“If the people of Armenia want to get rid of me, they will get rid of me,” Prime Minister Pashinyan likes to repeat. As I have already mentioned, I do not feel compelled to disagree with him in all cases. I think he is absolutely right in this instance. I would simply replace the lofty phrase “the people” with the more legally precise term “the majority of citizens of the Republic of Armenia.”
Why does this majority not want to get rid of the current government? Pashinyan claims that this majority (in his terminology, “the people”) is very concerned about Armenian statehood, the “real Armenia,” its 29,743 square kilometers, etc. This, however, is a lie; it’s merely packaging for real and highly influential propaganda.
What are the real reasons that “the people” do not want a change of power? Of course, part of the population continues to worship Pashinyan as the leader of the revolution, a “decent,” “patriotic” person who supposedly put an end to corruption. Some are genuinely pleased that the current government has left small and medium businesses alone, or that new, beautiful buses are now driving in Yerevan. These can be considered more or less “objective” explanations.
The rest is the result of propaganda. Many citizens are happy that Pashinyan has surgically solved the Artsakh problem, and there is no longer any need to think about that issue or about our Artsakh compatriots. This feeling is reinforced by the incitement of hatred towards the “Karabakh people” by official propaganda, as well as, in my opinion, by the monstrous (and anti-state) thesis that the 1988 movement should never have started, that we should not have “set eyes on someone else’s land and occupied that land.” On this issue, the official propaganda of Armenia and Azerbaijan is in deep harmony, but there are tens of thousands of people in our country who believe in these, I would say, cannibalistic theses.
Read also
However, the central sentiment among “the people” continues to be about “loot.” They are somewhat dissatisfied with Pashinyan, not because he lost the war, recognized Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan, and opened the door for a new genocide of Armenians, but because he did not punish the “looters.” Many do not understand that keeping the “formers” in the political arena is one of the factors ensuring the permanence of this government.
There are thousands of people whose intelligence is sufficient to understand everything very well, but they do not want to leave their comfort zone, and so they do not raise their voices, or worse, they glorify Pashinyan. This, I believe, is as much of a disgrace as losing a war.
Aram Abrahamyan
