One of the reasons for most problems that have brought modern Armenia and the Armenian world to the brink of the abyss is substituting fundamental concepts or a kind of perverted form of their interpretations. We are used to scatter words and terms, but do we understand their real meaning and – more importantly – are we ready to start learning how to understand and perceive them? This short analytical essay aims to open a discussion around this issue. The key subjects will be the state, independence and the nation. There are very many definitions, and each has the right to exist since everything is subject to personal beliefs and preferences. In this regard, I would like to mention that this essay is not aimed at discovering the hidden truth, but attempts to take an abstract and sober look at the Armenian world as far as is possible. To understand the statements, the above terms will be limited to small countries and peoples.
In order not to go deep into political science and the theory of international relations, we will consider a classical definition of a state as an organized form of the sovereign life of a certain people on a specific physical territory. Now, let us elaborate on the phenomenon of sovereignty. The international law describes it in very nice and poetical words, but it has nothing to do with the historical and modern realities, especially when it comes to small nations, whose sovereignty has never been a natural right to make independent domestic and foreign policy decisions.
Independence is not merely a luxury, but a privilege. Those few who managed to achieve success have gone a long way, trying to win the right to simply live on their territory and be the owners of their own land. Not to mention how difficult it was to achieve such an important goal as recognizing a real sovereign status by other actors.
Such peoples realize that sovereignty is not a static achievement. In order to preserve it, they need to progress every day and create conditions to slow down the progress of their opponents and detractors. Such are the rules of the game. There are no others now and there won’t be any others due to the unchangeable human nature itself. Accepting this fact is the first step in the right direction.
Further, a meaningful foundation is required. The need for conscious personal sacrifice for the sake of the common good is the philosophical basis of strength for small nations. Specific directions of this philosophy are determined by an organized minority (aristocracy, elite, founding fathers). It is natural since the immortal (passed down from generation to generation) metaphysical ideas cannot be born from the depths of a driven and non-initiative unorganized majority.
The minority forms national goals and roadmaps towards them, understanding and accepting the consequences of failure for everyone and for themselves personally.
What would have been the personal fate of Washington and Madison if the idea of independence from the British Crown and the War of Independence itself had failed? What would have happened to Ben-Gurion or De Valera if the Israeli and Irish projects had failed, respectively? Oblivion at best. It is what the secret of success is; such elites were ready for anything – they play high – all or nothing. They killed standard personality traits in themselves, becoming a unifying symbol.
After such symbols appeared, two important transformations take place: the people as a socio-cultural structure is transformed into a political nation, and the physical territory (a formal state) turns into a statehood.
Nation + statehood = a sovereign meaningful state.
Is it difficult to achieve it? Of course. Firstly, you need to give an honest answer to a simple question – is such a state even necessary? Negative answers are sometimes given with no hesitation. For example, South Ossetia does not seek to build a meaningful state since its people have chosen integration with an existing power – Russia. Georgia and Ukraine are moving in the opposite direction – towards the Euro-Atlantic world. This does not mean that these choices are correct or incorrect. They became formally recognized states by the whole world (except South Ossetia) after the collapse of the USSR but in 30 years they failed to transform (at least from the people to a nation). Although it is sometimes believed that it is much more difficult to cope with the burden of heaven fallen independence than to start a state and national building from scratch. However, changing the order of the addends does not change the sum.
We got the state, like all the other post-Soviet republics. But did we need it and was it in demand? What was the goal and was it set at all?
In our opinion, this goal was predetermined by the history itself. Just like 100 years ago in Turkey, in the 90s Armenian people were exterminated on the territory of Azerbaijan (at first with the support of the late Soviet elite), whose authorities set the task of total cleansing of Artsakh and Nakhichevan, being the historical parts of Greater Armenia, where the Armenians were still an ethnic majority. Hence, the mission was obvious – to prevent the same events from happening again. This could be done only provided a transition from a formal to a meaningful sovereign statehood. The starting points for such a transformation were quite promising: motivated communities around the world, interest in the success from a number of major actors, a loser and a psychologically depressed opponent, etc. It would seem that this is a historical chance for the Armenians, who are rapidly transforming into a nation whose opinion will have to be taken into account at the regional and global levels.
In real life, we saw a different thing. For example, the first president (that is, in fact, the founding father) Levon Ter-Petrosyan, preventing any communal Armenians from participating in the political life of their historical homeland (all other presidents did the same) and calling for surrendering victory (that is, a sense-making element) in exchange for illusions. We saw the second president, Robert Kocharian, who continued and aggravated this policy by banning Armenian citizens outside the country from voting in the presidential elections. The third leader, Serzh Sargsyan, created the Ministry of Diaspora 18 years later (due to the absence of the Diaspora institute itself, it would be more correct to call it the Ministry of Foreign Communities), which in fact served as a travel agency and courier of textbooks on history and language. Finally, the “velvet savior” Nikol Pashinyan, who, instead of reforming the ministry, closed it and followed the same path as the others – creating a loyal community stratum.
We also saw a yearly degrading physical territory, with its “managers” having failed to strengthen and settle small Artsakh. The physical future of Armenia itself and the transformation of disparate communities into a state-centered Diaspora depended on its existence. If there is no victory in Artsakh and the ideology of the Miatsum as the basis of national and state building, and “peace treaties” are signed with Turkey and Azerbaijan on their terms, then what is the point of existing Third Republic? Peace whose ultimate goal is political and economic colonization of Armenia and erasing the Armenian identity is not a new meaning that the current authorities are so desperately looking for. It is impossible to find a meaning in the nonsense that they have successfully created and encouraged.
It is doubtful that the best sons of the Armenian world gave their lives in the war with the Turkish world for the sake of being integrated into the same Turkish world. Nevertheless, everything is heading towards this, because today’s Armenia is no longer about the content, independence and meanings. This is about the basic inability to protect even the formal physical existence and the lives of its citizens. This is all about being under pressure of surrendering the territories under the veil of speedy eternal peace followed by material wealth and long-awaited happiness. This is all about manipulative and deceitful wind of “new changes” that blows from the captive Ararat.
