{"id":27126,"date":"2015-09-26T14:09:22","date_gmt":"2015-09-26T12:09:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/norkhosq.net\/?p=27126"},"modified":"2015-09-26T14:09:22","modified_gmt":"2015-09-26T12:09:22","slug":"armenia-and-artsakh-are-more-democratic-than-the-diaspora","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/?p=27126","title":{"rendered":"Armenia and Artsakh Are more Democratic than the Diaspora"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"BY APPO JABARIAN<\/strong>
\nExecutive Publisher & Managing Editor
\nUSA Armenian Life Magazine<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re wondering if the twin republics of Armenia and Artsakh are more democratic than the Diaspora, the short answer is a resounding \u201cyes!\u201d<\/p>\n

Ironically, as many of us living in western democracies know it, democracy does not exist in the Diaspora.<\/p>\n

Although democracy in Armenia is not fully functioning and somewhat corrupt, Democracy in the Diaspora is virtually none-existent! As is the case of Armenia, a broken democratic system can be fixed; whereas a non-existent system is nowhere to be found in the Diaspora.<\/p>\n

Barely 5% of Diaspora Armenians are members of all religious, civic and political organizations, while a whopping 95% are not members anywhere.<\/p>\n

A major issue: Despite the fact that there is no popular mandate for representation, many organizational leaders misrepresent themselves as \u201ccommunity leaders.\u201d Currently there isn\u2019t \u2014 and from time immemorial, there has never been an electoral system voting key individuals into leadership positions as elected representatives through universal suffrage based on \u201cone person, one vote.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"EE<\/a>How could it be that an Armenian civil society that is socially and economically advanced lacks basic democratic processes coordinating the civic life in the Diasporan communities?<\/p>\n

The answer is clear to those who are well-informed of the inner workings of many of the Armenian faith-based and community-based organizations: The Diaspora\u2019s social, cultural, political as well as religious organizations individually have mostly dysfunctional systems that outwardly seem like democratic but in reality many of them do not foster democratic processes within their ranks.<\/p>\n

Even if the existing Diaspora organizations maintained functioning democracies, their collective membership is so marginal (5%) compared to the wider Diaspora Armenian population (95%), they would still not be able to legitimately claim to be authorized representative(s) of the Diaspora.<\/p>\n

Let me elaborate. The combined total of all members of the entire Diaspora civic and religious organizations barely constitute 5% of the entire population of Diaspora.<\/p>\n

A sizable segment of the members in political and religious organizations claim to be \u201csole\u201d decision-makers on behalf of all Diaspora. They usually categorize themselves as \u201cinsiders.\u201d They think of non-members as \u201coutsiders.\u201d Secretly, they categorize non-member fans and supporters as \u201csecond class citizens.\u201d In many instances, arrogantly, they even label certain non-member donors as \u201ckarnougner\u201d (\u201csheep\u201d in Armenian). Their corrupt leaders preach, \u201cGive, but don\u2019t meddle in our internal affairs\u201d which really means, \u201cDon\u2019t dare to criticize our (corrupt) way of doing business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just like I have outlined in previous articles, Diaspora is still maintaining the outdated and counter-productive Turkish Ottoman-imposed \u201cMillet\u201d system of internal autonomy.<\/p>\n

During Ottoman rule, under the so-called \u201cMillet\u201d system, succeeding despotic Sultans officially \u2018recognized\u2019 Armenians as an Ottoman subject faith-based community. Sultans and their viziers covertly and very often overtly appointed their \u2018favorite\u2019 religious individual as the \u2018leader\u2019 of the Ottoman Armenian \u201cMillet.\u201d Sultan\u2019s functionaries \u2018advised\u2019 the hand-picked religious leader to appoint co-opted \u201cAghas\u201d (\u201cLords\u201d) as members of the Armenian \u201cNational Assembly\u201d (Azkayin Ishkhanoutyoun) hijacking the sacred title of \u201cNational Assembly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Up until today, the \u201cNational Assembly\u201d title unjustly continues to be used. But that\u2019s misleading. Members of the past and current \u201cNational Assemblies\u201d have never been voted in by universal suffrage which would justify the title \u201cNational.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the 19th century, at a time when most European nations along with the United States constituted their National Assemblies \u2013 such as a Parliament, a House of Lords, a U.S. Congress, through universal suffrage, Ottoman Armenians were forced to accept their internal \u201cNational Assembly\u201d that was handpicked by the Armenian religious leader who very often acted as the Sultan\u2019s proxy.<\/p>\n

One would hope that after freeing themselves from Turkish Ottoman yoke, Armenians in dispersion would also free themselves from bad Ottoman habits imposed on them by despotic Turkish rulers \u2013 namely the Ottoman-imposed \u201cMillet\u201d system.<\/p>\n

I am sad to report that to this day, the dysfunctional Ottoman-imposed \u201cMillet\u201d system is still in existence throughout the Diaspora. It has simply changed hands and degenerated into today\u2019s set of major religious and political dysfunctional organizations.\u00a0 As a result of the absence of a democratic electoral process, major religious and political dysfunctional organizations\u2019 representatives cannot cooperate as they\u2019re competing.<\/p>\n

There is no such framework. There is no Diasporan system that can sustain both cooperation and competition. To Armenia\u2019s and Artsakh\u2019s credit, both states maintain a democratic system (a Parliament) that serves as a structure for both cooperation and competition.<\/p>\n

Despite the fact that these dysfunctional organizations claim to be strong, they\u2019re no more than paper tigers. Why? Because of major erosion of healthy-, independent- and impartial-thinking members by way of purging committed by corrupt and co-opted leaders of these organizations.<\/p>\n

So going back to the task of comparing democracy in the twin republics of Armenia and Artsakh with the Diaspora, it is safe to say that the Diaspora lags far behind Armenia and Artsakh because of its non-existent democracy!<\/p>\n

The current dysfunctional situation has already triggered widespread exodus from several organizations.\u00a0 Many of these organizations, that used to be vibrant, are rapidly aging. These organizations must be re-energized and repopulated with contingents of youth. Many of these organizations must be saved from themselves.<\/p>\n

How to remedy this dire situation that constitutes an existential threat to Diasporan communities?<\/p>\n

Establish regional and Diaspora-wide democratically elected representation with sound popular mandates; and empower our elected representatives to steer our nation and its cause toward promising horizons. As a millennia-old people we must re-invent ourselves as a renaissance nation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY APPO JABARIAN Executive Publisher & Managing Editor USA Armenian Life Magazine If you\u2019re wondering if the twin republics of Armenia and Artsakh are more democratic than the Diaspora, the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27126"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27127,"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27126\/revisions\/27127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}