THE LEGEND OF MASTERING TECHNOLOGIES

Hayots Ashkhar
Published on March 12, 2008

For some reason, many people consider that L. Ter-Petrosyan and his
team perfectly master the modern technologies of colored revolutions,
and as a proof, they usually point out their ability of influencing
the crowd.

However, the tools of influencing the crowd and the peculiarities
of an individual’s behavior in the crowd were thoroughly studied
and described by psychologists as far back as two centuries ago,
and they can hardly be called "modern technologies" now. As regards
L. Ter-Petrosyan’s tactics in general, it almost 95 percent repeated
"Karabakh" committee’s activities of 1988-1990.

Whereas, in terms of applying real modern technologies, the
revolutionists demonstrated absolute helplessness in a number of cases,
and this becomes obvious at least from a couple of examples regarding
the use of the Mass Media.

To begin with, Ter-Petrosyan’s hopes of seeing dissidents in the TV
companies and the newspapers supporting the opposite camp didn’t come
true. We are far from the idea that the TV channels, for instance,
worked well during the recent months. Of course, not. It’s a long
time they have become a means of earning money through advertisements
which are often interrupted by stupid soap operas, shows and clips. The
level of professionalism is really disastrous here.

However, there was no transition of journalists to the opposite camp.

The scarves, badges, burdocks, kerchiefs, flags, balloons, bows and
various other things with relevant symbols creating revolutionary
moods were ignored. This may seem unessential at first sight. But as
a matter of fact, combining the aesthetic device with the symbolic
political meaning produces a magic impact on consciousness and
especially the feelings.

This is an elementary requirement of the modern technologies.

In general, the Internet was used quite ineffectively. Despite the fact
that we do not have a large number of Internet users, the net community
can, nonetheless, have an essential investment in colored revolutions;
first of all, due to the prompt elucidation of the events. Event the
TV Channels cannot elucidate the developments as perfectly as do the
Internet Web sites; let alone the newspapers which, for well-known
reasons, do not simply manage to respond to the events.

For instance, the Internet can be helpful in planning the protests
on-line, i.e. arranging joint actions through the direct conversation
of all the participants etc.

By the way, the Western political technologists are perfectly aware
of the capacities of the Internet. It’s not accidental, for instance,
that during the Ukrainian revolution the "Rock Creek Creative", a
well-known American PR company situated on the outskirts of Washington,
confirmed that it had supported the opposition in elaborating local
strategy, brand and policy.

Or else, the modern technologies demand that leaflets, news releases
and brief analyses be posted on the Internet, and the people having
access to the Internet print the information and distribute it in
the street. And of course, it is necessary to update the sites very
frequently.

Nothing of the kind was observed in our reality. Despite the
fact that the whole country was flooded with the DVD materials of
L. Ter-Petrosyan’s speeches, and the SMS messages were actively sent
via mobile phones beginning March 1. However, it’s hard to speak about
promptness as far as DVDs are concerned; as regards the SMS messages,
they were only used for monitoring the activities of the crowd in
the street.

The native revolutionists chose the easiest path; more precisely,
they were doing what they could. The Internet was flooded with an
incredibly large amount of false information. Lie can, certainly,
spoil the atmosphere, increase the level of aggressiveness,
mislead the people, but to achieve victory based purely on lie is
impossible. Whereas these people resorted to absolute lie, which is
first of all accounted for the absence of professionalism.

During the recent years there has grown a generation of "journalists"
who cannot but invent lies and gossips and disseminate them.

We presented just a few examples from the series that can be continued
still further. However, the above examples make it clear that it is
at least exaggeration to say that Ter-Petrosyan and his team have a
perfect command of the modern technologies.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress