The next episode of the “Dilemma” podcast dedicated to security issues focuses on the challenges of independent statehood and identity, their impact on security, problems arising from the clash between national perceptions and concrete situations, how political nations use identity to reinterpret and transform conflicts, and the reflection of all this, for example, in Armenian-Turkish relations.
The guests of the program are Dr. Ashot Voskanyan, Doctor of Philosophical Sciences, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, and Gor Madoyan, publicist and media expert. The conversation is led by Areg Kochinyan, head of the “Research Center on Security Policy.”
Ashot Voskanyan
“Identity is not just a path, but also a commitment”…
…”We are not going to Europe, not that we’re not going yet, but we are fundamentally going in the opposite direction. We’re not going because we principally reject that cultural tradition should be subject to criticism, we principally reject that there should be solidarity between social groups, on the contrary – one social group tries to maximally suppress the other, and finally we laugh at anyone who says that we should base ourselves in moral principles.”
Gor Madoyan
“We don’t accumulate resources for future challenges or steps that would help us transform our identity, state, strengthen it, have new institutions, or come with transformed institutions. We simply put resources on existing problems in the present.”
Areg Kochinyan
“In essence, we have never been a political nation, up until very recently. We are becoming a political nation in the 21st century. The 21st century is our time to build a political nation, which is a very painful realization…
Being a person with three, four, five thousand years of history and having such a heavy burden in perceptions and identity, and at the same time being able to understand that you are just now building the concept of a ‘political nation’ – it’s very difficult.”
