The consequences of 25-year-obedience
Bible says: in the beginning was the Word. That is the speech. That is the language. And if in the beginning were speech and language, then those are more powerful than anything else. This is the reason Russia, who stubbornly and gradually has been depriving Armenia of the sovereign state components of the Third Republic over the past 25 years, wants to deprive us from the most powerful components: the speech and the language.
The Armenian economy has long been controlled by Russia. And even if there are separate non-Russian economic units, anyway the energy system (gas, electricity) belongs to Russia, which implies a severe limit to the economic unit’s ability to make independent decisions.
Armenia’s levers of political decisions are also in the hands of Russia. Soon, after the compulsory procedures are over, Russia will have leverage to influence the RA Armed Forces as well. It is about the Armenian-Russian joint military unit. With the participation of Russian troops in the Armenian Army parades on the Independence Day of the Republic of Armenia, Russia has shown its influence in the Armenian army. The creation of a joint military unit gives a serious legal basis for that influence. So, this is a painful reality for Armenia: our economy is not ours, we do not decide for our policy, we are not the only ones who make decisions in our armed forces. There are only the speech and the language, that still belong to us on the state level, which is being distorted on TV, on billboards and signboards, but anyway it’s ours.
And Russia, who stubbornly and gradually has been depriving Armenia of the sovereign state components of the Third Republic over the past 25 years, has understood why Armenia still exists after all. Because the most powerful components still belong to Armenia: the speech and the language. And it is not surprising that Russia is trying to seize this powerful “weapon”. The surprising aspect is the pride of our authorities who claim that the proposal to make Russian as a state-official language is unacceptable. And no one says why we are so weak that they make such an obscure offer to us.
For example, in Australia there are communities where the immigrant receives additional points for residence certificate if, besides English, he is also fluent in Armenian, Russian, Latvian, Ukrainian and Estonian. But Russian officials do not think of proposing Australia to make Russian as official language. And such a proposal is made to Armenia, because today the officials who defend the last constituent of our sovereignty have done nothing, when Russia considered the rigged elections for 25 years as legitimate, has sold weapons for billion dollars to Azerbaijan, has seized the Iran-Armenia gas pipeline, raised the price of Russian natural gas supplied to Armenia.
They do nothing even after becoming a member of EAEU by the compulsion of the Russian Federation and their silent obedience, whereas the provisions of the EAEU contract stipulate that Russia is obliged to reduce the price of gas supplied to Armenia by 30%.
Our officials did not do anything when the Russians sent the young man with suspicious behaviour to Gyumri to serve, and so on. For example, if some day Russia decides that in its interests Armenia should become a member of the “Islamic Cooperation” organization, should we again obey like in last 25 years? It is regrettable that the Armenian opposition forces are not always consistent in their opposition to Russia either, and in some cases, they are more pro-Russian than the authorities. Evidence is the opposition’s stance on ratifying the EAEU membership agreement. In this sense, the position of today’s parliamentary opposition is not encouraging either. The lack of a unified position of the parliamentary opposition on the EAEU is more than vivid.
Russia also sees this and increases its appetite. But unfortunately, our authorities “do not see” Russia’s growing appetite and do not make conclusions. Our chess-lover and chess-wise officials are not trying to understand what will the next step of Russia be.
Mushegh Ishkhan said, “The Armenian language is Armenians’ home”. The flourishing corruption and injustice in Armenia “sponsored” by Russia has given birth to emigration which is emptying the country. But not everyone leaves. And now the Russian state, seeing that there are still home keepers, tries to simply eliminate the main pillar of that house, the Armenian language.
Nelly GRIGORYAN
