168: Hybrid Armenia: nationalization of business, denationalization of the state

In the conditions of summer and political vacation, seemingly unrelated but actually dialectically related processes take place in Armenia. In the authoritarian country with the label of “democratic bastion”, the process of nationalization of private property is proceeding with great momentum.

After the elections, the government activated the issue of the nationalization of Armenia’s electric grids (ETR) owned by Samvel Karapetyan, along with the political reprisal against the head of the “Prosperous Armenia” party Gagik Tsarukyan, the process of nationalization of “Araratcement” and other companies, owned by him, began.

This government will not stop and, most likely, will continue the nationalization parade in the near future, providing scenes of “restoration of justice” for the hungry masses, money, big money for the government. In other conditions, it would be relatively possible to consider what is happening as a redistribution of large capital, which in one way or another is specific to countries like Armenia. But the problem is that while under the name of nationalization, the government violently seizes the business owned by the people, the process of denationalization of the state is taking place in parallel, in the sense of the content and functions inherent to the state.

The state administration system, all law enforcement agencies are no longer unconditionally serving the ruling party and its leader, as in authoritarian regimes.

But in this matter it also differs from classical examples in the sense that the beneficiary of state denationalization is not only and not so much the ruling regime, but its external sponsors: the collective West, directly, Azerbaijan and Turkey, still indirectly, but no less. As a result, large businesses owned by Armenian businessmen are “nationalized” by a government whose beneficiaries are outside of Armenia, that is, these businesses will never become the property of the Armenian state, but of all those, perhaps not on paper, who sponsor today’s processes. The nationalization of business takes place in parallel with the process of denationalization of society, which has been going on for several years. The government started the fight against the big Armenian capital long before and continues the fight against the national capital. from identity to symbols, from the Armenian Apostolic Church to historical memory.

These are interrelated processes and are different parts of one overall project. Deprived of Armenianness, anti-national society, nationalized large capital in the conditions of a stateless state with all possible external beneficiaries and shareholders. But the important thing is, of course, rest. Not only summer, but also political, which, if continued for a few more seasons, will lead to the relaxation of the state. Final rest.   

Harutyun Avetisyan

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