In one of his performances, comedian Vartan Petrosyan made a good interpretation of Armenia’s ties with foreign countries-presenting it as a lottery. He took the famous phrase from Shakespear “To be or not to be” and turned it into “To play or not to play” and the answer in both cases was not in the favor of Armenians. “If you don’t play, they force you to. If you get in the game, it turns out that they are just playing with you.”
This is sad but true. While we divide ourselves into pro-Russian, pro-American or pro-whatever, Russia and America are after their interests. What are we Armenians after? Let’s be honest and say this with a little shame. There is only one answer-money. At least that’s what it seems like. It may seem like we are worrying about something else in regard to the Russian gas price increase, but in the end we see that the issue is money. We are not asking for money, but rather, we are asking them to take less money from us. What’s the difference? Asking is asking and it has to do with money.
Everything is clear when it comes to the U.S. They give us the money because they know that we are poor. But they “play hard to get” by pretending to be democratic. As for us, we wait to see their generous acts and promise that we will “behave” ourselves next election.
The Prime Minister of Armenia Andranik Markaryan met with U.S. Ambassador John Evans yesterday. According to official data, “the minister and the ambassador discussed U.S. aid, including the latest developments of the “Thousand Year Challenges” Corporation.”
Mr. Evans expressed his optimistic views concerning Armenian authorities.
“We have decided to continue helping Armenia and the contract will be signed no later than March 27 of this year.”
In response to this, the Prime Minister said: “Armenia is ready to cooperate with any country that is interested in developing and strengthening democracy, including the U.S.”
Although these sentences are published in the media, however, they don’t say a lot. We can only predict that the “bazaar” continues. If that contract is signed on March 27, then that will be considered as a great victory.
Meanwhile, we should have been ashamed of ourselves-after all, the U.S., which only has a 200 year old history, is teaching us Armenians, who have been around for 2000 years, how to be democratic. It is teaching us lessons by showing us how poor we are in the list of the poorest countries. They are showing us countries where there are still cannibals.
The worst thing is that there are people (including Americans) who are trying to prove that Americans care more about Armenia than Armenians. I am not saying that it is bad that 235 million dollars is invested in Armenia, however, it would be better if it wasn’t invested. It might have been more just if the people that violated laws during the referendum were punished and there was no money flowing in for a certain amount of time. Then, we would be sure that American really does care about the level of democracy in the country. If everything is based on money and the amount of it, the Iraquis have to be happy because Americans spend a larger amount of money (250 million dollars) a day in order to “strengthen democracy” than the money that they give us during five years.
We shouldn’t be offended by anyone. We must simply understand that each country thinks about itself. On the contrary, we have to learn from others and stop being pro…You can’t show how much you care about your Homeland just by showing, for example, the weather in Erzrum or Bitlis.