The Most Important Challenge Facing Us

Speech delivered by Vartan Oskanian at the Annual Gala in Toronto

Friday, 24 October 2008 16:40

This is my first public appearance since I left the office of foreign minister.

As I was gathering my thoughts about what to say, I realized that we've come a long long way
these 17 years.

If I was still in office, I would tell you about Armenia's successes and challenges. Today, as a
private citizen, I am going to do the same. But the reason I wanted to be a private citizen, is to
be more outspoken about and to work for all that still needs to be done. I believe that my
responsibility, our responsibility together, to Armenia and its future is the same whether one is in
government or not.

My commitment to Armenia and its future did not begin when I became foreign minister. It will
not cease now that I am no longer foreign minister.

I have been here since the inception and I've seen the ups and downs. I served as foreign
minister since the beginning of President Robert Kocharian's term. I served as deputy minister
and first deputy minister under President Levon Ter-Petrossian. In other words, I have served
not a man, but a people and a country. Just as it is not in my nature to follow blindly, it is also
not in my nature to be in bitter opposition. I believe in carrying out the responsibilities I have
undertaken. I believe I have done so these 10 years, sometimes before the TV cameras but
more often behind the scenes.

My responsibility now is to speak and act honestly and openly. That is both commitment and
responsibility.

The Civilitas Foundation which I have created believes in the concept of a citizen's responsibility
to society. We, in Armenia and the Diaspora, professionals, committed Armenians of all
generations, across the world, together, make up Armenian society. Around the world, we have
attained a level of professionalism, integration and wealth that our grandparents could never
have imagined and that obligates us to give back to our community - here and in Armenia.

But you already know that. Your organizations, by its existence, understand the inextricable
links between Armenia and Diaspora.

I have often spoken of the Armenia - Diaspora interdependence. I don't think it is any longer a
question as to whether one needs the other. I think the only question is how one can build on
and benefit from the capacities of the other.

All of us in our consciousness, in our minds, in our dreams, we imagine our own Armenia, and
we strive to reach it. But in order to see the real Armenia, to perceive it correctly, I think we must
find the right correlation, the right balance between our expectations of Armenia and Armenia's
capacity.

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The Most Important Challenge Facing Us

Speech delivered by Vartan Oskanian at the Annual Gala in Toronto

Friday, 24 October 2008 16:40

It is not easy to build a state. It's true that one can have expectations, but they must also be
realistic expectations.

Let's look at what we have. We have built a state that is stable, and advancing economically.
Today, if we compare Armenia to other similar countries, we see that despite our limited
potential, despite the war, despite the blockade - and in fact we even forget about these
sometimes - we are competitive with our neighbors.

The situation in our region today is changing very quickly. The challenges are not the same
today as they were 10 years ago, five years ago, or even one or two years ago. And they are
many. The Baku-Tbilisi-Çeyhan pipeline is operational and prospects are improving for the
construction of the Trans-Caspian pipeline. These will seriously enhance Azerbaijan's influence
and leverage over Europe and the US. Those countries in our region facing self-determination
issues have united and created a common front. The punitive posturing towards Iran, our
strategically important neighbor, is growing. The likelihood of the creation of divisive lines in our
region is also increasing, and nothing demonstrated that better than the conflict, in August,
between Russia and Georgia. Finally, the Turkey-Azerbaijan relationship is becoming deeper
and broader, with Turkey more openly and overtly assisting Azerbaijan militarily, politically and
economically. Every day, we see new manifestations of Turkey's state policy of denial and
non-recognition of the Genocide. Add to that their hesitation to make the only move that will
have any meaningful impact on the region - opening borders - and you can see that our foreign
policy challenges are serious.

Actually, I believe that many of these will be with us in some form or another, for a long time.
Our neighborhood is not going to change.

But our domestic challenges - these are the ones that are in our hands to fix, once and for all.

Many of our domestic problems are economic. The hopes of Armenia's aspiring young men and
women rest on a fair, open, economic system. This means respecting civil liberties, believing in
democracy, actually allowing a rule of law. Only then can will the individual citizen be unafraid to
risk and venture, and only then will we harness the energy of our society - economically and
politically.

Only then will be able to create jobs so that they see their future in Armenia, and they see
Armenia's future in themselves.

Only then will we manage to eradicate poverty so that all our people begin to believe that living
in a country that is ours is better than living in someone else's empire.

Only then will we succeed in identifying corruption as the evil that limits options, suffocates
innovation, restricts enterprise and slams the door on opportunity

Only then will we do away with nepotism so that it is what you know not who you know that
counts.

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The Most Important Challenge Facing Us

Speech delivered by Vartan Oskanian at the Annual Gala in Toronto

Friday, 24 October 2008 16:40

Only then will our government institutions be more effective because the law makes each citizen
powerful, and it is not the powerful who make their own laws.

In other words, the stories of today's rising generation must be stories of prospects and
convictions and successes, not stories of frustration, discontent and disillusionment.

But we will not be able to tackle today's ills if we do not heal our political environment and
change the psycho-social and moral environment in which we live.

Our elections were not the cause of the damage to our spirit. They were the consequence of our
inability to bring civility to our society, to bring civil society to our political stage, and to transform
our political arena into a competition of ideas and programs, not a battleground for defending
power and wealth/resources.

This failure is not just Armenia's but also the Diaspora's. The challenge then is also not just for
Armenia, but for Karabakh and the Diaspora, too. In this, as in all things, we are together. There
is no Armenia without Diaspora, no Karabakh without Armenia, there are no divisions. We all
belong to one nation, have one identity, one past.

The most important challenge facing all of us is our young people's issue of identity. You in the
Diaspora think this is just a Diaspora worry. But it is not. This is as real a question for those who
are growing up today in Armenia and Karabakh. To what do they link their identity? To a divided
and injured society? To apathy and hopelessness? To endless cycles of poverty? To third world
villages? To homelessness and earthquake? To the mentality of a warrior -- victorious but
always under siege? To the economy of a petty merchant?

Or to an Armenia that has a knowledge-based economy, where education is valuable for the
windows that it opens, where villagers like villagers everywhere feel protected? To an Armenia
with an economic and political independence that is secure, to a prosperous Armenia, to an
Armenia that is fair and just.

Our young people - in Yerevan and here in Diaspora, too - want to believe in Armenia. But that
Armenia must be the Armenia of their imagination, the one they have heard about from their
grandfathers, the Armenia their parents have dreamt about. If we can't give this generation that
Armenia, then in the years to come, we will lose them to other dreams.

But if we can? If Armenia, the Diaspora and Karabakh join hands and use our know-how and
our dedication, see what miracles we will work.

The 21st century - the century of social and professional networks, of globalization and of
knowledge-based economies - is a century that will see new countries and new diasporas. Our
diaspora was created by the forces of history. Ironically, so was our country.

Now we cannot leave them to the forces of history again.

It is that diaspora and that country that will define us as a nation in the 21st century. We must

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The Most Important Challenge Facing Us

Speech delivered by Vartan Oskanian at the Annual Gala in Toronto

Friday, 24 October 2008 16:40

write that definition ourselves.

This video is also available on YouTube in two parts.

Click here to see Part 1 , Part 2 .

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