Armenians can build a sovereign state even amid present geopolitical  shocks, politician says  

ArmInfo. In the context of the Ukraine crisis, Armenia should think of building a sovereign state rather than of the threats of losing sovereignty in case the Allied  State's borders extend as far as Armenia, Garegin Miskaryan, Director  of the Democratic Platform foundation, said in an interview with  ArmInfo.  

"I would dare to state that, historically, Armenia has nearly always  had serious problems with its nationhood and sovereignty. And we have  hardly ever been sovereign. At best, our country enjoyed certain,  insignificant elements of sovereignty during short historical  periods. So at present we should not think of the threats of losing  what we have hardly ever had. Rather, we should try to create it," he  said. 

According to Mr Miskaryan, present-day Republic of Armenia could be  described as a sovereign state, "only with great reserve." And this  is not the only problem of our country and society. First of all, for  lack of not only democratic government institutes, but also, which is  much more important, democratic society.  That is why, being a  formally transitional democracy, Armenia and its society are, in  fact, far from being democratic, primarily because of  "inferior  social thinking" and the values cherished by this society. 

Amid all this, a democratic state is impossible to build by building  its institutes alone. On the other hand, Armenia has no resources to  afford a luxury of retaining a conventional authoritarian government  model. In this context, there is a yawning gulf between Armenia, with  humans as its only resource, and Middle-East monarchies and some  authoritarian CIS-members, the so-called petrostates. 

"In petrostates the authorities are capable of ruling societies with  an extremely low level of education and, consequently, low efficiency  and productivity, mainly due to profits from energy resources. But  Armenia has not such a potential. Therefore, Armenia has no  alternative to democratic progress, with the human being in the  center," Mr Miskaryan said.   

According to him, even amid the present global shocks, the Armenian  people and society have opportunities to start and successfully  complete the process of building a sovereign state. And the major  obstacle to it is in "the heads of Armenians themselves" rather than  of their enemies or allies. 

"It is our own heads that contain the answer to the question: are we,  the Armenian political thought, mature for the idea of our own  nationhood? And if we are close to it, are we capable of building a  viable state or are we going to serve other states' interests again?  I think that, before starting, we should put this question to  ourselves and find an answer to it," Mr Miskaryan said.