I would like to write about a problem which seems petty at first glance. The government, along with other “old” vehicles, wants to sell the “Mercedes” which was used to service the first President of Armenia. The make of the car as far as I can recall is E 320, such “Mercedes” are now driving “as a taxi”. True, it was armored, once, people were talking that this car was a present from the USSR State Security Committee Chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov to the President of the Supreme Council of the ASSR in 1990. But it is not important what type of vehicle it was and who has gifted it. Importantly, it was used to service the first president of Armenia.
I agree with my colleagues that the place of such symbolic items is in the museum. And the problem is not who treat how to Levon Ter-Petrosyan, my attitude, for example, is generally positive although I do not consider him infallible and do not share the current opposition’s idolatry. The problem here is not in the person but in the state. The state is created with traditions, precedents, and memory. If I begin every day, every month or every decade from a “clean” page, it does not create the “stories” that I need to transfer to my children and grandchildren. So far, our stories are national-liberation rather than state, “Hey, brave men, our time is critical.”
If I talk idle about the first, second or the third presidents (rather than criticizing their faults, the difference, I hope, is clear), I am still creating a tradition and a precedent but a desert, a “white” page. If I am demolishing the building of my capital built in 1920-30-ies reasoning that it is a “barn” by contemporary perception, and do not care who has lived in this “barn”, I again deprive my state from “memory depth.”
The problematic “Mercedes” will be sold, it will pass from hand to hand, then it will appear in the hands of a man who is “good in business” and has a collection of similar vehicles. And some 100 or 150 years later, a wealthy Armenian benefactor will buy it at an expensive price and will donate to the Armenian state. Instead of passing such a long way, today, at this point, it is necessary to appreciate what you have.
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In the United States, there is a tradition that from time to time, the presidents who are alive are photographed together. Recently, Obama, Clinton, Jimmy Carter, father and son Bush participated in such a ceremony. It is not that they are very fond of each other. It is just a state tradition.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
