The names of leaders and the signs of state and political institutes change as a result of political revolutions, national or military movements, and as a result of elections, which is the most favorable method. However, societies do not change. Speaking about a “revolution in values” is meaningless in my opinion, because values cannot be changed through a revolution. The values of society are extremely resistant and stable, and can only change through a slow evolution.
Robespierre wanted to create a “higher essence” instead of God. The former Russian Empire replaced ignorant clericalism with just as equally ignorant atheism. After that, the “counter-revolution” took place, where biblical devotees compromised their positions for the “builders of behavioral moral communism.” Village heads were placed on district committees and then were appointed mayors. Provincial ministers are now called oligarchs or philanthropists. Did the essence of different phenomena change through all of those transformations? No, because a few decades is not enough to change the psychology of an entire people.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan recently said something that I completely agree with. I view the essence of ideals like this: instead of sitting idly, complaining about life, and demanding something from the state or authorities, people need to work and to create. Only then can they overcome poverty and pitifulness. The problem is not in a nation’s natural work ethic or laziness, in my opinion, but instead, it lies in tradition and culture, the culture that caused Puritans to create the modern US, Catholics to create modern Poland and Ireland, and Buddhists to create modern Singapore. That potential exists in our culture, too. We simply need to make use of it and develop it. The young team in government, despite some of their extreme Bolshevist views, can initiate steps towards that difficult path in daycares and in schools. Thinkers can support them in that.
The situation currently is as follows. The majority of our citizens complain about their difficult lives and blame the RPA for that. In two or three years, the RPA will be forgotten, just as the Pan-Armenian National Movement was, and people will continue to complain about having difficult lives. Only this time, they will blame Nikol Pashinyan.
Aram Abrahamyan
