Hayots Ashkharh, Armenia
Dec 7 2007

WHAT HELPED RECONSTRUCT THE DISASTER ZONE?

Change of ideology

Before the 1998 shift of power, we seemed to have somehow put up
with the idea that the phenomenon known as `disaster zone’ would
exist in our reality forever.
Although it seemed for a moment that after the 1994 ceasefire the
authorities would pay a little attention to the disaster zone,
allocating to it at least a small part of the state expenditures,
inevitably decreasing in connection with the end of war. But that
didn’t happen for the simple reason that the official ideology and
the ideologists considered it quite natural that the population of
Armenia would decrease, reaching to 1-1.5 million.
So, is there any need to think about reconstructing the disaster
zone and keeping the population of Spitak and Gyumri in their places,
when a few hundred stalls reselling cheap products brought from
Turkey were enough to create the `heavenly place’ they were dreaming
about, so as the remaining population of Gyumri, Spitak and the other
towns could drag out its miserly existence.
The reconstruction of the disaster zone required that both the
former and the new authorities introduce a change of ideology in
their specific goals, the fundamental value of such change being the
idea of the unity and inseparability of one’s nation and motherland
vs. a citizen doing services for an oriental `bazaar’. The
fundamental turning point observed in the process of the
reconstruction of the disaster zone, which began in 1988 and took a
more active turn during the subsequent years, resulted first of all
from a new perception of the sense of the existence of the state and
the prospects of its development.
The rest, i.e. procuring supplies from different sources, speeding
up the paces of the construction, handing over a large number of
schools and cultural establishments for operation were just simple
derivatives of the above-mentioned.
But even after 1988, when the reconstruction of the ruined
dwelling areas began to speed up drastically, the activists, who held
responsible posts under the former authorities and later became
representative of the Opposition, were trying to substantiate the
viewpoint that R. Kocharyan’s special attention to the construction
of the disaster zone was nothing more than a waste of means and
efforts.
The reason for advancing such statements of question is obvious.
As the members of the Armenian pan-National Movement believe, the
state works for itself, and the citizen lives on his/her own; and the
former doesn’t care whether the latter lives in a hut or in a flat.
And despite all that, despite all the material and subjective bars
and obstacles, the authorities continued their strategy of
prioritizing the reconstruction of the disaster zone. As a result, we
are now the eye-witnesses of new districts built in the towns of
Spitak and Gyunri. Therefore, now it is already possible to speak
about the elimination of the term `disaster zone’.
The political sense and significance of the unprecedented
construction implemented in the disaster zone during the past 10
years is first of all that hundreds and thousands of people received
flats, got firmly attached to their native land, gave up the idea of
carrying the stick of a migrant and recovered their distorted faith
in their motherland.
The fundamental turning point observed in the disaster zone
results from a mentality deriving from a certain clear-cut ideology
and prioritizing the national goals over the laws of some market
place. Now, on the eve of the presidential elections, it is acquiring
a specific content and significance, becoming a clear alternative of
either preserving or waiving the national goals adopted by the state.

KAREN NAHAPETYAN