“Obsolete ideas of an uprising or a revolution should be completely taken off our country’s political agenda. Unless it is done, Armenia cannot have prospect of establishing the rule of law and democracy. There is almost no revolution in history, as a result of which democracy was born. As a result of a revolution, one tyranny is usually replaced by another, because power seized by means of force can be retained only by force. And it is not the prospect, on which one can waste the people’s effort.” Those words were said by a historian whose knowledge and judgment I don’t doubt at all. “What do we want and how do we see the reformation or systemic change of this country? I am not afraid of this word, although many people have complexes. Our task is to carry out a bourgeois democratic revolution…. The modern civilization of the whole world was created thanks to the bourgeois democratic revolution.” Those words were also said by a highly esteemed historian. Furthermore, in both cases, the author is the same, first President of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrossian. It is just that he expressed the first idea on March 1, 2009, from the platform of Matenadaran (in the atmosphere of revolutionary and popular protest), and the second one was expressed on April 13, 2013, in the small hall of the Sports and Concert Complex (in an official and congressional atmosphere).
I don’t take the liberty of debating with the first president, first of all, because of the difference in statuses, particularly given the fact that I am sure that his supporters have enough flexibility of mind to explain that in the first case, by “revolution” Ter-Petrossian meant one thing and in the second case, an absolutely different thing. So just let me say a few words about a revolution, in general, as I understand it. Firstly, it seems to me that the theory about the class war (particularly between the proletariat, the bourgeoisie, and the others), as well as the revolutionary resolutions of that, which was put forward in the latter half of the 19th century, has become a bit old in the 21st century. However, even if it is not old, then according to that theory, those who carry out the revolution are not high bourgeois and millionaires; they brilliantly adapt to any regime. The petty bourgeois or proletarian revolutionaries were angry with those very people; their mansions were burned during those revolutions. At the end of the day, it is quite probable that after any revolution, not democracy, but quite the opposite, a stronger tyranny will be established. Perhaps it is about time that we take that word out of our lexicon.
Coming back to Armenia of the 21st century, let us point out what the wish of every rational citizen is at this moment. They want no party to get 40 percent in the upcoming Yerevan City Council election and the mayor of Yerevan to be elected as a result of real political agreements. Can one call this a revolution?
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
