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THE BEST TIME TO SEIZE UNIVERSITIES
Tehmineh Yenokyan
17:44 28/02/2013
Story from Lragir.am News:
http://www.lragir.am/index.php/eng/0/interview/view/29131
Interview with Arpine Galphayan, chairperson of the Institute for
Democracy and Human Rights
Arpine, part of students opposes the system. How would you describe
this step?
The young generation assumes responsibility for the present and future,
becomes aware of the circumstance of being a free citizen and the
role they will have in building a sovereign state. This awareness is
the first step and it is very positive. At the same time, the gaps
are revealed. Students still avoid raising their issues and achieving
their rights. They demand free national elections when the elections to
student boards are as fake, when critical mind and word is limited at
the university. Raising issues that affect them immediately require
more courage, and young people may undergo tougher duress because
they depend on the president of the university more heavily than on
the president of Armenia.
There will be real change when students start liberating themselves,
open up for new and critical thought, come together and self-organize
to draft their own civil agenda, incorporate it in the public and
political agenda, participate in finding solutions. The act of opposing
must transform from dissatisfaction to civic demand. It must penetrate
the university and interweave with other social groups fighting on
the square. Free, conscious, open, equal, positive self-organization
of students is highly important. The process must be based on real
democracy, real freedom, team spirit, mutual respect and creativity.
The doors of universities are locked, students are kept inside,
doors are guarded by student boards. What are their values?
Student boards serve the interests of political parties and have
nothing to do with the needs, aspirations, protection of rights
of students. This is not a secret, isn't it? There are exceptions
but this is the overall picture. Moreover, standing at the top
of boards of universities are political and party figures. What
does it mean? It means that not progressive and not democratic,
but narrow-minded political forces are doing everything they can
to keep students and young people under control while this is the
class of people who rebel, change what is old, and replace it with
new quality with enthusiasm, crush idols, defy authorities. They
close the doors and don't let students leave? That's much better,
it is time to capture the universities, turn the campus to sources
of creative protest, struggle, new politics, and student boards and
different elites will be unable to do anything about it. Doors and
walls cannot stop a free and conscious person. Understanding this, we
will eventually bring about fundamental changes, achieve sovereignty
at the individual and state levels.
What will freedom imprisoned for so long bring about? What does the
global experience say?
I like the words of Desmond Tutu, a famous activist and religious
figure of the fight against apartheid in South Africa when people
decide they want to be free, nothing can stop them. Freedom cannot
be put to prison. Servile and colonized people imprison themselves
voluntarily. And it will be much better if we assume that we are
such in order to be able to change. Young people must desire to rid
of imprisonment, despair, conformism, they must stand and fight for
truth and dignity, achieve and build their freedom.
Police is acting in a tougher style. Does the regime feel danger and
what are those dangerous components?
This is not an issue of a regime. Not only do we need to change a
regime but also the criminal oligarchic system, create a new culture,
work out the models of our independent coexistence. It is not done
once in five years but every day.
The danger of the collapsing system is that the processes may get
out of control and proceed along an unexpected path. They have done
everything they could to keep students, young people, people in
dependence, controllable, they nourished the vices of servility,
obedience, conformism, the culture of violence coming from centuries.
If young people put forth an independent agenda based on freedom and
justice and follow up the issues they bring up, this will be a bugbear
for both the internal and the global systems because they can also
bring up social, cultural and economic problems, put forth claims for
social, cultural, economic independence, the problem of mines, foreign
debt and so on. In today's political culture no existing and potential
"organization that exercises power" wishes self-determination,
independence of citizens because it will mean regular control, it
will mean that real politics will be built every day on the street,
on the square, everywhere, continuously, not in someone's office
behind closed doors. Now it is the best time to seize the streets,
squares, universities to create a new quality of political culture.
Tehmineh Yenokyan
17:44 28/02/2013
Story from Lragir.am News:
http://www.lragir.am/index.php/eng/0/interview/view/29131
Interview with Arpine Galphayan, chairperson of the Institute for
Democracy and Human Rights
Arpine, part of students opposes the system. How would you describe
this step?
The young generation assumes responsibility for the present and future,
becomes aware of the circumstance of being a free citizen and the
role they will have in building a sovereign state. This awareness is
the first step and it is very positive. At the same time, the gaps
are revealed. Students still avoid raising their issues and achieving
their rights. They demand free national elections when the elections to
student boards are as fake, when critical mind and word is limited at
the university. Raising issues that affect them immediately require
more courage, and young people may undergo tougher duress because
they depend on the president of the university more heavily than on
the president of Armenia.
There will be real change when students start liberating themselves,
open up for new and critical thought, come together and self-organize
to draft their own civil agenda, incorporate it in the public and
political agenda, participate in finding solutions. The act of opposing
must transform from dissatisfaction to civic demand. It must penetrate
the university and interweave with other social groups fighting on
the square. Free, conscious, open, equal, positive self-organization
of students is highly important. The process must be based on real
democracy, real freedom, team spirit, mutual respect and creativity.
The doors of universities are locked, students are kept inside,
doors are guarded by student boards. What are their values?
Student boards serve the interests of political parties and have
nothing to do with the needs, aspirations, protection of rights
of students. This is not a secret, isn't it? There are exceptions
but this is the overall picture. Moreover, standing at the top
of boards of universities are political and party figures. What
does it mean? It means that not progressive and not democratic,
but narrow-minded political forces are doing everything they can
to keep students and young people under control while this is the
class of people who rebel, change what is old, and replace it with
new quality with enthusiasm, crush idols, defy authorities. They
close the doors and don't let students leave? That's much better,
it is time to capture the universities, turn the campus to sources
of creative protest, struggle, new politics, and student boards and
different elites will be unable to do anything about it. Doors and
walls cannot stop a free and conscious person. Understanding this, we
will eventually bring about fundamental changes, achieve sovereignty
at the individual and state levels.
What will freedom imprisoned for so long bring about? What does the
global experience say?
I like the words of Desmond Tutu, a famous activist and religious
figure of the fight against apartheid in South Africa when people
decide they want to be free, nothing can stop them. Freedom cannot
be put to prison. Servile and colonized people imprison themselves
voluntarily. And it will be much better if we assume that we are
such in order to be able to change. Young people must desire to rid
of imprisonment, despair, conformism, they must stand and fight for
truth and dignity, achieve and build their freedom.
Police is acting in a tougher style. Does the regime feel danger and
what are those dangerous components?
This is not an issue of a regime. Not only do we need to change a
regime but also the criminal oligarchic system, create a new culture,
work out the models of our independent coexistence. It is not done
once in five years but every day.
The danger of the collapsing system is that the processes may get
out of control and proceed along an unexpected path. They have done
everything they could to keep students, young people, people in
dependence, controllable, they nourished the vices of servility,
obedience, conformism, the culture of violence coming from centuries.
If young people put forth an independent agenda based on freedom and
justice and follow up the issues they bring up, this will be a bugbear
for both the internal and the global systems because they can also
bring up social, cultural and economic problems, put forth claims for
social, cultural, economic independence, the problem of mines, foreign
debt and so on. In today's political culture no existing and potential
"organization that exercises power" wishes self-determination,
independence of citizens because it will mean regular control, it
will mean that real politics will be built every day on the street,
on the square, everywhere, continuously, not in someone's office
behind closed doors. Now it is the best time to seize the streets,
squares, universities to create a new quality of political culture.