Armenians worldwide are witnessing new lows committed by the incumbent government, made worse by the Armenian nation’s subsequent silence this past week.
In an interview with RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on October 19, 2024, parliament speaker Alen Simonyan said, “Attacking Karabakh and occupying territories from Armenia are different things from the point of view of the law. Azerbaijan carried out an operation in Karabakh, behind which it had at least three to four U.N. [Security Council] resolutions.”
The speaker of the Armenian National Assembly is thus rationalizing the genocide of the Armenians of Artsakh by falsely bringing up U.N. resolutions. David Davidian, a lecturer at the American University of Armenia in science and technology, provided a fact check of Simonyan’s treasonous statement in which he detailed all U.N. resolutions involving Artsakh, noting that Azerbaijan continues to violate Armenia’s international borders and use force for the acquisition of territory.
The callousness of equating the genocide of the Artsakh population with an “operation” as an Armenian, regardless of political position, is astounding. Unfortunately, Simonyan’s interview has garnered nary a response from Armenia or the Diaspora. In 2020, Simonyan stated, “Akna (Aghdam) is my homeland,” but today, he states, “that territory in question was and is internationally part of Azerbaijan.” Such statements in his official capacity are treasonous.
Not to be outdone, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan was seen cozying up with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev during the 16th BRICS summit in Russia in late October — the same Aliyev who has troops on Armenian soil and refers to Armenia as “Western Azerbaijan.” It is unimaginable that any leader with any dignity would engage as PM Pashinyan did with the architect of the most significant Armenian human and land loss in contemporary times.
These are part of the harsh realities that Armenians face today.
In a recent article in Time covering the plight of the Armenians of Artsakh, journalist Charlie Campbell wrote, “Many refugees don’t feel safe even amongst the tree-lined boulevards of Yerevan,” quoting Gayane Movsisyan, a 55-year-old former army worker from Stepanakert. During the displacement, Azeri soldiers taunted her, stating, “Where are you going? We are going to attack Armenia soon. Do you think you’re escaping?”
Since the 2020 war in Artsakh, Pres. Aliyev has claimed that the lands of modern-day Armenia are historically Azeri lands, referring to them as “Western Azerbaijan” and calling for their inevitable liberation. Weather reports in Azerbaijan use the “Western Azerbaijan” map for Armenia. Azeri students study the map of Armenia as Western Azerbaijan, and a Western Azerbaijan TV building opened this year in Baku.
According to the Virtual Western Azerbaijan site, “Western Azerbaijan is one of the oldest and most geographically diverse areas of Azerbaijan. In the past, it was located along important caravan routes that connected the northern and southern parts of Azerbaijan, as well as the entire Caucasus and the Near East. Currently, it is bordered by Georgia to the north, the Azerbaijan Republic to the east and southeast, Turkey to the west, and Iran to the south and southeast, covering an area of 29,800 square kilometers. While this land is now recognized as Armenia, its territory has historical significance as the ancient Turkic-Oghuz homeland and the historical land of Azerbaijan.”
Pres. Aliyev has demanded a clear statement from Armenian authorities about the return of ethnic Azerbaijanis expelled from “Western Azerbaijan.” He has also called for the repatriation of ethnic Azerbaijanis who lived in Soviet Armenia, but he has not mentioned the repatriation of ethnic Armenians who lived in Soviet Azerbaijan. Aliyev has made these demands amid negotiations of an Armenia-Azerbaijan peace treaty, with the signing of the treaty conditional on removing a reference to Artsakh from Armenia’s Constitution.
Moreover, an initiative group was established in the Azerbaijani parliament in October to facilitate the return of Azerbaijanis to “Western Azerbaijan.” The group aims to support “displaced Azerbaijanis” in returning to what they call their ancestral lands. The Western Azerbaijan Community, a public institution dedicated to this perversion of history, has called for international support.
All the while, Armenia’s government is happy to lie and manipulate the nation and host one festival after another to keep the people busy and sow further seeds of division between the homeland and the Diaspora. It acts with impunity and little criticism from Armenian citizens or diasporans, besides from the current opposition, yet no one seems to care.
Hanna Arendt, German historian and philosopher, said, “What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed? If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. This is because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, and a lying government has constantly to rewrite its own history. …And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please.” The question is whether the Armenian nation has crossed this threshold where no one can believe anyone or anything, even when it’s to their own or their loved ones’ detriment.
As Lin Yutang said, “When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set.” The small men of the ruling regime have cast their ghastly shadows on the Armenian nation, lest the sun rises again.
Ara Nazarian, PhD
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