The common sense for informed patriotism

Vaհe H Apelian

Recently I read the farewell speech, president Ronald Reagan gave after serving the nation with distinction for eight years. In his farewell address, the great communicator said, “informed patriotism is what we need.”  He also invoked, “common sense”, twice. Yes, invoked because common sense is not something that we can dismiss. In fact, common sense, above and beyond everything else, often guides leaders. It is thus that I came with this blog’s title. 

Patriotism is not a commodity that a person possesses it or not, much like a precious metal, such as gold, that some may happen to have it while others not. Patriotism is also not like a garment or a scarf that one wears to make a public statement. According to the Merian-Webster dictionary patriotism is “love for or devotion to one's country”, and quotes the following: “Although poles apart ideologically, they are both unashamed of their patriotism.”—Christopher Hemphill. Therefore there is a whole spectrum between the two ideological poles for a patriot to espouse. 

But this blog is not about patriotism per se, but it’s about the politization of patriotism on false pretense. Simply said, having the audacity to claim being more patriot than thou.

This blog is about the former FM of Armenia, Vartan Oskanian, who in his latest comment against the PM Nikol Pashinyan, posted the following on his Facebook page: “when a leader (read Nikol Pashinyan) deliberately erases parts of this (read Armenian) history to justify his own failures, he betrays not only his country’s (read Armenia) past but also its future. This is precisely what Nikol Pashinyan is doing—rewriting Armenia’s story to excuse his political failures, offering the nation nothing but resignation and defeatism.”

Let us face it, it’s pretty harsh and damning judgement that the foreign minister Vartan Osakanian levies against the PM and shares it with the Diaspora. The official language of Armenia is Armenian and not many in Armenia are as well educated in English as Vartan Oskanian is, to read his post in English. He was born in Aleppo and studied in the American University of Beirut. 

Vartan Oskanian wrote, “no serious nation simply forgets its lost territories. Greece has never erased the memory of Constantinople. Poland continues to commemorate Lviv….”.

 I do not know about Lviv to know how Poles remember it. But it is fair that I point to the former FM that his anti-Pashinyan pollical calculus is blinding him for what we have upheld.  Yes, unlike the Greeks, the seat of our Orthodox Apostolic church is not in Turkey any longer, but we resurrected the Cilician Catholicosate in Sis in Antelias, Lebanon and, after every Sunday mass, the faithful sing the famed Armenian song Cilicia (Giligia) and will continue singing it as Catholicosate of Sis / Cilicia’s unofficial anthem. If Poles remember Lviv, I want to note what Vartan Oskanian knows, but choses to ignore, that we have named many towns in Diaspora and as well as in Armenia after our historic towns, such as Nor Marash, Nor Hadjin, Nor Aresh. Vartan Oskanian hurling such insults, does not aim the PM only, but it also aims to insult ordinary, everyday Armenians. 

Furthermore, the former FM seems to have conveniently dismissed that that in 10 weeks, Armenia will come to a standstill. Its citizens will take a day off from their work to remember and pay homage to the victims of the Armenian genocide and much like he and president Robert Kocharian at one time, Nikol Pashinyan, his FM Ararat Mirzoyan and the rest of the government officials will do the same, visit the Armenian Genoide memorial

Common sense tells me that it is not in history’s defense, the FM is coming. He is resorting to history as a political tool and is taking it to Diaspora. That is far more destructive, than confinjng to Armenia, especially coming from a foreign minister..

Yes, I envision that the 2026 election will be about “real Armenia”. The citizens of Armenia are rightfully concerned about their lives and livelihood, their security, about the escalating cost of living, the increase in the property taxes, increase in the transpiration fees, and in everything else citizens of a country remain concerned. 

But Vartan Oskanian, does not entertain such mundane concerns the citizens have, such as taxes, fees, etc. Vartan Osakanian claims that he has a far broader concerns in mind that have to do with dignifying Armenia or Armenians and salvaging Armenia or Armenians, from defeatism. He puts forth an academic argument alleging that when negotiating with the enemy around the negotiating table, a distinction can be made between active territorial claims and historical (territorial) truth.

Such academic arguments and the lack of well -defined policy, with its pros and cons,  are the very reasons that the 2026 will be a hotly contested election. Since June 20, 2021, the opposition has not gone beyond attributions, labels.  The opposition has not presented a principle for negotiating with Armenia’s neighbors. It has not presented an alternative policy to PM’s Crossroad for Peace initiative. On the NA floor the oppositions members did not put forth a coherent counter-argument. Simply said, the opposition either does not have any plan, or if it has, it hides it from public. 

It is time that the citizens of Armenia vote either for Nikol Pashinyan’s “real Armenia” advocacy that surely includes his government’s Crossroad for Peace initiative or in favor of the opposition’s “Not for Real Armenia", or for “historical Armenia” advocacy, whatever that is. 

It is time that the citizens of Armenia take the matter into their hands, and cast their votes in the ballot boxes to shape their destiny in Armenia, in the South Caucasus, far from the Diaspora, and sort their relations with their eternal neighbors, Iran, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Georgia.