I consider the book “At the Crossroads” to be a serious initial contribution to the future Europeanization or modernization project of Armenia. Unfortunately, the general standard of living of the Armenian population, or the Human Development Index (HDI), as it is called by scientists, is rapidly decreasing. Today, the provincial type of Oriental culture with a distorted reflection of the Western kitsch swamps everything else.
Many things tend to alienate a significant part of the Armenian intelligentsia in the diaspora, who were absorbed into the Western culture through the Russian language: concerts that resemble rural weddings; the people’s everyday lives and, especially, those of the young men, their manner of talking and lexicon, including those of the political “elite”, and, finally, the so-called newly-made Armenian language of the provincial philologists.
The local political “elite” is trying in every way to prevent prominent representatives of the diaspora from participating in the political process of governing Armenia, unlike what is happening in the neighboring Georgia, the Baltic states and other post-Soviet countries. As a result, our republic is very poorly represented at the international level, which is humiliating for the people of our ancient culture.
Today, more than ever, the threat of a complete loss of sovereignty is hanging over Armenia. The political “elite” of the republic, instead of strengthening its foreign policy vector, is engaged in “resolving the internal issues” with the former country leaders, who, by the way, really participated in the Karabakh liberation process. This was the first incident in the post-Soviet political practice that was perceived in an exclusively negative manner by the international community. This precedent threatens altogether the possibility of democratic rotation of the leadership of the republic according to Armenia’s constitutional order.
The people are suffering degradation and departing in droves. Unfortunately, the semi-literate leadership, armed with a few populist patriotic slogans, poorly understands the utter tragedy of the situation. Today’s Armenia is progressively losing its attractiveness as a cultural and spiritual center that could unite the greater diaspora.
It should be noted that in the foreseeable future Armenia will remain in the Russian political and cultural arena, but of course, with a natural desire to go beyond the arena’s borders. As of today, there is no palatable alternative.
The initiative of the authors of “At the Crossroads” will undoubtedly succeed if it is supported by television. They could start by launching a program, and in the future perhaps, it could be developed into a TV channel. This could be done both in Moscow and in Yerevan: like-minded people would be ready to help.
