THE GOVERNMENT’S BUSHEL
Hakob Badalyan

hos15424.html
11:47:42 – 06/10/2009

The discussion of the Armenian and Turkish protocols, sure, if
this process maybe called a discussion because except oppositional
arguments no essential anti-argument is presented by the government,
is passing on a plane exceptionally regarding the extern field,
excluding of course the tale on price decline that the government
tells the Armenian citizens.

The discussion of the Armenian-Turkish protocols skillfully avoids the
issues in Armenia on democracy, legality, right and free speech. They
seem not to have anything in common with the reality present in the
Armenian and Turkish normalization process. While, these problems
are not only the cause of the current image of the process but they
will also accompany all possible developments because the result or
consequence of any development in connection with the Armenian and
Turkish process will be determined by them.

The approach that the quality of the foreign policy is tangibly
determined by the quality of the home life is not just a theoretical
affirmation. The point is not even the legitimacy or non-legitimacy
of the government. The point is not that if Serge Sargsyan was a
legitimate president he would not have taken up a harmful scenario of
the Armenian and Turkish normalization process. Maybe Serge Sargsyan
really affirms his ideas being sure of his rightness and makes his
steps believing in the rightness of them. But the point is that
when in a country democratic, legal mechanisms work, when there is
possibility of free speech not only through press but also through TV,
it is easier for the society to influence governmental decisions.

In other words, we deal with just, legal election problem. Regardless
we want or not. If the government in a country is not formed by the
will of the citizens but by the wish of the same government, it will
naturally have no reason to doubt its being right. Moreover, the
government starts suspecting all those who doubt its rightness. And
this suspicion of the government has objective grounds because not
depending on the public the government does not believe that any
political force may set hopes on coming to power by the will of the
people but it just tries to make a shift of government deceiving
the society.

In other words, the government measures everything and everyone
by its own bushel because there is no other unit of measure in the
country. During the discussion of the Armenian and Turkish protocols,
the lack of a national unit of measure was felt. Whereas, it is
impossible to find anywhere any other more right unit of measure
than the law and the right. Consequently, the problem is whether the
government policy in this case in relation to the Armenian and Turkish
process is legal. It is legal as much as the process of the formation
of the very government is legal. Perhaps, all the political forces who
indeed are trying to prevent the process full of dangerous development
in result of singing of the protocols have to seek for answers on this
plane and have to turn it into a pro-Armenian course. In the opposite
case, any debate is only legitimating the governmental foreign policy.