on armenians diasporans kundera and other things in 2006

recently read nathan's posting and the loooong feedback on armenian blogosphere. can't stop wondering why people like breaking the whole into pieces, though i give credit to those who do and research one piece to the exhaustion of turning into a philosopher:-) i've always wondered at the meaningless debate of who's armenian and who's not, and who's got the right of deciding on the future of my country. i'll define armenianness as a quality which is shaped be genes, geography, culture, language, traditions, but not only. there's smth that does not materialize easily for one to be able to provide a comprehensive definition and this indefinable (what is the word here?) vogi mortars all the above-mentioned into the quality of armenianness. so being an armenian means demonstrating this quality in your daily life. anyone who does so, no matter local or diasporan is armenian. even petrina is armenian!

i know this does not sound too convincing of an argument, so i'll try another way. i wonder why there's a common, or rather a wide-spread perception that diasporans do not have a stake in this country's future, especially, when it refers to those who live and work in the country. using the accepted terms, this will be just another social group that comprises the armenian public and definitely can have a say in how it wants the country to develop. we don't say yezidees or the gay community can't have a say in the future of armenia if they happen to live here. as a local, it pains me to witness this meaningless debate that causes hostility and takes us further from the vision of exerting joint efforts for building a prosperious (in all aspects, not just gdp!) country. diasporans were perhaps the first armenians that made me love my being armenian. they're the ones to introduce healthy diversity to a society that does not even know the value of its traditions and how those can be used to their advantage...

another point: nathan argues that the blogs of the diasporans do not reflect armenian reality. and why not? reality is reflected differently by different reflectors, right? the argument would have been more convincing had it stressed the lack of diversity of reflections. of course, the local glance would have revealed a different picture, but there's a big issue here: diasporans have the skills to play with blogs, locals are still getting used to the concept of web presence. at this point the intelligent and skillful locals are into online forums (e.g. http://www.openarmenia.com) , so give them some time to get to blogs:-)

eemmm, anyway... now on kundera...unbearable lightness of being... a very good novel, but why am i not so impressed? why do i still prefer the life of pi? no doubt i enjoyed the intellectualism of it and still remember the simile on love and melody, but...intellectualism haunts me and i seem to fully enjoy simplicity only. or might it be his attitude to dostoevsky:-)? i guess i need to reread the book and read other novels as well.

karen dilemma: what does the guy want? i am not the type; it’s way too obvious, but he keeps calling. not that i mind it. simply he does not care about talking to me, he just wants to see me and gets mad when i say no:-) strange...

i'm rapidly gaining weight; feeling like starting that book (tavjutakov tghan :-)) which i know i'll never do (when's the last time i've written anything?); being inexcusably slow in getting back to people who write to me; drafting already the third research proposal without ever producing a final version of any; thinking how we can help samvel karapetyan in publishing the documents in the state archives; wanting to have kids (the other day i found the solution to actually realizing my dream: now being 30 and still single i won't manage giving birth to 7 kids:-) so as soon as i find the dad, we'll adopt the other 4:-)))))); thinking of mom; wanting to travel; guess this is all of the wishlist for the moment:-)