This column advocates for calm, rational and substantive discourse on matters of concern to our global nation. But the surreal obstacles we face from our adversaries sometimes call for a different approach—to release frustration before returning to the work ahead. There are times when we need to acknowledge the pitiful reality of dealing with two hostile Turkic governments. It provides a reset to natural human emotions while facing the deceit, duplicity and devious behavior of Azerbaijan, backed by its equally untrustworthy cousin to the west.
The world of diplomacy teaches us to never let words or emotions impact interactions between nations. Rhetoric in the interest of one’s nation is considered normal, and there are established protocols to follow. If a country announces a policy that offends another, they may recall or summon their ambassador for a traditional verbal reprimand. It is a process for a nation to save face on the world stage and restore any lost confidence among their citizenry.
Most of us are not diplomats but common folks with a passionate concern. Emotions have no role in reasonable policy making and advocacy. Yet, when abuse from a neighbor supposedly committed to peace continues at dangerous levels, it produces frustrations that should be vented in order to effectively continue advocacy work. Venting can be as simple as a long walk to clear our heads or spirited dialogue among like-minded folks to release inhibitors to productive results. Many of us need this type of therapy in order to remain productive in our communities. It allows us to bemoan our current reality, complain and play victim for a bit, while restoring our energy for the work of survival and prosperity. We all need a moment to acknowledge we are doing good work, despite the prevailing politics of good and evil.
We all need a moment to acknowledge we are doing good work, despite the prevailing politics of good and evil.
One of the issues that fuels our emotions is the ping-ponging between morality and politics. Many in our community judge status through a moral lens. This is understandable but unfortunate, since the world is governed by deceit and self-interest. As a small nation, Armenia has been on the receiving end of horrific acts for centuries. In the court of morality, Armenia would stand near the top among nations who have been wronged by brutality. Armenia has not been an aggressive nation since the time of Tigran before the birth of Christ. Whether this was a conscious choice is secondary to the fact that most of Armenia’s bilateral actions in modern times have been defensive in nature, yet the results have been devastating.
Prior to the genocide, the fedayees emerged in response to unbearable oppression under Abdul Hamid II. When the constitutional revolution brought the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) to power, what began with an abundance of tolerant rhetoric degenerated into genocide. After the war, Armenians fought marauding Turkish nationalists in Cilicia after betrayal by the French and continued Turkish massacres. In the east, Njdeh and Antranig fought the Tatars/Azeris to prevent massacres and loss of Armenian territory. Most recently, the people of Artsakh resisted illegal rule and atrocities committed by Azerbaijan.
Much of our frustration stems from a moral worldview: we believe we are right and the enemy is wrong. No one can doubt that assessment based on moral standards. As we know better than most, our world is ruled by a “might makes right” mentality. When Armenians prevailed in the first Artsakh war (1991-94), it wasn’t because the world agreed we were in the right. It didn’t matter that Azerbaijan was the aggressor. They attacked, we defended, and Artsakh was saved. A moral perspective can lead to a deep victim complex. We need more productive ways of thinking, since we feel we have been betrayed by an ambivalent world. It is one of the reasons why Armenians love to engage in emotional dialogue on our political challenges and enemies. We don’t always emerge refreshed and ready to move forward. Sometimes, we remain stuck in the mud and unproductive.
Another topic requiring venting is our geographic plight, when compared to the privileges of our enemy. Short of a major migration, we cannot change our geographic reality, but it doesn’t stop us from questioning our reality. How can an advanced civilization like Armenia be left in a small patch of territory, landlocked and surrounded by neighbors seeking their destruction? How have people facing such turbulence survived through the centuries? The former is a victim-based vent, while the latter reveals important attributes. We often hear Armenians declare that the Turks, with their history of oppression, atrocities and murder, are gifted with a strategic geography, with the Bosphorus connecting the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. A rogue, artificial nation like Azerbaijan fuels its criminal campaigns with fossil fuel deposits that not only generate huge revenue but also tempt nations to abandon civil principles.
We argue with ourselves on circumstantial irrelevance. Armenia has stood for democracy and peace yet is abused by hostile neighbors. While understanding that no one will help us unless it is in their interests, we still cling to the moral correctness of our position and seek sympathy for centuries of loss–because it gives us short-term relief. The nuances of history are debated. What if the Allies had prevailed at Gallipoli in World War I, defeated the Turks and prevented the genocide? It can be a healthy process when not taken to obsessive extremes.
While we partake in an appetizer of venting, what about the cast of characters who have emerged as certified enemies of the Armenian people? The despots leading our neighbors to the east and west leave little room for friendship. What upsets many Armenians is that we are the first in the “hood,” as 5,000 years of history should be sufficient to qualify that claim. The Turks are the newcomers, arriving between the 10th-11th centuries, and eventually thanked those who built the foundations of Asia Minor and Anatolia by committing genocides against the Assyrians, Pontic Greeks, Western Greeks and Armenians, followed by decades of institutional denial. The father of the modern Turks, Mustafa Kemal “Ataturk,” is nothing more than a murderer and thief to millions of Christians and Kurds.
The Turks of the Ottoman period and Republic of Turkey nominally recognized Armenians and other minorities as citizens, yet these communities were subjected to systemic discrimination and driven from their homes in a thinly veiled attempt to create a pan-Turkic runway through Anatolia and the Caucasus. The Azeris have followed the same playbook. They now have the audacity to claim that Armenia is really “Western Azerbaijan” and that Armenian churches are Caucasian Albanian. This is bombastically repeated by dictator Ilham Aliyev, whose country didn’t exist before 1918 and whose name was stolen from a historical province of Iran. It was after their artificial republic was formed that false claims to Nakhichevan and Artsakh became more pronounced. With petrodollars fueling their appetite, they have added Syunik and most of the rest of Armenia to their crime spree.
The neighborhood has always been difficult—Byzantine, Mede, Persian, Ottoman rulers have all left their mark—but living beside people who actively seek your destruction is an absurd experience. Before we criticize Armenia’s leadership, we must remember that they—and not we, in the diaspora—have to deal with the unpredictable and dangerous governments of Turkey and Azerbaijan. The Turkish president has arrested the mayor of Istanbul, who happens to be his chief rival for the presidential election—an outrageous affront to NATO principles—and there is hardly a peep from the West. Talk about hypocrisy! Soon, we will hear about how the West is “closely monitoring” the situation, or that it is an “internal matter.” Ask the Kurds in Turkey what happens to democratically elected individuals who speak up for civil rights. Meanwhile, Turkey continues to move the goalposts when it comes to normalization with Armenia. A process that began with a pledge of no preconditions has become a harbinger of Turkish preconditions.
Venting sometimes reveals truths and conditions us to re-engage, knowing that the truth has little to do with politics. Aliyev has no credibility as a leader and operates purely by intimidation and influence. The next time he honors a peace agreement with Armenia will be his first. How can anyone pursue reasonable diplomacy with a thug who boasts of peace, yet refuses to sign an agreement without imposing a fresh round of preconditions—and who still claims that the Armenia-Azerbaijan border is not real? I don’t think we could make this fiction up if we tried.
For diaspora Armenians, it is challenging to sustain active engagement without some recourse for recalibration. I find humor and satire to be refreshing. Armenians today are fighting the same battles with the same enemies as their great-great grandparents. Overt acts against Armenians began after the Congress of Berlin in 1878 as a result of European pressure on the Ottoman Sultan. Prior to that, the crumbling Ottoman Empire’s attempt at reform had degraded into institutional discrimination. These events occurred nearly 150 years ago. That is a lengthy period for any people to endure continuous transgressions, attacks and deceit. This is how stereotypes are formed, unfortunately, and how frustration becomes ingrained in the psyche of an oppressed people.
This is why we must allow ourselves moments of pause—to understand the nuances of our mission, and even find levity in our reality. Relish in the truth, even if others deny it. Recharge your batteries. Feel better. And then…let’s get back to work.
Stepan Piligian
Latest posts by Stepan Piligian (see all)
- Sometimes, it helps to vent for a moment - April 8, 2025
- Is it our lack of faith or a declining institution? - April 1, 2025
- Let’s try to judge less and celebrate the small victories - March 26, 2025
YES, it is ironic that “Armenians today are fighting the same battles with the same enemies as their great-great-grandparents.” And yes it is very painful to accept the notion that we have failed to learn anything from history, simply because we still naively believe that simply having a noble cause makes us automatically eligible for the support of the “Civilized World”, “Western Democracies”, or our “Brothers and Sisters” in Christ.
Almost 150 years after the Congress of Berlin, we forgot, despite the loss of 1.5 million lives during the Genocide of 1915, that in international politics “Might makes right, an aphorism suggesting that those in power dictate morality and define what is right or wrong, often implying that strength or dominance justifies actions, even if they are morally reprehensible.”
Not only we forgot the role of “Might” in setting the rules of international politics, we blatantly overlooked a crucial lesson: The deadly mistake of “Over Reliance” on friends who we believe, based on lip service and crocodile tears shed for our cause, that they will be beside us on the battlefield to ward off the evil intentions and acts of the Turkish Tribes (Azerbaijan, Turkey) who consider themselves “One Nation Two States.” For more details read
“When a dimwitted Prime Minister forges policies based on empty promises”
https://artsakhtheinadequateresponse.blogspot.com/2022/10/when-dimwitted-prime-minister-forges.html
Last but not least, despite the massive butchery performed by Sultan Abdulhamid II, also known in history books as “The Red Sultan”, who massacred more than 300,000 Armenians, today, the government of PM Pashinyan is seeking “Normalization” of diplomatic relations with a proud descendant of Abdulhamid II, Sultan Erdogan who joyfully stated on February 10, 2018, during a ceremony marking the centenary of the death of Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II held at The Yildiz Palace in Istanbul, that: “The Republic of Turkey, just like our previous states that are a continuation of one another, is also a continuation of the Ottomans…Of course, the borders have changed. Forms of government have changed… But the essence is the same, soul is the same, even many institutions are the same.”
Sultan Erdogan insisted that Abdulhamid II, was one of the “…most important, most visionary and most strategic minded” ruler that left indelible marks on the political landscape of Turkey for the last 150 years.
For more details use the following link
https://artsakhtheinadequateresponse.blogspot.com/2021/08/sultan-erdogan-pm-pashinyan-and-forging.html