From a ‘Martyr Nation’ to Martyrs without a Nation

The passing of the state budget in the Armenian parliament is becoming riddled with pearls from the Armenian time-servers. This time the foundations of Armenian statehood were further compromised from the tribune by the ‘ideologist’ of all Real Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan in propria persona. Following the Declaration of Independence, the struggle for the recognition of the Armenian Genocide, the Artsakh Armenians, the insufficiently gold-bearing museums and, finally, the pillars of Armenian identity in general, the incumbent prime minister has set his sights on the concept of ‘nation-army’.

An expected scapegoat, especially as it was pioneered and ultimately derailed by the so called ‘Exes’. Doubtless, the existing immunodeficiency of the Armenian ethnos stems from the consistent elimination of both the nation and the army, and their artificial, virtually meaningless merger has only exposed the gaping void of both the former and the latter. To build a nation-army, one must first establish oneself as a nation.

However, Nikol Pashinyan’s criticism of the concept lies beyond its lack of fulfilment. The acting leader of the Third Republic believes that the nation-army is an extension of the ‘victim nation’ image and, you see, positioning one’s nation as an army makes it a tidbit for other armies. In other words, we should be the only ones deprived of an army. Well, if you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen. We can only be certain of one thing, however: with no red lines around the forest edge with sheep grazing blithely, grey wolves will gladly come to their smell and take them to the ‘kitchen’ themselves. As is well known, the meat of animals not undergoing stress before slaughter is always tastier and more tender.

The Turkish commandant, naturally, is so far only speaking about the need for new security ‘buffers’ protecting the army among others. Sounds rather good. But what exactly does he envisage as such a buffer, you may ask? ‘State-oriented logic’, which, in his opinion, lies solely in protecting one’s own economic interests, and only within the ‘recognised’ territory of Armenia. In such scenario, questions about why the Armenian consulate evacuated from Aleppo before it became more dangerous, having no concern for Armenian citizens, not to mention local Armenians, fall away of their own accord. What Pashinyan calls security buffers are in fact the frontiers of the vanishing Armenian world which have taken the first blows to give the rest of the Armenians time to prepare – yesterday in Artsakh, today in Syria, and soon in Syunik.

The formula for Nikolic Armenia is simple. If you are Armenian and you are in danger then you are not part of Armenia, at best you are its buffer. In ‘Real Armenia’ everyone is safe, for at the terminal stage of immunodeficiency, society can no longer sense anything, including danger.