Do you know which the most luxurious building of any Georgian settlement, even a poor one, is? It is the police station – each of them is obviously built in accordance with the same plan; they are constructions covered with glass walls on three sides. Every passerby can see what happens there. This is one of the manifestations of, so to say, unity of form and content – it is a demonstration of transparency literally and figuratively. Supposedly, people cannot be abused or take bribes in such a building, although it is ruled out that in Georgia or any other country in the world, such thing will not happen at all. The psychological impact of transparency is there, nonetheless – the state, its law-enforcement bodies at least show their intentions.
Probably, this is not the Georgians’ invention. The government of the United States, which supports our neighbors as much as it can, has invested large sums of money also in the modernization of the Georgian police, which, first of all, benefitted the ordinary citizens of that country, as well as Armenian tourists whose number reaches tens of thousands in the summer months. The police there is inclined not to catch and “squeeze money,” but to provide service. The syndrome of the Soviet police seems to be overcome in Georgia. I wouldn’t say that nothing is done in Armenia in that regard, but at the lower level of “radicalism.”
Coming back to the transparent appearance of the police stations, I want to say that it is a formality only at first sight. Sometimes there is a serious content behind such formalities. In Armenia, there are some institutions, which differ – at least by their appearance – from the situation, which was there as recently as 10 years ago. I am talking about both government and private institutions. You cannot compare the offices of the three telecommunications operators in Armenia with the old telephone exchange offices, in which a few dozens of people would gather and impolite attendants would dish out scoldings to the customers right and left. Today the cadaster affiliates in Yerevan differ substantially from the former offices of that institution. Or the department of traffic police, in which they give license plates, is not like the former discourteous one. In all the mentioned places, good-looking girls sit at computers and they don’t dish out a scolding to you, but provide you with service.
I understand how unrewarding saying or writing something good in Armenia is and what resistance it meets with in politicized circles. However, in this case, it is about another phenomenon – the change of form brings about, at the end of the day, must bring about a change of content.
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In the very same manner, a small thing like putting one’s seatbelt on probably testifies to some progress in mentality.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
