Ara Harutyunyan: The Crisis of Armenia’s State Symbols and Systemic Flaws in Its Thinking Model

Publicist, intellectual, and scholar Ara Harutyunyan was a guest on a recent episode of Boris Murazi’s program, where he raised a series of acute issues regarding public consciousness in Armenia, perceptions of the authorities, the perception of the authorities, spiritual role, and historical responsibility.

Harutyunyan’s remarks centered on the view that Armenia has lived for decades without a state-minded thinking model. The consequences of this deficit, he argued, have manifested in the quality of governance, security policy, and the steady erosion of public resilience.

Immitation of Statehood

Harutyunyan’s core argument was that Armenia has built a state without cultivating the knowledge, culture, and standards of responsibility required for true statehood. According to him, from the moment of independence, society has been guided not by institutional thinking but by behavioral patterns more characteristic of a clan-based system of governance. As a result, officials were elected not for their competence but under the influence of propaganda; accountability rested not on systemic reporting mechanisms but on personal loyalty to a particular leader; and the state itself functioned less as an institutional structure and more as an image embodied by whoever held power at the time.

Harutyunyan stressed that for many years Armenia’s political elite have been the product of what he called “technological meanness” rather than genuine expertise

Unprepared Public and Military- Political Vulnerability

One of the central ideas in Harutyunyan’s analysis was that Armenia failed to recognize the signs of impending war - not in 2020, not in 2016, and not even in the late 1990s. As he noted:

• Azerbaijan upgraded its military industry;
• developed extensive lobbying networks;
• and built a confident, proactive foreign policy.

Meanwhile, Armenia produced vivid but hollow messaging rooted in national euphoria and the mythologization of past victories. “We were busy mocking the adversary and underestimating the real threats,” Harutyunyan said.

This, he argued, created a distinctly Armenian paradox in perceptions of military strength: flamboyant rhetoric without real military capability.

Manipulating Historical Memory and the Loss of Subjectivity

Harutyunyan described as dangerous the narratives claiming that Armenian-Turkish historical conflicts were primarily the “result of Russian provocations.” Such interpretations, he argued, attempt to revise the economic, political, and cultural foundations of the Armenian Genocide, reducing it to a mere component of contemporary political maneuvering.

As a counterexample, he referenced his own family’s experience, stressing that the tragedy of the Genocide could not possibly be explained as a consequence of “the political situation of recent decades.” In his view, these revisionist theories pave the way for the growing influence of Turkish narratives within Armenia, thereby weakening the country’s own subjectivity.

Crisis of Religious Identity as a Political Issue

Harutyunyan views the crisis of religious identity as a political threat. He argues that Armenian society embraced Christianity not as a value system, but as a compulsory ritual.

This, he believes, has led to:

• a weakening of the instinct for self-preservation,
• the development of a distorted model of obedience,
• and a lack of cultural responsibility.

According to Harutyunyan, the Reformation - an event that fundamentally reshaped relations between church and state in the Western Christian world - never took place in the Armenian context. This absence, he argues, became one of the factors contributing to the people’s psychological vulnerability.

Mechanical “Dehumanization” of Politics

In his conversation with Murazi, Harutyunyan sharply criticized the notion that Armenia can exist outside global competition. “A country that does not fight for its place turns into an object,” he said. In his view, such a mentality threatens the very foundations of statehood.

According to Harutyunyan, Armenia is gradually transforming from an actor into a playground —a country without strategic objectives, without a competitive political framework, and without a confident foreign policy stance.

The Public Tribunal's Conclusion

Experts from the Public Tribunal project noted that the dialogue between Murazi and Harutyunyan not only highlighted existing problems but also offered a systemic analysis of why Armenia has reached its current state of crisis.

Harutyunyan’s concluding statement encapsulated the essence of the interview:

“We will continue losing until we understand what a state is and what responsibilities independence entails. Defeat is not predetermined - it is the product of a mentality.”