Both good and bad things are written about Raffi Hovhannisyan’s hunger strike. By the way, contradictory though it may seem, there is a grain of rationality in both sides’ arguments. And that ambiguity is caused by the fact that we don’t completely understand the logic of the politician’s behavior.
The whole problem is that Raffi Hovhannisyan combines, coalesces a religious and moral struggle with a political one. From the perspective of many of us, including me, religion is a personal, individual, and intimate business, one shouldn’t show off one’s religious sentiments in the square. If I read the Bible correctly, it also mentions that a prayer, a fast, or candle-lighting should not be for show. As opposed to that, political activities cannot but be public, because a politician tries to make known his ideas and programs to the masses. Two years ago, in the spring when Freedom Square “belonged” to Levon Ter-Petrossian, the latter would criticize Raffi Hovhannisyan, as far as I can tell, using arguments like those. Perhaps the first president’s words were too harsh, perhaps it shouldn’t have been a reason for not saying hello to Mr. Hovhannisyan at the time, but separation of the spiritual and the secular, the physical and the metaphysical that Ter-Petrossian suggested is acceptable at least to me. Really, if Raffi Hovhannisyan is on a hunger strike, since now is the period of Lent, and he wants to purify himself, as he says, then he should do such things at home, not informing anyone about his self-sacrifice. If, however, he is on a hunger strike to make Serzh Sargsyan resign and is ready to die, in case of a failure, as he also states, then it is purposeless, inappropriate to talk about Lent and self-purification.
However, one should take into account that in the Diaspora, there is no clear separating line between the political and the religious, which exists here, in our mentality. In the Diaspora, to its credit, the church has played a huge role in preserving the Armenian identity, to organize Armenian communities in different countries and governing them to a certain extent for decades. As a result of all that the attitude toward religion, church, and its institutions is different here, in Armenia, and in the Diaspora. I for one, as hundreds of thousands of residents of Armenia, am not interested whether the Catholicos of All Armenians will come to the president’s inauguration or not. He is a part of the system for us; his presence or blessing has the same significance, as that of any Republican MP. Raffi Hovhannisyan’s attitude is different. Probably this is the difference.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
