These days mark two years since the last Armenians were deported from Artsakh. Of course, this symbolic victory over the Armenian world is not enough for the Turkish collaborationist Pashinyan, because over the last two years he has been destroying with special zeal everything that helped us liberate Artsakh and what else can help us return to the millennial cradle of our civilisation: our faith in our own strength, our connection with Spyurk, the Declaration of Independence of Armenia that underpinned the Constitution of Armenia, the historical memory of the Armenian Genocide, the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Armenian army, and the Armenian borders. The list can go on indefinitely, and all of them are closely intertwined with each other. The undermining of each of them, in the end, hits the first one the hardest: our self-belief.
However, the Turkish satrap has reached a new level. If earlier he was foaming at the mouth to prove to the Armenian world that our history was worthless, that we were chronically weak and it was pointless to resist the Turkic world, that we must comply with all the whims of the enemy in a hope of pardon, that only the former leaders of Armenia and Artsakh were to blame for all our losses, now… It turns out that these are not at all deprivations, but achievements. Moreover, now we are not only unable to repel the enemy, but we do not need to do it. In other words, we simply do not need all those opportunities, starting with the most basic one – existence as some kind of political unit, for which we have been fighting over centuries. Now we should not even dream about things that belonged to us only a short time ago.
The current Armenian government and its henchmen do not care about the borders in which Armenians will remain the dominant ethnic group (quantitatively and politically), whether Armenians will have the opportunity to honour their ancestors, attend the churches they built, and whether Armenians will be able to independently determine the future of their country.
Pashinyan’s logic is quite understandable: there is no point in wasting time and effort to feed Armenians with promises, if you can simply deprive them of any aspirations at all. Then there is no need to explain to the aborigines why no election promises were fulfilled (in 2021, one of them was the liberation of Shushi and Hadrut), why after 7.5 years in power, the ‘exes’ are still preventing us from building a state, and, after all, why the creeping colonisation of the country is taking place. And he achieves this goal by the most reliable and fail-safe methods – the control of education (a separate article can be devoted to the anti-Armenian activities of the relevant minister Zhanna Andreasyan, a criminal code article) and the beheading of the Armenian society. Let us talk about the latter.
It has long been known that the fake and phony confrontation between Pashinyan and the so-called ‘exes’, especially Robert Kocharyan, has been the most reliable guarantee for keeping the Turkish collaborationist in power and eliminating of any hope for positive changes. However, such a guarantee is not enough for Pashinyan, which is understandable: his stakes are too high, as the loss of the throne in the tiny remaining spot still occupied by the Armenian vilayet is fraught with a risk of Romanian-style execution. He plans to leave the post of the satrap of the Turkish Sultan in Yerevan only with his feet first. Therefore, Pashinyan goes all-in, eradicating any healthy aspirations not only in the political, but also in the cultural and moral fields. Otherwise, there is a high risk that Armenians may wake up, and the Turkish masters will not forgive him such a failure.
The Turkish satrap’s tactics are the same as those of his masters 110 years ago: start by disarming Armenian men and destroying the intelligentsia. Those who were not executed by the Young Turks were dealt with by Lenin and Stalin. Despite having the resources of vast empires, both Talaat Pasha and the Soviet leaders understood perfectly well (especially Lenin and Stalin – after Sardarapat and Bash Aparan) how difficult it would be to deal with Armenians who believed in their own strength, who had leaders capable of realising this potential – and the worst part was the leaders who could not be bribed with worldly goods or intimidated by their absence.
The Soviet Empire could not absorb Armenia, which was defended by Garegin Nzhdeh, Andranik Ozanyan and Movses Silikyan, Armenia, which Yeghishe Charents and Zabel Yesayan dreamed of. Today, the contemporary Young Janissaries are not just taking away the memory of these leaders from the Armenian people, but discrediting them in their eyes, exposing all those, who once put the good of the Homeland above the personal and who dared to perpetuate their triumphs in their works, as product of those very Soviet executioners’ propaganda.
Instead of ‘if you cannot win, then lead’, the unpopular Pashinyan pursues the principle of ‘if you cannot win, then behead’.
Admittedly, his dirty business is greatly simplified by the work of his predecessors. The war and savage capitalism that erupted in the early years of the Third Republic led to the fact that true influential figures (like Leonid Azgaldyan, Monte Melkonyan, Artur Mkrtchyan) died or were killed with impunity, many intellectuals left a country with destroyed science and production, whilst the remaining ‘intellectuals’ significantly lowered the bar and began to squander their symbolic capital in return for access to the ‘feeder’. Thus, the ‘intelligentsia’ stopped having debates, discussing the future and setting guidelines, introducing values and serving as example. The intelligentsia ceased to exist, and the word ‘intellectual’ became a mockery. One of the rare exceptions to the rule was poetess Silva Kaputikyan, who fought for the opening of Tsitsernakaberd, became the face of the protests for ‘Miatsum’ (reunification of Armenia and Artsakh) and was not afraid to enter into a public debate with the second president Robert Kocharyan, returning the Mashtots Order awarded to her by him.
At the same time, the Armenians of Spyurk, who independently achieved success in their countries of residence and should not have become easy prey for governors in Yerevan, mostly chose to pay off their Homeland easily, not willing to devote sufficient time and efforts to it, thereby helping unworthy leaders retain power in Armenia – and at the same time becoming disappointed in the people, who similarly tolerated that government. Unfortunately, this trend continues today. When people with superior intelligence quotient (IQ) and track record shake hands with the Turkish collaborationist and leave Armenia to be torn apart by him, the society has no grounds whatsoever to think that: a) Pashinyan is leading us to certain death (otherwise, these ‘smart’ and ‘patriotic’ people who do not need his protection would not be in the same room with him); and b) that there are people in the Armenian world who are trustworthy and capable of preventing our fall into the abyss.
Alas, there are no people left alive today, whose one disappointed look would mean political death for the unworthy ruler. No one would doubt the purity of Charles Aznavour’s impulses and moral rectitude, if he spoke out against Pashinyan today. Monte Melkonian’s displeasure would also be a verdict. Many would believe in the sincerity of Levon Hayrapetyan, who always followed his conscience, rather than the orders of the time-servers. Unfortunately, we have no reason to include any living Armenians in this glorious list.
Thus, Pashinyan convinces us that no one and nothing can be trusted, and condemns the Armenian society to a constant war of all against all, directing our passions towards self-destruction rather than fighting the enemy. Moreover, he is well aware that he is condemning to death everything he touches. A recent example – the developments around the play ‘Tsankapat’ (‘The Fence’) based on a story by Stepan Zoryan, where Pashinyan rolled out his speech about the Soviet Armenian literature with the passive consent of the artists, in particular – Mkrtich Arzumanyan. Turning fans against an artist and an artist against fans, and watching with popcorn as people search for the truth somewhere in the extremes, becoming disillusioned with those they loved and trusted – this is how the Prime Minister of Armenia spends September.
Whether Nikol Pashinyan will spend many more such carefree months and years destroying the remnants of our potential and our dreams of ever recovering from his rule depends solely on the formation of Armenian national aristocracy.
Once upon a time, the best Armenian minds regularly gathered at Hovhannes Tumanyan’s home in Tiflis and discussed how to save the Armenian people from annihilation. The balcony of that house has been preserved, where Commander Andranik periodically went out, when he was visiting the great writer. Downstairs, a crowd was always impatiently waiting for him – it was important for them to learn about the situation of their compatriots first-hand. Today we do not have such a person, whom we would be waiting for under such a balcony. Today, a significant part of the Armenian society is not very interested in what will happen to Armenians in the neighbouring region, let alone in another country.
Is there at least a small group of thoughtful and experienced people with a clean reputation in the entire Armenian world who are ready to take responsibility for the survival and political security of their people and mobilise their forces to fight for their place under the sun? Will they be able to put their mortal ‘selves’ at the service of the immortal common?
‘Yes’ in response to these questions, and as soon as possible, is the key to the establishment of the Armenian nation and the Armenian state as the sovereign of the Armenian Highlands. At least one ‘no’ answer will mark an inglorious end of the millennial history of the daily struggle that Armenians endured in order to remain Armenian, so that today we would have the ultimate luxury – take responsibility for our own destiny.
