On February 2, Aravot reported on a police call that educators and teachers at a preschool in Yerevan were abusing a child whose father was Pakistani and whose mother was Armenian. The same day, the police confirmed that they had indeed received such a report. Please, pay attention to three circumstances. 1) Aravot did not claim and still does not claim that such a thing happened (or did not happen). The information was about a report, 2) We have repeatedly provided a platform for the “opposite side,” i.e., those who are accused, 3) We had all the information, but we did not publish the name of the preschool or the names of the educators and the child. The publication of that information was followed by the Facebook reaction, which is normal for me. People sat in front of the computer for a few hours and found out that everything was a lie and that the complaining woman really wanted to go abroad and that is why she invented it. (Although, going forward, let me say that this woman insists that she is not going to leave Armenia).
I would not address this issue at all: I read such “expert opinions” on the Internet every day, also spiced with accusations and insults against the media. In this case, it is noteworthy that the topic of national intolerance was “included” in the comments of the report about the violence in the preschool. It is as if we and a number of other media outlets, “guided by well-known centers,” invented this news to show that we, Armenians, are intolerant. There were also direct accusations that it was an Azerbaijani order. I think those suspicions were dispelled when the woman who complained gave a detailed interview to a number of media outlets, in which Aravot was not present, by the way. Again, I do not rule out that what she said is a complete lie; that is not the problem. The problem is that even after that interview, none of those who made accusations, I am sure, will apologize to the media.
I think there is no national theme in the incident in the preschool (if it really happened). Instead, there is the issue of morals in Armenian schools and preschools. And in people’s reactions, I see the theme of conspiracy and paranoia. In any case, I would like to make a reservation that this article is not based on the relations between Guatemala and Australia.
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Aram Abrahamyan
