Towards an organic democracy?
As one of the articles Raffi posted attests to, Levon Ter-Petrossian announced his presidential candidacy at a rally last Friday. I went to the rally (against advice from several worried friends) because my coworkers were attending and I wanted to see what it was all about. I am not going to pretend to know much about Ter-Petrossian, or Kocharian for that matter, and this blog really has nothing to do with my own political opinions. What I want to say about the rally was that it felt really organic and it was great to see local Armenians getting politically active and expressing their views freely.
In the past few weeks as the Armenian Genocide bill was being discussed in the US Congress and by the international media, I thought a lot about the different priorities that Armenians have in the diaspora versus the homeland. One writer, Fred Hiatt, wrote in the Washington Post that the Armenian Diaspora should focus their attention on democratization in Armenia instead of getting the Genocide recognized (as if the entire diaspora can only focus on one thing at one time). Anyway, in Hiatt's first paragraph was the following, "Imagine what the Armenian diaspora might have accomplished had it worked as hard for democracy in Armenia as it did for congressional recognition of the genocide Armenians suffered nearly a century ago. It's even possible that modern Armenia would be as democratic as modern Turkey" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/14/AR2007101400957.html).
I balked at the thought of someone using Turkey as a good example for democracy, but when I brought up the point to my coworkers at YSU, to my surprise they agreed that Turkey is more democratic than Armenia, at least when it comes to electoral processes. Then I thought back to all the conversations I've had with people here about who will be the next president, and nobody has expressed any doubt that Serge Sarkisyan will be the next president. Whether they like him or not, everyone seems to have already accepted the fact that he will become president next spring. But if they don't vote for him, then HOW can everyone be so sure that he'll win...? Because the voting process is marred by corruption so they are convinced their votes don't matter anyway. Well my friends, that is not democracy. (Not that President Bush's electoral victories in the US exhibit democracy either). I was bummed by the idea that Hiatt could have been even partially right in his charge that Turkey is more democratic than Armenia, although later my coworkers and I were able to agree that Turkey ONLY beats Armenia in the democracy game on the issue of voting-- not on freedom of speech, freedom of press, human rights, etc.
Anyway, since I've been pondering these issues quite a bit for the past week, I've been feeling pretty disappointed in the idea that Armenia is not democratizing as progressively as I may have assumed. Being a diasporan here who does not have mastery of the language yet, it's hard sometimes to gage what is really happening among the local population. However, what I do know is this: what happened on Friday was an exhibition of freedom of association and freedom of speech. Several days later, when I was walking down Tumanian, a girl handed me a flyer for a public meeting that was held last night at Cinema Moscow among the Tashnak party to determine who will be their candidate for the presidency. As I mentioned, I'm not expressing my own political views by bringing this up... I'm saying that having Ter-Petrossian and a Tashnak candidate (among others maybe) run for the presidency is good for political pluralism, competition and choice for the people. I will attend every rally and meeting I can just to learn more about how the electoral process is shaping up here in Armenia. And I felt proud at the rally on Friday just because the gathering of more than 20,000 people shows activism instead of apathy. Perhaps if viable candidates continue to emerge before the presidential election, and the local population continues to take an active interest in the voting process, we have a chance at a more transparent and more representative political outcome. Do I sound naive?? If so, that's okay, because I'm still learning. Frankly, I don't have enough knowledge to say who I think should be the next president of Armenia, but I can say that any movement towards a more representative democracy is good, and so my optimism has been at least partially revived for now.
In the past few weeks as the Armenian Genocide bill was being discussed in the US Congress and by the international media, I thought a lot about the different priorities that Armenians have in the diaspora versus the homeland. One writer, Fred Hiatt, wrote in the Washington Post that the Armenian Diaspora should focus their attention on democratization in Armenia instead of getting the Genocide recognized (as if the entire diaspora can only focus on one thing at one time). Anyway, in Hiatt's first paragraph was the following, "Imagine what the Armenian diaspora might have accomplished had it worked as hard for democracy in Armenia as it did for congressional recognition of the genocide Armenians suffered nearly a century ago. It's even possible that modern Armenia would be as democratic as modern Turkey" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/14/AR2007101400957.html).
I balked at the thought of someone using Turkey as a good example for democracy, but when I brought up the point to my coworkers at YSU, to my surprise they agreed that Turkey is more democratic than Armenia, at least when it comes to electoral processes. Then I thought back to all the conversations I've had with people here about who will be the next president, and nobody has expressed any doubt that Serge Sarkisyan will be the next president. Whether they like him or not, everyone seems to have already accepted the fact that he will become president next spring. But if they don't vote for him, then HOW can everyone be so sure that he'll win...? Because the voting process is marred by corruption so they are convinced their votes don't matter anyway. Well my friends, that is not democracy. (Not that President Bush's electoral victories in the US exhibit democracy either). I was bummed by the idea that Hiatt could have been even partially right in his charge that Turkey is more democratic than Armenia, although later my coworkers and I were able to agree that Turkey ONLY beats Armenia in the democracy game on the issue of voting-- not on freedom of speech, freedom of press, human rights, etc.
Anyway, since I've been pondering these issues quite a bit for the past week, I've been feeling pretty disappointed in the idea that Armenia is not democratizing as progressively as I may have assumed. Being a diasporan here who does not have mastery of the language yet, it's hard sometimes to gage what is really happening among the local population. However, what I do know is this: what happened on Friday was an exhibition of freedom of association and freedom of speech. Several days later, when I was walking down Tumanian, a girl handed me a flyer for a public meeting that was held last night at Cinema Moscow among the Tashnak party to determine who will be their candidate for the presidency. As I mentioned, I'm not expressing my own political views by bringing this up... I'm saying that having Ter-Petrossian and a Tashnak candidate (among others maybe) run for the presidency is good for political pluralism, competition and choice for the people. I will attend every rally and meeting I can just to learn more about how the electoral process is shaping up here in Armenia. And I felt proud at the rally on Friday just because the gathering of more than 20,000 people shows activism instead of apathy. Perhaps if viable candidates continue to emerge before the presidential election, and the local population continues to take an active interest in the voting process, we have a chance at a more transparent and more representative political outcome. Do I sound naive?? If so, that's okay, because I'm still learning. Frankly, I don't have enough knowledge to say who I think should be the next president of Armenia, but I can say that any movement towards a more representative democracy is good, and so my optimism has been at least partially revived for now.
posted by Tamar at 11:12 AM
3 Comments:
Don't worry about whether Hiatt was right or not- because it doesn't matter. I definitely agree when it comes to elections as mentioned, Turkey beats Armenia. I wrote a lengthy response to Hiatt's article in which I chided him for making such a reckless comparison in the first place. Armenia spent 80 years under the most repressive form of government where corruption was the norm and has only been it's own democracy for 16 years. Turkey has an almost 70 year head start on Armenia and it's still got numerous problems to work out. Hyatt's use of the word 'true' democracy made me laugh out loud. "Best we've got in the region" in no way = true democracy.
I am definitely not one of those who likes to say "Armenia isn't that bad because it's neighbor Azerbajian is so much worse" as an excuse to cover for Armenia- it needs to get on the right track immediately no matter how bad it's nieghbors are. Azerbaijan at least has the oil to keep it afloat in the minds of the west and Georgia has it's anti-Russian stance. Armenia has no such liberties and as I heard people say even 10 years ago Armenia must export democracy or else it will have no capital on the world stage.
I'm glad to finally see some political activity with viable candidates bringing the populace into the process (though Onnik has done a lot of research on the actual numbers at Friday's rally and thinks your number of 20,000 is nearly 10,000 too many, but that's beside the point and some free government concert was at least partly to blame).
Something interesting is building here and I hope Armenians can help shake off some of the apathy and realize that- despite the likely fraud ahead they still can make a difference- and if their government decideds to disenfranchise them in the end, well they don't have to take that lying down either.
Diasporans who are organized, savvy, passionate, focused, and talented with regards to local and national politics should be commended for their work. It is widely know in Washington that the Armenian lobby is one of the most powerful on the block, taking company with the Jewish diaspora and the Cubans.
It has long been an easy excuse for ill-informed and agenda-based journalists to use the argument that due to the success of the Armenian diaspora, this somehow equals that the same people or group do not focus their efforts on Armenia herself. This is of course, preposterous.
This point has been shared by me before, but, these same writers do not have the proper knowledge and information to make such a careless judgement call based on the fact that those funding philanthropic projects and charitable endeavors sometimes do not advertise their success in the mainstream media.
In fact, those stories aren't going to sell papers, generate web hits, or be profitable. Instead, writing pieces like that of Fred Hiatt and others are merely knee-jerk opinions placating to political agendas.
So, I take it all with a grain of salt. What the Diaspora has done to ensure that todays generation remembers the horrors of 1915-1918 AND generously donating their time and money toward Armenia from afar is pretty effective.
As I wrote to Hiatt, Armenians in America are doing what they can in the US for Armenia and the Armenian cause - the US is their government, their country. Armenians in the US cannot realistically have a great affect on the government of Armenia - at least I can't think of a very realistic way of doing something without harming the ordinary people. So his advice was rather disingenuous I'd say.
As for Turkey - they are no better than Armenia. Perhaps their elections are better, but their minority rights are worse, and any religious government for me is especially suspect.
But anyhow, I share your disappointment at the progress here in human rights...
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