Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - *PREVIEW* History of Armenia 37: Armenia's Sad, Pathetic, Neo Nazi Movement

Episode Date: December 25, 2024

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Hey everyone, what you're about to listen to is a preview of a bonus episode that is available on our Patreon. If you like this clip, you can grab the whole episode as well as years of other bonus content at www.patreon.com Slash lions led by donkeys. So the movement also has a membership model membership model, you know, donations and so on and so forth. God, I hope it's like a pyramid scheme of some kind. I mean, of course in a way it is. This is sort of a legal umbrella though for Hike to recruit people, get donations, move funds basically.

Is there any kind of law against this kind of thing in Armenia like hate speech laws or anything? Yeah, there are, there are. And I mean, of course there are laws against it. And similarly in lots of course there are laws against it. And similarly, in lots of situations like that, what you have is far right trying to represent this as, you know, this is just freedom of speech. They're oppressing the dissent, you know. We just have a different opinion. We're being oppressed for this. However-

Why won't you battle me in the arena of ideas or whatever? I mean, hate speech, but like, you know, it has to be also accompanied with like inciting violence and so on and so forth, which later on you'll see how Haik is very well versed in those things and you know, how he tries to protect himself. He's kind of like edging. He's saying a whole bunch-

He's edging. I mean, he's saying violent things in a broad idea and hoping someone else kind of picks it up. He's Alex Jones-ing it. He constantly talks about all these enemies that we have and if you're comparing your enemies to subhuman insects who are destroying your way of life, what other options you have? He doesn't come out and say, hey you need to start killing these people, but you know he says A and B, which

doesn't say C, and hopes everybody else kind of figures out what he's putting down. Yeah exactly. So now let's take a look a little bit of what criticism Haik has received, what coverage has he received you know since the march. I have a feeling I know where this coverage is going. Maybe. There was a high-level from Russia, Israel, and of course, never disappoints, Azerbaijan. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of a give me for Azerbaijan. It's like, okay, you got Nazis in the street. 100%. Every time.

Post-Rally Russia's foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, criticized Armenia for inaction, like the Armenian government. Israel's ambassador, who's an ambassador for like Armenia and Moldova at the same time, weird thing. That's a strange pairing there. Condemned Nizhdez glorification. As I remember from that tweet, his idea was that, oh, there's these people gathering in front of this Nazi collaborators, statue and glorifying him. He didn't really know what much else, you know, was happening over there. And of course, Azerbaijan news outlets

intensified this criticism. Armenian media interviewed Haik addressing the international reactions, providing an unchallenged platform for him to portray himself as a patriot nationalist and obfuscate his neo-Nazi ties. Local media was mad that Haik Tarnish Nezhdeh's good name and generally mad that Zakharova spoke of the incident.

In short, local media did what it does best, missing the forest for the trees. I love the idea that like how dare you equate Nezhdeh with Nazis like well bro I have some bad news for you. It is so prevalent. it's like you know mind-blowing in a way. I am curious I can almost guess what happens next yeah when it comes to like specifically the diasporan response to this which is he's a plant. Oh yeah that is there. Because no Armenians would ever do this. They must be a Zary agent. Don't even drag diasporas into this.

Local media did it all their own. Oh, fuck yeah. I'm glad that me a diasporan and you a Haystansi can shake hands in the middle of our stupid conspiracy theories. 100%. So while introducing the report, a news anchor of one TV channel affiliated with Armenia's former president Robert Kurcharian, who is close friends with Putin, asked which countries

were behind the rally that carried fascist symbolism in front of Nizhdeq's statue. Nazarian told the channel that he wasn't making calls of violence and that international media was trying to tarnish them. I want to add that this is a classic example of nationalist blind rhetoric in Armenia where anything bad couldn't possibly Originate in Armenia. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. How dare they tarnish my neo-nazi rally by calling me a neo-nazi 100% but you know, he's saying he didn't make any calls of violence, right? Fair enough. I listened to the speech He didn't give any outward calls of violence if you ignore the fact that fascism

is dependent upon violence. But yeah. Yeah. Haid gave a lengthy interview to one other local media, a well-known local independent website and the newspaper. The article focused on Zaharawe's reaction. Because I mean, what else is there to talk about? We just talk about Zaharawe's reaction, right?

Yeah, let's not talk about the origins of the march at all. Yeah, exactly. Also, I love the idea that there is somehow Russian, Azeri, and other, enter a country that is plotting in Armenia to start up a group of crisis actors to make us all look like we're Nazis, and they could still muster less than 12 people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just fantastic. So to this local independent, very well-known,

pretty respected website that for some reason decided to interview Haik. Unchallenged. Yeah, completely unchallenged. So Nazarian denied the fascist qualification and called himself an Armenian nationalist again without facing any confrontation from the interviewer. While denying that he is a fascist, Haik told Aravot that fascism is not a very bad thing. I'm going to read a part of his interview. I'm not a fascist, but fascism is fine.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm not a fascist, but not that it's a very bad thing, right? So quote, we're mostly labeled fascist, neo-Nazis, et cetera, because the colors of our flag resemble the colors of the Third Reich, black, white, red. But so what if a person uses those colors that doesn't make them a so-called fascist? There are Armenian pagans who make the same greeting sign near the Garni Cathedral. Yes, and they're neo-Nazis. It is the old Aryan greeting. It does not necessarily have anything to do with fascism. Wait, the Hitler salute?

Yes. It's not that I'm saying now that fascism is very bad. There are things that, in my opinion, should be revisited. The history of the Second World War, that era in general. I don't want to get into it, but it doesn't mean that someone who holds his right hand up is a fascist. By the same logic, if someone raises his fist, is he a Bolshevik or a Marxist? Because in Europe, in international politics, whoever salutes with his fist is considered a communist. So if they gather their rallies and make fists, does it mean that they are communists?

I'll answer high. In Europe, if someone raises their right hand up like that, they are a neo-Nazi. Yeah. Yeah. You're not in fact looking for your friend who might be this tall. Yeah. All these talk about Armenian pagans and Aryans as if it's the same thing. All like this like hand gesture that Hitler didn't invent

that you can raise your goddamn hand up. And Hitler didn't invent that, just like he didn't invent the swastika. However, the context of things changed. And also the Armenian pagans. The revisiting of the second World War realities and the whole era in general. Like that's very interesting.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because normal people say that. Also the pagans, the Armenian pagans who gather at that temple are well known to in fact be neo-Nazis and believe in hardcore nejdeism. I've done an episode on them. Yeah.

Because they check their Instagram page, you know, Garni the Pagan's do salute. Yeah, and we should talk about his flag because it is red with a symbol in the middle. And that symbol, okay, I will say it does not look like a swastika. In fact, I have that symbol tattooed on my leg. However, the context of how he's using that symbol is important because when you have a red flag with a white circle in the middle and any kind of swirling design within that white circle, the implication is it's a Nazi flag. Yes, the symbol itself is a very common symbol in Armenian architecture.

In general, you know, famous Armenian hodgepodge, you know, like craving on the stones and like all that stuff. It's a very famous one. No Armenian looks at that symbol and goes, neo-Nazi. It's the goddamn colors and the framing and everything else you're doing. Right, I mean, you can see it's the symbol of the infinity or the eternal sun. And it is on some of the earliest known carvings

that you can consider Armenian civilization. It is on everything, it is everywhere. That symbol itself is not the problem. The problem is how you use it. I mean, it's similar to, I mean, like the National Bolshevik Party in Russia, who uses the same exact context of a flag, but uses the hammer and sickle instead of a swastika

in the same idea. It's like, I know what you're going for. Yeah. And remember what you said about politics. So further down this interview, Haik added, because he couldn't find an independent Armenia-centric political force to join, he's creating his own to come to power.

So he's creating a political force, and this is the first time that he's voicing this. After the rally. He can't find an Armenian-centric political party in Armenia. That's all of them. That's literally all of them, minus the one party who's like really likes the EU

All these garbage movements and like political parties in Armenia, why don't I add to the pile