Seyran Martirosyan, the manager of the Shirak region affiliate of the Sakharov Human Rights Protection Office, said during a conversation with www.aravot.am analyzing the famous consultation of the Cabinet convened by the President of the Republic of Armenia, “It is rather absurd and ridiculous when someone scolds, they listen to him heads down and at the end, they say ‘please, forgive us, we will not do it again, we promise to make up for it’ etc. All that is normal, when one is displeased and talks angrily about the work of some enterprise, school or kindergarten, but not the whole Cabinet.
“In this case, it is a primitive PR step, because there are always such dressing-downs some fixed time before elections, so it was a step aimed at punishing whipping boys for show. The aim is very primitive, but it yields results, because if one brings the people to a certain condition and those people appreciate such dressing-downs and think that he has started to punish, as a result, one wins a certain amount of votes.”
Our interlocutor compares Serzh Sargsyan with King Oedipus who having murdered his father was searching for the murderer. “After the President’s dressing-down, an article appeared on the internet immediately, which in general can be called the King Oedipus syndrome. Oedipus wants to find out, know, investigate who has killed his father, in the end, it turns out that he has killed his father. If our President, being honest with himself, tries to find out who is the reason for all that, he will come across his own person. It is a double-edged tool, which makes an impact on a certain part of the society. However, another part of the society certainly draws serious conclusions and unfortunately, the main form of serious conclusions in our country is emigration. Many people know that the situation changes not by giving a sound thrashing in front of the whole country, they understand that this is another farce for one’s own security and reproduction rather than a real annoyance with those people’s bad work.”
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Although Seyran Martirosyan doesn’t rule out that the President is really annoyed, according to him, if the issue is considered on the personal level only, a Cabinet that works in such a disgraceful manner can annoy anyone. “Psychologists advise relaxation in this way from time to time, but one of my friends always asks ‘at whose expense?’ One shouldn’t give vent to one’s feelings, which will not be followed by anything,” Seyran Martirosyan says.
In response to our question whether there would be “victims” after such annoyance, the latter said, “As far as I know, there already are victims – Beglaryan’s brother – there had been a few victims in the state revenue department, there will be victims, but I didn’t call them ‘victims,’ I called them ‘whipping boys,’ it is the famous Russian word ‘стрелочник.’ Perhaps a list will be made, quotas will be used here too – from what field and how many people should be caught and punished to show what a good job we have done,” our interlocutor mocks.
Nune AREVSHATYAN
