# Holy crap; what just happened in Armenia?!? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [April 23, 2018, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-what-just-happened-in-armenia/813003 "2018-04-23T23:04:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2018, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-what-just-happened-in-armenia/813003/1 "2018-04-23T23:04:54Z")
😕 For those who haven’t heard: [Armenia’s leader quits amid protests, saying ‘I was wrong’](https://apnews.com/8e8e811ff0ee406fb8877980adb3ad77/Armenia's-leader-quits-amid-protests,-saying-'I-was-wrong') > [@](#): > > Serzh Sargsyan, who ruled Armenia for 10 years, resigned Monday as prime minister after thousands of people poured into the streets to protest his political maneuvering to cling to power in this former Soviet republic. > > The stunning development touched off jubilation in the capital of Yerevan, with car horns blaring and people dancing, hugging and waving the tricolor Armenian flag. The opposition called for a meeting with the acting prime minister to discuss a “peaceful transfer of power.” > > Sargsyan, 63, was president of the Caucasus mountains nation from 2008 until term limits forced him out in March. But parliament, which is controlled by his party, voted to reduce the powers of the presidency and give them to the prime minister, ultimately installing Sargsyan in that post last week. > > The move echoed a maneuver a decade ago by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Armenia’s closest ally. Leaders of other former Soviet republics, from Belarus to Central Asia, have similarly extended their terms. But this one went differently, somehow: > [@](#): > > The parliament’s action had triggered massive anti-government protests in Yerevan since April 13, with demonstrators blocking government buildings and facing off with police. A rally on Sunday attracted about 50,000 people, and about 200 soldiers joined the protesters on Monday. > > Protest leader Nikol Pashinian met Sunday with Sargsyan, who walked out of the session after Pashinian refused to talk about anything but the prime minister’s resignation. Pashinian was later arrested but abruptly released on Monday. > > In his surprise resignation announcement posted on his website, Sargsyan said he should not have resisted the opposition’s demands. > > “Nikol Pashinian was right. I was wrong,” Sargsyan said. “The movement on the streets is against my rule. I’m complying with their demands.” What the fuck? I don’t recall ever seeing anything like this happen before! I’m finding it unbelievably gratifying to see that such a thing _can_ happen at all, but I’m curious about _why_ it went this way. And I wonder if any real, lasting change will come about: > [@](#): > > The government quickly named former Prime Minister Karen Karapetian as acting prime minister. A Sargsyan ally, he also was mayor of Yerevan and worked in Russia for five years as a top executive of the state-controlled gas giant Gazprom. Anyone else shocked to see this news? Anyone got any insight to offer up so some of us (particularly me) can better understand what just happened? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2018, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-what-just-happened-in-armenia/813003/2 "2018-04-23T23:59:18Z")
It sounds to me like he saw a revolution brewing, and figured out which way it was going to go, and decided that he’d rather it not be his head up against that wall. That, or maybe he really did just develop a conscience. That’s possible, too. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2018, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-what-just-happened-in-armenia/813003/3 "2018-04-24T00:48:43Z")
The more the protests went on, the greater the chance of things ending with diminished power for his party. By resigning, his party gets to appoint the replacement prime minister, and the status quo is maintained. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2018, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-what-just-happened-in-armenia/813003/4 "2018-04-24T01:10:15Z")
It’s called people power. One of the best defenses against tyranny - actual tyranny, not some internet meme cooked up by Breitbart and the NRA - is not the ability of every white man to own an AR-15, but rather the raw power of people who refuse to be governed. The most important thing people can say to an authoritarian is to simply say with one voice: You’re not going to govern us. You might kill some of us, but you’re not going to kill all of us. We’re not going to obey you. Your jail cells can’t hold all of us. If you’re smart, you read the writing on the wall and you leave without angering too many people. If you’re not, you risk the wrath of the mob and the fate of someone like Romania’s Ceausescu. Obviously easier said than done. Easier in a place like Armenia in 2018 than in Venezuela, and obviously it’s seemingly next to impossible in today’s North Korea, but it’s still doable. That fact is why Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un sleep with one eye open. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2018, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-what-just-happened-in-armenia/813003/5 "2018-04-24T01:22:27Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > It sounds to me like he saw a revolution brewing, and figured out which way it was going to go, and decided that he’d rather it not be his head up against that wall. > > That, or maybe he really did just develop a conscience. That’s possible, too. Or he could have gotten bad news from his doctor and decided it just wasn’t worth it to keep trying to hang on. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2018, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-what-just-happened-in-armenia/813003/6 "2018-04-24T01:55:44Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > The more the protests went on, the greater the chance of things ending with diminished power for his party. By resigning, his party gets to appoint the replacement prime minister, and the status quo is maintained. Wow, that’s gonna be a great job. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2018, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-what-just-happened-in-armenia/813003/7 "2018-04-24T04:39:02Z")
I hadn’t heard about this. He was replaced by a Gazprom guy? Sounds like a party-internal coup using the mass protests as cover. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2018, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-what-just-happened-in-armenia/813003/8 "2018-04-24T22:55:10Z")
Maybe he just wanted to spend more time oppressing his family. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2018, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-what-just-happened-in-armenia/813003/9 "2018-04-25T09:18:35Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > One of the best defenses against tyranny - actual tyranny, not some internet meme cooked up by Breitbart and the NRA - is not the ability of every white man to own an AR-15, but rather the raw power of people who refuse to be governed. The most important thing people can say to an authoritarian is to simply say with one voice: You’re not going to govern us. You might kill some of us, but you’re not going to kill all of us. We’re not going to obey you. Your jail cells can’t hold all of us. That is dangerous and ignorant rubbish. It only works if the tyrant is not willing and able to use violence to repress the people. And you should have checked your facts first: about 1 in 8 Armenians own a gun with around 380K private firearms. [Cite](http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/armenia). So he was not dealing with an unarmed populace. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2018, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-what-just-happened-in-armenia/813003/10 "2018-04-25T14:15:52Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > That is dangerous and ignorant rubbish. It only works if the tyrant is not willing and able to use violence to repress the people. It delends if the tyrant is capable of using violence. If the army is not willing to open fire on the people - which is what happened in East Germany in 1989 and in Egypt in 2011 - then the tyrant is done for. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2018, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-what-just-happened-in-armenia/813003/11 "2018-04-25T14:29:44Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > It delends if the tyrant is capable of using violence. Yes, hence the able qualifier. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2018, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-what-just-happened-in-armenia/813003/12 "2018-04-25T15:32:59Z")
But that’s the thing: The army is drawn from the people. If the people dislike you too much, then the army will, too. And **asahi** isn’t saying that the populace needs to be unarmed-- He’s saying that it’s irrelevant if they’re armed. Even if they’re not armed, a tyrant still can’t stand up against a people united. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2018, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-what-just-happened-in-armenia/813003/13 "2018-04-25T15:45:01Z")
So how did Stalin get away with it? Surely the rumor that the first guy to stop clapping for him at a concert got whacked is exaggerated, but he did things like starving a bunch of Georgians to death. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2018, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-what-just-happened-in-armenia/813003/14 "2018-04-25T16:03:55Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > But that’s the thing: The army is drawn from the people. If the people dislike you too much, then the army will, too. Not necessarily. The military is its own society, generally removed from the populace and trained to a different set of norms. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2018, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-what-just-happened-in-armenia/813003/15 "2018-04-25T16:30:31Z")
> [@Johnny\_Ace](#): > > Not necessarily. The military is its own society, generally removed from the populace and trained to a different set of norms. In the U.S., maybe, but not everywhere. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2018, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-what-just-happened-in-armenia/813003/16 "2018-04-25T17:23:12Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > In the U.S., maybe, but not everywhere. Does everyone in Israel do military service? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2018, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-what-just-happened-in-armenia/813003/17 "2018-04-25T18:52:30Z")
And the soldiers everywhere have families. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2018, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-what-just-happened-in-armenia/813003/18 "2018-04-25T19:10:32Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And the soldiers everywhere have families. Whom they want to keep alive and the favor of, or at least ignored by, the dictator. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2018, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-what-just-happened-in-armenia/813003/19 "2018-04-25T20:25:46Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Does everyone in Israel do military service? Not everyone, but a majority, still. Israel’s an extreme case - as we say here somewhat ruefully, we’re not a country with an army, we’re an army with a country. But setting that aside, plenty of countries have a military that isn’t kept apart from the population. A draft helps - that’s what happened in Egypt. What’s important is that soldiers believe that they’re serving their country and their fellow citizens, not their country’ leaders. If they believe that they won’t be the first to shoot. Someone starts shooting at them then all bets are off. ---
**Author:** ![Delicious](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@Delicious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Delicious)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2018, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-what-just-happened-in-armenia/813003/20 "2018-04-25T20:46:54Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > So how did Stalin get away with it? Surely the rumor that the first guy to stop clapping for him at a concert got whacked is exaggerated, but he did things like starving a bunch of Georgians to death. External enemy to focus people’s anger on? Also, significantly worse communication than nowadays, public probably had little idea about how government was working. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-what-just-happened-in-armenia/813003.md?page=2)