BETWEEN POLITICAL CAPITAL AND HOPE FOR IMMORTALITY
James Hakobyan

Lragir.am
20-06-2007 13:19:25

The program of development of border villages of Armenia which the
Armenian government presented to the rich Armenians of the Diaspora
during the third Armenia-Diaspora Forum, expecting their sponsorship,
is actually an interesting program. It is deeply inspired with the
boundless love and commitment of the Armenian government to the border
villages. It is only difficult to understand why an attempt is made
to express this love at the expense of others. Let us imagine for a
moment that the Diasporan Armenians reject the proposal to sponsor
the border villages. It appears that they are to blame for the poor
state of the villages because they refuse to sponsor.

Meanwhile, the Armenian government thought day and night how to save
the borders from devastation and destruction. It thought and found the
way out, and notwithstanding the two-digit number, it turned to the
Diasporan Armenians, and they refused to sponsor this program. Look,
people of the border village, they refuse to think about you, who are
living a rich life in America, France, Russia and many other places!

Now imagine that the Diaspora Armenians accepted this program and
agreed to sponsor the border villages. Look, people of the border
village, it did not occur to anyone to do it until the Armenian
government made this proposal, and they felt ashamed and agreed! Of
course, the Armenian government somehow rewards the Diasporans for
their donations. For instance, the president awards the benefactors
and thanks them, it is possible that the government also pays for
their breakfast at the hotel or provides the look to Ararat from
the apartment they buy in Armenia free of charge. What else does the
Diasporan benefactor need besides the moral and psychological ode to
the devotee who is in his seventh decade or whose only pleasure in
this life is painless urinating?

Hence, the Armenian government and the rich Diasporans make a
lucrative deal: one party obtains political capital, the other party
hope for immortality. And what does the third party, in this case the
people of border villages, obtain, for the sake of which the deal is
allegedly made?

What do they get besides efforts to make them believe how caring
their government is, how sacred its word is to the real devotees
of the nation the Diaspora Armenians? Look at them, and if you are
also devotees, the word of the government must be sacred to you
as well? This conscious achievement is really very important to
the track for state building along which the government has led the
Armenian people for 15 years and will perhaps be leading for another
25 years. What else do the people walked along this track for state
building obtain?

These people obtain boundless devotion to the government and the
Diaspora, who care for them. In other words, the people of the border
villages must live with the feeling that one gives them a school, the
other gives them a nursery school, the third perhaps a barbershop,
the fourth a hairdresser’s, the fifth maybe a night club, the sixth
donates his jeans worn in other clubs, persuading that now worn jeans
are in fashion.

And now imagine an inhabitant of a border village who lives with
the feeling of having a crowd of benefactors to back him and not
a government. In other words, these people will be living with
the consciousness of guarding the boundary of donation and not the
border of the state. But the people of these villages will not even
be asking where the state is. They will not be asking not because the
government considers squeezing donations from the Diaspora as its main
function. They will not be asking because in Armenia even toddlers know
that the state is in comfortable offices of the president, the speaker,
the prime minister, the ministers and the members of parliament,
their expensive cars, villas, and apartments in the center of Yerevan
bought one after another. And all this luxury is usually presented
to the society as a gift. For instance, the Prosecutor General says
his office car worth several tens of thousands of dollars is a gift,
the former minister of environment says his car worth several tens of
thousands of dollars is a gift, the car of another former minister of
trade and economic development is also a gift. And so on, all they
get is gifts. Hence, the elite, who justify their existence with
gifts, cannot offer other ways of solving the problems of citizens,
and especially the people of remote areas but gifts. They are trying
to sustain the society on gifts to take away its right to criticize
expensive gifts to the government. Because if some day the society
tracks back to the source of those "gifts" of the elite, it will become
known that Armenia does not need the sponsorship of the Diaspora;
moreover, Armenia can sponsor the Diaspora.