Continuing to Complain in Pubs and Sullenly Whine Against the Walls: Naira Zohrabyan

Member of the National Assembly from the 'Prosperous Armenia' faction Naira Zohrabyan wrote on her Facebook page: "'CATASTROPHIC' AND 'FEAR' ARE INCONCEIVABLE FOR ME.

To be honest, I decided to stretch the pause on this topic as Stanislavsky said, but it didn't happen. The existing Ministry of Culture, or rather the ministry in its current state, has decided to merge cultural organizations. I am not yet familiar with the entire rationale, but if one of the justifications will be that the Komitas String Quartet is to be handed over to the Komitas Museum Institute because, as the current head of the Ministry of Culture stated, 'they are related to each other', which probably means in translation that both have the name Komitas, then following this splendid logic, we should also merge the Komitas name's garment production unit, if it exists, or any pub if someone were to name their pub after Komitas. However, my speech is not about these mergers, the content of which we will understand when the project is presented to the government, nor is it about the fact that it turns out Sos Sargsyan is a genre. My focus is still on our intellectuals and artists, who are calling me in SOS mode these days, asking me to fight against the steps that are destroying Armenian culture. But when you say 'I agree, let's develop a logical and public agenda together and understand what we want and where we start from', they immediately vanish.

It turns out that nothing has changed and nothing is changing. A significant part of our 'heroic' intelligentsia continues to complain in various pubs, slumped over stools, and whine against the walls, but when you invite them to a public open discussion, they are afraid to come, lest the still active officials of the Ministry of Culture find out that they are 'protesting'.

So where are we going, and where are you going? For me, the concepts of intellectual and fear are antonyms. Because a true artist and intellectual cannot be afraid of public speech and discussion. And when the country’s intelligentsia, or a significant part of it, is mute, in that environment even Sos Sargsyan will become a genre, and the Komitas Quartet and the Komitas garment factory will merge, because, as has already been said, 'they are related to each other'.