Epress.am News from Armenia
Yesterday, local daily Haykakan Jamanak received an envelope from its chief editor, imprisoned journalist Nikol Pashinyan. This is the first package that the editorial office has received from Pashinyan since Nov. 13, 2010. Recall that after Pashinyan was moved to Artik penitentiary, the newspaper stopped receiving his articles. On numerous occasions, Pashinyan said he wrote daily and submitted his articles to prison staff, but only the last, which was submitted to prison administration on Jan. 9 in the presence of Artur Sakunts, head of a citizens’ group monitoring prisons in Armenia, reached its destination.
The article, written on Dec. 23, 2010, appears, in part, below:
“Fear has overtaken me, a terrible fear. I am afraid to disappoint… Snippets from online conversations reach me, in which users express their opinions about me. They are many, diverse, from wholly negative to wholeheartedly positive. My fear is before the latter group, those, to put it mildly, say positive things about me. To put it mildly. There are opinions that long ago crossed the limits of average positive [comments].”
Pashinyan goes on to quote one Facebook user, who apparently said: “Remembering him, I believe in morality, will, honesty; remembering him, I try not to betray myself.” Pashinyan says that though it’s nice to hear such comments aimed at him, it is also caused him to be afraid:
“From the moment that I picked up a pen for the first time and wrote a story, I proved to myself, that I am now a public figure, and I wanted, very much wanted, to be flawless. Flawless in honesty, flawless in morality, flawless in righteousness, flawless with my aims… I won’t say that I’ve subverted this work, but flaws, as you know, have come up.
“Honest, faultless, righteous, moral, unselfish: when I come across such words to describe me, even in minor cases, I regret that I could not be perfect, and never will I be able to.
“Next, I fear that the use of such words, epithets, are proof that the person in question, the author, that one person, that +1, the single satellite, has searched for something important to him and found it in my actions. He is inspired by me, proud, amazed, and receives a small, but important positive charge from that, perhaps becoming a participant in the struggle for a Free and Happy Armenia and does so thinking that I, Nikol Pashinyan, am honest, righteous, moral, unselfish. And here is where the fear arises.
“And what would happen to that man if one day he finds out that that same Nikol Pashinyan in this or that year at this or that place made a dishonest step toward such and such a person.
[…]“I have wished, always wished, to be flawless because I have understood that I am accountable before others, for others… Life, lifestyle, the race, competition, and sometimes hopelessness brought about those flaws. There were wrong and suspicious deeds.
“A fear has overtaken me. I am afraid to disappoint.
“P.S. I am also afraid of you misinterpreting what I wrote. Don’t misunderstand. And don’t be afraid. I won’t disappoint.”