Citizens educated by Armenian history textbooks failed to understand the relation and impact of the processes taking place in the world on the developments in our region, which determined the future of Armenia and, naturally, the destiny of Artsakh.
What's wrong with the textbooks? The textbooks have presented Armenia as an area isolated from the processes taking place in the world of that time, with heroes and anti-heroes, devotees and traitors, martyrs of faith and insidious enemies who conquered our territories. However, those textbooks did not present the global processes of that time, the civilizational and ideological struggle, and the confrontations over control of trade routes, climate change and the resulting consequences of the movement of peoples, as well as the social, legal and economic problems of Armenia, which caused the events taking place at that time.
If we had looked at our history from that point of view, we would have been able to soberly discuss today the mistakes and right decisions of this or that politician and statesman, without emotional assessments. In this way, for example, we can address the real causes of the Battle of Avarayr, as well as its social and economic aspects, taking into account the logic of the struggle of the superpowers of that time. In this way we could assess the geopolitical reasons for the Armenian Apostolic Church not joining the Chalcedon Conference, which played a decisive role for our future.
At school, students accept textbook material without criticism as the ultimate truth, which shapes their worldview. The main purpose of textbooks should be to instill a broad worldview in order to soberly assess today's reality. Why is this important today? When history is presented in the light of the logic of global civilization, economic, ideological tides in the world, the perceptions on the world, history and politics change, as a result of which they are analyzed by people in broader aspects.
Thus, following the thoughts of the actors of the political and public life in Armenia, media coverage, the impression is made that the drastic changes taking place in the world today have no effect on us. Our political thought could not predetermine the possibility of war in 2020, to connect its probability with the changes taking place in the world and to pursue a preventive policy. The same thing is happening now. We do not approach the developments around Artsakh and Syunik in the logic of global change, we do not discuss possible developments and our possible steps, which should be flexible, using non-standard diplomatic approaches. As for what they have to be like, should be found out through open public discussions, but pitfalls of traditional thinking do not allow such discussions.