RURAL STONES ON DIASPORA’S CONSCIENCE
Hakob Badalyan

Lragir.am
13 June 06

The government of Armenia has thought of a new target to ask for
money from the Diaspora. Our compatriots abroad are going to learn
about it on September 18-20, if they come to take part in the Third
Armenia-Diaspora Forum. I say “if” because I very much doubt that the
Armenia-Diaspora forums are going to arouse interest in any Diaspora
Armenian for the Motherland. Most probably, everyone realized that
the pan-Armenian events have a sole purpose, which is wonderfully
clear – to bring Diasporans to Armenia, treat them to food and
drinks, take them to places. If we are lucky, they will give us some
money, if not, they will learn to travel to Armenia at least once a
year. Pan-Armenian events have not had another, more serious goal;
if they set such a goal, they failed to reach it, because the society
is not engaged in settling these goals. In the meantime, there were
and there are goals. Several days ago the minister of foreign affairs
announced that the potential of Armenia and the Diaspora has increased
over these years, and is now able to solve new, greater problems. In
other words, not only Armenia but also the Diaspora is a tiger, or if
Armenia is a tiger, with the Diaspora it is a tiger and a half, the
scientific name of which has not been invented yet, but fortunately,
Oskanyan has not retired yet.

Everything is ahead. However, the animal without a scientific name,
which appears in the form of an Armenia-Diaspora union, has to
solve a problem offered by the so-called head of the Armeniadiaspora
halftiger – the government of Armenia. In the Third Armenia-Diaspora
Forum our compatriots will be offered to make investments in rural
areas of Armenia. Their state is indeed very bad, and they really
need from infrastructures to modern utilities not only to survive
but also to develop, preventing the rural population from becoming
economic migrants and lottery tickets in Russia winning life or
death. The government of Armenia has thought it out well, in fact,
and the Diasporans should have a heart of stone to refuse to invest
in rural communities. On the other hand, the Diasporans may not be
that naive and may ask how it happens that Yerevan grows more and
more elite whereas the rural communities nearby do not develop. How
does the tiger bounce that villages always fall off? The Diasporans
may ask how it happens that agriculture, which has the second index
in the pattern of the two-digit economic growth, does not promote
investments and development in rural areas.

The government of Armenia is really going to face a serious problem,
because persuading the Diaspora Armenians is not that difficult, but
it seems absolutely impossible to explain everything to them. For
instance, how are they going to explain that the elite emerges
and the elite houses in Yerevan are built at the expense of rural
communities, both in terms of manpower and resources? How are they
going to explain that the agricultural income goes to the pocket of a
capital official rather than a farmer, and becomes an expensive car,
apartment, restaurant or night club. Can they explain to the Diasporans
why an Armenian millionaire oligarch should invest in the city center,
a motorcade, or politics, whereas a Diasporan is supposed to develop
the rural communities? Can they explain why a Diasporan should invest
money in a country, where foreign investments have hardly reached 1
billion over the past 15 years? Moreover, this one billion came from
the same Diaspora.

Certainly, they can say that they are Armenians and they must
help their motherland for foreign millionaires to see and make
investments. They can say, indeed. But what if the Diasporans suddenly
ask whether the oligarchs cramming the city center are not Armenians,
whether the ministers who put themselves in charge of the agricultural
income are not Armenians to invest money in rural communities? It is
necessary to think about it, the Armenian government must hurry to find
an answer to this question, as well as some other questions. Because
if they say they are Armenians, they will have to explain how they
differ from other Armenians, and if they are not Armenians, they
have to tell who they are. It is a complicated problem, especially
considering the absence of a common grammar.