Individually our ancestors had to develop two psychological profiles in order to survive 
the past---an in-house profile and an out-house profile.  Their in-house profile was what 
they really were and what they really believed in.  It was an integral part of their stubborn 
will to survive.  It is this legacy of Armenian stubbornness left over from our ancestors 
who had to live through centuries of brutal Ottoman subjugation that has saved us from 
total extinction. 


Today’s out-house profile is a negative manifestation left over from Ottoman subjugation.  
After the Ottoman conquest of Armenia, our forbearers had to accept their lot and become 
passive in order to remain alive.   To show denial or disrespect to their Ottoman 
oppressors meant certain torture and most certainly death, not only for the individual 
involved but also for his entire family.


My purpose for this writing, therefore, is to make some of these negative inherent traits 
more visible.  By doing so, we may be able to discard some of our more negative traits 
and replace them with our more progressive in-house traits.


Our ancestors had to live in constant fear and despair during their survival under Ottoman 
rule.  This became more evident in the late nineteenth century when some of our 
ancestors’ in-house profiles were interpreted as revolutionary.  The Turks reacted by 
massacring a few hundred thousand of our people in 1898 and culminated their blood fest 
with the monstrous genocide of 1915-1923, in which 1,500,000 innocent Armenian men, 
women, and children were systematically exterminated.


Today, after more than six centuries of Turkish domination coupled with another 
seventy-five years of Soviet Communism, some of these out-house profiles that our 
forbearers had to accept in order to survive, still linger.   But unlike the out-house profiles 
of old, today’s out-house profile has become transformed into an eruption of the pent-up 
hate and distrust left over from our merciless past.  Our in-house profiles are still the 
same, but our out-house profiles have taken on a new look.  At times it is overbearing, at 
times it is hostile, very seldom logical, and almost always, self-destructive.  The 
following are a few examples: 


- Our in-house profiles tend to make us unite during earthquakes and life-threatening 
emergencies, but when the dust settles, our transformed out-house profiles take over and 
we go back to being factionalized and adversarial toward each other.  


- Our Armenian clergy preach "ser-myootiun" (love and unity) from our North American 
Armenian Apostolic Church altars, but on the negative side, our transformed nonreligious 
out-house profiles have been keeping our churches and communities divided for the last 
sixty-five years.                               


- Our in-house profiles want to see a negotiated peace to the Karabagh conflict and to 
engage in armed conflict only as a last resort.  Our emancipated out-house armchair 
generals allow their hate to overpower their sense of reason.  They feel that war is the 
only answer.  But if Karabagh had to win a war in order to win independence, they would 
probably be the last to feed their own children into the hostile meat grinder they advocate.  


We are quick to spend money on building and supporting divided churches.  We are 
quick to spend money on old political factions whose ideologies have not kept up with 
the times.  But when it comes to building schools, funding historical research, 
establishing scholarships, as well as other forms of intellectual pursuit, we need all sorts 
of guarantees.  These are also a part of the characteristics left over from our past.


In supporting churches and political ideologies, we probably see a more immediate return 
for our efforts.  To invest in education on the other hand, is for long term or future 
objectives which are a luxury we didn’t enjoy during our many centuries of enslavement 
and subjugation.  However, if we were to face reality, we would find that we must have a 
piece of the future if we are to survive.  And if we want a piece of the future, we must 
stop living in the past.  In short, maybe the time has come for us to start thinking more 
in-house rather than out-house.


Joseph Vosbikian