BRAZEN CHARM OF A "FAILURE STATE"
James Hakobyan
Lragir, Armenia
Nov 28 2006
In the civilized world, as they usually put it, the government
takes care of the needs of the citizens. Generally, the idea of
government was born out of need, as an effective means of meeting
the needs of the society. I do not know whether the reason is the
imperfection that everything is the contrary in the Armenian state,
and the citizens satisfy the needs of the government rather than
the government satisfies the needs of the citizens. And if this was
unconstitutional up to November 27, now this already has legal force.
Now the public need will be the term to give to the act of depriving
someone of their home, land, property. At first sight, this does not
contradict to the duties of the government before the citizens. After
all, in order to meet the needs of a major group of its citizens the
government often has to give trouble to another group of citizens.
This is quite normal, and sometimes even inevitable. In Armenia,
however, it is upside down. There is a vivid example – North Avenue,
which is considered the largest urban project of the Third Republic.
The government of Yerevan and Armenia usually boast that even the
wealthy Soviet Union could not implement Alexander Tamanyan’s project,
whereas the Third Republic is implementing it. We can leave aside
the fact that North Avenue of the government in its present form has
nothing to do with Tamanyan’s project except for its location and
direction. We can leave aside that it is highly disputable whether
this large business and residential compound is needed in the Center
of Yerevan. After all, Tamanyan’s vision of Yerevan was a city with a
population of 300-500 thousand, whereas the population of Yerevan is a
little more than 1 million, and the Center of Yerevan is facing a vital
need for reducing traffic rather than a necessity for crowding. We
can leave all these things aside, although this single fact shows
that North Avenue does not have a public importance.
There are other factors, however, which show that a great number of
inhabitants of the Center of Yerevan were deprived of their property
because it was necessary for a group of official and oligarch owners.
North Avenue is going to have a function, the absence of which would
make no difference for the public life. For instance, if a Diaspora
Armenian or a successful businessmen lived on the outskirts rather than
the Center, the public and the government would gain more, because
on his outskirt he would have to create certain infrastructures for
himself, which would favor the even development of the city. Meanwhile,
now it appears that the government needs to provide a class with
elite apartments and offices. People have invented the government for
these situation to enforce the law of the state in the society, not
the law of the jungle. And now, having the example of North Avenue,
by voting consciously or unconsciously for legalizing expropriation
of people’s property for the needs of the government, the National
Assembly of Armenia establishes jungle relations in the Armenian state.
Certainly, it is important to have a modern-looking town, and replace
the old huts with new ones. The citizens who lost their apartments
in the Center of Yerevan would gladly agree to move to other parts
of the city if instead of building a bourgeois neighborhood in the
place of their houses a road junction were built which would take
away heavy traffic off the Center. However, first it is necessary to
build a state which would take care of the needs of its citizens.