Hello everyone.
I'm a 25 year old Iranian-born Armenian, currently living in Texas. I had a fairly good childhood as I went to an Armenian school and had many Armenian friends and relatives. I was too young back then to fully understand my environment, but I did notice early on how Iranians(Pars) treated Armenians differently. There were a few good Iranians, but, in general, Armenians in Iran are like the black people in the U.S. My family was poor and we always had family problems, but I was fairly happy as I had a lot of fun playing with my friends. I remember how the economy in Iran was bad, and still is, and how corruption had plagued the nation, the religious leaders controlled everything, and the people had very little freedom. I also remember the worse times like the time when Iraq was bombing Iran and we were trying to run for our lives. I've spent as much time as possible studying the events in Armenia, Iran, U.S. and many other places in the world to see the bigger picture and have a better understanding of how the world works.
All of my grandparents have died except one; my mother's father. My grandfather is an Armenian genocide survivor. He is 98 years old, but he can still recall his past and how he survived. He lost his father, brothers, and sisters, and finally ended up in Iran after living a few years in Russia with his mother.
We've had family and friends living all over the world (Australia, Austria, England, France, U.S., Dubai, Iran, Canada, and of course Armenia) and when I was 12 years old my parents decided to move to the U.S. for a chance of "a better life". I really regret not keeping contact information with my old friends, but I hope one day I'll reunite with them somehow. For the past 13 years or so I've been living in America, "the land of the free, and home of the brave", and trying to cope. I can't say I've had a happy life in America because we still have the same problems as we did in Iran and they are much worse. If you are a middle-class citizen then you are nothing but a slave. The reason people think America is better is because they are shielded from the ugly truth or because they are naive and ignorant. The economy is going downhill, there is serious corruption in the government, fanatic Christian leaders are preaching left and right, the education system is getting worse and worse as they've been systematically dumbing down the population, and dozens of major and minor wars have been conducted around the world for reasons the general public doesn't know. The U.S. government has raped and murdered more people in the world than any other government in recent times. Also, people in America have lost many of their constitutional rights, and many of them don't even know it. You won't believe the number of times I've been sent to the deans office for simply speaking my mind and exercising my first amendment rights (and I'm in college).
I don't want to sound "Anti-American", but many of my friends in the 9/11 Truth movement would agree with me. They love America, but they are sick and tired of the corrupt government.
That was all background info so I could as my question. Having lived in Iran and America and experiencing the same bull, I've been thinking about moving to Armenia for good. I know things aren't great there either as the economy is bad, and there is corruption and such, but at least I'll be with my people. All the happy times in my life were the times I was with my Armenian friends. Besides my relatives, I've only met one Armenian, and that was by chance and he was not my age. Part of my logic in this is that if I'm going to live and work my ass off to pay taxes and be treated like dirt, I might as well be in Armenia and serve my people, serve my heritage, serve the part of me that's still real. Besides, the way things are right now in America, it seems that we are at the verge of a revolution, something similar to the 60s or bigger, unless of course not enough people wake up on time. Either way I've decided that maybe I shouldn't care, and that may be because deep down inside I know that nothing is going to change in America. So, why waste my life?
How do rest of you feel about living in other parts of the world? Why not go back to Armenia?
