The next Sargsyan-Aliyev meeting is over. What is actually known about its content? Almost nothing. The President of Armenia said that they have agreed to take steps to reduce the tension. The Azerbaijani president did not say anything yesterday but once he returns to Baku he will speak of the fact that he had strongly demanded the withdrawal of Armenian troops from all “occupied” territories, and will assure his people that “their lands” definitely will “be liberated”. Perhaps the majority of Azerbaijani population believes in this propaganda, otherwise what would be the sense of making the same empty promises for 25 years?
The Armenian society, which has been brought up and has lived in relatively free conditions, on the contrary, believes only in negative, pessimistic and disastrous rumours. Today, our media outlets will probably have the following titles: “Sargsyan and Aliyev agree on handing over five regions”, “Lavrov’s notorious plan enters into force”, “Territorial concessions come true”. Since the media literacy of our society is at a fairly low level, people open the analysis of such titles, and some even enjoy reading those.
Once again, it can be stated, if people were not so gullible, it would not make sense to provide them with tempting titles. For instance, “Serzh Sargsyan to become Prime Minister in 2018”. A few days later, in the same media: “Serzh Sargsyan not to become Prime Minister in 2018”. The reliability of the two titles is zero, instead those are interesting to read.
In general, our society tends to believe in fantastic news. For example, if you say that a storm is expected in Armenia, they will not question that news. Not only won’t question, but will also add their details: not just a storm but also an earthquake, leakage of radioactive substances from the nuclear power plant, etc. Indeed, in this case, some of the officials of the Ministry of Education and Science have been involved in this “folklore”. In fact, this was just some wind intensification in some regions. By the way, not unprecedented.
Experts state that no storms, hurricanes, typhoons and tsunamis have ever happened in the current territory of Armenia. Hopefully, will not ever happen.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
