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  • 365 Days

    365 Days

    http://asbarez.com/117926/365-days/
    Tuesday, December 31st, 2013

    BY MARIA TITIZIAN

    In the absence of faith and hope and belief living can often be
    dwindled away, becoming mundane, a chore, destroying the core of what
    we were meant to do or be to others as human beings.

    These past few weeks we have been in a deep winter freeze in Yerevan.
    Temperatures have plummeted causing icy roads, freezing homes and
    treacherous sidewalks. Every morning as I walk down our street to get
    to work, I think my bones are going to crack from the cold. Even the
    trees seemed to have petrified and transformed into peculiar ice
    sculptures. Complaining about the weather a few days ago, an
    aquaintance reassured me it's good for the farmers. A mild winter is
    never promising for the summer bounty, or so I was told. Who am I to
    argue?

    So, with all things that cause discomfort, or cold bones, or falling
    on you knees on slippery tiles just before you go to cover the visit
    of Turkey's Foreign Affairs Minister Ahmed Davutoglu, there's always a
    silver lining. At least that is what we tell ourselves.

    At an annual wrap-up-the-past-year dinner, the topics around the table
    varied from the weather to pension reforms to natural gas to the
    country's precarious steps towards loss of sovereignty and national
    dignity. It was all matter-of-fact. We recalled that at last year's
    dinner, emotions were on edge and we were deeply grateful that 2012
    was over, because it hadn't been a good year.

    2013 comparatively was a worse year but for some reason we were
    uncharacteristically calm. There were no arms flailing or loss of
    decorum or any other sort of anarchy around the dinner table. Trying
    to fall asleep later that night I realized that faith and hope and
    belief, the core elements of our humanity, the attributes that had
    brought together our group of eternally optimistic friends had eroded
    sometime over the course of the past year. The problems we once
    thought unacceptable had become common place; the deceptions and
    missed opportunities were to be expected; we were no longer surprised
    at the disrespect and arrogance the ruling regime projected toward its
    own people. Taking things in stride, understanding and accepting your
    reality may sometimes be good for your health but rarely does it do
    any good for your soul.

    >From presidential to municipal elections, to deceptions and lies, to
    an elevated collective social consciousness, to secret deals, from
    progress to regression, from unreliability to treachery, our lives in
    2013 were not only a mosaic of emotions but of chaos.

    The images and impressions of the past year are more important than
    the specific details of events.

    Here is what 2013 felt like...

    It was a presidential election campaign that appeared uninspired and
    lackluster and then the results turned our lives upside down and we
    began to hope that something would change, that we could believe that
    democracy was working, finally. Hope turned to exhiliration, then
    deflation and then outright disappointment.

    In the meantime we had a presidential candidate who staged a hunger
    strike instead of campaigning; we had another accused, charged and
    convicted of trying to assassinate another presidential candidate; we
    had an incumbent president seeking a second and thankfully final term
    who told people many interesting things including that he could secure
    any result that suited his fancy; and the rest, I don't even remember.

    Two simultaneous presidential inaugurations took place, an official
    one where Serzh Sarkisian promised to lead the country and one in the
    square that promised to uphold the constitution and then disintegrated
    into nothing.

    There was the murder of a most beloved friend and mayor of Proshyan,
    Hrach Muradyan whose murderer is yet to be found.

    The residents of Yerevan went to the polls to elect a new mayor and a
    new city council. Republican Taron Margaryan became mayor and got
    himself embroiled in a bus fare hike that saw thousands of protestors
    in the streets, forcing him to retract his decision, at least for the
    time being.

    Suren Khachatryan, the infamous and controversial former governor of
    Syunik marz was once again in the headlines for a murder that took
    place outside his front door. His son and bodyguard were charged with
    the murder but later released. Khachatryan claims he was sleeping and
    didn't hear anything at all. The chief military prosecutor at the time
    Gevorg Kostanyan said that the two men accused in the murder had acted
    in self-defense and effectively set them free. He was later appointed
    Armenia's Prosecutor General.

    We were promised by our president that we could expect 7 percent
    economic growth and an increase in wages that would surpass the rate
    of inflation and if these things were not realized by the government,
    they would be asked to resign.

    We learned that the country's prime minister held offshore accounts
    where funds from bank loans were funneled in collusion with a
    controversial archbishop.

    After 3.5 years of intense negotiations with the European Union,
    Armenia was set to initial the Association Agreement but then on
    September 3, while on a visit to Russia, our country's president
    `affirmed the Armenian people's wish' and unexpectedly announced that
    we would instead join the Customs Union with Russia, Kazakhstan and
    Belarus, three exemplary nations of democracy, human rights and social
    justice.

    In December we learned that since April 2011, the price of natural gas
    imports from Russia had steadily increased. However, this was quietly
    subsidized and kept a secret from the Armenian people until the
    Republican Party ensured victories at the parliamentary, presidential
    and Yerevan municipality elections racking up a debt of $300 million
    in the meantime.

    On December 2, Russian President Vladimir Putin paid a visit to our
    country and signed several bilateral agreements, which included
    selling off the remaining 20 percent of the Republic of Armenia's
    shares in ArmRosGazprom to the Russian giant Gazprom to offset the
    $300 million debt. According to the deal, for the next thirty years,
    Armenia is not allowed to purchase natural gas from a third party, it
    cannot serve as a transit zone and it is obliged to ensure gas prices
    are set at a rate which will ensure that our new Russian gas partner
    recoups its investments in the system.

    On December 23, the National Assembly of Armenia had to vote to ratify
    the natural gas deal between Armenia and Russia. Engaged citizens,
    opposition parties and activists from different spheres tried to
    mobilize against the vote, sometimes using unacceptable tactics,
    including boycotting and walking out of the National Assembly, to
    removing voting cards to obstruct the vote. But even those tactics
    were of no use as the ruling coalition went ahead and voted, although
    the manner in which they voted is now being brought into question. We
    will have to wait for the verdict of the Constitutional Court. No one
    in Armenia is holding their breath.

    It is a theater of the absurd, it feels as though the clinically
    insane have taken over the asylum...

    In the melee, passions ran amuck, lines were blurred, reporters became
    activists, activists became reporters, no one knows or understands
    their role anymore.

    And then there are those young people out there in the subzero
    temperatures, braving the bitter dry cold and doggedly fighting a
    system that refuses to acknowledge them. I believe that many more will
    join them. I believe in their willpower and tenacity. They are often
    criticized by different people and different forces, myself included.
    But one thing is so painfully clear - if it wasn't for them, many of
    us would continue to live like the trees that have transformed into
    peculiar ice statues, patiently waiting for a spring that will never
    come.

    This is how our life was in 2013. I hope yours was less interesting.

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