At the beginning of the week, Armenia once again voted against an anti-Russian bill at the UN Grand Assembly, which called upon Russia to bring its troops out of Crimea and to release the sailors arrested at the Kerch Strait. 66 countries were in favor of the document. 19 countries voted against it: Armenia, Russia, Belarus, Serbia, Bolivia, Burundi, Cambodia, Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Laos, Myanmar, Nicaragua, South Sudan, Syria, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe.
I cannot say whether or not our country’s position is right or wrong. That is a narrowly professional (diplomatic) issue. Instead, we can prove that Armenia has always voted against anti-Russian bills for years. If that is true now, then it was also true 1, 2, 5 years ago. Or, if it’s wrong, it is wrong both now and in the past. Those with principled positions, those who understand or think that they understand the problem, need to give similar responses to similar events.
Now remember the responses full of rage and sarcasm coming from pro-Western NGOs: “Russian slaves” or “Armenia and Burundi in the same group.” These were the mildest comments. Now, no NGO has commented on Armenia’s decision. The overall mood on Facebook is “well, if Armenia’s interests demand that we vote that way, then why not?” Perhaps our country’s interests demanded the same a year ago too?
One of the missions of NGOs, as far as I understood, is to give a principled evaluation of different occurrences in order for society to make its decision. And that is the case for both foreign and internal events. In the past, when someone with serious health problems (who definitely does not have the ability to escape or to avoid investigation) was under arrest, NGOs warned about torture. Now, they respond differently to the same situation: “They’re doing the right thing. They should gouge his eyes out! He deserves it, he’s a criminal.” Therefore, the motivation for such warnings in the past was not humanitarian, but instead solely political and propaganda.
I, of course, do not believe in tales of a “Soros conspiracy.” We need to simply realize that political and social (human rights activism) activities have not been separated by us, and just the opposite of optimistic claims, the citizenry has not matured yet.
Aram Abrahamyan
