europe and the USA. New communities were formed, organisations founded and re-founded, friendships were remade and unions celebrated.

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Then from these seemingly nomadic hordes creation led to concern once again. Now in a land of supposed peace they faced an unwitting enemy. Whereas in wartime the need to bond and stay safe within numbers was strong, peace removed from their persons this need and ever more so from their off spring. Where ?agoumps? used to hail invitingly, clubs and bars now offered trendy alternatives. Where Armenian school was necessary, modern comprehensives and Catholic education reigned supreme. Where Armenian music, literature and dance was the only means of happiness there now existed RAP, Pop, Heavy Metal and House, break dancing and groove, Romance novels and all things which before did not exist. We were losing our identity and therefore our links to a proud but tortured past.

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From the other side we can now look at individuals and families. Every family wanted to maintain their identity, to make their children speak Armenian well, to know our history and our culture, but at the same wanted and still want a better life for their children. Community work as admirable as it was and is, does not put food on the table or a shirt on our backs. So individual families had to make a choice, the community and a life of struggle or an external position out of the community, a part-time one if you may, and a better life as a result. This would allow for time to study better, to pursue capitalist goals and economic freedoms, to obtain a better job and to live happily.

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So then ensued the war of words. ?You are not an Armenian, you do not care!? to which came the reply, ?you are a fool, you spend all your life in meetings and you don?t know what life is!? Division had now set in, lines had been drawn. Yesterdays friends had become today?s antagonisers, families would feud and communities would be decimated. Yet unlike the punishments of the legions thousands of years before, the Armenians were exiled from their communities, not killed. Yet the exile was as painful for one as it was for the other. The need to grow and the emotions which came with it were just as strong as the instinct for self-betterment. From this, suspicion grew rife, the people on the outside looking in and the people from the inside looking out. Our communities drew back and withdrew in many ways from the world around them. Our communities suffered, our organisations grew weak and the youth remained unguided, at the whim of the elements, uncertain as to their stance. We had created our little Armenia?s, but at the cost of our people.

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And so we arrive to today. Almost every single Armenian community is struggling. Our organisations dwindle, our supporters question our work and capabilities and our leaders look back to the old days and think what went wrong. The truth is that in many ways our scope was always limited, but we just did not want to accept it. We live in societies against which we rebel, creating a shield around as much as we can, attempting to cut ourselves away from the very fabric in which we live. When Armenia became independent we questioned why we were not given passports at once and given the right to vote. We asked ourselves why we were not considered to be compatriots of a country we had always worshipped the memory of and brought our children up in the hope of one day seeing free and independent. The truth is often hard. We are not Armenian nationals!

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We are all Europeans, whether we accept this or not. We may be of Armenian ethnic origin, yet that does not completely make us Armenian. We are nationals of the country in which we live, subject to the laws or those countries and participant in the lives and make-up of those societies. In essence we have been battling our own selves when we have attempted to separate our minds from our bodies. We have been fighting against assimilation into a country and culture into which we were born and inherently belong. We are British or French or German and so on but at the same time we are of Armenian ethnic origin. So how do we extract ourselves from the difficulty that is understanding our identity?

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When we said at the outset that our communities are conservative, what did we mean? Let us address this point first. We are conservative because we object to change. We continue to do what we have always done, we see the same people on the same stages saying the same thing every year. We are a people whose rhetoric is repetitive and unyielding. We are stubborn to the extent that we appear arrogant. Yet these are hallmarks of our success too. We have managed to keep a grip on a silk scarf blowing away in the wind when others may have let go a generation before. In all of this however I see our fault being 2-dimensional. We have shown a constant lack of allowing newcomers to join our ranks with ease and affection. We have been suspicious of their characters and their agendas. So is it so very difficult to see why we have not changed? Are we too blind to notice that where we preach the natural inheritance of the new generation to pick up the baton and push on where previous generations have led, we are only doing so with a depressingly small target base which is reduced year upon year upon year? How can we develop if we do not entertain the thought of allowing new blood into our organisations, with new ideas and new energies? Success can only be built upon if we procure the ability to grow.

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Our second major flaw is our inability to accept criticism even when we usually say we can. Debate and argument are at the crux of every good decision. Assessing pros and cons, justifying a course of action when alternatives were at hand. I am not saying that our organisations are bereft of such qualities or indeed that they lack planning skills, for this is not the case. Yet when errors are made, or when unjustifiable courses of action are decided upon, why should we be loathe to accept a critique from the very public whom we claim to serve? Why must we shroud our activities in secrecy and maintain a distinct separation from our own? The truth is that in certain cases we lack confidence. We lack professionalism! We are void of these qualities because we are all volunteers who take it upon ourselves to help even when we at times find it difficult to just get by. In every sense this is more than admirable, a constant sacrifice in the name of service. Yet we do not work, and we must not work just for the sake of doing it or indeed to maintain the status quo. We need to be able to delegate, to allow others into our confidence and to join with us. For this we need a greater transparency and a more open relationship with our communities. Public meetings have become a thing of the past, a long distant past. We no longer provide for our communities, we now only provide for our members. There is a vast difference between the two. Each member is an extremely important element who must never be overlooked, but nor should our people, who constantly are!

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