Topographical cretinism of the Armenian top brass

Recently, the name of Armenian National Assembly deputy Hovik Aghazaryan has been in the spotlight amid a corruption scandal related to the export of small cattle and his party leader Nikol Pashinyan’s ‘request’ to withdraw from the parliamentary mandate, which Aghazaryan did not hasten to accept. Yet, against the pre-election fuss and imitation of the effort to redeem the cause of the ‘glorious revolution’ and Armenian democracy, deeper, more fundamental shifts in the discourse of the Third Republic and the Armenian world as a whole linger unnoticed.

In particular, the same Hovik Aghazaryan, perhaps anticipating the imminent prospect of losing his mandate and in a bid to prove himself to Turkish Commandant Pashinyan, decided to reveal his vision of the Motherland and Armenian identity during a controversial debate on approving the government expenditures, filling the ranks of such Young Janissaries as Alen Simonyan and Ararat Mirzoyan. A former Dashnak, he did not venture to renounce Western Armenia at once and opted to start a little southwards, with Cilicia, a bridge between the Armenian and Western Christian worlds which represented albeit ultimately unsuccessful, but promising attempt at statehood that promised that Armenians could restore the state after losses and persecutions, breathing hope for the revival of statehood leading up to the First Republic. 

In doing so, Aghazaryan, who is of our interest only as a symptom of Armenian immunodeficiency, rather than as an individual, unveils the reasoning of the leaders of the Third Republic, and especially that of Nikol Pashinyan’s regime. The logic is as follows: their area of responsibility is limited to the gates of their estates, and if there have been Armenians living behind those walls for centuries and millennia, then they are some ‘wrong’ Armenians. Otherwise, why would Aghazaryan assume that the ‘best’ Armenians left to build a state ‘somewhere’ in Cilicia, as if Armenians had not lived there since at least the first century A.D.? And why doesn’t he have an idea that faith and identity are worth retreating to the mountains and fighting off enemies, and eventually finding allies to this end, instead of grumbling at fate and whining that the whole world is against Armenia? For it is easier, and they even dare to claim that it is more patriotic, to ‘settle’ with the enemy, draw the lines of your own reservation at their behest, and then hope to be swallowed last, after having digested the Armenians you abandoned beyond that line.

The matter is, both the Armenian authorities and the opposition, as well as Spyurk (overseas communities), in violation of the Declaration of Independence, throughout the entire period of the existence of the Third Republic have treated the issues of historical justice, the defence of Artsakh, the Armenian faith and identity as concerns of certain parties, in particular Dashnatsutyun’s, and not as the mission and raison d’être of the Armenian state. Aghazaryan is furthering this vicious tendency by accusing the Dashnaks that guys like them ‘left’ to build a state in Cilicia instead of peacefully co-existing with the Seljuks. The protection of the Armenian political nation as the sovereign of the Armenian world and the vision of their frontiers cannot be relegated to narrow partisan interests.

Hovik Aghazaryan said nothing new. But, as we keep reminding the reader, there is less of a problem with treacherous statements and actions of this kind than with the failure to condemn them publicly, not to mention making the perpetrators liable to actual repercussions. Of course, one can hardly be surprised by this attitude towards Cilicia, given the treatment towards the fresh wound of the loss of Artsakh shown by the authorities and their supporters. But the fact remains that Hovik Aghazaryan’s generation, which, in his words, ‘cried’ when listening to the song about Cilicia, has secured Armenian Artsakh. That is why Aghazaryan’s grandchildren and all of us are commanded not to consider as historical homeland neither the former nor the latter, and to label the builders of Cilicia and Artsakh as ‘traitors’ who dared to defend Armenia and what is Armenian outside the borders of ‘Real Armenia’.