Armenia Lost the Information War, Too

 

An Armenian House Burns in Kalbajar

Over the course of the 2020 war over Artsakh, the Armenian government lied extensively. They lied about the true number of casualties sustained, lied about the extent of the Armenian reversals, lied about the shortages in ammunition and materials, and kept secret the dire state of Armenia's defenses. They lied to such an extent that the confidence of the Armenian public has been greatly damaged for the foreseeable future.   

The timid optimism which had become characteristic of Armenia’s body politic in the aftermath of the 2018 Revolution and the removal of Armenia’s ossified Soviet elite from power seems to have all but dissipated. In its place, corrosive cynicism, an unfortunately familiar phenomenon, seems to have seeped back into the minds of Armenians. 

All confidence seems to have gone with the wind, and many Armenians now openly announce when prompted that they will gladly leave the country if they get a chance. 

And who can blame them?

Not only did Armenia lose as many as five thousand of its best and brightest men in a clash that lost them most of Artsakh, but Armenia’s own territorial integrity may have been permanently compromised by the new ceasefire agreement. On top of this, most Armenians have had to endure the hardships of nationwide coronavirus lockdown at the beginning of this year, and the massive economic downturn wrought by the dual forces of pandemic and war.

Far from aspiring to democratic ideals such as transparency and accountability, the current government in Armenia has proven comically inept in this regard. The only thing which remained consistent in the government’s messaging was its sheer inconsistency. Pashinyan contradicted himself regularly over the course of the war, at times calling for a mobilization equivalent to that of Sardarapat, at times heralding supposedly inevitable victory, and still at other times bringing grim portents of imminent failure.

Far from being well-informed, the Armenian people were thrust into a perpetual state of confusion, fear, anger, and resentment. The tone deafness of Armenia’s government to the sentiments of the public was palpable. The propagandistic posters unabashedly declaring WE WILL WIN (HAKHTELUENQ) are still up in some parts of the country, even though the war is long over, and Armenia has decisively lost.  

INTENRATIONAL

Unfortunately, the situation was little better outside Armenia with regards to the information war. Several Armenian advocacy organizations failed to convey a message that was unbiased and informative with regards to the Artsakh war. Instead, many of the social media campaigns and political initiatives of these organizations amounted to nothing more than jingoistic propaganda offensives.

Whereas some Diasporan organizations attempted to provide unbiased newsletters and coverage which was as informative as possible, other organizations resorted to barely disguised Islamophobic and racist rhetoric, depicting the Azeri assault on Artsakh as part of a wider Jihadist conspiracy to seize Armenia and ultimately Europe. 

Several such entities put out simplistic and badly translated posters declaring that the Azeris “have no culture or history” or that “Coca-Cola is older than Azerbaijan”.

Suffice it to say that none of this drivel was effective in any significant way in terms of garnering sympathy for Armenia in the international space. It certainly didn’t help that on top of this some advocacy organizations in the diaspora went so far as to ridicule and belittle Western social justice movements such as BLM, arguing that the world only pays attention to such ‘meaningless’ issues but ignores Artsakh.

If anything, all of this worked to portray Armenians as close-minded racists and sectarians. 

In fact, the tone of the rhetoric put out by some advocacy organizations had much in common with fringe parties of the Armenian opposition such as the Lusavor Hayastan and Kamq, both of which espouse radical nationalist ideas. In other words, the sentiment reflected in these media campaigns was hardly indicative of the political opinions held by the majority of Armenians in Armenia.

Indeed, it is a striking but unmistakable reality that much of the diaspora appears to be vocally more nationalistic and sectarian than Hayastantsis.

Of all these errant Armenian diaspora organizations, few was as out of touch as the Armenian National Congress of America (ANCA), whose social media content and political ‘initiatives’ did nothing more than to echo the most radical and uncompromising minority of the Armenian body politics (which is opposed to Pashinyan’s government in any case, and some of which is allegedly Russian funded). In other words, the social media campaigns coordinated by ANCA and its counterparts did little in the way of persuading outsiders to see the Armenian perspective.

Instead, they catered to the nationalistic and sectarian fervor of a sliver of the diaspora, and of a small slice of the Hayastantsis. 

If one was to rely exclusively on ANCA to represent the Armenian side in this conflict, you would think that Armenia was utterly unwilling to compromise with Azerbaijan and allow Azeri and Kurdish refugees to return to historically Azeri lands in what was Artsakh. This narrative is of course contradicted by the many Armenians living in border regions and within Artsakh – many of whom are now refugees themselves – who wanted nothing more than to end this conflict and see their Muslim neighbors return home.

Diaspora organizations such as ANCA effectively erased the voices of tens of thousands of Armenians for whom the Nagorno Karabakh conflict is not an abstract concept of nationalistic pride but is instead a reality they live with every day. Given that they are directly affected by this conflict, their opinion is far more important than that of a coterie of sectarian fools in Madrid. F0r these people, the idea of "defending Armenia’s chauvinistic grandeur from compromise with those dirty Turks (Azeris)" is utterly foreign.

The central concern for these people is the same as for many of us: they want a safe place to live, a safe place to raise children, and a chance at decent economic and educational opportunities. 

But they also sorely need certainty, stability, and normalcy in their lives. For many of the residents of Armenia’s border regions, and of the former provinces of Artsakh, their sole wish was to live in peace on their ancestral land alongside their Muslim neighbors. For them, sectarianism and racism were the two demons that denied them this most fervent wish, that exploded their hopes, and demolished their dreams.   

Nationalist rhetoric has done nothing to address these needs. In fact, it arguably played a key role in ensuring that this reality can never materialize. 

In the 30 years during which it held Artsakh, Armenia could have exploited its brief advantage to end this conflict once and for all via reconciliation. We could have seen the beginnings of a peaceful settlement during the Pashinyan administration, or earlier still. This is not to say that all the divisions between Azeris and Armenians would have simply disappeared, but it would have been a good start.

But a foolish sense of pride – and a fear that stooping to compromise would mean losing face with the Armenian people – has precluded any chance of realizing this vision.

Bad Reputation

Even though Armenia – alongside Georgia – is one of the only democracies in the Caucasus, Armenia is often regarded negatively or even with apathy on the world stage. Much of this has to do with factors beyond Armenia’s control. If we could flood the world’s capitals with billions of petrodollars, I am sure the world would suddenly look upon us far more favorably. 

Alas, there is little chance of this happening.

But our image is not completely outside our control. We could have done far more to make better use of the resources we have in this regard. Armenia has a strong lobbying arm in the form of diaspora organizations in France, in the United States, and in Russia. However, as with the case of ANCA, some of these organizations opted for an approach which was heavy on the chauvinism and light on impartiality.

The results were predictable and reflect themselves in the way the world sees us and in the way the world sees Azerbaijan. 

Despite the rash of Islamophobia that seems to only be worsening in the Western world, the West generally views Muslim Azerbaijan in a decidedly positive light. Some in the West seem to believe – despite everything – that it is Azerbaijan that is the secular, progressive and democratic nation in this fight, and that Armenia is its opposite in this regard. 

This is indicative of just how effective Azerbaijan’s multi-million-dollar publicity campaign has been, but it is also a sign of how ineffective our own efforts have been.

It is an unavoidable reality that Armenia will never have as many financial resources as Azerbaijan. 

Azeri oil money has made good friends in many capital cities, from Washington to Moscow. Afterall, the chasm of difference between how Western outlets cover the two sides couldn’t be more evident, and the Armenian perspective is constantly put to one side in favor of an unbalanced narrative. 

Nevertheless, Armenians could almost certainly put the resources they do have to better use.

The cause for Artsakh is in many ways one that is fundamentally good. It is a prima facie example of an unjust scenario that should be unacceptable in the modern world: that in which people are permanently removed from their native land via military force and cultural erasure. It is in effect one of the most flagrant violations of the founding principles of human rights and international law.

This is a cause that could easily garner international solidarity, in much the same way that the cause of the Uighurs or that of the Palestinians does. In other words, if more posts on social media had focused on human suffering endured in Artsakh, and not on wild conspiracies of Pan-Turkic "Elders of Zion" type nonsense, our information war may have been far more effective. 

The World That We Live In

But the failure of justice here is also a sign of a wider failure in international geopolitics. The current international status quo is one that is fundamentally bereft of morality. It is a system in which those nations that are poorest and least able to defend themselves are subjected to humiliation and terrible punishment for their weakness.

Alas, this is not the punishment of a capricious God as some Armenian apostolic priests believe, but merely the suffering entailed when the course of geopolitics is dictated by instrumentalist solutions and financial incentives. 

In such a broken system, the Uighurs can be gradually brought to kneel by a brutal systematic campaign of cultural erasure (whilst their Turkic brothers remain stoically silent lest they rouse the anger of the dragon in Beijing), the Palestinians can be slowly but surely bombed into nonexistence and have their land stolen out from under them, and the Armenians can endure a similar fate for the sake of the imperialist designs of racist, cruel, and corrupt regimes.

In our world, none of this is personal. It’s just business.

And it's repulsive in the strongest sense of the word. It’s almost as repulsive as the sheer apathy and silence of a world that allows such a situation to continue, without so much as batting an eyebrow.

The question thus becomes, what is to be done?

As much as our most cynical inclinations may refuse to accept it, we could live in a world that is fairer and comes closer to the ideals of justice and democracy that so many world leaders publicly espouse. The world doesn’t have to be defined by senseless conflicts over resources, or over religious and racial blood feuds. The past century of human existence was punctuated by some of the greatest atrocities in our history. 

But the past does not and should not predetermine the future. Rather, the past should help us to map a better future.

What is so desperately needed in trying times such as these is a basic acceptance that we are all humans, and as such all have basic human needs that transcend national boundaries, race, and religion. If the governments of the world strove to meet those needs, rather than to meet the needs of a select few businessmen in Moscow, Baku, London, Beijing, and Washington, the world would be so much better for it.   

Thoughts? Comments? Email your thoughts to contrarypedant@gmail.com! Click subscribe to get email notifications!