Which One Are You???

[Guest]

Do you consider yourself an azgaser or a hayrenaser?

 

What do these concepts mean to you?

 

Can a person be one or the other? Or does he have to be both?

 

 

 

[This message has been edited by Sulamita (edited December 12, 2000).]

[Guest]

I don't know what the terms mean. If someone could tell me, then I will happily explain the rest!

[Guest]

Oh astvats im -

arajin hayatskist tvum e te shat hasarak yev shat dyurn patasxan petqe lini sakaiyn yerv prptum es hokit yev portsum gtnel te iys yerkus@ inchov en tarbervum irarits , djvar e asel - ytes kseyi sirum em Azg@ im yev sirum em HAyreniks,

 

yerani te MJ iyster liner migutse miyasin bolors portseyink @endharnatsneyink iys teman yev shat u shateri hamar lusavorel iys teman.

 

Yes der chem verjatsrel im patasxans der yes Kandradarnam iys temayin.

 

Axx MJ MJ ur es e?

[Guest]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kazza:
I don't know what the terms mean. If someone could tell me, then I will happily explain the rest!

---

That was sort of the point You need to find your own definitions for these terms.

[Guest]

I was born and live all my live in East Europe. My mother is Armenian but because she olso born here she don't feel herself Armenian. But I feel it. I can talk, write and read in Armenian. For me my real hajrenik

is Hayastan. I don't know why but I can feel this. I don't know which one I am but I know in the future I will live in Armenia. When I go there I feel myself like in home. I understand all the problems and fears of people who live there.When I must leave it I'm very unhappy.

[Guest]

That is so like me! My dad doenst feel armenian at all( mum is greek.) He has lived in Cyprus. Troublwe is, I am less arm than him and I feel it LOADS!

[Guest]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sulamita:
Do you consider yourself an azgaser or a hayrenaser?

What do these concepts mean to you?

Can a person be one or the other? Or does he have to be both?

---

I consider myself a Hayrenaser because I'm not sure I like all representatives of my azg. I'm not saying that I'm that good as an individual and place me above the others, but I'm sure there are no azgaser Armenians so we're equal in our this fealing.

[Guest]

I also consider myself patriot/hairenaser rather than azgaser/nationalist. To me, the azg is a lower level formation preceding the country and national statehood. "Azg" evolves, or is supposed to evolve to form "country" and "statehood." The country and statehood are the highest form of national evaluation. "Azg" outside the concept of national statehood to me is an amorphous, unorganized, controversial phenomenon. It is just a pseudo-genetic category. "Pseudo," because any nationality is a mix of many tribes within the same race, perhaps, and there are any number of subsequent mixings changing the genetic fabric of the nation throughout the history. The "azg" may lack a unifying idea, and as of today, it is true in our case, though I hope it will change in a decade. The statehood is the crystallized form of the national idea, which supposedly can serve as a unifying factor. Either the nations unify around this idea, or disappear. Primarily because the purpose of lasting forever fades away in the absence of the statehood, or the desire to form it.

 

If one would say that we have lasted without a statehood for more than 800 years, I would contradict saying that what has lasted is a minor portion of what it has been or was supposed to be. It has shrunk, and shrunk, and shrunk, and will continue to do so, if the axis of our national consciousness doesn't become the national statehood - that is the Republic of Armenia.

 

What the "azg" does in the absence of statehood, it continues to eat "dolma" and "khash" for a couple of more generations, and manifests its identity through the preservation of its food menu, and the like.

 

I recall a good friend/colleague of mine, an American Armenian born in Massachusetts, who once told me "The Armenian traditions are well alive in our family through my grandma. When our family gets together, we always eat dolma, lahmadjue and kiufta."

 

This is were the "nationalism" in its amorphous form leads even the best people, if there is no purpose.

 

In the past I have known closely some extreme nationalists in Armenia, who believed in the "purity of blood," etc. I consider some of them to be real Armenian Heroes due to the lives they have lived and the sacrifices they have made. I have admired some of them, and have learned a lot from them. But even they have claimed that "They would be ashamed to be associated with the Armenian nation, if the purpose of the nation's existence doesn't pass through the Armenian Statehood."

 

To sort of finalize, I look down at the nationalism, and frequently it disgusts and alienates me, and I praise the patriotism as a more civil, well thought-out, and a worthier category.

 

 

[This message has been edited by MJ (edited January 14, 2001).]

[Guest]

Finally some feedback !!! Thank you.

 

Let me explain how this question arose in my mind. I was having a conversation with one of my friends who has been living in LA for the past 4 years. As I mentioned that I consider myself an "Erevantsi" (even though I have not been living there for the past 13 years) and a "Hayrenaser" he responded with something like this - I don't know how you can consider yourself a "hayrenaser" when you have left your "hayreniq." Only a person who lives there can subscribe to the title. One needs to have enough SER for HAYRENIQ to live there no matter what." So I asked "You are telling me you don't consider yourself hayrenaser." His response - Not any longer. Living outside of Armenia, I can only consider myself an azgaser.

 

Going a step further. A fellow Armenian living in armenia once threw at me "You have no right to call yourself Armenian if you don't live in Armenia. I am Armenian, NOT you. And this goes for all of you!!!"

Of course this is not the menatality of the most, but it is of some.

 

Thats all for now.

 

A

[Guest]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sulamita:

Only a person who lives there can subscribe to the title. One needs to have enough SER for HAYRENIQ to live there no matter what

---

Sure... And I have heard our national hero Vazgen Sargissyan to declare that those who leave their homeland are immoral people. But, apparently, he didn't consider those who plunder their homeland to be immoral.

[Guest]

I think of myself as hayrenaser.I think it's a very important quality for an Armenian,anywhere you are...(except Turkey )

Since I come from Yerevan I hope I have right to call myself a Hayastanci

[Guest]

I have been thinking about this topic and read the interesting remarks in this thread. I have concluded that I am both Hayrenaser and Azgaser. To me these two qualities are not contradicting, either-or type, but are two very different things. The way I understand Hayrenaser is love for land, place of birth, country. However, Azgaser is the love for good Armenian people, not all Armenians both living in Armenia or outside. If there are two equally good people one of which is Armenian, the Armenian is better to me. IF I have to choose between two orphaners to donate money and one of them is Armenian, I will pick the Armenian. Why? Because, I am Azgaser.

 

[This message has been edited by surorus (edited January 15, 2001).]

[Guest]

Surorus,

 

Would you feel the same level of devotion to a genetic Armenian, however positive one as an individual he/she may be, who doesn't share with you the common national purpose - whatever it may be defined to be?

[Guest]

As painful as it is for me to say this and for some of you to hear this, I consider myself neither of those two...

 

voch azgna mi ban, vochel hayrenike..

 

with a very very sad

gayancho

[Guest]

quote:

---

Originally posted by MJ:
Assurors,

Would you feel the same level of devotion to a genetic Armenian, however positive one as an individual he/she may be, who doesn't share with you the common national purpose - whatever it may be defined to be?

---

MJ,

It depends. I don't think there is a uniform genetic Armenian type. I don't think the genes determine the nationality. This is what Nazis thought and you know what happened. Of course in general we Armenians share some common features, but still there is a big genetic variation among us. I have talked about this before, in my opinion the determinants of nationality are at least any 2 of 3 qualifications, which are the language, the religion, and the culture with traditions. So if the person in your question is Armenian by the 3 qualifications I would say yes.

[Guest]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gayane:


As painful as it is for me to say this and for some of you to hear this, I consider myself neither of those two...

voch azgna mi ban, vochel hayrenike..

with a very very sad
gayancho

---

Ev du, Brutos?

[Guest]

Surorus,

 

I think it's more complex than that, perhaps. The way I see, there is no unanimous definition of Armenian culture. What many would think to be Armenian, I perceive it to be a papuri of Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic, and Iranian. What I think to be Armenian, many don't perceive it that way. I don't take the "Armenian religion" serious. Let me also share a secret with you - I don't like Armenian food. But I do speak perfect Armenian. In the eyes of great many Armenians, according to the criterion you have put forward, I would not be Armenian, or at least "true" Armenian.

 

 

 

[This message has been edited by MJ (edited January 16, 2001).]

[Guest]

quote:

---

Originally posted by MJ:
Surorus,

I think it's more complex than that, perhaps. The way I see, there is no unanimous definition of Armenian culture. What many would think to be Armenian, I perceive it to be a papuri of Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic, and Iranian. What I think to be Armenian, many don't perceive it that way. I don't take the "Armenian religion" serious. Let me also share a secret with you - I don't like Armenian food. But I do speak perfect Armenian. In the eyes of great many Armenians, according to the criterion you have put forward, I would not be Armenian, or at least "true" Armenian.

[This message has been edited by MJ (edited January 16, 2001).]

---

Of course, not. You are right, culture is much more complex, so the food is not the whole culture, but it is one aspect of it. Culture is a set of unwritten rules that most follow. For example, who else but Armenians eat Xash with hand using lavash early in the morning with vodka? I don't know if you like Xash or not, but I am sure that if you are called for Xash and put a plate of it in front of you, you will be looking for Lavash not chop sticks. And this is the food part of the culture.

As to the religion, there are many Armenian that don't take it serious, especially educated and whose minds were shaped during the Soviet times, like my parents. Times have changed, and religions is no longer a taboo. It is every persons own choice to take religion serious or not, but being religious would only benefit. Although you don't take religion serious, I am sure you consider yourself Christian, I am sure you have been to church, I am sure you have lit at least one candle, I am sure you have prayed. The only thing would disqualify you in this criterion, if you say you are not Christian.

As much as I know you from reading your posts, you are a typical Armenian that meets all 3 criterion.

[Guest]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gayane:


voch azgna mi ban, vochel hayrenike..

with a very very sad
gayancho

---

Du el ayd azgi mi masnikn es Gayancho yev ayd hareniqi tsnund@. Aysinqn du el ... ha? Indz tvum e da aveli txur e

A

[Guest]

Aneta jan, no argument there....shat txura...

 

Martin, lol, ayo, yesel...lol...incidentally, you could've used the original phrase itself, i'm well familiar with it

[Guest]

I thought I did...

[Guest]

Apparently, some of thie issues that interest us have been hot topics in India in the process of the establishment of their independence, too. I find the following material interesting:

_____________________________________________

 

 

As a supreme symbol of India's culture and spirit, Tagore was a contemporary of the other colossus of nineteenth century India, Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948). Tagore and Gandhi were great admirers of each other, despite their differences in matters of politics, nationalism and social reform. It was Tagore who called Gandhi "The Mahatma in a peasant's garb" and Gandhi, in turn, called Tagore "The Great Sentinel". To render some perspective on Tagore's divergence of political views vis-a-vis Gandhi and some other prominent political leaders of British India, let me quote here a few relevant passages from Leonard Gordon (Brothers Against the Raj, biography of Subhas and Sarat Chandra Bose, Columbia University Press, 1990).

 

 

"...Tagore was never in full agreement with any of the political leaders, though in the last decade of his life he was sympathetic to the approach of Jawaharlal Nehru. Tagore never entered politics quite so directly after his disillusionment with Swadeshi (the emergent concept of Indian nationalism - author). He remained, however, a frequent and penetrating commentator on the development of the movement and his relinquishment of his knighthood after the Jallianwalla Bagh incident (refers to the 1919 massacre by British troops in Amritsar of more than 800 Indians gathered peacefully in defiance of a demeaning and unfair political Act - author) in 1919 was widely applauded in India. Certainly from the year of his Nobel Prize, 1913, Tagore stressed his international concerns, and shrewdly denounced the excesses of nationalism not only in India, but in Japan, China, and the West.

 

In October 1921, Tagore published his first major essay on Gandhi and non- cooperation, "The Call of Truth", which argued that truth was of both the head and the heart; while Gandhi stressed inner truth and love, he was fostering blind, unquestioning obedience to his message of charkha (the spinning wheel - Gandhi's symbol of India's self-reliance on her own cottage industry - author) by one and all. Tagore wanted Indian economists and leaders to fully investigate whether this made any economic sense. Tagore had his doubts and he resented that all were told to simply "spin and weave."

 

Tagore also objected to the burning of foreign cloth because it was foreign. Gandhi stressed the need for Indian self-sufficiency in every sphere of life, while Tagore saw the need for international cooperation and sharing. In the modern age, the poet insisted, India must learn from abroad, for example, in science, as well as look inward. Tagore believed that India had a message for the world, but he thought India must also incorporate others' messages into her own cultural repertoire. Like Gandhi, Tagore belived that inner swaraj and cultivation of the self was vital, and some aspects of Gandhi's constructive program were not foreign to the oft-repeated teachings of village reconstruction and paths to Indian revitalization which Tagore had put forward.

 

Gandhi answered Tagore with his essay, "The Great Sentinel", published in Young India, October 1921. Gandhi said that the spinning wheel had been chosen as the centerpiece of his program after due reflection and he wanted all to spin because, "when a house is on fire, all the inmates go out, and each takes up a bucket to quench the fire." Ignoring Tagore's suggestion of research and evaluation by economists, Gandhi insisted that the constructive program including the charkha would be the economic salvation of India. He also implied that Tagore did not have the welfare of India's masses at heart and preferred, along with other non-spinning aesthetes, the soft life. Neither spoke directly to the other's concerns..."

 

By Monish R. Chatterjee http://www.cs.brockport.edu/~smitra/sadhaka.html