Pashinyan’s quest to transform Armenia from within Contemplations with Orkhan Amashov / VIDEO

In the recent edition of "Contemplations with Orkhan Amashov", the author throws a glance at Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's quest to change his country from within, to save its future.

Hello everybody,

The sheer scale of the task of transforming Armenia from its present state of despondency and delusion into a prosperous nation, imbued with a sense of proportion and ambitions corresponding with its geopolitical exigencies, may appear rather daunting. But change Armenia must, for there can be no survival without a deep rethinking of what went wrong and what should be done to ensure a better future.

There is no point in denying that the ride will be rife with brickbats. The key pillars of modern Armenia’s carefully constructed sense of self appear so inflexibly entrenched that it seems any attempt to transform it will, at best, be gloomily protracted and ultimately futile.

A post-2020 Armenia is a nation defeated and depressed. It is in need of a fresh outlook, freed from the shackles of what caused its present perturbation. It is vital that the nation comprehends the connection between Armenia’s current difficulties and its earlier decisions, and also understands how the journey this nation embarked on more than 30 years ago has been impacted by its national discourse.

To be more precise, that which forms the genesis of Armenia’s present predicament - the lack of good neighbourly relations with its Turkic neighbours, Azerbaijan and Türkiye, leading to excessive reliance on Russia, which has significantly undermined its independence and some other moments of import - stem from its ill-fated choices during the late 80s and early 90s.

The First Karabakh War was induced by Armenia’s territorial claim on Azerbaijan, which initially resulted in a victory, followed by a 26-year period, from 1994 to 2020, of jubilation, during which the physical possession of Karabakh sustained its morale and falsely vindicated its aggression.

However, the price proved rather exorbitant. During this period, Baku deliberately excluded it from regional economic projects and the concurrent absence of relations with Türkiye, which closed its borders with Armenia in response to the latter’s occupation of Azerbaijan’s Kalbajar region, further exacerbated its isolation.

Contemporary Armenia is paying dearly for the choices that have ultimately resulted in the gloom that pervades it today. And those decisions were not made at a whim but were the results of an obsession with what was preconditioned by some vituperative elements of Armenian national identity.

The idea of predestination that is the mission of Hayk, the mythological progenitor of all Armenians, the concept of a Greater Armenia, feeding the fatal sacrosanct ambition, crystallised in the form of territorial claims against Azerbaijan and Türkiye, and the perpetuation of the victimhood mentality, leading to exhortations that the whole world should accept the Armenian version of the events of 1915, are all part and parcel of the national idea which is yet to be revisited and revised.

In this sense, Pashinyan's recent swipe at Armenia’s coat of arms deserves closer inspection. On 15 June, during a parliamentary session, Gegham Manukyan, an MP from the opposition Hayastan block, criticised the Prime Minister’s earlier statement, made in May, that a peace treaty with Azerbaijan would amount to a certificate of land ownership – a so-called cadastre paper – for Armenia, setting in stone the legal basis for its existence across a territory comprising 29,800 square kilometres.

Manukyan evidently found this formulation of Pashinyan as one degrading to the nation’s dignity. He claimed that Armenia did not need such a cadastre paper, as its coat of arms would suffice for the purpose.

This was what prompted the Prime Minister’s rightful indignation, and his reply is noteworthy. Pashinyan retorted that Armenia’s present coat of arms had nothing to do with the state established in 1991, featuring Noah’s Ark perched on the Mount of Ararat, actually, Agridag geographically located in Eastern Türkiye, the emblems of four dynasties and some other archaic elements.

More importantly, Pashinyan argued that, if this irrelevant coat of arms were to be cherished as a certificate of land ownership, that would be Armenia’s message to the external world, stating “Come and destroy us”.

The Prime Minister’s reasoning is not about aesthetics or even the strict adherence of the national symbols to the country’s contemporary circumstances. Symbols do not hurt if they are merely there to sustain morale and maintain integrity. In Pashinyan’s view, in the case of Armenia, they do not just expose the “duality” experienced by Armenians but also augment this.

It is in the mindset, predicated on the notions of “mythological predestination”, “victimhood” and the elaborately constructed and entrenched national fairy tale, constantly harking back to an imagined bygone age of “Greater Armenia”, that one may determine the genus of the trouble. And the coat of arms, in this sense, is an externally visible manifestation of this self-deluded falsification.

And the problem here is that the emblem in question is not an inert component, nor merely about consolidating the nation internally, but it continues to influence the nation’s foreign policy choices and behavioural patterns.

In Armenia’s coat of arms is ingrained the gist of the philosophy, underpinning its territorial claims against Azerbaijan and Türkiye. The notion of “duality” to which Pashinyan referred, is about the dichotomy between the imagined past, constantly reinvigorated to shape the present and the contemporary context, which is actually moulded by real needs and exigencies.

It may appear that the Armenian Prime Minister is trying to change some of the keystones of his country’s deep-rooted convictions, currently militating against what should be its general aspirations to ensure an upwards trajectory. Since December 2021, he has incrementally, sometimes with an amplified sense of urgency, been explaining why recognition of Azerbaijan’s sovereignty over Karabakh is inexorable and the resumption of full diplomatic relations with Türkiye is crucial.

Telling an uncomfortable truth requires finesse and esprit des corps. It should be properly communicated on an incremental basis. Is Pashinyan earnest in his quest to transform Armenia from within? There is good reason to believe he is. It is sad that his presently unenviable duty, aimed at changing the nation’s attitudes is, in effect, driven by the circumstances emanating from the results of the Second Karabakh War, which cost his country dearly in every conceivable way. He is being coerced by the new reality to make decisions, which could also backfire and lead to further regression, followed by another spell of arduous self-examination and naval-gazing. But, sooner or later, the cycle will need to end. The sooner the better, for the Armenian people and for the region.

Thank you very much.