“You cannot be independent on your knees”

During the Saturday congress of the Armenian National movement the president of the ANM board Alexander Arzumanyan said, “Today the Russian boots are hanging on the heads of Armenians and we should think how to save Armenia.” He also added, “All the nations have gone through tough times to become independent nations. We are still going through challenges, which relates to internal and external threats. Today we are coming to change what we have been doing back in 1988. Today ignorance is winning the knowledge. The communist approach is killing liberal thinking. This is really dangerous.” Then he added that the problem could be solved only if we killed the slave within us. Then he continued, “We cannot be independent on our knees.” Arzumanyan stated that he wasn’t against the cooperation with Russia. In the meantime he mentioned that it was wrong to yield our future to Russia. He mentioned that since 1988 the ANM had always been struggling for democracy. “We wish to have a European type liberal economy, which guides by human principles. No one can shut down the ANM in our country.” Arzumanyan reminded, “There were people, who didn’t have anything common with the ANM, but they name themselves ANC in order to receive NA mandates. This really hurts all the people, who have been in the movement since 1988. We cannot turn down our past and this is the reason why we initiated the resurrection of the ANC.”

By T. Martirosyan