ARMENIAN COMMUNITY IN GEORGIA: INTEGRATION AND HUMAN RIGHTS ANALYSIS
Regnum, Russia
June 25 2006
"Armenians love Tbilisi but they don’t like Georgians. The city
and the people are two absolutely separate concepts," concluded
Tamara Vardanyan at an academic conference organized by the Noravank
Foundation. Tamara Vardanyan has recently come back to Yerevan from
Georgia where she researched the conditions of ethnic Armenians and
their level of integration in the community life. REGNUM publishes
abstract from Tamara Vardanyan’s presentation.
She said that there are problems both at the level of integration
of Armenians in Georgian economic, social, and political life and
at the level of Armenian community itself. "In Georgia, Armenians
are stereotyped as being employed as barbers, taxi drivers, or
shoemakers," she observed. Most of the Armenians residing there do
not want to leave the country; however, their motto is "integration,
not assimilation." What about the attitude of Georgians to their
neighbors, the situation is complicated by their "historical memory"
on which it is inscribed that Armenians are aliens on the Georgian
land, and by the Nagorno Karabakh conflict that is impeding solving
the Georgian-Ossetian and Georgian-Abkhaz conflicts.
As for the Georgian-Russian relations, "Armenians do not support the
anti-Russian policies of the Georgian authorities, as well as the
Georgian society itself."
The Armenian community in Georgia is "very weak: it lacks internal
will and both economic and political elite," Vardanyan said.
"Armenians are incapable of seeing the danger of being assimilated as
an ethnical minority on the Georgian territory." This is the reason
why almost no ethnical Armenians are present in the Georgia’s public
sector. To be employed in the Georgian public sector, an Armenian
would need first to change his last name. As for the private sector,
people with their last names ending on -yan, are far lesser paid than
their Georgian colleagues.
Separate issues are education of the Armenian youth in Georgia and
preserving Armenian cultural and spiritual heritage.
On September 1, 2006 only two of eight previously working in Georgia
Armenian schools will be opened for children. Besides, it is not
even yet clear if they will remain Armenian in their curricula or be
reformed. The reason of the change alleged by the Georgian government
is that they decided to close all schools whose number of students
is below 700, based on some "voucher system." And Tbilisi enjoyed
a total of eight schools with 700 Armenian students. Of the eight
schools only two were wholly Armenian; other schools included both
Armenian and Russian sectors.
Today, the Georgian government decided to introduce the system of
"bilingual education" where, starting in secondary school, exact and
natural sciences will be taught to Armenian students in Georgian.
Vardanyan said that research study conducted in this regard shows
that 15 percent of Armenian children are now studying in Georgian
schools. Their parents hope that this would help their kids be later
employed in the Georgian public sector.
Armenian applicants to Georgian higher education establishments will
also have to face new challenges. Armenian and Russian enrollees will
hold examinations designed previously only for children who graduated
from Georgian high schools, which decreases chances of minorities’
children to be enrolled.
As for preserving cultural and spiritual heritage of Armenians in
Georgia, many problems here arise from the absence of the law on
religion. There are two Armenian churches in Tbilisi, Surb Gevorg
and Echmiadzin. They, however, do not have any official status, for
they are not legally registered in any agency and their jurisdiction
is not defined. Vardanyan said that, although Georgian churches are
in a similar position, Georgians are more religious and go to church
more frequently than Armenians. "Georgians have an impression that
Armenians are not Christians at all, that they are adherents of some
satanic sects," Vardanyan said.
Vardanyan said that almost all the burden of Armenian problems in
Georgia rests on non-governmental organizations. Most abundant are
Armenian NGOs (67), they are followed by Azerbaijani and Ossetian ones
(20), Russian (15), Jewish (10), Lithuanian (6), Yazidi (5), Chechen
(4), and one German organization.
Armenian NGOs, according to Vardanyan, do not cooperate closely. The
only event that could mold them together is a meeting before
the Turkish embassy to Tbilisi on April 24, the Day of Memory of
Victims of Armenian Genocide. "If in 2002-2003, Armenian NGOs were
mostly preoccupied with organizing cultural events like exhibitions
and musical concerts, today politics is becoming their priority,"
Vardanyan said. Most of Armenian non-governmental organizations are
financed by European international structures.
According to the information of Armenian embassy to Georgia, about
350, 000 Armenians reside in Georgia today; 100, 000 of them live
in Tbilisi.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress