What adroit small countries can teach the rest of the world

IT WAS A perilous moment. At a reception during a visit to Britain by Mikhail Gorbachev in the 1980s, a young Soviet researcher from Cambridge University faced an astute question from Margaret Thatcher. “Young man,” the prime minister asked, “do you feel Armenian or do you feel ‘Soviet’?” How to respond without either betraying his treasured ethnic roots or appearing publicly disloyal to the Soviet state, within earshot of the spies in Gorbachev’s entourage? “I am of course Armenian,” Armen Sarkissian replied, adding that he was a grateful Soviet citizen who had received an excellent education back home.