From Meghri to Golgotha

Our worst predictions are coming true – not because the enemy is strong, and not even because the country is ruled by outright Young Turks and collaborationists in connivance with the Armenian world and an ‘opposition’ of ‘exes’ long discredited in the eyes of the public. With these groups, unfortunately, everything has long been clear.

This whole story with ‘peace routes’, ‘unblocking’ amidst the virtual deprivation of one of the two currently open borders (with Iran), and other ‘diplomatic achievements’ of the great triumphant Pashinyan was made possible by those who even now, having been given a little attention and some credibility, instead of developing a new agenda and an alternative, have decided to erect the Armenian favourite – inflated expectations.

First, they sell the people a fairy tale that everything will go our way and you’ll see what we’re capable of. Then, yet again, they drive the people into frustration and into the conviction that we are doomed to exist without a worthy elite, which implies that we will soon vanish into history as a political entity. And who is teaching the Armenian people helplessness and ‘industrialisation in one region’? The very same people who had their own Electric Networks stolen from under their noses. A promising start for gaining power and returning the occupied territories of Armenia and Artsakh, isn’t it?

Both the old and the new oppositions already indistinguishable from one another have accustomed the Armenian people to losses and hypocrisy towards eternal values, by favouring memorised slogans over meaningful steps. Who would be outraged by the surrender of Syunik, when many people, with Pashinyan’s and his predecessors’ light hand, were convinced it is irreversible back in late 2020? Who, except the people living in Tavush, noticed the surrender of its villages? And now no one is even troubled by debates over which foreign actor should control the Azerbaijani-Turkish corridor to what was once our Nakhichevan, through what is still our Syunik. ‘The main thing is, it is not being granted to Russia,’ say the supporters of the chief Turk. ‘I’ll cut off my nose to spite my own face – or, in this case, Russia’s,’ replies the chief Turk, while fulfilling the cherished dream of the pan-Turkists, charted as far back as the Treaty of Alexandropolis, and having it stamped by the old man in Washington, Trump.

The ‘new’ opposition ‘delegates’ itself to the old one, Spyurk (Armenian communities abroad) and the unborn Armenian aristocracy outsources the responsibility for the Armenian future to the Turkish viceroys. Is it any wonder that the latter, in turn, “outsource” the backbone of Armenian statehood to the enemy? There are too many tiers in this sublease arrangement, and naturally, the weakest ones are those at the bottom of the food chain. They serve this pyramid of Armenian, Turkish, American and anyone else’s narcissism with their sweat, tears, blood, and the soil drenched in them. But as long as Iranian gasoline is brought to the fuel stations in Yerevan and Georgian soda is delivered to Vanadzor’s eateries, the colonial natives assume things are going their way. When we lose access to Iran as a result of granting the corridor and road to Georgia by handing over the ‘enclaves’, we will be able to import the Canadian sausages from Turkey as well.

And while the Armenian phytoplankton will be repaying their well-fed and ready-to-serve stomach by their own future, their ‘leaders’ will be lavishly pleasing the Turkish masters – some with contracts, some with concessions, some with crouching in Ankara. In time, many will join this feast on our bones, not least those who were denied the coveted corridor. Yet Trump’s route has only one destination, and it is not a crossroads, but a new Golgotha.