According to the famous English writer George Orwell, whoever controls history controls the future. Orwell meant that the writing of history contains a political context. whoever writes the history, he formulates the pattern of his power or, as it is customary to say, the legitimacy.
Narration of history is of the most important importance in politics. The elite of the nations fighting for independence justify the historical right to fight for independence, during the Soviet period, history was written with “historical” justifications of class struggle, in our neighbor Abejan, history is written to justify that they are a people with several thousand years of history behind them and have historical rights in this region.
Rewriting history is one of the important parts of political activity. As a result of narrating history in one way or another, new nations and new states were born. This rewriting also brings other shades. for example, when the political elite splits, and a part discredits its competitors in order to justify its right to rule.
The new government of Armenia is trying to write its version of recent history. whoever writes the history, the future belongs to him: he will be the “white” and the rest will be the “black”. It has become the main stage of the current struggle for power.
The struggle for the formulation of the discourse of history in Armenia began with the trial of the “March 1” case, and it is no coincidence that that trial became the focal point of the political struggle. In fact, the struggle is not about the new principles of the development of the state, which the revolution was supposed to bring, but for the right of one part of the political elite at the expense of the other. In fact, the legitimacy of the government is not built on new values, on the anchor of “New Armenia”, but on the tragic events of 2008.
The thesis of “New Armenia” should be understood as follows. we are turning the page of history and forming new relations, however, putting the events of 2008 as the basis of all politics, the new government returned us to Old Armenia, and it itself became one of the parties to the conflict.
The entire propaganda machine of the government is committed to proving the rightness of one of the warring sides of “Old Armenia”, rewriting history and punishing the other side. This calls into question the legitimacy of the current government, because people voted for “New Armenia” and not for one of the sides of the political struggle for existence of “Old Armenia”. It turns out that people who voted for “New Armenia” were misled.
Time will tell where this misunderstanding will lead us.
Disclaimer: This article was contributed and translated into English by Arbi Tashjian. While we strive for quality, the views and accuracy of the content remain the responsibility of the contributor. Please verify all facts independently before reposting or citing.
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