By Jennifer Gnana
In the documentary The Last Tightrope Dancer in Armenia, there is an underlying sense of loss of tradition.
Tightrope dancing was an ancient art form in Armenia.
Following years of existence under the Soviet Union, Armenia however strongly rooted to its culture has lost some part of its heritage.
The tightrope dancing was one of them.
With the opening up of the Armenian economy to the rest of the world and the suppression of the Armenian church under Communist rule, the new generation was no longer interested in the art.
The neglect was such that the producer Vardan Hovhannisyan who grew up enjoying these performances set out to discover that there were only two masters of the tradition left, both old and both equally fearing the death of their art.
They were also old rivals but in order to preserve tightrope dancing, they shelve their differences and go about educating a young boy who is perhaps the last one in Armenia to learn and perform atop the rope.
This conflict of the ancient and the modern is reflective of the dilemma that several countries in the Caucasus face today.
Separation from the USSR and growing westernisation of their lives have contributed in part to this.
However, equally there is a growing need to reassert themselves in terms of their identity.
What Armenians under the Ottomans and the Kurds under Saddam Hussein asked for and were punished was for a greater freedom to practice their traditions and speak their language.
Under the "Bloody Sultan", Sultan Hamid, there was a campaign to remove Armenia from everybody's consciousness.
Such was the repression, that the press was banned from using the word 'Armenia' or any references to the people in any of their reports.
Modern day Turkey is no different.
One cannot talk about Kurds or rights for the Kurdish people on any street corner in Ankara today.
Any mention of self-determination for the Kurdish people is reason enough to land you in jail.
Stirrings for democracy in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq was reason enough for Saddam Hussein to use his chemical weapons on them in the infamous Anfal campaign.
His hatred was no different to the Ottoman sultan's paranoia.
What these ethnic cleansings and the genocide prove are that ideologies that seek to consolidate often trump nationalistic ideals of minorities.
Saddam Hussein was fascinated by the idea of a pan-Arab nation which would have Baghdad as the seat of power while the Ottoman Sultan likewise was keen to expand his declining empire.
In recent memory, former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi fancied himself as the "King of African kings" and sought to establish a United States of Africa.
Never mind the Berbers who were treated with contempt during his rule, it was his idea of consolidation mattered and any ethnic, lingual and religious differences had to be levelled and the people had to be homogenised to facilitate unconditional obeisance to power.
What the world sees today is a resurgence in self-determination of oppressed peoples.
The independence of Armenia from USSR in 1991 was a victory for self-determination.
The Kurds are still fighting for a Kurdistan, comprising regions of northern Iraq, Turkey and Iran.
The Balakanisation of the Caucasus is inevitable.
There are so many different identities that are fighting to be heard and represented.
It is only a matter of time before the map of Central Asia is redrawn and new democratic states will emerge.
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