Yesterday, in the subway, I met the member of the “Karabakh” Committee, also the former Head of the Kashatagh District, Alexan Hakobyan. The fact that I saw him in the subway rather than on the wheel of the jeep reminding of a tank, of course, describes him positive. We greeted and then he sitting on the train opened the book and began reading and taking notes. In 1988, he came to the politics from the academic environment and served the state honestly when it needed him, and then he returned to his ordinary situation: office positions, businesses and political games.
Alexan, indeed, does not need my praise nor I want to display a philistine snobbism, “Oh, what a horrible thing is the politics.” I am talking about quite a different thing: about writing political text, which the Soviet intelligentsia forming the “Karabakh” Committee in 1988 was able to do it very quickly, and which so far is not yet born in the current wave of protest.
It seems to me that one of the reasons is that the new generation is not strong in writing text in general and formulates the text, at the best, on the Internet in the form of “statuses” and comments. Even if they are written by Mesrop letters, I must admit that I often do not understand these texts. I guess that those who write them “slam” someone, are discontent with something, but I got lost in the abundance of exclamation marks and “smiles”, I cannot understand the logic of where they start and what they end up with.
Saying a political text, I mean not only the words and sentences: the actions (for instance, moving the garbage bins one step forward) can also be a test in the figurative sense. While the phrases like “cancellation”, “no to plunder,” “our demands remain the same,” I would not call all of this a political text, they are exclamations, chanting and mottos. The text of this new movement has not yet been formulated, which I associate with the shortcoming of the post-Soviet education system.
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There are, indeed, famous “old” political texts. Tomorrow, let’s say, Paruyr Hayrikyan may come to Liberty Square and say, “Long live the United States of America!” or “Long live the European Union!” The ANC representative may come and say that the “regime is in a panic.” The PAP representative may come and tell us what kind of paradise we were living in Robert Kocharyan’s tenure. But it is not clear whether these speeches will cause the number of the people gathered increasing or decreasing.
A contradictory situation has been created when there is a huge demand to express public discontent, but there is no relevant political text, which may adequately formulate this discontent. In short, a new “Karabakh” Committee is necessary.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
