My contact with Glendale Mayor Zareh Sinanyan was very inspiring in several terms. First, I like when the officials display modesty and restraint in dealing with journalists. Or else, I remembered a head of the department at the Yerevan municipality, who in response to a journalists’ question has said, “since I am the Head of the Department, I can only get in contact with the heads, in other words, with the editors.”
Secondly, of course, it was pleasant that the American city is ruled by an Armenian-origin young man, who in 1988, at the age of 14 left Soviet Armenia, and has gone through thanks to his personal merits by becoming a City Council member and then a mayor.
Anyway, most importantly is his healthy attitude to Armenia-Diaspora relations. In the Diaspora, as I see, there are two extremes. “Traditional” Diaspora, if they are interested in Armenia, then only in the context of national problems the way they are perceiving these problems: the Armenian Cause, genocide, and demands. From this perspective it seems to them that is does not so matter what kind of state Armenia is and what regime is here, just all of us pursue these problems. Our these countrymen do not consider it appropriate to talk about Armenia’s political and economic development, about legitimacy and controlability of authorities.
Those who have gone from here after 1990 (again, if they are interested in the homeland), they are talking about these very issues. But, the problem is that many of these “new Diaspora” are addressing our too painful issues with malice, as if subconsciously trying to justify their absence. “Build a good homeland, and I will return”, is often sounded “in-between the lines” of what they say.
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We, Armenians, sometimes do not want to understand both the “traditional” and “non-traditional ones”, on the contrary, in the mind or even in the public, we tend to blame them of why you were not and are not sharing our sufferings. The bases of such reproach is purely emotional, they must be eliminated.
Zareh Sinanyan is free from all of these extremes, and his point is that we, Armenians, should once be genuinely “explained,” but the explanation should not last for years. After accepting each other’s sins and confessing of own sins, we need to move forward, having the undeniable provision in front of our eyes that the key to solving all kinds of national problems is here, in the Republic of Armenia.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
