BY RAZMIG SHIRINIAN
Diaspora is a fundamental functioning system of Armenian life. To call the Armenian Diaspora a functioning system is already to take sides in the debate about what diaspora is, one which implicates individual communities-system problem.
I start taking a hard look at whether the meaning of the diaspora can be deconstructed into the meaning of its component parts, such as communities (Beirut, Buenos Aires, Glendale, etc.) and how they are combined. But, I realize, it is not so easy to combine parts and the whole.
I also take into consideration that communities exist in association with other communities and not as isolated entities. They exist as nodes in a network of interrelated communities. The idea here is that communities, such as Glendale, Buenos Aires, or Beirut, vary in their implicit associations with one another and with the diaspora as a whole. By mapping the connectivity of associations, we might also gain some insight into the covenantal, or horizontal structure of the Armenian Diaspora.
This, in itself, implies a network of community interaction all the way to an understanding of a functioning diaspora system. What points toward interactive communities is how and why organizations become active transnationally (consider, for example, Homenetmen pan-Armenian games). Notably, local causation is present in the transnational explanation of diaspora events, and the transnational cognition seems to have both temporal and spatial perspective enhancing a participatory relationship among the communities. In this context, individuals also extend their consciousness beyond the “here and now” of the community.
If diaspora is a transnational hologram (picture or story of the whole), then its component units—the communities—are interactive and give both local and non-local meaning to their activities.
The sense of community belonging does not diminish as a result of transnationalism. The key question here is: How do communities influence one another through transnational interaction? The issue is how this influence comes about. It is safe to assume that it occurs directly through the effects community actions have through shared values—such as nationalism—of their transnational interaction. Shared values refer to the existing non-local concepts with which individual communities are entangled and thus are available to all communities creating the means of inter-community cooperation.
Indeed, the shared values also lead to an overlapping consensus, which becomes the primary driving force and function of the diaspora system. Communities, however, might not all agree on what transnational cognition, or nationalism means, and they might give it a local or non-local meaning, but that does not stop them from working together to uphold it.
This also leads me to conclude that diaspora communities do not stand alone, but are given meaning only in a transnational context. The communities such as Glendale, Beirut, or Buenos Aires gain meaning beyond their local context and in a holistic value. This also suggests that the communities can influence one another through their activities. This influence that comes about is direct, often indirect through the effects community activities have on each other in the shared context of transnationalism. By adding the national or an intentional meaning to the context of a community activity, it can increase the possibilities of different communities having further functional influence on one another.
So, if the Armenian Diaspora is transnational, then, I assume, its component units—the communities, in this case—are interdependent. The functioning communities, such as the ones mentioned above, are interdependently functioning units in a diaspora system.
As I have also stated in my previous article, from a transnational perspective, the relationship between the present and future activities of the diaspora communities is indeed always dialectical.
One more observation to further clarify is the argument that in a larger and holistic claim of the Armenian Diaspora the communities are not fully separable. In a literal sense, insofar as the communities are entangled with their national function, they also are the same. The formulation that follows is enigmatic but noteworthy: Glendale is the same as Beirut and Beirut is the same as Buenos Aires. This does not mean the communities are identical, but by virtue of being constitutive units of the whole they live together as well as they live their own lives. Thus, to say that Glendale is Beirut or Beirut is Buenos Aires is only a potential actualized in transnational context.
Notably, the sense of non-locality of community activities suggests a clearer conception of the diaspora system than the mere existence of individual communities. The transnational boundaries between the communities are blurred and the individuals with their shared subconsciousness or consciousness become part of the one diaspora united even if their experiences come from separate communities.
Razmig B. Shirinian is a Professor of Political Science at the College of the Canyons.
