Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Wednesday, once again, berated the concept of national patriotism, calling it “destructive,” and claiming that the sentiment is devoid of envisioning Armenia with its own homeland.
Ironically, Pashinyan was speaking at a forum called the Global Armenian Summit being held in Yerevan, and was clearly ignoring the fact that, during Soviet years, it was the global Diaspora that kept the concept on an independent homeland alive for more than seven decades.
“I will tell you as I tell my family, the biggest problem we had was our perception of patriotism. Moreover, there is no irony or sarcasm in what I am saying. The biggest issue I faced was my patriotism, with the perception that this model of patriotism had nothing to do with our homeland,” Pashinyan said during his address, which also included his government’s position on matters relating to the current peace negotiations and Armenia’s foreign policy track.
He said patriotism “is simply an imperial model of patriotism, which was introduced into our social psychology through books, films, texts, speeches, characters, and images,” saying that such a model excludes the existence of an independent and sovereign Armenian state.
According to him, the imperial model of patriotism means that Armenia should not have a real homeland, but only a theoretical one that is “hanging on the wall, mentioned during toasts.” He argued that this concept framed Armenia as an “outpost” rather than a country with its own citizens—“a base through which we should reach other goals,” Pashinyan said.
“We must recognize the destructive aspect of our patriotism for ourselves,” Pashinyan opined, adding that patriotism as millions have felt “is an imperial love, shaped by the empire, instilled in us.”
Earlier this year, Pashinyan also made similar statements suggesting that present-day Armenia should concern itself with the current geographic realities of the country and distance itself from its history, that also envisions just demands for reparations from past crimes, including the Armenian Genocide and the most recent ethnic cleansing of Armenians by Azerbaijan.
He told the summit participants that his government has adopted the concept of “Real Armenia” as a necessary precondition for a “lasting statehood.”
“My administration’s perception of the security issue is significantly connected with a conceptual question, what function does the Republic of Armenia have? I think that on the social-psychological level, in our reality, at least until recently the general perception had been the following, that the Republic of Armenia is a tool or an outpost, a point of support so that we have a bigger country, up to establishing historical justice, taking historical revenge,” he told the participants of the Global Summit as a map of present-day Armenia was projected on a screen on stage.
“There is also the second perception, that the Republic of Armenia is a tool for ensuring the prosperity of its own people in its internationally recognized territory, with the perception that freedom, justice and security are included in prosperity,” Pashinyan explained.
He said that the first concept can be deemed the “historical Armenia” concept, while his vision is the “real Armenia” one.
“Not being detached from the Armenian reality and our environment, understandably having lived in the environment that we have, and having gone through this difficult path, the government has concluded that the vision of ‘real Armenia’ can ensure Armenia’s security, because otherwise it would mean that we are putting the country in the historical cycle where there is one inevitable outcome, the loss of Armenia’s statehood,” Pashinyan added.
While Pashinyan claimed there was no “irony and cynicism” in his statements, nevertheless he made them three days before the anniversary of Armenia’s Independence.
