SURVIVAL OF AN INDEPENDENT ARMENIA IN A HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT, (c) Kouymjian, Armenian Studies Program at Cal State University, Fresno

How has Armenian survived in a hostile environment? This is the question behind the title proposed to me by the organizers of this Haigazian College 40th anniversary kickoff luncheon. It is not often that I am assigned a topic when I am invited to speak for an organization. It took time for me to accept because I had to think about the subject and make sure I had something useful and interesting to say. How has Armenian survived? I suppose my first response is to say "not very well." The country is still suffering a blockade now in its fifth year. There is an undeclared war with Azerbaijan. The economy is in a shambles and inflation is in double, even triple, digits. There is a brain drain and between 15 and 20% of the population has left the country. The poor are getting poorer, while the rich or those with power or connections are getting richer, often by doubtful means. Crime has been on the rise and seems to be organized. The population is living in the most primitive of conditions, worse than some third world African and Latin American countries, with only an hour or two of electricity or gas each day. According to official reports, 60,000 families are still homeless in Gumri, Armenia's second largest city, seven years after the devastating earthquake of December 1988. The democratically elected parliament appears ineffective and powerless, and recently we have seen press censorship and an increasingly authoritarian executive. Only one in ten high school graduates is lucky enough to get into college. Armenians are totally disillusioned by the present state of their country and would leave if they could. So how has Armenian survived? Not very well. And yet, there it is, the Republic of Armenia still there after three and a half years, longer by far than the two and a half years of the first independent Republic of 1918. There are still three and a half million citizens, including hundreds of thousands of refugees from the massacres of Sumgait and Baku. Along with the Armenians of Karabagh, it has won an undeclared war. For the first time in centuries it has added to its land mass. It has the largest and best trained army in the Caucasus. The government of Armenia has managed to convince the western world to support it economically through multi-million dollar development loans and outright grants. It is still the most democratic post-Soviet republic and is led by a very intelligent and sophisticated president. But there are other questions behind the statement "Survival of an Independent Armenia a Hostile Environment." Questions that are asked and answered in the same breath. Haven't the Armenians survived for millennia under the most adverse conditions imposed by neighbors wishing to dominate or control her? Of course! Where are the Babylonians, the Urartians, the Assyrians today? Why has Armenia survived? The usual catalogue of positive attributes then follows: Armenians are/were hardworking, honest, moral, Christian. But these qualities, supposing even that they are genetic, system of the Armenians, didn't prevent Armenians from being massacred regularly and almost annihilated more than once. Yet here we are, Armenians, everywhere. And the Armenian Republic will celebrated its fourth anniversary in September and the fifth year of its independence from the Soviet Union. "Karabagh mern e" "Karabagh is ours" is a slogan of 1988 that has been fulfilled: and it is hard to imagine Artzakh ever becoming Azeri again.

THE HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT
Turkey
Let us examine the hostile environment, country by country. Armenia's longest borders are with Turkey and Azerbaijan. Turkey is still perceived as the arch enemy, with just cause. Though it recognized Armenian along with the other former Soviet republics upon independence, it has spurned unconditional diplomatic ties and demands that the Armenian government formally give up claims on former Armenian lands, that the Armenians of Karabagh withdraw from lands conquered in Azerbaijan, and that the genocide question be dropped. At the moment the Armenian government is making great efforts to establish closer economic and political ties with Turkey. President Levon Ter Petrossian has decided that for now there is more to be gained by good relations than what might be lost in softening Armenia's position toward Turkey. Ter Petrossian's government is engaged in a delicate balancing act between Armenian public opinion, resolutely opposed to concessions to Turkey, and the pragmatic needs of a new nation with a strangled economy. On the one hand the government on many levels is engaged in official and unofficial meetings with Turkish leaders on the highest level toward a reconciliation, while at the same time it has started a last minute blitz to complete a Genocide Museum for the 80th anniversary of 1915 and has organized a major international Genocide conference to show its constituency at home and abroad that it will never forget the victims of the Armenian Genocide. Turkey is a powerful state with enormous clout in the region. President Clinton's endorsement of the violent and illegal attack on Kurds in Iraq shows us clearly that our country, our State Department and current President, would probably do nothing if Turkey, using a trumped up provocation, were to engage in aggressive acts against Armenia. It is lucky that the European nations have a policy independent of and directly contrary to U.S. policy with regard to Turkey. The Armenian government's position is that Armenia cannot survive under present economic conditions. It needs a natural land route into Europe and needs to engage in free commerce with its most potentially dynamic neighbor. And though it has not said so, surely there is the hope that once Armenia and Turkey start talking and dealing about trade, that other questions can be put on the table including the genocide. Since international pressure has produced nothing from Turkey on the Genocide, perhaps dialogue will in the long run have some positive consequences.

Azerbaijan
In less than two months the truce with the Azeris will have lasted a year. All indications confirm that neither the Armenians nor the Azeris want to start the war again. I believe it is true that no Azeri leader is capable of saying that the war has been lost and with it the Karabagh, forever. For that reason the Minsk group's attempt to begin peace talks toward a final settlement has gotten no where. Armenians also see no reason why as victors in a war where they were the clear underdog they need to make concessions that would give up Shushi and the Lachin corridor. Thus, the present stalemate will probably continue at least as long as Russia is preoccupied with Chechniya. As with Turkey, so too with Azerbaijan, the path to reconciliation revolves around economy, trade, the transshipment of oil. Western oil companies and some State Department officials seem to think that a U.S. imposed solution has a chance of success: Armenia would get transit revenues and all the gas and oil it needed from a pipeline that should logically pass through it from Azerbaijan on its was to Turkish Mediterranean ports. Azerbaijan would get peace to exploit its riches. Will the attraction of a multi-billion dollar oil deal be enough to get the warring enemies to resolve their problems? Who knows?

Iran
America's most hated enemy is Armenia's best friend and most important trading partner. What the future holds for the relationship between these countries is not clear. It has been five years that the talk of a pipeline and permanent bridge linking the countries has been thrown around with promises that both projects would become reality immediately. Iran has an Azeri population twice the size of Azerbaijan and living in that area of northwestern Iran which borders Azerbaijan. Tehran is afraid of someday losing this land and its population to a united greater Azerbaijan. Thus, a weak and dependent Azerbaijan is in its self interest. Furthermore Armenia is one of its few friends. Iran's future is for the moment quite unpredictable and, therefore, Armenia's relationship with it are uncertain. For now, it presents a friendly rather than a hostile environment for Armenians.

Georgia
The last country in the orbit is the only Christian one with which Armenia and the Armenians have had continuous relations for nearly seventeen centuries. If anything, Georgia is in worse shape than Armenia. Like Azerbaijan it has had a politically unstable government, a civil war that destroyed much of the country, especially the capital Tiflis. Georgia has shrunk in size, losing Abkhazia and Ossetia and is plagued by significant minority problems: Azeri, Armenian, and Muslim-Georgian. It's economy is destroyed and it lacks the strong industrial and commercial foundation of Armenia and it doesn't have Azerbaijan's oil. There is little it can do for Armenia. It is reluctant to help Armenia in fear of Azeri enmity, which could turn to revolt and ultimately the loss of its southeastern lands heavily populated by Azeris. In general, its policy has not been pro-Armenian. There is resentment toward the half million Armenians living in the country, fear that the its southern areas of Akhalkale with a majority Armenian population will simply threaten to secede, or that Armenia will invade, or that should Armenia be invaded, Armenian refugees would flood the country. None of the projects for direct road and rail access to the Black Sea has so far materialized. The pipeline which passes through the country bringing Turkmen natural gas for Armenian homes and power stations has been sabotaged dozens of times with no serious reaction on the part of the Georgian government. But Georgia is not a hostile environment, not totally, Armenians still travel and trade between the two countries.

Russia
Though there are no borders between these two countries, Russia controls the game in the Caucasus. It has helped to dismember Georgia and bring it begging to get into the Commonwealth of Independent States. Russia has also subverted the nationalist movement in Azerbaijan and is now in partial control of its destiny. The Armenian government has renewed its invitation to Russian for military and economic alliances and is perfectly happy with the existence of Russian bases and the Russian army on its soil. For the moment, Russian has an even handed policy in the Karabagh conflict. How long it will remain that way is unclear. As with Armenia's other neighbors, its policies are not determined either by sentiment or history, but by self interest as defined by current political and military leaders. Because Russia is both politically and economically unstable. For the moment, it cannot serve as a sure future guarantee of anything. Survival in an Hostile Environment Back to the question, survival in a hostile environment. Yes, in the past seven years Armenia has survived: an earthquake, near genocidal massacres, a war that at times seemed to threaten Armenia's very existence, and a total blockade that left Armenia's citizens living in the worst of imaginable conditions. But people survive. We know this, we are all children or grandchildren of the survivors of a genocide. And we are not the only ones. The more interesting question is not why Armenians have survived, but how? What kind of Armenia is it that has survived and what kind of human has the Armenian become? Who is not proud of the Armenian Republic? Who is not disillusioned by it? Yes, we are all at times proud and at times disturbed and it is not uncommon to have these feelings at the same time. This is a paradox that we have not yet adjusted to . In part this is due to what I call "the mythifying or the mythification of independence." We might for a moment speak about the myths associated with independence and consider them especially from the perspective of the diaspora.

Imagination and the Mythification of Independence
Humans are blessed with imagination, one of the unique qualities of the Homo Sapiens. We can project into the future, dream of what might be, construct perfect utopian schemes for how things should be. For 75 years a displaced survivor nation has struggled to maintain a national dignity, an Armenian identity, wherever it has settled. Those on the land, near Ararat, suffered the torments of living in a desolate and endangered independent republic for two years and then for 70 years in a repressive, authoritarian Soviet Socialist Republic whose well being was dictated from Russia. We, in the diaspora were for the most part helpless spectators praying for the good of our brethren over there. Through hard work, honesty and a Christian ethic we established ourselves in the Middle East, Europe and the Americas and gradually prospered. In the West we also absorbed as our own western ideas of democracy, individual liberty, and social progress. We and our children have grown up and been educated with the values of western civilization and progressive Christianity. We developed a vision for a future independent Armenia based on western, often utopian, ideas of how a nation of enlightened, intelligent, and hardworking citizens would be. We hoped, some believed, that one day Armenia would once again be a free, independent and united country. We knew just what it would be like, a dynamic combination of all the good aspects of ideal western democracies: a prosperous, united, enlightened nation made up of hardworking, honest and Christian Armenians. As individual Armenians had succeeded in the various countries of the diaspora, so too the collective population of Armenia once free to exert its natural talents and energy would succeed in established a marvelous country, the "Switzerland" of the Caucasus. United in the same common goals, Armenians would move forward. And Armenia would be loved by western nations and would be supported by them, because we Armenians loved the western countries and were totally loyal to them and their ways. With our construction of the mythic Armenia, it was a wonderful time because we call knew that when the chance came Armenians would show the world how by diligence, integrity, and conviction a new, prosperous, highly educated and enlightened state would join the international family of nations. Through imagination we constructed the perfect Armenia and we defined the qualities of the ideal Armenian. Nothing would deter us from using our imaginations to develop our vision for Armenia. We ignored warning signals as quirks and never wanted to believe that all Armenians did not think and behave in the same way, that is, the way we thought and behaved. We created a myth because we needed to believe in one to sustain us, to enhance our own self-esteem, to demonstrate our worth. But for five years we have been more and more confused and disoriented. We are only slowly beginning to adjust to the reality that what we dreamed we would get is not what we have. We discovered that the national unity we knew would come about in the new and democratic Armenia has not materialize. We have been appalled by the vicious public attacks of political parties against each other and against a democratically elected president. We have become suspicious of officials and learned very early that we must be careful through what channels we sent material and financial aid to Armenia. We discovered that "ripping off" was not just an American practice. We have been disillusioned by the failure of a free Armenia to make quick provision for citizenship or extend national rights for Armenians everywhere. We have watched as innate prejudice toward Armenians from the outside has intensified. Rather than the disappearance of the "akhbar" syndrome we have sometimes witnessed a rejection of talents coming from diasporan Armenians. We have watched helplessly and have learned with difficulty that what some Armenians seem to want from Armenians abroad is money, financial and material assistance, but without advise on how to run the country.

Concluding Remarks
And yet, we are proud of our Armenia and are willing to offer a million excuses for why it is not how we thought it would be. How could it be otherwise, we are Armenians, it is Armenia. But, oh, how we would like it to be just a little different, so that we could love it more willingly. We are in a critical period just now, with two elections coming up, one for the catholicos of the Armenian church, the other to renew the parliament, checked in its powers by a very powerful presidency. We have not been able to accept the outlawing of a political party, restrictions on the press, nor the sudden dismissal of ministers in part because their policies did not agree with those of the ruling party. Armenia in 1995 is surviving in a hostile environment and the odds are good that it will continue to survive, but we must continually ask how is it surviving? We must never hesitate to demand accountability and we must never be afraid to criticize those in responsible positions. There is no one in this room that has not criticized, and sometimes very strongly, her or his senator, or governor, or the president. We take it for granted that we can openly attack the policies of the United States government and our elected officials. We accept that Republicans are against the policies to Democrat presidents and that at election time Democrats will demean, even slander, Republicans in very undignified terms. Yet we have a hard time using the same standards for Armenia and Armenian democracy. We want the president we believe in to be above reproach; we loath those who attack him because we say it is disloyal. Because we are few, we say, we must remain united. But united action for a nation is usually achieved by enforced discipline of an authoritarian regime. This is fascism; and it is easy to be tempted by it, because of its promise of law and order and authority's insistence on uniform behavior. And here again we have a paradox and must learn to live with it and work around it. A democratic society demands patience and hard work. There is no easy fix. Democracy hardly ever runs smoothly or predictably. Knowing the hostile environment within which Armenia has survived is as important as defining how Armenia will survive. It is important to remember that a hostile environment is not always exterior to a county, but can be within it. It is just as hard to fight off destructive forces within a society as it is to combat those hostile elements outside. It is true that Armenians have been hardworking, honest and moral, but too often these traits have been directed toward personal achievement, because there was no larger unit, an Armenian state, toward which to direct those qualities, or if there was a state it was not one which compelled the confidence of Armenians. Now Armenia is run for and by Armenians and it is up to Armenians to take hold of their destiny, like those in Karabagh have, and fashion it through hard work, honesty and moral action, but with a vision based on societal as well as individual values. In this way the continued survival of an independent Armenia will be guaranteed no matter what environment it finds its