Last Blow To Oligarchic Pyramid

Interview with expert of the Armenian Center for National and International Studies, historian Saro Saroyan

Saro, in the election period the party leaders pledge to make a real state out of this state. They even express readiness to give away their property but by and large no one believes them.

Trust is one of the most complicated structures of the psychological world of a person which is connected to not only consciousness but also unconsciousness. I think the society doesn’t see any change in its living in the speeches and behavior of the parties and their leaders, so it lets itself to the downstream. The claim comes from the lack of trust and it is some kind of criteria of trust. What else should it demand if it has demanded for fifteen years but was always frustrated? This is a proof of the deep crisis which can enable changes.

Saro, changes were expected several years ago too but they never happened. Is the critical situation determined by the lack of trust towards the government and the opposition?

Trust in the government depends on deception by the regime. The more deception, the less the trust is. Meanwhile, trust in the opposition depends on the difference between its speeches and actions. No matter how objective the grounds for discrepancy are, the society wants to see results. I will give a specific example. The ANC used to have the largest oppositional group of supporters when it demanded early elections. Having no opportunity to achieve their goal, they failed to preserve trust. Tomorrow, the oppositional forces will have to face the loss of the next portion of supporters. The crisis is determined by the urgency of changes that the society wants but can’t see.

Should new changes be expected from the civil society?

Changes can be expected from every force which is ready to say something new in the political field and to prove with its actions that its words are true. In theory, the authorities could send to hell all the oligarchs, legally returning the social and national wealth they have misappropriated, arrest their criminal brothers, relatives, etc. The opposition can be strong enough to refuse the fraudulent election and send the regime to hell or in other words, declare party disobedience. Since both ways I mentioned are revolutionary and the sides are not ready for them, the citizens have to set to deal with the situation themselves. The issue is that our society has never been on such a path since independence. The methodology of solving problems at the civil level is unknown to them. But the success of a couple of civil initiatives made the society believe and hope.

Saro, can Mashtots Park become a place to raise and solve political issues?

The fight for Mashtots Park had raised political issues even before the arrival of the groups of dismantlers which only crystallized the political level since the opposite party became the target. The point is the criminal-oligarchic pyramid which has brought Armenia to the edge of collapse. All the citizens who have been to the Park at least once know that it is not an issue of a couple of boutiques but it is a movement against the criminal-oligarchic clans which will open the door to the dismantlement of the oligarchy. Actually, the door is already open. You can see what’s happening in the Linguistic University after Brusov.

Do you mean the students also stood up and Occupy 26 Baghramyan Street is close? But the students are joining the Republican Party in groups.

I think that the citizen of the Republic of Armenia has woken up. The students are the birth of independent Armenia which is free from Soviet stereotypes and fears. The fact that students are enrolled into the Republican Party only deepens the crisis and brings the explosion and the new beginning closer. The self-determined citizen doesn’t want political power and I think it will punch the government in quite another place.