What I find interesting about these debates on national identity is that the ones vociferously defending the "anybody can be Armenian" thesis are liberals who are ostensibly anti-west but whose paradigm is influenced by either western thought or their status as western subjects.

In fact, most just adopt their experience as Americans or other western citizens whose identity is not ethnic or racial but conceptual. What is an American? It's a person who believes they are American, who believes in the Constitution, etc. That is, it's conceptual.

America, Canada, Australia and,recently, most other western countries, have identities founded on concepts, not on ethnicity or race. This is a function of their historical experience: e.g. Americans have always been multifarious, even if originating from certain geographies.

So these Armenian-Americans and Europeans-Armenians take their views of what it means to be an American, mix it with the theories they learn in school, and they apply it, like the western imperialists they disdain are wont to do, to the Armenian Nation.

Besides being arrogant and insulting, it's also anti-scientific.

Take, for example, the question of marriage. Yes, we all know Armenians where one of the parents is non-Armenian (interestingly, those I know have all insisted on marrying "pure" Armenians)...

...but, the vast majority of Armenians have Armenian parents. The vast majority of their parents had Armenian parents. And on and on and on.

The scientific fact is that the genetic makeup of Armenians indicates consistent endogamy, i.e. marrying within a group,...

...which has helped preserve Armenians, a small people, throughout history, in the worst circumstances, and dispersed over large swaths of the world.

Of course, while race might be encoded in genes, culture is not, which is where we enter the next phase: family.

It is important to note that for these western commentators (i.e. Diasporans), the central role of the traditional family - mother, father, children - in society is questioned or antagonized.

Because they reject the premise that traditional families are central to the functioning of a society, they likewise reject the premise that cultural transmission is primarily if not exclusively the domain of the family, in which case the composition of the family is...relevant.

But family is the main transmitter of culture, it always has been. Families are where children first learn language. When the language is shared by the parents, it's transmitted; if it's not, the likelihood that it's transmitted decreases significantly.

The same applies to traditions. These then lead to grouping with others who share these behaviors. If it weren't for families who spoke Armenian in Iran, the Ottoman Empire, the Russian Empire, Lebanon and Syria, or America, ...

...they wouldn't have a common language or have common traditions upon which they would decide to open schools and churches together.

As a result of the communities they build, they are able to prevent the dilution of their Armenian identities in the surrounding, evermore powerful cultures. It is, indeed, this application of the western "conceptual identity" framework that expedites assimilation.

Is it so hard to imagine that after a few generations of Armenians marrying non-Armenians, not speaking the language, not singing the songs, not being baptized, not adhering to the traditions, that they will eventually disappear? That is exactly what has happened in the west.

Also, who preserves the traditions, the culture, the language? Yes, there are token non-Armenians who do it but are we going to reject the thousands of years of evidence as to who preserves what in the groups that are an undeniable part of human existence? That's anti-scientific.