A government that does not serve its own agenda and exclusively serves foreign (enemy) interests is an evil for any state. This is an axiomatic truth and a fact proven many times. This category has its own name in political science: collaborationist. As historian Gerhard Hirschfeld says, this phenomenon is “as old as war and territorial occupation.”
A collaborationist, as a rule, is also servile, or in other words, the enemy’s servant. Slavery is a state of spiritual ignorance and spiritual unfreedom. Both the ignorant and the servile—gaining a high status in society, having power, but remaining the bearer of a servile psychology—wear the mask of common interests and morality and become evil. He lacks the ability to think freely and act freely, although he may have characteristics of a modern man, say, to be educated, well-informed about the achievements of modern science and art, aware of the events taking place in the world, but with all that, he does not have his own point of view. It is very important here that a servile person does not have his own “I”; he is faceless, compliant; he lacks a sense of his own dignity; he is not accustomed to freedom and appreciates and understands tyranny.
You would agree that by combining the said points, the present leadership of Armenia came to your mind, in the person of Nikol Pashinyan. Today, Pashinyan does not serve the Armenian interests; he is the number one propagator of Azerbaijani narratives and Turkism in the Armenian reality, and what he presents to the public in a beautiful packaging is cheap demagoguery.
As is known, Pashinyan and his political team talk a lot on various occasions about “sovereignty”, “autonomy of the Republic of Armenia”, “finally restoring independence in the last 30 years” and other similar claims that are loud but have no material basis. In fact, they harp on this, trying to convince themselves that they are independent in their actions and decisions, but the facts and events speak about the opposite. It is one thing to make lofty statements, and a completely different thing what is going on in realpolitik, and in realpolitik we can clearly see that Pashinyan, as a meek servant, obeys the instructions from Turkey and Azerbaijan.
Before our eyes, with an obvious Turkish demand, Pashinyan disavowed Mount Ararat, a symbol of Armenian identity, actively glorifying Aragats among the public. First, he announced that he is “the prime minister of the 29,800-square-kilometer area”, and mentioned that for him the symbol of Armenia is Aragats, that we don’t have an Aragats hanging on the walls in our homes. Pashinyan did it rather cautiously, so that people would not get emotional. He has “appropriated” this thesis so much that he even wears various scenes of Aragats on his uniform and convinces people that it can replace Ararat.
The well-known story of “demarcation” in Tavush was another manifestation of his being Aliyev’s servant. We all remember that there was a reference to the so-called “enclaves” in the first published version of the document of Nov. 9, which clearly indicated the timetable according to which these territories were to be ceded to Azerbaijan, but that line disappeared in the version published later. Pashinyan presented it as a “diplomatic achievement”; later he spoke about the well-known thesis of “cutting off hands and not ceding territories”, but, as it became clear later, this issue remained on the agenda. Basically, the following happened here: Pashinyan asked Aliyev for time to leave the solution of the issue to the future, so that he could prepare the public gradually, assuring Aliyev that after some time he would have these territories, but in a different packaging, which we have seen (Aliyev’s demand to change the Constitution and renounce the Declaration of Independence has been widely discussed).
Today we are facing another, no less cruel and shameful fact. The other day, Aliyev demanded an apology from Armenia for “war crimes”. “If Armenia truly wants to achieve peace with Azerbaijan, it must strongly condemn the atrocities committed against the captured Azerbaijanis. Although some people who have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity are brought before the justice system of Azerbaijan, no one in Armenia has been held accountable for it. On the contrary, they have been glorified,” Aliyev said. His goal is to get the heroes of the First Artsakh War: Those who established and stood at the roots and origins of Armenian statehood should be handed over to Azerbaijan by Pashinyan. Moreover, knowing Pashinyan quite well, knowing that he hates the “formers” and will do everything to get rid of them any time soon, Aliyev sends a similar message from Baku, suggesting that “brilliant” idea, to which a toothless and silent response comes from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In fact, a situation has been created, where it is not at all excluded that in the near future Pashinyan may deliver another lamentable text in the National Assembly, trying to convince people that the price of “peace” is to get rid of the heroes and former statesmen of Armenia. We cannot exclude the possibility that they all may be described as “war criminals”, and he may say that if he doesn’t cede, a war may break out and there will be no peace). This is a completely predictable scenario for Pashinyan, because he has no leitmotif, except for his own interests.
Summing up, let us state that populism is about keeping people and groups who “embody evil” on the public radar. His goal is clear: to convince people that all their problems are due to the existence of certain circumstances, or in other words, that all complex problems have easy solutions.
Armen Hovasapyan
