Our people are fatalistic. If something bad happens, we usually say, “Well, it should have been like that, everything was leading to that, this is our luck, who’s an ass, we’re a packsaddle.” It is, of course, a defensive reaction, it is easier to think like that. If everything is predestined by fate, God or the “centers of world power,” if my participation is zero, then the responsibility is also zero. “I will try to live as well as possible,” people living with that psychology think. “If I do not adapt in Armenia, I will go to Russia. Of course, it will be difficult, but what can I do? Hardships are meant for us.”
In the Prime Minister’s speech on April 13, I felt the nuances of that despair, of destiny, whether we did it this way or that way, it’s one thing, the same thing would happen. It’s essentially the same “comfort zone.” It is just that the current authorities have the role of that precaution, not some supernatural forces. According to them, it turns out that the “former” outlined how the state will develop in the next at least 4 years, how the Artsakh problem will be solved, and so on. And now everything goes that way in advance. (Of course, in that case, the question may arise: “If so, why do you need it?”, but few people are concerned about that question). Can you imagine what would have happened if, for example, Aram Manukyan had thought so in 1918…
Thus, the Armenian government, instead of breaking the fateful stereotypes of our people, deepens and encourages them. This mentality not only contributes to misconceptions about the past, as if everything could only be as it was. It alleviates people’s pain, inspiring them that what happened is generally normal, nothing extraordinary happened.
This “painless” approach is a bit like the situation when a victim of domestic violence returns to her father’s house, where, however, she is convinced that what happened was a normal “small incident,” so she should swallow everything and return to the violent husband granted to her “by divine providence.” In this case, the individual’s personal feelings are dulled. In the case of social apathy, the civic feelings of the people lose their sharpness, which, of course, is in the interest of any authoritarian government. And in this situation, when the majority of my fellow citizens are indifferent to the existence of the state, sometimes I think, maybe I am wrong?
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Aram Abrahamyan
