The Armenian government’s initiative to abolish military draft deferments is a manifestation of the concept of \u201cnation-army;\u201d the bottom line is that everything in this country – science, industry, education – should serve the interests of the army, ethnologist Hranush Kharatyan stated on Tuesday during a discussion on the topic.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe should plant potatoes if we know that the army will buy it; if not, we do not need to plant potatoes. The industry has to sew clothes for the army; if it\u2019s unable to, then it must provide the army with something else, and so on and so forth. Everything leads to the fact that whatever happens in this country, it has to somehow serve the interests of the army,\u201d Kharatyan said.<\/p>\n
Hovsep Khurshudyan, chairman of the Yerevan-based \u201cFree Citizen\u201d Civic Initiatives Support Centre, also criticized the \u201cnation-army\u201d concept, saying that the authorities proposal \u201cis not militarization, but monetization.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey offer to pay anyone who is willing to make a self-sacrifice. That\u2019s the basis of the concept. They see everything solely from a financial perspective. They also say that a 19-year-old should not go and die on the border, but a 30-year-old should. What is that supposed to mean – \u2018he already has three children, let him die, and we\u2019ll provide for his kids\u2019? This is a typical example of monetization,\u201d Khurshudyan concluded.<\/p>\n
Mikayel Hovhannisyan, a member of the 2004 For the Development of Science initiative, argued that the militarization is carried out by the Armenian authorities under the guise of pseudo-patriotism so that people do not object or rebel, \u201cbecause no one can speak out against patriotism out of fear of being labeled a traitor and a deserter.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to do our best to abolish the \u2018nation-army\u2019 concept in Armenia. Armenia should be developing, combat-ready and so on, but it should not be possessed with the terrible idea of turning its nation into an army. This, among other things, would perpetuate the power of the ruling Republican Party,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n
Hovsep Khurshudyan further commented on the protest movement around the draft deferment abolishment initiative; according to the speaker, exempting scientists from military service \u201cis elitism.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a different kind of elitism. The elite are currently the only ones who can afford to evade military service with money. Let’s be frank, the discussion against the abolishment of draft deferments is a discussion about not going into the army at all; about exempting a certain group from military service since they are more important, they are scientists. Who decides who is more important? What\u2019s more, [the opposers] do not solely argue for the value of time, but also life. We know that military service in Armenia carries with it a threat to life,\u201d Khurshudyan added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We need to do our best to abolish the \u2018nation-army\u2019 concept in Armenia. Armenia should be developing, combat-ready and so on, but it should not be possessed with the terrible…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[65984],"tags":[71773,21459,65400],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282796"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282796\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}