THE DEVELOPMENT OF NEW CULTURES IN CIVIC MOVEMENTS: RUZANNA GRIGORYAN’S POINT OF VIEW
Anna Muradyan
13:25, October 1, 2013
If political activism may seem boring, hard to understand and,
specifically, uninteresting to some people – this isn’t the case
for Ruzanna Grigoryan, who gained notoriety in the Internet during
the “Mockery as a method for civic struggle” action. During one of
the actions against the mayor’s office she appeared with a toy gun,
wearing clown attributes on her dressing, emphasizing the absurdity
of the authorities and the police force defending them.
Poet and publicist Zaruhi Hovhannisyan says it’s typical for Ruzanna –
transforming to a humorous situation after actions deemed too serious.
She adds positive energy into the struggle with it,- she says,- in
every action Ruzik sees that which is in the parallel domain and is
able to change the life with culture”.
The first fervent wave of civic activism in the form of actions was
in 2010 for preserving the summer hall of Moscow cinema, when the
Mother See wanted to demolish it to build a St. Poghos-Petros church
on its location. Many groups and movements were formed after it,
most notable of which would be Mashtots Park and Hundred’s movements,
which too were victorious.
Ruzanna finds civic movements very important for the development of
Armenia, because not only they formulate and solve problems in the
system, they also create new cultures, e. g. the culture of young
people’s independent habitation.
“Many girls, in the course of civic movements, started to separate from
their parents and organizing their lives independently”,- she says.
Ruzanna herself, with fellow activist Lena Nazaryan, has been renting
an apartment for some months already, and is leading an independent
life. In the new apartment they have just moved in their belongings
are still scattered and a small kitten is running among them. Parallel
to the active social life they also manage to take care of the animal
they have found in the yard.
Ruzanna also states that in civic movements serious changes are
taking place in the man-woman relationships, because it allows an
individual to stand from the position of a free-thinking citizen,
which is out of the accepted cultural ways.
“There is real equality among men and women here,- she comments,-
it’s not that a couple of “smart strong leading guys” are deciding
and subordinates are following”.
“Here” is not as abstract as it might seem. “Here” was, for example,
the civic tribune formed in Mashtots Park, which was a place for
realizing free speech. It was a time, when the city took part in
city life: cultural figures, artists, people, who had something to
say gathered during the week and organized discussions.
For Ruzanna, Mashtots Park movement was a form of power which did
not comply to the current authorities. “It was a small reality out of
current authorities’ reach, and that’s what brought to a victory”,-
she says.
At the same time, she signifies not the victory itself, but the
process, moreover, the long-term process, where there is vision and
the road to reaching it becomes a way of life.
“As a result, you start being creative in social life,- she says,-
it’s a ceaseless action, which is followed by reflexion, action and
reflexion. They are parallel and complement each other. You think,
you act, you talk to different people, from outside, from inside,
like you, with a world view different from yours. This is a ceaseless
and continuous process”.
Ruzanna is making breakfast, parallelly presenting her perception of
the idea of a citizen. She stresses that some part of the problems in
our reality are connected to the patriarchal perceptions present in
our society: “52 percent of the population is female, the 48 percent –
male, but organization of our lives and the most important decisions
are taken by men, because that’s how the system works”.
Ruzanna wants to live in a country where everyone can think in a
different way, but everyone is equal in rights and freedoms and
respect those freedoms.
“That’s the guarantee of a happy society,- she comments,- in the
opposite case some group will become privileged and start oppressing
other groups: the happiness of one group will be at the expense
of others”.
Outside civic movements, Ruzanna is a researcher in the Public Health
Department of the American University: she’s a doctor by profession,
received education first in the Medical, then American universities.
She’s working in a project evaluating the impacts of pollution with
heavy metals on human health.
Ruzanna likes travelling and climbing high mountains. “But my biggest
passion is the passion for cognition,- she says,- knowing yourself
and the world surrounding you. And in this respect civic activism is
very useful”.
Her activism has started after the fight for Trchkan, when she
understood, that a group of people, no matter how small, can gather
together and solve a problem: “it greatly motivates”.
Before we start our breakfast, the kitten starts meowing and demanding
to be fed, and we move back to the kitchen. There’s chicken specially
cooked for it, which Ruzanna divides in threads, continuing to radiate
enthusiastic thoughts that if there’s a definition and approach
sincere to the point of being personal, the problem will be solved.
“If there are at least 5 people who consider a problem personal and
consistently stand for it to the end, the problem will be solved”,-
she says, putting the meat in the feeder, which is quickly depleted.
Cultural anthropologist Aghasi Tadevosyan says that Ruzanna, as a
matter of fact, is one of the individuals forming new practices with
her actions, because she realizes her activism as a way of life and
thought, which is directed from inside to outside – from personal
to social.
“Activism arising from inside is very important,- he comments,- this
is a very substantial, surprising and pleasant human property, which
is typical of her and I think that’s where her surprising feeling
of freedom and strength of spirit comes and passes to the people
surrounding her”.
The police has carried Ruzanna off using brute force several times:
she has bruises on her elbows, but that can’t make her turn back from
the way she’s heading.
We are continuing to discuss, how changes can be reached and which is
the right option. In my companion’s opinion, the best way to change is
not destroying, which will lead to defeat, because that’s the field
where you’re fighting with someone who’s stronger, but creating a
new culture, independent of the authorities and with a different
symbolic system.
“As a matter of fact, you’re creating a new thing, and the new thing
gives the old one two options: renew itself to understand your symbolic
language to communicate with you or automatically break down and fail,
being replaced by the new”,- she comments.
Concerning the idea of the traditional Armenian hearth and home,
she isn’t against it at all, it’s only that she thinks every family
should make their own mind which way they want to be.
“It’s just that people should be able to choose, not just be obligated
the traditional model,- she comments,- there can be as many models,
as many families there are in Armenia. Some women may choose that
model, but it doesn’t mean the rest of the 1.5 millions of women
should live that way”.
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