The Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute is first of all an academic structure. Therefore, the key principle of its leader should be the non-negotiable protection of academic freedom.

No academic institution is obligated to serve the government’s agenda, be it in the field of foreign or domestic policy. And if it turns into a service tool for that agenda, it ceases to be a scientific institution and turns into a propaganda platform.

For your information, presenting a book about Artsakh to a foreign official is not politics, as the head of the government thinks. It is unfortunate that the understanding of foreign policy is limited to such superficial perceptions. Although, it must be admitted that this circumstance explains a lot.

Moreover, conducting research that does not fit into the state agenda and publicizing its results cannot under any circumstances contradict statehood. On the contrary, this is the natural function of a scientific institution. The question “Are we a state or a self-made group?” is just a misleading trick here. The state is not built by mind control and adapting political conjuncture science. Unless, of course, there is an intention to adopt Orwell’s “thought police” model.

Unfortunately, this distortion of ideas about the state and statehood reveals a deeper problem, which is the government’s incomplete understanding of the nature of science and the role of public institutions. When science is tried to be measured by the standards of political convenience, the state begins to lose one of its most important pillars: free thought.

Energy security expert Vahe Davtyan

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