“Both with us and with them, they repeat the same thing like a parrot: “he came out of the people’s lap,” but after receiving a position in Yerevan, Baku and Stepanakert, even if you beat the figure who came out of the people’s lap with a stick, he will not return to the bosom of the same people,” says one of the heroes of Ashot Aghababyan’s new novel “Black Panther – 1”. Although the context of what was said is slightly different, I have always been interested in leaving the “people’s lap.”
Different people come out of that lap, and depending on that, we can conclude the various states of that people. If we apply that criterion to the leaders elected in Armenia, then in 1991, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, a Doctor of Philological Sciences and Senior Researcher of Matenadaran, came out of the bosom of the same people, and in 2018, Nikol Pashinyan. (All the other elections were controversial; in that sense, they cannot become material for observation). Is it the same people or different peoples? However, they differ because they have other ideas about morality, education, homeland, and the State.
Who “transformed” those people- is a separate topic. Another question concerns me: How did it happen that after the defeat, humiliation, and embarrassment, there are tens of thousands of people in Armenia who continue to worship Pashinyan selflessly sincerely, without expectation of money or position?
The central hypothesis offered by my interlocutors is as follows. Ordinary citizens perceive Pashinyan as their own, as “one of them,” a normal boy from a provincial, modest environment who reached the highest position due to his extremely “popular” nature. He thinks, talks, and eats precisely like them.
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Moreover, they are still enjoying the victory. “What a victory,” you will ask, “we have lost the war, right?” But that defeat is less essential for them than the victory of the “people” over the “former” in 2018. Pashinyan’s fans are proud of their “victory,” confident they have done a critical, pro-national act by closing the streets for several days. And they brought the leader they wanted from their bosom. That “success” story inspires people.
Naturally, I have no intention of judging anyone. I want to show how wrong it is to consider coming out of the “people’s lap” as a positive phenomenon. When such a leader makes gross, fatal mistakes one after another, they are not noticed; speaking about them is considered part of the conspiracy of “blacks,” “former,” and “Kremlin agents.” After all, history does not return such figures to the lap from which they came, but sends them far beyond.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
