The arrest of former Prosecutor General Aghvan Hovsepyan has aroused enthusiasm among supporters of the government. This event fits into the “Armenian dream” of most of our citizens today to punish well-known negative characters. (The topic of Turkish-Azerbaijani military exercises in Kashatagh worries the masses significantly less).
Although I do not share the general joy, I understand very well that, working in the system created by Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan, Aghvan Hovsepyan could not help but commit criminal acts of a corrupt nature. It’s another issue that it will be difficult for the current SIS to prove these actions, as in my opinion, weaker lawyers than Aghvan Hovsepyan are gathered in that structure. Such a conclusion can be drawn, for example, from the fact that the SIS once gave in to political pressure and brought the unpromising accusation of overthrowing constitutional order against the second president. Therefore, it is very likely that Aghvan Hovsepyan’s case, like other cases, will drag on for years and slowly die down.
But here I want to draw the readers’ attention to another circumstance. Especially in the age of the Internet, when a certain amount of public opinion is formed, pressure inevitably is placed on people who go against the flow. This pressure is usually exerted by the so-called “black-and-white argument.” Do you either consider Aghvan Hovsepyan an angel or demand that he be shot immediately? You must either welcome the seizure of the police regiment in 2016, or justify the illegalities committed by the authorities at the time. Are you a Nikol or Kocharyan supporter?
The same goes for more complex issues. You either have to declare that it’s all the poor people’s fault that they are in a bad situation because of their lack of ability (and in that case you are “liberal”), or you have to be in favor of distributing all the goods evenly (in that case you are a “socialist”). In both cases, I use quotation marks because real liberalism and socialism are not such flat phenomena.
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All the “alternatives” listed are false. They are deliberately forced upon us. We are given two equally bad options and told to “choose one of them.” The task is to say a resounding “no” to both and find ourselves in the overwhelming minority.
Aram Abrahamyan
