Why am I talking about the emo trend? Because there is something terribly wrong going on right now in Armenia where emo kids are targeted by the police, which is claiming that the music is menacing social stability, causing teenagers to be suicidal.
The police is conducting wardrobe checks in school, trying to detect any sign of the emo subculture, and any fan of the music is being ‘closely watched’.
What declared the Armenian Chief of Police, Alik Sargsian, in an interview with a local newspaper is particularly worrisome:
‘I do not like emos, in fact. I absolutely don’t like them. I do not understand or accept them’, then he continued by calling them ‘dangerous’ and saying that they could ‘distort our gene pool’.
Recently, a few Armenian media outlets published sensationalist articles and reports linking all teenage or youth suicides in Armenia to emo, and Alexander Amarian, director of the Center for Rehabilitation and Assistance to Victims of Destructive Cults said that
emos ‘have to be fought against’.
Wow, all this brings back ugly memories of fascism! Find someone to blame when there is a problem (although I doubt the teenage suicide rate is higher in Armenia than everywhere else), then make this group of people responsible by producing wild speculations like those above, and target them based on visible characteristics. These declarations about gene pool are chilling and pure horrific flashbacks of genetic cleansing from an evil past.
Every year, Armenian people around the world commemorate the Armenian Genocide with a remembrance day on April 24, they should know better about intolerance and extermination.