We stopped by a woman standing on the road and she took a seat in our
car. She was going to the village. (I don’t mention the names of
places, because they are all the same everywhere). She said it had been
several years, that she lived in Russia with her family. I asked why
they didn’t live in Armenia. She said, that they didn’t want to. I
asked who was going to live in those villages if everyone left. She
said those, who couldn’t live in Russia would live there. Her answer
surprised us, but we kept going in our direction. We stopped near a
village. The woman left us and disappeared in the half-ruined houses
and uncultivated gardens.
These days, when everyone is discussing the constitutional amendments,
I think, that one more point should be stated there: “The people living
in Armenia are the ones who cannot live in Russia or anywhere else.”
Also, one subtext: “Due to not being able to live in Russia and
anywhere else, people living in Armenia have the right to move, change
their places of living and citizenship, in accordance with the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights”. I offered this point, because I
think, that the legislation of a country should honestly correspond to
reality.
And our constitution, which reminds me of a composition on “what I want
to become when I grow up”, is as much connected with our wishes, ideas
and will, as any other country’s constutution. It is a fact that
usually most of the wishes, expressed in compositions on “what I want
to become when I grow up”, don’t come true. For example, I wanted to
become a film producer when I was small. I wrote such a solid
composition, that it was even read at our school teachers’ room in a
high voice, but I didn’t become a film producer and I didn’t become a
film producer due to several reasons. First of all, a couple of years
later this wish disappeared, and it disappeared, because I learned
about the “great” film and understood, that everything that can be done
in a country like Armenia has already been done and we need a bigger
country to do more. Besides that, I didn’t know, that several years
later everything would collapse, and only the letter “M” will remain
from Film. Now it is the same with our constitution. In 1995, when our
new republic was going to turn four years old, this composition was
written as a free topic. This was just a declaration of wishes or a
directive, which stayed on the paper, like the wishes of children that
write free topic compositions. With time comes experience and
experience shows, that documents and reality are very different. It is
impossible to calculate how many times the consitutional rights were
violated after declaration.
But the first constitution clearly states all those rights and probably
there is no need to change anything and probably nothing will change
after amending it. The high authority is the people’s desire. But what
do the people wish? Except leaving Armenia, people want comapssion. One
of the citizens of Yerevan, complaining about an oligarch from their
district, said, that “he only takes care of himself” and glorified
another one, saying, that “you should see how he takes care of the
others”. I would not draw your attention to this example, if this
person was unique with these kinds of ideas. And I don’t need to prove
what I said, you can see this on a TV channel every day. Very often
people say “you are God” to a person, who gives a chance to their
untalented children to sing on that TV channel. But those people never
think, that this man, whom they call as God, violates their children’s
rights not to sing. They don’t understand this, because they need
compassion.
People also need to be protected. It is not the first time, that I say,
that some 20 years old young men looked at a gorgeous car and sadly
said: “The person driving this car was one of the bodyguards of that
man”. Please don’t be mistaken: the young men don’t want to have
body-guards, but they want to become body-guards. This is a secret
dream, which is not glorified in any free theme composition. They want
to become body-guards, because by protecting other people they are also
protected.
People also like to be financially secured. Again please don’t
misunderstand me, I don’t mean social security (a basket, where you
cannot place all the eggs), but to be secured. You might have heard the
phrase “a secured person” for many times. This doesn’t concern the
people, who gained everything with their hard work (they are not many,
but still there are people), but rather, it concerns those people, who
rule state resources and take advantage of their position.
People also like to be free. People want to be free of taking matters
into their own hands. People want to be free of any kind of civil
responsibilities. And our opposition is directed by this freedom, and
the opposition’s most successful action is boycott. And this reaches
success, because actually they don’t have to do anything. The phrase,
that “Geghamyan is simply the best”, makes all the civil actions and
rights strict.
The woman we spoke about at the beginning of this article is probably
already in Russia. I didn’t ask why she had come in the first place.
Probably she came to the funerals of one of her relatives or came to
collect the last things from her house. I didn’t ask her name either,
but I am sure she had been called as Hayastan, but everyone called her
as Hayo or Hayast at home. Though her face didn’t express very much, I
still remember it very well. There were small pimples on her forehead
and a big mole near her nose. Her grey eyes were full of jealousy.
And now, when I read the constitution amendments of the Republic of
Armenia, I see the eyes of that woman on each page, and I don’t
understand whether her way of looking is answering or blaming, but I am
getting sure more and more, that we don’t need a constitution, but
rather, compassion, protection, security and freedom.