There are usually three types of response to Independence Day. Official, which consists of empty, formal, mechanically uttered words. Opposition – “‘independence’ certainly is a good thing, but our independence is not a real one, if we come to power, we will live in the real independence.” And “popular” – who wanted this independence, they destroyed a beautiful country, robbed it, enslaved these poor people? The last response is the worst one, because only when the population lives with a slave’s mentality, is it possible for the political elite to utter empty and repeated formulas.
Our feelings toward our parents or children are not conditional on the “regime,” government, presidents, political leaders, small and big functionaries. However, when it comes to the Fatherland and state, we start to oppose universal values – a place, where this official does this, that oligarch behaves like that and my neighbor has bought a Mercedes 600, which I cannot afford, is not the Fatherland, nor is it a state. However, all those “bottomless” concerns don’t belittle at all the fact that we, Armenians, have a state – the thing, which many more populous nations than ours dream of for centuries.
This absolutely impersonal issue becomes personified in our country. For example, by saying “independence,” Paruyr Hayrikyan thinks only of himself. And the rest of the citizens think of their loved or hated politicians, first of all, heads of state. Treating all those persons differently, I think independence is a much bigger and more important thing than any mortal.
But thinking of independence, I, nonetheless, think of people, those people who have lived in this country for 21 years, who have never had an office and have never longed for it, who have never been an MP, a government official or an opposition, who have never taken party vows. People who have done and are doing their job in their proper places and don’t complain about their cruel fate day and night. People who are called “burghers” in Germany and “average Americans” in the US – they are the foundation of any independent state. In Armenia, there are thousands of such people, but, unfortunately, they are not the majority. And the reasons are not only material.
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ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
