BECOMING CIVILIZED
Support A1+!Is we look at the archives you will see how often during the recent years various organizations initiated actions on different occasions, however today unhealthy passiveness reigns in the public and political life of Armenia. Vice speaker Vahan Hovhannisian gives rather an peculiar explanation to this phenomenon.
When asked to comment on the issue taking into account the faults of the law “On marches, rallies and demonstrations”, he brought the following example, “During the OSCE Summit in Washington, the city residents claimed to adopt the OSCE resolution, which will make the U.S. government and Congress adopt a law providing suffrage for these people. A strange situation was created in the United States. All the states elect a Congressman Washington does not. Thus about 600 thousand voters are deprived of suffrage and Washington does not have a delegate in the Congress. It has a representative with a consultative vote. Summit participants adopted the resolution. I’d like to note that 30 people took part in the action and these 30 people represented whole Washington. Representatives of public organizations gathered to express their discontent. I think there is a tendency in Armenia to convert mass rallies into representative ones. That is why the number of meetings decreases.”
Doesn’t the law “contribute” to passiveness? In Vahan Hovhannisian’s opinion, despite the faults the law does not impede conduction of rallies
Reverting to the example of representative forces we reminded the vice speaker that rallies with participation of thousands of people take place democratic states. “Yes, some social or economic problems can really become a reason for huge marches. In Egypt, for instance, people protest against terrorism and the authorities do not mind. The other question is how frequent people organize rallies to claim change of power. We can see such phenomenon in Philippines, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Ukraine. However, as you noted, the number of such meetings in Armenia has considerably reduced, as people came to understand that rally in not the best way to change power and elections can serve a real instrument to express their will”, he said.
Thus, it turns out that the cause for the indifference of our society is not the absence of a possibility to change something but on the contrary – people do not leave their houses in expectation of elections.
When asked about the ARFD’s passiveness, (to remind, earlier ARFD actively protested against ArmenTel’s activities) Vahan Hovhannisian said, “ARFD considers legal proceedings to be the best way to settle the situation.”
Diana Markosyan
