History is a continuous dialogue between the past and the present, but sometimes these interpretations of the past are subject to change in response to new political realities and perspective gains in terms of politics, a member of Armenia’s delegation to the PACE said today, Tert.am reports.
In his speech at the Assembly’s Winter Session in Strasburg, Samvel Farmanyan called attention to the attempts of politicizing the past in the interest of specific political purposes.
“Sometimes – more often I would say, especially in our part of the world – history becomes politicized, serving concrete political perspectives of concrete governments.”
“Many governments are trying to consolidate more power, sometimes making applications to the mechanisms and tools which are contradicting to the very values of the Council of Europe,” the Armenian delegate noted.
Farmanyan further voiced concerns over autocratic regimes’ attempts of “revisiting the past”.
“Many governments are trying to make use of history – revisiting the past – not only to be a bridge between the past and the present but also between the present and the future. I am talking about consolidation of more power for many countries across Europe, and Turkey, believe me, is not an exception,” he said, adding that the list of such states goes beyond the Council of Europe member states.
