By Jennifer Gnana
Legend has it that when God's fury subsided and the waters of the Great Flood receded, Noah's ark and with it the future of humanity came it rest on the Mountains of Ararat in Armenia
Hayastan, as the Persians called Armenia is in a sense the cradle of civilisation itself.
Generations of humans can trace their lineage and ancestry to the Ararat mountaintop where ancient biblical accounts state that humanity sprung forth after a vanquishing cataclysm.
Noah, together with the male and female pair of animals and humans, stepped out of the ark and into a new world.
The sins of the angels, which the Bible recounts, had prompted the wrath of God to come down heavily upon mankind.
However, with the signing of the new covenant between man and God, the rainbow that followed the receding of the deluge marked the promise that the Heavens shall never again wipe out all of humanity with another Great Flood.
It is in fact heartrending, to say the least that the mountain of hope and the national symbol of the Armenian people is no longer part of their geographical domain.
The historical mountain looms large over the skyline of the Armenian capital, Yerevan, which is believed to be one of the oldest cities in the world.
The mountain however, is present in modern day Turkey, a country with which Armenia shares a bitter and bloody relationship.
The genocide of an estimated million Armenians during the last days of the Ottoman empire and during the formation of modern Turkey have left scars and open wounds that seemingly look difficult to heal.
The refusal of Turkey to acknowledge the genocide of Armenians is one of the major contentions of the European Union when deliberating Ankara's membership to the EU.
A landlocked country in the Caucasus, Armenia was the first to break free from the iron manacles of Soviet Russia in 1991 and today enjoys good relations with the Russian Federation as well as the EU.
Probably one of the few countries to be on terms with all the warring sides of global politics, Armenia, is also friendly to Islamic Republic of Iran.
Both history and culture have contributed to the bonhomie between the world's first Christian country and the Islamic republic.
Save Tehran, Armenia is surrounded by neighbours it does not enjoy friendly relations with.
Apart from Turkey, Azerbaijan which borders Armenia has been engaged in a conflict over the status of the semi-autonomous region of Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian majority enclave.
With closed borders and a bitter legacy of much bloodshed on the pages of its history, Armenia has been commendable in maintaing its unique cultural heritage and marching with confidence into the twenty-first century.
The aid inflows after the genocide from wealthy and influential Armenian diaspora, especially from the United States helped resurrect its economy and the standard of living of the Armenian people.
Various challenges lie ahead in terms of reconciling the bloody past, working to alleviate poverty, bridging neighbourhood relations as well as seeking solutions to territorial disputes.
The important 'Armenian Question' today is to study the atrocious human rights abuses perpetrated on the Armenian people at the turn of the last century and ensure that such tragedies do not happen once again.
It is imperative that the country which once gave hope to humanity will now serve as a beacon for redressal of human rights abuses everywhere.
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