The US Declaration of Independence, adopted on July 4, 1776, begins not with the well-known assertion that all men are created equal but with a unique “preamble.” Its meaning is as follows: when the course of events leads to the fact that one of the nations is forced to sever its political ties with another nation, the right (that is, to sever) is given to it by the Laws of Nature and by the Creator of Nature (the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God).
Then, it should be explained. The rest of the text is an “explanation” of it. Isn’t that preface out of date? The Americans, or rather the inhabitants of the 13 colonies, have long since severed their political ties with “other people” (the English). However, now, they are in close political and other relations. In the Declaration’s text, many bitter words are addressed to the king of Great Britain, but now the Americans do not seem to resent Charles. And then, what laws of nature, what Creator? What ” Russoist,” “pantheistic,” and “toasts” have been introduced into the Declaration?
As of 2018, 22.8 percent of the US population does not consider itself a representative of any religious community. Not to mention that when they wrote Nature’s God, Thomas Jefferson, and his comrades in arms certainly did not mean Buddha or Shiva. So, why don’t the Americans change their Declaration of Independence? Why don’t they abandon that text’s non-pragmatic “toasts” and outdated formulations? The answer is obvious. For any state nation, institutional memory, heredity, and state tradition are much more important than changing any (even if unsuccessful) wording.
Even now, in the USA, there are extreme liberals (or, on the contrary, “Trotskyists” – I don’t know what to call them) who claim that the same Jefferson was a racist because he kept slaves. But hopefully, those moves aren’t “trendy” there. Otherwise, there will be what an Englishman (with the lips of a Dane) once described as: “the time is out of joint,” in the other version: “time has slipped out of its track,” in Russian (not literally, but accurately in meaning): распалась связы времен.
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The connection of times is essential for statehood. Whatever is written in the Declaration of Independence of Armenia, whatever artistic merits or shortcomings the coat of arms and anthem of Armenia have, it is not them in themselves, but what they symbolize that is important. To change those symbols means to create another state that has nothing to do with the First and Third Republics.
Aram ABRAHAMIAN
