Existential Notes

I have a hate-love relation with Armenia. Since the moment the plane landed in Yerevan’s airport, I lost my ability to think rationally. Now, I am having contradictory feelings: hate, love, sadness, anger, happiness, pride, shame, pity…I feel I am floating in the air. I feel lost.

One day, in a disco, a drunken Armenian guy told me: “Armenia is out of standards; it is like nowhere; it is out of standards; stay in here”. His statement stuck in my mind. From the moment I met the drunken guy up until now, when I am sitting in my bed in Tehran, I am thinking of the same statement. Now that I am back in Tehran, I feel like I am missing whatever I had detested during my stay in Armenia.

I have a hate-love relation with Armenia. Since the moment the plane landed in Yerevan’s airport, I lost my ability to think rationally. Now, I am having contradictory feelings: hate, love, sadness, anger, happiness, pride, shame, pity…I feel I am floating in the air. I feel lost.

One day, in a disco, a drunken Armenian guy told me: “Armenia is out of standards; it is like nowhere; it is out of standards; stay in here”. His statement stuck in my mind. From the moment I met the drunken guy up until now, when I am sitting in my bed in Tehran, I am thinking of the same statement. Now that I am back in Tehran, I feel like I am missing whatever I had detested during my stay in Armenia.

The most I am missing is the man who cursed me and my friends for walking in the street after 1AM. A "good" woman is not supposed to walk in the streets late at night. That is the tradition. Women from Diaspora (like us) break the norm. We are the outsiders…we are the others….and I feel the sweetness and bitterness of being the other in my homeland…

I love and I hate Armenia… it is like nowhere…

I am Armenian, I am Iranian

My sister is a high school student. She goes to a non-Armenian (or Muslim) school. One day she comes home and says how her non-Armenian Muslim friends do not know the difference between being an Armenian and being Persian. My sister says that her friends were surprised when she said she is not Persian but Armenian.

Armenians have lived in Iran for more than 400 years. Although that’s a long time, Armenians still live in a semi-closed community, speak Armenian, and practice their rituals. When is this gonna end? and how? or is it supposed to end?

It is interesting to see how after 400 years of living as ethnic Armenians in Iran people still don’t know about us!

Moreover, it is interesting to see an example illustrating the dominance of Persian culture! Students don’t know that Iran is a multi-ethnic country and that Persians are one of the ethnic groups living in Iran.

Why?

No Comment

President of Armenia went to Turkey to attend the soccer match.
Sarkissian’s airplane landed in the airport. He was accompanied by the Armenian delegation.
Davutoglu welcomed Sarkissian. The Turkish delegation accompanied him.

Both shook hands. There were dozens of politicians around them.

For a moment I felt pain in my heart! Not because this meeting reminded me the fact that the Protocols had been signed. No! For a moment, I felt so weak, so little, so marginalized!

There was no woman among them!

And once again, I ‘understood’ that “this is a man’s world”.

Loosineh Markarian’s Previous Contribution to Keghart.com:

Collective Punishment of the Armenian Diaspora!