Armine Ishkanian
On Sunday 17 July, a group of armed men, calling themselves the
Sasna Dzrer (Daredevils of Sassoon) seized the Erebuni police station
in Yerevan and took several policemen hostage. As of today, 19 July, the siege continues, but there has been little proper analysis of why this event occurred.
According to the statement released by Sasna Dzrer on Sunday, their “primary demand”
is the resignation of Armenia’s president Serzh Sargsyan and the
establishment of a new government. Additional demands include the
release of their friend and comrade in arms Jirair Sefilyan, along with
other political prisoners.
Unsurprisingly, the Armenian government,
pro-government politicians and some political commentators have strongly
condemned the actions, with some labelling it a terrorist plot and the
organisers, terrorists.
To be very clear, I am in no way
condoning the use of violence. However, as a scholar of civil society
and social movements, who has studied civil society movements and
organisations in Armenia for many years, my aim in this article is to
provide a broader context and analysis of the unfolding events and
causal factors.
In other words, I ask: why is this happening now
and how is it related to past political developments and civil/political
mobilisations in Armenia?
Who are the Sasna Dzrer?
Most of the men of Sasna Dzrer group involved in the siege are members, sympathizers or have ties to the Founding Parliament group. Founding Parliament,
which was previously known as the Pre-Parliament movement, emerged from
the Sardarapat movement in 2012. Since then, it has been calling for
regime change and the resignation of Serzh Sargysan.
While the
Founding Parliament includes people from different walks of life and
diverse professional backgrounds, many of the Sasna Dzrer are former
soldiers, or as they are locally known, “freedom fighters”
(azadamardikner) who fought in the first Karabakh war in the 1990s.
Jirair Sefilyan, who was one of the originators of the Founding
Parliament, was imprisoned by the authorities on 23 June 2016, on charges of illegal procurement, transportation and storing of weapons.
Sefilyan is a Lebanese-born Armenian who moved to Armenia over 20 years
ago and was a military commander in the Karabakh War. Whilst living in
Armenia for over two decades, his application for Armenian citizenship
has been consistently rejected.
Along with over 90 other civil
society and political activists, my research team and I interviewed
Jirair Sefilyan as part of the research on civil society and social
movements in Armenia (2011 – 2015). I thus have first-hand knowledge of
his views on the political situation in Armenia and the role of
political and civic activism. However, since all our interviews were
conducted in accordance with LSE’s ethical standards of ensuring
anonymity of respondents, it is not possible for me to quote him here.
That
said, I can identify some of those same ideas reflected in his public
speeches. Sefilyan has always been upfront with his criticism of the
authorities and has often called for regime change. Together with his
team at the Founding Parliament he has organised rallies and protests to
that effect. It was after one such a rally held on 4 May 2015 when
Sefilyan, together with other Founding Parliament members, Garegin
Chukaszyan, Varuzhan Avetisyan, Pavel Manukyan, and Gevorg Safaryan,
were arrested.
In response to these arrests, on 6 May 2015, Human Rights Watch issued a statement
in which it “expressed concern that the Founding Parliament members
were being targeted for their peaceful political beliefs and affiliation
and that the charges were intended to interfere with their right to
freedom of thought, expression, and assembly, as protected under the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the European
Convention on Human Rights, to which Armenia is a party.”
The
statement goes on to say that the Founding Parliament’s booklet and
advertisement for the rally called for “civil disobedience and peaceful
political change”. Of the five, two of the men, Sefilyan and Safaryan,
are currently incarcerated, Chukaszyan’s whereabouts are unknown, and
Avetisyan and Manukyan are involved in the Sasna Dzrer’s siege at the
Erebuni police station. It is worth noting that the most recent peaceful
march organised for the release of Sefilyan and Safaryan took place in Yerevan on 7 July 2016.
Symbolism and signifiers
The name Sasna Dzerer comes from the Armenian epic tale The Daredevils of Sassoon, whose origins date back to the 8th-10th centuries.
The
epic tells the story of how four generations of men from a legendary
family, which included the brothers Sanasar and Balthazar, Great Mher,
David of Sassoon and Little Mher, rose against despotic rules to
liberate the Armenians. The tale is very popular in Armenian culture and
the heroes in the epic tale are fearless warriors, who are also
slightly mad or crazy (dzour), hence the name dzrer.
In invoking this moniker, the group has chosen a name that is full of
symbolism and pregnant with meaning. Proclaiming themselves latter-day
Sasna Dzrer, they intend to draw links to Armenia’s past heritage of
liberation struggles and to perhaps also legitimate their use of arms.
While
Armenians have taken to Facebook to debate whether the Sasna Dzrer are
heroes or terrorists, if we take a step back, can we not say that these
men appear to personify the stereotype of the ideal or real man in
Armenian society ?
According to the stereotype, a real
Armenian man is the (hyper)-masculinized, heterosexual, fearless
protector and defender of the weak (read, women, children and the
elderly). Having long promoted this stereotype, it hasn’t been as easy
for the authorities to discredit this group of men as they did when
criticising human rights defenders or the LGBT and feminist.
While
the former use the language of nationalism and national pride, the
latter, who speak of human rights and democracy are often presented by
the authorities and in the Armenian media as grant-eaters who promote
western/foreign values and norms.
Contextualising the siege
In the past six years, there have been a number of civic initiatives in Armenia which have demanded greater democracy and justice, challenged what they see as the reigning oligarchic regime, and criticised human rights abuses and rule of law. These protests and civic mobilizations of recent years have been over mining and environmental issues,
the unlawful seizure of public spaces for private business, the hikes
in electricity and transport fees, the privatisation of pensions, etc.
The civic initiatives have won symbolically significant but isolated victories. Moreover, due to some activists’ overtly anti-or apolitical stance,
on the whole these movements have done little to alter the structural
inequalities and patterns of governance in the country. Today 35% of
Armenians live below the poverty line and there is wide income
inequality, as the oligarchs continue to rule with impunity and
violence.
Reading the group’s statement and watching the video interviews published by opposition MP Nikol Pashinyan, one hears some similar demands from the Sasna Dzrer as those previously raised by peaceful, democratic and rights activists.
For
instance, the Sasna Dzrer statement ends with the following sentences:
“The time has come for freedom, dignity, justice, and rights. We are the
owners of our country”. The last phrase (“We are the owners of our
country”) was coined and popularised by young civic activists.
The latter spoke of democracy and human rights, but these discourses
have been notably absent (at least in the published) speeches and
interviews of the Sasna Dzrer members.
While firmly rejecting the
use of violence and arms, judging from the discussions on Facebook, it
appears that some pro-democracy and human rights activists argue that
they can understand the frustration and anger driving the men. This is
in part because they themselves have come up against the unresponsive
and coercive authorities and officials. On 19 July, a group of human
rights NGOs from Human Rights House Armenia published a statement
condemning the use of force, arrest and detention of “peaceful
citizens” who had gathered in the streets and squares of Yerevan. The
urge for a peaceful political situation stating that use of force by any
side “is unacceptable”.
When my research team and I analysed the protests that emerged in Armenia and globally since 2011, we analysed the demands, motivations and slogans of different movements.
We found that dignity, social justice, and democracy were broadly
shared aims in movements around the globe from Tahrir Square to Syntagma
Square.
But we also discovered that the protests had largely
failed to achieve their aims and were often met with unresponsive
governments which at times responded with violence, coercion, the
penalisation and criminalisation of protest, and the marginalisation of
opposition demands.
Social scientists have long analysed social
movements and mobilisations, both peaceful and violent, to understand
why such events occur and how they develop over time. They have found
that in past decades, as today, movements choose different tactics and
strategies. Violence is but one of those.
The question that
remains is why this group of men chose to use violence at this
particular time and more importantly, what will be the consequences of
this violent action for those who are struggling to create a more
democratic, peaceful and just Armenia.
No comments:
Post a Comment