Lragir, Armenia
Dec 4 2007

WHEN THE FATE OF POLITICAL FORCE DOES NOT DEPEND ON THE WILL OF
SOCIETY

After listening to the speech of the leader of a political force or
an activist perhaps every citizen has a wish to go to the polling
station and to vote for him. This wish may be so strong that at that
moment any building may appear as a polling station and any separate
corner of it may appear as a polling booth to him, and any open thing
in that place may remind of a ballot box, and any piece of paper may
serve as a ballot. After all, the speeches of our political forces
are well-written, beautiful, moving, fiery and practical, about
building a legitimate state, fighting false authorities,
protectionism, corruption and all the phenomena for approving which
the government does not enjoy the sympathy of people. Even the
government speaks nicely about those things, even more nicely than
the opposition. For instance, it was so pleasant to hear from Serge
Sargsyan during the conference of the Republican Party that he is
going to battle corruption and disregard nepotism. But when we see
what is happening in real life, we think either Serge Sargsyan is
unaware of this life or he speaks for the sake of speaking, knowing
that he is not accountable or responsible for his words. Even if he
is accountable or responsible, he is not to the people who want the
rule of law in the country. Consequently, if they believe, it’s OK,
if not the fate of a political force in Armenia has nothing to do
with the will of the society anyway.

So think all the forces, which have no power. They believe that they
should tell people about legality, equality, justice, goodwill. If
they believe, it’s OK, if not, in this case they need to keep the
means of communication with the government to keep their place under
the political sun. For instance, the ARF Dashnaktsutyun states about
corruption, false authorities, protection but continues to cooperate
with the Republican Party, which sustains these things. And if the
Republican Party is not to blame, the ARF Dashnaktsutyun should at
least do the society a favor and tell who does sustain them, and whom
they should not vote for, and finally who is to blame. Or for
instance, the National Democratic Union, the Orinats Yerkir Party,
the same ARF Dashnaktsutyun, Levon Ter-Petrosyan are speaking about
the same things but would not agree to unite and reach their goal
together to demolish the vicious system in Armenia and form a
legitimate government through a new election.

And it is clear why. The point is that the political forces know the
value of their word, they know that they say one thing but they are
going to do another thing because the word has never been important
to them. And this is perhaps an all-Armenian syndrome the
consequences of which are seen everywhere, even during the
pan-Armenian telethon when many pledge a sum but do not transfer it.
Meanwhile, we are Christian people, in addition, we were the first to
adopt Christianity as an official religion. Now very few figures are
left who do not mention God in their public speeches. But perhaps
very few of them know that God created world through words, and God
was word: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.’ Can you imagine God say let there be light but
make no effort to create light? In that case, even the fool would not
believe in God. But it is also difficult to imagine God not say let
there be light but give no light. In that case, faith would be
incomplete because the question would occur whether God really wanted
light to be there and there was light. Therefore, the idea of harmony
of word and action underlies Christianity because one without the
other is incomplete and doubtful. However, the basis of Christianity
is one thing, the political and public system of Armenia is quite
another thing.

JAMES HAKOBYAN