I agree that political persecution continues in Armenia, although not to the same extent, as before. I agree that the majority of our top brass is corrupted, is not competent in their field and their attitude is impudent and arrogant. I also agree that the continuing emigration, adding up in the past 20 years, has brought our demographic condition closer to the dangerous margin. However, in order to overcome those challenges, one should try to present the situation correctly and avoid, although attractive in terms of propaganda, wrong claims. Here are a few of them, in my opinion:
1. We live under tyranny. One just needs to glimpse at our parliament, TV broadcasting, the mass media and street protests to become convinced that it is not the case. Under tyranny, no one is allowed to talk about that fact through public, officially accepted and registered pipelines. Not going too far, I can give our neighbors’ example – do you often read, say, a statement of an Azerbaijani politician on one of their websites that an authoritarian regime has been established in Azerbaijan, which is voiced in our country a few times a day. Have you ever heard speeches, which resemble our oppositionists’ speeches at least to a certain extent, from the Azerbaijani Milli Məclis floor? Certainly, one can object that in Armenia, these speeches and publications are not particularly dangerous for the government. It is an absolutely correct objection, but who is to blame for that? Only the government?
2. The people want to live in a fair, lawful and democratic country. If they wanted, they would live, would eliminate all obstacles in the way like a flood. In reality, people want to live well, live a prosperous life without troubles, want justice only for themselves and don’t care about justice toward the others. In a nutshell, they want to find a place in this system desirable for them and when they don’t find, they complain, grumble, nothing more.
3. The opposition parties offer an alternative to the solutions put forward by the government. If they had offered, there would have been a change of government long ago. A simple example – the opposition has been saying for 20 years that if the shadow economy is reduced, the salaries will increase. However, it is not a solution, sorry, but any fool knows that. However, all the Cabinets in the past 20 years haven’t reduced the shadow economy, anyway. Who couldn’t do that yesterday criticizes the current government today asking why they don’t reduce the shadow economy. One can draw a conclusion from this – no one really knows what is to be done. Therefore, one just says noncommittal words about political will.
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ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
