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Opinion
May 18, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 23
COLCHIS:
The uncertain colour
of Armenia’s revolution
Michael Cecire of New America
Nikol Pashinian is now Armenia’s new prime minister. It was a long slog against well- entrenched Republican Party (HHK) domination, but the raw popular discontent that propelled the Velvet Revolution’s explosive success will not simply dissipate with the old guard’s retreat and the HHK’s momentary decline. Now begins the hard work.
Pashinian may indeed be uniquely positioned to staff and lead a government capable of navigating the tumult that contributed to his elevation, but the sheer complexity of the landscape means put- ting his anti-corruption, pro-democracy agenda upon inherently unforgiving terrain.
Colour and the Shape
Did Armenia just have a colour revolution? The answer depends on who is asking – and who is answering. In the dominant Russian narrative, colour revolutions are a metonym for anti-Moscow putsches driven by Western democracy promotion organizations, intelligence agencies, and local rabble-rousers, with the inevitably rumoured or invented involvement of US philanthropist George Soros. It is even described as a form of Western hybrid warfare.
Sensitive to that narrative, Armenia’s protesters have been careful to avoid the “colour revolution” moniker, and have taken great pains to commu- nicate the domestic orientation of the Armenian political crisis, as well as the new government’s intended continued partnership with Russia. If any- thing, the new government has been keen to dem- onstrate that its activities were not directed against Moscow and reportedly kept in close contact with
The hard part of the Velvet revolution starts now the battle is won for Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian
Russian authorities as events unfolded. Russia’s official agnosticism during the protests, followed by quick congratulations following Pashinian’s eleva- tion, suggests its strategy has been working.
It is also likely that the Russian leadership has learned to be more flexible amid such situations, mindful of its complicated perception in Arme- nia and the limits its hard-line policies imposed elsewhere, such as in Georgia and Ukraine. Either way, Russia’s official reaction has been notably quiescent.
Yet, in reality, colour revolutions describe ex- treme public and civil society discontentment as expressed in mass protests, vented in the public arena due to uncompetitive and/or anti-democrat- ic restrictions on political institutions. More akin to a seismic event or eruption than an operation- alized political phenomenon, colour revolutions can be shaped, guided, and influenced, but they can only be so contained and managed. Revolu- tions, after all, have a distinctly historiographical reputation for autocannibalism.
The record is not encouraging. Even among the most “successful” of colour revolutions, their suc- cess in totality is decidedly suspect, if not down- right worrisome. Ukraine’s Orange Revolution government fell from self-inflicted wounds, only
to be replaced in a democratic election by Viktor Yanukovych’s kleptocratic regime, whom had to be removed in yet another revolution in 2014. The ide- als espoused in Kyrgyzstan’s Tulip Revolution soon gave way a starker authoritarianism under the new government, with semi-democracy only re- established after another popular uprising in 2010