Thursday, September 15, 2005

Mini Carnival of Diasporas

For the four people who expressed interest in this idea I present the first Carnival of Diasporas in the Blogoverse. There are four links below. Some of them, however, connect to other links. So it looks deceptively small.

As I have stated before I consider a diaspora to be a culturally defined group of people living outside their historic homeland that have maintained a transgenerational connection to that homeland. These ties can be cultural, political or even just psychological. But, they do prevent total assimilation of these groups into their host populations and continue to mark them as being parts of larger communities across international boundries.

The prototypical diaspora group are the Jews. Indeed the capitalized version of the word Diaspora refers to the Jews dispersed from ancient Israel across the globe. Before World War Two, large Jewish populations lived in the Arab world, Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania and Romania. Today the United States is home to the largest and historically most sucessful Jewish Diaspora. Jonathan Edelstein at Head Heeb links to a series of posts celebrating the 351st anniversary of the first Jewish settlers in what is now the US.

The mixture of traditional cultures brought by diasporas from their homelands with that of their host societies has created interesting fusions. Often the traditional culture of the diaspora reacts creatively to the pressures of living as a minority in an alien culture. Diasporic literature has sought to grapple with the issues this situation presents. Over at Sohel's Blog there is a discussion of Indian diasporic writing. Other forms of cultural expression have also developed unique diasporic styles. Over at Sepia Mutiny there is a review of the rock band the H1Bees formed by members of the Indian diaspora in the US. In many ways the literature, art and music of diaspora groups are greater than the sum of their homeland and host society components.

The political connections of diasporas to their ancestral homelands has always been an issue for all three parties involved, the diaspora community, the homeland country and the host society. Powerful diasporas such as the Jews and Armenians have exercised considerable clout in the politics of their imagined homelands. This influence is often negative as the most reactionary and militantly nationalist strains of politics tend to get preserved in diasporas. Raffi Meneshian at Life in the Armenian Diaspora strongly defends the political role of the Armenian diaspora against its critics. The comments section proves just how nasty and divisive diaspora politics can get.

This may end up being the only Carnival of Diasporas ever hosted so enjoy it. Any comments regarding the post above or diasporas in general are welcome in the thread below. Let me know what you think.

20 comments:

Onnik Krikorian said...

You can also look at three links to interviews with people far more significant than Mr. Kojian here on the Diaspora and Democracy Building in Armenia:

Asbed Kotchikian, Academic and Analyst

Jeffrey Tufenkian, Environmental Activist

Raffi H. Hovannisian, Armenia's First Foreign Minister, founder of ACNIS, NCI and Heritage.

LINKS TO ALL 3 INTERVIEWS

Jaked said...

People can disperse much more easily on motorcycles. Have you thought of that? They'd be much happier doing so too, given the greatness of motobikes. I really think this is something worth considering.

BTW, great work on the degree, you'd have finished it faster with a motorcycle though.

J. Otto Pohl said...

Mr. Krikorian, thanks for including these links here. For some reason I could not link to your site. I did try. Every attempt came up as "page does not exist." Otherwise I would have included the interview with Kotchikian. I am not very technically apt I guess.

Onnik Krikorian said...

No worries. In fact, it's not your fault. For some reason some postings act like this. I think it might be a problem with the database. However, I don't know what to do about it.

N.R.E. said...

The Carnival of Diasporas completely slipped my mind - I'm sorry! Is it all right if I get a contribution up tomorrow?

J. Otto Pohl said...

Jonathan, sure, I can incorporate something posted tommorrow.

Katy said...

There is also www.blogrel.com

Onnik Krikorian said...

BTW: The Raffi you refer to in your post is Raffi Meneshian and NOT Raffi Kojian. I know, confusing. Two Raffi's on the the same blog.

I also noticed you changed your posting. Earlier when I looked at you specifically mentioned the attacks on me for "daring" to look into the idea that, god forbid, the Diaspora could start muttering the term "Democracy Building" in connection to the Republic of Armenia.

Anyway.

Onnik Krikorian said...

Although the link you originally put in didn't work because of a blogsome datatbase problem, people can always try the following for all postings on my site relating to the Armenian Diaspora:

http://oneworld.blogsome.com/category/diaspora/

Onnik Krikorian said...

Although this was the original link, right?

http://oneworld.blogsome.com/2005/09/11/the-diaspora-and-democracy-building-in-armenia/

Onnik Krikorian said...

Sorry, let me try that again:

http://oneworld.blogsome.com/2005/09/11/the-diaspora-and-democracy-building-in-armenia/

J. Otto Pohl said...

Mr. Krikorian, thanks for the comments. I will edit the post to change Kojian to Meneshian. I had to change the post several times last night because I could not get links to work. I think the "dare" word was originally written with regards to Tim Russo's post at Democracy Guy which I could not link to. At anyrate I had such a difficult time with the links that I had to substantially edit the post several times. Some of the cached posts might have been in transition stages.

J. Otto Pohl said...

Dad,

It is Volhynia. But, no that is not their motivation. The posts were all made years after the collapse of the USSR. There have been almost no Germans in Volhynia since 1940.

Actually, it is only two Armenians that commented. But, Krikorian left multiple comments. The carnival was better received than I thought. The links are still a problem. About half of any random sample of blogs will consist of dead links.

Onnik Krikorian said...

Feel free to delete surplus and duplicate comments from me. Anyway, I had to leave some comments as you originally mentioned the attacks on me in your posting and then deleted it.

N.R.E. said...

All right, my post's up.

Disillusioned kid said...

OK, so it's alittle bit late... but I'd like to offer this post on the Chagossian diaspora for consideration, perhaps for the next carnival.

J. Otto Pohl said...

Disillusioned Kid, thanks for this post. I had not known about the Chagossians at all before I lived in London. Their plight is poorly covered in the UK and not at all in the US. They definitely fit the model of victim diasporas like the Palestinians, Armenians, Crimean Tatars and Meskhetian Turks.

RK said...

Onnik wrote: "people far more significant than Mr. Kojian"...

you just can't get enough of insulting me personally, eh Onnik? so sad.

Onnik Krikorian said...

Raffi K.,

Beg your pardon. Who allowed threats and personal insults to be made on their site against me?

See:
http://oneworld.blogsome.com/2005/09/20/censorship-and-the-diaspora/

for more details.

RK said...

If you can't tell the difference between me making them and others...