This is the video of Gagik Tsarukian’s “house”. (if you have issues with high blood pressure or anger management, then don’t watch)
But what you see there is only the front reception room… I know that there is a whole huge palace complex with latin-american style piazza behind it.
When I first watched this video, the first instinct was Anger — pure anger! But then one needs to sober up and look at all this in calm analytical and historical perspectives. This is not Oligarchy!!!“Oligarkhia” is a stupid apologetic term applied by the social scientists to some post-Soviet republics, with a connotation of “a peculiar case of capitalist development that went *slightly* off track” … as if Capitalism is designed to deliver general prosperity and long-term balance for all, but in some rare cases small anomalies such as oligarkia are possible. Bullfuckingshit. This is Capitalism, and that’s all there is to it. And oligarchy is the integral and inseparable part in its development.
From this point onwards I refuse to use the term “Oligarkhiya“. Let’s name things as they are: this is Capitalism! Yes, it’s a simple and banal point, but nevertheless an important one: revolution must start from a refusal to participate in the usage of the terminology and the language of the enemy. And Gagik, Serzhik, Robik, they are not oligarchs – they are Capitalists — the rulling elite of this capitalist regime — the Labrador Class acting on behalf of Global Capital. There is nothing new or original in the way that capitalist structures develop and integrate in Armenia — a same old story that we have witnessed time and time again.
As I watched this video the second time, I couldn’t help but recall the videos from pre-Castro Cuba… it was all the same. Cuba was a satellite puppy of America with very small white minority owning everything there was to own and indulging themselves in endless endeavours of bourgeois decadence, while the vast majority of population was living in shanty-towns and townships with no education, healthcare, regular food – toiling in sugar cane plantations and tobacco fields. And sooner or later people did rebel – people rebelled and as we have seen in so many other places the Communist forces hijacked the revolution.
My instinct is to wait – wait until the conditions have matured to the point when people will see that it is not the Individual leader or the Will to do good that is the question, but the Structure of the economical system that cultivates these material and cultural conditions, and the social and political contradictions and paradoxes. Until people themselves realise it that capitalism is not the right path to democracy, free-entrepreneurship and participatory-politics, until that day revolutions will either be shipwrecked or replaced by dictatorships.
I wonder what would happen if a video like this was broadcasted on Armenian TV? Yes, Armenia definitely needs alternative channels of Information whereby the info can flow openly and with no restrictions or privileges.
I haven’t been posting here for a while now. I start doing soon, hopefully — just been busy with many other things. I just bumped into a set of flash art pieces, which I thought are too good not to ne shared with wider audiences. Whoever did these must be a bloody genius http://ml.hoogerbrugge.com/ The way that I see it it’s subversive situationist art transformed into modern Flash.
Flash Radio is going to be broadcasting directly from Rostock from anti-G8 protests: 1 podcast per day. Since none of these events are given any significance whatsoever in Armenian media (even the ones who parade themselves as “Alternative” or “Radical”), I decided to post these daily Podcasts as soon as the arrive from location.
I will keep updating this post each day with new podcasts.
Yesterday on the 2nd of June the first major G8 2007 clashes occurred in Restock, Germany. As usual the clashes were perpetrated by the fascist police units who attacked the protestors indiscriminately and brutally. As the protestors are branded as ‘terrorists’ I guess there is a new State policy of ‘shoot anything that moves’. The same thing is in practice in Iraq.
Now the question is: be beaten and arrested or protect yourself and others. I go with the second option where as a united group you can resist the beating and arrests. That’s the core of the Black blocs re-introduced in Seattle.
Black Bloc. I also like the clown tactics.
Дорогие Читатели,
Хотим пригласить Вас на наш новый форум, который находится по адрессу www.esin.ws . Форум посвящён обсуждению всего политического как в Армении так и на Кавказе. Можно сказать мы отрицаыем “Политику” Спектакля, и ищем настоящую Политику. Форум основан на принцыпах Солидарности, Плюрализма, Уважения, Содействия, Разнобразности и Автонома. Мы призываем всех кто слева как и всех кто не желает быть классифицирован(ной), но требует свободы и Радикальнои Демократии. Мы зазываем на наш новый ФОРУМ всех груп, организации и индивидов не-конформистов кто желает Свободу и Равенство – давайте садиться за круглуй стол (или скорее, за много разных круглых столов) и делиться идеями.
Этот проект основан на организационных принцыпах Автономного движения, Анти-Глобалистского движения и Мирового Общественного Форума. Наша организация имеет федеративную структуру, исключающую руководство и иерархию, отрицающую неравенство участников, централизм, жесткое разделение функций, которые губят инициативу, разрушают нашу автономию и подавляют личность. Наши идейные и орнанизационные принцыпы достаточно широки чтобы не сделать из этого движения секту, и в тоже самоые время позволить каждому извлечь что-то полезное в практическом плане и интересное. Read the rest of this entry »
In recent days the team has been busy building a new forum, and finally I would like to announce and welcome all of you to this amazing state-of-art new OPEN forum – a forum that resists “Politics of the Spectacle”, but is dedicated to everything Political – a forum that rejects the conventional stabilised and monopolized notions of “Politics”, and chooses to be in search of Politics. www.esin.ws is not just an internet forum, but more like a beginning of a new open Project based on the model of collaborating Autonomous groups and initiatives, principles of anti-globalization (or Global-Justice, or Alter-globalization) movement and the organizational model of World Social Forum. In other words, it is by far not an exclusively anarchist or syndicalist club. Rather, we intend it to be a forum for all groups and individuals with generally left-leanings and demands for Social Justice as well as those with demands for Real Democracy, Radical Democracy, Freedom, Self-Governance and economic Empowerment. Our ideological and organizational principles are wide enough for everybody to find something interesting and useful (both ideologically and practically). We are asking people to forget about their “sects” and “clans” and ideological inhibition (political parties and exclusive ideologies are things of the past century), and to unite around a discussion table in search of serious and practical solutions to the current problems at hand. Unlike Party models (which are inherently a Fascist model in the way that it enforces unity through Unanimity) we want to celebrate and embrace difference/diversity and to invite practical cooperation, unified resistance and the culture of Solidarity precisely because of difference (watch Michael Hardt’s lecture below to see what I mean).
Armenia today finds itself in the midst of what can be best termed as “Desert of Ideas“. The recent elections and the paucity of the campaigns, if anything, have highlighted precisely that condition of contemporary Armenian political scene. A radical transformation in a multitude of spheres Read the rest of this entry »
A few days ago, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that there was a short-lived Indymedia in Armenia approximately 2 years ago. Needless to say IMC Armenia was one of only 4 IMCs in Middle East (the others being in Palestine, Israel and Lebanon) and the only one in Caucasus. I was intrigued to say the least, so I embarked on a quest to find out more about this much-needed form of information gathering and distribution, and media source in Armenia and Caucasus today. If you know more about what happened to Indymedia in Armenia please-please write it in comments.
I know that Onnik from Oneworld Multimedia blog knows about Indymedia in Armenia because he referenced them few times, so I hope to hear from Onnik. I would imagine that bloggers who have been around for a while, might know more about what happened to this short-lived IMC-Armenia. So please write.
8th of March – International Women’s Day. It is a major day of global celebration for the economic, political and social achievements of women. Started as a political event, the holiday blended in the culture of many countries of former Soviet union like Armenia. In contemporary Armenia, the day lost its political flavor, and became simply an occasion for men to express their sympathy and love to the women around them – somewhat similar to Western Mother’s Day and St Valentine’s Day mixed together. Men give flowers and re-affirm the patriarchically created identities of what women are and supposed to be in the social and political scheme of things: a good birth-giver, a good Mother, a good cook, a good wife, a good cleaner, an asexual Victorian beautiful object of adoration and preferably a silent one. hmmm… but do we remember what 8th of March is all about?On 8 March 1857 in New York City Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve had a comment from Artashes with regards to responsibility of putting up the video below. Whatever I do, please believe me, I do with responsibility, integrity and a thought. My response grew large enough to make an interesting article. So here it is:
Dear Artashes, asking me what’s the point of posting this video (see below) is like asking David Lynch about the meaning of his films. Maybe, its for me to do and for others to think. But some encouragement may also be needed…
I mean… on which level do you want it?
It already appear that you are a rationalist moralist (like Chomsky, for instance, is a Cartesian rationalist), which is a good philosophical position to see and analyze most of the problems at hand…. but only upto a certain point. That point being the realization that rationalism and morality, though originally with noble intentions, are themselves involved in the originary encoding of the status quo. Don’t forget that ultimately it was the height of Rationalism and populist conscientiousness that led to Holocaust, Stalin’s repressions, Mao’s Read the rest of this entry »
Проведение правительством неолиберальных реформ в области образования наталкивается на ожесточенное сопротивление со стороны образовательного сообщества. Каждую неделю в городах Греции проходят многотысячные демонстрации (25,000+), которые нередко заканчиваются крупномасштабными столкновениями между студентами и полицией. Подробнее >>>
More than 25,000 people, mainly students including pupils and teachers, got into the streets of Athens, as a response to the neo-liberal reform of the higher education, announced by the government, in the biggest student demonstration so far. Many Photos here. There were also some thousand participants coming from all over Greece. The demonstration was brutally attacked by the police, in several places, while a lot of demonstrators were walloped, kicked and sprayed with tear gas and ammonia. Read the rest of this entry »
Sometimes silence is so loud that it overpowers the most powerful loudspeakers. Sometimes the discourse of the protest put to action is so astonishingly shocking, that it accepts no criticism. It’s stark uncompromising presence speaks volumes so loud and clear that it is beyond logic… beyond… that it is beyond words, beyond language, beyond grammar… beyond civilization. An absolute expression creating a condition of impossibilities. Any comment is disarmed. Any comment becomes an impossibility. It’s Real.
Well… it looks like my entry noticing the uncanny simirarity between HHK and Nazi insignia and also mentioning Garegin Nzhdeh has caught the attention of Armenian Nazi bloggers (I don’t want to call them “fascists”, though some of the things that they’re saying are quite disturbing and outright fascist). In the last 24 hours I have been accused of many things: 1) of comparing Nzhdeh to Nietzsche (hmm… where?), 2) of being a pro-American sycophant, 3) of being a Jew, 4) “Safarov” of our nation, 4) of being uneducated, 5) and many-many-many other things.
These are at most 5-7 people. They take turns agreeing with other, and seemingly dream of a society were everybody would agree with each other, where questioning of Nzhdeh’s works would be strictly forbidden under a penalty of death, where it will be forbidden not to hate Read the rest of this entry »
Project BANANA REPUBLIC PARTY(please note: this project is an experimental political joke and has nothing to do with the rest of our movement)
Dodi Gago (aka Gagik Tsarukian) started a political party with the most ridiculous name possible *Bargavatch Hayastan* and now this party claims 370,000 members (pretty Bargavatch growth rate. ha?) – that’s 1/4 of the electorate. I should also mention that Labour party which has been in power for the last 10 years and is the largest party in the UK has only 140,000 members (while UK’s population is 60,000,000). Yet Bargavatch Kusaktsutyun don’t even have a Bargavatch website of their own; and they don’t seem to have a Bargavatch manifesto either.
There were some of the members and activists of our movement on the ground, who reported Barekendan as a success. As CRD/TI reports,
“Although the participants were not anarchists, one of the main purposes of the event was to raise awareness of the need to participate in the coming parliamentary election. About 150 mainly young Armenians assembled in the park opposite the Conservatory in Yerevan and marched to the Marshall Baghramian Metro to ride back down to Republic Square.
A few days ago, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that there was a short-lived Indymedia in Armenia approximately 2 years ago. Needless to say IMC Armenia was one of only 4 IMCs in Middle East (the others being in Palestine, Israel and Lebanon) and the only one in Caucasus. I was intrigued to say the least, so I embarked on a quest to find out more about this much-needed form of information gathering and distribution, and media source in Armenia and Caucasus today. If you know more about what happened to Indymedia in Armenia please-please write it in comments.
8th of March – International Women’s Day. It is a major day of global celebration for the economic, political and social achievements of women. Started as a political event, the holiday blended in the culture of many countries of former Soviet union like Armenia. In contemporary Armenia, the day lost its political flavor, and became simply an occasion for men to express their sympathy and love to the women around them – somewhat similar to Western Mother’s Day and St Valentine’s Day mixed together. Men give flowers and re-affirm the patriarchically created identities of what women are and supposed to be in the social and political scheme of things: a good birth-giver, a good Mother, a good cook, a good wife, a good cleaner, an asexual Victorian beautiful object of adoration and preferably a silent one. hmmm… but do we remember what 8th of March is all about?On 8 March 1857 in New York City 
I’ve had a 
Проведение правительством неолиберальных реформ в области образования наталкивается на ожесточенное сопротивление со стороны образовательного сообщества. Каждую неделю в городах Греции проходят многотысячные демонстрации (25,000+), которые нередко заканчиваются крупномасштабными столкновениями между студентами и полицией. 
Well… it looks like my .jpg)
Project BANANA REPUBLIC PARTY (please note: this project is an experimental political joke and has nothing to do with the rest of our movement) 
Armenian Libertarian-Socialist Movement 
