95 years of questioning the reality of planned, brutal mass executions, the ethnic cleansing of a people from their place is far too long. Up against a looming deadline, a threat of losing their history and identity, a new generation of Armenians is waking up to an economic collapse, disappearing Diasporas, and questionable leadership. The time has come for modern-day Fedayees to take action, to use modern technologies and create global media messages about their legacy, history, and their future. This is our prophecy.

By Paul Chaderjian and Allen Yekikan

At twenty-four minutes past four o’clock on the afternoon of April 24, a war for cultural survival wages on the streets of this metropolis. In the fight of their lifetime are young Armenians on the sidewalks of Wilshire, changing the rules, questioning Baby Boomer values, inventing a new movement, and sending a message to the world that justice will be served and their ancient culture will survive and thrive.

On the front lines of this epic war are the Digital Natives, Generation Z, armed with nothing more than their cell phones, cameras, and their laptop computers. This war is a battle for cultural revival, a battle to re-energize the Armenian spirit in the far corners of the Diaspora and in suffocated and abused community like Javakhk. This fight is for the universal acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide and global recognition of the independent Republic of Karabagh. This battle for national survival is not only being waged on these streets of La La Land but in the abstract place called the Internet.

Why is this generation – born into the most pampered of lives – out on the sidewalks instead of sipping beers at a beach-side cantina off the Pacific, on rides in Disneyland, or in the great malls of commerce, shopping, eating, or enjoying a Saturday afternoon matinee?

Where is this sense of injustice and this passion for change coming from? How is their passion being fueled? Why does the world outside their suburban lives matter more now than ever before? And why does a 95-year-old crime against their ancestors warrant the display of such passion – nearly a century later and a world away – on the streets of California?

A Generation in Question

Perhaps these question’s are because the progeny of the Genocide has awakened to an uncertain, apocalyptic future. A new generation of young men and women are coming of age to the threat that their lifestyles may be a memory of the good old days.

Young people are opening their eyes to headlines that those in their 20s and 30s are facing 50% unemployment. Their jobs have been shipped off to China and India. Their universities are broke and have no room for new students. Their forests are cut down and natural resources fast depleting.Their bankrupt government is waging unnecessary wars overseas, throwing billions of dollars in smart bombs on foreign lands, and their corrupt leaders throwing billions of bonuses to those sociopath capitalists who bankrupted a bogus financial industry.

Perhaps their stark realities are now coming into focus because they wake up to accusations that their very existence as Armenians is based on a lie. This rabid movement is being ignited because they turn on CNN to hear the Turkish Prime Minister say that there had been no such thing as Genocide and that Armenians had been the criminals that victimized the Turks.

Baby Boomers’ democratic leaders have not only failed at setting the record straight on the Genocide, but they have also failed at guaranteeing that our way of life can be sustainable for the next generation and for generations to come.

Youth today are threatened with the possibility of never owning their own homes, not affording to go on vacations to their ancestral Homeland, and no longer being able to afford to provide an Armenian education to their children or keeping the doors of their ancient churches open that is fueling the crisis.

How does their government and their President get away with destroying their future and making empty promises like ‘change.’ Hadn’t Mr. Obama promised Genocide recognition? Wasn’t he now turning his back on his promises and bowing down to the lying Ottoman politicians of the 21st century?

21st Century Re-awakening

The activists in the 6300 block of Wilshire are following a noble path, a path taversed by their forefathers. One which they were destined to retrace.

When they realized the older generations, in their affluent self-assurance, wasn’t going to listen to their ideas about cultural preservation and nationhood, this generation looked back to their people’s history. They found inspiration in stories about fools and revolutionaries who dared to question authority. They found hope in the actions of those in the late 19th century who ventured into the villages and founded schools, and who brought the European enlightenment to the Armenian countryside.

From Madras/Chanai to Venice/San Lazzaro, in the seminaries, merchant communities, and universities of the Armenian Diaspora, Armenians of the day began to look toward their Homeland with despair. They sought solutions to the nation’s problems. Having grown tired of being told what they couldn’t do by their parents, these individuals began to imagine a better future. They envisioned it and then worked to create it.

What began as a spark became a movement of awakening, a Zartonk, and it spread like a modern-day viral video across the Armenian world. The medium of that era was not the Internet but the printing press. Newspapers, pamphlets, and books created a Diaspora-wide dialogue about cultural, linguistic and social demands. The printing press created a consciousness and awareness that resulted in change.

In the 1700s when Armenians were living under foreign rule, Armenians in the Diaspora experienced the Age of Enlightenment and closely followed the French and American independence movements and the births of democracies.

As the framers of the US constitution were dreaming up their new nation, free from British rule, Armenians like Shahamir Shahamirian were thinking up a bill of rights for Armenians and a means for liberation from Turkish oppression. Their weapon was a printing press, which spread new ideas to the masses.

Through the printed word, ancient tales of heroic exploits and battles were brought to life, dialogue about democratic governance and social justice were popularized, and Armenian students studying in the universities of Europe were given a struggle in which to believe.

Armenians in the Age of Enlightenment gave birth to young enlightened thinkers, selfless teachers, and the fearless Fedayees.

The iPeople

One of the historic acts of the enlightened Armenians was the development a modern language that could be understood by the masses. This Askharabahr became the language of their revolution. It defied the Church and authority to become the medium through which dreams and means for emancipation and liberation were conveyed.

Today, 21st century Fedayees also have a new way to speak the language of the new masses. Their Ashkharabahr–the language of their world–is the Internet and social media. This new media in the age of hyper-connectivity is the foundation of this reawakening. That any two or ten million Armenians anywhere can come together at anytime through the unfathomable global access of the Internet is what makes the iZaronk a reality.

Armed with their laptops, cell and smart phones, this new breed of freedom fighter is waging a struggle for freedom from their people’s established norms, norms which are staid and are slowly suffocating if not killing a new generation of young Armenians.

Clear, concise messages, video images in abundance, passionate Armenians speaking up, jumping in front of their cameras, getting behind their iPhones, punching their keyboards with words small and big — these are what can and will turn around a people in a deep sleep in the early years of the 21st Century. The time has come, and the alarm is sounding; the war of yesterday is now the war in Cyberspace. The weapon is new media.

Armen loads his video camera with a fresh tape. His batteries are charged. His tripod is set-up. He has his MacBook, and he’s on the front lines of the Armenian Cause in the 21st Century. He knows that supremacy in the information age is getting his messages heard, using the information superhighways prolifically, and producing sexy, viral messages that are watched by millions of people, scoring thousands of hits on the net.

Varant is clicking photos of police officers guarding the Consulate doors. He’s uploading them with captions via his BlackBerry to thousands who are checking his real-time Facebook updates.

These youth are on the front lines of the Internet, where video, audio, and viral messaging can help Armenians reach the tipping point into nationhood, where democracy and social justice prevail; ensure cultural survival; secure the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide; achieve autonomy and self-rule in Javakhk, and protect the inalienable right of self-determination of the people of the Republic of Nagorno Karabakh.

Alina clicks away all day, texting friends, posting messages, videotaping images. She is not wasting her time communicating about which movie she saw or who is dating whom. Instead, she is living and breathing the Armenian Cause, by making the issues on the table more intriguing than what and who is walking on the red carpet or getting drunk in Vegas.

Like Armen, Varant and Alina, thousands of Armenian youth today have greater power than any government, than any conglomerate, than any old-world call-to-arms. Their war of a lifetime is waged through thoughts, through outspokenness, and through clicks on their communications technologies.

The time has come for a 21st century Zartonk, a national revival using the new weapons of modern civilization –the communications tools that every citizen of the world either has access to or knows someone with access. These tools, cameras, keyboards, editing software, iPad and iPods, FlipCams and iPhones, are all what can create the iZartonk.

iMedia

From the dance halls of the Ani barakhoomp, to the Armenian language classes at Mesrobian, from the film sets of the aspiring filmmakers, to the performances of young playwrights, iZartonk is Armenians breaking free of their pedagogical restrains, free of the capitalist poison of accruing more wealth, free of the game of politics.

Along the way, young Armenians are using their Internet connections and their keyboards to not only report about what their generation is doing toward their community’s collective goal of cultural preservation, but they are also using all these platforms of media and communication to ask the questions that needs to be asked. They are asking each other, expressing their opinions, spreading unique stories about the Armenian-American experience and challenging each other for new dreams, new ideas, and calls to action.

What should we believe in? What should we stand for? What should be our plans? How do we protect our community and our rights? These are the messages that are floating back-and-forth on the Information Superhighway. Instead of banal messages on Facebook about what people are having for dessert, how about asking what is a good insurance carrier or where there are new job openings? Instead of feeding the livestock on Farmville or repeating a joke from a morally bankrupt cartoon on cable, why not promote a group fighting to stop capitalist endeavors destroying the Earth?

iFedayees

The iFedayees want a say in what their community stands for, what the collective should focus on, not merely accept the ways of their parents’ world. They want to decide whether this community needs multi-million dollar cathedrals, lavish banquet halls, and obscene weddings and parties – all which are depleting resources that could otherwise go towards timeless endeavors.

iFedayees must roll up their sleeves and know more than just their people’s history. They must also learn about the climate of the world, the Chinese economy, the worlds of the Islam and the South Americas, and how all these factors shape their modern Armenian-American experience.

iFedayees must learn, they must take a stand, and they must be involved in every aspect of their lives and hence their future. This is what revolutionaries do; and this is what young Armenians must do to ensure the survival of their six-thousand year-old-culture and nation – be it in the Homeland or in its vast and ever-relocating Diaspora.

iDo and iWill

In today’s Armenian media, instead of stories about the legendary heroes of the people who took up arms to protect their fellow Armenians, there are stories of the mafiosos stealing from the government, the masses, and each other. Instead of notions of equal rights and freedoms, instead of stories of revolutionaries in the turn-of-the-century Anatolia who inspired a nation and defied the odds to found an independent republic amid the ashes of Genocide, community broadcasters are promoting Armenian criminals as the heroes of the day.

Instead of preaching and promoting service to community and to others, Armenian media is selling laser hair removal, lap bands, and glamorizing those who take from the innocent, those who kill for financial gain, and those who have no morality and humanity. These are not the role models today’s young people are seeking., and these broadcasters needed to know that the viewer always has the last word.

The solution is for every Armenian to become a media practitioner, participate in creating and using alternative media and ignore the obnoxious mainstream media outlets. Ignore the info-tainment on your cells, computers, and television channels and hear what alternative media sources are saying. What do Link TV reports say about the European headlines? What are the Arabic channels reporting about the Middle East? What are blogs saying about the Homeland? And what is the individual Armenian saying?

After you learn and listen, become a media content creator by picking up your audio recorder, your notepad, your video camera, and record your voice, broadcast it to your friends. Even if you don’t have the answers, ask the questions, put your concerns on paper or on videotape and send them off into Cyberspace.

Every single Armenian should take it upon him or herself to write a few paragraphs or videotape 30 to 60 second news reports to let others in our community know what everyone else is doing as members of the “Armenians.”

We saw a glimpse of how powerful and active our community became when hundreds of thousands of you followed the Asbarez and Horizon TV during the committee vote on the Genocide Resolution, the Protocol protests, the hunger strike, and the Armenian President’s visit around the Diaspora. Thousands watched ANC YouTube videos; Asbarez and Horizon pages had thousands of hits; and AYF members reported the news by videotaping interviews from the front lines and posting it for Armenians and non-Armenians around the world to watch.

The momentum that we glimpsed and that we collectively created around the Stop the Protocols campaign was unprecedented. Our story and our collective engagement with the creation of media was viral. Not only did we engage the story, but we engaged our peers and made them active. On top of that success, our viral messages reached mainstream media, the LA Times, and all the television networks. Our Tweets and iPhone videos reached the “Tipping Point” and put our people at the forefront, at least for two weeks, during the Information Age.

But why stop now? Why not continue this grassroots Armenian revolution of the 21st century and continue and build upon the creation of media messages as we did during the Protocols Campaign. And why stop at Facebook and Twitter? Why not report about all of our individual and community successes to our own media network. And why stop with our media? Why not write letters to editors, engage your lawmakers, create YouTube videos, submit stories to Current TV, Reddit, CNN iReports, and other media outlets?

This reawakening, this iZartonk, is based on your participation, you sharing your small and big steps, ideas, concerns, and news items in this whirlpool of information. The revolution, the change, can continue if you and your friends, colleagues, the Armenian community-at-large, and the world knows what we are all talking about.

Share your news, share what’s new and different, promote your successes, highlight and advertise whatever makes you proud by writing, videotaping, blogging, Tweet-ing and Facebook-ing. If you have a keyboard, you’re a journalist. If you have a video camera, you’re a reporter.

Take creating media one step further and find the candidates who are concerned about your concerns and vote them into office. If those candidates aren’t there, then you run for office, be it for your university board of regents, your town parish, church council, city council, or state or federal offices. A democracy serves the masses only when the masses serve the democracy, when they vote, when they express their concerns, and when they go door-to-door talking to people.

Why should your government, your democracy, your representatives on Capitol Hill NOT vote for Genocide recognition. That question should be enough to make you ponder whether they really care about justice and have your best interest in their hearts. Or are they merely banking on empty promises so that they can sustain their cushy jobs and their affluent lifestyles and donors?

If your representatives in government aren’t providing what you need them to provide, if they aren’t worried about your future, your career, your education, if they are able to convince you that your government needs to wage war overseas instead of fixing roads, developing new industries and renewable energy sources, then their tenure as public servants is over.

Now it’s your turn. Participate in the reawakening of the Armenian spirit, create media, voice your concerns, vote, and talk to people.

Remember, in the Information Age, we are on an equal playing field with anything that mainstream news organizations are producing. Your thoughts, your concerns, your opinions are as valid as those of the pundits who are using the mainstream channels that are in the business of making money by gathering the most eyeballs at any given time.

Don’t patronize mass media to appease their shareholders with bigger profits. Instead, create your own media and change the game. Whether you attended a protest rally on April 24, attended a book signing, wrote a play, or heard a new artist, everything is relevant to your community.

So speak up, speak loud and participate in the reawakening of the Armenian Soul through iZartonk.

By Tamar Salibian

In 1915, over 1.5 million Armenians were removed from their homes and subsequently massacred by the Ottoman Turks in what is known as the Aghed (catastrophe) or the Armenian genocide. Each year, April 24 is the day when Armenians around the world remember the death of their ancestors under the brutal hand of the Ottoman Turkish government. The year is 2007, this year, the cloudless sky and warm California weather made for an apt setting to commemorate April 24 in Los Angeles’ Little Armenia. Thousands of Armenians prepared to meet near the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Hobart Street for a commemorative march across town.

I awoke to the sound of my alarm clock blaring at 8:30 and immediately rolled over to try to sleep for a few more minutes. “I’ll make it in time, it starts at 10,” I thought to myself as I drifted back into slumber.

Awaking with a start at 9:08, I jumped out of bed and proceeded to search for an outfit that was somber enough for the day’s events yet comfortable enough to walk around in. Black slacks, black shoes, charcoal grey tee shirt, done.

At Turkish scholar Dr. Taner Akcam’s lecture at Glendale Community College the previous day, I’d been bombarded with paraphernalia for the April 24th events, yet I did not choose to wear my new “1915: Stop the Denial” tee shirt, nor did I affix the “Boycott Turkey” bumper sticker to my car that I’d been given as I left the lecture where Dr. Akcam attempted to promote dialogue between Armenians and Turks. I wondered if the students who abruptly left Dr. Akcam’s lecture early were given the “Boycott Turkey” bumper stickers or if the stickers were only awarded to those who stayed until the end of the presentation.

Running to my car, I quickly made it to the 101 South and exited at Hollywood Boulevard where I was suddenly stopped in my tracks by a massive traffic jam.

“It’s to be expected today,” I thought as I took the time to look around at the people in their cars in Little Armenia. BMW’s, Mercedes Benzes and other opulent cars were adorned with Armenian and American flags. I chuckled, wondering if the tourists across the street thought there was a soccer match going on because of all of the fanfare. A black BMW with tinted windows passed me and I noticed a group of young men, cleanly shaven with shorn hair and black 1915 tee shirts, laughing and watching intently as a group of young girls in tight blue jeans and platform sandals walked towards the march. The search for parking seemed endless but I finally found a spot near Hollywood on Edgemont.

The air was thick with the pungent scent of hair gel and aftershave. Old men stood on the street corners awaiting the start of the event. In the distance, I could already hear the chanting of the crowd. “What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now! Shame on Turkey! 1915, never again!” A group of men stood nearby smoking cigarettes and watching the crowd as many young Armenian boys and girls with gelled hair, Jamba Juice and Starbucks drinks and T-Mobile Sidekicks attached to their hands as if with Krazy glue walked around sending text messages and laughing with each other. The social aspect of such events was to be expected and yet the longer I watched the crowd, the less I wanted to stay.

At the head of the march was a group of Armenian archbishops and priests who solemnly walked without chanting. Their presence was in stark contrast to the general public who, with fists raised, chanted, yelled and screamed. As the crowd reached Normandie Avenue, the religious leaders quietly stepped away from the crowd, passing me to disappear from the march.   The yelling started to give me a headache.
Sure, I want justice like any other self-respecting Armenian whose ancestors survived the genocide. My maternal grandfather was rescued from under a pile of corpses as an infant and spent his entire life in silence trying to live under a shadow he never discussed. Yet this tragedy is something that I wish to remember in a different way.

I want to mourn the dead rather than hold up slogans and walk down avenues as though I were part of a parade. I felt the anger rising up in my chest. Are we Armenians replacing the commemorative root of this day with a kind of bravado mob mentality? Was it ever any different? “What would happen,” I thought to myself, “if all of a sudden the genocide magically did receive worldwide recognition? What would our agenda be then?” Sensing that my frustration might lead me to say or do something I would regret, I turned and walked back toward my car. But it wasn’t time to go home.

What did I really want today to be about? I got in my car and drove east on Hollywood, North on Vermont, onto the 5 and then to the 134 until I reached the place that I knew was the right place to be on this day.

Forest Lawn Cemetery welcomed me with its quiet, its calm and its simple, somber atmosphere. I picked out a bouquet of white flowers in the flower shop and made my way up through the grounds. “Akh medzmayrig, oor es?” (“Great-grandma, where are you?”) I whispered to myself as I trudged through the grass in search of my great-grandmother Araxie Oshagan’s grave. “Eem havidenagan hartsus” (“My eternal dilemma”) I thought, as I remembered the same search for her grave I have each time I visit this cemetery. Was it two rows down from the stone bench or two rows up? Damn it, should I call my cousin for directions?

And then, I found her. The emotions arose within me as I slowly began to wash her gravestone with water and arrange the flowers I had bought.
Araxie Astardjian was born in Bulgaria in 1895. As a young teen, she met her future husband when on one cold night, the writer Hagop Oshagan knocked on her parents’ door asking if they could put him up for the night. From Bulgaria all the way to her death in Los Angeles in 1987 just two weeks after moving to the US, my medzmayrig’s life was one full of trauma, strength, pride and loss.

I remembered how she would sit in the corner of her room, her head turned to look out the window, searching for the ghosts of her long-lost husband and family members. I noticed a car pass by with an Armenian flag attached to its passenger window. A solemn family exited the car to pay their respects to their loved ones at the cemetery. Slowly, I realized that all was not forgotten.

By Vahe Sargsyan
Analyst with the Mitq Analysis Center
Photos by Tamar Baboujian

In anticipation of the 2010 Census, a large effort is being made in the U.S. to reach out to the Armenian population and make sure they mark themselves as Armenians. According to U.S. federal law, if there is a large enough number of an ethnic group in a region, than that ethnic group is entitled to a certain level of representation within its locality. The U.S. Census counts all citizens—including illegal aliens—who pay their taxes and, thus, deserve basic rights in local issues. The government is also mandated to accommodate to the linguistic needs of large ethnic groups, through things such as bilingual education and translation.

In the Republic of Georgia, a population count in 2002 estimated that there were 207,598 people living in the region of Javakhk. Of these, 55% were Armenians, while Georgians made up 43% of the population. In addition, the count held in the historically Armenian region of Dsalga estimated that there were 11,484 Armenians, 2,510 Georgians, 4,589 Greeks, 1,992 Azeri’s, and 313 other ethnicities residing there.

With this background on the U.S. process, as well as the numbers from the Georgian census, in mind, let us take a more in-depth look at the situation confronting Armenians living in Javakhk.

First of all, in the sphere of education, language classes in Armenian schools in Javakhk have to be taught according to the program of the Georgian government and the teachers are directly paid by the state. In theory, the Georgian government is responsible for ensuring that the population’s mother tongue (Armenian) is taught, but this responsibility is neglected and policies are carried out with the exact opposite effect. For example, Georgia’s Ministry of Science and Education has made numerous attempts to convert the teachings in Armenian schools into strictly Georgian instruction.

This continues today, as the state seeks to change all textbook materials from Armenian to Georgian. At the same time, Armenian school textbooks are being sold at extremely high prices which are often times too expensive for the people of Javakhk to afford. On top of all of this, the quality of the material in these books is very poor.

The Georgian Education Ministry proceeds to deflect criticism of this severe textbook shortage for Armenians in Javakhk as an issue facing Georgian society as a whole. However, when we are talking about the critical maintenance of a native people (Armenians) living in their motherland (Javakhk), these feeble excuses are simply unacceptable.

Georgia has a friendly neighbor, the Republic of Armenia, who has consistently been prepared to provide such Armenian textbooks for schools in Javakhk and the rest of Georgia, and has done so for over the past 1-2 years. Rather than facilitate this assistance, however, the Georgian authorities have forbidden Armenia from continuing to send schoolbooks to Javakhk (presently, Armenia is permitted to only send language textbooks, with literature and other subjects being strictly forbidden from entering Georgia). It is due to such destructive policies that the spate of supposedly “unsolvable” problems facing schools in Javakhk has surfaced.

Another urgent problem facing Javakhk is the official requirement that all public writings be in the Georgian language, putting the Armenians in the region in extreme isolation. Through these steps, Georgia is seeking to continue — in contradiction to its responsibilities under international law—its ethnic-based policies of withering away the Armenian demographic in exchange for sprouting up Georgian populated areas.

However, this policy of attempting to do away with the Armenian population from the region is bound to fail. This is because there is an unwritten rule that the Georgian government has yet to realize: the Armenian people cannot be destroyed on their historical lands and mountainous regions.  Even when force and brutal means are used, the Armenian people will never disappear. The Hamshen and ‘hidden’ Armenians still living in Western Armenia today provide the perfect example of this.

On the other hand, the pursuit of such a coercive process can produce an opposite effect, which is the reaction of a people subject to such harsh policies of destruction. Currently, due to Javakhk’s circumstances, this reaction is, in fact, occuring. The steps Georgia is taking are deepening the opposition between the Armenians in Javakhk and the authorities. For Javakhk, it is impossible to repeat what has happened in Gakhet and other regions of Georgia.

In such tense circumstances, different foreign powers with varying interests can manipulate the internal situation, which Georgia never ceases to make noise about. However, neutralizing such powers would be considerably simple if steps were taken by Georgia to decrease the concerns of the Armenians in Javakhk, similar to what is occurring in Iran with their Azeri minority.

The Azeris are connected in countless ways to Iran’s government and are invested in the common life of that society. As such, it is very difficult to use the Azeris against Iran as is desired by the U.S. and its allies. The Azeris, like the Armenians in Javakhk, are not a cultural minority. The Azeris in Iran are natives there, who have participated in the formation of the Iranian state and culture.

However, unlike the Azeris in Iran, Armenians in Javakhk do not have any relation to the lineage of the Georgian people. Nevertheless, they have played a significant role in the formation of the post-Soviet, independent Georgian state. Suffice it to point out just one example: when on March 17, 1991, Georgia boycotted the referendum on whether to maintain the USSR intact, Abkhazia and Southern Ossetia did not support Georgia. The latter two regions voted to protect the USSR and to maintain their assistance from Russia. At the same time, Javakhk’s Armenians supported Georgia’s position, coming forward with a special pronouncement along such lines.

1Unfortunately, the continuation of this “tradition” of reliability on behalf of Javakhk’s Armenians—as happened again during the days of the 2008 Russia-Georgia War—has been completely ignored by Georgia’s governing leaders. Similarly, the Georgian media also chooses to forget this record of loyalty and, instead, everywhere hurls lies and insults against the activists and common people of Javakhk.

Turning back to the obstacles placed before the people of Javakhk, we must draw our attention to the imbalance in Armenian representation in the local civic bodies. When it comes to political representation, the country’s laws of local self-government have subtly and slyly reduced the quantity of Armenians elected or appointed to municipal bodies. For example, in the cities of Dsalga or Asbintsa (Asbnchag) it is impossible to find an appointed Armenian official, even as these two municipalities are made up of approximately 60% and 20% Armenians, respectively. Taking into account that 37% of the Akhaltskha municipality is Armenian and 62% is Georgian, we again see a strict imbalance in executive official distribution. Similarly, in the municipalities of Akhalkalak and Ninodzminta, there is a daily increase in Georgians running executive positions. Added to all of this is the fact that within Samtskhe-Javakhk’s state administration there are virtually no Armenians, even though Armenians make up 55% of the population while Georgians only 43%. This proportional makeup of the population should have resulted in the governor of Samtskhe-Javakhk, as well as 55% of the worker’s in the administration, being Armenian. However, instead, the current governor, L. Jkadua, is Georgian.

In a recent interview, Jkadua exposes himself to be a naïve youngster whose dream is to see one day see a beautiful Akhaltskha. In Jkadua’s worldview, there is generally no place for Javakhk’s volatile issues. Again, besides the beautification of the city of Akhaltskha, he does not see any problems in Javakhk. The reason for this is simple: he either does not know or is avoiding the deep-rooted causes of Javakhk’s problems.

This detachment from reality of the governor is reminiscent of Communist-era officials in Armenia at the end of 1920 and the beginning of 1921, when the country’s Education Minister was brought in from Siberia and the person responsible for Agriculture was “invited” from the Chukotka Peninsula. Of course, we all remember that the result of this was the famed and historic February Rebellion of 1921.

Comparing these conditions in Georgia and Javakhk with the more sound policies of then the U.S., mentioned in the beginning of the article, puts this sad state of affairs into even clearer perspective. And this specific comparison was not done out of mere coincidence.

It is clear to all observers that there is a heavy influence of American thinking on the authorities in Georgia. Government leaders constantly praise the U.S. for its way of life and rule of law in their public pronouncements. You could say that, for many of them, the US has become an idol of worship.

At the same time, as a junior ally of the US in the region, many Americans work in the high offices of the Georgian state, helping direct the nation’s course. Sadly however, in the case of the Armenians of Javakhk, the Americans deal with their Georgian counterparts by following the famous saying, “My child, don’t live in the way that I am living, but rather in the way that I’m teaching.”

By Hovig Keushkerian

This struggle…It keeps me awake at nights. It courses through my veins; it kicks at my beating heart ruthlessly. It lights an inferno in my soul and my body smolders under it. It wracks my mind and my emotions, for what is the place of an Armenian-American living in America?

We struggle and fight from seas abroad so that our homeland off in the horizon will remain untouched and prosperous, without any hindrance. Yet when have we asked ourselves the question, “Will I ever live in my homeland again?”

I fear we become victims of pseudo-patriotism. A sense of urgency that arises when our cause is in check, yet quickly creeps away when we have shown our surroundings that we cared enough to take the initiative to act. Yet we look down upon our brothers and sisters living in our homeland, relics of a lost cold war and a fallen soviet empire, wondering when they will ever become as educated as us. We are blind to the fact that they are the true patriots. They live with the land. Every morning they wake with the sun on their shoulders that rises from the east, and stands guard above our national symbol of Mt. Ararat. They culture and harness the land; they give it life and nurture it. They tame both the mountainous terrain and the riches she keeps hidden in her bosom. They are the true descendants of our fedayis and true patriots who saved our fragile people from the clutches of an empire whose only legacy was an insatiable lust for power and domination.

We are the scattered children of our motherland. When the genocide occurred, we fled to the middle-east. When Syria restricted our growth and endangered our way of life, we fled to Lebanon. When the civil war broke out, we fled to the United States. We never returned. Our love for our homeland bled and dried up into an affection and obsession with the abstract idea of what our motherland had been.

We never stopped once and held our ground. We always fled. We protected our people, but we never fought for the land on which we lived. We took the lands we lived in for granted and abused our right to live there. We never repaid  our freedom. We bled for survival, but we didn’t bleed for the land, because it wasn’t ours, nor did we want it to be.

So we came to The United States, land of the free and home of the brave. We sang songs, read books, and published newspapers by the hundreds. We created organization and opened schools so that our communities and future generations will always remember our identity and out story. And here we stayed, for the sake of our offspring, for a future, and most importantly, a promise which few realized was a warning in disguise.

The life expectancy for our identity was only as long as our willingness to master it. Yet in a society where Capitalism is king, where you are responsible for your own share of the pie, where morality and justice are but fantastic ideas on a piece of parchment drying up in a box in Washington D.C., it became apparent that our survival in such a society would come at the slowly increasing cost of our identity.

Such is the burden of the patriotic Armenian-American youth today. We struggle on all fronts. We fight for our homeland abroad, we fight for our survival in our environment, and we constantly grapple with the idea of dropping our way of life to move back to the homeland because it is the right thing to do. America and a globalized military-industrial complex have diminished our sense of nationality and patriotism, by dangling the myth of the American Dream in front of us, while keeping us in fear that it is unobtainable anywhere else in the world. We fight our gut feelings that call us traitors every time we decide to remain here so secure a better way of life for our diasporas and generations to come, for why shouldn’t those people have the chance to live and grow in their own country?

We have the burden of fighting for our existence and the preservation of our identity in an unprecedented context, under the guise of assimilated Armenians.

Yeraz Im Yergir, Hayreni. That is what you have been for us, for the Diaspora Armenians from Western Armenia.

A dream. The dream of our motherland.