I would like to call your attention to the establishment of a new blog by Zara, a young Armenian who is seeking to provide her perspective on Life around Me.
Her most recent post has specifically caught my attention as it provides a detailed story about some of the problems within the university system in Armenia.
Looking forward to reading your blog, Zara! Congrats
1 comment February 16, 2006
Between today and yesterday, President Kocharian and President Aliyev have been meeting in Paris, France as the world anxiously watches and hopes for a peaceful settlement of the NK issue. Onnik has recently written a series of posts covering these recent peace talks on Nagorno Karabakh and does an excellent job in alluding to details, providing background and currents events concerning the conflict. Also, Notes from Hairenik Blog provides some insight into aspects within the peace negotiations that should really be of concern and more than “vochinch” to Armenians.
As the presidents are once again meeting, civil society has been talking as well. There are concerns within Armenian civil society about some of the points which are being raised over and over again within the proposed resolution. As it has been mentioned before, international peacekeeping troops would be brought to this region to protect the borders and Armenian soldiers would have to leave the liberated lands or occupied territories. Yet, where is all this attention coming from? Why is it that after almost 15 years later the international community is so concerned about the resolution of the conflict? Some Armenian civil society leaders are skeptical about this heightened concern over the Transcaucasus region. There are concerns which have been expressed one of the indirect reasons for this heightened attention to bring international peacekeeping troops into to Nagorno Karabakh would be so that they could have some pressure and influence on Iran and its agenda to develop nuclear power. As the West is continuing to feel pressured that it is losing its control and drifting further away from the Near East region, the recent increasing attention towards the Nagorno Karabakh conflict could be an attempt to gain influence once again- especially by deploying peacekeeping troops.
Within the past few months alone, more international organizations have been visiting the Transcaucasus region and consulting with Armenian and Azerbaijani organizations and emphasizing the importance of a resolution as soon as possible. Yet the sentiment among NGO leaders here is that these talks are not going to resolve anything. They will simply be a “political agreement”. These NGO activists propose a “stage by stage” approach to this conflict resolution process in order to ensure security and stability in the region. In discussing some of the key points to the proposed NK resolution, Christian Garbis also points this out in Notes from Hairenik:
Oh, and one other thing–Azeris would be allowed to return to their native homes if they so desired, the reason why they would consider doing so is also unthinkable since it’s hard to believe that Armenians and Azeris could once again live somewhat peacefully together. From the recent reports I have been reading, the Azeri side is still not willing to give up on the idea that Karabagh be returned to Azeri control. So what’s to come of all this?
On the other hand, Armenia’s civil society is pointing to the importance of the overall democratization of this region in order to resolve all conflicts. They argue that in order to obtain an agreement that the people will agree with, the people must be involved in the negotiation processes. They must feel that they are being represented in the entire process. It is more important to focus on the implementation of democracy in Armenia and work on issues regarding transparency, corruption and human rights protection.
Ultimately, the Nagorno Karabakh conflict is interrelated with the authorities in Armenia and Azerbaijan and their willingness to cooperate with their citizens.
Furthermore, these leaders are skeptical that the international community will seek to increase the democratic processes in this region because they believe the international community maintains the importance of a peaceful resolution, even though they are agreed upon with not-so-democratic regimes.
4 comments February 10, 2006
Sanne, an EVS volunteer who recently came to Armenia for six months, has written a post about her experience as a volunteer in Armenia.
She writes:
So, with a complete blank mind, some expectations, a bit of knowledge from the travelguide I had been reading, Marieke and I arrived at Zvartnots Yerevan Airport: Armenia. What was to be expected?
I can’t really call it a ‘great shock’, because you are prepared in a way, but arriving in a country where you can’t read the signs (Armenian has a unique and quite difficult alphabet), don’t understand what the people are saying (most of them don’t speak English), where you don’t know anyone and everything looks like a documentary one sometimes sees about former soviet countries, or even war-zones like former Yugoslavia, I can say that at the moment of arrival I thought it a big challenge to stay there for the coming 6 months. This length of time felt an enourmous amount of time and made me panic a bit.
Now being back I can say my time in Armenia was over too soon and it is funny to overthink my reaction at that time with the knowledge I now have about Armenia and Armenians. Or at least my experience with it.
She describes her observations about Armenia and is an interesting detailed account of her emotions and first thoughts about arriving in Armenia.
1 comment February 10, 2006
Blogs have become a “journalistic medium” or in Armenian “lradvakan michotzarum,” explained Samvel Martirosyan at the lecture presentation held on February 7 at the Peacebuilding and Conflict Resolution Resource Center.
The overall lecture was about “Internet, Blogging and Democracy” and was directed toward a young Armenian audience. The participating youth were primarily those who frequent the Resource Center and attend the activities and games we organize. The intent was to invite this youth who, as I have come to understand, are not afraid to express their opinions and are more than willing to provide their personal insight. The participants ranged from high school to university students as well as graduates.
It turned out not be a lecture but rather an interactive discussion about the internet and blogs. Mr. Martirosyan initially began his presentation by discussing the recent importance of the internet as a tool for democracy. He provided examples of how in countries like China and Iran they are beginning to use the internet to seek information from the rest of the world and how internet is increasingly proving to be an obstacle to the authorities there. Thus, the authorities are seeking to control search engines like google and moderating online forums and discussions. These examples show the importance of the internet in providing the people with the ability to access information and communication.
Then, Mr. Martirosyan moved onto the topic of the internet sector in Armenia and explained how this is particularly a sector in which the authorities are not necessarily monitoring and filtering as much. This is because there is really not much concern for the authorities within this realm. There are figures which estimate that the number of Armenians which have access to the internet range anywhere from 35,000 to 125,000. That is approximately 2% of Armenian residents which actually use the internet. As a result, internet does not prove to be such a threat to the authorities and continues to remain relatively free.
Thus, a recent trend within the internet world has been the development and use of blogs. As Mr. Martirosyan explained, blogs can range anywhere from an individual’s account of their daily lives to a discussion of more serious topics regarding politics, society or other issues. Recently, blogs have been providing an objective viewpoint of what is occurring “on the ground.” He provided an example of one particular blogger in the U.S. who was writing during the Katrina catastrophe and how he discussed the level of water was on the ground and the events occurring there. This proved to be a more helpful and useful resource than what the popular news channels were broadcasting at the time.
And blogs are yet another field in Armenian which can be further developed. Currently, many foreigners and Diasporans have established blogs and they are writing in English. Then there are also a few blogs which are in Armenian. Yet many more Armenians are contributing to blogs in Russian. As of now, Armenian blogs are not quite developed and it could possibly be because of technical difficulties regarding the universal code for Armenian font. Either way, this issue will soon be resolved and hopefully, blogging in the Armenian language will soon be further developed.
After Mr. Martirosyan had finished discussing some of these major points and sharing a few stories, I then urged the youth to consider using their energy and willingness to express themselves by contributing to the ArmYouth Blog. As the purpose of this blog is to encourage young people to think critically, the intent of this lecture presentation was to clarify the importance of communication via the internet, blogging and to encourage the young Armenians to begin to start writing. Many of the participants expressed their interest in doing so in the near future. So look out for their posts real soon!
8 comments February 7, 2006
Theme: Blix by Sebastian Schmieg . Blog at WordPress.com.
