“We will not allow our concert to become a political action. Only in Armenia, people still say that rock is a protest; no such thing has been common around the world in the past 40 years…. Neither members of Hamas, nor our centuries-old enemies are in Freedom Square; they are our citizens. If there is a need for our music somewhere, we don’t care what political views our listeners have. Our concert has no slogan; we will not allow politicizing our concert,” Sargis Manukyan, the lead singer of Empyray, a rock band, said during a conversation with www.aravot.am about the group’s concert to take place in Freedom Square on Saturday. He fears that their concert will be considered as exactly a political action. “We will allow every politician to listen to our music, if he wishes to do that during his activities.” S. Manukyan is convinced that intellectuals are the very people who must be involved in politics, because politics is also related to intellect. “The only, primary political force, party for us is our society. I am far from political phenomena and am not interested in them.” With regard to R. Hovhannisyan’s hunger strike in Freedom Square, internal political developments, S. Manukyan said: “There are urgent issues in the country, which require immediate solutions and bring about such radical means of struggle. I mean, all this hasn’t come out of the blue. I don’t want to give political assessments, but I know this much, it is very unfortunate that our society devotes itself to a certain thing and wants to make changes in the country only once in 5 years. If a certain group wants changes to be made in this country, it doesn’t mean that this group is an enemy of the country. On the contrary, that is the active part that loves its country and expresses concern using different means; one shouldn’t suppress that healthy grain of society. The inert part is unconcerned also about the internal issues; they will be unconcerned also in case of external danger and will look on. The same active part will rise up both to solve internal problems and to meet external challenges. The state becomes more powerful thanks to that part of society; that is why political forces should find a method not to disappoint that society. I don’t want to talk about the steps of either the opposition or the government. I am interested in what society is doing, and due to society’s moves, under its pressure, the government and the opposition will be compelled to find ways out of the situation.”
Arpine SIMONYAN
