I was looking at the old photographs. The parliament in 1990. Withered Communist faces (regardless of age) and youth, mostly original and independent-minded people incurred from an academic and scientific environment. Such figures could be met not only in the parliament but also in various state institutions. They were talking in a completely different, previously unfamiliar vocabulary, their speeches did not include stereotyped formulas. The mind was sharp and as it is now common to say, “creative”.
And “suddenly”, five years later, in 1995, the same boring and faceless “unity of party executives and business enterprises and organizations” (party-enterprise-active) became dominant, without their own thoughts, worn out and senseless formulas. Those who 5 years ago were interesting and original became as such. They became bulky and bloated, acquired all main features of the Soviet bureaucracy. This “party-enterprise-active” remained for 20 years.
I do not want to go into the detail of what had happened in 5 years. Those who were in the power during that period basically say that nothing happened, they remained what they were, and those who say that some things, however, “happened”, these people are “falsifiers of the history.” But it is a separate topic.
Now, I worry about another question: why does all of this remind me the “Soviet”? Does it remind only to me, or there are people who think like me? Why do ANM (1995-1998 period) and RPA (from 1998 to present) show so much resemblance with the CPSU? Why do the young Republicans remind me the members of the YCL? Why do the majority of parliamentarians, with their impersonality and, let me say, “tepidity” show so much resemblance with the Communist functionaries? To the point, the “rulers” of the CIS countries (including the “revolutions survivors” and “pro-European” Georgia and Ukraine also remind “those” times by their manners and speech.
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Maybe the reason is that Armenia’s and other similar countries’ population remembers those times with nostalgia. Maybe the parliamentarians and officials, “by definition”, should be dull and gray. Maybe they can speak in poor and limited vocabulary “newspeak.”
But if, let’s say, in 1990, people were not dull, their vocabulary was rich, their brains were not obese, then it is not a “law of nature”, then it may happen that we may ever have other parliamentarians and officials. Or, the “party-enterprise-active” will remain evermore.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
