There are now two political discourses in Armenia: pro-government and opposition. The first: “You have been robbed for 30 years, we have come to save you from the robbers and return what you stole.” Second: “Now you are being Turkified, we have come to save you from Turkification.” In the first case, the citizens are offered to identify with the poor, oppressed people, who were freed from oppression by the innocent, selfless heroes. Here the image of the enemy is represented by the “former.” In the second case, the citizens are presented as bearers of the Armenian ethnos, who must preserve their national identity, as opposed to another ethnos and its Armenian “servants.” That national preservation must be carried out under the leadership of impeccable patriots. Conventionally speaking, social and nationalist discourses.
Let’s try to understand why the first is more powerful, more influential and more widespread than the second. There are many reasons, the most important of which, unfortunately, is that the “social” is physical and tangible. A person physically feels like a social loser, that they have become poor or impoverished, while others have acquired castles and expensive cars. But they can not register with any sense whether they “became a Turk”, “a Georgian” or remained an Armenian. And as I have already mentioned, for many it’s not a problem at all.
The second reason is that the nationalist discourse was widely manipulated in 1998-2018. Moreover, the “national” was often cited as an excuse for poor social status, deprivation, “we are a country at war” and similar resolutions. People, naturally, felt that these excuses were not sincere, which, in turn, discredited nationalism.
Thus, the government and the opposition have their own stories, myths, and propaganda theses. The government repeats its “mantras” about the “former” on every issue, from garbage collection to armaments. The opposition thinks that by using the words “Turk,” “Turkification,” and other similar words in every second sentence, it terrifies society.
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The realities, however, are different. Due to its incompetent policy, the government is in a situation where it has to implement joint programs of Russia and Turkey. (Those countries, yes, compete on many issues, but act in agreement on Armenia). Something like this already happened in 1920. As a result, the Armenians did not become “Turks.” Armenia simply lost its independent statehood.
Aram Abrahamyan
