I heard a word in my childhood that seems not to be used now, “findikh”, i.e. defective, made-up, unserious, and empty. The so-called “Eurasian Union Family” is such a thing for me. The New Times Party (NTP) calls forArmeniato join this family, the memorandum on which (pay attention to the fact that only memorandum) was signed byRussia,BelarusandKazakhstan. NTP puts forward arguments in its favor that are indisputable in themselves and are related to our economic cooperation with theRussian Federationthat certainly should be developed. It is not quite understandable why it implies that we should become a member of the Russian-Belarusian-Kazakh family. The only possible answer can be thatRussiawill “force” us to join that organization. It is certainly probable, but when that union will become a serious, mature organization and it will be important forRussiato seeArmeniaas its member. The “family” has existed only at the level of declaration so far and there is no sign that it will differ from CIS, the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation or any other customs alliance.
Nevertheless, one can suggest that Eurasian Union supporters give not only pragmatic, but also political and psychological importance to that organization. The idea of such union, as I understand it, was expressed by philosopher Aleksander Dugin who is an intellectual close to the Kremlin now. As early as in 1990s, he was saying thatRussiamust integrate the former Soviet republics, first and foremost Russian-speaking Crimea andEastern Ukraine, in itself. Let us put aside the issue of how fresh and realizable that idea is. It is probably worth instead to observe that Dugin, according to certain information, consulted Mehmet Perincek, a Turkish lawyer and publicist, who “proves” in his new book, based on the Russian and Soviet documents, that there was no Armenian Genocide.
Just psychologically I don’t feel like a “Eurasian”, if one perceives him as the one who “embraces” Putin’s, Nazarbayev’s and Lukashenka’s regimes. When one says let us oppose the Eurasian Union to the European Union, it doesn’t sound convincing either, because authoritarian regimes cannot create such a system of cooperation –they will just “gobble up” one another here. When the leaderships are not responsible to the societies for anything, it is also theoretically possible. It is a different matter thatRussiais not in the proper condition today to do such a thing. The election held on Sunday proves that.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
