Please clarify one question, is “Sovereign Armenia” motto constitutional or anti-constitutional? As far as I remember, the word “sovereign” is written in our Constitution, to the point, in the first Article prior to its amendment. Consequently, the motto is not only illegal, but also one of the main provisions of our law. Why, then, is the young man with such poster apprehended? Maybe our police think that there is no absolute sovereignty in the world, that all countries, including the superstates, wittingly or unwittingly concede their sovereignty.
Or, maybe the police have read Russian “Regnum” agency, which in its unsigned article has called yesterday’s protestors against Putin’s visit and the Customs Union ‘grant activists’ preparing provocations. Ah, it is already serious, and I see new “custom”, “Eurasian” shades here.
Do you remember, there was a telegraph agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) in the Soviet times? When the American imperialists, Bonnie revanchists, Japanese militarists and generally numerous bad people living on the planet were behaving them wrong, this agency was describing the act of the enemies in some lines, after which it was adding, “On this occasion, TASS is authorized to announce,” and it was followed by a real “pickax.” To the point, no one drilled down as to who exactly had given such authority to the media, it was assumed that it had come from somewhere “above”.
TASS was also authorized to announce the internal problems, in the cases, when a small number of groups were appearing within the Soviet Union, which publicly (not in the form of anecdotes in the kitchens, as most of us is doing) were expressing their discontent with the country’s domestic and foreign policy. “TASS authorities from above” liked to call them “a bunch of renegades” (кучка отщепенцев). In other words, there is a universal tree of exultation, and beyond it, small splinters taken from this huge tree.
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I am not in favor of the representatives of Armenian NGOs, and there are real grounds to doubt the sincerity of many of them. But, first of all, many of the young people who were protesting yesterday against the Customs Union and want to live in a sovereign country, have nothing to do with NGOs. But, more important is the brutal Soviet style, which the “customs people” are trying to counteract their opponents. If it continues as such, yesterday’s 500 will become 5000.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
