Dear Editor:
With utter bafflement, I read Jirair Libaridian’s response to my opinion piece of February 3. I could not imagine a more comprehensive and systematic distortion of my arguments. From the very first sentence, where Libaridian claims “Zanoyan argues that the first president Levon Ter-Petrossian’s and my realism are responsible for Armenia’s current woes” to the very end, Libaridian’s response is full of misrepresentations of my opinions. For some reason, he carefully avoids touching upon my main message, which is about the perception of future possibilities, and not about the past. He repeatedly accuses me of not finding fault in the past 22 years, when I repeatedly attributed today’s woes to the mistakes of the last 26 years, covering all three presidents and the current prime minister.
Inexplicably, Libaridian goes beyond distorting the views that I did express, to attributing to me a slew of ideas which I never even touched upon in my piece. Clearly, his painfully acute defensive anger has driven him to a stream of consciousness diatribe. He has reacted not to what I have written, but to far-fetched inferences he has chosen to make from my lines; and he has often addressed his criticism not to me, but to my “co-religionists” and “the visionaries,” whoever they may be.
I have no intention of engaging in a fruitless debate about this subject. Both pieces are available to the public. My arguments are clear and precise. I invite readers to compare what I have written with Mr. Libaridian’s response, and judge for themselves if one has any relationship with the other.
Respectfully,
Vahan Zanoyan
