InternationalIf a million people had stayed
Published: Friday February 20, 2009 in Living in Armenia
The departures lounge at Yerevan’s Zvartnots International Airport. Photolure
Yerevan - Accomplishing even the simplest tasks in a country that is struggling to transform itself can be draining. Sometimes it's easier to complain and let negative thoughts flood in than to struggle to find the goodness you know exists. Being negative in Armenia is not only a state of mind, it's a way of life. If you're not negative, then something must be wrong with you. Or so I'm reminded on a daily basis - I'm overly optimistic, an idealist who harbors delusions that the country is on the road to recovery. When I try to exercise my civic rights, I am told to give up because only naïve people would believe they can affect change. So you can't help letting in the flood waters of negativity.
I often tell people that if I lose hope, then I can no longer live here. It was hope that led our journey to the homeland. I remember my mother asking me how I thought we could make a go of it in Armenia. I reminded her that when she immigrated to Canada from Lebanon in the 60s she didn't know the language, she didn't have any money, nor did she have any kind of support system, but she "made a go of it," so why couldn't I? She said it's easy to go from nothing to everything, but to go from everything to nothing is a whole other story. Why are Armenian mothers always right?
I have found myself on the edge of despair many times. But what good can come from escaping? From running away and not looking back? What would happen if we all gave up?
Today I ran into an acquaintance who supported the opposition most fervently. She took part in the opposition rallies that were a daily occurrence in our country less than a year ago and that promise to begin once again, reigniting tensions that are simmering just below the surface of civility. She believes that Armenia's authorities are, as she says, a bunch of bandits. But she's also a fervent patriot. When my friend, also a repatriate, and I were complaining, she took it to mean that we had given up and had decided to leave. Leave and go where? we asked almost simultaneously. We're here for the long haul. Ouff, she said, you worried me. That's how we Armenians are, she continued. At the smallest inconvenience we run away. If a million people hadn't left this country, we wouldn't be where we are now.
A million people. Think about it: that's a lot of people. Where did they go? Why did they go? If we all give up, then this country most certainly will fall apart. It's not easy. No one ever said it was going to be easy. But can you imagine . . . all that energy, creativity, possibility, and potential gone. Yes, they fled a country in ruins. Yes, perhaps they had a right. Perhaps if I were here and didn't have food to feed my children, I too would have fled. I don't have the right to point fingers and condemn. But don't take away my hope.
And as always, Armenia is full of surprises and indeed, hope.
February 16 is the International Day for Cancer Awareness. That's what they said on the news. Thank goodness for Google because after doing a quick search, I discovered that the International Day for Cancer Awareness is actually on February 4. So they were off by 12 days, but at least intentions were genuine.
A group of young cancer patients were invited to Lovers Park in Yerevan to take part in festivities organized to lift their spirits and allow them some reprieve from the daily grind of their illness. Watching their eager young faces on the news, running, laughing, playing, it was hard to imagine that many of them are fighting for their lives. Most had lost their hair because of chemotherapy. Some of their faces were pale and bloated. But their eyes twinkled and their spirits were bright as the morning sun.
There were clowns making fantastically strange creatures out of balloons. Well-known singers like Arame and sisters Inga and Anush Arshakyan had joined in the festivities by singing for the children. Beautifully crafted and colorfully painted bird houses were placed throughout the park to welcome the chickadees and sparrows that will return once the warm winds of spring blow in.
Civic awareness is not very well developed yet in Armenia. Giving back to society or taking part in communal events is a concept that is slowly being reintroduced and integrated. So to see people giving of their time and energy to children with serious illnesses was uplifting.
And then I thought about what my friend who's in perpetual opposition to the country's authorities said about all those people who left. They had so much to give. They too could have been the ones organizing civic events. They too could have helped in rebuilding the country. If they were the ones in need, we would have extended our helping hand to them, would we not?
Today we have Armenian communities in almost every European country. Many of our people are there illegally, living and working under the radar of immigration officials. Hundreds of thousands more left for North America and Russia in search of work and a better quality of life. I hope they found what they were looking for. Besides sending in their monthly remittances to their family members left behind, I wonder if they look back and wonder, What if we had stayed? But does it even matter now? Like the painter Hakob Hakobyan told me last week, never mind trying to bring those people back; let's try and keep whoever's left.
Those who left in the 90s left because of devastating poverty; those who are leaving today are leaving for other reasons. They are leaving because what we believed should have come naturally with independence and statehood didn't: justice, equality, human rights, a national ideology, a common goal, celebrating in each other's successes, a just society where the law applies equally to all, protecting the rights of workers, women, children, the disabled, senior citizens, and our environment. We have to work for and earn these very basic values which will ensure the development and enrichment of our country. These are the values we need to adopt so that we can prevent another million from leaving.
