What idea or ideology do Nikol Pashinyan and his government offer to the Armenian people or nation? If as short as possible, it is the idea of protecting existing and surviving. Let there be peace, people can earn money, keep a house, have a good car, eat barbecue and kebab, and life is happy, fat, and lucky. An ideology, which Nikol Pashinyan professed all his life, has been embracing the entire nation for more than four years.
While living well, having a good car or house cannot be a national ideology, to unite the nation, it is an exclusively individual goal, which in many cases is opposed to the national one, because there are moments when the individual must be ready to sacrifice the personal for the sake of the national one.
What unites each nation is not so much the common language, culture, faith, but mostly the national idea, the national goal, the aspiration to realize that goal together. Without the formulation of a common goal and striving to achieve that goal, there is no nation, there is only a community of people living together and dealing with various everyday social issues. When the goal becomes to live safely and well, everyone, according to his discretion, decides and chooses the place where he can live safely and well, which we are witnessing.
The national idea is formed by the influence of certain historical events and geopolitical changes. During the last few centuries, the national idea of us, the Armenians, has been the creation of our own national state, the elimination of the consequences of the genocide, the restoration of historical justice, which is generally accepted to be called Armenian Law.
The political forces that came to power in Armenia in the last century pursued the implementation of the Armenian cause to a greater or lesser extent. Dashnaktsutyun, which came to power in 1918-20, restored Armenian statehood. The representatives of the Armenian statehood created in Eastern Armenia fought for the boundaries of the Armenian statehood to include Western Armenia or at least a significant part of it. Treaty of Sèvres, Woodrow Wilson’s arbitral award were the result of that struggle. It is possible that from the point of view of political pragmatism, the alliance leaders made some mistakes by overestimating the commitment of the West to protect the security of Armenia, but that is the other side of the problem.
Even Soviet Armenia and its authorities were followers of Hay Dat. In Soviet Armenia, the memorial to the victims of the Genocide was built, the statue of Andranik Zoravar, the hero of the national liberation struggle, was erected for the first time, the issue of the genocide, the lost homeland and its return was always present in the works of Soviet-Armenian writers. In 1990, the Armenian National Movement came to power with the slogans of joining Artsakh to Armenia. At that time, it was accepted that Artsakh was just another destination for Armenian Dat. first we bring back Artsakh, then other territories. After 1998, power actually passed to the RPA-ARF alliance. The official ideology of the Republican was Tribalism. It is true that after coming to power, the Republican Party abandoned the Religion of Tribes as an extreme nationalist ideology. but Garegin Nzhdeh, as a symbol of the struggle for national rights and goals, remained. Of course, in all the mentioned historical periods, not everyone and everything was used for the realization of a nationwide goal or idea, not all the resources of the government and society were directed to the realization of that goal, but the universal goal, the aspiration to achieve it, was always present in the public consciousness.
Pashinyan’s government not only refused Armenian Dat, it refused to have any national ideology at all. Moreover, Pashinyan and his political team began to ridicule Armenian law and Armenian law, and non-committalism, i.e. not giving in and defending the motherland, was declared as reactionary. It is no coincidence that Anna Hakobyan called the heroes who died during the Artsakh war “dead for nothing”, and for Pashinyan, Shushi is not an integral part of the historical homeland, but an unhappy and sad city.
When the government rejects the idea of uniting the nation, individualism fills its place, everyone thinks about ensuring personal safety and well-being. Some see their well-being and security by moving to the USA or Europe, others by embezzling the state budget to the bone, and ensuring security by hiding in bunkers. Among them are those who have neither the ability to move to the USA nor the ability to hide in a bunker. But they no longer consider the country and the state to be theirs and have no motivation to fight for the country and its security.
The absence of a common national goal leads to the disintegration of statehood. After all, the state is just a means for the nation to achieve its goals. Nikol Pashinyan and his government destroyed the nationwide goals that existed before he came to power, declaring them false and unrealistic, and not offering a new one in its place. As a result, the existence of Armenia as a state has become an end in itself, it exists only to satisfy the personal needs and ambitions of Nikol and his close circle. Either political forces will come to power in Armenia, which will formulate nationwide goals and lead people to the realization of those goals, or the disintegration of the state will continue until its logical end.
Avetis Babajanyan
Ամբողջական հոդվածը կարող եք կարդալ այս հասցեով՝ : https://hraparak-am.translate.goog/post/075eb5751c157854c09c680e1ec2de81?_x_tr_sl=hy&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=nui,sc
© 2008 – 2021 «Հրապարակ օրաթերթ»