A jumble of thoughts Ter-Petrosyan lectures Armenia

Former leaders of Armenia are increasingly becoming a rather pitiful sight. Serzh Sargsyan is calling for the impeachment of the prime minister — but no one is listening to him. Robert Kocharyan has discovered the format of a video podcast, where, in addition to criticising the ruling party, he has begun reflecting on the mistakes made during his own presidency, naively hoping that these admissions will boost his ratings. Against this backdrop, Armenia’s first president, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, has also decided to make his position known, delivering a whole series of “wise thoughts” in a recent Facebook status that was widely circulated by several Armenian media outlets.

“The most painful problem of the Armenian people scattered around the world is division,” the politician writes on his page. According to him, “Armenia’s independence and the brilliant victory in the first Karabakh war seemed to have solved that problem.”

“However, the humiliating defeat has once again placed us before the reality of fragmentation. If we add to this Nikol Pashinyan’s reckless steps aimed at deepening divisions in our society, we again find ourselves in danger of sinking into the same swamp,” Ter-Petrosyan noted.

This thesis itself raises doubts. It is unclear what kind of division existed prior to independence. One may assume that this claim was made merely to lend weight to his assertion that the problem had been overcome — supposedly through the occupation of Azerbaijani territories.

As for the current situation, one can indeed agree that a split within Armenian society emerged after the defeat in the war. Yet this division is not necessarily a problem; it can also be seen as a valuable resource for the Armenian people. And this is not being said from the standpoint of a rival. The ideological paradigm in which Armenian society existed for a long time was bound, sooner or later, to be questioned by the healthier forces within the society itself. In this sense, the division is a symptom of recovery.

What angers former leaders is not the fact of the split itself, but rather that the number of supporters of peaceful coexistence is steadily growing. In other words, the divide is gradually being overcome — and not in favour of choosing Turkophobic ideas. Viewed in the long term, if Nikol Pashinyan carries the concept of a “Real Armenia” to its logical conclusion, he may in fact pull the country out of the very swamp that Ter-Petrosyan speaks about.

Further on, Armenia’s first president turns to the topic of the upcoming elections. Speaking about possible political alignments, he emphasises that “Pashinyan’s Western patrons will regard Samvel Karapetyan’s victory as the restoration of Russian influence in Armenia.” In his opinion, this scenario does not fit into their long-term plans.

“Therefore, they will try to do everything possible to prevent such a development, ignoring the fact that the exclusive right to choose their own government belongs to the people,” Ter-Petrosyan wrote.

This is perhaps the most coherent statement made by Armenia’s first president, in which he openly expresses support for the pro-Russian candidate. However, as he continues the discussion, Ter-Petrosyan drifts into a rather muddled mix of sentimental reflections.

Here is what he writes: “It must be understood once and for all that Armenia’s natural allies are not distant Western countries (with the exception of France, with which humanitarian and cultural relations were established as early as the beginning of the 20th century), but Russia, Georgia and Iran. Relations with China and India are also encouraging and growing warmer. As Omar Khayyam once said: ‘The sound of the drum is sweet from afar.’”

After such a statement, a whole series of questions inevitably arises. How can one simultaneously tie the country’s fate to states that stand on opposite sides of the barricades in a major geopolitical confrontation, as is the case with Russia and France? Why is France considered a friend of Armenia, but the United States is not? Has Armenia not established humanitarian and cultural ties with the United States as well? And are India and China not just as distant from Armenia as those very “distant Western countries”? What if tomorrow Russia and China once again turn from partners into geopolitical rivals, as happened in the 1970s between China and the Soviet Union?

One can only wonder how such a politician could have become the president of a country in the first place. Though, in essence, the answer suggests itself: he governed the country during a period when it largely carried out the directives of its suzerain, and therefore, exceptional intellectual capacity for governance was hardly required.

Of course, Ter-Petrosyan did not ignore Armenia’s internal conflicts either. In particular, he touched upon the alleged “attacks” on the Armenian Church, claiming that its rights are being violated by a “dictator.” Moreover, he even issued a threat to this “dictator”: “Do they not realize that after a change of power they themselves will sit in the defendants’ chairs?”

Ter-Petrosyan also mentioned the use of obscene language that, according to him, the Armenian prime minister has introduced into political discourse. “Profanity is nothing more than a display of insolence and an inferiority complex. The strong do not swear; the strong simply strike.”

We do not know exactly what kind of profanity he is referring to, and frankly, there is little desire to investigate it. What matters more is something else: judging by his remarks, Ter-Petrosyan seems to wish that instead of being insulted, he would be struck. Has he really already recovered from the blow he received a year ago, when a video surfaced in which he proudly spoke about ethnic cleansing against Azerbaijanis?

Concluding his address, Ter-Petrosyan, echoing Kocharyan, returns to the theme of criticism: “Whoever enters politics must be ready to hear both blessings and curses. Whoever fears criticism has nothing to do in politics.” For some reason, and quite out of place, he adds: “Politics is the art of awakening vigilance and clearing a path with convincing words and elbows.”

Paraphrasing Ter-Petrosyan himself, one might say the following: his words are so unconvincing that they are incapable of paving a path even toward a crisis. He is simply a political corpse.