Still life with raddish

30/10/2005 Tigran PASKEVICHYAN

I will not be revealing a secret by saying that the day after November 27 is November 28 and then there are days to follow. What I mean is that we are not going to follow a new time schedule or experience what happened after the Flood. November 27 is going to be just another day for the authorities to organize an event similar to the Unity Round Dance or the Erebuni-Yerevan festival. The first event was organized against the haters and the second was aimed towards making us stop underestimating ourselves.

Basically, November 27 is like some dust which will be blown into the faces of Europeans who know what is coming and have agreed with it. The Western world is not against this, due to the fact that the ruins of the Soviet Union (the post Soviet countries) are going through an experimental stage which is not so much aimed towards reestablishing human values as much as neutralizing the Russian factor. We are not going to be like Georgia, where the roses blossomed late in fall and the cold winter in Ukraine was more like summer. We are an organized state and if the new, European constitution passes, we will be grateful not to the authorities, but rather to the opposition because it is the one that has worked hard in doing nothing to make our country more organized.

What does it mean to be organized? I have thought about the answer to this question for a long time. I think that the best answer was given by famous public figure Avetis Harutyunyan who said that a state is not organized, but rather the gang is organized. Only the gang commits acts out of the law by creating its own laws. It appears that Europe has also studied this issue and has decided to legalize that difference knowing that it is impossible to analyze what it means to be organized.

When the elite authorities living as outlaws are worried about the constitutional amendments, their goal is not to disobey the laws, but rather to keep them safe. You may have gone to the market, bought a radish with a healthy peel and then found out that it was rotten. Even if you don’t need to buy radish and leave the market, it doesn’t matter; you still get the impression that that radish is healthy. Europe wants to create some kind of still life similar to the abovementioned near its future neighboring countries; so it signals new workplaces for the transitional countries. There will be swarms of observers and specialists coming to Armenia who specialize in the field of comparing the constitutional clauses and reality. The poor taxpayers will have to spend millions of dollars and euros to pay off the specialists’ loans.

The European Union does not want to fall behind from America and the former Soviet Union when it comes to insisting its moulds. I am not one to say this. This is what Europeans say. For them, territorial Europeanization is the death of deep Europeanization. “We can not force Asians to not use force at home,” writes European sociologist Zhan Iv. Bonsini, “due to the fact that it is instilled in the public, moral and even physiological world outlooks of those nations.” However, Bonsini does not withdraw and adapt to the world outlook because, like every European, he also knows that it is inhuman. But at the same time, he also does not recommend solving the issue by insisting. Man who is subjected to use of force, feels the desire to be free. “If man wants it, then any backward country can find the mechanisms for providing that freedom because backward countries are usually hidden from the public eye with their laws which have nothing to do with reality.”

One time, I don’t remember when, I wrote an article on some occasion. In autumn 1990, when Armenia already had declared its independence, an old, tortured woman came to the “Garoun” journal edition and started complaining about her husband. “He beats me the whole day and doesn’t leave me alone,” she said crying. I gave her some smart advice, for example, I told her to go to the police, the prosecutor’s office or the court, etc. “Do you mean to tell me that nothing has changed after this declaration of independence?” she asked. “You need to change,” I said. She left waving her hand in dismay.

She is somewhere out there now. In fact, she has always been out there. Time and space separate her from personal dignity and freedom of conscience. On November 27, that woman, along with others, will come to the referendum and will say “yes” to the constitution after being persuaded by “HayLur” (Armenian News) or other Armenian programs. Reporters from “HayLur” or other television networks will interview the woman as she responds to the question “Which clause do you like the most in the new constitution?” She will say that she likes the 4th clause of the 55th article, which says that the National Assembly, not the president, must consider appointing the country’s Prime Minister.

There will be another fight at the woman’s house on November 28th. The husband, who is “against these authorities,” with all his heart, will cause a riot after seeing his wife on television and will scream that what he says in the house goes, based on the “laws accepted in an organized family.” The daughter from Russia and the son in Germany will call and say: “Mom, leave that husband of yours and come live with us.” But their mother will refuse.