Second Genocide in the Offing?

[Yervant1]

Sad, very sad indeed!!!!

Second Genocide in the Offing?

 

Jirair Tutunjian,

editor, Keghart.com

 

It's about 8 p.m. Wednesday, April 24.

 

I am in a battered taxi, on the road from Yerevan to Echmiadzin.

 

We are passing through the garish, obnoxious, preposterous Casino Row.

 

To make conversation, I ask the cabbie whether he had been to

Dzidzernagapert earlier in the day.

 

He takes a deep breath and mutters: `I am waiting to pay respects to

the second Dzidzernagapert.'

 

I ask him what he means.

 

`We are going through a second genocide...The country is emptying every

day... Nobody knows the true unemployment rate ...People are borrowing

money wherever they can just to stay alive...It's much worse in the marz

(provinces)...In 1915 our women committed suicide rather than submit to

the Turk; now our girls are selling their bodies to Iranian tourists...

Soon there will be no Armenian left in Armenia... then we will build a

second Dzidzernagapert outside Armenia for this second genocide...' the

cabby's outburst continues. `I am an engineer and a professional

musician, but I can't find a job. I am driving a taxi because there's

nothing else I can do. Many men are doing the same.'

 

The outrageous and painful rant pours cold water on my high spirits,

having witnessed earlier in the day seemingly half of Armenia's

population at the grand Genocide memorial.

 

The following morning, returning from Echmiadzin, I ask another cabby

whether he is earning enough to support his family. `We are not

living; we are surviving,' says the man who still works at the age of

75 because his monthly pension is 30,000 Dram (about $52). He has four

children: one is in Belgium; the second in Russia; the third will

leave any day now for Russia. The fourth, is underpaid at a Yerevan

retail store, says the grandfather, who like so many adult males, has

a two-day stubble. He says his children have stopped sending

remittances because `the economy is bad in Europe and in Russia.'

 

When he drops me at Hrabarag Square ($5 for the half-hour drive from

Echmiadzin), he pulls out a pamphlet from the glove compartment and

gives it to me. It's a Jehovah's Witness pamphlet. `Read it. It's good

for you,' he says with a half smile.

 

Cabbies are traditionally and notoriously easy information source for

visiting journalists everywhere. Sometimes they merely project their

own circumstances, although they merrily assume the role of a credible

source re the national psyche and condition. However, during my

eight-day recent visit to Armenia, I heard dismal variations of what

the two cabbies had told me. I heard it from young women in parks,

>From middle-aged family men, from painters at the Saryan Monument and

>From young men at the Cascades Park. I heard the same agonizing

stories in Yerevan and in Echmiadzin. They all blamed President Serge

Sarkissian and his affluent coterie for the dismal economic condition.

And practically everyone claimed to have voted for Raffi Havanissian

at the recent presidential elections.

 

A few days after the above encounter, I gave to a wealthy politician

(a redundant descriptive) a summary of what I had heard. He said that

Armenians are notorious for wanting work to be all ready and easy

(wrapped in ribbon?) before they deem to take on the task. He said

that he had vacant jobs at his company which paid $1,000 a month, but

that there were no takers. When I mentioned the politician's statement

to several men, their response was unanimous: they would take any job

which paid $1,000 a month. Two Syrian immigrants I met told me they

found it extremely difficult to import car accessories from Europe

because of archaic and restrictive customs regulations.

 

Who is to blame for the economic basket case Armenia has become? Who

is to blame for the unemployment, the emptying of Armenia, for the

bureaucracy's corruption, for the deteriorating infrastructure, for

the absence of rule of law? For the disillusionment, for the

hopelessness?

 

Is it the corrupt, unwieldy, fossilized Soviet mentality which is

`sucking the blood' of Armenia?

 

Is it the Turkish-Azeri economic blockade?

 

Is it the emergency condition (daily threats from Azerbaijan)?

 

Is it the alleged crib-to-tomb welfare tradition and mentality of the Soviets?

 

Is it because those who run the country belong to the same clique that

runs Russia or in other words, does President Putin decide who runs

Armenia?

 

Is it the oligarchs who control Sarkissian and whom Sarkissian may not

be able to control even if he wants to?

 

In his inaugural address, on April 9, President Sarkissian said: `Let

me highlight three main ones [top priorities]: emigration,

unemployment, and poverty. The solutions to these problems are to be

found in the same field. Efficient economy that is on the rise, this

is the formula to our success. The second priority is in ensuring the

rule of law. Equality of everyone before the law is a binding

prerequisite both for our economic and political advancement. The

third priority, mostly directly linked to the one before, the rule of

law, is the deepening of democracy.'

 

Amen.

 

Why do we have a faint suspicion that he must have said something

similar at his previous inaugural address?

 

The question remains: How do we stop the slow suicide of Armenia?

 

Do Sarkissian and his oligarch honchos, henchmen, and hangers-on care

while they enrich their illegally acquired assets in foreign banks?

 

Will Armenians of Armenia soon import the defeatist Seattle slogan of

the `80s: `Will the last person leaving Yerevan please put out the

lights?'?

 

http://www.keghart.com/Tutunjian-2ndGenocide

 

 

[Yervant1]

ARMENIA

 

More departures than returns in Armenia during the first half of the year?

 

 

Haykakan Zhamanak Joghovourd and cite the data published by the

National Statistical Service, under which, in the first half of this

year 259000 people have left Armenia while 224,000 are entered, the

negative balance amounting to 35 000. According Haykakan Zhamanak for

the same period last year the figure was 25,300. Haykakan Zhamanak

states that the majority of departures being made "seasonal" workers

returning in the fall, a comprehensive analysis of the migration will

be significant at the end of 2013.

 

Extract from the press review of the Embassy of France in Armenia,

dated May 2, 2013

 

Thursday, May 9, 2013,

Stéphane © armenews.co

[Nané]

Yes, very sad indeed. My impression of the situation was pretty much the same. Even those who had been putting up a fight for years and years are starting to give up and consider emigrating.

[onjig]

Thanks Yervant, for posting that. I don't like to hear that but am glad for the understanding of what is going on.

[Arpa]

Let's go here

 

http://hyeforum.com/index.php?showtopic=19987&st=0&gopid=305827entry305827