PreferredDuring the UWC Dilijan 10th anniversary events NEWS.am talked to Dele Olojede, a celebrity journalist, Pulitzer Prize winner writer and publisher.
- Mr. Olojede, you have received journalism’s highest honor, the Pulitzer Prize, for your coverage of the aftermath of the Rwandan Genocide. What do you think? Why does humanity continue to fail in preventing genocide?
- Because we actually are not as advanced as we like to think we are, because they did the Armenian Genocide and denied it for decades, then they did the Jewish Hoocaust in Germany, the Rwandan Genocide…We keep saying “never again,” and then we do it again. This is a fundamental flaw of human beings and civilization, and progress in civilization is the only hope we have to constrain ourselves. Left alone, we are worse than beasts. There’s overwhelming evidence to prove that. But by having laws and a system of laws and a system of social organization that guarantees human freedom and open societies, we can minimize our tendencies to behave in this beastly way. In fact, as Dostoevksy, it’s an insult to the beasts, because we are very artistically cruel, and beasts are not like that.
-The cofounder of the UWC Dilijan School, Ruben Vardanyan, was one of the loudest voices sounding the alarm about the threat of ethnic cleansing in Artsakh, Nagorno-Karabakh, and was trying to prevent the catastrophe that took place last year, just a year ago, in Artsakh. How do you feel about the fact that Ruben Vardanyan is now being illegally kept in Baku?
-It is an injustice, a grave injustice, that should make the world angrier than the reaction it has shown so far. Ruben is a friend of mine — I’ll declare that. He’s a decent human being, who has always tried to look at society as being larger than his own interests. So he has been involved in the public square, by which I mean in the civil issues of our day, to make life better for the people in his community. Thi is the sort of person we should be celebrating, not locking up in Baku somewhere. It’s an unjust detention of this fine human being, and the Azerbaijani government would do well to release him immediately. I will continue to advocate for this. It is unjust, it’s unnecessary, and this is not the way human beings should act toward one another. It is this accumulatio of bad behavior and treating each other so poorly that ultimately snowballs into the sort of grave issues of mass violence, and even genocide, that you referenced earlier, because we do not take enough time to be kind to one another, to be tolerant to one another, and to act with more justice toward one another. This is the poisoned fruit from this tree of injustice that we have nurtured over many generations.
-Ruben Vardanyan and other Armenian prisoners are currently facing a trial on baseless, false accusations. What do you think? What steps should be taken for their release?
-So now the Azeris, the Azerbaijani government, is part of the global community, and they also respond to pressure from the global community, so if we have responsible governments speaking up on behalf of Ruben, then we will see more movement. So if the United States government is speaking up, if the European Union is speaking up, if the African governments are speaking up, then all of this makes it in the best interest of the Azeris to let Ruben go. I think it was the South African freedom fighter from a long time ago who said, “Let my people go,” right? Let Ruben go. Let him go home to this family. He’s not hurting anyone. He’s trying to invest in the flourishing of human beings and the protection of people who are facing threats. Those are the people we should be celebrating, not locking up in prison cells.
- UWC Dilijan has had hundreds of graduates for the past ten years coming from all over the world, and eventually they form a network of future leaders who know Armenia, the history of Armenia, and the current challenges the country faces. How do you think having such a network of future leaders can help Armenia overcome its current challenges?
- Well, this is always about playing the long game. This is an investment in the future. As you grow this network of extraordinarily well educated young people, they are naturally going to be at the top of the food chain in their own countries. They have formative memories of their lives as happening here in Dilijan, in Armenia. It can only be for the good, because by putting the alumni in touch with one another throughout the rest of their lives, they form what an old mentor of mine in California used to call the “Intergalactic Army of the Just.” And so, it could only be to the advantage of a small country like Armenia, to have these global advocates for its freedom and its flourishing.
