Boycott Turkey...And More

I would like to start with saying that Levon is kind of right about me being at fault for not posting for a long time. I have a good excuse though; nothing major took place in the “Armenian”* world that I had thoughts on. Levon did cover the Krekorian election, so I was happy. But now I see that this whole Boycott Turkey campaign is getting interesting and I have a few thoughts on it.

From the get go I have to say that Tania is right…sorry Levon. When we say boycott Turkey we should also try to help the potential consumer choose the alternative product. And the AYF pamphlet did a pretty good job of presenting the substitutes to the given Turkish product. If such a product/service is not produced by Armenia, it is surely produced by some other NON TURKIC country. The stores that Levon mentioned carry clothing made in Ukraine, Greece, US, and other countries. For tourism we can give Armenia as substitute or if the person rather wants to have access to sea Greece or Italy are the places to be.

I personally try to distance myself from everything Turkish (although I would like to learn Turkish, always good to know the enemies’ language), be it a Turkish TV channel or Turkish chewing gum. But I was not like this all the time, especially in Armenia during the HELL years. WHY? Well it is simple, goods in Armenia were either made in Turkey, Russia, or Iran. The ones from Turkey were illegal imports, but no body cared if it is illegal or not or if it is from Turkey or not, PEOPLE HAD TO SURVIVE. Today it is much easier to have a Boycott Turkey campaign in REPUBLIC OF ARMENIA, since the situation with goods has improved and we can find other cheap substitutes from other countries or MAKE OUR OWN (and I see this taking place in Armenia now). I believe that this is something that even Kocharian’s useless government can do, and if the campaign gains some momentum in the Diaspora it will spill over to Armenia and even in to other Armenian Diasporas around the world.

*There was a major victory for Armenian’s all around the world when the Armenian Olympic Chess Team took home the gold medals. Yup we beat China, which came in second. Just Imagine this people, a country with 2 million population beats a country with a population of 1250 million. This is beyond amazing. Congrats and more future victories to our champions. I was also happy to see so many people attending the concert dedicated to the champions, shows that people still have some spirit in them.