Armenian Libertarian-Socialist Movement

Global, Caucasian and Armenian politics in anarchist perspective

Structure pre-determines everything else

Posted by kronstadt on February 15, 2007

It looks like CRD/ Transparency International, Armenia  has taken notice of our proposals for reconfiguration in Armenian Defences.  In their analysis their have made an interesting point:

 if the last parliamentary election was defined by an influx of oligarchs and powerful business interests into the Armenian National Assembly, perhaps we’re now beginning to see the appearance of the military in the political life of the country. Time will tell if this is all merely coincidence or part of something far more significant and far-reaching.

Structure predetermines everything – it comes before particular individuals or their intentions.  What we are witnessing is the crystallization of political Liberalism (oligarchs) and Conservatism (military) in Armenia (albeit in obviously rachitic and deformed shape) – with no significant 3rd or 4th way politics in sight.  These processes are nothing less then the direct result of the STRUCTURE of Republican Parliamentarism — imported (from outside) and imposed on people (just as Bolshevism was once imposed).  The only problem is that they are self-righteously imposed without a prior examinations of the inner workings of Armenian society, which are deeply communitarian (Համայնքական), communicative, socially integrated, opinionated and participative-democratic. 

The emergence of these 2 most powerful classes as political actors and the lack of significant organization on behalf of the other 2 dominant classes, is a type of development that ease imperialist manipulations and mediations of the directions that the population is going to be dragged in.  The scars that are drawn now, will take long time to heal.

8 Responses to “Structure pre-determines everything else”

  1. Just to correct one thing, NOT Transparency International which is an international organization with branches all over the world who have not really looked into this issue at all, but the Armenian branch of Transparency International, the Center for Regional Development / Transparency International Armenia.

    Anyway, thanks for your contribution to the Armenian blogosphere. I hope that as the election gets nearer we’ll see other sites with interesting opinions and analysis on national and international Government as it pertains to Armenia. It’s been really interesting to find your site.

    Cheers,
    Onnik

  2. kronstadt said

    Yes, Center for Regional Development / Transparency International Armenia, that is. I stand corrected.

  3. […] (զինված ուժեր) բյուրեղացում Հայաստանում ՀԱՍ Շարժումը քննարկում է Հայաստանի քաղաքական համակարգի […]

  4. BTW: Did I say that you have to be the best Armenian blog out there that I’ve seen so far in many years of looking? Fresh and thought provoking content, clean design. Well done.

  5. […]ALS Movement discusses the political structure in Armenia, and describes the current situation as “crystallization of political Liberalism (oligarchs) and Conservatism (military) in Armenia (albeit in obviously rachitic and deformed shape) – with no significant 3rd or 4th way politics in sight. “[…]

    I have to join in and say I agree to what Onnik says – 100%… and by the way – I’ve created an account at your forum and started a discussion thread 😉

    Best,
    Observer

  6. Onnik Krikorian and Observer, thank you very much for the warm words of support. I must admit, these comments are quite unexpected given the ammount of abusive critituqe that we have received over the years from Armenian fascists (tseghakrons), and nationalists, who harbour a peculiar belief that Armenia is exclusively their’s.

    We are generally dissatisfied with the level at which Armenian politics is debated. Armenian political discourse is so self obsored that there is almost no talk of it being part of broader processes at play on the global scale. There is also this tribe-mentality of us-ness vs them-ness (partly developed out of the given structure of because of representative parliamentarism), while it becomes evident that political parties are the thing of the past and soon it will be networks-of-networks mediated by popularised ideas, cultures and sub-cultures (which again will be controlled by the class that holds the means of production, to put it in the most simple terms).

    We started as a circle of people discussing politics on the net and on the ground, each with our own communities (in Armenia and Diaspora). We were particularly interested to explore the cause of that instant gap between Armenia and Diaspora. And we soon found there are many Armenians out there who are Radical Left and pro-direct-democracy (drawing their ideas from Armenian cultural codes), which is when we realised we needed some kind of web presence – so that people out there can find us and unite into a significant practical action. The global protest that started in 1990s and grew stronger in light of the War OF Terror and communication-age is already reaching Armenia (albeit, we learned that the Autonomous Action group in Yerevan was violently crushed 1 year ago).

    On this website we don’t want to be an exclusively “Anarchist” or “Anarcho-Syndicalist” place (which is why we called it Libertarian-Socialist). Instead, we want to invite a discussion and a dialogue, whic we hope will reach like-minded people in Azerbaijan and Georgia. So we welcome neo-Marxists, Democratic Communists, Democratic Socialists, Social Democrats, Liberal Democrats, Communitarians and others. So hopefully something productive and exciting will come out of it.

    And thank you for the publicity that we receive from your blogs. We are arlready getting quite a few e-mails confirming our expectations regarding the need for such a radically alternative force withing the Armenian politics. Internet is amazing.

    BTW, where can I find the most complete list of Armenian blogs?

  7. Observer said

    Actually – Onnik and I are trying to compile a full list, and it should be available on Monday on the Wikipedia. You have two choices – wait till we finish and give you a direct link, or go take a look in the Wikipedia at what we have done so far. Search “Armenian Blogs” 😀

  8. Alexwebmaster said

    Hello webmaster
    I would like to share with you a link to your site
    write me here preonrelt@mail.ru

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