When one makes the example of Georgia, as an opportunity to make positive changes in a set of fields, the establishment usually object, “Well, the West gives them money and it doesn’t give us money.” It is a half-truth. The West wants all the post-Soviet countries to be stable and predictable, that is what the EU Eastern Partnership program aims at. Those people, who say that Europe doesn’t want us to be economically advanced, in order that we don’t compete with the developed countries, suffer from groundless arrogance – we have to travel a long way, to say the least, to compete or I should say catch up with them. Which systems guarantee that stability? Certainly, first of all, customs, tax, police, in a nutshell law-enforcement systems. If the West sees that the given country’s government really wants to reform those systems (and the people who assess that honesty are not stupid at all) and if it sees that there are sufficient educated members of the establishment in that country who are ready to form and implement a reform program, I am convinced that it is a technical issue to find finances for that.
In order not to waste money, I would ask the customs officers, MPs and Cabinet members who are literate to read the article of “Mediamax” editor-in-chief Davit Alaverdyan’s article that is called “Georgia Serves Her People”, it is posted on the mass media’s website. The publication is dedicated to how the Georgian customs officers formalize and have cars pass customs. After reading the article, none of the officers will say that there are objective reasons for the situation in our country in this field. By the way, I don’t agree with the “political scientists’” explanation that we are dependent on Russia and that is why we cannot take any step in the direction of reforms. I don’t think that Russia demands arbitrariness and corruption to rage everywhere in our country. Those who use that corruption should sit in their office cars and drive to Tbilisi to find out what laws and what mechanisms our neighbors have adopted to reach the condition described in Davit’s article. Certainly, not only the field of law-enforcement lacks that honest desire and good programs. For example, the ruining monastery of Sanahin. Formally the owner, the Holy See, has to deal with it, but it is more urgent for the latter to build the Residence of Catholicos in Yerevan as soon as possible. Therefore, the state has to deal with the issue of Sanahin. As it is known, there is one nation in the world that is too ambitious not only in the issues of not only its, but also international culture – that nation are the Japanese. Perhaps one can ask them to come and cut the trees of our Sanahin.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
