A few years ago, when the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) was “orthodox pro-government,” Facebook-website activists and particularly female activists chose Naira
Zohrabyan as their target. When I would call for talking about a woman in a more restrained way, those “fighters” would explain that they were not talking about a woman, but a representative of the given party and generally, the government. Now when the relations between the PAP and the Armenian National Congress (ANC) – and thus those above-mentioned male and female activists – have become considerably warmer, fortunately, they have left Naira alone.
Instead, a new target has emerged – Shushan Petrosyan. Users with and without names curse her using swear words indiscriminately and as in the previous case, they find lofty political and moral explanations for that. I can say just from the professional perspective that Shushan sings well and in those terms, after Arax Mansuryan, the nature did not deprive her of gift either. Admittedly, it would be desirable, if she was more pedantical in choosing her repertoire and places for her performances – Shushan can sometimes be seen at lousy official concerts singing poor songs, but it is also understandable, that is how the singer earns her living. Without any parallel, I just want to remind that, let’s say, Martiros Saryan has many portraits of party workers and generals, but it doesn’t belittle our painter’s talent in any way. In a nutshell, Shushan as a singer doesn’t deserve the epithets that the pioneers of democracy love so much.
It is a different matter why she has become a party member. She did a very bad thing – there is no need to make such a move nowadays at all. Again not trying to make comparisons (because, naturally, there is nothing to compare), I have remembered a story. Dmitri Shostakovich became a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union at an advanced age in 1960, when he was already 54 years old. That day he returned home, telling his wife, “They have forced me, blackmailed me, if you love me, never ask me why it happened.” After that he was overcoming stress using traditional Russian methods for a few days. Today those tools of forcing, humiliating people, which existed 50 years ago, are not there and when an intellectual, an artist pins a party badge, it cannot be assessed in any other way, but super-conformism. However, that mistake has been made not only by Shushan Petrosyan – e.g., Robert Amirkhanyan and Ara Yernjakyan, whose talent no one can challenge either, have also become party members.
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Why then the most of blows are struck at Shushan? The answer is obvious and it has nothing to do with politics – unfortunately, there are a lot of people among us who are rather inclined to offend a woman and assert themselves by that.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
