The idea of independence nearly did not exist on the agenda of our society until 1991. Except for a group of dissidents, the intellectual elite was far from that idea. Patriotism – yes, the memory of Genocide – yes, longing mountain Masis – yes, but never yes to the feeling of statehood. By that, our elite differed from Georgian, Ukrainian and Baltic elites.
A large part of the society of the Soviet Armenia thought: “it is better to live in an empire, maybe that empire will be good to us and give our lands back by taking them from Turkey one day.” As a result, 26 years ago our society was not ready for the independence at all, and after a short euphoria, it fell into a deep depression.
But now it is not late as well. It is never late. We need to simply understand that living independently is more difficult, it sometimes requires bigger victims and sufferings than surviving under the wing of someone. This is the case both at personal, national and international levels. When the son leaves the home and tells – I want to have my own family, a house and a job and to do all this by myself, without anyone’s sponsorship, he naturally takes a huge burden on his shoulders. And it is not excluded that he regrets of his decision several months or years afterwards, goes to his father’s house and asks: “Dad, help me.”
When people do not have a job, have a little salary or fail a business, it is very difficult to convince them that the reason is inside them: in their laziness, miscalculation, wrong choice, overestimating or underestimating themselves. They are inclined towards seeking the reasons in the external circumstances and first and foremost – seeing the roots of the evil in the following – “the dads of the government” do not take a proper care about them.
In the case of the country’s independence, the psychological mechanism is approximately the same – from the beginning, people think that they will be able to keep the country by “Jermuk”, then, when it fails, they exclaim – “Did we need that independence? Pity Soviet does not exist.”
If a person does not want to be free, s/he will find thousands of factors limiting his/her freedom – father, wife, mother-in-law, the government, Russians, Americans. Meanwhile, the freedom and the independence is a question of each person’s determination. Read “Escape from Freedom” by Erich Fromm. All cases of escape are depicted there in details.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
