Armenia is moving towards early parliamentary elections, but by and large, it is not moving anywhere.

The media atmosphere is such that any political speech is immediately doomed to remain unimportant and unheard, and instead the role of loud shouting propagandists increases (and will increase even more). Whoever shouts louder with a sharp and thin falsetto will be remembered, hoping that the cry will become a vote.

Although the political campaign has not officially started yet and it is not clear yet which parties will run in the election to appear in the post-war National Assembly, the fact that we are on the verge of snap elections and nothing has changed in communication and rhetoric already proves that there is no movement. That the movement is pretentious.

The political field now speaks as if nothing extraordinary had happened: there was no war, no casualties, no defeat, no geopolitical realignments and a bunch of concessions, the volume of which is not even perceptible, and at the same time a coronavirus with its economic and health consequences.

Many political forces think that a normal political struggle is going on in the short term. And people should be ready to vote not because they have a good offer, but because they do not want the existing force to remain in power.

However, this misguided and deadlocked situation means that when you are broken, you are more open to any offer of healing. So you want to see program guidelines.

After all, any election is a way to achieve some goals, and our political field does not formulate those goals. Instead, it is being replaced with the format of communication that it has already exhausted: rejection, then a curse.

The political forces speak the language of curses and the media reproduces their words, turning the “opposed” principle into a political unit.

Opposition is wrapped around our necks as blackmail (if you do not want him, then I exist, and if I exist, then reject him). After 2018, no new style of struggle has increased in political martial arts.

Just as the clash of black and white, former-present, savior-traitor forces was formulated during the previous elections, so it continues now.

And the problem is that the only hope of white is the existence of black, and black is the existence of white. It is the contrast of color and words that justifies the imitation of struggle.

For example, there will be a “savior” if the target is a “traitor.” Otherwise, if there is no traitor, who should the savior save you from? The traitor must exist, so that there can be a call to get rid of them, then a curse, then a call again. That is to say, the process of running in place.

Moreover, everyone needs a traitor, both the government and the opposition, to feel part of the full-fledged struggle.

That also helps to avoid substantive suggestions on how to get out of this extraordinary situation.

Even the thoughts of peace and war, which arose at the initiative of the ruling power, remained in the air and, by and large, not continuous. The curse is not a continuation, it is the decoration of what happened, and that decoration helps the ruling power not to explain at all how it sees that peace in practice.

The question “Who are you against?” Becomes a political factor, and the question “What do you offer?” Goes to the background.

And in the background, there are more media outlets that are skilled in the genre of curses and are happy to fight, and various experts are ready to nail the “traitors” to the pillar of contempt.

To put it more simply, to provide unprecedented coverage of propaganda with an even sharper and more disgusting falsetto.

Nune Hakhverdyan

The views expressed in the column are those of the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of Media.am.