VARDAN OSKANYAN: "DESTRUCTION OF A NATION’S HEREDITY IS EQUIVALENT TO ENDING ITS MEMORY"
Panorama.am
21:17 18/10/2007
"We aren’t the only ones who have stood on this stage and said that the
destruction of a nation’s heredity is the same as ending its memory,
its history, its individuality. Unfortunately, we have neighbors who
base their individuality on history not so correct.
And we see from that their trauma and instability," Armenian foreign
minister Vardan Oskanyan said at the recent session of UNESCO in Paris.
In his words, as borders in the region often change, movements of
people naturally follow. Preserving the ancient Armenian monuments
and churches is every important for historians and artists, but still
more important for the world, who needs to remember its history,
and needs to remember the heredity of those nations who have come
and left the pages of history.
The foreign ministry’s press department informed that the minister said
that Armenia is a country that is proud of its education and science,
as well as its ancient history, but now finds itself in an active
era of reforms. He notes that this second generation of reforms is
difficult, perhaps the most difficult to bring to realization.
In Oskanyan’s words, diplomats, artists, and representatives from
culture benefit from dialogue, and perhaps it is because of this that
they feel obligated to look in other direction than tradition to find
themselves a peaceful life.
"Diplomats and those working in culture, like different groups in
society, live as neighbors who are not subject to these change and
reforms, as memories can’t be put to rest, as experience shows. For
this reason people try to tear down blockades from the past, as they
thing that there needs to be dialogue between countries and cultures,"
Oskanyan said.