Armenia

An essential source of the might of empires throughout history has been their capacity to establish peace – no matter at what cost – between yesterday’s foes. This pattern was active in ancient Rome and is still practiced by regional and global powers. The Soviet Union came into being as a new power with a promise of an eternal peace between different ethnic groups and nations and vanished from the stage of history with a failure to live up to its promise. The case of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) was a flagrant illustration of how an arbitrarily enforced peace failed to contain internal tensions and collapsed as soon as the imperial power waned giving way to local nationalist agendas.

In the aftermath of the World War II, 44 nations gathered in London to create an international body under the umbrella of the UN. The newly created body, UNESCO, would be responsible for educational, scientific and cultural cooperation, as well as for the post-war reconstruction and rehabilitation of the UN member states. Over the course of the 75 years, UNESCO has implemented numerous activities in the domains of education, science and culture globally. Its World Heritage Center has enumerated over 1000 sites and monuments all over the world, with an intention to preserve their cultural or natural significance and save those sites from destruction. But has UNESCO always been successful in its mission? Could it stick to the values and principles promoted by the UN? The status of an intergovernmental organization makes UNESCO extremely bureaucratic and dependent on political influence. At the same time, the labels that UNESCO gives to different cultural and natural treasures are being used as a powerful marketing tool that end up more harming those treasures, than actually preserving them.

We have sat down with Mr Eric Hacopian, a political consultant and strategist with over 25 years of experience in American politics. Eric has lived in California and moved to Yerevan around 3 years ago and is currently actively working with Civilnet as a host and commentator. In 1997 Eric started his own political consulting firm EDH & Associates specialising in general consulting, direct mail and television aspects of political campaigns.

The objective of the UNESCO’s International Organization of Folk Art (IOV) is to “further promote folk art, customs and culture around the world through the organization of festivals and other cultural events, thereby contributing to international understanding and world peace” which is directly related to UNESCO’s mission of “Building Peace in the Minds of Men and Women”. IOV has had its presence in Armenia for many years, however, Anahit Khechumyan’s journey with this international organization started in 2001, when Valeri Paranyan, an active cultural event and festival organizer and a writer known widely during the Soviet Union times, got to an age of retirement and decided to pass the torch to a more dedicated and enthusiastic person. So, he found Anahit Khechumyan.

Though 2020’s 44-day conflict is now called the Second Karabakh War, while the 1990’s liberation is considered the First, the fight for Karabakh between Armenia and Azerbaijan started much earlier: in 1918, when two countries declared independence.

The editor-in-chief of Media Initiatives Center Gegham Vardanyan talked with Regional Post about the role of media during the recent war and how the censorship and restrictions shaped the overall image and our perception of the Second Artsakh War.

The Armenian genocide recognition by Biden, explained.

Yesterday the US president Biden recognized the Armenian Genocide, today we follow the reactions from around the world.