Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

In Karabakh Everything Started In '88

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • In Karabakh Everything Started In '88

    IN KARABAKH EVERYTHING STARTED IN '88
    Gegam Bagdasaryan

    Osservatorio Balcani
    http://www.osservatoriobalcani.org/article /articleview/12042/1/407/
    Nov 2 2009

    Difficulties and small advantages in creating democratic institutions
    in a country not recognised on an international level. Twenty years of
    changes in Stepanakert 1988 represents a turning point in the recent
    history of Nagorno-Karabakh: history is divided between "before" and
    "after" that year. The citizens of Karabakh remember the "before"
    with reluctance.

    The Armenians living in the region, who represented the clear majority
    of the population of the Autonomous Region of Nagorno-Karabakh in
    the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, felt oppressed by the
    Azeri minority.

    According to the stories circulating at the time, it was forbidden
    to sleep with your face facing Armenia and those who had studied in
    Armenia had no chance of pursuing a career. Despite the fact that
    the administrators of the Autonomous region of Nagorno-Karabakh were
    "Armenian". Yet, they were "Armenian" between inverted commas, since
    they were emissaries of Baku, educated or re-educated in that city,
    meticulously forged at the school of the local party. And obviously
    with a surname ending in "-ov", instead of the traditionally Armenian
    "-yan". It is said that at that time the famous marshal Bagramyan
    arrived to Stepanakert from Moscow. The local elite welcomed him and
    started introducing themselves: Kevorov, Aslanov, Samvelov... "What's
    going on? Are we still not in Karabakh?" asked the distinguished
    Armenian commander, with indignation.

    In those years I was studying in Stepanakert at the Institute of
    Pedagogy, dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the creation of Soviet
    Azerbaijan; I studied Armenian language and literature, but it was
    forbidden to teach Armenian history. It would be like training Italian
    Literature teachers without allowing them to study Italian history.

    But this is the way things were before Gorbachev's perestroika. And
    then all of a sudden the words perestrojka, uskorenie, glasnost'
    started to appear... the citizens of Karabakh had waited a long time
    for this, and they were the first ones to believe in it, open-heartedly
    showing their aspirations and tribulations. Miatsum was the motto
    in response to this, which means reunification with the motherland
    Armenia. But the Kremlin reacted harshly, making it clear that it was
    not only made up of progressive leaders following the motto "Lenin,
    party, Grobachev", but also of conservative ones following the one
    "Stalin, Beria, Ligachev", instead.

    Perestrojka, uskorenie, glasnost' were very popular slogans when the
    movement for the liberation of Karabakh started to emerge, but soon
    the feeling that they were nothing more than words began to spread. It
    was an attempt at giving a face-lift to the empire. But the rotten
    system couldn't sustain it and rejected it.

    The USSR collapsed, and in the chaos that followed Azerbaijan decided
    to crush the aspirations of the Armenian population of Karabakh with
    violence. After a difficult war the Karabakhi Armenians proclaimed
    their independence and started to build their own state.

    The first impression for the Armenian population of Karabakh was simply
    amazing: we had our own army, police, symbols - Armenian ones -, our
    own officials instead of emissaries, our own flag, national anthem
    and official crest. The enthusiasm didn't fade even when civil rights
    started to be ignored by our newly appointed officials, when it was
    "our own" police that was beating us up, when during trials it was
    "our own" courts that didn't do us justice, when the first villas
    belonging to "our own" businessmen started to appear.

    An acquaintance of mine used to joke about this by saying: "The
    people obtained the symbols of independence: the flag, the crest,
    the national anthem, while the bureaucrats obtained all the benefits".

    Nonetheless, by slowly leaving the war behind, Karabakhi Armenians
    started to worry not only about basic commodities, but also about their
    own freedom, and hence started to fight to obtain it. Having fought for
    years against an external enemy, they had to overcome a "psychological"
    barrier and start "fighting" against their own authorities. It wasn't
    easy, but the struggle began. With alternate fortune. In 2004 the
    opposition won the local elections, and its leader became the mayor
    of Stepanakert. But that was followed by two significant failures in
    2005 and 2007. Now the situation is at a stand by, while we wait for
    the next elections.

    Nowadays, Karabakhi Armenians are trying to build their democracy in a
    very difficult situation: they are not recognised on an international
    level, and the threat of a military action from Azerbaijan hangs
    over them.

    The situation is certainly not easy, but, for as strange as it may
    sound, there are also some advantages to it. On the one hand there
    is a clear lack of new upper level professionals due to isolation and
    scarce resources, and at a first glance the pre-requisites to create
    political parties, independent media and NGOs are still not in place.

    But on the other hand the society in Karabakh is more compact and
    flexible than elsewhere, due to the scarcely populated nature of the
    region and, in a way, to the war. It can also count on its previous
    experience of collective survival, it is less fractured and more
    traditional, thus having better self-management skills. It has not been
    spoiled by funding and subsidies, a fact that has positive aspects.

    A further benefit of not being recognised on an international level
    is the fact that the process of democratic transformation is not
    being forcedly accelerated, since such an artificial acceleration
    could paradoxically produce the opposite effect of impoverishing the
    democratic principles. Karabakh is not a member of the European Council
    or any other international institution, hence it is not expected to
    force events and it is not subject to binding obligations.

    Therefore, it seems like everything follows a more natural development
    in this country.

    Obviously, the population realises that solving the matter of the
    official recognition of Karabakh would mean having more development
    opportunities. Nonetheless, as a friend of mine often says, there are
    worse tragedies in the world than not being officially recognised:
    AIDS, earthquakes, the ozone hole and so on. Karabakh Armenians
    value the opportunity to preserve their national identity as the
    most important result. It is certainly not easy, but at least we can
    breath freely.
Working...
X