|
Communication and Linkages Between Diaspora Institutions and the Republic of Armenia |
Prepared
for the Armenia Diaspora Conference |
|||
|
Introduction
This Report is the result of the work of a Subcommittee that was
convened in response to a request made by the Foreign Minister of the
Republic of Armenia, HE Vartan Oskanian. The
Subcommittee was invited to address “communication and linkages
between diaspora institutions and the Republic of Armenia.” It was
subsequently asked to define its mission broadly, so as to consider a range
of issues, including the economic.
For several weeks, the Subcommittee discussed the nature of the
relationship between the Republic and the Diaspora, reviewing what the
communication problems of the relationship had been and how they might be
improved. The Subcommittee produced over sixty pages of memos. From these,
the Subcommittee Chair distilled several versions of a draft report. Prior
to finalizing this report a draft was submitted to Mr. Oskanian for his
review. Comments made were accordingly incorporated in this final draft.
What follows is the final result of that process.
Members of the Subcommittee raised many issues and analyzed them from
different perspectives; scholarly, intellectual and political perspectives
differed widely in some cases. There was much debate and some strong
disagreement. It was resolved that the Report should first articulate the
shared assumptions of its authors about the Diaspora before offering
concrete analyses and recommendations about major topics grouped under
several headings. The
Nature of the Diaspora 1.
The “Diaspora” is a condition shared by nearly half of all
Armenians. However, as a social formation or a polity, it is not yet a
single entity. 2.
Nevertheless, the members of this Subcommittee, who are familiar with
the communities of the Middle Eastern and western diasporas, find that in
the context of this Report it makes sense to speak of those diasporas as
though they make up a single entity, “the Diaspora.”
Most of the leaders and many of the members of these diasporic
communities conceive of themselves as being in one Diaspora, both vis a vis
Armenia and in relation to each other. Migration from one to the other is
frequent, travel between them very common. The frequent movement of people,
capital, ideas, cultural artifacts and electronic information have created
favorable conditions both for intra-diasporic and diaspora-homeland
communication, thus decreasing isolation and increasing the possibility of
sustaining diasporic identity and commitment. 3.
Furthermore, despite ideological and institutional conflict, many
leaders of this Diaspora regard it as a portion of one Armenian nation,
which they see as consisting of diverse yet interconnected units, and they
welcome the phenomenon of the
Republic of Armenia convening an Armenia-Diaspora Conference in 1999
(henceforth ADC99), because they hope that this will be a forum not
just for airing differences but above all for seeking common ground and for
establishing the foundations of transnational cooperation among Armenians
from the Diaspora, CIS, Eastern Europe, Karabagh and the Republic of
Armenia. 4.
However, the diversity of the Diaspora must not be underestimated. It
consists of dozens of communities, each with its own culture and internal
structure, scattered across five continents. Each has its organizations,
some local, some national, and a few transnational, like the major political
parties, the Churches, the AGBU, and some of the larger compatriotic unions.
No single organization, whether local or transnational, can claim to
represent all diaspora Armenians. 5.
This Subcommittee has little experience of the emerging diasporas of
Armenians emigrating from Armenia. It seems likely that they, too, lack
fully representative organizations. In the immediate future, officials from
the Republic, working with homeland and Diaspora scholars and with community
leaders wherever they may be found, must begin to study and organize
systematically the emerging diasporas of the CIS, Eastern Europe and those
parts of the US where there is a large community of Armenians from Armenia. 6.
It is essential that future discussion focus on new and newly
conceptualized relations between the Homeland and the Diaspora.
This does not mean that older organizations no longer have a role to
play. It does mean that they need to engage in open-ended and continuing
dialogue with other organizations, with the Republic, and with experts and
active community members who do not yet formally belong to organizations. Representation 7.
The question of representation is a question of communication: who
will speak in whose name, to whom, and on what grounds? This Subcommittee
can speak about the Diaspora, but not for it.
Even our largest and best organized transnational organizations can
at best claim to represent only 20 - 40% of a given community. 8.
Precisely because this is the case, the government of Armenia is to
be commended for having invited a large number of participants to the ADC99.
Though this runs the risk of creating a disorderly atmosphere, it helps to
avoid repetition of regrettable past events in which previous governments of
Armenia did not deal even-handedly with all relevant segments of the
Diaspora. 9.
ADC99 should be the first of a series of smaller ADCs organized
according to more clearly spelled out principles of representation and
delegate selection. It is therefore recommended that ADC99 create a Standing
Committee on Community Representation (henceforth SCCR, cf. the Standing
Committee on Economic Development, par. 21), made up of an equal number of
diasporic and homeland members, or even a majority of the former, and
charged with making recommendations on questions of representation to the
Steering Committee of the next ADC. The SCCR will also be the appropriate
venue for discussing existing exemplars of effective cooperation between
various diasporic groups (e.g. the April 24 committee in France) as models
of representation. It should also initiate planning that at some point in
the future may enable it to legitimately claim that it is the global forum
for debating issues of relevance to the
Armenian nation.. 10.
The SCCR should recommend protocols that will insure the effective
participation of diaspora Armenians in our transnational life. To do so, it
should be endowed with a staff and budget that enables it to consult with
the Diaspora, but also with scholars and government officials in countries
that are innovating new forms of diasporan involvement in transnational
political representation, ranging from facilitated dual citizenship to
special representatives in the homeland’s Parliament. The actions of
Israel, Poland, South Africa, Haiti, Portugal, India, the Dominican
Republic, Mexico and Colombia are among those that merit further study. 11.
A series of continuing, properly planned, funded and inclusive small
conferences between the SCCR and various groups in the Diaspora and the
Republic will be an essential precondition for developing understanding,
communication and cooperation. There will be complex questions of funding
and administration for such conferences. These must be addressed; while such
funding is not easily available, it must be considered an initial investment
in the future of Armenia and the Armenian nation. Models
of Relationship between Homeland and Diaspora 12.
Center-periphery models for relations between the government of the
Homeland and the Diaspora should be avoided. When the eventual objective is
the best communication,
consultation and cooperation between Homeland and Diaspora, neither can be
defined by a handful of leaders or centers, be they in Yerevan or in major
Diaspora organizations. It is recommended that all concerned conceptualize
and work for the emergence of a multilateral system of relationships between
the Homeland society and the Diaspora, in which Homeland and Diaspora are
considered part of an open, pluralistic network that invites participation
without prohibitive costs or entrance requirements, subject to certain
protocols which, if not followed, will result in expulsion from the network. 13.
The Subcommittee urges ADC99 to recognize that the best communication
will happen if contacts are not conducted through a single government
office, but rather between many diaspora individuals and organizations and
homeland elements. The civil society emerging in the Homeland must be in
touch, in as many ways as possible, with the various organizations and
individuals of the Diaspora’s many social formations 14.
This model may raise in the minds of many Armenians the question of
“equality.” Some, usually in Armenia, might dismiss the concept
of equality between the two with contempt, while others, usually in the
Diaspora, insist on it with naivete. But the question of “equality” is
misleading. It is pointless to speak of the equality of two incommensurate
entities. The Homeland and the Diaspora should learn to act either as equal
partners or as senior-junior partners, depending on the proportion of
capital and human assets each brings to a specific project. A
project-oriented, partnership-based approach should define at least the
initial stages of Homeland-Diaspora cooperation. 15.
The government of Armenia may initially find it difficult to deal
with the Diaspora as a partner,
but the experience of the past decade has shown that unless both entities
learn to work as partners on
the issues and projects that concern both, no long-lasting success is
possible. The coordination of assistance, development or investment projects
does not require an abstract declaration of equality, but rather proper
consideration of the interests
of both entities, viewed as partners in Armenia’s development. Partnership
and participation require frank
communication in a democratic atmosphere. Western-style economic development
will not flourish in any other environment. The trust that has been eroded
in both the diaspora and the homeland can and must be rebuilt on this more
realistic basis. 16.
Such rebuilding will be facilitated by the recognition of what
democracy has taught. Communication, persuasion, consultation and
cooperation, rather than dictation or naïve concepts of equality, are
indispensable. Governments around the world are learning that within
emerging democracies, they cannot dictate to their own citizens. This is all
the more reason for the government of Armenia to realize that it will be
unable to dictate successfully to diasporans who are not even its own
citizens. Equally, it is important for diasporans to learn that dictating to
the homeland is unthinkable. They will also be obligated to acknowledge that
most Diaspora organizations are not fully democratic, just as many aspects
of life in the Homeland are not. Both parties must practice the virtues of
democratic partnership, between government and people, diaspora and
homeland. 17.
An auspicious step towards such practice has been taken by the
government of Armenia which, by organizing this Conference, recognizes the
importance of the Diaspora. In turn,
the Diaspora must acknowledge that being taken seriously brings with it new
and costly responsibilities. 18.
It is not recommended that the Conference create a standing committee
to pursue the ideals of democratic partnership. Rather, the Declaration of
Principles which should emerge from this conference (see par.36) should
specify a commitment to the values, structures and the operational and
protocols of democratic partnership. Modalities
of Cooperation 19.
The different modalities of cooperation be they in economic,
political and cultural relations - must not be viewed as existing in
a strict hierarchy, such that development of one depends entirely on prior
development of the other. Any notion that the political, or the economic, or
the cultural, is “central” and must have strict priority, while the
other concerns are peripheral and derivative, merely reintroduces an
impractical center-periphery ideology that should be rejected, however
appealing the short-term economic possibilities of such an option may seem.
There should be continuing and simultaneous work on all relevant issues.
Within that framework, many issues which now seem insurmountably difficult
could become easier to resolve in the near future. Economic
Cooperation and Development 20.
Given Armenia’s economic needs, it is understandable that the
government of Armenia might wish to use this occasion as a platform for
commissioning a body that deals with the economic assistance that the
Diaspora is capable of providing. This assistance can be in
four forms: remittances sent by conationals to their relatives;
charitable donations; aid earmarked for the development of infra-structure,
as seen in the past in the construction of the Goris-Stepanakert road; and
investment in the economy, whether guided by the choices of individual
investors or coordinated through a Diaspora-Armenia development council. 21.
Remittances and charitable donations by individuals, relatives and
organizations are difficult to direct over the long-term through
governmental action. Government tax policy and its treatment of remittances
as taxable income may become an issue in the future. After the
initial stage of donor fatigue, which set in during the late1990s, the best
results will be obtained if dependable information and access are freely
available to those diasporans who choose to engage in such work. 22.
Current assumptions about infra-structural aid may lead to premature
dismissal of its continuing value, in favor of investment (the fourth
option). Notwithstanding recent shortcomings in the administration of groups
such as the Armenia Fund, properly scaled and targeted infra-structural
assistance will remain an important form of diasporan assistance to Armenia.
The mechanisms of receiver-selection and donor-cooperation may require
revision, but the basic approach continues to offer attractive opportunities
for useful activity to individual donors and to groups with limited
resources, who may be variously mobilized (e.g. through telethons, community
to community projects and the like). 23.
An approach that exclusively or primarily prefers development through
large-scale business investment has shortcomings. It appeals to a relatively
small group of the largest and most risk-inclined individual investors. This
creates two problems: under the current economic, political and managerial
realities of Armenia, it will not be sufficiently attractive and
confidence-inspiring; and it will neglect the importance of developing
the involvement of individual diasporans at all levels of economic
capacity and potential, merely because it does not come in the form of
“business investment.” (A historical parallel with Israel may be
of some relevance. Contrary to popular assumptions, the majority of American
Jewish aid to Israel until the early 1980s was committed to infra-structure:
to building public housing, hospitals and schools for the tide of Jewish
refugees that came from eastern Europe after the Holocaust, from the Arab
world in the Fifties, and from the USSR starting in the 1970s. This both
lightened the burden of the emergent state and allowed Jewish individuals
and communities to identify their donations with concrete, visible and
obviously needed projects that could be named after donors). 24.
Increased investment by diaspora businessmen in job-creating
enterprises will be essential for Armenia’s sociopolitical stability and
techno-economic development. However, economic data and ideas about the best
paths to capital accumulation and economic development is abundant and
conflicting. It would be inappropriate for this Subcommittee to make
specific recommendations on this issue, except to say that the historical
examples indisputably indicate one thing - no single approach
works everywhere. Pure western capitalism has not proved to be a
consistently effective approach. Hong Kong prospered under it, whereas a
Chinese social formation with the same cultural ethos, in Singapore,
prospered through government-guided investment. (A very different,
politically restrictive and governmentally guided form of nationalist
economic development is also possible. It guarantees greater social
stability but takes more time: its most familiar examples are those of
Kemalist Turkey, 1923-1980, and Francoist Spain, 1939-1975. This approach
leads to a stronger national government, but involves heavy state controls and so might diminish the flow of
international aid and investment of the sort that is available now and wasn’t
earlier). 25.
Diaspora investment must be regarded as a category of foreign
investment. Realism demands that the government acknowledge that investment
capital has no national loyalties, even in the hands of Armenian-born
investors. The government must not expect western-style development while
retaining Soviet era beliefs that the government of an impoverished country
can both ask for investment and dictate where and how those investments must
be made. It must be prepared to relinquish most of its control in many areas
of investment (but not necessarily all, cf. Singapore above). 26.
The government must also commit itself to a wholesale revision of its
legal, financial and tax regulations,
and to judicial adjudication and administration of contract disputes. It
should do this while soliciting the advice and active involvement of
diasporan investors, rather than leaning exclusively on WB/IMF models and
economists, whose usefulness in some countries is indisputable but whose
overall success rate is variable. In the end, the wholesale revision of
state regulations of foreign investment is a huge task which cannot be
effectively completed in the short term; during the lag-time, the other
three forms of diasporic assistance will retain major importance. Of course,
the nature of the relationship between the Diaspora and the Republic will
depend in part on the form of the Diaspora’s financial contribution. For
example, charitable donations and aid for infrastructure each entail
different kinds of interaction, expectations and results. Both the Republic
and Diaspora organizations must remain aware that the type of aid as well as
the sums involved will shape relations. 27.
It is recommended that the Armenia-Diaspora Conference create a
Standing Committee on Economic Development (SCED) in which the number of
diasporan members must at least
equal and perhaps exceed homeland representation. It should be chaired by a
diasporan. This group should be commissioned to do two things
simultaneously: to solicit diasporan investment; but also to consult with
economists and governments in order to see how other emerging economies have
attracted investment from co-nationals in diaspora, and at what cost.
Israel, Hong Kong, Singapore, and India offer excellent examples. India’s
handling of NRI, or non-resident investment, has been productive and
controversial, and merits close study. The SCED should discuss and
coordinate its procedures with the
SCCR. 28.
A series of continuing, properly planned, funded and inclusive small
conferences between this Standing Committee , independent diaspora
businessmen and businesswomen, corporate exceutives, policymakers and
economists will be an essential precondition for developing communication
and cooperation between the homeland and the Diaspora . Questions of funding
and administration for such conferences are complex and will need to be
addressed; while such funding is not easily available, it must be considered
an indispensable initial investment in the future of Armenia and the
Armenian nation. Establishing
Protocols 29.
The work of sustaining the conferences of the Standing Committees and
preparing a second ADC will also provide occasions for bringing together the
leadership of the Homeland and the major organizations of the Diaspora, in
ways that will create not “unity” a word we all wish to avoid
but better cooperation between them. Even though “unity” will not
emerge, it is realistic to anticipate an increase in productive
cooperation. At the very least, working together on future ADCs will
diminish mutual suspicion between the leaders of diaspora organizations, and
will help create a transnational leadership that knows each other which
is not the case now. This, in turn, may decrease utterly counterproductive
intra-diasporic conflicts in favor of a balance between healthy competition
and cooperation. It may also eventually foster trust. 30.
For this to happen, it will be necessary to develop clear protocols
on how both the Diaspora and the Homeland are informed about projects. The
nature and quantity of the
contribution that each participant makes and, crucially, the ways in which
credit may be claimed for such contributions in the Diaspora must be
specified. This means that protocols of truthful communication must guide
how each contributing diasporan group can address its constituency about the
size and impact of its contribution to Armenia. The protocol must apply to
all organizations, large and small, and to all modalities of activity, but
especially the economic. It is difficult for a small group the Diasporic
Union of Ayndeghatzis, say to contribute what it can, say 10% to the
construction costs of a needed factory, if it has legitimate anxieties that
its contribution will not be mentioned when the whole Diaspora and
especially its own constituency is flooded with reports spread by a few
large organizations that contributed the other 90% and that control
newspapers, radio or TV stations in major diaspora communities.
Individuals and small diaspora organizations do not have equal access
to diasporic modes of communication and information not even in the era
of the Internet. And no diaspora organization will commit funds unless a
protocol for sharing credit fairly and reaching all constituencies is
created and enforced. If one Diaspora organization misrepresents the facts,
it must know that all other organizations and, crucially, the government of
Armenia, will set the record straight. One way to guarantee this is to issue
frequent audited project reports. Open
and Free Communication 31.
The government of Armenia will need to consider the fact that its
control of communication to its own citizens cannot be allowed to stand
completely unchanged at the expense of the work of Diaspora organizations.
The same rules of open and full reporting
concerning all contributions must prevail on government-controlled
news channels. Dual
citizenship and the varieties of political participation: 32.
The appropriate nature
and degree of involvement of diaspora and homeland in each other’s
political life has been an insistent issue wherever open communication and
cooperation between the two have become possible. Until recently, homeland
governments have generally preferred to maximize economic contributions (as
remittances, infra-structural investment or business investment) and to
minimize political, social, religious and cultural involvement (for example,
until the late Sixties secular Zionist Israeli leaders tried to restrict the
political activities of certain Brooklyn Jewish religious sects as deeply
problematic; these responded by relabeling their contributions as ‘religious
education’). In the past two decades, however, a recognition has emerged
that seeks to balance and optimize all these forms of involvement.The
increasing (and not always formally legislated) tolerance of dual
citizenship has been one such governmental approach to the problem. 33.
It is not clear to what extent dual citizenship might increase
Diaspora communication with and participation in the Homeland’s life, in
both politics and economics. Comparison with other diasporas demonstrates a
very wide range, about which more detailed reports may eventually be
elicited by the SCCR. Israel, despite its famously powerful diaspora, has
not been politically permissive, requiring a five-year residence and male
military service before extending dual citizenship to its diaspora brethren.
Emigrating Israeli citizens who form the Israeli diaspora can vote more
easily via absentee ballots, as long as they maintain a notional residence
in Israel, periodically renewing their registration in a former domicile’s
prefecture, at some small cost. Poland and South Africa have made voting for
emigrants much easier, requiring registration only at embassies or
consulates at a small cost, followed by absentee balloting. The most
actively changing policies are in poorer countries that receive large
remittances from their diasporas, such as Portugal, the Dominican republic,
Colombia and Haiti Haiti, a country of nine provinces or “Departements”
in French, has declared its Diaspora its “Dixieme Departement” and is
working on promulgating laws to ensure political representation in
Parliament and better remittances and investment. The Dominican Republic is
going even further, discussing legislation that will reserve a certain
number of seats in its Parliament for the "special
representatives"of its US diaspora. 34.
Any recommendation on the dual citizenship issue is premature, but it
may be appropriate, if ADC99 chooses, to initiate discussion of these
issues, with no preconceptions and preconditions. Economic and political
participation from the Diaspora cannot be wholly separated, but neither is
one wholly contingent on the other. Diasporans must recognize that
citizenship is never a free gift it has costs, be it the draft or paying
to maintain registration. Above all, diasporans must be reminded that only
those living in the homeland are affected by the economic and political
misfortunes of the homeland therefore, those not subject to those
effects must make a fixed contribution of some sort if they wish to have a
word in the management of the homeland. Diaspora Armenians are accustomed to
the idea that in order to vote in parish, political party or AGBU and ARS
elections they must pay membership dues, so the idea of paying some sort of
dues in lieu of taxes will not seem alien to them. But the homeland
government is also well-advised to remember that raising the threshold of
the costs of political participation beyond a certain limit runs the
risk of alienating those whose participation is ultimately voluntary, and of
communicating the notion that the Diaspora is fundamentally Other or Odar.
Once again, the old Nation-State model in which the State is the Center and
all others the margins must be qualified by a view in which various degrees
of participation at various cost-scales are considered. 35.
This Subcommittee recognizes that some participants of ADC99 will
insist that “we are all one nation” because we all claim some form of
Armenian identity, while others will insist on cultural differences and
different interests. It recognizes that in much of the Diaspora, the
claiming of Armenian identity is largely a voluntary act, and for that
reason the homeland’s treatment of the Diaspora must be delicate and
diplomatic. In addition, there is no easy commonality of interests between
the Diaspora and the Homeland, just as there is no easy commonality of
interests among diaspora organizations. But this may change thanks to the
communication, consultation and eventual cooperation that we hope
will be launched by ADC99. The
Minimum that can legitimately be expected from ADC99 36.
No member of this Subcommittee and no rational diasporan expects much
decisive action from what we hope will be the first of many ADCs. But
certain expectations are reasonable.
Without offering an extensive theoretical rationale, it is possible to
assert that bodies like the ADC, when perceived to be roughly representative
and acting in good faith, gain some of the legitimacy that democratically
elected representative bodies have. Political science speaks of the “surplus
of legitimacy” that is produced when such bodies are regarded as roughly representative and striving to be more
so. It is recommended that one priority of
ADC99 be to produce such ‘surplus legitimacy’ which, like its
model, surplus capital, can be invested to benefit both the government of
Armenia and other participants, now and in future ADCs, incrementally
leading to a transnational Armenian polity. 37.
To accomplish this aim, this Subcommittee recommends that ADC99
produce a Declaration of Principles. The contents of such a Declaration can
only be specified by ADC99. It might choose to name indispensable principles
on which there is consensus, committing all participants to the principle of
equal and respectful relations between homeland and diaspora individuals and
organizations (“equal” in the sense mentioned earlier), regardless of
political and organizational commitments, religion, gender and country of
origin. It might acknowledge the aim not of “unity” and “sameness”
but of increasing communication, consultation and cooperation in order to
strengthen the Homeland, now in its hour of need, and to serve all sections
of the Diaspora which may later require the aid of the homeland’s
government and of other, more fortunate portions of the Diaspora. 38.
This Subcommittee also
recommends that the Conference consider promulgating a Declaration of
Objectives, and that a few committees be immediately created with
balanced participation from the Homeland and the Diaspora to set time
horizons and measures for seeing those objectives realized by future
conferences, and to begin work. 39.
As a specific example of feasible Objectives, the Subcommittee
recommends the formation of a Project Committee to plan a single-platform
Armenian keyboard, which will be a major
contribution to communication between Homeland and Diaspora. It should be
designed by a balanced committee that consults computer experts not just in
Armenia or anglophone communities but also in large, non-english speaking
communities in which some word-processing programs not in the Latin alphabet
are already in use. This pan-Armenian cross-platform will facilitate e-mail
communication, will simplify the design of Web-sites in Armenian that can be
read with a single software from any corner of the globe, and will increase
Armenian-language communication not only between Armenia and the Diaspora
but among diasporan communities. 40.
A second Project Committee should be formed by representatives of
important Armenian libraries and depositories of archival material (ranging
from the Matenadaran to the Vienna Mekhitarists and the Jerusalem
Patriarchate to the Library of Congress) to coordinate efforts and expertise
with the purpose of designing a single system of automated on-line
cataloguing of books, periodicals, and other texts, and to facilitate future
research. 41.
A third Project Committee should draw equally on Homeland and
Diaspora experts to plan web sites that can function as Registries for a
variety of Armenian organizations and activities. Inclusive web Registries
encourage the rise of new diaspora-homeland organizations around such varied
activities as mountain-climbing or hiking or computer games, and can be
particularly useful in bringing together young people who are otherwise
difficult to interest in Armenian life. Many such registries can be
maintained in Armenia and draw on the considerable Armenian expertise in
computing. Individuals such as Hratch Bayatian, who works for the
government, and Tigran Nazarian, who now works for the UNDP, have already
demonstrated the capacity to innovate imaginatively in these areas. 42.
A fourth Project Committee might consider the largely positive impact
that satellite broadcasts of Armenian TV have had so far on certain
communities of the Middle East and Europe, and should make recommendations
about regularizing these and perhaps creating a transnational corporation
with joint diasporan and government ownership, and with broadcast protocols
that prevent the domination of any single viewpoint. Evidence from the
Greek, Indian and Korean diasporas suggests that satellite broadcasts have
considerable outreach among the American and especially the scattered
Canadian diasporas of these groups. Reverse broadcasts, reflecting attitudes
and morals of diaspora
co-nationals, have been welcomed by some homelands but have offended
conservative others (in India). In conjunction with this, ADC99 might
consider commissioning a separate, third Standing Committee on
Communications Issues (SCCI) that
would explore the above-named projects and, in addition, initiate work on
the creation of a Communications and Media Department at Yerevan State
University, or a separate
Institute for training media specialists. Such an institute should be at
least partly staffed by diaspora specialists in TV, video and other
technologies. As an example, ADC99 might consider the Boards of several
institutes within Tel Aviv University, such as the Porter Institute, in
which there is heavy diaspora representation (potential donors, technical
specialists). 43.
Finally, the ADC might consider the creation of a fifth Project
Committee, headed by a homeland resident, to design a system by which
individuals and organizations in the Diaspora can learn about the
publication, costs and ways of obtaining either scholarly or popular new
books, periodicals, audiotapes, CD-ROMs, videos and films from the homeland.
No such system exists since the abolition in the early 1990s of the
Committee on Cultural Relations with Armenians Abroad. Homeland Armenians
may also be interested in ways of finding out about analogous diaspora
products. 44.
Clearly, there are differences of scale, costs and time-horizons
between, say, the SCED and the Project Committees named above. The
Subcommittee wishes to reiterate that work in one need not be subordinated
to work in the other. Different constituencies exist and can be called upon
to realize different and simultaneous projects. 45.
The Subcommittee concludes by naming an issue on which it has no
recommendations to make, but which it discussed inconclusively. This needs
to be reported because the ADC may well wish to consider it further. It
involves the role of the embassies of the Republic of Armenia, whose uneven
performance raises the question of whether they can reliably serve as
important nodes in regional communication, as proper intermediaries between
the Homeland and the Diaspora. Conclusion Of course, it is up to the Foreign Minister and the Steering Committee to which this Subcommittee reports to decide which of these issues should be taken up most urgently by ADC99. This Subcommittee considers indispensable the Declaration of Principles, because, if properly formulated, it will have great impact on Diaspora mobilization at no financial cost. It also considers indispensable the setting up of at least some committees (such as SCCR) and the adoption of at least one pan-Armenian project objective (such as the Armenian keyboard). These will create momentum and will increase the political legitimacy of ADC99 as it launches a long-term and open-ended process of communication, consultation and co-operation between the Republic and the Diaspora. ---END--- |
||||
