Very soon sociology may be assigned to the category of the lie, bad lie and statistics in the well-known saying. After having “managed out” the parliamentary elections, the most sociologist of Armenia, Aharon Adibekyan has started to research the social field. By the support of the UN “Millennium program” he has surveyed the poverty in our country. Thus, he has registered that poverty has been cut down in Armenia.
“In fact, in 2004 we had about 40-41% of poor citizens, and in 2006 – 26-27%. In parallel with this reduction as well as the extreme poverty has been reduced,” yesterday said Aharon Adibekyan.
During his meeting with journalists the head of the government’s department national and religious minorities, Hranush Kharatyan said that she didn’t agree with the sociologist and presented her own research. H. Kharatyan said that the problem of bread was not so extreme as it had been before, but indeed “the poverty, as quality and means of living, has not only been reduced in those group, but we believe that it has grown since people are not shame of poverty any more and don’t try to hide their poverty. Quite on the contrary, it is becoming a style of living and they openly show it.”
Mrs. Kharatyan brought the example of the junkyard of Gyumri city, where the number of people living there grows every year. She believes that if a person receives more money than the minimal limit of poverty, which is 20.000 dram, it doesn’t mean that he/she is not poor. The people I mentioned, who live in junkyards, get $150-200 a month.
Aharon Adibekyan tried to explain it is “the American model”, i.e. there are people who like to be hobos and it is their lifestyle, they live like that not because they have to, but because they like it. This means that according to Mr. Adibekyan, families, who live with their parents and relatives in junkyards like that style (Kharatyan said this too). It is a very unique way of thinking on his part.
In fact, Mr. Adibekyan explains the fact that homeless people are living in junkyards with a phenomenon characteristic to the Americans and incomprehensible to us. Notwithstanding, when he wants to explain why people are dissatisfied with the hard living conditions he says the following: “When an Armenian meets another Armenian, he/she speaks speaking about his/her troubles. But when Americans see their friends, they say that they are fine but there are some problems, which will be solved. As for Armenians, they start crying.”
When there is need they can compare us with Americans, but if they don’t need any comparisons, they just say that we are different, we have different mentalities and characteristics.
By the way, yesterday, whether by chance or coincidence, there was a very interesting publication in media. The journalists of “Segodnya” daily in Kiev called one of their most famous sociologists and by presenting themselves as “The bloc of Christians”, which is not known to people much, ordered social polls, which would increase their reputation by 5-6 times. The answer was positive, and the price – $4000.
The journalists didn’t give up with their intention and paid that money and waited until the sociologist made a press conference with a speech as it follows: “I think that such growth of reputation is natural. The representatives of the bloc are speaking about Christian values, and people tend to thinking that such politicians will do their pre-election promises.” Just after such tales the journalists published their conversation with the sociologist and discovered him.
We don’t want to make any comparisons between Mr. Adibekyan and the above mentioned sociologist. Nevertheless, when we remember his pre-election surveys, according to which the reputation of “Dashink” party had grown due to the fact that “Samvel Babayan” was a war participant, people were going to vote for “Prosperous Armenia” due to Gagik Tsarukyan, They liked “Heritage” party due to the fact that Raffi Hovhannisyan’s grandfather had a wonderful voice, such suspects are giving place.
It is also becoming interesting what would happen if we ordered such survey as the Ukrainians did too. However, there is no sense to spend huge money in order to prove something that everyone knows. And those people who don’t know this fact, are often told about it by Tigran Karapetyan.
In a word, before the elections Mr. Adibekyan hindered the success of the central electoral commission, and now he hinders the success of the national statistics department. At least it is good they are not crying…yet. Otherwise if they cried, they would affect the quality of the “public opinion polls”.