Birthright Armenia

[groul]

i have never met an armenian who was against the reopening of that border

read carefully, a few posts above I said exactly that I am against opening the borders. And I know lots of people who think like me.

 

For those who claim that sooner or later our economy must become open: when the producers of steel in the U.S. felt the heat of competition Bush broke the rules of WTO and introduced additional taxations for the import of steel. It was a huge scandal but a year and a half that it took WTO to cancel the tax was enough for the U.S. manufacturers to overcome the crisis. So basically they 'closed' the sector of economy and it was for their own good.

 

Of course Armenia is not the U.S. and we can not break the rules as easy as the major players like the U.S. or Russia do, but still we can protect our interests.

 

The only positive thing about opening the borders with Turkey is that we will be able to import raw materials at cheaper prices, but still there is no guarantee that Turks will not taxate that so heavy, that we will get the same situation as we have now.

 

Negative part: you drop Genocide recognition demands for nothing (Turks can close the borders at any other moment, for any stupid excuse, e.g. 'Give away Artsax and Megri'), you totally ruin your own economy, you have no control over the Turks entering your country, etc. etc.

Edited August 1, 2004 by groul

[Armat]

Just wanted to say that this issue has already been decided in favor of opening the borders. It is only natural that neighbors should trade freely. If Armenia deliberated and found this issue unfavorable then it should not have become state policy. Give a little credit to professionals who do contemplate and decide this matters.

Yerevan, October 6. /Mediamax/. The opening of the Armenian-Turkish

border is Armenia's state policy, Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan

Oskanian said at a briefing in Yerevan today.

 

At the same time he noted that the opening of the border from the

Armenian side did not mean that it was a necessity only for Armenia.

"Turkey needs it as well," said Vartan Oskanian. According to Minister,

the opening of the border will positively affect the whole region.

 

Speaking on the possibility of dependence of the Armenian economy

development on the opening of the border, Vartan Oskanian expressed

confidence that the country's economic programs were not related to this

 

problem. Armenia's economy has already adjusted to the blockade, and the

 

opening of the border would only give an additional impulse for its

development, he pointed out.

 

Discussing the issue of the opening of the border with his Turkish

counterpart, Armenian FM positively estimated the recent meeting in New

York, on the whole. According to Vartan Oskanian, Turkish Foreign

Minister has the desire to improve bilateral relations. He said that

during the meeting "the issue of the Artsax conflict settlement was

not as urgent as it was before on the agenda of the improvement of

Armenian-Turkish relations."

[axel]

I believe it would be a grave mistake to consider one of our greatest weaknesses as a quality to be fostered. We often mention the role of the Church in preserving armenian identity. Still I believe most people who do so fail to realize that it is not as much the role of the Church as a human institution which has not always been commendable but the role of faith in a common ideal (we've already mentionned this idea) that precisely transcended individualities and bound us together. "Individualism" (I put the word in quote for it is an anachronism but we agree on the reality it designates) is obviously one of the source of our ills throughout history and if we haven't completely vanished to this day, it is because it was counter-balanced by a common faith, which it is no longer, to some degree.

 

Unleashing it at this point would be catastrophic for it serves the divide & conquer strategy of "globalization". As such, what appears first as individual "freedom" is the surest path to collective slavery. A change in political institutions is not the solution, our problems are much too profound to be address by such superficial means but on the other hand some changes in the wrong direction might be detrimental. I surely do not see the "western" model as one to be followed.

[Twilight Bark]

I believe it would be a grave mistake to consider one of our greatest weaknesses as a quality to be fostered. We often mention the role of the Church in preserving armenian identity. Still I believe most people who do so fail to realize that it is not as much the role of the Church as a human institution which has not always been commendable but the role of faith in a common ideal (we've already mentionned this idea) that precisely transcended individualities and bound us together. "Individualism" (I put the word in quote for it is an anachronism but we agree on the reality it designates) is obviously one of the source of our ills throughout history and if we haven't completely vanished to this day, it is because it was counter-balanced by a common faith, which it is no longer, to some degree.

 

Unleashing it at this point would be catastrophic for it serves the divide & conquer strategy of "globalization". As such, what appears first as individual "freedom" is the surest path to collective slavery. A change in political institutions is not the solution, our problems are much too profound to be address by such superficial means but on the other hand some changes in the wrong direction might be detrimental. I surely do not see the "western" model as one to be followed.

Hi Axel,

I suspect this is another case when we don't disagree as much as the surface implies, or don't disagree at all about the important aspects. In another thread having to do with "spirituality", you hit the nail on the head when you said something to the effect that any "spirituality" that focuses on "personal satisfaction" or some such is necessarily fake. And I agree with that. On a side note, I was taken aback to hear what the Pope wrote in his younger days about what life was about, and how similar it was to what I had arrived at through basically secular means and logical elimination of alternatives. There are other examples of wise and tolerant men of religion who focus on the issue self-centeredness as the main vice. Anyway, I want to make it clear that I don't differ much from you in terms of how much I like "individualism". But I like to think in logical, rather than religious terms, so bear with me.

 

When I say we need to respect Armenian character, I mean it both pragmatically (because it is inevitable and not changeable in the short term by decree), and philosophically in the sense that it is not "bad" per se, but had the "bad" effect of preventing the formation of strong states because it was never in an environment that could be channeled properly. Empires, tyrannies, and pseudo-democracies (the mainstream of "democracy") that have "presidents" (elected kings) and a bunch of "government officials" (nobility) are not very compatible with the Armenian character, and those were the only choices until now. There is no reason not to adapt the mainstream to our character.

 

When I regard freedom as the fundamental currency of human existence, I am not idealizing "do as you please". I am simply stating a fact. What masquarade as "wants", "needs", "benefits", "utility" etc. are nothing but various freedoms. In an old thread about good/evil that ArmenSarg had started I tried to express this thought as well. You and I wish to have the freedom to live in a society that is not composed of selfish, self-centered, superficial people. I certainly would feel claustrophobic and constrained in such an environment where people don't "get it". So my definition of freedom has little to do with "individualism" (as in advocating selfishness and self-centeredness), and is simply an acknowledgement that self-aware beings are so only to the extent that they are free to do things, and that they are not strictly predictable, even to themselves. A collection of such creatures naturally imposes a balancing act, which should allow maximum freedom compatible with order and "collective success" (or "evolutionary fitness"). Where the balance ends up depends on what those individuals value. And that value system would differ from culture to culture.

 

There is no way not to "unleash" our nature. We can either give it the right environment designed to make it collectively productive, or we can go against it, and it shows up in myriad ugly ways among those who cannot escape the imposed restrictions (political dysfunction, corruption, insensitive and aloof government, apathy among the populace), or people simply escape it (emigration).

 

There is nothing in what I am saying that advocates unrestrained selfishness.

[Armen]

* The reasons for our historical lack of success in state creation may be less relevant today. Or more pointedly, our usual diagnosis as well as the oft-proposed "cures" may be wrong as well. Let's focus on the conditions and requirements of today.

 

* Societies change very rarely by government fiat. Russian and Chinese governments are good examples of how resistant a culture is to the government "vision". Russians or other ex-soviets have not become happy-go-lucky selfless collective farmers. The entrepreneurial and materialistic Chinese culture appears remarkably intact after decades of extremely heavyhanded communist government. In any case, imposing an unnatural system of government simply forces people to emigrate (if they can; and these days they can). That happened in Ottoman times, and it is happening today. If you want to draw lessons from history, draw that lesson.

 

* Equating coersion and state is not only tasteless. It is wrong. Or rather, there is no logical reason for it to remain true. The state shoud, and could, be the organized expression of the collective compromises individuals make in order to balance their freedoms, which form the fundamental currency of human existence. Exceeding the minimum necessary "compromise" (I guess that corresponds to the "coersion" bit in your terminology) is both evil and inefficient.

 

I know I am not making a thorough, convincing case of the Q.E.D. kind here. But I want you to think out of the box. Your diagnosis and proposed "cure" has been proposed very often. And I question their accuracy. You simply cannot count on the emergence of "honest leaders" out of a system that does not fit the nature of Armenian culture.

- I agree with your first point

 

- By bringing Russian and Chinese examples I was trying to show that there are still different views on the human beings life in society as opposed to individualizm based Western lifestyle. You noted that the world is heading to only one direction. That's the result of the temporary dominance of Atlantic culture because of its present comparative advantage of the first move. And by this I mean the devastating effect of the Mongolian conquest on Eurasian psyche, which prevented the occurance of capitalist revolutions in Eurasia as opposed to Western Europe on 17-18 century.

 

- I am trying to find the cures (as you put it) for present day Armenian society surrounded by enemies and in very difficult economic situation. The options of social contract you put on table may be true for a territory with secure geo-strategic environment. If Armenia manages to avoid the crisis that is coming to the Caucasian region shortly it may well apply the scheme you provided. But to go through that crisis we need an honest leader (as pathetic as it may sound). One honest leader for some 10 years would do the job.

[Teutonic Knight]

read carefully, a few posts above I said exactly that I am against opening the borders. And I know lots of people who think like me.

 

For those who claim that sooner or later our economy must become open: when the producers of steel in the U.S. felt the heat of competition Bush broke the rules of WTO and introduced additional taxations for the import of steel. It was a huge scandal but a year and a half that it took WTO to cancel the tax was enough for the U.S. manufacturers to overcome the crisis. So basically they 'closed' the sector of economy and it was for their own good.

 

Of course Armenia is not the U.S. and we can not break the rules as easy as the major players like the U.S. or Russia do, but still we can protect our interests.

 

The only positive thing about opening the borders with Turkey is that we will be able to import raw materials at cheaper prices, but still there is no guarantee that Turks will not taxate that so heavy, that we will get the same situation as we have now.

 

Negative part: you drop Genocide recognition demands for nothing (Turks can close the borders at any other moment, for any stupid excuse, e.g. 'Give away Artsax and Megri'), you totally ruin your own economy, you have no control over the Turks entering your country, etc. etc.

I agree with you.

Also you live in Armenia so you're the only here with the right to comment on the border issue.

Your site is great.

[groul]

you live in Armenia so you're the only here with the right to comment on the border issue.

Living in Armenia does not guarantee me from making mistakes.

 

Also I am a hardcore nationalist, so for me the nation (Armenians) has higher priority than the geographical location. IMHO every Armenian has right to express his or her opinion on any matter that concerns the whole nation.

 

Still I am against the opening of the borders at this time

 

Your site is great.

 

Thank you.

Edited August 2, 2004 by groul

[Vigil]

The harsh truth is that there is no one Armenia or Armenians anymore, but several concepts of Armenians.

 

Nakharar, sorry, but I do not agree with you. I classify Armenians as a race, ethnicity, and nationality.

 

The point I was trying to make is that the Diaspora is taking Armenia for granted and, eventually, it will be taken away from us if we continue on this path.

Edited August 3, 2004 by Vigil

[Nakharar]

Vigil, I was just stating what's the case today. But I totally agree with you that we should reverse this trend. Armenia will stay but I can't guarantee that for the Diaspora in the long run.

[Twilight Bark]

- By bringing Russian and Chinese examples I was trying to show that there are still different views on the human beings life in society as opposed to individualizm based Western lifestyle. You noted that the world is heading to only one direction. That's the result of the temporary dominance of Atlantic culture because of its present comparative advantage of the first move. And by this I mean the devastating effect of the Mongolian conquest on Eurasian psyche, which prevented the occurance of capitalist revolutions in Eurasia as opposed to Western Europe on 17-18 century.

Well, actually the direction in which the world culture is moving has little to do with what the governments want, "Atlantic", Eurasian, or otherwise. Governments everywhere seem content to have minimally thinking populations that are competent at linearly extrapolating in the direction that the government pushes them, but is basically too lazy or too dumb to think for themselves. However, the genie of liberalism (not in the silly sense of the American political lingo, but in the philosophical sense) is out of the bottle now, and it would take an extraordinary chain of events to put it back in. As for the existence of "different views on the human beings life in society", you seem to agree with me then that alternative views on such things can have enough legitimacy to survive and thrive alongside others. But fundamentally what I am saying has really little to do with "Western vs Russian vs Chinese" issues, even as examples.

 

As for the practicality of the "Armenian way" in terms of evolutionary fitness, I submit that it cannot be wished away, and has to be dealt with as a given. Once one accepts that it is there to be dealt with, and cannot be dealt with by "pressure" (the country is very leaky, as everyone observes readily), the only remaining course of action is then to adapt and optimize the political system for that given.

 

- I am trying to find the cures (as you put it) for present day Armenian society surrounded by enemies and in very difficult economic situation. The options of social contract you put on table may be true for a territory with secure geo-strategic environment. If Armenia manages to avoid the crisis that is coming to the Caucasian region shortly it may well apply the scheme you provided. But to go through that crisis we need an honest leader (as pathetic as it may sound). One honest leader for some 10 years would do the job.

You are basically making the "wartime emergency" argument, implying that such niceties are for peace time, and Armenia being in a perpetual "wartime" footing, they are irrelevant for the forseeable future. In most general terms, the idea can be re-cast to imply that an "optimally fitting" system is bad in case of emergencies, and at wartime one needs a system that doesn't quite fit the culture of the populace. It is of course true that wartime requirements on the behavior of the people are quite different from those in peacetime. However, this does not mean that the political system needs to fit the populace any less during wartime. While conducting a war "by committee" would be disastrous, as the 1916-1920 amply demonstrated, that does not mean that a dictatorship or some other hamfisted form of pseudo-democracy is what's needed. The army itself is an inherently un-democratic institution, and it is necessarily so. In wartime, the army would hopefully be run by the most competent general (i.e. the relevant "leader" would be in charge of the relevant things), and would be a prominent figure as long as the war continues, but only about things that concern the army. "Leaders" would have a clear understanding of their sphere of authority. In any case, all this "war" talk is not really necessary because we are not in a "hot" war. Armenians are smart enough to get into the "war" mode when the writing is on the wall, and would not bicker about pension payments or Yerevan's architecture. Until then, there is no reason at all to excuse a poorly fitting form of government on the basis of "emergency". That would simply prevent the country from getting as strong as it would otherwise with better governance, leaving it ill-prepared when the "hot" war actually starts. And what I am suggesting as a better-fitting system is not "anarchy" at all. If I had to name it, it would be someting like "optimally-liberal direct-democracy", where "leaders" are leaders on the basis of their competencies rather than their self-declared or carefully-constructed image of being a super-patriotic, honest person who promises to be a most benign and lovable dictator with an equally trustworthy team of bureaucrats for the next 10 years.

 

If one "given" is our reluctance fall in line behind a self-declared leader, the other, complementing "given" is that we make lousy leaders. Now that is not something to cherish or like, but it nevertheless needs to be "respected" (as in "face it") as a reality. There is something in our culture that prevents us from producing good leaders. Competent? Yes. "Leader type"? Yes, dime-a-dozen. True, inspiring leader? Rarely. Which perhaps explains our reluctance to follow leaders (the first "given"). After all, why follow the guy if the chances are he is not worth it? Therefore, counting on the emergence of an exceptional leader that is so good that he can overcome the traditional reluctance of the populace to trust its leaders is a poor plan. It is like counting on making a living by gambling in a casino, where you know that the odds are against you.

[Stormig]

NOW I am having difficulties accessing the language part, which seems to be on another server designated birthrightarmenia.am.

[Stormig]

Still isn't working. Boo hoo...

[Armen]

1. Well, actually the direction in which the world culture is moving has little to do with what the governments want, "Atlantic", Eurasian, or otherwise. Governments everywhere seem content to have minimally thinking populations that are competent at linearly extrapolating in the direction that the government pushes them, but is basically too lazy or too dumb to think for themselves. However, the genie of liberalism (not in the silly sense of the American political lingo, but in the philosophical sense) is out of the bottle now, and it would take an extraordinary chain of events to put it back in. As for the existence of "different views on the human beings life in society", you seem to agree with me then that alternative views on such things can have enough legitimacy to survive and thrive alongside others. But fundamentally what I am saying has really little to do with "Western vs Russian vs Chinese" issues, even as examples.

As for the practicality of the "Armenian way" in terms of evolutionary fitness, I submit that it cannot be wished away, and has to be dealt with as a given. Once one accepts that it is there to be dealt with, and cannot be dealt with by "pressure" (the country is very leaky, as everyone observes readily), the only remaining course of action is then to adapt and optimize the political system for that given.

 

2. You are basically making the "wartime emergency" argument, implying that such niceties are for peace time, and Armenia being in a perpetual "wartime" footing, they are irrelevant for the forseeable future. In most general terms, the idea can be re-cast to imply that an "optimally fitting" system is bad in case of emergencies, and at wartime one needs a system that doesn't quite fit the culture of the populace. It is of course true that wartime requirements on the behavior of the people are quite different from those in peacetime. However, this does not mean that the political system needs to fit the populace any less during wartime. While conducting a war "by committee" would be disastrous, as the 1916-1920 amply demonstrated, that does not mean that a dictatorship or some other hamfisted form of pseudo-democracy is what's needed. The army itself is an inherently un-democratic institution, and it is necessarily so. In wartime, the army would hopefully be run by the most competent general (i.e. the relevant "leader" would be in charge of the relevant things), and would be a prominent figure as long as the war continues, but only about things that concern the army. "Leaders" would have a clear understanding of their sphere of authority. In any case, all this "war" talk is not really necessary because we are not in a "hot" war. Armenians are smart enough to get into the "war" mode when the writing is on the wall, and would not bicker about pension payments or Yerevan's architecture. Until then, there is no reason at all to excuse a poorly fitting form of government on the basis of "emergency". That would simply prevent the country from getting as strong as it would otherwise with better governance, leaving it ill-prepared when the "hot" war actually starts. And what I am suggesting as a better-fitting system is not "anarchy" at all. If I had to name it, it would be someting like "optimally-liberal direct-democracy", where "leaders" are leaders on the basis of their competencies rather than their self-declared or carefully-constructed image of being a super-patriotic, honest person who promises to be a most benign and lovable dictator with an equally trustworthy team of bureaucrats for the next 10 years.

 

3. If one "given" is our reluctance fall in line behind a self-declared leader, the other, complementing "given" is that we make lousy leaders. Now that is not something to cherish or like, but it nevertheless needs to be "respected" (as in "face it") as a reality. There is something in our culture that prevents us from producing good leaders. Competent? Yes. "Leader type"? Yes, dime-a-dozen. True, inspiring leader? Rarely. Which perhaps explains our reluctance to follow leaders (the first "given"). After all, why follow the guy if the chances are he is not worth it? Therefore, counting on the emergence of an exceptional leader that is so good that he can overcome the traditional reluctance of the populace to trust its leaders is a poor plan. It is like counting on making a living by gambling in a casino, where you know that the odds are against you.

1. I agree with you on your first point except for your implicit argument (not sure if I got it right) that liberalizm is going to dominate everywhere. Russian legislative speaker's promise to erect a Statue of Responsibility instead of Lenin's Mauseleum if front of the Kremlin comes to mind.

 

2. I didn't say that the form of loose association you described is irrelevent. I have started a special thread on Armenia's constitution some three-four months ago /see in Armenia section/ which I plan to continue along the lines you are advocating for. However, I disagree that Armenia's present society would come to that form of government with natural course. Its evident that people are voting with their feet instead of making an effort to change something. The country needs a honest impetus for that process to start and form a healthy foundation.

 

3. Armenia is not the first nation that faces a crisis of leadership. There have been a number of cases when a sparkle of honesty has changed the political field of a whole country.