We are the one guilty for everything
The Russian-Armenian (Slavonic) University in Yerevan held an annual scientific conference, where the university’s rector Armen Darbinyan discussed Armenia’s foreign integration issues and divided them in three parts such as civilization, economic and geopolitical directions.
Darbinyan believes as Armenians are one of the oldest nations in the world, they have a right and reason to tend to world importance. However, in modern world being an old nation and culture is not enough to tend to that role and nations should have either economic strength, natural resources, huge human capital or groundbreaking scientific innovations that would support to human development in the world. Former Prime-Minister Armen Darbinyan said that unfortunately Armenia does not meet those criteria. If the lack of quantitative or natural resources are objective reasons, it is about us to change or still keep the traditional and conservative values coming from the centuries that are not among the modern priorities now.
“During the past twenty years of independence we have not been able to show even a unique identification to the world; Russian have considered us South Caucasus, and still they do. In order not to repeat the European concept and the Russian notion, they enclosed us in the South Caucasus region, which in fact does not make us any different from Georgians or Azeris. Was it that difficult to explain to the world that we are not South Caucasus? The unjustified compromise, or the destructive negligence to our own history and culture have brought us to an undecided situation in the midst of geopolitical transformations, where our interests and priorities are not taken into consideration and are abused. Was it that difficult to understand that precise and correct self-identification could keep us away from the useless choice between Europe and Eurasia? Why did not we succeed in protecting the indo-european national and cultural ancient identification in our foreign affairs? This is identity that would bring us a role of exclusive eastern Christian people with values that European civilizations hare. Let me also say that Eastern does not mean Asian. We are not Asia the same way as we are not South Caucasus. Our misfortune is in the fact that we are not Europe either. This means that the artificial choice between Europe and Eurasia is not for civilization but only geopolitical, where both of the parties that force us to that tend to ignore the self-identification above,” said Armen Darbinyan.
Armen Darbinyan believes countries should join existing or new economic unions, or even separate countries. In the meantime he emphasized that in any integration model Armenia’s priority must be the protection and development of the national self-identity and sovereignty. “One of the best methods for protection and development of the national and state identity is through foreign languages and communication with other cultures. Taking into consideration our situation, we should know Russian and English. Generally it should be a state priority to have a society that speaks three languages. The selection of economic integration model for our country may be conditioned by geopolitical factors. In this case what we should do is trying to squeeze the maximum from the opportunities we have. Integration with the Customs Union should not result in halting integration and negotiations with other free trade opportunities. Armenia is really a unique case in these processes, which should not create additional challenges but provide us with more opportunities,” said Armen Darbinyan.
After the conference 168 Zham’s journalist asked questions to Armen Darbinyan.
-Mr. Darbinyan, how do you think Armenia’s development will go within the Customs Union? There are many challenges such as corruption, high level of crimes and underdeveloped economic institutions in Russia.
-I strongly believe that nobody, including Russia, has or will ever stop us from fighting our own corruption problem; bringing order inside our own house is our problem, thus we should not put the blame on anybody or try to look for reasons why it does not happen. It is us that are guilty in all this. If we are not satisfied with the current social and economic situation, it is the fault of the society, political elite and our decision makers. I would not blame Russia, Europe or any other third country in our past and future failures. Any country has a certain type of culture and problems; corruption exists in other countries too. Joining the Customs Union does not mean that we should import the traditions, culture and political affairs from there. We have our own responsibility to implement our own model for politics, economy and social affairs.
-Do you think it is possible to build European Armenia while being a part of the Customs Union?
-This formulation was brought up by minister Ashotyan in Kazan two days ago, and it is not a bad formulation. However, I would not dare to brand tomorrow’s Armenia as European Armenia now. I would like Armenia to be an area where there is fair justice, development, and a center for Armenians. I do not know any European country that could become a center for Armenians. What I mean is that I really want us to become a just and developing country, and it does not matter to me how we will brand this model.
-What do you think about Russia’s policy to Armenia in consideration of the fact that Putin’s visit was delayed several times and his visit to Azerbaijan was alarming? Don’t you see an attempt of humiliation in this?
-We should create our own role and authority ourselves. If we think that he came later or in a form that was not desirable for us, again it is our own fault. I do not see any special treatment, and I think the visit will show if there we are treated well or no. I do not have any facts for such assumption now, and if there are any doubts, again it is our own fault and we should look for the faults among us.
-You have brought up an idea of a Russian-speaking world. You said that for Armenia to integrate with Russia is more natural due to the language and culture. What do you think about the recent incidents in Ukraine in this context?
-Ukraine should not be compared to Armenia. These are totally different cases. To discuss Armenia and Ukraine in the same context is a methodological, and even political and geopolitical mistake. Ukraine has certain priorities as it is really located in Europe, has border with Europe and great potential for integration; Ukraine also has powerful production potential and resources. Ukraine cannot be compared to Armenia as we do not have borders with the European free trade area, our borders are closed, we have an unresolved conflict, which is a major security challenge now. I think in Ukraine it is about the people’s choice now and it is a problem of the Ukrainian authorities’ non-transparent activity as they brought their entire nation into a deadlock, for which people are opposing and holding demonstrations. What I would like to see is that these incidents pass peacefully and without any harm to the Ukrainian people.
A large portion of Ukraine’s society did not buy the non-transparent activity of their government as in the last moment they were told that their country was not ready to sign the Association Agreement with Europe. If they are not ready, they should have told it long before. From this point of view I think Azerbaijan was more honest to Europe, Russia and its own people. If I am not mistaken, 1.5 years ago they announced that they did not have a goal to integrate and they would be trying to develop multilateral relations with Russia and European Union to the extent of integration that meets Azerbaijan’s interests of that time. Even though many experts and people may think that the process of European integration negotiations is not logical, I think that it was logical; simply governments should be transparent and show more respect to their own people.
-By the way, there were opinions that Azerbaijan had a role in failing Armenia’s integration with Europe. Do you think this is possible?
-Let’s not look for guilty parties anywhere else than between us. We should not care about if anyone has interfered or no. We should be more interested in an increased role and ability to protect the interests of our country and people in negotiation processes. Have we been able to do that? I think not enough.
By Gayane Khachatryan
