MOVEMENT LIKE IN ’88
Naira Hayrumyan
Story from Lragir.am News:
Published: 13:04:58 – 05/04/2012
The initiative for dismantling boutiques in Mashtots Park made a
great proposal to surround the park enclosing police officers in a
chain who are now defending boutiques belonging to anonymous persons.
The idea is good but it is necessary to find hundreds of people to
bring this into being. They will certainly come to the park if they
accept this idea. But the question is why youth has fallen into this
fall sleep and is reluctant to open its eyes.
Dwelling on the success of the civil movement in Armenia,
its initiators refer to 1988 when the idea of independence and
self-determination that seemed impossible then grew from an initiative
of a group of people into a national movement. Is there a difference
between these two situations?
People are typically mobilized when they face common enemy or danger.
In 1988, this danger was evident and the enemy was concrete. Even the
years of Soviet internationalism could not hinder people from assessing
the danger and understanding that if we do not defeat them, they will
defeat us, from the understand that conformism and timeserving lead
to catastrophe and the only solution is to fight.
Is there a common enemy for the Armenian society now? Evidently,
the main danger for everyone can be the oligarchy, which is trying
to secure its foothold, a group of people who gained wealth at our
expense. People who pick our pockets, monopolized the country, tied
the hands of the courts, not letting people receive proper education
and sustain their families, forcing them to leave the country.
The Armenian society cannot understand that this is our sole enemy.
The oligarchy is perceived as the cost of living, as something granted
that cannot be uprooted. Young people who should be full of dignity,
perfectionism and honor agree to fulfill the orders of unshaved youths
(racketeers) in black coats, pay taxes “for them”, accept the hierarchy
of the criminals that has replaced the national structure.
Young people do not understand that what is happening in Mashtots
Park is a fight against this system. Even the Police understand that
they do not defend the state and the laws but the interests of this
criminal oligarchy. They are tired of this oligarchy too and if the
situation escalates into clash, the police will not pose danger to
its life for the protection of someone’s illegal property.
But they need to make sure that the society considers this property
as illegal. Therefore the people must come to Mashtots Park who
refuse to pay “taxes” who do not like the criminal state and prefer
a democratic one.
Many say the experience of 1988 was the most successful one. What have
we achieved? Look at how the fighters live, how we live, skeptics say.
They are right but from the point of view of fulfillment of the task
of 1988, that year was really victorious. We managed to avert danger
and push the rival away. And Armenia is the only country in the world
which was able to push the expansionist force out of their country.
In the same way, if we set a clear task and define the common rival,
we can win in Mashtots Park. For this purpose, each of us needs to
choose between conformism, wish to be satisfied with the crumbs of
someone else’s mean or a dignified life.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
