That they participated in post-election consolidation is natural and even (from a prcoess standpoint) a good sign for Armenia. This is a common occurrence in parliamentary democracies, though I for one would have preferred to see ARF in opposition (much healthier than the anti-patriotic bankrupt HHSh ideology), but that is a different point.

And what would they “celebrate”? Their embarrassing 6% showing?

Sorry, me, but there is no lie.

Regards
AF

Yes, I support the National Movement because I see very valuable ideas in it that are in slowly getting into maturity. Ideas of autonomist in Hrant Ter-Abrahamyan’s articles, the 1+ in Nikol Pashinian, the direct action of HIMA kids. The direct democracy in the courtrooms suppressed under electroshocks.
Very fresh ideas in Armenian reality. This is what I like in this movement and I will therefore support this movement as long as these developments are in progress. If these ideas are suppressed the movement will stop to function and naturally I will oppose it as I am sure many supporters like me will do.

I won’t even get into Afghanistan, Iraq, or…Iran.

One thing I can’t understand is how you can be so anti-American and still be employed by the American government? What do your bosses think about the situation?

Regarding spreading hatred, I think you got the ARF mixed up with some others. We have all been following news quite carefully during the last few months, and the racist hate has been disgusting. Kudos to the ARF for not getting pulled into that swamp.

[info]narjan
2008-04-07 04:48 pm (local) (link) Track This
Art, I really don’t understand how you go with that. So rigged elections are ok, as long as it’s levon who it’s being rigged against? Or levon is so bad that rigged elections are the “least worst”?

[info]ditord
2008-04-07 05:58 pm (local) (link) Track This
Nar – we are talking about political parties here, remember? ARF is one of them. HHK, OEK, Zharangutyun or HHSH are other examples – which are not much different in their approach to power – which is one and simple: they want political power. They need it – more then anything, more then their image, trust of the electorate, etc,etc. All of them do – and they don’t care about democracy – none of them. For Chrissake – not even Labor in Uk or Democrats in US care about democracy!

So yes – for them, and for any party in Armenia today, rigged elections don’t matter, as long as they get power(their understanding of power is rather different though, as you’ve shown in your other post). And the contrary – rigged elections and democracy become an issue, as soon as they fail to gain power.

For us – simple mortals, it is important to mistrust all the political forces, and understand, that this neglection of democracy is an endemic weakness of any party in power (power corrupts ;)), so there’s other factors to look up to. In case of ARF – there is a factor which I greatly appreciate – it is the fact, that this party has an actual party structure and an internal decision making mechanism, which makes it a party of more then one leader, unlike every other big party I’ve seen in Armenia so far. Other factors, which are nonexistant in ANY party in Armenia are – transparency of decision making, transparency of funding, feedback mechanism with the electorate, etc, etc.

As for me – or as to how I go about this: I feel robbed, because my right to decide my destiny is taken away, but as a regular/traditional/isolationist Armenian I’m only desparately thinking what to do to secure my family and provide for my son. And this comes first – fight for Armenia’s national interst and statehood, which I perceive as equal to fight for democracy, economic democracy, free flow of information, socialism, environmental actions, good education – only come after that. And that is true for 99% of Armenians in this country. (Although I’m perhaps exaggerating for my case, because, surprisingly enough, I do care about democracy as much as about my family – because I see the clear link between democracy, and the well being of my family and my son’s future)

Not to SPAM here with unrelated comments – please feel free to take a look and comment there?

A1+ and HZH are newspapers and they report the news as they see. Dashnaktsutyun is a political party. Those are two different things my dear AH.

Dashnaktsutyun is a Neo-nazi, actually it is just a Nazi political party spreading far-right ideas and hatred not only amongst Armenian population but against other ideas and people.
Please bare with me and continue reading.

Dashnaktsutyun hasn’t progressed since the 1920s possibly because we didnt have an independent country where we could have elections, political progress etc. It is obvious it couldn’t progress in Diaspora (as the case is with Hnchak and Ramkavar parties).
Why I am saying this is because in the beginning of the 20th centaury is known with the spread of nationalism and after the WW1 trauma and injustice we had a phenomenon like the rise of Nazzi party in Germany, the Mussolini, the Franco regime, in some way ( a little bit unrelated) Stalin and so on. Things progressed in those countries after the WW2 but people living in those regimes paid dearly but still didnt fully recover ( the recent Joseph Fritzel case in Austria is an example) .

So now in Armenia we have a party which did not go through an ideological, philosophical and political development over 80 years due to the no-homeland factor explain above.
This is very dangerous. It is abnormal.

Should this abnormal phenomenon be banned? I say NO it shouldn’t as banning will hamper the progress. I think the change need to be come within Dashnaktsutyun. It used to be a confederation of socialist parties (hence the name) with some very interesting core ideas. The way of the progress is to take the reality as it is,- to become a party of an independent country. Continue its isolation with its huge influence and decision making coming from Diaspora means staying in regression. Dashnaktsutyun needs to make a bold decision, to have the courage to progress.

Coming to LTP. He is the person who invited Dashnaktsutyun and other Diasporant organisations to Armenia. However Dashnaktsutyun had a bigger appetite. With less than 10-15% of the popular support it wanted to take over the power still in the 20 centaury revolutionary methods.

If you even try to observe carefully LTP did more good to dashnaktsutyun than harm however Dashnaktsutyun didn’t realise this and unfortunately still doesn’t. They were given the chance to progress, to become a real independent political party but now they are deeper in the swamp. It will phase out soon as the time changes and dashnaktsutyun still clings on the past. The formation of the new board will demonstrate it.