Some years ago, I bought a stunningly beautiful book about Nagorno Karabakh. It is introduced by  a delightful and utterly thought provoking essay acting as an introduction, and it also contains many outstanding  photographs of this locus  of Armenian civilization. The photographs are worthy of weeks of contemplation. I had vague plans to visit this destination at some point because I have long been interested in Armenia. As I write this however, any plans need to be permanently  abandoned, not because I have changed my mind, but because the destination, the hauntingly beautiful  place of the photographs has been eliminated. Azerbaijan has taken the region, and in an extraordinarily poignant, correction, a  heartbreaking episode, the entire population of Artsakh left their ancestral homeland, for good. Now it is empty of Armenians. This would be a powerful enough statement if it were  related to any other ethnic group, but those fleeing  are Armenians, and this has happened again and again to Armenians; now it happens again.

This brutal capture of land was carried out in full view of all the world powers, including the  fickle and even downright treacherous allies of the Armenians over the years.  A land was rendered empty of its original inhabitants with one fell swoop. The media discussed it to some extent; dryly and  legalistically, and we all know they were keen to move away from a rather depressing, but, crucially a potentially  rather uncomfortable story.

There were no riots, no marches, no demonstrations to oppose, even to mourn the death of what was clearly once a civilization. As university campuses explode with indignation and rage in America for Palestinians,  I recall that there was not a word spoken in favour of Armenians that I was aware of in the West. Azerbaijan had carried out a fait accompli worthy of Hitler,  and as Hitler predicted in 1939, no one cared. The age old enmity of Muslim Turkic peoples against Christian Armenians had scored another cruel victory, and it has barely raised a murmur.

There are disturbing parallels with 1999. In 1999, the West, through NATO, went to war against Serbia. The final result, was the detachment of the autonomous province of Kosovo from Yugoslavia. NATO’s victory was followed by an anti-Serbian pogrom. As in the case of Artsakh,an exodus of Christian Serbs  occurred, (as it had in 1995 after the successful Storn  offensive) Kosovo rejoiced that it was becoming a mono- ethnic state. The multi culturalism enamoured  West rejoiced too, few were the voices that decried the expulsion of an ancient civilization and the remoulding of Kosovo into an exclusively Albanian statelet. Another civilization was eliminated. Though Serbs remain in Kosovo- much to the distaste of the global media – the culture has been maimed, and the amoral West stands, armed to the teeth, ready to attack Serbia if it should have the audacity to try and take back its stolen province.

Two Christian civilizations extirpated. One destruction was conceived of and implemented by the West, the other was connived at and given tacit approval. The producer of the Karabagh book writes of the crucial importance of “ History- Land-Man -Spirit “ (He would perhaps be oblivious to the contentious nature of all of those  word categories in the contemporary West ! )  In other words, the need for roots and ancestral belonging, linked to faith and identity are yearnings that ought to be enshrined in the minds and pens of policy makers.  These  terms, and enduring notions  apply equally to Serbs of Kosovo, and I often wonder if that is why the rootless, narcissistic yet self-destructive West chose to pulverise one and turn a blind eye to the destruction of the other ? The West is the very antithesis of those noble terms, History- Land – Man – Spirit, the contemporary West is plastic, degenerate,  and perversely, self loathingly tolerant of those which despises it. The nobility of land- spirit – man is inconceivable to the modern Western mind, perhaps partially because  history is forbidden. Thus, destroy, or permit to be destroyed that which shames you.