In 1993 (unfortunately, I do not remember the month) President Levon Ter-Petrossian met with factory directors, including, by the way, Karen Demirchyan. One of the speakers said approximately the following, “Our industry must be preserved. It does not matter who built it- the communists or someone else.” The president interrupted him, saying: “Industry was built by the communists. As a historian, I am in favor of accurate formulations.” It seems to me that this is not only a historical but also a correct state approach. Naturally, before coming to power in 1990, members of the Karabakh Committee had made numerous speeches against the communist leadership. However, becoming responsible for the state, they gradually softened that rhetoric, and later ruled it out altogether. Ideological contradictions, of course, remained, but it is one thing when you oppose your opponents as a politician, it is quite another when you formulate your attitude towards the past of your country as a person of the state, a citizen.
This applies not only to the authorities, but to all of us. Citizens who completely deny their immediate past contribute to the failure of the state. What “immediate” means, of course, is a matter for discussion. Although our history has a great “depth” that we need to know, in this case the “immediate past” can be calculated from 1918, for the simple reason that during those 103 years we have tried three times to build a state, of course, with mistakes, failures, and defeats. Painting a period exclusively in black speaks not only of narrow political and propaganda goals, but also of a certain limitation and simplicity of thought. People who live like that do not have or do not want to have an institutional memory. And not having such a memory for the state creates the same situation that doctors record in some people who remember what happened 5 minutes ago, but do not remember what happened an hour ago. It is a serious disease.
The current government has based its political resources on the perception of the majority of Armenian citizens that for 27 of the 30 years of the Third Republic, we have lived in a nightmare, and only 3 years ago the sun of happiness rose for all of us. Even the “3” of the poster announcing the 30th anniversary is the “3” of the Civil Contract pre-election poster, and the “0” is not stressed at all. It is a dangerous approach, weakening the citizens’ sense of statehood and instinct. This approach will eventually hinder this government as well.
Today is the day to value the past three decades, as well as all of us, from the leaders of the country to what any ordinary citizen has done. This is how I imagine the state thinking.
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Aram Abrahamyan
