Ruben Mehrabyan, associate expert at the Armenian Institute of International and Security Affairs explained during the roundtable on “Nation-Army: From Media Discourse to Public Perception”: “It is a fact that Armenia is not a Luxembourg and is not going to become in the near future, subsequently, it should have a strong army, this is an axiom. It is also a fact that our government is not a good one and it is a fact as well that our society should treat the bad government badly. But this does not mean that the society should not do whatever is needed.”
He stated that some singers try to suffocate us with pathetic songs and speeches, they try to teach us the right way of loving our fatherland: “The issue of the army is not the issue of the Ministry of Defence, neither of the soldiers, it is the issue of the whole state and the system, it refers to the security of each of us, regardless of whether we like the government or not.”
Mr. Mehrabyan said that despite all of this, he did not believe the abolition of the right to deferment would importantly result in emigration and degradation in the quality of education: “The overall army service obligation is necessary, I believe: everyone should serve in the army. Moreover, the Republic of Armenia should have a very strong reserve. No one says a word about it when talking about “Nation-Army”. In Israel, reserve soldiers are not less strong than the Defense Forces, but there is no word about who deals with it here in Armenia and how it should be organized.”
According to Mehrabyan, it is accepted that here either the police officers or the criminals should be armed. And should the citizen not be armed legally and ensure his/her own safety? “80% of Finland’s population is armed. It is not clear what route we have taken, towards which military system we are stepping. It is also an axiom that the security is not conditioned solely by the army. Democracy is of no less importance, it comes to strengthen the army, the external policy. If it is not a component of security, then what is it?”
He said that the educational level is degraded now, the schools evoke allergy in children towards education and the old personnel of the higher educational institutions coming from the Soviet times remain in the same positions: “We do not speak about it and here those mummies come discussing if serving in the army is right or wrong.”
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
Photo credit: The Armenian Institute of International and Security Affairs – AIISA
