In connection with the dismissal of the director of the Genocide Museum-Institute, my colleagues noticed a detail that is worth mentioning. Before Pashinyan stated that Edita Gzoyan had been removed from her post on his direct orders—because she had presented a book about Artsakh to U.S. Vice President J. D. Vance—members of the institute’s board of trustees and its staff were presenting the public with a completely different version. According to that story, Ms. Gzoyan had been dismissed because the renovation of the memorial to the victims of the Armenian Genocide was being carried out poorly. This despite the obvious fact that supervising such work is not among the duties of the museum-institute’s director.
I have little doubt that they knew the truth. But they were afraid to say it out loud, because the obvious question would then arise: do you really consider giving a book about Artsakh to be such an offense that it warrants dismissal?
It is precisely this habit of avoiding sharp corners that, in my view, is one of the reasons for the current situation—and in particular for the deepening authoritarianism. People who know the truth but choose not to say it bear more responsibility for today’s atmosphere than those who are simply deceived or misled. Pashinyan’s core electorate—the collective “Ano from Akhuryan,” so to speak—may well believe that, for example, clergymen who refuse to obey Pashinyan are “KGB agents” and “Russian spies.” Educated people understand that this is nonsense and slander. But most of them remain silent, which is precisely why the opinions of the “Anos” go unchallenged.
If tomorrow, say, the director of the History Institute of the National Academy of Sciences or the dean of the Faculty of Oriental Studies at Yerevan State University were dismissed, most employees of those institutions would probably claim that the problem was that the walls of the institute or the faculty building were not being painted properly. At least until Pashinyan gives another press conference or writes another post declaring: “I am the Academy. I am the University.” The fact that a ruler allows himself to say such things is also a consequence of what might be called collective silence.
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As for books about Artsakh and its spiritual and cultural heritage, it seems that a radical solution may be required: burn all such books—along with the manuscripts in the Matenadaran—so that no one will dare provoke anyone again or risk causing irritation to Ilham Aliyev.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
