And not to act with campaign attacks
A group of girls decided to celebrate March 8 with “feminist” march, thus preserving the original concept of the Day. This information found a stormy reaction in “Aravot” and other media: immoral, grant-eaters, aping the West and so on. Perhaps, it is more preferable to understand the message of the girls prior to attacking them. Their “Learning is not a shame” call does not hit any target because, in my conscious life, such stereotype at least did not exist in Armenia. On the contrary, the Armenian parents are always keen to have their children learn and sometimes they had to sacrifice (and still do) on something for it.
“Working is not a shame” slogan is true only partially. Both, in the past and now, there are husbands skewed on some patriarchal prejudices, who banned their wives to work at all, or to work in a place, where these wives want to work, such husbands are in the minority. “Being single is not a shame” is from the same series. There are probably some “old witches” that gossip behind single women, “if she is not married, something is wrong with her.” However, these witched do not represent a decisive mass, too.
“Coming home late is not a shame,” perhaps it is not a shame, but any parent is concerned about it, which is natural.
I, however, would not attack the girls because we need to have respect to the claims of people who have come out for the sake of their own rights and own freedom (if the complaint is, of course, peaceful and fits within the law), regardless of whether it is by grant, or without it, the formulation of the claim is correct or wrong. Today, let’s assume, they are not correct, tomorrow they will be correct.
Another example for a serious industry. All those people in Ukraine, whom Russia’s leaders dislike, the Russian official propaganda is calling them “neo-Nazis”. In this country there are, of course, extreme radicalism, which have violated the law and should bear the responsibility, just as the “Berkut”‘s leaders, not to mention the extremely corrupt leadership. Anyway, if you refrain from the “neo-Nazi” propaganda label and go deeper into the question of why there are nationalist movements in this country, it has its rational explanation.
Any nation that has set up an independent state, willy-nilly seeks its national identity. Otherwise, it is not clear why there should exists such a state. We also do it, since Armenia (fortunately) is a mono-ethnic state, and nationalistic ideas do not play a major role in us. Azerbaijanis are in search of it, but it seems to me that they are on the wrong path and, so to speak, they want to borrow something from us of “non-existent”, trying to act as a nation “massacred by Armenians”. I would not be surprised if soon the proper name “Vrej” will emerge among them.
However, all of these searches should be treated with respect, without labels, and without propaganda attacks. Any “force pressure” leads to inflating of unhealthy and extremist elements in all sorts of complaints, movements, and search. We should see the rational message that exists in all movements.
… On April 2, 1801, Admiral Nelson, in the battle with the Danish Navy, actually refused to fulfill the command to retreat, putting the telescope at his blind eye and shouting, “I do not see the signal.” We all, especially the decision-makers, looking at different phenomena in this way, do not see the signal. We do not want to see it.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
