SECRETS OF MONO-ETHNICITY

Armenia has celebrated the day of independence. Celebrations have been traditionally pompous and meant to be impressive. In reality, however, they were reminiscent of a windsurfing competition in one of Yerevan's "inner" bodies of water. Serzh Sargsyan's attempts in an interview with Russia-24 television channel to present the matter as though the Armenian economy is growing and even has a chance of surviving the crisis were inconclusive. Incidentally, both former presidents refused to be present in the square.

However, another issue is indicative. The head of the Armenian Federation of Assyrian NGOs, Irina Gasparyan, in an interview with Panorama news site, congratulated the organizations on the 20th anniversary of independence and said that it was also a holiday for the Assyrian people. After that, she began to assert that Armenia's ethnic Assyrians feel very much at ease, that the state helps the community in solving educational problems and there is no discrimination of ethnic minorities in Armenia. It would all look convincing if not for one circumstance. Precisely when Panorama, through the words of Irina Gasparyan, was claiming that there are no problems with ethnic minorities in Armenia, the South Caucasus media that are not controlled by Yerevan reported that the Council of Europe recommends Armenia to take more drastic measures to combat ethnic and religious intolerance.

It would be relevant to note that there are barely any ethnic minorities in Armenia. According to a 2006 census, the biggest minority group are the Yezidi Kurds - 40,000 people. The census also identified about 15,000 Russians, 1,500 Ukrainians and as many Assyrians ... In short, even with the current decline of the Armenian population as a result of mass migration, ethnic minorities can hardly play a significant role in the ethnic and religious life of society. And experience shows that conflicts arise when "newcomers" and "others" constitute at least 15-20 per cent of the population.

However, Strasbourg stressed, "The Framework Convention of the Advisory Committee of the Council of Europe for Armenia points to the tension and intolerance between the Kurdish and Yezidi minorities. The Yezidi minority continues to be subject to stereotyping and intolerance."

Authors of the Convention also note that although the Armenian public radio and television services continue to broadcast programs intended for ethnic minorities, the reaction of the authorities and society to the anti-Semitic remarks by a number of media, including TV channel ALM TV, was not appropriate despite complaints from representatives of the Jewish minority. "The Advisory Committee has also received information on multiple acts of vandalism committed in 2005, 2006 and 2007 at the memorial to Holocaust victims in a park in the center of Yerevan. Such facts require immediate and adequate reaction of the authorities," says the Framework Convention.

Council of Europe experts have also pointed to the discrimination against Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian minorities in the preparation of documents for personal identification. In particular, the transcription of names in birth, marriage certificates and identification documents issued to those belonging to the Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian minorities does not take into account the rules of grammar of their respective languages. The suffixes "ovich", "ovna", "iyevich", "iyevna", "ich" and "ivna" are not added to patronymics. Instead, patronymics of these individuals are written according to the rules of grammar of the Armenian language, with the suffix "i", which does not comply with the principles of the Framework Convention.

 The plans to reform the local government system in Armenia may limit the capacity of those belonging to the Yezidi and Assyrian minorities to influence local decisions. This causes a bias to the actual participation of ethnic minorities in public life at local level, according to the Framework Convention.

The actual picture is much worse. A few weeks ago, the Yerevan-based opposition newspaper Aykakan Zhamanak reported on events in the village of Zovuni in Armenia's Kotayk province. According to the paper, there were clashes between the Armenians and Yezidi Kurds here. According to the Yezidi Kurds, Armenians had a gun, and at some point one of them pointed the gun at the head of the chairman of the National Union of Yezidis, Aziz Tamoyan.

There are different versions of what may have caused the stand-off. Some argue that the local Yezidi Kurds "grappled with the servants" of an Armenian oligarch who has decided to expand his possessions. According to another theory, this was a purely ethnic skirmish. Either way, residents of Zovuni have told reporters that they feel completely helpless.

Experts are saying that for quite some time Armenia's Yezidi Kurds were considered an example of a good attitude to "non-Armenians" However, those familiar with the situation suggest that Armenian nationalists were simply too busy to tackle the Yezidi minority before. 

There is quite a logical question: how could the mono-ethnic "island" of Armenia emerge in the Caucasus, with its ethnic and religious diversity? Such a phenomenon, experts suggest, may occur somewhere on islands, in remote areas, but not in the South Caucasus.

Armenia's neighbors know the answer to this question very well. Yerevan has achieved this through a series of "ethnic cleansings". And the first victims of that were Azerbaijanis and Muslim Kurds.

Historians register the first such "episode" at the time when a "Christian outpost" was created on the territory of the Azerbaijani khanate of Erivan, which was joined to Russia in the first half of the 19th century. Ethnic Armenians from Turkey and Iran were moved here, squeezing out local Azerbaijanis. The 1918-1920 period is remembered by the bloody raids by Andranik, who unleashed horrific massacres of Azerbaijani peasants in Zangezur.

Subsequent ethnic cleansings were committed by Soviet the regime under the guise of deportation. Their first wave took place in 1944. Then in the 1950s. In the 1960-70s, Azerbaijani villages in Armenia fell into the category of "futureless" with all the consequences this notion entailed. And 1985 signaled the start of a new wave of pogroms and ethnic cleansing - three years before the demonstrations in Karabakh. In 1988, with the outbreak of the Karabakh conflict, ethnic cleansing become incessant - all Azerbaijanis were driven out of Armenia. Russians, Muslim Kurds and Greeks were squeezed out too... And the worst thing was that Armenian "commanders" thought that this struggle for "ethnic purity" is a very profitable business because it allowed them to cash in on the robbery.

Now, Armenia has tackled the "not-good-enough" Armenians. The issue of opening of foreign-language schools in Armenia resulted in a debate with an amazing demonstration of intolerance to everything non-Armenian. The head of the Modus Vivendi center, Ara Papyan, asked in all seriousness, "Is it not clear that an Armenian kid growing up on fairy tales by Pushkin and a child growing up on tales by Tumanyan are completely different Armenians?".

And the result was predictable. According to the users of an Armenian forum, "30,000 people are leaving Armenia every year. This means 82 people a day. Or three people an hour. Or a person in 20 minutes."

These must be the people who read Pushkin in their childhood.