THE MOST IMPORTANT CHALLENGE FACING US

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Nov 6, 2008

A speech by Vartan Oskanian delivered in Toronto and Los Angeles.

Dear Friends,

This is my first public appearance since I left the office of foreign
minister.

As I was gathering my thoughts about what to say, I realized that
we’ve come a long long way these 17 years.

If I was still in office, I would tell you about Armenia’s successes
and challenges. Today, as a private citizen, I am going to do the
same. But the reason I wanted to be a private citizen, is to be more
outspoken about and to work for all that still needs to be done. I
believe that my responsibility, our responsibility together, to
Armenia and its future is the same whether one is in government or not.

My commitment to Armenia and its future did not begin when I became
foreign minister. It will not cease now that I am no longer foreign
minister.

I have been here since the inception and I’ve seen the ups and
downs. I served as foreign minister since the beginning of President
Robert Kocharian’s term. I served as deputy minister and first deputy
minister under President Levon Ter Petrossian. In other words, I have
served not a man, but a people and a country. Just as it is not in
my nature to follow blindly, it is also not in my nature to be in
bitter opposition. I believe in carrying out the responsibilities I
have undertaken. I believe I have done so these 10 years, sometimes
before the TV cameras but more often behind the scenes.

My responsibility now is to speak and act honestly and openly. That
is both commitment and responsibility.

The Civilitas Foundation which I have created believes in the concept
of a citizen’s responsibility to society. We, in Armenia and the
Diaspora, professionals, committed Armenians of all generations,
across the world, together, make up Armenian society. Around the world,
we have attained a level of professionalism, integration and wealth
that our grandparents could never have imagined and that obligates
us to give back to our community – here and in Armenia.

But you already know that. Your organizations, by its existence,
understand the inextricable links between Armenia and Diaspora.

I have often spoken of the Armenia – Diaspora interdependence. I
don’t think it is any longer a question as to whether one needs the
other. I think the only question is how one can build on and benefit
from the capacities of the other.

All of us in our consciousness, in our minds, in our dreams, we
imagine our own Armenia, and we strive to reach it. But in order to
see the real Armenia, to perceive it correctly, I think we must find
the right correlation, the right balance between our expectations of
Armenia and Armenia’s capacity.

It is not easy to build a state. It’s true that one can have
expectations, but they must also be realistic expectations.

Let’s look at what we have. We have built a state that is stable, and
advancing economically. Today, if we compare Armenia to other similar
countries, we see that despite our limited potential, despite the
war, despite the blockade – and in fact we even forget about these
sometimes – we are competitive with our neighbors.

The situation in our region today is changing very quickly. The
challenges are not the same today as they were 10 years ago, five
years ago, or even one or two years ago. And they are many. The
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline is operational and prospects are improving
for the construction of the Trans-Caspian pipeline. These will
seriously enhance Azerbaijan’s influence and leverage over Europe and
the US. Those countries in our region facing self-determination issues
have united and created a common front. The punitive posturing towards
Iran, our strategically important neighbor, is growing. The likelihood
of the creation of divisive lines in our region is also increasing,
and nothing demonstrated that better than the conflict, in August,
between Russia and Georgia. Finally, the Turkey-Azerbaijan relationship
is becoming deeper and broader, with Turkey more openly and overtly
assisting Azerbaijan militarily, politically and economically. Every
day, we see new manifestations of Turkey’s state policy of denial and
non-recognition of the Genocide. Add to that their hesitation to make
the only move that will have any meaningful impact on the region –
opening borders – and you can see that our foreign policy challenges
are serious.

Actually, I believe that many of these will be with us in some form
or another, for a long time. Our neighborhood is not going to change.

But our domestic challenges – these are the ones that are in our
hands to fix, once and for all.

Many of our domestic problems are economic. The hopes of Armenia’s
aspiring young men and women rest on a fair, open, economic
system. This means respecting civil liberties, believing in democracy,
actually allowing a rule of law. Only then can will the individual
citizen be unafraid to risk and venture, and only then will we harness
the energy of our society – economically and politically.

Only then will be able to create jobs so that they see their future
in Armenia, and they see Armenia’s future in themselves.

Only then will we manage to eradicate poverty so that all our people
begin to believe that living in a country that is ours is better than
living in someone else’s empire.

Only then will we succeed in identifying corruption as the evil that
limits options, suffocates innovation, restricts enterprise and slams
the door on opportunity

Only then will we do away with nepotism so that it is what you know
not who you know that counts.

Only then will our government institutions be more effective because
the law makes each citizen powerful, and it is not the powerful who
make their own laws.

In other words, the stories of today’s rising generation must be
stories of prospects and convictions and successes, not stories of
frustration, discontent and disillusionment.

But we will not be able to tackle today’s ills if we do not heal
our political environment and change the psycho-social and moral
environment in which we live.

Our elections were not the cause of the damage to our spirit. They were
the consequence of our inability to bring civility to our society,
to bring civil society to our political stage, and to transform
our political arena into a competition of ideas and programs, not a
battleground for defending power and wealth/resources.

This failure is not just Armenia’s but also the Diaspora’s. The
challenge then is also not just for Armenia, but for Karabakh and
the Diaspora, too.

In this, as in all things, we are together. There is no Armenia without
Diaspora, no Karabakh without Armenia, there are no divisions. We
all belong to one nation, have one identity, one past.

The most important challenge facing all of us is our young people’s
issue of identity. You in the Diaspora think this is just a Diaspora
worry. But it is not. This is as real a question for those who are
growing up today in Armenia and Karabakh. To what do they link
their identity? To a divided and injured society? To apathy and
hopelessness? To endless cycles of poverty?

To third world villages? To homelessness and earthquake? To the
mentality of a warrior — victorious but always under siege? To the
economy of a petty merchant?

Or to an Armenia that has a knowledge-based economy, where education
is valuable for the windows that it opens, where villagers like
villagers everywhere feel protected? To an Armenia with an economic
and political independence that is secure, to a prosperous Armenia,
to an Armenia that is fair and just.

Our young people – in Yerevan and here in Diaspora, too – want to
believe in Armenia. But that Armenia must be the Armenia of their
imagination, the one they have heard about from their grandfathers,
the Armenia their parents have dreamt about. If we can’t give this
generation that Armenia, then in the years to come, we will lose them
to other dreams.

But if we can? If Armenia, the Diaspora and Karabakh join hands and
use our know-how and our dedication, see what miracles we will work.

The 21st century – the century of social and professional networks,
of globalization and of knowledge-based economies – is a century that
will see new countries and new diasporas. Our diaspora was created
by the forces of history. Ironically, so was our country.

Now we cannot leave them to the forces of history again.

It is that diaspora and that country that will define us as a nation
in the 21st century. We must write that definition ourselves.