Aravot.am asked orientalist Artak Avetisyan whether it will be successful to fight against the terrorist group of the “Islamic state” that intimidates carrying out terrorist acts, as they say, in the “crusade campaign” participating countries. “Terrorism is a phenomenon or to understand the fight against of terrorism, we must go back to the sources of terrorism. This model of terrorism, in other words carrying out blasts, has been established in the past century. This model of terrorism was also adopted by the Armenian terrorist groups. And in the same France, our terrorist groups, Armenian by origin and organizations pursuing the Armenian Cause, have carried out six dozen terrorist acts.
Our terrorism differs from this terrorism by its ideology. Ours did not pursue many victims, meaning to commit terrorist acts with fewer victims. They were blowing up buildings at nights when there were no people in the building and were blowing earmarked Turkish representations, Turkish institutions: trade, tourism and others. At the time when they wanted to find our terrorists, everything was known, our people were announcing it loudly that let’s say this-and-this terrorist groups pursuing the Armenian Cause has committed this kind of initiative, we are in this location and do not hide specifically. They were even trying to the apprehended and detained for voicing the Armenian cause one more time at the courts, in other words, this was their objective.
The “Islamic State” terrorist attacks are different from ours by the profile, in parenthesis, are aimed at large-scale operation, which is multi-victim, the pain is more pain and the inflicted damage is more serious. And whether it will be successful to fight against them or not, combating terrorism is always variable and is worth of a double assessment. What does success mean? If you think we you are going to win a war, or someone should capitulate and sit down with you at the table and sign an agreement that now and onwards they will not do anything like that, there will be no such thing. In other words, it has a beginning but no end, these objectives are carried out for some terrorist acts, blowing up, very sad, it is an initiative with no end in the perspective, i.e. to create an Islamic state, an Islamic caliphate throughout the world and so on…
Everyone understands that it is unrealistic in the visible future, some people should emerge: suicidal and self-murderer, who should constantly blow themselves up, and afterwards some people will gain political dividends, who will direct the evil hand to commit this act.” According to our interlocutor, if simultaneous explosions take place in the busiest parts of Paris without meeting any obstacles, then combating the “Islamic state” is unsuccessful. To the question of whether professional people are not included in the implementation of “Islamic state” ideology, according to our interlocutor, when you are 17-19 years old, hardly you can have a terrorist past and adequate training, as described by Artak Avetisyan, they are simply shahids, suicide people, for whom life costs a penny, their brains are washed out and are ready to self-sacrifice.
“These people do not need to be trained more, their brain is washed out and require ideology is injected instead. They will have the suicide belt on them, will appear in a crowded location, in a building, institution and will explode themselves. It is difficult both to fight against them and to expect where they will pop-up and to prevent. It is difficult for the police because it is something beyond the accepted norms and the logic of the crime. Almost nothing preventive is possible to do, apart from the fact that France shuts down its borders and declare a state of emergency inside the country, constant checking of the citizens and so on…Only thus it is possible to avoid this kind of large-scale problems,” said Artak Avetisyan.
To the question of whether by returning the refugees back, the European countries will be able to avoid the terrorists to some extent, there were also terrorists among the refugees, our interlocutor said that the situation would become overly complicated. “I will bring the example of our terrorist organizations, when an Armenian guy from our terrorist groups was detained, in response to it, another counterterrorism was immediately followed to show that we exist, continuing functioning and instead of our detained friend we are responding by a new terrorism. I assume that the same method will work in this case too, meaning that if they begin to carry out a terrorist attack in some place instead of every deported creature…
Either these people have nowhere to go in the end, have escaped from the clutches of death, from the death mouth, have nothing to lose, or they will begin blow up themselves, in other word, with this tactics, they will begin increasing the number of shahids, if they decide to do such a stupid thing and send them back. It’s much easier to find solutions to the existing situation.” According to the orientalist, the ideology of an Islamic Caliphate is not new, Caliphate is Arabic that covers huge territories, however, this is only the visible part. “They persuade these people that you should martyr in the name of Caliphate and for the sake of great ideas of Islam, you are expected above, in the paradise, what exists in this valueless life, this is the seeming part, people are just motivated to the acts of terrorism, while the unseen part is again and again the economic interest. Some people who are complaining about this economic division of the world have their own economic interests. I do not want to go into the detail, but there is an oil factor, there is a factor of is Syria in the region, there is a factor of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Russia, America, thousand and one issue and thousand and one interest…
Naturally, the Islam ideology does not underlie in the core, because Islam, as a religion, is the most progressive religion in the world, this is not only my opinion, the academic world mind thinks so. And this logic is made under the name of Islam, it has no connection with Islam as a religion. It is another matter that the living standards in the Islamic countries are low, and Islam as a religion and as a philosophy has a different attitude towards life and death.
If people in any other religion do not so easily go for suicide for some high values, in parenthesis, as in Islam. This is a separate verge why Islam leads a man to sacrifice more easily than other religions. In other words, there are many dogmas and theories, it should not be thought that they blow up because they were all Islam”. According to our interlocutor, the explosion in Paris was expected. France, being a dictating force in the world politics, currently also a force conditioned by the Arab factor, naturally should have appeared in this game, but if you play, you have benefits and dividends, then you must be ready for this scenario.
Nune AREVSHATYAN,
Photo from Artak Avetisyan’s Facebook page
