The Shades of Collaborationism

The rulers of Real Armenia suffer from a number of anxieties and phobias. Armenian history, Armenian identity, the Armenian Church, the Armenian Genocide and related notions have a severe adverse effect on their mental and emotional condition, triggering overexcitation, loss of self-control, and outbursts of rage. There is hardly any other reason as to why they abhor all things related to the root of this phobia of Armenianness, and why they substitute them with comprehensible and agreeable surrogates. This is how they effortlessly turn Armenia into ‘Real Armenia’, Armenian history into the history of Armenia, the Armenian Genocide into ‘tragic events’ that took place on the territory of the Ottoman Empire, and make the Armenian Church appear as a major taxpayer and political rival, and further on the list.

However, in recent years, another phobia has been added to those, becoming a major source of distress for the temporisers seated in the Government House. The name of this phobia is ‘failure of the peace agenda’. Its source is His Excellency the Baku Sultan, for whose benediction the Turkish collaborationists in Yerevan are willing to resort to anything: to ignore the Armenian heritage and the rights of the Armenians of Artsakh, to throw doubt on the Armenian Genocide, to whitewash the image of Baku, and even to distort history shamelessly, putting Western Armenia and the so-called ‘Western Azerbaijan’ on an equal footing. As a special reminder to those who persistently fail to recognise the delinquency of this statement by the Armenian Prime Minister, the Baku authorities designate as ‘Western Azerbaijan’ a part of Armenia’s sovereign territory and call on Pashinyan to negotiate with the ‘community of Western Azerbaijan’ and to discuss their ‘return to their historical territories’.Perhaps this is a further consequence of the phobia of ‘failure of the peace agenda’ that has been aggravated during another attack? Or how else could one place an equal sign between these two completely incompatible terms?

This entire absurd theatre is performed under the high patronage of the Armenian authorities, since inaction in prevention of a crime is tantamount to complicity in it. And the worst thing about this is not the synced statements of Pashinyan and Aliyev, which have become customary, but the fact that Armenian public displays no signs of resistance, and therefore of life, having become a passive witness to the demise of its own statehood.

Arguably, this latest smack in the face of history and justice delivered by Pashinyan was so harsh that the ambassador of one of Armenia’s closest countries, France, Olivier Decottignies, could not suppress his dismay. On his X microblog, he posted a map with the location of the ‘one-and-only’ Western Azerbaijan, one of Iran’s 31 provinces. In another publication, the Ambassador mentioned the Yerevan Blue Mosque as a symbol of Armenia’s Persian heritage. These messages put the French representative in the crosshairs of the Azerbaijani propaganda machine, and Baku addressed him through The Jerusalem Post, accusing France of encouraging Iranian colonialism in the region. Remarkably, the Ambassador and citizens of France have recently been continuously subjected to such attacks owing to France’s pro-Armenian stance. Truly, how can France indulge in being pro-Armenian in defiance of the incumbent Armenian authorities?

The dwellers of the Government House, as one would expect, do not welcome the ‘unreasonable’ boldness of the French Ambassador and watch the ongoing encounter between the Ambassador and the Azerbaijani propaganda machine on X with apprehension. It is a wonder that Mr Decottignies has not yet been invited to the Armenian Foreign Ministry to ‘clarify’ his statements, as they threaten the ‘everlasting peace’ and the ‘crossroads of peace’ and may enrage the Sultan of Baku, wouldn’t they? Is it so difficult to fathom that in ‘Real’ Armenia there is only one foreign policy course and only one blissful vision of the future possible – a well-fed Armenian minority subsisting in a Turkish colony?