Mono-Armenia what tales did Pashinyan tell in Washington

Another International Summit on Religious Freedom was held in Washington. An event where many high-profile statements are made, but which has not yet brought religious peace to the planet.

The summit was attended by the Prime Minister of Armenia, the head of the world's first mono-national and mono-confessional country. Yes, it became like this before him, and the Armenian society was like this in the minds of the "friendship of peoples", nevertheless, Pashinyan represents Armenia and should have proceeded from the realities, or not speak at all. But he came out and told stories. Nevertheless, there is a plus in his speech (at least, judging by the publications in the Armenian media) - he did not shower accusations on Azerbaijan.

In general, there has been a recent tendency in Pashinyan's speeches to reject accusations against Baku. This new tactic is, in principle, quite reasonable, given that the previous one has completely failed. Sweeping accusations and provocative statements from international platforms have brought nothing to Armenia, only complicated its path to peace. Pashinyan is unlikely to admit this, but he understands it.

In his speech at the summit, the Armenian Prime Minister sang odes to religious freedom, which is democracy in its purest form. And one cannot disagree with this. Can a society be considered democratic if there is no freedom of religion? The problem is that most people equate this freedom with religious tolerance. But these are different concepts. The first implies respect for the religious views of other people, the second implies forced acceptance of their presence. That is, different faiths tolerate each other, but patience is a fragile thing. It is difficult to call the burning of the Koran under police protection a manifestation of religious freedom. Meanwhile, the countries where this happens call themselves tolerant and democratic.

So is Armenia. No, they don't burn the Koran there, because Muslims as a significant community in this country have not existed for thirty-five years and there is no need to fight them. A small handful of Kurds and Yezidis are proudly presented as a Muslim community and speculate on it in their speeches. It is not reported how many Muslims there are in Armenia today, but according to the 2011 census, there were only 812 people. We are talking about the citizens of the country, not about Muslims who came to work from Iran, India or Arab countries. For a country with a population of one and a half million people, 812 may seem like a good number, but there is one important point here. The fact is that before the resettlement of Armenians to these lands, most of the population of the current territory of Armenia were Muslims. Muslims should not be equated, for example, with the Molokans, who migrated to the South Caucasus because of persecution and established a small community here. The peoples professing Islam are the indigenous peoples of this region. And the fact that there are only a handful of them left in Armenia is not a commendable fact at all, but a reason to think.

Speaking in Washington, Nikol Pashinyan boasted of the largest Yezidi community in the world and the world's largest Yezidi temple. By the way, the Armenian government has nothing to do with the latter - the temple was built at the expense of a Russian Yezidi businessman. There is no concern of the State for religious minorities. The socio-economic condition of the Yezidi community is at a very low level. According to media reports, in order to get some opportunities, Yezidis often have to convert to Gregorianism. There was a case when most of the population of a Yezidi village converted to Protestantism in order to receive help from Western missionaries. They have no hope left for their own "tolerant" government. Yezidis were also often the targets of bullying and violence in the army. These facts were widely reported in the press in previous years.

Pashinyan spoke about the Russian Church, the Assyrian Church, the Catholic Church, the Molokans, and even pagans. About the Jewish community, which, it turns out, feels great in the "diverse society" of Armenia, forgetting to tell that the only synagogue in the country is regularly desecrated with Nazi inscriptions and broken windows, and that even the head of the community has removed the Jewish part of her double surname, now signing herself only with her husband's Armenian surname, since It is unpopular to be a Jew in Armenia.

It is noteworthy that Pashinyan did not speak about the Muslim community as such. It is obvious that being a Muslim in Armenia is even more dangerous than being a Jew. The Armenian prime minister only said that Yerevan "has a functioning Muslim mosque, which is a very important part of our cultural heritage." At the same time, he forgot to mention that before this Azerbaijani city became the capital of Armenia, several dozen mosques operated in Yerevan. The Blue Mosque, which was left as a model of "Armenian tolerance," is run by the Iranian side and is mostly visited by Iranian citizens who come to Yerevan on business. Because the Muslim community in Armenia was destroyed, it disappeared along with the exodus of the last Azerbaijanis thirty-five years ago.

However, the US State Department placed Azerbaijan, not Armenia, under "surveillance" in January last year. Before that, the International Christian Concern operating in the United States placed Azerbaijan in the top ten countries where Christians are being persecuted on a large scale. Christians meant Armenian citizens who left Azerbaijan en masse and voluntarily in the fall of 2023. This process had nothing to do with religion, but the American so-called Christian concern, commissioned by the Armenians, presented the case differently. It was an integral part of a campaign of pressure on Baku and an attempt to move the "center of tolerance" of the South Caucasus to Armenia. A mononational and monoconfessional country began to be served with multicultural seasoning. A Council for the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of National Minorities was established in Armenia, and National Minorities Day was established, but it did not become a multicultural country. And these attempts looked very poor, to be honest. Two years ago, before the New Year, Anna Hakobyan hosted a dinner with the national minorities of Armenia. Since the national minorities of Armenia are a matter of theory rather than practice, representatives of different countries working in Armenia were invited to the meeting so that the party turned out to be really international. The event was called a "Peace and Solidarity Dinner."

In general, it is very good that Nikol Pashinyan understands "how important religious tolerance is in our region." And yes, there are traditions of tolerance in the Caucasus, which the Armenians tried to destroy. It is wonderful that the Armenian Prime Minister shared in Washington his dream of "turning our regional disputes into a regional dialogue." But the topic of religious freedom has nothing to do with this dialogue. The problems between Armenia and Azerbaijan are not caused by religious contradictions, but by its territorial claims to our country. By distorting this truth, Yerevan is distorting the very essence of the peace process.

A few years ago, the Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities of the Council of Europe published a report in which it was noted that the majority of the population and the authorities of Armenia share the view of the mono-ethnicity of this country. Unfortunately, having made such conclusions, the organization did not express any indignation or condemnation. Probably, respecting the "choice" of the Armenian people...