Raffi Hovhannisyan’s decision to stop the hunger strike is good news. No normal man wants someone to deliberately harm himself and damage his health. The Nzhdehists, first of all, Galust Sahakyan, say: “We don’t want any Armenian to suffer.” However, I, not being a national conservative, attribute my wish regarding health to all people on the planet Earth, regardless of their political and religious views, race and nationality. That is why, by the way, I am displeased when the decision of the government to allot money for Hayrikyan’s treatment becomes a subject of heated discussion. Why to Hayrikyan, why from the treasury? These questions must be asked in the political domain. Perhaps that criticism is really proper, and one could have spent that money more reasonably. However, I try to abstract from these factors, and perceive the issue this way; someone, in this case the state, wishes to rescue one man’s life. One ought not to talk so much about this; I, as a taxpayer, don’t begrudge my money spent on this cause.
The same thing applies to Raffi Hovhannisyan’s hunger strike. Certainly, one can rub his hands and gloat; he failed, he was just pretending etc. However, I think that one cannot tease or provoke a person, as far as health is concerned; necessarily continue your self-destruction, otherwise we will mock you and consider as unprincipled. That malice cannot be justified by any political reason.
Stopping the hunger strike has two other positive aspects; it will allow both the other political forces and experts – whom Raffi gave a piece of his mind yesterday – to focus not on the health condition or the diet of the Heritage Party leader, but on his steps. It is one thing when you start your report with a sentence “Today is such-and-such a day of Raffi Hovhannisyan’s hunger strike.” It is another thing when you inform that the politician had said this and had demanded that.
In the end, Raffi Hovhannisyan’s decision to stop the hunger strike proves that his actions lack threatening, blackmailing the opponent, which, I must confess, I thought of this kind of struggle. It has become clear that the phrase “over my dead body” was figurative, and the readiness “to rest in some corner of Armenia” is just a tribute to the Diaspora Armenian phraseology.
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The struggle has become merely political, and all of us should wish good luck to Raffi Hovhannisyan in that.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
