PEOPLE START REALIZING
Aghasi Teadevosyan

Lragir.am
10/05/10

Authorities rule out the possibility of a Kirgiz scenario here, on
the other hand, the opposition disagrees with revolutionary changes,
Hrant Ter-Abrahamyan says we do not need to dwell on the events in
Kirgizia because we are not well aware of them. Did you understand
what happened there?

In any post-colonial or neocolonial country, the factor of foreign
influence is big, but all of us know that home political processes in
such countries are impossible without this. Those countries, which
were under Russia’s influence, are still under it. The influence on
Armenia becomes always deeper and deeper. But the problem is whether
the home sphere has adequate qualities to give way to such processes as
in Kirgizstan. There, an opposition which managed to consolidate the
dissatisfaction of a part of the people towards the power and used it
to eliminate them from the power. That force turned out to be stronger
than the power with its police and army. A change of power happened
there, but no qualitative change of power will probably happen there.

I think that the Kirgiz scenario is possible because there is a big
sphere of people dissatisfied with the government, but there is no
opposition having such resources to consolidate the people and an aim
to change the government with force. Until we have such an attitude,
no Kirgiz scenario will happen here, but this or some other opposition
is possible one day to have so much resource of dissatisfaction among
the public capable of changing the power. But I would not prefer
this version because it will be only a physical change while we need
qualitative changes. In order to change the life we need to change
the quality of the power, to do this we need to work and to create
results of new quality.

Who is to be interested in changing the quality of the power? The
opposition?

It is not important. I think the opposition has fulfilled and goes
on fulfilling its role very well. I am happy there is opposition in
Armenia because it creates tension inside the country, at public,
social and even intellectual and cultural levels. This tension makes
local players, small groups, organizations and people work. The
tension, which the opposition needs to justify its existence, to
keep itself alive, makes it be in a tense situation which unwillingly
promotes the activation of such forces which are not in the opposition
neither in the power. They do what neither the opposition nor the
government manages to do.

We have a very interesting process in Armenia, I would call it a
process of formation of local government, which are very small powers,
on the level of cooperation of a few people, but the whole problem is
that the quality of the power changes in a country only when people
start realizing their power. Currently people are not realizing it
well enough.

On the eve of elections, governmental groups try to buy the
above-mentioned local powers. The buyers know what they buy but those
who sell, do not understand what they sell; this is why they assess
it only 5000 or 10.000 drams. But when several hours are left before
the election, the price grows, but it is not the seller to increase
it but the buyer. A moment will come when in Armenia people will
understand that they have power and instead of selling it they can use
it enhancing its price always more. Armenians like to sell everything
but not to invest. So, they could create a country guarantying not
only their own future but also the future of the upcoming generations.

This conscience is being formed today and the opposition has a big
role in this work. But they are not conscious of what they do, they
do it to save them making the process of self-realization of local
powers to inevitably activate.