1. Another killing of a soldier in the army shows once again the vices of our army and society, which gradually become more and more dangerous. The majority of Armenian society lives by false and distorted perceptions of honor, strength, and self-assertion, and those standards are dictated by our criminalized elite. The army cannot oppose their righteous and undistorted values to that, and the criminal morals spread to the armed forces. Certainly, commanders who disseminate such morals should be discharged, but it is not a solution to the problem in the long run.
2. The feelings of parents who have lost their sons, their remonstrance and protest are understandable, worthy of respect. However, putting a coffin in Republic Square doesn’t seem like a good idea to me. I know that populist figures and commentators will not like what I am writing (“God forbid that it should happen to you”), but let me say that manipulations with coffins and corpses, turning a burial into a protest doesn’t fit into our culture. It reminds me of the protests of Palestinians or Iraqis when women dressed in black and with rumpled hair damn the enemy army. Our culture of mourning is more restrained; in that respect, Alla Hovhannisyan, the mother of one of the victims of March 1, is exemplary for me. Those parents have more reasons to protest, since the killings of their children are not solved for political reasons. When a murder in the army is presented as a suicide or an accident, it should also cause social protest. Certainly, every murder should cause rage in every sane person’s heart. However, the latest case differs from the previous ones, because one cannot conceal anything here; the criminal is known and arrested.
3. Seyran Ohanyan, the Minister of Defense, proved to be a man who adheres to the honor code, personally taking on the task of talking with the bereaved families. However, we expect such an attitude also from his subordinates, first of all those who work with soldiers in military camps. However, many of them act as local princes, oligarchs, sometimes even as gang bosses.
4. Trying to hush up, conceal some public event is meaningless and inefficient these days. It is an important event that the relatives of the murdered soldier have taken to the Sevan highway, and it should be covered. The question “What will they say? What will they think?” doesn’t matter for me as a journalist as far as this event, or for that matter the eating of the sacrifice at the opening of the Abovyan church, is concerned. Those are narrow-minded questions; one should face reality. Besides, impeding journalists’ work is punishable by law; military police officers who attacked our colleagues should be tried and put into jail. When the government tries to free such specimens from responsibility, it testifies to a certain intellectual level.
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On the other hand, it seems to me that live coverage of a burial is not a good idea either. Although, I realize that many internet users like watching a burial very much. It is a matter of taste.
Aram Abrahamyan
