I think it’s good that we are a chess country, that Levon Aronyan is in the second place by FIDE scale, that our team performs brilliantly at the chess Olympiads. It is great that our first president draws chess parallels in his analysis. Can you imagine that we have developed the American football, baseball or golf? They are very uncomfortable kinds of sports for the political text.
Although many people grumble, but I think that it is also good that chess is taught at schools. Every time coming home from school, my younger daughter tells interesting things. It turns out that the rook is 5 points, bishop and knight – 3 points each, the queen – 9, and the pawn – 1 point. And what about the king? The king, according to my daughter, has no point. Let’s remember it and move forward.
During the elections in Armenia, the parties seem to be sitting and playing chess, but one of the players is stealing the competitor’s piece, and is moving its own pieces not as provided for by the rules of the game. It was like this every time, starting from 1995. The year of 2008 was an exception, when one of the players was not satisfied with stealing the pieces and doing “wrong” moves, but just took the chess board and hit the competitor’s head. This was not chess.
Let’s go back to the values of the pieces. As you saw, the game is not conditioned by king, even if it has 1 or 2 points. Some people say ‘let’s make the king from wood, plastic or ivory, or let’s change the ornaments of his crown, and everything will be fine’. But, it is known that there are much more powerful pieces. But, they also do not decide anything. The decision, naturally, is made by the players.
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Who are the players? I will not say anything new; we are the players, we are the residents of this “kingdom” (not the outer “dark” or “bright” forces, as many people are thinking). Regardless of whether we are active or passive, developed or illiterate, we are actually moving these pieces. And, now, let’s pass from chess parallels to hardware comparison that was suggested by an African sociologist. Of course, he meant his homeland, but the parallels that he had drawn are also applicable to our type of country.
Accordingly, we have people’s hardware in our state structure: the parliament, political parties, courts, elections, etc., but authoritarian software based on psychological and social stereotypes of ruling and obeying. Establishment of the people’s software is a complex task that requires patience and every day practice. Again, it is not news.
Aram Abrahamyan
