When, after the 2018 revolution, the authorities announced the division of society into “blacks” and “whites,” “revolutionaries,” and “counter-revolutionaries,” it was clear that the main watershed of paranoid propaganda would be the “current-former” distinction. Of course, that watershed is highly conditional because those “formers” who serve today’s authorities still occupy an honorable place in the state system. The last example is Mnatsakan Martirosyan.
It is also clear that this division is gradually “wearing away.” 1 or 2 years after the change of power, one could justify themselves with well-known propaganda theses: “let them work,” “they looted the country for 30 years, do you want everything to be restored in one year?”, “let them work, then criticize.” It will be more difficult to say the same thing five or more years after the change of power. How many years are needed to become established?
The “past-present” coating thus needs to be gradually replaced by another fiction. Official propaganda needs new criteria to divide “own” and “foreign.” And that is the myth of “pro-Westerners” and “pro-Russians.” The firsts are supposedly supporters of development, democracy, and progress, while the second supporters are supporters of dictatorship, obscurantism, and technical backwardness. (Note, however, that our “pro-Westerners” can sometimes compete with the Solovyovs and Simonyans in their intolerance and aggressiveness).
If that division was made in Estonia, it would certainly make sense: it would be wholly justified to get rid of the Russians and become a member of NATO and the EU. But we live in a much more complex, tangled region where interests are not driven by abstract “progress” or “backwardness.” If the proposed primitive logic guides us, our region’s “torch-bearer of progress” is Turkey, fighting with the West and Israel against “regressive” Iran.
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And, on the other hand, tell me, please, who is one of Erdogan’s closest comrades-in-arms? Yes, you guessed it, Putin. Thus, our “pro-Westerners,” in a paradoxical way, protect the interests of Russia.
But our citizens are interested in something other than these nuances. The important thing is to draw a new dividing line, to create an atmosphere of paranoia, and to “catch” the virtual “5th column” agents.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
