Many of us remember the first president’s impressing teachings: “Let there be no sacrifice required, but me.” In those days, Nikol and the others were also filled with enthusiasm to sacrifice themselves, and the latest example was Raffi Hovhannisyan with the heading “over my dead body,” but the latter was preceded by Andrias’s hunger strike and an assassination attempt on Hayrikyan, which both made a certain impression on certain people only at first. In Hayrikyan’s case less, because Hayrikyan’s assassination attempt was unintentional, it was not intentional, and that is the reason why the voters didn’t appreciate it that much.
Andrias’s hunger strike didn’t convert into votes, not only because it didn’t last long, but also because our people had seen many hunger strikes and hunger strikers before. It seems at first sight that Gagik Tsarukyan, the leader of the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP), doesn’t make vows and promises of self-sacrifice, whereas he does, all right, and when Tsarukyan says that he is ready to sacrifice his wealth for the people, the people consider it pure self-sacrifice, because the people understand that losing Tsarukyan’s wealth is like death. We haven’t forgotten the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) and the ARF members. Not only do the ARF members take a vow of self-sacrifice on their arms from the start, but also the vow of their self-sacrifice is written on their flag, “Freedom or Death,” to begin with. Paruyr Hayrikyan, Khachik Stamboltsyan, Arshak Sadoyan, Artashes Geghamyan and others were examples of self-sacrifice at various times, and that is the reason why the people appreciated and even loved the aforementioned figures at various times. The only ones whom our people didn’t love and don’t love are the governments, former and present. Because the governments and the powers that be never make vows of self-sacrifice. Certainly, the people have lots of other reasons for not loving the governments and the powers that be, but one of the reasons is the lack of vows of self-sacrifice, and if our governments and powers that be didn’t just make promises from time to time to generally struggle against some inexplicit corruption, but selflessly vowed that they would not graft anymore, our naïve and sensitive people would perhaps believe them and sympathize with them, because our people consider uncorrupted officials to be sacrifices too. In this case, by “people” I mean almost all of us and first of all, the top brass and the powers that be, because years ago, the top brass would be surprised more than anyone else at the fact that honest and honorable Vardges Gnuni, holding the office of the Minister of Education for many years, by no means seized the opportunities offered by that office. However, only the top brass and people close to Gnuni knew about that, because the late Vardges Gnuni never swore to the people or anyone else that he would honestly work, and those who knew him didn’t particularly appreciate Gnuni’s honesty. Furthermore, those who knew him would be surprised at the fact that Gnuni, holding that high office, would smoke Chibukh (pipe) and this is not about Sherlock Holmes’s pipe but our domestic Chibukh, which is basically produced for the privates serving in the army. So Gnuni was considered a sacrifice, and Ashot Manucharyan who held the office of the Minister of the Interior for some time was also considered a sacrifice to a certain extent, and the police officers would say about Manucharyan with contempt and pity: “He came and left wearing the same jacket.” In a nutshell, we think of the really honest people as sacrifices, and in many cases, we even pity them and do the right thing, because under the conditions of our upside-down capitalism, the really honest people not only suffer, but also cannot purge and reform the system they themselves head, honestly living and working. However, along with pitying, we and the people filled with revolutionary sentiments, in particular, are continuously looking for heroes, honest and selfless people; by the way, they are not looking for the existing and really honest people, but absolutely insincerely honest people, sacrifices, and messiahs who just vow and promise to be honest and sacrifice themselves. I am not talking about Raffi Hovhannisyan, or rather basically not talking about
him, because becoming the leader of the latest movement, Raffi didn’t make specific promises, and we have caviled at his only promise about “over my dead body” made in the heat of the moment, just because we liked it very much. Nonetheless, we can learn quite useful lessons from the movement led by Raffi Hovhannisyan. Certainly, if we want. If we want, we can think and realize that not all promises and vows are thought through and doable. And sacrifices are not necessary at all. Similarly, making leaders take vows of self-sacrifice is not necessary either. One had better expect seriousness, steadiness, and realism from them. Also from ourselves.
Menua NAHATAKYAN
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