Part V
Armenians have no other choice than that of unity around the State, and not a regime, a Church, a party, or an ideology.
Gaidz Minassian
Since Armenians’ 2020 defeat in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), an existential crisis has erupted within the public discourse. The shockwave produced by this trying time has compelled Armenians to ask hard questions and face these issues.
With the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, Azerbaijan’s aggression against Armenia raises many questions that can be organized into seven points: impunity, neutrality, legality, security, unity, reality, and sovereignty.
Unity
Armenians have no other choice than that of unity around the State, and not a regime, a Church, a party or an ideology. Unity refers to supreme national responsibilities, a keen sense of politics (contrary to the excess of each other), the protection of citizens and national heritage, a sense of history and setting an example through their behavior. Unity also involves the creation of a nation-strategist where the value of life and the public interest prevail over indifference towards one’s neighbor and over individual interest. It’s a work culture that needs to be changed. As Hrair Maroukhian, the former Secretary General of the ARF-Dashnaktsutyun, said in 1992: “Armenia will not recover by working three hours a day.”
This culture of work, a mixture of Soviet, Oriental and Caucasian stigmata incompatible with the notion of the State, is the key to Armenia’s success. We must draw inspiration from the work of the leaders of the First Republic, who revived a nation decimated three years earlier in the Ottoman Empire. Fear did not drive their behavior as it does in Armenian minds today, especially in the Diaspora, where emotion and pathos have taken over reason and composure. A fear that comes from an inability to inhabit our world and anticipate problems which ultimately plays into the enemy’s hands. Because we know how to manipulate the one who is afraid while we fear the one who shows no fear.