ARMENIA CAN CHOOSE

Lragir.am
3/02/10

Arsen Kharatyan, orientalist, journalist of the Armenian service of
the Voice of America

You have not been to Armenia for two years. What has changed now?

It is very difficult to have ideas on the issues inside the country
when you are out of it. Now I am judging by Armenia by electronic media
only. In other words, I see that our fundamental problems deepened
even more. The authoritarian regime seems to be enhancing and deepening
here. Since the government came to power though blood, it is ready to
do everything and anything possible to keep the power. After March 1,
I understood that the power does not have any resource to speak to the
nation, to communicate with it as the power shot to its citizens. And
the nation does not have any other ways of struggle, it has already
tried all the possible ways and now people are exhausted and do not
believe that anything may be changed and so they again leave the
country or stay here feeling humiliated.

Two years ago, you were one of the activists of the opposition. Do
you see the same opposition today?

Of course, we have always had opposition. The point is whether this
opposition is ideological. I think it is not. The opposition has
been gradually exhausting during these two years by both internal and
external reasons. Saying external I mean that the government worked
very constantly to make the opposition weaker. As to its internal
exhaustion, it is due to the lack of essential ideological difference.

Just from the beginning, the opposition did not say that it has come
to propose another political system, socialistic or something else.

The opposition used to dwell on the illegalities and lack of moral in
the country. But in essence, it did not have any conceptual difference,
say about how the country is to be governed.

What projects and suggestions are needed in Armenia? Will the HAK
manage to overcome the current situation with its new proposals?

Now, I do not have any proposal that will surely be good for Armenia
but I think Armenia needs to choose a separate way starting propagating
original logic in the region.

What to do? There is a hard-fulfilled version. We need to make peace
the aim of the future for which we strive. In addition, peace from
the point of our relations with the world and people. In other words,
we need to reach the situation when people and countries accept
"constitutions of peace". I would like to stress that for our region
full of wars and nationalism what I propose is unlikely. I hope this
will sooner or later be the prospect of development and I think we
need at least to discuss as a country as a nation, as separate persons
the possibility of constitution of peace.

What do you mean by saying constitution of peace?

Which is the most important element of the common conscience of our
nation? Is it the fight with the Turks? The Armenian and Azerbaijani
war? Or maybe something else. Many people are possible not to agree
with me, but I think for the greater part of the Armenian nation, the
war with Azerbaijan is a past phase. At the same time, for Azeris,
the main element is their hatred towards Armenians. In this logic,
we will continue being nations with generations hating each other. To
great extent, this cannot lead to anything good. I think, if we find
enough force to communicate with any country proceeding from the point
how much it respects peace as a supreme value and aim, we will reach
the situation when the discourse will be on a completely other level.

As a starting point, we can take the UN declarations on which today’s
world is said to be based then to try to promote reinforced ideas.

With all this, I have to say that I do not have any proposal radically
different from the socio-state point.

Is the HAK able to present new ideas to the society?

The success of the HAK is the following: it has to be able to work
even in case of the lack of any leader. And if the existence of
this structure is to be determined by separate persons, it will be
difficult. Of course we have the example of India and Gandhi, who
managed to free India: here everything depended on one person. We
have the example of Nelson Mandela who brought the most progressive
constitution for his country. We have Martin Luther King at the cost
of whose life, Obama became president today. I think the success
of these people in their fights for social changes is determined by
their readiness to sacrifice themselves.

Interview By Siranuysh Papyan