Condemn the Citizens, Book the Barbecue

The Flag-Burning Tradition and Its Function

PUBLIC RECORD Public burning of a Turkish flag on April 24 is a century-old form of Armenian political expression. Its existence is a direct consequence of Turkey's continued non-recognition of the 1915 Armenian Genocide. Families across three generations of Armenian diaspora and the independent Republic of Armenia have used the April 24 flag-burning -- at the Turkish border at Margara, at the Turkish Embassy in countries where one exists, and in Yerevan -- as the most viscerally legible form of unresolved collective grief.

The act is not directed at Turkish civilians. It is directed at the Republic of Turkey as a continuing sovereign state whose predecessor (the Ottoman Empire and the Young Turk government of 1915) committed the genocide that the successor state still declines to name.

OWL covered the structural asymmetry of a Prime Minister of Armenia condemning that form of grief expression in yesterday's investigation: The Prime Minister Who Defends Turkey But Has Never Defended an Artsakh Church. Today's piece documents what happened next.

Act 2 — Speaker Simonyan's Echo

Alen Simonyan, Speaker of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia and one of Civil Contract's longest-tenured senior figures (see Left Behind #01: Alen Simonyan), publicly followed the Prime Minister's April 24 condemnation with his own. Simonyan characterised the flag-burning as «ամոթալի» -- shameful. The word is heavy in Armenian political language. It positions the speaker as morally superior to the act described; it asks listeners to side with the speaker and against the actors.

On April 24, in the Armenian context, asking listeners to side against Armenian citizens who burned a Turkish flag at a century-old grief ritual is a very specific political posture. It is not neutrality. It is not moderation. It is taking a side -- and the side is not the side of the grieving Armenians.

The fact that both the Prime Minister and the Speaker took that side on the same day is not coincidence. It is coordination. Civil Contract's two highest parliamentary-executive figures decided to make this argument together.

Act 3 — The April 25 Barbecue

The Prime Minister's scheduling of a barbecue party (Armenian «խորոված» -- khorovats, the traditional Armenian grilled meat gathering) for April 25, 2026 is a calendar choice. It is a public choice. It is a political choice.

April 25 is not a neutral day. It is the day after the Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day. In Armenian cultural practice, the day after the national commemoration is traditionally a day of continued quiet reflection, not a day of celebration. The choice to book a khorovats party for April 25, and to announce it on April 24 itself, is a performance -- a signal that the speaker considers April 24's weight lifted the moment the date ends.

The defence the government will make: "it's just a barbecue; Armenians eat khorovats; this is over-reading." OWL's response: April 25 was not chosen by accident. The Prime Minister's office has a calendar. The calendar shows what events the Prime Minister accepts, schedules, or hosts. The April 25 slot was available. It was chosen.

The One Coherent Message

Read Acts 1, 2, and 3 together:

• April 24 flag-burning grief — condemned by Pashinyan.
• April 24 flag-burning grief — called shameful by Simonyan.
• April 25 celebratory party — booked by Pashinyan.

The combination is the message. The Civil Contract political project has, in a 48-hour window surrounding the most culturally weighty day of the Armenian year, sent Armenian voters the following signal: the grief you have carried for 111 years is an embarrassment; the celebration you are permitted to enjoy begins the moment the date ends.

Not every Armenian voter will read it that way. Some will read only Act 1, or only Act 3, and reach different conclusions. Some will accept the government's framing that normalisation with Turkey requires restraint on April 24 and that life must go on. OWL does not adjudicate whether the Civil Contract posture is politically defensible. What OWL documents is the fact of the three acts and the 48-hour window in which they occurred.

What This Does To The Church-State-Opposition Tangle

Three parties have been fighting for the moral authority of Armenian national memory across the April 17-25 window:

1. Civil Contract (Pashinyan + Simonyan) -- asserting the authority to define what grief expressions are "shameful" and when the mourning window closes.
2. The Armenian Apostolic Church -- institutionally the 1,725-year-old custodian of Armenian national memory, explicitly attacked by the Prime Minister across April 21-23 (see Etchmiadzin attack and candle-money attack).
3. The consolidated opposition («Ապրելու Երկիր» + «Հզոր Հայաստան», see April 21 MoU) -- positioning itself as the defender of traditional Armenian national memory against what it characterises as Civil Contract's normalisation-first retreat.

The April 25 barbecue is not a decisive event. It is a calendar datapoint. But it is a calendar datapoint that maps neatly onto a larger question voters will decide on June 7: whose Armenia is this?

What The Diaspora Will Read

The Armenian diaspora -- the six-million-plus Armenians living outside the Republic, many descended directly from 1915 Genocide survivors -- is, on April 24, the most culturally active constituency in the entire Armenian identity sphere. Washington DC, Los Angeles, Paris, Marseilles, Beirut, Aleppo, Tehran, Moscow, Buenos Aires, São Paulo -- all have April 24 processions, events, political activity. The diaspora reads Yerevan signals very closely on April 24.

What the diaspora will see in the April 24-25 window: a Prime Minister of Armenia condemning Armenian citizens on Genocide Day, a Speaker calling Armenian grief "shameful," and a PM scheduling celebration the day after. This will be absorbed into a diaspora political-communication ecosystem that was already skeptical of the Pashinyan government's normalisation posture. What it does to diaspora donations, diaspora political activity, and diaspora support for the June 7 election is not a question OWL can answer. What we can say: the signal does not help Civil Contract with the diaspora.

The Five-Day Window — OWL's Full Stack

What OWL Will Track

• The full text of Simonyan's "shameful" statement as published in Armenian-language media.
• Photography and coverage from the April 25 khorovats gathering itself -- who attends, where, how it is framed by state media.
• Any opposition response from the «Ապրելու Երկիր» + «Հզոր Հայաստան» consolidated bloc.
• Catholicos-level response to the 48-hour Civil Contract window.
• Diaspora organisation statements (ANCA, AGBU, AAA, Eastern Prelacy, Western Prelacy).

Cross-References Inside OWL

• The PM Who Defends Turkey But Has Never Defended an Artsakh Church
• "Holy Etchmiadzin Is Polluted, Infected"
• "Candle Money for G-Class Mercedes"
• The Church Is Not His to Command
• The Stones of Tsitsernakaberd
• Left Behind #01: Alen Simonyan

Sources

• Pashinyan April 24, 2026 condemnation of flag-burning (Armenian-language media, same-day reporting).
• Speaker of the National Assembly Alen Simonyan April 24, 2026 statement characterising the flag-burning as «ամոթալի».
• Public announcement of April 25, 2026 khorovats gathering (Prime Minister's office communications).
• Historical record of Armenian April 24 commemorations including flag-burning tradition.

OWL is an anonymous collective of Armenian journalists. We take no money from any political party, bloc, movement, oligarch, foreign government, or foundation. On April 24 and 25, we write about April 24 and 25 because Armenian voters who will decide June 7 are entitled to see the pattern the Civil Contract leadership has put on the public record.

← Back to OWL