Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Kremlin Propaganda-Chief Asks Armenians To Speak Russian

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Kremlin Propaganda-Chief Asks Armenians To Speak Russian

    KREMLIN PROPAGANDA-CHIEF ASKS ARMENIANS TO SPEAK RUSSIAN

    EurasiaNet.org
    June 12 2014

    June 12, 2014 - 8:47am, by Giorgi Lomsadze

    If Armenians want to feel safe, they have got to speak Russian,
    Moscow's propagandist-in-chief, Russian media-personality Dmitry
    Kiselyov, has instructed Russia's somewhat reluctant Caucasus ally,
    Armenia.

    "I sat in a cab today and the 20-year-old guy could not even count
    in Russian," complained the head of the Russian state news service,
    Rossiya Segodnya (Russia Today), at a June 11 parliamentary gathering
    in the Armenian capital, Yerevan. A tense exchange with Armenian
    politicians ensued.

    While the line may sound like an ignorant tourist's throwaway
    complaint, the comments, in the context of Russian-Armenian
    relations, chafed a sensitive nerve. Many Armenians think that their
    country already has compromised much of its sovereignty by becoming
    increasingly dependent on Russian money, energy and defense. Criticism
    delivered in the style of a colonial master does nothing to correct
    that view.

    By July 1 (after a few delays), Armenia is expected to enter the
    Eurasian Union, essentially Moscow's response to the European Union.

    It already is part of the Collective Security Treaty Organization
    (CSTO), the Moscow-led counterweight to NATO. The country has
    effectively surrendered much of its energy supply system to Russian
    energy monolith Gazprom and much of its income generation depends on
    what migrants send home from Russia.

    But Kisilyov, who shot to international notoriety for his nationalist,
    neo-Soviet coverage of the Crimea crisis, thinks Armenia has not
    done enough.

    "Russian culture is becoming of secondary importance," lectured
    Kiselyov, who also hosts a prime time show on Russian state TV .

    "Russia, in the CSTO framework, took upon itself providing security
    for Armenia. And what is happening to the Russian language in Armenia?

    It is simply disappearing.... The question is what is Armenia doing
    not to let this happen."

    In a country that spent centuries going through fire and water to
    preserve its national identity and language, not all would agree that
    that is the question.

    Armenia already lifted a ban on foreign-language schools, adopted 25
    years ago in a fit of resurgent nationalism. Russian is a mandatory
    subject in schools and Moscow has come up with a slew of initiatives to
    promote Russian language and culture in Armenia - all to the backdrop
    of grumblings by Armenian culture figures.

    Diplomatic sensitivity may not be the strongest suit of Kiselyov,
    who famously said that Russia could "reduce the United States to
    radioactive dust." But the diplomat in the house, former Russian
    ambassador to Armenia Vyacheslav Kovalenko, a 68-year-old, Soviet-era
    functionary who represented Moscow in Tbilisi during Russia's 2008
    war with Georgia, only pushed the line further.

    "You can't choose one union for security-related integration and
    another one for cultural purposes," Kovalenko was quoted by RFE/RL's
    Armenian service as saying.

    Moscow will hardly make friends with such neo-colonial finger-wagging,
    but then it may be content with having an ally who is a hostage to
    geopolitical circumstance, rather than a friend.

    http://www.eurasianet.org/node/68551


    From: Baghdasarian
Working...
X