By Souren A. Israelyan
Special to the Mirror-Spectator
The Second Karabakh War and its aftermath left undeniably deep wounds for the Republic of Armenia and the Armenian nation spread throughout the world. The wounds have not fully healed and emotions still run high. Thus, it is difficult to objectively self-assess, a step necessary for healing. Added to the difficulty is that an assessment necessarily involves looking back, which would bring back emotions, feelings, attitudes, etc., adding fuel to the fire. This is not unique to the Armenian nation and social psychologists can better explain the stages of the societal trauma imposed by war and the methods to overcome it to move forward. The Second Karabakh War is not the first time the Armenian nation has suffered massive trauma. The difference is that it happened in our lifetime and we should have better knowledge to understand and overcome the trauma.
A lot of discourse has run along the lines of what went wrong and who is at fault for the Second Karabakh War and its aftermath. Accordingly, there is always the “blame” dynamics. I submit that it is not a productive discourse. The better approach might be to focus collective efforts on building the nation and the country to such sovereign strengths that similar losses would be objectively improbable.
As time passes, perhaps the following few thoughts might enter our collective deliberations.
To build a strong sovereign Armenia, one has to have an agenda and national vision. Naturally, the national vision has to jive with the national strengths existing in the country and the nation. Allow me to list some of the well-known ones. You are well familiar with them and they will not create any special excitement. The point is to push the pedal to the floor on these strengths and in some cases make minor adjustments — and they would propel the country and the nation to new heights.