Speaking To Be Heard: A Decade of Speeches is about Vartan Oskanian’s years in office between 1998 and 2008 as the Republic of Armenia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs. It displays his political determination, diplomatic competence and indefatigable undertakings to advance Armenia=s interests. It is a compendium of a substantial number of statements delivered from influential platforms while crisscrossing dozens of capitals and cities around the world. The book chronicles a crucial period in the history of the young independent nation; it is an invaluable record, an enlightening narrative for all who study the evolution of the new Republic. It is also a permanent reference that will enable future generations to comprehend the challenge facing the country during those years.
These speeches reflect Oskanian’s initiatives to allow the state to pursue its concerns and objectives beyond its national borders in cooperation with other states. I welcome this collection as one of the most revealing documents ever swirled into being by an Armenian political mind.
*
Speaking to Be Heard features only a selection of Vartan Oskanian’s speeches. This is what he had to say in an interview last June about:
“The book includes much more than it excludes. Some speeches were never saved, some were never recorded or transcribed, and some were also repetitive. In the process of explaining policy, it is important to deliver the same message consistently. As a result, sometimes within the space of several weeks, there were several similar speeches. That’s fine, when you’re presenting them to different audiences. It’s not fine when a reader is reading them.”
Public speaking is an immediate, rather structured and deliberate exercise of informing, influencing, and sometimes even diverting an audience. In addition, a political speech, besides all these, is also a collective and representative appeal on behalf of a group of people or a nation B often contentious and alternative prospects are at stake. Furthermore, an Oskanian speech, whether political, social or economic, is laden with significant personal features: with historical perspectives, meticulous preparedness, circumstantial instructions and international actualities. His statements are custom-tailored to each occasion and forum; they are hidden stitches to strengthen relations, to reach targets and to obtain what is attainable. Moreover, what is wonderful about his speeches is that they transform the listener or the reader towards the condition of man who delivers it.
When the first mother whispered the first bedtime story to the first tired little girl, then fiction was born. And when Oskanian pronounced his first speech as Minister of Foreign Affairs it heralded the dawn of many novel national and global policies for the Republic of Armenia.
*
Speaking to Be Heard consists of nearly 100 statements, categorized in a speech index at the end of the book by date and forum such as: COUNCIL OF EUROPE, EUROPEAN UNION, NATO EURO-ATLANTIC PARTNERSHIP COUNCIL, UNESCO, and so on.
Before these fundamental, international forums, Vartan Oskanian, as the representative of an ancient people new at statehood, has addressed, explained, appealed, endeavored, and sought a new place on the world stage for the new Republic of Armenia.
Independence has been Oskanian’s touchstone, “it is independence that steers the country to a cosmopolitan vision of openness as an equal among the community of nations.” HE SPOKE TO BE HEARD by the international and Armenian communities worldwide. HE SPOKE TO BE HEARD for the recognition of Armenia as a full member of the Council of Europe. HE SPOKE TO BE HEARD for the establishment of normal relations with Turkey without forgetting, dismissing, or denying our past as the Turkish government does. AND HE SPOKE to insist that only a comprehensive agreement that did not force Nagorno Karabakh to remain within Azerbaijan would be acceptable. AND HE SPOKE to establish genuine, productive relations with the diaspora.
On the subject of diaspora visits, he says; “Rare was the city that didn’t have a slice of the Armenian diaspora,” and he adds, “rarer still was the visit that didn’t include a meeting with those local Armenians who needed a message of both realism and hope.” What he says reminds me of Vahram Mavian’s 1977 book, Amen Degh Hay Ga. Yes, indeed there’s an Armenian everywhere and when there are two of them there is undoubtedly a diaspora.
*
A speech needs an audience. Oskanian has been conscious of differences between audiences and spoken accordingly. This is what he says about it:
“I have always been conscious that I have two audiences: domestic and international. Actually, three audiences, there is also the Armenian Diaspora. So, I have always been careful to frame issues in a way that is relevant and understandable to all of them. . . . “
Oskanian puts the subject before these audiences in all its complexity, but with clarity and compassion. He is out there with a purpose, with a necessity to be conveyed in order to make it the necessity of the audience he is addressing. Furthermore, for Oskanian speaking has a righteous component, a search for truth. His speeches are the lucid cogitations and verbalizations of his years at the service of Armenian nation.
The 32-page introduction of the book is an extremely useful guide to the scores of statements which follow. It unravels Oskanian’s views on Foreign Policy, Complementarity, Pokhlratsum, Multilateralism, Nagorno Karabakh, The Council of Europe, etc., etc.
For instance, it is imperative to grasp Oskanian’s ideas on the subject of the policy of complementarity, which has been one of the basic principles guiding Armenian foreign policy over the last decade. This is how he explains the development from a policy of Balance to one of Complementarity:
“In 1998, in the first days of the Kocharian administration, we were obliged to rethink the older, and simpler policy of balance that had guided decisions in the early days of the Republic. It had always been apparent that the new Republic of Armenia would and should have good relations with all three major power centersBthe European Union, Russia and the United States. However, the sometimes perceptible, sometimes veiled competition among them made it necessary for us to balance our activities and interactions intentionally, to make sure that a relationship with one in one area was offset with a relationship with the other in another area.” (Pp.19)
This statement refers to the difficult task of complementing what can be done with one country with what can be done with another. His speech, “The Policy of Complementarity: A Choice and a Burden,” delivered to the Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House, London, on April 21, 2004, is an apt synopsis, and prerequisite reading to assessing the purport of the policy.
“The Determination of Armenia’s Foreign Policy,” is one of Oskanian’s earliest speeches and the last in the present volume; in fact, it supplies the subtitle of the book. It was delivered on June 30, 1997, when Oskanian was Deputy Minister, at the Los Angeles World Affairs Council. In it, his references to Armenia’s economic and political survival, the issue of Nagorno Karabakh, and the debate over Armenia’s geopolitical orientation disclose the practice of several complementing issues. Every single one of the Foreign Policy speeches in the book exposes Armenia’s resolve to accomplish national goals, defend national interests, and ensure the security and prosperity of its people. They also display Oskanian’s clear conviction that Armenia’s best self is a global inheritance.
Unfortunately my time is too limited to permit a review of a good number of these model discourses — the precise paradigms and strong proclamations made by an accomplished foreign minister. Instead, I would like to concentrate on a fairly recent, quite brief, but rather particular discourse entitled “Struggling for the Most Basic Human Right,” delivered at the United Nations Special High Level Intercultural and Inter-religious Dialogue in New York on October 4, 2007.
Here is a concise version of the speech:
“As an ancient people, serving as the perennial buffer between empires on the most trampled path on earth, Armenians have become living witnesses of the benefit of dialogue between and within cultures. .
. . . . Our geography has compelled us to seek bridges with peoples and cultures different from our own. If we have an independent state today, it is because we succeeded in perpetuating our identity even as we interacted and exchanged with societies around us.
. . . . Not only have we lived in a pluralist neighborhood, we have, because of genocide and dispersion, had to set up homes and shops in nearly every country on Earth . . . . Religious difference did not preclude inclusion. Our diaspora . . . . became both the means and the beneficiary of international exchange and dialogue.
We are living witnesses then to the fact that religious and linguistic differences need not translate to enmity and exclusion. It is intolerance from its simplest form to its most complex, a rejection of the human dignity of individuals, that causes ruptures in and between societies.
. . . . It is clear that solutions can be found only through the genuine and universal acceptance and application of basic, fundamental individual and collective human rights.
. . . . . People everywhere, whether the Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh, Palestinians, or the people of Darfur, all deserve to live freely and in dignity.
Our objective is a country and a world where the rights of individuals and groups are respected, where each neighborhood and each community, each city and country, each egion and continent, is a safe haven for all who live or travel there. Religion is used to tear people apart, as are economic disparities, language and ideology. But the frustrating and fascinating contradiction is that it is faith and humanity that also bind people together.” (Pp. 78-79)
This piece conveys Oskanian’s staunch devotion to freedom, human rights, pluralism and multiculturalism; his thoughts about racism, xenophobia, oppression and suffering at the hands of oppressors; about religion, faith, and the moral, ethical, social and political benefits of tolerance, “the tolerance of otherness,” and cooperation. This speech is imbued with historical depth, political determination, psychological maturity, emotional balance and persuasive energy. Undoubtedly it is Vartan Oskanian’s belief in and astute perception of human rights and dignity and his abiding commitment to veracity that promote the issue he is discussing.
Seminal speakers, like seminal novelists may or may not be more inventive than their contemporaries but what distinguishes this short piece, apart from the question of originality, “is the exposition of the topic,” with logical progression, pertinent references, and a great deal of appeal. It demonstrates the position of Armenia, its history, its tragic past, its endurance, determination and aspirations, and a myriad covert significances.
Would you permit me to make an analogy based on my own craft of writing?
The story-maker is always with us. It is our stories that will recreate us when we are torn, hurt, even destroyed. It is the story-teller, the dream-maker, the myth-maker, who is our phoenix, who represents us at our best and at our most creative. But during a grave period in our history when people were still hurt, when people were still torn, it wasn’t a story-teller but a soothsayer, Vartan Oskanian, who ran to the four corners of the world dismantling myths and seeking actualities in order to realize a dream and build a nation within the international framework. Furthermore, he unleashed his speeches like great winds to shape us and our homeland.
Oskanian will be remembered not only as a brilliant politician in the history of independent Armenia but also as an orator guided by wise diplomacy, political talent and international sagacity, “who has tried to be as great as the best and remain ever graceful.”
I wish the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia and the Founder and Chairman of the Civilitas Foundation the very best as he continues to strengthen Armenia’s statehood, to ensure the well-being of its people, and to highlight Armenia’s role and options in every single global and regional process.
Thank you very much.