A brief essay on the current developments

The essay considers the current stage of the political culture in Armenia. The
essay attempts to answer the question what is the situation with the political
culture resulting from the activities of the major forces as a whole. It is
argued that the main stream political forces are ignoring the most urgent and
alarming needs of the nation. The tasks and goals suggested by those major
forces in power seem either to divert the attention from urgent matters of human
rights or they are detached as a whole from such needs. Those needs are hinged
on ideas of protecting citizenry rights and freedoms, individual human rights.
They may remain at best a concern of non-governmental sector of human rights
NGOs or as an abstract theme needed for presentation at some levels of
international politics.

According to one of theories in political science the concept of political
culture is a general matrix of human behavior that orientates a human being
towards the most wide spread norms in a society. The political culture is also
considered as a political dimension of the cultural environment of a specific
society. The latter is characteristic of the behavior of a particular nation and
the current feature of its development¹. This is not by any means a deviation
from the raised topic into the field of abstract political science. Instead, it
is a context within which it is proposed to consider the following points:

1. the political programs of, for example, two major parties of the ruling
   coalition;
2. the situation with the human rights and civic freedom as covered by some
   media outlets.

The internet pages of the Dashnaktsutyun (Armenian Revolutionary Federation) and
the Republican Party of Armenia are in the focus of the attention. They are the
key players of the current poitics in Armenia and yet they are also partially
rival in the political arena. Their pages are interesting precisely from the
point of view of covering what they believe is the most essential in the
normative orientation of the current stage of the national development. The
Dashnaktsutyun main page is, for example, devoted mostly and mainly to economic
and financial development. An extract from the pre-election campaign of the
party put up on its main page clearly indicates what the party considers a
matter of urgent need to be addressed in the near future. It is titled as “Our
Social and Economic Proposals”. There are 11 points including “fair economic
competition…”, “fair division of the fiscal taxes” and so on².

There is only a token attention given to the idea of human rights in the
subdivision titled “Democracy, Human Rights and Freedoms”. It is interesting
that this part practically restricts without that very meagre attention given to
Human Rights to the statement that “to create supporting them [human rights]
political, [and again] economic and social mechanisms”³. There is such an
impression that human rights and fundamental freedoms are to be carried out
exclusively via restoration of the economic justice and, may be, via social
reforms. Do economic reforms automatically promote Human Rights or are they the
corner stones of the latter? Does there remain anything else more directly and
urgently drawing attention to the support of Human Rights and civic freedom?
These questions remain unclear.

The main priorities of the Republican Party are even less centred on the idea of
promotion of human rights and civic freedoms. They simply abstain from the
efforts of considering human rights in their program provisions. There is no
mention of them at least on the main pages. On the contrary, the program states
that “The RPA is a national conservative party”⁴. It is indeed more or less in
compliance with the ideas of the conservatism [but certainly not republicanism].
It goes on stating “By God's will, we were created Armenians and therefore the
eternal contact between God and the Armenian nation is ensured by the
perpetuation of the Armenian type⁵” and “the RPA regards the Church as an
integral part of the Armenian essence”. Contrary to this, republicanism is
devoted to the protection of human being from any kind of coercion. Moreover, it
the norms of Republicanism are based on civic virtues and not eternal contact
with God or a contract with a religion. The very first virtue of the
republicanism is the guarantee of equality of everyone before everyone⁶. This
does not seem to be even close to the mainstream of ideas of the so-call
republican party of Armenia. It states “The RPA builds its relations with public
and political forces and individuals acting in the Armenian present reality on
the principle of the priority of the national and state interests which the RPA
deems higher than any personal and other individual interests”⁷. It is obvious
that the wording “state and national interest” can exploited for both political
manipulations and trespassing practically any civic freedom and human right.
This statement as given above is one of the rare and frank excursions into the
values that one of the leading powers is set up to introduce. Is this really
timely to speak of the national interest from the point of view of putting it
above individual? How can a national interest be generally protected without the
protection of the individual? Do these programs RPA or Dashnaktsutun program
really reflect on the current troubles and needs of the country?

None of the parties specifies how they understand the need of strengthening rule
of law, human rights, and civic freedoms. What is core of the ideas laid in
these conceptions and how they are going to be protected? How do these political
parties perceive the strengthening of national union when political parties of
opposition both those which won some mandates and those that did not win any
have any trust in either justice system or the legitimacy of the succession of
power? The tonality of the recent scandal in the constitutional court over
fairness of elections confirms this⁸. The situation is far worse from the point
of rule of law and the protection of fundamental freedoms. A known in its
vigilance over situation in these fields media outlet reflects on the urgency of
the nature of an unprotected citizen by law and state. It states that the
arbitrary nature of investigations conducted by police show “a pattern of
suspicious deaths during incarceration that reaches back more than a decade”⁹.
It is a rule of thumb that speaking of the common national interest one must
remember to protect the one of a single citizen. The contrary is clear that when
a single citizen’s rights are left unprotected it endangers the national
interest of all and everyone and the entire national interest.

Do the “winners” of the vote reflect in their political programs on the nature
of individual protection, citizenry issues, and violations of human rights? It
is hardly a question.

--------------------------------------------

¹ Soloviev, A. “Political Science: Political Theories and Political
Technologies” (M. Aspect Press, 2000) 257-258

² Armenian Revolutionary Federation <www.arfd.am> accessed on 11-7-2007

³ Armenian Revolutionary Federation <www.arfd.am/elections2007/platform.htm>
accessed on 11-7-2007

⁴ The Republican Party of Armenia, Program <http://www.hhk.am/eng/index.php?page=program> accessed on 11-7-2007

⁵ Ibid.

⁶ Interesting reading on republicanism can done through the work of, for
example, Philip Pettit, “Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government”
(Oxford U.P., 1997)

⁷ The Republican Party of Armenia, Program

⁸ K. Martirosyan “The Constitutional Court Left for Deliberations” in Novoe
Vrema <www.nv.am> accessed on 9-7-2007

⁹ Vahan Ishkhanyan “Deadly Pattern: Gulyan Death Not The First To Raise
Suspicion About Police Treatment” in Armenianow.com, June 12, 2007 | Issue #20
(240), May 18, 2007 <www.armenianow.com
> access on 13-7-2007