By Garen Yegparian
A few months back, Zareh Sinanian, the Republic of Armenia’s (RoA) High Commissioner of Diaspora Affairs paid an official visit to the U.S. with various public and semi-public meetings held.
I managed to get to one in North Hollywood, somewhat late. A loud protest had led to his withdrawing from the hall until the protesters left. When I arrived, he was already answering questions, and probably quite irritated by the protest. But that doesn’t excuse his making the comments I heard.
Zareh’s family had moved to the U.S. from Armenia in 1988. He is a product Burbank public schools, UCLA, and USC’s law school. One of his early involvements was with the Burbank ANCA (I helped recruit him), and later Glendale ANCA, after which he started serving on the latter city’s citizen committees and ultimately got elected to its city council. He resigned to accept his current position.
When he was running for City Council, he came under vicious attack for some Turk-related social media postings. Many deserted him at that time, but the ANCA stuck with him. Thus, it was painful to hear him attacking the ARF, ANCA’s parent organization, from his high position. It doesn’t speak well of his understanding of gratitude, even loyalty. There’s an adage that goes something like “be kind to people on your way up, so they will be kind to you on your way down”.
It was particularly galling to hear him assert that youth were being misled/lied to by the ARF and that soon these same youngsters would awaken to realize the ‘error’ of their ways and as a result, completely drop out of Armenian life (n.b. Zareh studiously avoided naming the ARF, but who he was referring to was amply clear).. The presumptuousness and arrogance of that assertion was breathtaking.
That’s what profoundly saddened me and I realized Zareh was too far gone. He has hitched his wagon to the current incompetent regime governing the RoA. It’s a real shame because some of the ideas and programs he was promoting seemed to hold some promise. But when connected to such a faltering regime, they are likely doomed to remain on paper or meet with trifling success at best.
We speak much of using the Diapsora’s resources to strengthen our homeland’s statehood. Zareh could have been a shining example of just that. Unfortunately, as often occurs when someone gets a taste of power, it becomes a narcotic and everyone loses.
We need more Zarehs, but principled ones.
