Thursday, 4 November 2010
An Open Letter to the Armenian Minister of Diaspora or My Mom's Dolma vs. Your Mom's Dolma
Grishoyedova
Background
Miracle
Outrage
Icing on a Cake
Calm after Storm? No? Ok. (With a shrug)
Background
A 20 year old mother - Zaruhi - having suffered in the hands of her husband and mother-in-law for two years, filled with terror, beatings, humiliation, despicable psychological and emotional pressure, was finally beaten to her death, non-stop, for two days, her fingers cut off for her to be unable to dial a number for help, her knees broken making her unable to as much as crawl to the door, her blood-filled mouth stuffed with a piece of old cloth for her sighs not to be heard...in front of her two year old child...
Miracle
The miracle in this case is miniscule but marks a difference from the ages-old tradition of shutting up, swallowing up sorrow and letting a murderous husband get away with mitigated punishment for there is NO LAW against domestic violence in Armenia... The pitch? The little child shouldn't grow up without her father. So, the father who murdered the mother in front of the very same child is allowed to serve 3 tiny years, then get released and trusted with the education of this little girl.
Zara's family spoke up. Her sister and her sister's mother-in-law, for Zara and her sister are/were orphans and this has had given even more power to the "hosting" family to abuse her in every possible inhumane manner.
Outrage
Naturally, the youtubed interview with Zara's sister, outlining all the shoving away professionally and duly performed by our blessed police, got the position of instant news that wouldn't leave the screens - TV, computer, newspapers, campaigns. The Women's Resource Center, a well fighting and not so well funded NGO, started to push for its four-year old Draft Law Against Domestic Violence to be as much as placed in the Parliamentary agenda.
Everyone learned about Zara. A public outrage followed. No more tucking dust under the carpet. The carpets were out, furniture moved and all the dirt was dancing in bright sunlight. We all saw and expressed our OUTRAGE.
Icing on a Cake
Things were seemingly ok, as the Facebook campaign and the NGOs and the Civil Groups hand in hand started campaigning. Usually, in any other country a female politician or two immediately will pick on the matter, speak out against it. In Armenia's case all we hope for is that our government better not speak. Yes, it's better that they do not speak than come in and try to convince that it happens to everyone, everywhere, it's just another case, let the police do the job (e.g. collecting evidence to prove that "Zara fell off the staircase"!!!), in short, everything calm and pink and bright - Ararat, Apricot, Genocide, Homeland.
And so, the icing on the cake arrived when during the same days of heavy outrage, in an attempt to "save" the image of a saintly Armenian woman that was being tarnished all over the place (really, Zara's sister's speaking out part must have gotten them pissed off (oops, I said a bad word!)), the notorious, the ONLY woman Minister, the one and only Minister of Diaspora comes out and announces the launch of Ms Armenia, whereby Miss Armenia shall be a woman who speaks Armenian (mmmm, I'm sorry, is she aware how many women of Armenian descent in Diaspora do NOT speak Armenian? Does that make them any less Armenian?), cooks Armenian, is as humble as a sheep in Armenia, has family values, traditions, blah blah, blah (remember, the contest is for women UNDER the age of 25).
She says it like nothing happened, no mentioning of Zara... Zara who? Law on Domestic Violence What? Moreover, apparently our Minister promises that with her way of doing things, she's gonna open more doors for more "female politicians" into Armenian politics. Yep, all we have to do to get in is get ticks into checkboxes of her personal questionnaire that comes with recommendations from her mnemonic stories of how humble and traditionalist HER mother was. Honey, we love OUR mothers more than YOURS! (Who's doing your PR anyway? perhaps you should get a non-traditionalist, sharp, smart "female" speech-writer to NEVER EVER write non sense and damage OUR image abroad or at home! We're smart, we exist and we're watching you with four eyes, we haven't forgiven your sucking up to an immensely unpopular government that still holds 59 political prisoners in jail for viewing their opinions and being journalists).
And so, once THIS cherry got over the cake, right on the top, we no longer could take it. The Armenian Weekly expressed concerns, women working in Women's Rights NGOs in Armenia expressed concerns, blogs went afire.
Calm after Storm? No? Ok. (With a shrug)
And now, too little too late, suddenly some non-"female" advisor whispered in the Minister's ears that this Zara's Murder and Ms traditionalist Armenia things were not making layers of the same cake and no icing could stick them together, here comes one more cherry - A Letter over the Confusion of the Ministry's Project Ms Armenia (click http://www.armenianweekly.com/2010/11/03/minister-clarifies-misunderstanding/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+ArmenianWeekly+(Armenian+Weekly) ) and here's the quote - there - again! Her letter goes - the criminal should be punished, Zara shouldn't have died in a sort of a demi-apologetic manner, no reference to the ABSOLUTE NECESSITY to the passage of the Law on the Crime of Domestic Violence. Once the hard part of BLAH is done, the Minister is back to Ms Armenia business with utterly undiminished spirit and I quote!
"In my personal opinion, an Armenian beauty should have good knowledge of the Armenian language, be a good cook, and preserve the image of an Armenian lady. As a woman and a political figure I feel obliged to talk about decency, humbleness, and modesty. My mother symbolizes the image of an Armenian woman for me, and she is modest, balanced, measured, and devoted to Armenian traditions and customs. I also believe that ill manners, immorality, and betrayal can destroy not only a family but a society."
Well, first of, no one expects a Minister to make the MAIN paragraph of what's supposed to be an explanatory letter a PERSONAL OPINION. We're not interested in your personal opinion. Open the Constitution of our country, open the Penal Code, open the Draft Law on the Crime Against Domestic Violence and THEN make a point OR do what your colleagues do in such cases - keep silent. And to make sure that our "female" voices are heard, that no second Zara can ever happen, that YOU do not get to impose YOUR way onto others, here are my tips to you:
Dear (questionably so) Minister,
- 1. When did it become obligatory of ALL Armenian women to resemble YOUR mother?
- 2. What constitutes centuries old traditions vs immorality and betrayal?
- 3. As much as you're referring to LAW to "rigorously" punishing Zaruhi's husband (what about the mother-in-law? was she a traditional woman, too?), YOU OUGHT TO REFER TO THE SAME LAW when talking of women's rights in Armenia.
- 4. Every Armenian national, "EVERY" being the keyword, has rights and freedoms and this is the ONLY context/angle, from which to discuss this horrendous case.
- 5. Running a hopeless PR campaign to get "into Diaspora's eyes" (as the saying goes), you CANNOT simply impose your personal rather conservative views on what an Armenian woman's image ought to be. Whether we cook or clean, or become good mothers or not become mothers at all, is NON of YOUR business.
- 6. How about running a campaign of having the next Ms Armenia winner recite her constitutional rights and interpret them personally!! I'm sure it'll be more difficult to get them learn it than cooking a casserole of dolma, but hey, you've got a nice budget, get them copies of the CONSTITUTION!!!
Oh, and PS, I'm a mom of three, one of whom autistic, whose rights to equal access to Armenian education you also do not concern yourself with, being too busy with the beauty pageant and all. I'm a mom of three married to a wonderful husband who spends 80% of his time working abroad to provide for that child's education and funding for an NGO - Break Autism Break Discrimination - to advocate for rights of Armenian children with Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia. I'm a mom with three degrees in International Law, two of them with distinction. I'm a Mom who speaks five languages in four different alphabets. I'm a mom of three who cooks the way she likes, who spends her evening out the way she likes, who reads what she likes...
And you know what the sad truth is? I'm not the only one... There are dozens of thousands of us, all living abroad dreading to place our sons' heads to the altar of the utterly corrupted army of ours where soldiers get murdered then claimed suicidal.
Now, YOU be a good lawfully elected and appointed Minister and answer US - what went so utterly wrong with our country that SO MANY women no longer live in Armenia? And how do you think (if!) you can win us back. Most certainly, this talk of traditionalism of cooking, kids and no personal time and space is serving no good, unless THIS has been your plan all along and YOU have been the only perfect candidate the current government could consume (let's face it my kind of women are simply too toxic for your kind of women, but hey, that's YOUR right to no obligation of ours WHATSOEVER!).
Monday, October 4 2010
Blanket of national security + covering up a soldier's murder=Snake eating its tail
"I was once asked why I don't participate in anti-war demonstrations. I said that I will never do that, but as soon as you have a pro-peace rally, I'll be there."
Mother Teresa
When a highly educated young man decided to bring his service to his country's army, no one could expect that the very context of his nation's security would be used to shed a cover over the circumstances of his death in the army months later. Artak Nazarian's murder on July 28, at the height of tourist season in Armenia and ongoing notes of war threats regularly exchanged between Armenia and Azerbaijan, remained on the cover pages of he media for nearly a month. Where Artak's story used to be, now one may read cases and reports of other forms of criminal acts in the army.
The paradox is Artak's death, in a true post-USSR manner, has been officially reported as a suicide and his mother's open letter addressed to the MoD of RoA, simply received a rather dry official answer that the case should be left to the investigators. At the time, the perpetrators of the crime were even brought before a swiftly-formed committee of MoD, and publicly humiliated. One ought to read this sentence, keeping in mind "At the time" is merely a keyword. Again, it was the height of touristic season. Plus, the reaction of social media both at the act of the murder and the quick note by the MoD that the incident was a suicide was nothing short of public outrage that from MoD's viewpoint demanded an immediate giant PR fix-up for damage control.
Reading through FB posts from Beirut during this period was equal to opening a window into the innermost divisive patterns of our nation. Artak's case in Armenia was a case of democracy, our ongoing struggle to make sense of RoA's commitments to human rights and the very essence of what makes a statehood minus corruption. But Artak's case from Diaspora, albeit the wide media coverage, was a matter of homeland security. Many of my FB friends were either on their way to Armenia for vacation - many of them for the first time - or were due to return. In both cases, I would immediately bring up Artak's case, not as an attempt to darken their views of homeland but rather try to make sense on when an Armenian passport granted to a Diasporan stops being a mere touristic/business tool and begins to bear a stamp of civic responsibility, translated into an active voice. At those moments, I'd also dream of a little sci-fi vision of my own - imagining a Diaspora-Embassy meeting where the community would calmly, nicely speak with the representatives from Armenia and get beyond the emotional shield, merely trying to find answers to "What causes these incidents? How do we fix this? How do we make sure this doesn't happen again? ". In short, at what point in time of our centuries-long-coveted national identity makes a cross with our independence and give birth to a truly established civic nation? At what point do we begin to fearlessly think of human rights as not a fancy import of barcoded democracy but a simple concept: if you're good and I'm good and he's good and she's good, then WE're all good?
What Artak's case proves time and again is that this form of logic is non-deductible from our inductively collective form of thinking. Unfortunately, this is the one common point where Diaspora+Homeland and Armenia+State concepts make a perfect cross. Our collective is boosted by the most fashionable of all-time machiavellian master-excuses - the argument of national security.
This tactic comes natural to a region like Caucasus. For crying outloud, this very excuse had the US pre-emptively attacking two countries outside while keeping a strong grip on information flow inside. Hence, if the big guys are doing it, we have no other option but behave the same way. While happening on a global scale, the implosive results of overuse of national security take time to show. Caucasus being a rather localised small area in its turn divided into smaller localised warring areas, the implosiveness is much louder, more deafening and brings about casualties on a scale surpassing the boundaries of core locus, e.g. if such an act takes place inside the army, gets ignored, covered up, eaten away, then with it die away any human rights efforts coming from other outlets, in their nature mere accessories to the main story - the media, NGOs, indirectly relevant public administrative bodies, social and educational outlets. Another analogy is the earthquake and its epicenter - the main damage is at the epicenter, then vibrations of this act of complaint-by-nature go on destructing other areas, leaving the locations most distant-from-the-epicenter unharmed.
In Artak's case, the epicenter is the army, the immediate cell harmed by this act of cruelty are his family, friends, the latter's families and friends, civic organisations, bodies of public administration etc. While MoD is of epicentric nature in this case, the road from an army camp to its HQ goes through the chain of these affected cells of society. And so, the MoD in its official statement issued pre-investigation announcing the murder is a suicide, becomes a distant unaffected body while virtually sitting in the heated epicenter of events surrounding Artak's case, and since Artak's death - other cases of abuse, inclusive of hazing and "murder by suicide". The MoD being the guarantor of national security uses its very function to justify the cover-up of such cases. "We have enemies at the gate" is the most undeniable justification it'll give. For our collective security needs we ought to learn to swallow the casualties of un-happening-yet-there war.
This very same excuse is quoted by all our neighbors, which makes all of us alike, all of us caught up on the same parallel and NON of us capable of leading a strategy of regional stability and hence, ALL of us dependable on solutions we seek from outside grand powers. Yes, if one reads the national strategies of states of Caucasus, one may see how in our pride, we despise those very grand powers, we brag about our ancient wise traditions, about our ancient civilisations, hell, we can even ignite a fight or two on-spot if anyone of us claims "I was camping on this very mountain with my tribe two years before you've ever learned the mountain existed". Sadly, one conclusion may be drawn - NON of us is keen on basic human rights. We all have long history of collective achievements, decorated with stories of great rebel-warrior-generals, who made an army, went and killed, liberated and/or conquered and formed a country. The history of every single nation in our region is a who's who of collective achievements with zero accountability at any point for the loss of something as miniscule as "casualties of war" - women and children caught in the line of fire, entire villages, towns making entire demographic shifts both in quality and quantity, "great" Men leading other "great" Men to a glory of a promised land - no, no, not a physical land alone - but a chunk of land with such a strong guarantee of national security that as they say in our fairy tales "the bird with her wing, the snake with his naval button won't even think to pass our borders (I know, it sounds gross when translated)".
Now, collectively secure, we're falling short of strategies on maintaining the very same much necessary national security, more threatened by our insecurities from within than our enemy's wicked plans from outwith. Apparently, we KNOW how equally insecure from within our enemies are... It's a human factor, you may say. I'll call it a male factor. I'll explain you how...
Programmed for centuries to think of freeing our homeland, our women raised their sons to be always fully aware that when the homeland is under threat, they'll go to war. Our women bravely faced their husbands and brothers prior to bidding them farewell in full knowledge that might be the last time they'd ever see one another. Once we've established our state and our homeland became a functioning body, we still expect the male cells in this organism to be more vibrant and vital while the female cells - accustomed to constantly taking a sacrificial seat, more reserved and safekeeping their energy to flee when necessary and start life from zero wherever destiny would bring them to. This is a good recepy of survival when homeland was just an idea, a theory, lost remnant from our collective memory.
An established state, a fully living organism cannot be maintained by the force of the same formula. We ought to change in admitting that only if ALL the cells of that organism are getting the same exact amount of oxygen and nourishment, can we maintain the longevity of the very same national security.
En bref, national security as a strategy when one is lest of homeland is qualitatively a different task from national security when one has a statehood. When the innermost symbol of our freedom - the army - is a mirror of a mini-organism with ALL of its cells functioning properly, with each and every soldier fulfilling his task without the fear of becoming a casualty of war-at-peacetime, then we can speak of a pro-active army, self-progressive, self-efficient. Our mothers and sisters no longer take a second seat, we ought to be at the forefront of raising a generation of such soldiers. We ourselves shouldn't shy away from becoming that soldier. And when we march and come to the doors of MoD with the pictures of murdered and abused soldiers, we do not act so because of fear of what the external enemy may do to our existence, but what WE-US can do to allow that little crack on the door for them to gaze through unto us. And finally, building an army aimed at building peace rather than ready for a war any second is far harder, more meticulous work whereby Machiavellian sneaky strategies have no room but our centuries-old values as peaceful natives take hold. The old adage peace at home = peace outside is not a karmic idea. It is the most viable of all geostrategies. An earthquake, in this case, too, is a good analogy. Apply the formula yourselves.
I'm sure I'm not the first or the only one who thinks this way. I'm also sure people thinking like me can be found in all Caucasus states. We like to take a backseat of an unheard-of-intellectual who considers it lowly to get involved in a manner of dialogue, least of all a dialogue engaging foes and friends alike. We're either silently neutral, or we're compelled to pick a side (for the choice of an extreme, is a true Caucasian trait). I've come to think that neutrality has a voice. In its moderate nature it should not be silent. With every Artak dying in our entire region, we're breaking a brick of any miniscule foundation of peace we have. Every Artak is a mirror that should have us look back for 100 years and see forth for another 100.
Where the civil society and opposition stand and where the MoD stands, there are undoubtedly ulterior motives, at times genuine ambitions, and at times individual ambitions. It is not plausible to see the manner in which we create a witch hunt case against the MoD each and every time an incident happens. It is equally not plausible to see the manner in which MoD brushes all arguments away, unwilling to get sleeves-up working with the civil organisations while willing to make that tiny effort to meet with them in front of cameras purely for PR reasons.
My proposal is simple. Having been native to our region, gone through every single major conqueror in the region, we have the first right to form the first layer of foundation for peace, starting from ourselves. I say to MoD, take the experts from NGOs and civic groups off their shelves, bring them in, make joint committees and unleash them under Your aegis onto those continuously misbehaving remnants of Dedovshchina. And to those NGOs, opposition movements, I suggest to find ways of dialogue as much as you do when making a case for revolution upon each and every of such incident. This may sound naive, futuristic, even inadmissible, but the truth is we've got to try homeopathy first before calling for chemotherapy. And national security or not, no one should die during a time of peace, even if we "sugarcoat" it by claiming a suicide.
Armenia: No Charity = True Charity
Too many charities around, about, towards Armenia these days have become a beautiful shield guarding the sacred treasure isles of its oligarchs' and leading "elite"'s villas and enterprises - onshore and offshore, local and international. Charity was a cuter sounding necessity back in the 90s. It was self-evident that a nation who's embraced democracy and freedom overnight, diverging away from planned economy, would be in dire need of charity of all composures, textures and sizes. There was an earthquake, there were refugees from Azerbaijan and Karabakh, there was Karabakh itself. Schools, factories, research institutes, governmental organisations all stopped operating almost overnight. We were getting everything with cupons - bread, sugar, butter (salted!), protein cookies, soy oil, powdered milk etc. Amidst the ongoing braindrain, people still maintained their one dream - to get to work, earn their daily bread and sustain their families and do this all by themselves.
Now, two decades have passed an the the institute of Charity has flourished just like any other flourishing industry in today's Armenia. The fundraisers have become fanciers. So, did the fund-givers. there are mushroom communities of NGOs that entirely run on grants and funds with no returns deemed. The Diaspora structures fund immense projects aimed at updating roads and infrastructure all over the country, provide electricity links and perform gasification, fix schools, take care of orphanages. In the meantime, local, parliamentary and presidential elections have come and gone, with frauds, with violations, with plentiful of proven allegations of corruption nearly in every sector. The government usually denies any and every allegation and the uber-inconsistent opposition keeps using any and every event to point a blaming finger at not the government but people/individuals IN it and claim corruption without proof or in case of proof without consistent legal action. Yes, there have been small success stories in Armenia's courtrooms, but so miniscule in number that the overall face of the corruption has barely blinked and if ever there was a tiny wrinkle, it fought the wrinkle of with a shot of Botoxed overlayers of more corruption.
Now, the truth is that today, on every lever of the society there are anti-corruption efforts being launched. case by case, step by step, but these little changes can clear the way to a bright uncorrupted future. yet, tehre are impediments - internal and external. Make no mistake, WE are the authors of those impediments - not our usual enemies across the border, not the super grand powers abroad or overboard. US - WE are in charge of it. While shifts towards the positive are happening from within, there are barely any signs of Diasporan entrepreneurs joining arms with the internal cells. Now, at this point if you're a Diasporan who's been living and working in Armenia for nearly or over a decade and likes to take part in debates claiming they're naturalized, then this discussion is not about you. If you ARE a Diasporan very much caring of your homeland but have never lived there long-term, do not bear full burden of being that country's national but are being approached by local community chapters for various charities, this discussion is about you.
Two projects I've read about this summer aim at bringing two new charitable charities to our charitable state. One project wants to have every Diasporan send 5USD per month to poor families living in Armenia. Another project aims to raise 3mln USD to have Armenia's music schools renovated in terms of doors, windows and heating systems. Now, I'm gonna argue against these charities in a manner that you may call "Devil's advocate". in truth, what I propose is rather angelic in the end.
It's no secret that the March 1, 2008 events following the last presidential elections were lightly brushed aside by the Diaspora communities as matters of internal politics. At this point, I'll take a pause again from the main line of the story to please bring your attention to the fact that no matter WHO were the victors and losers of that election, the lack of proper diaspora address was simply a sign of shortage of civic thinking. Sadly, living in the West or in democratic societies had our Diaspora shifting their European mindset onto an Asian one. The same person that would cringe over mesmerizing shootouts resulting in deaths of civilians anywhere in Europe, simply took a deep breath and not longer than a second of sorrow, then went on with his daily routine. The paradox is wherever a discussion is opened about fraudulent practices in the homeland, everyone begs to drop in a story or two they heard, or they experienced. Overall, everyone is aware but brushing this awareness aside also happens within a second once the conversation is over.
the cases of political prisoners, cases of environmental disasters in the name of short-term profitable enterprises in the middle of nature reserves and/or the green zones of city centers are not reported in the Diasporan media (with few exceptions in the American-Armenian media) or are done in a minimized or sugarcoated manner.
The one clear conclusion that can be drawn is that a nation for centuries focused on freeing their homeland, hasn't been and still is not ready to fully embrace the responsibilities that come with a notion of statehood. Homeland and statehood are combined in one and while the homeland is treated, and justifiably so, as a powerfully positive dominant corpus of needs and requirements, the matter of statehood is greatly avoided in wider public or communal discussion just as it was the way to do when under the Ottoman, or Persian, or Soviet rule.
Many of the Diasporans willing to take part in those Charity shows have the dual nationality and do not realise that in today's political reality, money sent to homeland is money sent to a state, in this case, a state deeply evolved around corruption practices. The vast majority of cases of charity money gone astray into pockets are still conveniently tucked under the catalog title of "rare occurrences that happen to the best of countries". During the past decade it was fashionable to blame it on the "transition period". Now, already transited, the corruption practices specifically involving the charity funds, have blossomed non less than the rest of the items that come with the growth of the free market.
Thus, the forms of Diaspora's involvement into the matters of homeland and state remain the top denominators of the rate of serious long-term investments, of the possible massive repatriation. The matters of transparency within the internal market and the thorough commitment to competitive environment, lest of a shadow system of fraud and corruption, are more sensitive subjects for discussion than the causes of the Armenian Genocide, the status-quo of Karabakh and pro-US/EU or pro-Russia debates. Again, when discussion the former, essentially it's about the state, when discussing the latter, it's all about homeland. We stick to the utterly positive and are prepared and ready to manage our ways through any difficulty when it comes to our homeland. But when it comes to the way WE manage our state for it's WE who OUGHT to manage it, we're incredibly humble and lower in our tone. And when in the presence of our enemy, we bravely talk of our just demands, but we're not brave enough to discuss our shortcomings even amongst ourselves.
Now, the critical question - how do we expect our homeland to achieve its lively goals if our state is not taken care of in proper, as in per our Constitution. Why if you hit any Armenian awake in the middle of the night and ask what's our Day of Independence, they'll answer May 28 almost subconsciously from the depths of their 7th level of sleep. But if you ask what's our day of Constitution, they'll definitely wake up and ask for coffee before answering. Why demanding romantic sacrifices in the name of homeland is much lighter and merely implies the engagement of our right side of the brain, but when we have to do a serious left-brained study of our Constitutional goals, we yawn and walk away? How many of those who now have Armenian nationality and live in Diaspora know what's in our Constitution. Or is it enough to know where the Opera is, where the churches and mountains are and WHO our leaders are. We form our opinions based on the WHO runs the state without linking them to WHAT is the state.
And so, while I salute my Diasporan brethren's enthusiasm for bringing a change to our homeland, I call them to take their sleeves up and share the burden of civic responsibilities with their local Armenian compatriots and get truly busy building their state FIRST, THEN see what happens to the homeland. It's a harder work. It means facing the harshness of realities within the state, the seriousness of what's in stock for our future - long-term progressive growth or short-term, and hence inevitably regressive, profitability.
The state budget has thickened enough for the state to take that responsibility of placing doors and windows in music schools, it has taken the responsibility to meet the UN Millennium Program to end poverty in Armenia WITHOUT the inclusion of 5USD from each and every Diasporan. If we follow and inform ourselves on the ongoing real impediments, perhaps we'll become more outspoken on what's been happening with previous UN allocations and demand transparent accountability from people in charge of running diverse programs. Again, this is not a call for pessimism and in no way a claim that everyone is bad. No, there are just as many good honest people working in these state-run agencies and organisations. They ARE making their daily battle and they do expect that Diaspora take it as seriously as it is. There are three options - stop sending money, start moving there and making changes on the ground or do not go but do get informed to a rate of 100% on every new charity proposal that lands on your community's table. The latest Gallup revealed that the 39% of Armenians would rather live in another country and would leave if given the opportunity. Everyone needs jobs in healthy transparent environments, with proper social security and labor standards intact, with the justice system effective and open to everyone (and blind!!!). When a charity comes and covers the task of the state in the name of homeland, this function in the end affects the state and subsequently it's a good deed turned bad, really bad that is.
And so I don't get blamed for making it all up, I call everyone to read the Transparency International's report on Armenia for the year 2010 - here's the opening quote - "
Released on June 29, 2010 by Freedom House, Nations in Transit 2010 studied democratic development in 29 countries from Central Europe to Eurasia. Armenia with a score of 5.39 is a semi-consolidated authoritarian regime. It fails to meet even the minimum standards of electoral democracy and efforts to combat widespread corruption are usually politically motivated.
Corruption still remains a major deterrent to the country's democratic development. Based on a new anticorruption strategy for 2009-12, the government continued its campaign against corruption combining legislative measures and the reform of public services. Although the government anticorruption campaign has revealed abuses at various levels in the public administration, it failed to reach senior officials and major businesspeople who were not adequately punished.
According to Transparency International Anti-corruption Center (TIAC) Chairwoman Amalia Kostanyan, the strategy has many flaws, most importantly, too little emphasis on exposing political corruption. In its comments TIAC noted that the strategy placed too much focus on the code of conduct for parliamentarians and not enough on the conduct of free and fair elections, or efforts to abolish the merger of politics and economics and abuse of administrative, financial, and information resources. Kostanyan identified the main cause of corruption in the country as the oligarchic concentration of political and economic interests in the hands of bureaucrats." (Read the rest here... http://www.transparency.am/news.php?l=en&id=280&inside=1 )
Wednesday, August 18 2010
Zachem liubit', zachem stradat', kol' vse puti vedut...OR....In Bed with Russia
"Zachem liubit' zachem stradats kol' vse puti vedut v kravat'" (A Russian proverb)
"Why to love, why to suffer if all the roads lead to bed" (English please!)
***
Imagine a wedding scene where the groom - US is about to tie the knowt with the bride - Russia. It's the biggest red carpet event of the world, all the media of the world have pre-booked this day in advance, tehre's tight secutiry around the world around the clock, the guests are exquisite couples of countries either in happy marriage or a sad one, about to devorce, or recently widowed. The priest of a suspiciously mixed up denomination resembling neither man nor woman, neither an animal, nor a plant, some kind of a permanent fixture that's been continuously blessing all the major global world events and meetings of all calibers and diameters starting from the UN, passing through G6, G7, G8, G10, G12, G15, G20, IFIs, ending in the EU and wherever there's a huge union about to happen (the Gulf states, for example).
So, this priest raises his holy guacamoly of a blessing item and utters "Dearly beloved, we're gathered here today to join these two in a holy matre-patre-mony for the sake of generations to come. You shall love each other in poverty or immeasurable riches, n health and in crippled crisis times, you're to love each other even when cheating or inclining to on one another". He then gives a long speeh on how long so many generations hoped that after hundreds of years of continuous murderous hatred, actual Wars and threats of War, the couple's dating history has kept the entire world at their info screens (relevant to that period's information tools and techs). he mildly mentions the "necessary" occasional millions of victims that had to be sacrificed for this holy day to arrive.
Then he takes a long pause, looks into the groom and bride's eyes praisingly and says "I now pronounce you a husband and wife. You may kiss the bride". And just when the cheers of crowd applauds to the couple's first warm embrace as a married couple - the priest/non-Priest pulls out a package somewhere from one of his pockets and addresses the couple "I couldn't let you go just like this! Here's my gift to you, a packaged honeymoon trip to Afghanistan, all expenses covered. Enjoy a decade of sunshine and desert conquering and let's hope you'll come out of it stronger as a couple than ever before"...
***
This surreal image is no less unpredictable than the recent minglings between the US and Russia. The only precise thing about this new era of Memorandum of Understandings is the subject line, which reads Afghanistan. the red carpets are set to fly the couple in this magical journey that ended so painfully bad for both just forty years ago.
It first started with Obama Medvedev meetings, where they both behaved in more intelligent and cautious terms (Remember how Bush claimed to have looked into the eyes of Putin's soul after their first meeting?). Then came the spy swap crises (what was that about?). Apparently, there were some Russian spies of serious caliber that have been implanted inside the US for the past decade to get some vital information from FBI, CIA, dee-eye-eeey, beee-why-ay, blah blah blah. They've been followed and caught and the international, sorry, Western media exploded our newsfeeds with every miniscule detail, up to one of the spies' Facebook page, of this cross-Atlantic spy-saga. A guy who was being chased in Cyprus also under surveillance had left the island on what it seems on a submarine (I bet it was yellow). Every detail of protocol notes from Russia's Foreign Ministry to the US Department of State, back and forth, nuanced warnings, demi-threats of freezing any warmth that was reproduced after the Obama-Medvedev meeting of two Western looking intelligent heads of two Western looking intelligent states.
Then, a genuine exchange occurred. Apparently, there had been US spies implanted in Russia for the past decade that were now in a Russian jail in far far away Galaxy of Siberia. Just like the ones caught in the US, the ones Russians had captured were also Russians, the two out of the initially pronounced four were high rated scientists in the field of physics (I leave to your imagination what two Russian physics geniuses could find to link themselves to US intelligence). At this point, in true Western media fashion, the noise around this story was already diminishing, for in the West it's highly unfashionable to follow up on a story for more than two weeks. People always crave for newer news. It's really head-spinning to see the rates for such a demand are as high as a woman's craving for the newer new pair of shoes. The way women ask for pre-collection shoes from runway that arrive before they've actually been worn on a runway, people crave for this pre-emptive breed of newer news, e.g. news before they become news. And so, the spy story was smoothly rolled away and done with like a post-collection pair of shoes no one remembers existed.
Then the BP pipe made their favored relationship with the entire US public institutional system a giant pipe dream and Russia sent a note with a pat-on-a-shoulder character at the same time as the US blessed the more than before closer ties between Russia and EU. And while the US was undergoing major political cataclisms related to their Health Care package and the big problem that was the BPs under water pipe accident, Russia took the charge of taking care of Europe with the same elder brother fashion as the US would do. Russia went on to sign some serious arrangements with EU via Germany that could concisely be presented as the "Don't Worry, I'll Stand by You no Matter What" package. In the meantime, Russia's weapons program maneouverings with its former satellites went without any signs of worries coming from Washington.
And then the heat of a Russian summer caused by the solar storms created even a bigger and better opportunity for the two to come together. Russia declared that it had to take a step back from her commitments of wheat delivery for export for the damage inside the country would cause severe shortages. The US jumped in and swiftly suggested help in covering for Russia and bothering with the wheat himself.
But this layered cake of a production became even more complete when the ultimate cherry was brought in. Afghanistan - that can also be described as a traditional taboo subject on the plain of US-Russian relations - suddenly sent an e-mail memo with all tagged in Cc: telling "Yeah, I guess I could use some Russian help"... The next thing we hear is US being ok for Russia to sell weapons to Afghanistan... US's war on terrorism in Afghanistan following with the reestablishment of fragile democracy n Afghanistan is far from being a mission accomplished. there isn't much focus on Bin Laden. There are at times reports of Al Qaeda operatives being captured, some tapes are released either from Al Qaeda or from CIA's investigative rooms. But the most unfortunate static phenomena is that it has become incredibly hard both to draw in new budgets for continuing the democracy building projects and manage the existing institutions. Yes, NATO is there, too. Yes, Pakistan is trying to be of some help that causes political crisis at home and it, too, thus requires additional budget to help and support this fragile line of communication. All this is accompanied with ongoing economic crises in the US, ongoing crises within the NATO. Foreign workers are continuously targeted by the Taliban and so are the Afghan politicians, security forces, Police, the citizens (especially the women!). Pakistan in the meantime is hit by a devastating natural disaster and simply put can't stretch any further and hasn't been a serious heavyweight in its partnership with the US as far as Afghanistan is concerned.
And now, decades after the disastrous intervention by the US back when the USSR was about to solve the Afghan hurdle, the US is notoriously allowing a gesture like Russia into Afghanistan - "Please, come and help me clean this mess"... There are hints of something positive that theoretically can be drawn out from this re-positioning of forces but let's do hope that this time around THIS COUPLE will come in not only with full well studied budgetary, military and economic facilities but with a moral commitment and proven sense of responsibility for the lives of impoverished Afghans. For any mishap in this land-never-conquered-by-anyone could backlash home and cause a disaster no less painful than the collapse of the USSR. This open draw-up of plans being self-evident of a sea of possibilities cannot but be covertly strategized to satisfied the two Giants' hidden agendas. And so, we raise our glass and say a toast to the happy couple "Here's to the match of your hidden agendas"...
Official Note of Greek Irony to the Government of Turkey upon the Latter's Threat on Deportation of 15000 Armenians in Turkey
Dear Colleagues,
Having gone through multiple deportations - garnished with massacres, grab of any form of property and a seemingly forever close-up on any form of survival of our devoredly Armenian identity - over the past 6 centuries, finalized with the ULTIMATE one in 1915, we would like to inform You that our country will happily embrace its children back. There is one precondition, though. Given the times have changed and the many EU requirements for loving, neighborly, counter-adoring relations between EU pretenders, we'd much appreciate your kind and early notification on the routes of deportation. More importantly, we'd like to know of the methods of deportation to be used, e.g. walking through the plains and mountains, accompanied with occassional beatings, murders and/or massacres/.../ via any other form of transportation - bicycles, cars, airplanes, trains, boats (in this case, do keep in mind that ours is a landlocked country), donkeys, mules and/or cammels. Of course, given both our countries are to abide to the rules of green standards regulations, we'd much prefer (for the good of your people and our people) the bicycles, mules, donkeys, camels or horses. After all, we're both civilized governments and can manage the entire process of deportation within an all-abiding legal framework at national, supranational and international levels.
We additionally suggest that either an OSCE, or special EU task force be appointed for the monitoring of the above genuine initative of Yours, so as to provide with applicable humanitarian aid during their fabulous journey, such as making sure that when stopping to drink water from the clean, unpolluted springs of once historically powerful and now orphaned mountains, the Turkish soldiers won't be tempted to punch wholes of compassion through the backs of bent women and children. We'd also much appreciate your early note of forms of weaponry and deportee accessories to be used. For instance, in case of use of traditional yataghans, we find you may subcontract the tender for supplies provision to local contractors, thus saving money in our times of horrid economic crises and massive debts of Your beloved country towards the glorious International Financial Institutions. Yet, when it comes to food such as bread, pork barbeque, cheese etc, we'd appreciate Your consideration of opening a joint tender and allowing our own contractors to bid for the job. In exchange we shall negotiate with the Georgian government and assure the passage of any commercial cargoes of Turkish products to pass through the many ethnic autonomous states within Georgia via a payment of a lumpsum, rather than multiple payments with added government commission percentages.
Of course, when performing these Works Contracts, we shall remain within the framework of applicable EU legal standards as far as the latters external relations are concerned. For in case of reports of fault - a/ deportation via a different-from-the-one-you-notified route, b/murder by weaponry different from the one issued by tender procedures, c/ murder in more numbers than promised, d/adding chemicals and additives to the humanitarian food, thus causing genetic modofication of the Armenian DNA and causing various mental, physical and psychological side effects to the deportees - we shall ensure that each and every case shall be reported to the European Court of Human Rights so as to assure our equality before the court as Two Parties and allow You to contest our claims in proceedings that shall happily and patiently last for the coming decades, adding up an exquisite, full of original precedents, legal practice of the ECHR...
In this manner we can provide countless jobs for all of our economists, political scientists, lawyers and historians for the duration of at least 2 centuries and assure that we keep promoting further immigration to third world country citizens to come and work for us as cleaners, tutors, service workers without necessary social security arrangements. As You see, our Note prepares us for both short and long term perspectives, within the light of which we may now confidently proceed and try to pressure the placement of the possibility of the form of the ratification of our Historic Protocols within our Parliaments, whereby we shall ensure the majority representations of our respectively thoughtful political parties.
Of course, when performing these Works Contracts, we shall remain within the framework of applicable EU legal standards as far as the latters external relations are concerned. For in case of reports of fault - a/ deportation via a different-from-the-one-you-notified route, b/murder by weaponry different from the one issued by tender procedures, c/ murder in more numbers than promised, d/adding chemicals and additives to the humanitarian food, thus causing genetic modofication of the Armenian DNA and causing various mental, physical and psychological side effects to the deportees - we shall ensure that each and every case shall be reported to the European Court of Human Rights so as to assure our equality before the court as Two Parties and allow You to contest our claims in proceedings that shall happily and patiently last for the coming decades, adding up an exquisite, full of original precedents, legal practice of the ECHR...
In this manner we can provide countless jobs for all of our economists, political scientists, lawyers and historians for the duration of at least 2 centuries and assure that we keep promoting further immigration to third world country citizens to come and work for us as cleaners, tutors, service workers without necessary social security arrangements. As You see, our Note prepares us for both short and long term perspectives, within the light of which we may now confidently proceed and try to pressure the placement of the possibility of the form of the ratification of our Historic Protocols within our Parliaments, whereby we shall ensure the majority representations of our respectively thoughtful political parties.
Kindly yours, Mule and Donkey Riders"...
