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Snap judgement: Between Ararat and Zion

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  • Snap judgement: Between Ararat and Zion

    Jerusalem Post (subscription), Israel
    Aug 4 2004

    Snap judgement: Between Ararat and Zion
    By CALEV BEN-DAVID


    For centuries, a people with its own unique culture, language and
    religion lived in exile from its ancestral homeland as it lay under
    foreign rule.

    Scattered in diaspora communities across the globe, these people
    suffered ostracism, persecution and even genocide, while dreaming of
    the day their nation would regain its independence. Finally, through
    an almost miraculous set of geopolitical circumstances, that dream
    was fulfilled against all odds.

    It's not the Jews I'm talking about - it's the Armenians, whose
    homeland achieved long-awaited independence with the breakup of the
    Soviet Union in 1991.

    At that time, Armenia's resident population was thought to be
    comparable with that of the Armenian diaspora, numbering in the
    three-to-four million range. No longer. Armenians are now free to go
    home; however, they are also free to leave, and apparently, many are
    doing just that.

    According to a recent report in The Washington Post, there has a been
    a mass exodus of Armenians out of their country in the past decade.

    Although an Armenian census in 2001 listed the official population as
    3.2 million, most Armenians believe the actual figure is now at least
    a million, if not two million, lower than that. Most of the emigrants
    have gone to Russia, with others joining the large ethnic Armenian
    communities in France, North America and elsewhere.

    "It's the economy," a member of the Armenian community in Jerusalem
    told me. "It's gotten so bad people can barely get bread to eat
    there."

    Gevorg Pogosyan, a sociologist in the Armenian capital, Yerevan, told
    The Washington Post: "I call it depopulation. It calls into question
    whether Armenia is a country with a future. We are a weak society,
    weakened both politically and economically by this migration."

    Why are things so bad in Armenia? Well, it's a small country with few
    natural resources that must share its borders with hostile Muslim
    countries (Turkey and Azerbaijan)... you get the idea.

    Reading of Armenia's plight, I couldn't help thinking of the
    similarities with Israel, as well as the differences. Comparisons
    between Armenians and Jews have been noted fairly often in the past,
    and Armenian activists have admitted taking inspiration from their
    Jewish counterparts in trying to get the world to acknowledge what
    they see as the Turkish genocide perpetrated against their people
    during World War I.

    The Armenian diaspora, just like the Jewish one, is also pumping
    billions of dollars back home to alleviate the situation there. "If
    not for these billions, we would have had riots and revolutions
    here," Pogosyan told The Washington Post.

    Although things aren't quite as dire in Israel, the parallels between
    the Armenian and Jewish diasporas in the relationship to their
    "national homelands" are striking. Both even express their
    nationalistic yearnings through the symbolism of holy mountains,
    Ararat and Zion.

    Is there anything useful for Israel and the Jewish people to learn
    from Armenia's current migration plight? One lesson almost too
    obvious is that the deepest feelings of yearning for a beloved
    motherland, even those inculcated from birth, are not enough to
    attract (or even hold) a population there if that nation cannot offer
    its people adequate material conditions.

    All the money invested in such worthy programs as birthright israel
    won't help bring aliya from the Western world if foreign capital
    isn't also being invested in Israeli businesses. Promoting Israel to
    the Jewish world primarily as a charity case also doesn't help
    matters, which is why Jewish Agency Chairman Sallai Meridor was right
    this week to take exception to the new government plan to use funds
    raised abroad to directly underwrite the providing of hot lunches for
    Israeli schoolchildren.

    Maybe, though, we should be cautious about taking this comparison too
    far. After all, Israel has gone through bad patches comparable to
    Armenia's, perhaps even worse in terms of the security situation. And
    although an estimated hundreds of thousands of Israelis have voted
    with their feet to seek a better life elsewhere, this country's
    population has risen steadily, often dramatically, since its birth,
    sometimes during its most difficult periods.

    The difference, of course, lies not with the situations of the
    nations of Israel and Armenia, but of their respective diasporas. A
    series of historical circumstances since Theodor Herzl first called
    for the re-establishment of a Jewish commonwealth more than a century
    ago has propelled much of the Jewish world back to its ancestral
    homeland, often not out of ancient yearnings, but as a last refuge.

    Looking back over just the past quarter-century, it's remarkable how
    a confluence of events in most of the remaining major centers of the
    Jewish diaspora - the former Soviet Union, Argentina, and now France
    - has seemingly contrived to nudge a significant number of Jews in
    the direction of Israel. As bad as things have gotten here at times,
    it seems there is always someplace else in the world where it's even
    worse for the local Jewish population.

    This isn't cause for complacency, though, and Israel should take note
    of Armenia's current woes as a cautionary example. It's in this
    context, perhaps, that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's recent call for
    the Jews of France to make aliya should be understood - and not as
    French President Jacques Chirac interpreted it, as a rebuke to France
    for failing to prevent the rise of Muslim anti-Semitism. If Jews
    aren't coming to Israel, from France and elsewhere, then they're
    probably leaving it, and "depopulation" is a phenomenon this nation
    can't afford.

    Gagik Yeganyan, the government official in charge of dealing with the
    Armenian migration crisis, told The Washington Post: "We have a
    national idea - 'One country, one nation, one culture, one religion.'
    It means that Armenia is considered the motherland for all Armenians
    living around the world, even though only 30 percent of Armenians
    live on the territory of the motherland. Armenians who leave always
    think they are not leaving forever."

    Right. Now where have I heard that one before?
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