After the events of March 1 the main and compulsory action to be taken to stabilize the situation in the country has been considered developing dialog between the two political poles. It is natural because in order to agree upon something you need to discuss that “something” first. Almost three months have passed since those events, but there hasn’t been any dialog and even there is no hope that there may be any.
In fact in order to understand the real reasons we have to look back. The problem is that in the history of new Armenia there hasn’t been any case of political dialog between political poles. Even during critical political cataclysms, when the country was faced with serious problems, the political powers did not have dialog. The main precondition of the government in stationary conditions has been the following: “The power is mine, why to discuss issues with others? If I want I can break their heads.” As a rule, the main purpose and content of the opposition’s intention to enter into a dialog has been to decide the price of being sold. This process has gone so deep so far that you cannot surprise anyone by saying that the authorities have paid and bought someone. In our country even the price and conditions of such deals are published in the media; they even write where they paid and how much.
In such conditions it is clear that there is no sense for dialog if they can just pay and buy the biggest potatoes and then trample the small ones. You can agree with me that it is really logical. Which degenerate will agree to enter into a dialog with someone else and give a part of his business to him if he can just throw a several pennies at the face of the other and solve all the problems? As for the power and politics, I think that everyone understands that it has become a business.
It is natural that in such conditions speaking of the nation, patriotism and other things is something to cover the real things with imitated words. This means that we have had, do have now, and definitely will have for a long time a political system, which structure, content and human background don’t inspire any hope that there may be political dialog. And if we try to analyze the content and goals of the political announcements of the both political poles concerning the essence to organize dialog, we will see that in fact they are not interested in dialog at all. Specifically, both of the parties agree that the recommendations of the PACE resolution concerning the events of March 1 should be done. According to that resolution, the government shall release political prisoners, amend the absurd law on rallies and demonstrations, etc. As for the opposition, it shall recognize the resolution of the Constitutional Court, i.e. both de-jure and de-facto recognize Serzh Sargsyan as the president of the Republic of Armenia. Ultimately, it could be the common ground, basing on which the parties could launch a dialog. However, it is not happening; the authorities say the opposition does not recognize the resolution of the Constitutional Court, thus there is no sense to organize dialog. As for the opposition, they say that the authorities don’t want to solve the problems with political detainees and other such problems, thus there is no sense for them to enter into dialog either.
There is an important problem here. Is there any alternative? Is there any alternative generally? What will happen if such dialog does not take place? In fact, the parties are interested in such situation. Dialog also means that there should be some compromises. It is natural that if Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s team recognizes the presidency of Serzh Sargsyan, they will do it openly and the international community will see that, thus later they will have serious problems to formulate the reasons of their political struggle. The authorities have the same problem too; if they release the political prisoners, they will have to agree that they have been arrested because of their political viewpoints, which will legitimize the opposition’s announcements about the violence, political persecution and intimidation. On the other hand, if those people are released and the mentioned law is amended, there will be rallies again.
In fact, the situation is frozen and one or two detainees are being released every week. Also, the opposition is allowed to organize some actions once during one or two weeks. Both parties are interested in such situation because no one compromises, thus they keep the right to do they want in the future.
Again, as a result of the above mentioned tendencies the picture is the same as always. People, who are important political factors in the country are abstaining from real political dialog despite the fact that they understand that the country really needs it and it will help the situation much. Big political cataclysms happened in the country in 1996, 2004 and 2008 (by the way, these were stagnation periods). We wander whether the political elite of the country could find other solutions to lead the country in another direction. Certainly it could. Always you can find a solution. However, it did not happen because if the political elite entered into a dialog with the opposition, it would mean that it is weak, it would be a sign that it is counting with the opinion of the opposition and is not so strong any more. It is a pity that the political elite does not understand that through such actions it is solving not only its problems, but the problems of an entire nation and is taking a responsibility with those people, and even if entering into a dialog with the political enemy would save at least one life during the events of March 1, it would be worthy.
There is an interesting scene in a Hollywood movie: this movie is about a girl, who, after a sea storm, is trying to throw some small fish back to the water from the beach. A person asks her why to throw the fish back to the water because there is no sense as ultimately she cannot save the lives of all those fish, and the girl replies: “There is sense for those who are saved.”