Those participating in the public demonstrations opposing foreign language schools have come from a variety of backgrounds and perspectives. Many have observed this fact. And, even those who all shared the same common concern, the explanations and bases that they voiced during the demonstrations, public debates and speeches, were different. 

For me, at least, those interpretations of the issue at hand seemed to be at bit disoriented and not correct. The same can be said of the slogans and calls to action made at the demonstrations, of which many seemed unacceptable from the point of view of the approach that I formulated in the article “Always a Russian Subject”. Here’s a descriptive interpretation – “To do that which is needed to keep Armenians Armenian.”

All the while, I tried to show that to “remain Armenian” given current conditions signifies to remain a Russian subject, independent of any draft law. Thus, in a certain sense, the aim must be to become Armenian. What this signifies is to possess a plan of identity, where the construction of a new cultural identity that presupposes a process of individualization, of decolonization (de-Russification/de-Sovietization), but without putting primacy on the “Armenian”, without relocating the original Armenianess, with the aim of reaching the true national roots.

In turn, the slogan “No to colonization” presupposes that colonization is to start for the first time, with this draft legislation, but the aim of the article was to show that the new bill on the “Language Law” and the situation created around it is one manifestation of being colonized.

This is why I considered it necessary to add some clarifications to support the claims found in the previous article. The more active segments of the demonstrators were chanting nationalist sounding slogans and calls, a portion of which could be read on the placards they waved – “Traitorous legislation”, “The language is sacred, those who renounce it are traitors”, etc.

The fact is that the “nationalizing” of social problems, their formulation via a nationalist lexicon, the only language accessible to the masses, their transference to the shaky grounds of patriotism, is very characteristic to the movements and debates of recent years. However, just as I noted in the previous article, nationalism, as an ideology, is incapable of answering the numerous questions born of a post-colonial reality and that it is necessary to craft new approaches and languages. We would do well to remember, that attempts to self-define the 2008 post-election movement also revolved around the “nation” and the “national”.

Even more characteristic is that the critics of the movement and those “patriots” actively engaged in defaming it used the same language, one of whose most characteristic expressions was that it was a “movement of national destruction”. This is quite similar to the “traitorous legislation” slogan used in the struggle on the language issue. It pays to ponder on these “odd” similarities; almost literal coincidences.

It is also not difficult to understand that the nationalizing of social issues, as a rule, serves the interests of the authorities, since it relies on the idea of assumed national unity, erasing internal differences, neglecting the segmentation of society and the existing contradictions between different segments and the incompatibility of their interests. On the other hand, it is naive to believe that it is possible to influence the authorities by citing this or that sacred or cherished thing – “The language is sacred, those who forsake it are traitors.” Instead, this halo being created around the language lifts the language issue from its current historical situation and social context; minimizing the possibilities of productive analysis.

And, the present historical situation reminds us, in particular, that first, the interests of the post-colonial economic-political elite can fundamentally differ from the interests of the people, and second, this elite usually establishes such relations with the prior colonial regime that the newly independent country quickly finds itself shackled in a new type of colonization. From this perspective, it would be helpful to continue our review with an examination of the slogan, “The language isn’t property for debt purposes“.

Of course, the “language isn’t property” slogan firstly alludes to the above-mentioned claim that “language is sacred.” At the same time, it reminds Armenians about their “unpaid debt” to Russia that I covered in my previous article. But it also allows one to reflect on the process of the commercialization of the language that took off in the past decade; that the language was truly becoming property.

During the 2002 competition for TV broadcasting frequencies, the necessity of preserving and propagandizing “linguistic purity” and “a clean literary language” were stressed as an important point of TV programming policy in two programs in particular (presented by Sharm TV and Chamber Theater Director A. Yernjakyan). It was not only that these programs were presented in such a language not only far removed from correct Armenian.

The TV movie “Our Yard” already had garnered a wide viewing audience and A. Yernjakyan was one of the creators of “Miss Armenia”, one of the first successful ventures of cultural commercialization. This was the last possibility of the language’s symbolic value (along with other national-cultural values of the Soviet period) to be transformed into a commodity with the appearance of purity.

The appeal to keep the “language pure” in 2002 was prophetic for the transformations of the subsequent years. The first step of the commercialization of language is the exploitation of symbolic values. The language was already property - the commercialization of language an important factor in the formation of consumer culture and its taking root…

In an article published this year entitled “Scenes and symbols in Yerevan streets”, I called attention to the linked processes of cultural commercialization and social stratification. Dividing lines of wealth and authority were stratifying the relatively uniform body of the Soviet years, bringing forth extreme social polarization and segments of society with conflicting class interests.

In Soviet Armenia, the language was not linked to economic interests and the educational system wasn’t commercialized. Paradoxically, in the final Soviet period, the “nation” and the “national”, “national culture” and “the mother tongue”, were, in a certain sense, more correct concepts than today, when the culture is increasingly being commercialized, while the preference of trans-national interests of the national elite over purely national ones is also expressed in the language issue. This elite is a “traitor” by definition.