I have been getting surprised for a few months already why people are so excited about the Arab Spring. Furthermore, some approving and sensuous exclamations were heard both from the Western leaders and from our opposition representatives. At the end of the day, what issue have the “revolutionaries” solved in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya? Have people started to live a wealthier life, a prosperous life, have the tyrants been replaced by democrats or perhaps moral altruists have come in the immoral thieves’ stead. If the Western leaders were of principle and they despised a monster like Kaddafi (he was certainly that), then why had they cooperated with that same colonel and other tyrants so closely in the fields of politics and economy? Are those who beat Kaddafi to death (who certainly deserved a capital punishment, however, by the court’s decision), those “rebels” more pleasant and more desired for the West?
Tell me, please, in what does field marshal Muhammad Tantawy differ from aviation marshal Hosni Mubarak? Last weekend the Egyptian youth took the street again to protest, having reasonable doubts that during the election next week the establishment will be reproduced. “Interim” military government sent armed units to Tahrir Square in Cairo and the clashes resulted in 13 dead, 1500 injured. Can we say that Egypt has taken the path of democracy?
I don’t understand why our oppositionists are so excited about the Arab Spring. What do they expect as a result of “tunising” or “egypting” Armenia? Firstly the regimes in Armenia and in Libya do not resemble at all – in the first case, we have a post-Soviet authoritarian regime with all its drawbacks, and in the second case, we have a typical eastern tyranny. All the cultural, geographical and economic differences added to that. However, even if we put aside all that, do we want Armenia to undergo all that the above-mentioned Arab countries are going through? Perhaps, we could find better role models.
Many say these days that Levon Ter-Petrossian should have been more “decisive” on February 26, 2008 and using the confusion among the establishment, should have led his supporters to the President House. It seems to me that he did the right thing not to lead them, as in that case, a few dozens of dead would have been unavoidable. Nothing good would have come out of a change of power at the expense of those lives.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
