“We Armenians don’t have big brothers. That’s a complex that comes from the past generations and we have to overcome that. Each of us has to raise the level of self-esteem and not continue considering ourselves slaves and say “our big brother, we’ll die without Russia”…
This is what ARF faction deputy Alvart Petrosyan said during a press conference held at the “Pastark” club on October 27. Petrosyan also mentioned that she has friends who are supposedly “intellectuals” who aren’t dumb or illiterate, but consider Putin as the president of Armenia. A. Petrosyan doesn’t blame them for that because that has been the kind of psychology that has been instilled in their minds for decades.
The National Assembly MP also talked about anther complex during the press conference.
“I’m personally free from the complex of ‘oh no, the Turks are here, where should me and my child go?’ since the end of the Karabakh war. I understood one important thing: when you are fighting, you have a greater chance of being saved than when you get up and run away,” says the deputy.
According to her, one can’t escape when it’s a rough time. “We escape and then come back and talk heroically about our escape,” said the ARF deputy. However, while talking about the people “who have grown up in this country and have been upbrought by Russian culture”, Petrosyan said once again that we are “making decisions here and there and are standing in the middle of two powers-the West or Russia?” However, Petrosyan is in favor of a politics that is weighed out.
“I protect myself from the “Americanism” illness through the means of the Russian culture, but I also protect myself from the Russian imperialism sponge with Western values,” she assured. The deputy also said that not only Armenia, but also the West and Europe “can’t do many things” without the help of Russia. But Petrosyan believes that “we Armenians have another defect”-we talk more about our bad sides than the good ones and lower ourselves so much that it becomes a disease. According to Petrosyan, Armenians have to free themselves from the feeling of having a “big brother” because we don’t need the big brother and each person must live independently.
“If we fully dedicate ourselves, then they’ll eat us up. I’m not offended by the Russians; I’m offended by the Armenians. We are the wrong ones. They didn’t win, we lost,” said Alvart Petrosyan. The latter also said that while Putin was recently talking to the people and mentioned Georgia, he said that Georgia entered the Russian Empire “on its own” and at the time there was no Abkhazia and Osia.
“If I were an Armenian citizen living in Russia, I would ask-was there an Azerbaijani state back then, which fit in Russia? There wasn’t. What are those double standards? I’m not talking about Karabakh. There was no such country. How is that Armenia’s largest ally Russia is approaching the issue with double standards? Russia accepts Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, in other words, it forgets about the autonomy right, but has a different opinion concerning Abkhazia and Osia. I hear that and go crazy, then I hear about what my dear America is doin in Iraq and Afghanistan; it’s horrible,” said ARF deputy Alvart Petrosyan.
After all this, Mrs. Petrosyan concluded that all empires are the same and if one of them offers humanitarian aid to Armenia, gives money, the other “didn’t allow us to be eliminated just by not having gas”. During the press conference, Petrosyan also recalled Kant, who had once expressed the thought that empires will cease to exist at some point and the surviving people are going to last forever. He has also said that the Armenian people will survive. According to Petrosyan, the genetics and blood of all Armenians remains the same; we are a unique people and must appreciate what we have. She also touched upon the announcement made by MP of the Russian Duma in Yerevan recently, when he said that it’s time for Armenia to have a straight role on the Russian-Georgian conflict, to choose which side it’s on and has compared Armenia with Leopold the cat. Let’s recall that before this, president of the Russian Duma Boris Grizlov had called Armenia “Russia’s forepost in the region”. It turns out that A. Petrosyan blames the Armenian people for this and not the authorities.
“If the Armenian people stands up and has dignity, no MP will say such things. When the people of Armenia write letters to Putin from Armenia, Russians think that Armenia is a forepost. When Andranik Mihranyan suddenly makes speeches aimed against Georgia, they think that we are the forepost, that we’re like Leopold the cat…” said the ARF MP. In response to one of the journalists question as to why she blames the Armenians, when the Foreign Minister of Armenia Vartan Oskanyan could have raised an eyebrow after hearing such things and complain to Russia for calling Armenians a forepost, Alvart Petrosyan said:
“When the people come out to the public meeting with a picture of Stalin, nobody asks them if Stalin is less of a monster than Enver and Talyat Pasha; when Sanatruk Sahakyan wears a watch with the picture of Stalin and Armenians don’t boycott, they go to the press conference….isn’t that the people?”