Ordered to Destroy

Another week marks a novel counter-achievement of the Pashinyan team. This time a new low was hit by the Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan, who declared that the issue of the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire is not among priorities of Armenia’s foreign policy, reclassifying the fight for international recognition and overcoming the consequences of the Armenian Genocide into ‘research of the tragic pages of history’.

Alas, this is not the first time in the present-day Armenian reality when an official speaker allows himself to virtually deny the Armenian Genocide. Andranik Kocharyan, Chairman of the parliamentary commissions on defence and security, as well as on the circumstances of the 44-day war, had already suggested to compile lists of the victims of the Armenian Genocide consonant with Erdoğan’s idea, being perfectly aware that it would be impossible, as the evidence of the massacre has long been destroyed in the Ottoman archives. Kocharyan zealously denied Pashinyan’s complicity in this ‘initiative’, but everyone can see where it came from.

Here, too, Ararat (is Erdoğan having him renamed yet?) Mirzoyan has turned out to be a spot-on echo of Turkish theses. But it is one thing when figures like Erdoğan, Çavuşoğlu, etc. are deliberately profaning the topic. And it is quite another when the Genocide is consigned to the dustbin of history by the head of the Armenian Foreign Ministry. What’s next? Mirzoyan or his boss will claim that an international commission of historians should be set up to examine the archival records available in Turkey in order to develop an ‘objective approach’ to the ‘events’ during the First World War? Such were already part of the 2009 Zurich Protocols, received painfully in Spyurk (Armenian communities abroad). Let us recall that the disgraceful protocols were eventually withheld at the initiative of Turkey, which was only stalling for time with no interest in any kind of ‘normalisation’. One must clearly realise that any mention of ‘research’ and ‘historians’ job’ questions the very fact of the Genocide, something that does not need further elaboration and confirmation.

In fact, the subject of Genocide recognition is extremely important as a raison d’être for the Armenian communities scattered around the world. This is the keystone of the foundation upon which Armenian identity is built and thereby an essential part of Armenia’s now reviled Declaration of Independence. Now various kinds of Mirzoyans and Pashinyans are removing this cornerstone from underneath an already fragile structure. If the Genocide recognition is not on Yerevan’s fundamental agenda, then that means that the Armenian Question is closed altogether. Same applies to the probable renunciation of claims against the continuing genocidal policy of Azerbaijan. It is a pity that Mirzoyan, who spoke about the prevention of the Armenian Genocide in Artsakh and the deadly threat hanging over them at an emergency session of the UN Security Council, chose to deny the Genocide – together with his boss, who on the same day nullified the statements of his own ‘diplomacy’ and Mirzoyan personally, asserting that there is no ‘direct threat’ to the civilian population of Artsakh.

1915, just like 2018, 2020, and 2023, was the inevitable result of the absence of our own national aristocracy, called upon to articulate the national interest. Everything that is happening now is yet another vindication that today’s Armenia vitally needs to establish a national aristocracy in order to avert the ‘Genocide 2.0’. The task assigned to the aristocrat-statesmen is to frame and safeguard the genuine national interests.

As for Mirzoyan and other Turkish collaborationists serving under Pashinyan, the only correct decision can be made with regard to them – all opinion leaders and influential figures in the Spyurk communities should declare a boycott of all the Young Janissaries. All of Armenia’s current ruling class should be rendered ignominious for having betrayed the interests of the Armenian world. Otherwise, one thing is certain to happen: if they continue in the same vein, there will be no Armenia, no Armenians, no history left, and in that case the perpetual shame will not frighten their descendants. We can however ensure that in such a scenario the descendants will not remember and will not ever learn to utter their names either.