Paul
Goble
Staunton, April 25 – The events in
Armenia are proceeding at such a dizzying speed and involve ever more issues
that it is easy lose sight of their complexity and uniqueness – and how
important they are not only for that republic but for other countries in the
former Soviet space and for relations between and among them.
Five key insights from the last day
or so include:
1.
The Armenian
Revolution is Not Over. The resignation of president-become-prime minister
Serzh Sargsyan did not end the revolution; it simply changed the nature of the conflict
from one about a hated individual to one about a hated system of entrenched
power. Thus, the new protests are not about individuals but about replacing the
existing party system Sargsyan and his cohorts had used to run the country in
an increasingly authoritarian way. This second stage of the revolution is
likely to be more difficult but the opposition has shown it can bring out the population against what is the real
target of their anger (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=5AE033A548D75,
rbc.ru/newspaper/2018/04/25/5adf21a09a7947cd56f6dccd,
and dw.com/ru/саргсян-ушел-что-будет-в-армении-дальше/a-43512745).
2.
Armenia an
Unlikely Model for Other Post-Soviet States. Many opposition figures in Russia
and other post-Soviet states have been encouraged by the Armenian protests and
their success, but Russian analyst Andrey Illarionov reminds that Armenia is
different from Russia and most of the others in 15 important ways making the
adoption of the Armenian model extremely unlikely. Just as Armenia is not
Ukraine and Ukraine is not Georgia, so too the other post-Soviet states aren’t
Armenia (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=5ADEF96B2271B).
3.
Armenia has Long Tradition
of Mass Protests. One of the most profound differences is that
Armenia has a tradition of mass protests extending back into the 1980s and
therefore what has occurred there in the last few weeks is less the invention
of something new but the continuation and expansion of that tradition (afterempire.info/2018/04/25/armenia/).
4.
In this
Revolution, the Armenian Young are Defeating a Gerontocracy. Many observers have been struck by how young
the crowds in Yerevan are in comparison to those around Sargsyan and his
regime, a regime that consists largely of those who came to power after the
killings in the Armenian parliament in 1999.
Revolutions are typically carried out by the young, but this influx of a
new and rising generation is striking and gives hope that the revolution will
continue rather than be deflected or defeated (chaskor.ru/article/armeniya_pobeda_molodezhi_nad_gerontokratiej_43432).
Acts o
5.
Armenian
Revolution has Been Peaceful Because Armenians are an Armed Population at War. Sargsyan
resigned when he saw that portions of the Armenian army had gone over to the protesters. That is a typical sign of imminent regime
collapse in all revolutions, but there is one detail that may explain why
Sargsyan went so easily and why the Armenian revolution so far has been
peaceful. And that is this: the Armenian people have been at war for 30 years,
many have passed through the military, and many are armed. On the one hand, that means the difference
between the siloviki and the people are smaller in Armenia than they are in
places like Russia. And on the other, it means that anyone – the regime,
Moscow, or the opposition – who began acts of violence might see Armenia
descend into the kind of chaos that its neighbors would surely exploit. Thus, perhaps counter-intuitively, the
military experience of the Armenian people and their possession of weapons may
serve as a kind of disciplining factor keeping the situation from getting out
of hand (snob.ru/selected/entry/136768).
No comments:
Post a Comment