IN KARABAKH EVERYTHING STARTED IN ’88
Gegam Bagdasaryan
Osservatorio Balcani
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Nov 2 2009
Difficulties and small advantages in creating democratic institutions
in a country not recognised on an international level. Twenty years of
changes in Stepanakert 1988 represents a turning point in the recent
history of Nagorno-Karabakh: history is divided between "before" and
"after" that year. The citizens of Karabakh remember the "before"
with reluctance.
The Armenians living in the region, who represented the clear majority
of the population of the Autonomous Region of Nagorno-Karabakh in
the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, felt oppressed by the
Azeri minority.
According to the stories circulating at the time, it was forbidden
to sleep with your face facing Armenia and those who had studied in
Armenia had no chance of pursuing a career. Despite the fact that
the administrators of the Autonomous region of Nagorno-Karabakh were
"Armenian". Yet, they were "Armenian" between inverted commas, since
they were emissaries of Baku, educated or re-educated in that city,
meticulously forged at the school of the local party. And obviously
with a surname ending in "-ov", instead of the traditionally Armenian
"-yan". It is said that at that time the famous marshal Bagramyan
arrived to Stepanakert from Moscow. The local elite welcomed him and
started introducing themselves: Kevorov, Aslanov, Samvelov… "What’s
going on? Are we still not in Karabakh?" asked the distinguished
Armenian commander, with indignation.
In those years I was studying in Stepanakert at the Institute of
Pedagogy, dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the creation of Soviet
Azerbaijan; I studied Armenian language and literature, but it was
forbidden to teach Armenian history. It would be like training Italian
Literature teachers without allowing them to study Italian history.
But this is the way things were before Gorbachev’s perestroika. And
then all of a sudden the words perestrojka, uskorenie, glasnost’
started to appear… the citizens of Karabakh had waited a long time
for this, and they were the first ones to believe in it, open-heartedly
showing their aspirations and tribulations. Miatsum was the motto
in response to this, which means reunification with the motherland
Armenia. But the Kremlin reacted harshly, making it clear that it was
not only made up of progressive leaders following the motto "Lenin,
party, Grobachev", but also of conservative ones following the one
"Stalin, Beria, Ligachev", instead.
Perestrojka, uskorenie, glasnost’ were very popular slogans when the
movement for the liberation of Karabakh started to emerge, but soon
the feeling that they were nothing more than words began to spread. It
was an attempt at giving a face-lift to the empire. But the rotten
system couldn’t sustain it and rejected it.
The USSR collapsed, and in the chaos that followed Azerbaijan decided
to crush the aspirations of the Armenian population of Karabakh with
violence. After a difficult war the Karabakhi Armenians proclaimed
their independence and started to build their own state.
The first impression for the Armenian population of Karabakh was simply
amazing: we had our own army, police, symbols – Armenian ones -, our
own officials instead of emissaries, our own flag, national anthem
and official crest. The enthusiasm didn’t fade even when civil rights
started to be ignored by our newly appointed officials, when it was
"our own" police that was beating us up, when during trials it was
"our own" courts that didn’t do us justice, when the first villas
belonging to "our own" businessmen started to appear.
An acquaintance of mine used to joke about this by saying: "The
people obtained the symbols of independence: the flag, the crest,
the national anthem, while the bureaucrats obtained all the benefits".
Nonetheless, by slowly leaving the war behind, Karabakhi Armenians
started to worry not only about basic commodities, but also about their
own freedom, and hence started to fight to obtain it. Having fought for
years against an external enemy, they had to overcome a "psychological"
barrier and start "fighting" against their own authorities. It wasn’t
easy, but the struggle began. With alternate fortune. In 2004 the
opposition won the local elections, and its leader became the mayor
of Stepanakert. But that was followed by two significant failures in
2005 and 2007. Now the situation is at a stand by, while we wait for
the next elections.
Nowadays, Karabakhi Armenians are trying to build their democracy in a
very difficult situation: they are not recognised on an international
level, and the threat of a military action from Azerbaijan hangs
over them.
The situation is certainly not easy, but, for as strange as it may
sound, there are also some advantages to it. On the one hand there
is a clear lack of new upper level professionals due to isolation and
scarce resources, and at a first glance the pre-requisites to create
political parties, independent media and NGOs are still not in place.
But on the other hand the society in Karabakh is more compact and
flexible than elsewhere, due to the scarcely populated nature of the
region and, in a way, to the war. It can also count on its previous
experience of collective survival, it is less fractured and more
traditional, thus having better self-management skills. It has not been
spoiled by funding and subsidies, a fact that has positive aspects.
A further benefit of not being recognised on an international level
is the fact that the process of democratic transformation is not
being forcedly accelerated, since such an artificial acceleration
could paradoxically produce the opposite effect of impoverishing the
democratic principles. Karabakh is not a member of the European Council
or any other international institution, hence it is not expected to
force events and it is not subject to binding obligations.
Therefore, it seems like everything follows a more natural development
in this country.
Obviously, the population realises that solving the matter of the
official recognition of Karabakh would mean having more development
opportunities. Nonetheless, as a friend of mine often says, there are
worse tragedies in the world than not being officially recognised:
AIDS, earthquakes, the ozone hole and so on. Karabakh Armenians
value the opportunity to preserve their national identity as the
most important result. It is certainly not easy, but at least we can
breath freely.