English translation of an anti-Diaspora post made by National Security chief Alen Simonyan on Oct. 6
BY ARA KHACHATOURIAN
In a vile and revolting post on X, Armenia’s National Security chief Alen Simonyan disparaged the Diaspora, telling Diaspora Armenians, whom he called “fake patriots,” to “stay away from our country” or move to Armenia.
“It is utterly repulsive to see those ‘fake patriots’—living in the U.S. or France with their distorted Armenian surnames and long since detached from reality—publishing maps from 3,000 years ago while sitting 3,000 kilometers away and preaching about patriotism. Talking is fine—let them talk—but they also hurl insults and spout nonsense,” Simonyan said in his post.
“You have neither the right, nor the information, nor the moral standing to do so. Come live in Armenia, pay taxes; let your children stand guard at the border instead of going to McDonald’s; let them see the real Mount Ararat instead of just a picture of it; let them climb Mount Aragats and eat khash,” he went on to rant.
“And if they really want to do something, let them give up their comfortable salaries and come work here for the very salaries and bonuses that are so heavily criticized. Until you do that, stay away from our country and our politics. And keep your tongues in check. You have chosen to stay away from Armenia—well, away from us,” he concluded.
A diaspora is a political entity. It is when a group of people are displaced and are forced to live outside of the homeland.
It is one thing that this man heads Armenia’s national security yet he has so much free time to spew vitriol on social media, but it is another fact that the person occupying this critical role in Armenia’s government has no concept, whatsoever, of what a diaspora is and what the Armenian Diaspora has done throughout its existence, including keeping the ideal of an independent Armenia alive and the struggle for Armenia’s right to a homeland.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s government, in its effort to rebrand the concept of the homeland by introducing the so-called “Real Armenia” doctrine, has gone to great lengths to dismantle national institutions and concepts. He went from “Artsakh is Armenia, period” in 2019 to Artsakh is part of Azerbaijan and now the mere mention of the word Artsakh sends shivers down his and his cronies’ backs. Then there is the crusade against the Armenian Church, based on very nebulous moral objections.
But, throughout his administration, one thing has been clear: the Diaspora should be kept at arms length at all costs. That is why getting Armenian citizenship has become more difficult, with an obscure vetting process that create hurdles for an Armenian to seek citizenship in one’s own homeland. While other nations welcome their diasporas’ presence in the every-day life of their countries, Armenia is content with the 2.5 million residents of Armenia.
Posts, like the one Alen Simonyan made on Tuesday, does not—and will not—encourage any of the 8 million Diasporans to move to Armenia, let alone conform to the narrow-minded “Real Armenia” doctrine.
Then again, neither would Alen Simonyan’s failure as National Security chief to prevent a breach of our national border last week, when an Azerbaijani soldier entered the home of a villager, shot a woman, seriously injuring her, and held her children at gunpoint.
Pashinyan on Wednesday downplayed the incident and even rebuked the seriously injured woman—the victim—who was protecting her home and her family, telling lawmakers that she should have waited for law enforcement to arrive.
My maternal grandfather, Khoren Ter-Sarkissian, hailed from the village of Dzitogh in Erzerum. He survived the Armenian Genocide and moved to Eastern Armenia, where he married my grandmother, Satenik, who was from the Harav village in Artsakh. Her family, who continued to reside in that village—in the very home she was born in—was forcibly displaced in September 2023.
I, and millions of other Armenians who were born in the Diaspora because our ancestors barely escaped the Armenian Genocide, were raised with the aspiration of having a homeland. We proudly learned and preserved our history and culture and dreamed of an independent Armenia. Apparently, that’s what makes us “fake patriots” as Armenia’s National Security chief put it.
So when Alen Simonyan was 11 years old when Armenia regained its independence in 1991, it was because we, our parents and grandparents, who had endured genocide and other forms of discrimination in our host countries, including in the United States and France, had kept the dream of an independent Armenia alive and passed it on to younger generations—the Independence Generation—who while not living in Armenia, certainly consider it their home.
I am the Executive Editor of Asbarez. This newspaper has chronicled the triumphs and the hardships our community in the Western United States has gone through for almost 120 years. I am humbled to be the steward of this institution that has not only covered the trials and tribulations Armenians went through to rebuild their lives after the Armenian Genocide, but also the blood, sweat and tears it expended to create institutions—schools, community centers, churches and organizations—to ensure that generations of Armenians would flourish with a spirit of advancing our Nation and Homeland.
What would Armenia have done in the aftermath of the 1988 Earthquake without the Diaspora’s help? Alen Simonyan was 8 when that devastation befell our Nation. What would Armenia have done without the Diaspora during the early days of independence when there was no electricity, food and our brethren were fighting our enemies in Artsakh? And if it weren’t for the Diaspora, would legislatures, such as the U.S. Congress, allocate millions of dollars in assistance to Armenia during the past 35 years? Assistance, which most certainly Alen Simonyan benefitted from.
Has Alen Simonyan, during his political career, traveled to any of the Diaspora communities that he so grossly denigrates and disparages? Has he gotten to know what fuels these communities? Has he visited the schools, the community centers and the churches that make the Diaspora an inseparable part of the homeland? Or, has he merely visited the United States and France and dined in exclusive restaurants in Beverly Hills and Paris that most Diasporan Armenians cannot afford. Apparently that’s the life of a “real patriot” fighting for a “Real Armenia.”
Our enemies—Turkey and Azerbaijan—have always targeted the Armenian Diaspora. Case in point, the chokehold Turkey has had on the U.S. on the matter of the Armenian Genocide recognition.
If Alen Simonyan were a lay person in Armenia and opted to pepper social media with his vulgarities, I probably wouldn’t have given it a second thought. But, he is Armenia’s—my country’s—National Security chief. Turkish and Azerbaijani officials are having a field day right now. Perhaps they will congratulate him next time he is negotiating for Armenia’s energy dependence on Baku and Ankara.
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