ArmInfo.Putting an end to the struggle between the past and the present is a historical need, Vahe Hovhannisyan, a member of the Alternative Projects group, wrote in his article.
According to him, old, proven narratives will in the near future be used to impose "new historical realities." "We will again fight with old methods that do not yield any results. The key pitfall on the path to social healing and consolidation of sentiment is the battle between past and present, but if we want to stop the rapid decline of the state, this must be done. But simply recognizing this is not enough. "We need to find the mechanism, the applied side of the issue. This is a complex issue, because there are many nuances here, woven in intentionally or unconsciously, there is a heavy background, eternal anxiety and an imposed idea of the present and the past," the expert noted.
He added that those individuals, forces, groups who feel responsibility and accept it must clearly formulate their position in relation to traps, and not avoid them. By avoiding (which is what they have been doing for 4-5 years), they transfer the initiative to the government, which uses it in the most vulgar way. "It is necessary to begin dismantling the "Gordian knot" from one point. At the first stage of independent Armenia, we were a victorious state, and this circumstance united all conscious people, including all former presidents of Armenia. We must correct this and agree that after giving up these powers, one of the first steps of the next government will be to give all three former presidents the highest government rank. Here we will have to abandon all kinds of individualized (objective and subjective) approaches. First of all, this is a gesture of national respect for that stage of Armenian history and statehood when we were worthy, had an Armenian Artsakh and a predictable state. At the same time, this will serve as a guarantee of the future stability of the country, avoidance of internal shocks, and will also send a signal to the international community about internal stability. Adopting this simple approach will already provide a huge base for consolidation. This will stop internal intolerance between supporters, ideologists, teams of former presidents. This is already a historical atavism, when the country is in such a state, we continue to live with old ideas. Either the former presidents have changed, or we have all changed, or Armenia itself has changed. Despite all the contradictions, the common, uniting is always more important than the differences. This will allow many normal people to cooperate calmly and intelligently, discarding the patterns of the last 20-30 years, which will significantly change the atmosphere in active social circles and, therefore, affect public sentiment. The effect that we wanted to get through the format of cooperation between three former presidents and which we did not get, can be obtained from the opposite side, from teams that accepted as a principle to honor the Armenia of their time as it deserved. In this context, the same state title should be awarded to the first Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Vazgen Manukyan. We can be confident that this simple approach will bring noticeable results as a message of national consolidation around nationhood. We can also be sure that the government will do its best to prevent this, since leaving the traps it has set means the end of it. But history in the near future will present us all with a choice, and it would be right to do it competently," Mr Hovhannisyan wrote.