transcender

Dear Friends, I've been doing a lot of reading, on the challenge of building a state in Karabakh. The issue is touched in: The Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict: causes and implications by Michael Croissant Modern Armenia: Jirair Libaridian The challenge of statehood : Armenian political thinking since independence - Libaridian, Gerard J. The making of Nagorno-Karabagh : from secession to republic - Levon Chorbajian I won't lie to you - i haven't covered to covered all of these books, except for Libaridian's. I will be reading Croissant's as well as Chorbjian's very soon. Brief interjection: wouldn't it be nice to have book reviews on this site of all these great Armenian resources, to encourage curious Armenians like ourselves to be well educated on the issues So figures say about 6,500 Armenians died during the war with Azerbaijan, and about 20-25,000 or so Azerbaijanis died. Armenians & Karabakh won the war, and even took up extra districts in Azerbaijan. They also took over a lot of the guns and superior artillery & equipment left by the Azeri soldiers. Armenians had a higher kill ratio. Ever since the truce, Azerbaijan has been investing heavily into its military: Addressing Defense Ministry personnel last September, Aliyev announced that defense spending had already risen from $175 million in 2004 to $300 million in 2005 and would double in 2006 to reach $600 million, Turan reported on 17 September. (citation: http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/...03d486b46.html) Armenia has also been investing in military, though we can't possibly afford to invest that kind of money. If there was another war, the question is, this time, how many Armenians will die? Will we be able to maintain a high kill ratio? Will we keep our lands? Think about the East-West alliance: Azerbajian, Turkey, and somewhat Georgia, US, Israel North-South: Russia, Armenia, Iran Azerbajian wants its territory back? will they be able to fund an efficient army that will march through and take us over? what will be loss in human capital for Armenia? what will be the economic loss for Armenians? If there was a treaty right now that we could sign to cede the land back to Azerbaijan if they stopped their blockade with us, and Turkey stopped their blockade, so that we might partake in mutually beneficial trade, should we do it? They want us to cede Meghri (southern) so they can connect a pipeline through to Nakhichevan (part of Azeri land) and then to Turkey, instead of having to go through Georgia (which is a whole new problem for them). Should we just cede Meghri and let them build this oil pipeline? will they just take the money from the oil and attack us later and take their other lands back? How long can Armenia live without trading with Turkey and Azerbaijan? Do we have a comparitive advantage that we can use to make a lot of profit from opening up this borders? The scholars who i have read seem to suggest that "Armenia cannot grow sustainably and freely without resolving this Karabakh conflict" - do you agree? If YOU were the President of Armenia, how would you resolve this conflict? Let's open up some discussion. Warmest regards to all. Picture citation: http://www.coe.int/t/e/com/files/events/20...conflict-22.jpg

My friends, I am thankful to be here with the Armenian intelligentsia. Now matter what, intellectuals find a way to get together and discuss issues. And we have many interesting issues to discuss. I for one am a fond advocate of Armenians marrying Armenians, for a number of reasons. However, the most successful has been my "museum" analogy. As the curators of the world museum, we must take it unto ourselves to preserve the Armenian section. I can not single out learning Armenian as being the key to being Armenian; I feel that the Armenian identity is much more than that. Arguing this on theoretical grounds seems almost pointless to me because it has so much emotion involved in it. Theoretically, genetic diversity is probably the best way to go. But again, theoretically, we should have X amount of exercise a day, and a balanced diet, etc. - because that is probably best for us as individuals. But, fortunately or unfortunately, we have emotion weaved into all of this. We for some reason CARE about the preservation of artifacts, and I want to take that and say that we should care about the preservation of Armenians. I feel that the easiest and most reliable, as well as efficient way of doing this is marrying an Armenian. It has been time-tested. Now, how can we find good Armenians, compatible Armenians? There are 7-8 million of us, and you are trying to tell me that it's impossible to find an Armenian that is compatible with you? If you care, TRY HARDER, go the extra mile to find him/her, because the payoff is securing our national identity for at least another generation. I hope that we can leverage the power of the internet to bring Armenians closer together. Social networking programs (myspace, etc.) are doing a better job of this as the years progress. Relax my friends, Web 2.0 will ensure that we have very efficient social networking programs within the next few years - connecting you with people that you would have never been able to meet. I am sure that will help you connect with Armenians who are like you. Next, I'd like to have you think about "happiness" in marriage. No matter who you marry, you will probably not be happy. Most of you are going to go through a divorce, or will want to break it off, but will not be able to. Your sex life will drop after you have your first-born. Finally, it is doubtful that humans are monogamous creatures (very few animals are, though I think mammals tend to have a higher chance of being monogamous). Conclusion: if we were to argue theoretically, I would say go and have offspring with as many people as you can (girls choose the alphas, males don't choose, just let loose your seed) to increase the genetic diversity of the world. Make sure you eat a balanced diet and get your daily exercise to maximize your lifespan. Emotionally, we can say that we attribute value to having interactions with Armenians (why are we not on OneCulture Forum.com?) as well as having an Armenian homeland. To preserve that, I feel that we must continue investing in what has kept us this way - inter-marriage as well as Armenian communities. I just typed this out - I am very open to discussion, as a matter of fact, I need your help to help me make my argument stronger. Warmest regards to all.

Hey guys, there is actually some cool developments going on for investment in Armenia. From what I have read, I feel that you don't want to just have SME (small & medium enterprise) businesses sprout up in Armenia that have been funded by Diasporans. These are obviously hard to manage from the US, and they are prone to extortion, etc. So the proposal is to creat investment funds, where western-accounting trained Armenians manage funds that are holders of multiple businesses. So, if you have a fund with 50 businesses, each worth 1 million US, then you have a 50 million dollar fund, and that will be hard to extort from. Obviously this has its negative effects to, (think humongous enterprise Exxon, Wal-Mart, etc.) Also, there is a calling to issue Diaspora bonds. In the 1950s, David Ben-Gurion (a strong inspirational leader, and first Prime Minister of Israel, called the "founder of the modern state of Israel") came to the US and sold Israeli-Diaspora bonds (citation: http://www.israelbonds.com/aboutus.html) - he rased 52.6 million dollars, which at 3% inflation is about the equivalent of 275 million dollars today. These bonds were redeemable when you personally went to Israel after X years to redeem them and get paid. It is attractive because it is an investment, not a donation. These are not my original ideas - I have been inspired by David Grigorian's (works for IMF) & Alexander Gevorkyan's AIRPG (Armenian International Policy Research Group) article on Diasporan investment/involvement in Armenia. The AIPRG site is: http://www.armpolicyresearch.org/ and (one of the places) that the paper can be accessed is here: http://www.gomidas.org/forum/af10c1.pdf I encourage you guys to go to the IMF site, the WorldBank site, the AIPRG site, and USAID site and read publications on Armenia. Very smart people are doing very technical studies on the situation in Armenia. I thought that this professional research did not exist, but I was proved so very wrong. Furthermore, those of you around LA should go to UCLA this week, as AIRPG is hosting an Economics Conference on Armenia. They will be talkign about the abyssmally low tax collection in Armenia as well as presented Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) Hope I've been of at least some help, I intend to post often, and it is an honor being here. Transcender