Armenism is a way of thinking, a worldview, an ideology, a belief. Armenism has existed since the emergence of the Armenian identity. It is a collective understanding of Armenians about themselves and their role in life and the world at large. This concept had no tangible status in the past, because there was no need for its material existence, however, Armenism had brought forth the Armenian civilization of Aratta or Ararat back in 6,000-5,000 BC, giving birth to Armenian nation, Armenian language, folklore, customs, music, literature, science, national cuisine, traditions and cultural heritage in general.
Through out the millennia Armenism was rather spiritual embodiment of Armenian people, collective vision about their national identity and unique belief about their collective role in the world, their national mission in life. Armenism is the concept of being Armenian, the “Armenianness”, the Armenosphere”.
This collective understanding of Armenian people about themselves received its shattering blow with the fall of the last Armenian kingdom, the kingdom of Cilicia in the late 1200s, due to the massive invasion of Seljuk Turks into the region of Anatolia and Mesopotamia, followed by the Armenian Genocides of 1875-1885 and 1915-1923, when more than half of the Armenian nation was brutally massacred in Western Armenia by the hands of the Turkish government and its loyal gangs.
Today, as a result of our devastating past not so far back ago, with the great loss of our historical homeland in Western Armenia and Eastern Armenia, with the quantitative loss of Armenian people, several centuries long Turkish oppression and collective suffering for many centuries, Armenism felt the urge to take shape and embody itself in the sacred pages of our history, to show its true potential and ability to empower Armenian people and the Armenian state with a resurrected collective psyche to ensure and secure our place in the world and live on as a nation and state through out history into the eternity.
Why Armenism?
Armenism is the way for our progress, because we believe that strong awareness of one’s national character, one’s national soul and cultural identity gives birth to strong individuals that are capable of developing a growing potential of becoming productive individuals for the benefit of the mankind. We believe that national identity of world’s leading individuals like Albert Einstein, Buddha, Mahatma Gandhi, Lev Tolstoy, Aram Khachaturian, Plato, Socrates, Mozart and many others had played a significant role in empowering them to realize their full potential as human beings, to succeed in life and extend their personally acquired skills and knowledge for the benefit of their nations, humanity, and the world at large.
We believe that individuals become great people in life by first developing their love, care and compassion toward their own family, friends and relatives, then toward their own nation, Homeland and eventually the mankind and the world at large. We do not think that a lone individual who is parentless, homeless and without fatherland, without anybody to care for him/her or develop affiliation with can succeed in life and become a fulfilled individual, able to contribute to the benefit of himself or those around him. We believe that from personal bonds and sense of compassion toward one’s close one comes forth the awareness for public good and welfare, not vice versa. That is, to love the world and the humanity at large, one needs to love and respect himself, his/her own family, nation and homeland first.
We do not consider ourselves as extremists or chauvinists, in fact we do not support or encourage that anywhere or among anyone at all, because we believe that extremism is a dangerous expressions of one’s repressed feelings and emotions, failures and personal problems, that easily blinds him/herself from the truth and the right path leading one toward the end and self-destruction with fatal outcomes to everybody else around.
When did Armenism begin to take form?
Armenism began to take form when Christianity failed to protect Armenians from the ruthless Genocide back on April 24, 1915. When the Armenian people had realized the blunder that they were living for millennia at the expense of their millions innocently dead ancestors in the Genocide while the rest of the world just watched at a distance and pity them, moreover making plots with the aggressor behind their backs. Armenism took shape under Garegin Njdeh to become known as Tseghakronutiun in the mountains of Syuniq untill the existence of the Armenian people and their republic was guaranteed.
Communism came and suppressed the great Armenian spirit but not for long. Back in 1965, Armenism began to recover itself through a new national reawakening on the streets of Yerevan and throughout the Armenian Diaspora resulting in the world recognition of the Armenian Genocide and setting forth the precedent toward the 1991 independence of the Republic of Armenia and the triumphant struggle for the liberation of Artsakh and the freedom for the Armenian people from the communist oppression and obscured insignificance in the dynamics of the world at large.
Why are you so sure about your victory?
We are sure about our victory because we believe that justice is an absolute virtue. We believe that justice is divine and is an integral part of what makes God who He is. Throughout the time, various people and cultures referred to God in various ways, and attributed such qualities as good, evil, strong or else, while Christianity in many cases referred to God as if a supra-natural love. In our believes, God is justice, and each receives what he/she deserves. We believe that justice is the basic law of the universal processes that governs the universe and everything in it. As such, we believe that Armenians and the Armenian Cause are on the side of justice.
Armenian Cause is just, and we believe that Armenians can become the guardians and promoters of justice – the disciples of the absolute truth. However being just is not enough to be victorious. Victories begin with the realization of reality and truth, and we believe that it is a reality that for the last 1700 years we were mislead by a foreign religion, which in many cases became the source of our defeats, such as the Armenian Genocide of 1915. We do not argue that Armenian Genocide occurred because of our Christian religion, but we do argue that the Armenian Genocide occurred because of our weaknesses and the source of our weaknesses we believe had roots within the Christianity itself. To not recognize this truth is to be self-defeating and self-destructive.
When we began first time in many centuries to think as warriors of justice, as guardians and disciples of the truth, when for the first time we began to believe that Armenia is the Holly Land and Armenians are the chosen people, we became victorious in the battlefields, we became victorious in our state diplomacy, we brought justice to our people and to our Fatherland. In Artsakh (Nagorno-Kharabagh) justice and truth had triumphed. God has triumphed through our people and through our struggle against historical injustice and the web of lies and deceit.
What is your opinion of the Armenian Apostolic Christian Church?
We support Armenian Apostolic church as a national institution, which did its best to preserve the Armenian identity, Armenian cultural heritage and the Armenian language for so many years. There are very few institutions like that in the world that would have such a long history of existence and continues work. However, the Armenian Church has one weakness, which is the religion that the church advocates, the Christianity per se. We find Christianity to be a cosmopolitan ideology that contradicts our national character, and as such, does not protect Armenian identity from assimilation. Christianity itself has brought so many divisions to our nation, particularly in Diaspora in terms of different denominations and neo-Christian cults that many Armenians went astray from their culture and gradually lost their Armenian identity.
An ideology that preaches of a foreign land to be a “Holy Land” and foreign nation to be “the chosen people” just contradicts to our own views about Armenia and the Armenian people, and this is where the main difference between the ideologies of Armenists and the Armenian Apostolic Church arises. We are willing to cooperate with the Armenian Apostolic Church on the national issues that may strengthen the Armenian people and Armenia. However, we cannot compromise our beliefs.
Do you not afraid that your ideology may divide Armenians even further?
No, we do not think that our ideology will divide Armenians any further, because it is our view that Armenians are so divided already, that there is no room for any greater division. On the contrary, we believe that our ideology will serve to unite the Armenians all over the world and focus their main attention, skills and knowledge on strengthening Armenia and the Armenian nation around its ethno-linguistic identity, cultural heritage, the Armenian Cause and our Fatherland.
Why do you oppose Christianity so much?
We oppose Christian ideology because we know that Christianity has nothing to do with nationalism. By its nature, Christianity is anti-national idea with a corrupt mythology stolen from the ancient Sumerians, Egyptians, Babylonians and Iranians. As a religion, Christianity does not recognize the existence of national cultures and ethno-linguistic groups. Christianity does not recognize the importance of nation-states and national borders, it does not recognize the idea of Fatherland as such.
Some nations tried to use the Old Testament or New Testament for their own good to strengthen their own nations and countries, yet the Armenian Apostolic Church has failed to do so, therefore, we find Christianity as irrelevant to the efforts of strengthening Armenia and the Armenian people, because it does not correspond to our national character and does not encourage the creation of a stronger Armenia.
