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15.02.2007

Armenology in the context of national security

   

Gagik Ter-Harutyunyan 

It is known that development and competitiveness of civilizations and separate states are mostly conditioned by the ideological tenets they are leaded by. Comparative analyses reveal that only those ideological conceptions, which harmonically combine liberal, friendly and national approaches, are efficient in up-to-date world. And if the first two are traditionally called universal conceptions, then the national element is a unique category: It expresses military-political and social-economic potentiality of a nation with collective intellectual and spiritual-cultural potential in its basis.

It is also important and urgent that in the era of up-to-date “multipolar cold war”, the conflicts of political character, universalization and globalization have elements of spiritual-cultural confrontation and expansion. These processes are advantageous only for those nations which operate and are active in cooperation, while the security and natural development of the ones with passive position face serious ordeals. Thus, the resources with spiritual-cultural and other civilization traits are of strategic importance and are a part of such a fundamental conception as national security (in this connection it is worth mentioning that according to the accepted classification, spiritual-cultural issues are undertaken by information security, which is the most important element of national security).

At the same time, certain preconditions are needed to use political resources for national interests. In the first place is the essence and civilization level of such resources. Of course, each nation or nationality has its unique cultural heritage, however, in the context of present global developments, it is not always competitive. The second precondition is the ability to transform and use theoretically competitive civilization potential of political-social field into efficiently operating military resources.

In this connection, one should accept that the Armenians, with huge competitive civilization potential, are not always able to use it at the best of their national programs and political processes. Moreover, there is an impression that our society doesn’t have enough information about its history, geography, language, cultural and other spiritual and material values (in other words - Armenology). It is also worth stating that Armenology is not only the preserver of spiritual-cultural values, but it is also a system of shaping the mentality of the onse, who create and bear these values.

Fundamental and applied branches of Armenology: the present situation dictates to make conditional division of functions relating to Armenology in two branches – fundamental and applied. According to such an approach, fundamental Armenology is to undertake the issues of self-knowledge. In its turn applied Armenology aims at using the results of fundamental Armenology in information, ideological and political spheres and in this way to apply them, to their best advantage, in national interests of Armenia and Armenians and security ensuring issues. In this context applied Armenology supposes to carry out systemized functions in compliance with the logic of political developments in quite different fields of vital activities, which aim at insuring informational (spiritual-cultural) security and competitiveness of Armenia and Armenians.

It is worth mentioning that the functions of applied Armenology, based on information security provisions, do not suppose that the problem of self-recognition is receded into the background and turn into simple propagandistic and political processes. On the contrary, the applied functions of Armenology are analyzing the urgent scientific issues, internationally expand our ideas about them on the fundamental plane as well, in this way furthering the confluence of the two fields of Armenology and revealing new fundamental research directions.

The target activities carried out in the context of applied Armenology are mainly on the same plane with Information-propagandistic activities. These activities must be mainly based on the following conceptual provisions.

  1. The formation of Armenian civilization (original) as means of unifying different parts of Armenian idea and its information rooting in Armenian and international community. In the aspect of political security, the conception of Armenian civilization, which includes elements of universal systems of values, is considered to be both the preserver of the Armenian’s identity in the present period of civilization clashes (particularly, unifying different parts of Armenian people) and means (tool) of integration into the global field and stirring its greater activity in it.
  2. In the context of idea about the nation, which was the first to adopt Christianity, the Armenian Apostolic Church should be at the centre of attention of applied Armenology as means of creating and spreading civilization values. From the standpoint of carrying out information activity, it is considered to be an institutional structure, ensuring spiritual security of Armenia and the Armenians, and in the organizational sense it is a modern, efficiently working net structure, which is permanently realizing the ideas of nation-state, spiritual-ideological and social unification of Armenians.
  3. Information fixation of the idea of Armenian civilization permanence in Armenian and international community. In the face of conceptual main-points are accepted the ideas about the inhabitance of Armenian nation in the Armenian highland, information conceptions on continuity of multiformat Armenian statehood.
  4. Formation of generalized information image of up-to-date Armenia in the international community, as the carrier of the most ancient civilization as well as the full actor in today’s political, information and scientific-technical processes.
  5. Affirmation of the regulation that “Armenia is the spiritual and cultural center of the Armenians” and elaboration of the doctrine on Armenia-Diaspora relations on this basis, where special attention should be attached to:
  • The necessity of developing Diasporalogy as a separate branch of Armenology and, in that context, indication of the problem’s importance connected with different manifestations of Armenian identity, in particular with the Armenians that speak another language or have another religion.
  • Calculation of spiritual and intellectual potential of Diaspora and the necessity of forming Armenia-Diaspora general information field, taking into account the facilities provided by up-to-date information technologies.
  • Working out of symmetric and asymmetric approaches against each strategy or field of Armenology contributing or contradicting to our national interests.

The realization of above mentioned supposes consecutive execution of a complex of scientific researches and information activities, which will resolve actual problems of fundamental and applied Armenology. That’s to say, for realizing such work, it is necessary to form a specialized structure supported by the government, which we will be conditionally call Armenological Center (AC):

The Armenological Center’s purposes and functions: It is significant that AC shouldn’t be just a new center, which carries out fundamental researches in the field of Armenology (the number of the letter’s in Armenia and abroad exceeds several tens), but an organization which will systemize the work of such centers, contributing to perspective and actual researches. AC should become an informational organization of certain social-political significance and, in particular, carry out systemized activities in the following directions:

  • To carry out continuous monitoring of the existing Armenological Centers and, basing on the results of analyses, try to systemize their activities. If such structures pursue anti-scientific, politicized goals, contradicting our national interests, AC should make an attempt to neutralize their activities in the information field;
  • To inform the international scientific circles and the general public about fundamental Armenological elaborations.
  • To carry out propagandistic activity directed to form positive civilization “image” of Armenia and Armenians abroad.

Armenological Center and information security system: It is obvious that the supposed AC should work in the style of modern “think tanks” and make a part of a system made by other suchlike centers. The purpose of such a system should particularly be rendering expert-consulting service to the country’s political leadership in the context of our national interests and national/information security.

In this connection one should point out, that up-to-date Armenology should keep step with today’s political developments and the conducted political researches should be of “Armenological” character (in the wide sense of this word). That’s to say, Armenological and political programs should reinforce and supplement each other. It goes without saying, that the structures, which are engaged in improving AC image abroad and the problems of Diaspora and repatriation, should have their place in the system of information security. With these structures in the prospective, AC should cooperate by the principle of reciprocation and mutual reinforcement.


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