IF THEY DON’T TAKE RADICAL ACTIONS TODAY TOMORROW WILL BE LATE
LILIT POGHOSYAN

Hayots Ashkhar Daily
15 Nov 08
Armenia

Recently leader of the Armenian Democratic Party Aram Sargsyan
participated in the first summit of the international organization
`Dialogue of Civilizations’, established on the bases of the namesake
world public forum.

`What issues did they discuss during the Vienna summit `Dialogue of
Civilizations’ remarkable for our country?’

`Firstly I must underscore that Austrian Chancellor Guzenbouer also
participated in that not very big but still representational gathering,
who besides welcoming the participants of the forum delivered a long
speech.

Ex Chairman of the Council of Europe Walter Shvimer, ex Prime Minister
of Czech Republic Milosh Zeman, authoritative specialists, experts and
political scientists especially from Russia, Greece, France, Canada,
India, and the USA also participated and came out with speeches during
the forum.

The pretext of the speeches was as follows: global financial crisis is
not only financial crisis it is the crisis of the system. Which means
capitalism is a system that has already exhausted itself, the same is
about capitalistic relations and that we are on the threshold of
radical changes, in a historical refuge when the old vanishes and you
never know what will replace it.

Many people especially the champions of the market relations believe
that the global crisis will go and everything will be settled. Whereas
the conversation here is about more profound and comprehensive
phenomena that is linked with the world economy, which of course has
impact on Armenia as well. In this regard it is very important to
understand the essence of the problem, what actions should we take, how
to contradict these challenges, though it should have been done long
ago and the world wouldn’t have appeared on the edge of the canyon.’

`Do you see these actions?’

`In my speech I quoted Trdat king’s slogan `Let the path to the court
be covered by grass’, that is to say let no one go to the court, and on
the contrary `Let the path to the church be smooth.’

It is the lack of spirituality, and the victory of immorality that led
to this situation. When people break all the moral barriers only to
earn money it is quite understandable that we will have what we have.
That is to say unprecedented social poles, in the whole world
especially in our country, where under the veil of privatization the
protégé of the ruling power became oligarchs and the majority appeared
in poverty, and cynicism and immorality grows and grows.’

`What do you suggest, should we return to the resources of
social-democracy?’

`I suggest that we return to our fundamental resources. The President
of the Republic proposes very true postulates, the Prime Minister is
also trying to take certain actions, but he can’t be a success, for a
very simple reason: the system doesn’t allow. The system is
`accomplished’ and it is very difficult to break it.

We don’t mind market relations. On the contrary we consider it
necessary, but there should be a real competition. But just see what is
happening in our reality: the prices drop in the world market and
nothing is changed in Armenia. Even the prices of fuel have three times
dropped in the world market but in Armenia at best it has reduced by
30%.

Matters took such a turn that International Currency Fund gave one
month to bring the prices in conformity with the world market prices,
otherwise they intimidate to deprive us of the status of a market state.

Those who have great experience in that sphere, the same Austrian
Chancellor who is in essence a social democrat, also spoke about
morality, he said it is not the states that should be moral, those who
lead the state must be moral. If the person is immoral the state is
also immoral.

So we must restore those values, which we annihilated, due which we
have what we have: total impudence, impunity, distrust towards the
ruling power, etc. The pre-election promises, the commitments that
everyone is equal before the law, etc. must be implemented otherwise
they will be swiftly disvalued.

What we really need is radical actions towards the mitigation of social
polarization, because if we continue like this we will appear in a
worse situation. If at present certain part of society is able to
survive by the money, which they get from overseas tomorrow, they will
be deprived of that opportunity because the volume of the transfers is
becoming lesser and lesser.

How are they planning to compensate those sums that they receive from
overseas if they don’t raise the pensions and the salaries? Thus, what
we need is goal-oriented social programs – on account of the reduction
of shadow. We must struggle against the shadow not by words but by
actions.

Armenia must prosper on the account of our greatest capital `
intellect. We can give new scientific ideas to the world. We can
elaborate new technologies. We can send our best specialists to work
overseas and do it on the level of inter-state agreements, so that the
state will also benefit from it and so on and so forth.’