A charismatic leader is the easiest to believe
People cannot live without faith. Even if it is not a religious belief, it is some myth, some expectation that, due to purposeful efforts or by some miracle, can become a reality. For example, in the 20th century, some of humanity believed that states, nations, property, and money would disappear soon. As a result, human exploitation and wars would disappear too. If the resources belong to all humanity, what is the point of fighting over them? Live, work for your pleasure, or don’t work at all. Do you need a Lamborghini? Go, take, and drive.
Everything is free. Is that okay? Of course. But the only drawback of that project is that implementing it will never be possible. There are also such projects in our national life. For example, let’s drive the Russians away and call the Americans, they will come with Wilson’s map under their arm and give us Western Armenia, and we will start living just like the Americans. Are you against it? Sure, not. Adequate people do not believe in it because they see that even to keep what we have, it is necessary to suffer a lot, just like for a prosperous life. As it became clear at the end of the last century that the communist utopia would not work, people began to believe in the liberal utopia.
In particular, if we, the Armenians, as well as many other nations, do everything as the same Americans or Europeans advise us to do, then we will very quickly become equal to them in terms of quality of life and many other indicators, and, as they say, “We will enter the family of developed nations.” But firstly, they sometimes advise us to do what they didn’t; secondly, there are substantial cultural and civilization differences between us; and thirdly, their purpose in life is not for us to develop and reach them. In addition, they looked down on us a bit more, and that distance increased when the West saw that we were not doing as well as they had planned.
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Please understand what I am saying. Naturally, there is no alternative to the free market and democracy. We are discussing a utopia in that our life will be the same as in the West. Such a thing will never happen. Thus, ideological myths lost their appeal for us and not only for our nation.
And the more primitive, older, but renewed in the 21st-century myth of the “savior” came to the fore with the sayings of “our powerful prime minister,” “our powerful Kocharyan,” and “this nation needs Stalin.” It is easier to believe that some charismatic person will come or has already solved all our problems than to be a supporter of this or that ideology.
That “personal” version has another “advantage”: if a charismatic leader has already come and saved us, no vision is needed anymore. In other words, if, in the person of Pashinyan, the centuries-old dream of the Armenian people has come true, then that’s it. Some Armenian Fukuyama should come and say that “history is over.”
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
“Aravot” daily newspaper 14.03.2023
