There are two days in the months of fall which are closely connected to each other. The first one is November 7, which is known as the day of the October Revolution, also known as the day of the revolution. The second day, which unfortunately not many people know, is October 31st-Political Prisoner’s day.
I don’t think that it is necessary to explain how these two days are connected to one another, however, during a time when everyone is making a big fuss about the “yes-no-of course-never” to the constitutional amendments, we must draw our attention to the direct tie between the two dates. We must talk about it amongst this uproar because in order to move forward, sometimes we have to look back. We don’t want to stay behind, but we have to take steps carefully.
Azat Arshakyan, who has spent his youth as a Soviet political prisoner, prefers not to talk about modern day events-especially the constitution. On the contrary, he believes that we must evaluate all that we have gone through in the 20th century and that evaluation must not be some conclusion given by a historian, but rather, our verdict.
The former political prisoner believes that Armenia had to have reached a verdict before taking one step towards Europe with the constitution. He explains the indifference in the following way: “Europe is not saying “no” to us. They are simply saying “yes” to the former period, in other words the Soviet Union. They still haven’t said their goodbyes to the Soviet Union.”
He believes that the Soviet idols are with us. They are the names of the streets, their statues can be seen. They are the heroes of the civil war. In general, Azat considers the Soviet system as an eternal, civil war regime where the heroes were the ones that killed as many people as possible. “The creators of the statues adore their creations. They say that those statues are works of art and have nothing to do with politics. If they are works of art, then how come nobody came to buy a duplicate? If they were really works of art, then they could be sold and add that money to Armenia’s state budget. Then maybe the scientists of the country would earn a good living, the National Academy of Sciences and the Art school would be financially secured,” says Azat Arshakyan.
The National Academy of Sciences, universities, industrial complexes and cultural institutions were founded during the Soviet era and many think that it was through those foundations that the brutalities of the Soviet regime could be put aside. “We must condemn. We must not let the criminals be, erase them as if they don’t exist. We have to condemn the murderers. Millions of people died during that eternal civil war, including intellectuals, villagers, workers, priests and innocent people. They were classed and declared enemies and killed. These murderers must be sentenced and we must evaluate all that has happened.”
The Soviet Union did not just collapse like many people tend to think. That process is still going from stage to stage. The Soviet Union is collapsing slowly yet surely fading away. The former dissident and the independent fighter, who has formed part of the first Armenian authorities, believes that the Armenian people has waited and waited and has not given its evaluation for the Soviet era. “Since we are inferior, we waited for Russia to be the first to condemn all that had happened after the revolution. We had to be the ones to do that; I confess that we committed an error.”
“Condemnation was only going to be some document; it couldn’t have played a major role on people’s mentality and psychology,” I say to Azat. Azat disagrees with that. In his opinion, the movement was a big amnesty; the people who participated in the movement left everything aside-their life, their two-faced behavior. They would talk about one thing at a soccer game and something else during a political party meeting. They would take atheist classes in the morning and then go to the church at noon to light some candles. “People acted with amnesty during the days of the movement. The people who went out and voted for independence were the people who were disgusted with the old life and all the phoniness. They were tattle-tales; they were sick and tired of spying on their relatives. The tattle-tale was sick of itself. People wanted to set free from that.”
The former authorities did not evaluate all that, but they were going deep with independence and strengthening democratic institutions. “The first constitution summed up independence. That was not a beginning, but rather a summary of the period which we like to call the period of the movement and independence,” says Azat Arshakyan.
Azat is of the opinion that the existing constitution’s end had to be manifested through a civil demonstration. It had to be announced that that page in history-the page about instituting independence, democracy and freedom ended-then, it would be clear to society that new times were ahead. He also considers it necessary to give evaluations. “The authors of the new constitution must give thanks to their predecessors. If they don’t, then that means that independence, democracy and freedom are negative things. If they are negative, then we must be condemned, the verdict must be reached and then suggest a new constitution.”
In response to my observation that they are being condemned for indifference, Azat contradicted: “They will leave the scene some day. Each person pays the price for what he does. When I say that the last decade needs to be summarized, I don’t mean that they were obligated to say thanks. For example, they could have condemned me for not giving a total value to independence until the end. One day, they will stop doing their job and ask themselves what they have done. They might not say anything, but society will give its evaluation.”