The Biggest Problem I Have Faced is My Patriotism: Pashinyan

I will tell you as I tell my family: the biggest problem we have had is our patriotism. This was stated by the Prime Minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, at the Second Global Armenian Summit.

"The biggest problem I have faced is my patriotism, in the sense that this model of patriotism has nothing to do with our homeland; it is simply a model of imperial patriotism that has been imported into our social psychology through books, films, texts, speeches, characters, and images," he noted.

According to him, the problem with this model of patriotism is that there is no independent sovereignty of Armenia; rather, we have theoretical knowledge that we merely display on walls, in tables, and on cakes, but do not possess 'on the ground.'

"It would be in the interests of Armenia that I were not a patriot; this is the greatest damage I have done, that love I have for my country and my people. But I loved and still love; I just loved in one way then, and I love in another way now. The biggest problem is that the author of that love is not you, it is not me, it is a love defined by the empire, embedded within us," Pashinyan stated.