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26.12.2013

ARMENIAN STUDIES AS “CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE”

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Based on the address made at the Second Conference on Armenian Studies and the Contemporary Challenges of (October 17-19, 2013, Yerevan)

Gagik Harutyunyan
Executive Director, Noravank Scientific Educational Foundation, Yerevan

Armenian studies are certainly not a purely academic/fundamental science. Branches of Armenian studies – history, literature, architecture, etc., are manifestations of our civilizational identity, which in turn had brought new content to our identity and system of values (and continue doing so). The modern thinking suggests that these concepts are the basis of the national security system. Thus, Armenian studies are essentially a nation-forming and state-building discipline.

Admittedly, such interpration of Armenian studies is not adequately perceived by our society and the discipline’s concepts and results of applied nature are rarely used in practical/political affairs1. There are many reasons for this, among which is the circumstance that Armenian studies are a part of our scientific/educational system that currently is not in its best shape. It is obvious that such situation inevitably impacts on development of the national political thought. This cause-and-effect relationship explains the fact that to date there are only few interdisciplinary researches juxtaposing and combining the fields of Armenian studies (or for that matter, any other scientific disciplines) and politics. Yet this would have allowed not only uncovering the commonalities between the fields, but also developing their complementation mechanisms and application formats.

Given the challenges that our society has to face (both of our states are in no war, no peace situation; our communities in the Middle East are at the verge of extinction due to geopolitical developments; there are many problems in diaspora, because the tactics of identity preservation based solely on Genocide recognition by the international community is no longer effective and does not guarantee national development), such statement of problem appears quite critical. With the mentioned realities in mind some observations of the said problems are presented here below, with a prior brief deliberation on some of the modern and significantly expanded views on national security.

In the area of security the highest priority is currently assigned to the safety, effective setup and development of the society’s spiritual/intellectual resources. In this context the traditional approaches to and definitions of warfare have changed: presently the politics and strategies are carried out mainly through the so-called “soft power” and “information warfare” which is part of the former. It has to be noted in this regard that spiritual/cultural issues are encompassed in the information security, which in turn is a component of the national security. In our society the information security is often interpreted somewhat simplistically and sometimes is presented as political/historical disputes in Armenian and Turkish/Azeri mass media and social media, or reciprocal hacker attacks. Undoubtedly, these activities are elements of the information warfare and are also necessary, but they have limited tactical significance and impacts.

Meanwhile, it is known that the theory of information warfare and methods employed in it have qualitatively evolved in the recent period. The so-called “second generation” network information warfare is worth mentioning, which pursues the following main objectives.

  • to disintegrate the adversary’s social/moral bases and the system of values,
  • to impose own cultural code in the consciousness of the adversary’s (or sometimes even the ally’s) society through manipulative technologies.

Armenia and the Armeniancy are involved in such warfare for some well-known reasons, and in these terms are in the risk zone. In such conditions our intellectual and political elite must develop a strategy adequate to the existing challenges, which should take into account the following circumstances.

Security doctrines usually assign key importance to the protection of so-called “critical infrastructures,” construed as the most essential military/political, socio-economic and information structures, incapacitation of which leads to a failure of the whole security system. We contend that the status of “critical infrastructure” must be assigned to the systems and structures that safeguard spiritual/intellectual development, as their failure may lead to demoralization of the society. Such approach is currently gaining ground in the world, and for instance, in a relatively recently published military doctrine of Israel, within the critical security infrastructure top priorities were given to structures deemed as national symbols, such as Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum, religious temples, etc.2 It appears, similar approach must be used in Armenia as well, but without limiting it to physical structures. An attempt will be made here to examine several problems from this perspective, in particular those related to our system of values3 and public interpretations of the modern history.

The system of values in the society is not a static category, since it changes depending on the historical, military/political developments, as well as evolutionary or revolutionary ones. Today the system of values is substantially influenced by printed and electronic mass media through widely spread, targeted and/or supposedly chaotic information flows, which to a considerable extent form the global community’s way of thinking, mindset and hence, also the system of values.

Naturally, these realities are characteristic to the Armenian society. Obviously, the Armenian system of values with its civilizational traits is one of the cornerstones that ensured our national/historical continuity. At the same time, it has to be noted that study of the problems in this area requires consideration of certain peculiarities of our history of the last hundred years.

The Genocide and loss of the Western Armenia have deeply impacted the psychology and worldview of our society, especially the diaspora. The diaspora part of the Armeniancy is also characterized by the fact that they undergo not only intra-ethnic or global influences, but also national/civilizational ones specific to their countries of residence. Armenia’s society has its peculiarities, too. As a result of geopolitical and revolutionary processes of the last two centuries – the Persian rule, Russian Empire, the First, Second and finally the Third republic to mention a few – this part of the Armeniancy has changed the socio-ideological environment of its social being several times. This has led to considerable, sometimes controversial, substantive transformations in the society’s system of values.

In particular, after the Bolshevik “terror” in 1920-30s, the communist concepts imposed on the society of the Second republic gradually transformed over time and became as much coherent as it was possible to the ideas of the national system of values. Yet currently, a significant part of the society is at odds with the liberal ideology concepts that were imposed this time through socio-economic terror during the period, which can be called “an era of vulgar liberalism”, still continuing today to a greater or lesser degree. This last period left extremely negative effects on the national ideological worldviews that were formed during the 1965 events related to the Armenian Genocide commemoration and ensuing Karabakh movement. The combination of these processes has introduced significant uncertainties in the ideas that the society has about its values.

Interestingly, the study of the public’s system of values is currently viewed as a crucial matter, and for example, World Values Survey (WVS)4, an international organization, conducts extensive studies around the world. The research outcomes are used in making both economic and political decisions and particularly, the so-called “color revolution” technologies are anchored on knowledge of socio-psychological characteristics of a given society. The research conducted by the mentioned organization suggests that the population of Armenia is in the cultural domain of the South Asian and ex-Communist countries, where traditional and survival values prevail.

Currently studies of values system in Armenia are conducted by the Chair of Psychology at the Yerevan State University (led by Narine Khachatryan). Also, impacts of the information environment on the system of values are studied at the Noravank Foundation5. However, it is evident that the activities implemented in this area are not sufficient and furthermore, are far from gaining applied significance. It can be safely stated that any perceptions about the system of values prevailing in Armenia, let alone in Armenian diaspora, are general and emotional, and are far from being scientifically substantiated. It is even more difficult, if not impossible to answer the question what value direction the Armenian society has taken and what transformations could be expected in future. Such situation often causes controversial comments in the political-information arena, which in no way contributes to the establishment of an effective national security system and implementation of relevant political strategies6.

It must be especially emphasized that a closer relationship between Armenian studies and the policies, as well as their practical use seem impossible without an appropriate information policy, and this is applicable also to other problems unrelated to the system of values.

In particular, if the information coverage of our history’s Soviet period were to be examined, it would become clear that there are serious problems directly related to one of the fundamental laws of the information security – preservation of an unbroken history and national memory. Societies that lose their historical base are most prone to information/psychological influences, and in this regard it is pertinent to quote a Chinese proverb: “Forgetting history means betrayal.”

The views on the Second republic voiced in the information space bear mainly “tragic” or “sarcastic” overtones and remind the Bolshevik style, when anything related to the First republic had to be condemned. Perhaps Carl Schmitt was right, contending that “philosophical paradigms of Marxism and liberal ideological/economic demonism are the same.”

As far as assessment of the Second republic is concerned, the mentioned approaches constitute distortion of the objective history, because in addition to its negative and tragic aspects, Soviet Armenia created a powerful scientific, technological and industrial system, experienced demographic growth, formed a creative society with high educational and moral levels. For instance, in late 1980s there were 30,000 scientific personnel in Armenia, whereas now their number is about 6000. In 1984 total 200 inventions were introduced for application in economy7.

It has to be clearly realized that history of any country is not just that of its political regime, but also the history of its society and people. In this context it must be admitted that the Armenian society took its share of political, military and revolutionary calamities with high dignity. Boris Kagarlitsky, a prominent intellectual and political scientist, who, incidentally, is a former prisoner of Mordovian labor camps, has noticed felicitously that disparaging the Soviet history is first of all a betrayal of the memory of the Soviet regime’s victims.

No attempt is made here to idealize our not so distant past, as it makes no sense to idealize or demonize any historical period. At the same time it has to be understood that the First republic was the basis of the Second one, which in its turn paved the way to the Third republic, and this must be interpreted and dealt with accordingly. Any other approaches only obstruct the system of national security, inappropriately discredit our state/political institutions and make them appear younger than they actually are. For example, some time ago billboards appeared that read: “Armenian Army is 20 years old”, while in fact our army has a history of many thousands of years.

The presented and numerous other issues, perhaps, require establishment of joint political/governmental and academic/expert commissions that would discuss and find solutions for these types of problems.

1 Հարությունյան Գ., Հայագիտության ազգային ռազմավարության որոշ դրույթներ, «Գլո¬բուս», #1(9), էջ 3, 2007։

2 Гриняев С., О взгляде на проблему безопасности критической инфраструктуры в государстве Израиль, http://www.csef.ru/index.php/ru/component/csef/project/-/-/-?id=3229.

3 Recently this problem is much speculated about in the context of Armenia’s integration preferences

4See http://worldvaluessurvey.org

5 See, for example, Իդեոլոգեմները ՀՀ տեղեկատվական տարածքում, Երևան, «Նորավանք» ԳԿՀ, 2013թ.։

6 Հարությունյան Գ., Ինտեգրացիայի որոշ հիմնախնդիրների մասին արժեքային հա¬մա¬կար¬գի համատեքստում, Գլոբուս, #4(37), էջ 20, 2013։

7 Арутюнян Г., «Распад системы и формирование будущего», НОФ «Нораванк», Ереван, 2011.


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