he or she has stepped on the earth of God’s Eden of Genesis, that sure I am that all Diasporan Armenians — some eight million of us — will love more, do more, sacrifice more for homeland Armenia, if the president of Armenia and his governing body make more effort, put more passion, zeal and dedication and eliminate disunity, discord and especially, all dramatics.

Across
an ocean and a continent, on a sliver of land tucked between two seas, a
little republic today enters its 20th year of independence. I know a
man there, an American by birth – except that 20 years ago, he quit his
law firm in Los Angeles, decided he had no further business in the
United States, and went to search for his destiny in Armenia. It was a
romantictime. One by one, the 15 Soviet satellites were breaking from
the Kremlin’s orbit, and exiled sons were returning to their homelands
to share in the creation of new republics. As
for my father, Raffi K. Hovannisian, once the football star of the Pali
High Dolphins, he left a promising legal career and moved with wife and
children to Yerevan, the capital of Soviet Armenia. After independence
was officially declared on Sept. 21, 1991, my father was handed a fax
machine and a first month’s paycheck of 600 rubles – $143. He was told
he was the republic’s first minister of foreign affairs.

Post-Soviet seeds of democracy

All across the Soviet plains, the seeds of democracy were being sown
into soil tyrannized for generations, but no one doubted that they
would grow. My father certainly didn’t. Within a year, he