If there are captives—if there are hostages—there can be no peace between the two countries. I expressed this idea in my previous editorial, as well as in a short video (“reel”). This notion isn’t original: by all political, legal, and moral standards, holding citizens of another country in captivity is clear and indisputable evidence of an ongoing war.
A TikTok user responded to my statement with the following comment: “[Aliyev] is right to keep them in a Baku prison; the Karabakh clan should rot in jail.”
I do not believe this is a fringe opinion that happened to surface online by chance. I’m convinced that tens—perhaps even hundreds—of thousands of people, who form the core of Pashinyan’s electorate, think the same. The only difference is that not all of them express it so bluntly.
This is clearly the result of years—decades—of systematic brainwashing. People from various regions of Armenia were, and still are, involved in corruption. Yet the public hatred was deliberately directed toward the people of Artsakh. And now we’ve reached a tragic moment: when some Armenians can bring themselves to say that the leader of an enemy state—one that has committed genocide against Armenians—is “right” to torture our compatriots in his prisons.
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By that logic, according to the Pashinyan crowd, their own leader—or idol—is all the more right for doing nothing to secure the release of those hostages.
Governments come and go. But when a large portion of society—if not the majority—loses its moral compass, when people forget even the most basic human truth that one must help a fellow person in need, that is not a condition that will be healed by a mere change of government.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
The image was generated using artificial intelligence
