For some not completely determined reason, there are people who become an idol or a target of curses, form some movements around them, as well as extreme opponents of those movements. And some people don’t become heroes or antiheroes. I cannot claim which
option is the better. According to my taste, the second one is better, because extreme assessments, the existence of groups of adepts and sworn enemies are an unhealthy phenomenon at both individual and social levels.
Levonism is certainly a sect, from which ecstatic women on the wrong side of thirty and young revolutionaries or those who pretend to be young mostly suffer. Such romanticism is particularly inappropriate today, when the Armenian National Congress (ANC) has become a, although very small, part of the legislative power. By the way, taking seats was an absolutely right decision – becoming a parliamentary party may become a good antidote for sectarian mentality. However, Anti-Levonism is as unpleasant a sect – for me, even more unpleasant – when they try to blacken everything related to the first president, when they attribute to him deeds and features that have nothing to do with him or his comrades-in-arms.
The same thing applies to the second president. I know a man who hung Kocharyan’s picture at his home and talks to him for hours every day. But there are also people who tighten their face muscles, when they hear that name. They say quite aptly, you resemble closely the one you hate very much. Have you noticed that those who say too often “death to Turks” have more standing out Mongol cheekbones? While denying Mr. Kocharyan’s merits and service during the war, in particular, is also unfair. It is very right that he stood on the rostrum at the parade in Stepanakert the day before. He also made a big contribution to that victory. If, for example, all three Presidents of the Republic of Armenia had stood there, I would have said that some state culture had started to form in our country.
Sectarian mentality, when the man is blinded by ideological, religious or political slogans and patterns, grows from the same root, mental and spiritual laziness, when it is easier to live in your small “micro-world” and breathe only the air of your “brothers” or “party headquarters.”
Have you ever thought why there is Marxism or Nietzscheism, but there is no “Michel Montaigneism,” why there is Nzhdehism (the meaning of which, frankly speaking, I haven’t understood yet), but there is no “Hovhannes Tumanyanism”?
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
