By Andranik Michaelian

A recent article I read began by quoting a supposed policeman during the July 2016 Sasna Dzrer street protests telling Akhbar Armenians (those not born in Armenia) to go home, that they don't belong in Armenia, as they beat them mercilessly.

These statements were meant to show the feeling that some, if not most, Diaspora Armenians have, that they're not welcome in Armenia, are looked down on by locals, in other words should leave the country.

I suppose the writer of the article thought it would give his opinions more credence if he used the July 29 events and what some wild, half crazy policemen said, but to me it only added fuel to the fire of the sometimes hidden, sometimes not animosities between Hayastantsis and Diaspora Armenians.

Personally, as one born near Fresno, California, and living in Armenia for 16 years, I only rarely hear Hayastantsis talk negatively about foreign-born Armenians. When they do, mainly in recent years, most often they refer to those foreign-born Armenians who now live in Yerevan and, without taking the time to understand the life and local mentality and traditions here, start telling locals to accept certain Western values, some of which include the acceptance of gay rights, women's rights, and the like. A complaint I've heard from locals is that the newly arrived Armenians look down on locals as "backwards" and that they should listen to and learn from the new arrivals, some of whom don't hold back in saying that they consider themselves more educated and culturally advanced than Armenia-born Armenians.

The latter attitudes I often hear during visits to the Diaspora, where Spyurkahays often look down on Hayastantsis, even though they often don't speak Armenian or have a clue about Armenian culture, be it folk song and dance, Armenian literature, or anything else, with going to Armenian picnics and weddings and attending April 24 demonstrations the extent of their being Armenian, the result being the leftover Soviet or pop-rabiz culture that they promote, all the while thinking they're preserving Armenian culture, which although amusing is a little sad.

But this seems to be an Armenian tradition, Armenians from one country looking down on those from another country or area, as I learned in Fresno in the 70s, with the arrival of Beirutsis, who looked down on Fresno Armenians, saying most of them don't speak Armenian, etc., while the Fresno Armenians looked down on the Beirutsis for reasons I don't even remember. And the story goes on.

As a politically astute individual wisely said, many don't know that those who come to Armenia and begin promoting certain groups' "rights" are often funded by western organizations, European and otherwise, adding:

"What do they want? You start by giving rights to this or that "special" group, in effect ending our ancient traditional values, and in the end, what do you want, like what just happened in England, where a mother married her son? Instead they should worry about the large number of Persians locating in Armenia, many of them Azeris from northern Iran, or Azeris, who left Armenia during the Karabagh war. They have an agenda...one that is a danger to our national security...and here we are playing games, with an agenda of giving rights to this or that minority.

Our friends from afar spend all this time and energy trying to improve the Homeland, so they think, but if soldiers are needed on the border, if we have another Sardarabad, will they be on the front line, or will it be like the first Karabagh war, when only a hundred or so from the Diaspora came to fight?

Monte and the others were great, but where was everybody else?"