This is how a state plunges into chaos
On February 23, 2008, masked law-enforcement officers attacked a car at the Argavand intersection. The car was being driven by Vardan Jhangiryan, the brother of Gagik Jhangiryan. A shot was fired in his direction, and he sustained a gunshot wound. Despite numerous other health problems, he spent four months in pre-trial detention without receiving adequate medical care.
Normal media outlets, including Aravot, as well as human rights defenders, condemned such sadistic treatment of a human being — a human being! I personally wrote about it several times, and certainly not because I had any sympathy for Gagik Jhangiryan or the Armenian National Congress. If a person is being tortured, we must treat that person humanely, regardless of what they are accused of.
In the case of Gagik Khachatryan, too, normal media outlets, including Aravot, as well as some human rights defenders, took a similar position. The difference, however, is obvious. First, the pro-government propaganda of that time, although quite aggressive, did not promote misanthropic and cannibalistic ideas. Second, and most importantly, over these twenty years a mass of tens of thousands of people has been cultivated that experiences not merely delight but, it seems, physical pleasure from manifestations of sadism.
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It is clear that, socially speaking, Pashinyan is counting precisely on this mass. The spectacles staged around Gagik Tsarukyan, Argam Abrahamyan, Robert Kocharyan and Gagik Khachatryan are intended to keep the basest instincts of these people “alive” — instincts that constitute one of the important foundations of the present government.
One of my readers asks me: why, then, does this mass not hate, say, Noubar Afeyan or Ralph Yirikian? The answer is obvious to me: because hatred toward them is not being “injected.” If they in any way interfere with Pashinyan’s political plans, their persecution, too, would become a source of delight.
Until 2018, wasn’t that same mass calling for Samvel Aleksanyan to be hanged, burned and quartered? Yet it very quickly became clear that he had “smoothly” integrated himself into Pashinyan’s government — just as he had done under previous governments. He had, so to speak, joined the “successful men’s” club. Let me also remind you that when Tsarukyan supported Pashinyan or remained neutral, he too was simply a “businessman,” not an “oligarch” or a “thief.”
Hatred, therefore, does not arise or disappear on its own; it is directed through well-known techniques. “The people are like grass, and the ruler like the wind: the grass bends in whichever direction the wind blows” — this is, in essence, what Confucius said about the people’s dependence on the ruler. Naturally, the techniques in his time were different, but the principle remains the same.
Justice, yes, there must be justice. But the way certain, highly “selectively” targeted people are being prosecuted in Armenia today shows that the actions of the authorities have nothing to do with either justice or the rule of law.
This is, as they themselves put it, a “political vendetta,” pursued for two purposes: 1) to “get political opponents out of the way”; 2) to give their own mass a sense of satisfaction and delight: “Well done, bless your heart, you’re really going after those thieves.”
…“No freedom for the enemies of freedom” is an expression traditionally attributed to the French revolutionary Louis Antoine de Saint-Just. In other words, those we dislike can be declared “enemies of freedom,” “thieves” or “Russian stooges,” after which we can treat them as we please. This is how chaos arises — not only in the state or in social relations, but also in people’s souls.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
Aravot Daily
08.09.2026
