Our state: government authorities, political forces and the public were unable to elaborate a convincing resolution over 20 years for war veterans to participate in politics. On the one hand, the person previously participated in the war, as well as any other citizen of Armenia has the right to be involved in politics, to express his views on this-or-that political matter.
As to what extent his opinion will be authoritative, to what extent it is due to the fact of his being “fought”, it is extremely personal matter. There are ones who fought honestly, whose political authority is equal to zero today; there are ones who have not fought but enjoy the respect of citizens in this or that circles.
On the other hand, when political powers are attributed to the war veterans’ NGOs, it is a strongly negative feature. “Yerkrapah”, “anti-Yerkrapah”, RPA and PAP veterans’ associations are the bright example of this. If General Seyran Saroyan is righteous that the veterans of these opposing each other camps come together to drink and start beating each other, it is also not the best manifestation of our unity. In short, the individual may be a member of any political party, but the NGO should not be politicized.
While yesterday, our other MP-General Manvel Grigoryan could not to get out from this duality. First, he said that it is bad to involve Yerkrapahs in politics, then, justifying the fact that being the leader of Yerkrapahs and at the same time an NA MP and member of RPA faction, he mentioned that “being a deputy of the National Assembly and politics are two different things,” which, of course, is ridiculous.
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There is another important point. General Manvel, along with all his merits and services, is an ignorant man. But almost 100 percent of our educated intellectuals also wants to be separated from the politics, by presenting it as an immoral fight for a seat and a dirty fight for economic leverage. This, indeed, is the existing situation in the present Armenia. Whatever you name the feature, so it will be. When you every other minute say that life is unbearable, it really becomes unbearable. When you say that now you will get cold and sick, the possibility is great that it will happen so. Maybe we should try to understand politics differently?
… The majority of Israel’s political elite are the veterans of the Arab-Israeli wars, so it was during the entire history of this country. These veterans have never said that they are not involved in politics. The difference, however, is that they are literate.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
