Speaking at the media session of the Armenia-Diaspora conference in Yerevan, Armenian Forum editor Vincent Lima called for a many-channeled, noncentralized approach to Armenia-diaspora ties. The full text of Lima’s speech, which was shown on Armenian television, appears below, along with his follow-up comments.

Dear Colleagues:

Yesterday, Garo Armenian noted in his speech that this conference is not a negotiation between two entities, Armenia and the Armenian diaspora, but rather a consultation among the Armenian people as a whole. Had the rapporteurs included a significant number of women and a significant number of young people, that characterization would have been more accurate. Let us nevertheless accept that the conference seeks to be a consultation among the Armenian people as a whole, and let us consider how to continue the consultation, broaden it, and maintain it on a serious and grounded level.

Throughout the conference the expedient of forming new official standing committees has been treated like a panacea. And there has been--there always is--the drive to centralize, to be directed by a single authoritative body.

For example, in the discussion about culture, someone proposed securing the publication of literary works through a joint Armenia-diaspora body. In other words, we were asked to implement the Soviet method that allows one body to enforce limits on taste and speech. Wouldn’t it be better to encourage the formation of a variety of smaller publication funds and programs, reflecting a diversity of tastes and priorities?

I am convinced that the conversation of the Armenian people will continue and must continue through multiple channels, in a noncentralized fashion, and that much of it will be nongovernmental. The conversation will take place, to an important extent, more so than it has in the past, through the Armenian media, including of course the Internet.

It was precisely the need for a forum for such an ongoing consultation that led Ara Sarafian and myself to establish the journal Armenian Forum. The journal, now in its second year, provides for the exchange of well-founded thoughts and in-depth studies; it is also a resource for other media, for other loci of consultation. Our success is proof that there was a pressing need for a means for intellectual engagement and informed introspection among Armenians.

There was and is another pressing need. That is the need for honesty and reliability in the media. We must report the bad so that our readers believe us when we praise the good, so that appointees know that there is someone to hold them accountable, so that investors and donors are able to orient themselves and allocate their funds accordingly.

In that spirit, I must say that the courage needed for that honesty is not always evident in our press, at least in the English-language press. The press has a collective responsibility and a social mission. If our silence, our aversion to controversy, allows charlatans to raise money--and it often has--then we are at fault.

Moreover, if the press is not honest, if it does not criticize the powerful, then people will not know whom to believe and will either believe no one or believe the least trustworthy rumormongers, and at least in the case of the diaspora, will grow passive and indifferent.

Having sung the praises of decentralization and nongovernmental solutions, let me now note that the state obviously does have an important role. Providing for meetings such as this one is part of that role, and let me offer my compliments to Michael Bagratuni and Ara Papian of the Foreign Ministry for so ably facilitating this meeting. Let me suggest that an online directory of governmental bodies and their spokespersons would be a good resource for journalists and if the government wants its views to be heard, it would do well to provide journalists with such a resource.

This conference is not a beginning, contrary to many statements to that effect, because the media have long hosted an Armenia-diaspora discussion. However, if the press, inspired by the conference, better recognizes its role as the locus of an ongoing consultation among the Armenian people, then the conference will have been an unqualified success. Thank you.

Follow-up Comments

During this session, John Kossakian of Asbarez (Los Angeles) and others proposed that an Internet list be established to facilitate communication among members of the Armenian media. Other colleagues proposed that a coordinating body be established to allow journalists to deal with common interests, such as protesting the persecution of fellow journalists. I suggested setting up a directory of government bodies and their spokespersons.

Having argued that it would be inappropriate to leave all these tasks to the government, I decided to take some practical steps. First, I circulated a signup sheet, and we now have an initial E-mail list of members of the Armenian media. This list will be made operational on the Internet immediately after the conference [contact vlima@gomidas.org for more information].

Second, thanks to this conference, many of us became aware of Armenia’s National Press Club, an existing nongovernmental organization. If the club were to include journalists from the diaspora as well as Armenia, it would be the ideal setting for journalists to address common concerns--and certainly much more appropriate than any government-sponsored committee. Thus, I have decided to join the press club, and I call on all my diasporan colleagues to do the same. Osheen Keshishian, editor of the Armenian Observer (Los Angeles) has already agreed to join; so has Barbara Merguerian of the Armenian Mirror-Spectator (Watertown, Massachusetts).

Finally, it turns out that the news organization Noyan Tapan has released, just last week, a directory that includes a list of government contact people and spokespersons.