Behind Armenia's Revolt, Young Shock Troops From the Tech Sector

[riversedge]

This is a delightful story. Hoping something like this can take shape in the USA

Behind Armenia’s Revolt, Young Shock Troops From the Tech Sector

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/19/world/europe/armenia-revolt-tech-sector.html?&moduleDetail=section-news-3&action=click&contentCollection=Europe&region=Footer&module=MoreInSection&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&pgtype=article



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Cheering in Republic Square, Yerevan, the center of Armenia’s recent protests, as Nikol Pashinyan was elected prime minister this month. Armenians under age 30 formed the backbone of the protest movement.CreditAnush Babajanyan for The New York Times

By Neil MacFarquhar
May 19, 2018

YEREVAN, Armenia — At 26, Lilit Petrosyan had a lot going for her, with a combined master’s degree in sociology and pedagogy and a job she liked developing features for PicsArt, a globally successful app used to manipulate photographs on social media.

Her parents nevertheless urged her to follow the path taken by young Armenians for decades: leverage her success into a Green Card or some other immigration visa and leave.

“I always said, ‘No, I don’t want to live in another country,’ ” said Ms. Petrosyan, sitting in the company’s open-plan office in Yerevan, the capital. “I am more about changing this country for the better.”

This past month her chance arrived, as she joined hundreds of thousands of other protesters in capsizing the ruling party.

Armenians under the age of 30, known as the Independence Generation because most were born after the country decoupled from the Soviet Union in 1991, formed the backbone of the protests. Within that broader group, tech-sector employees proved particularly effective in sustaining the demonstrations.

They used messaging apps like Telegram to coordinate protests. They snarled traffic by organizing infinite loops of pedestrians at street crossings not controlled by traffic lights. They donated money for simple things like a sound system and water at Republic Square, the center of the protests..........................................



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Mr. Pashinyan, center, broke with traditional patterns of protest, urging a campaign of civil disobedience everywhere, and the tech workers translated the idea into the language of the internet.CreditAnush Babajanyan for The New York Times


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