I wanted to write a few words about Vardges Gaspari long ago. Certainly, he is a very favorable subject for the mass media to make fun of – he lies down in different places with or without reasons, shouts at the top of his lung, sometimes holds posters politically “incorrect.” However, all the eccentric actions notwithstanding, that person is honest and adheres to his – regardless of whether they are right or wrong – principles. Gaspari is a citizen, he boldly expresses his ideas, chooses ways of doing it that are congenial to him. The fact that he has an independent source of income – he is an owner of a small enterprise – certainly contributes to his being a citizen. If only 30 percent of our population were citizens like Gaspari, many of our problems would be solved. (Admittedly, it is not necessary to lie down; one can say everything while standing too.)
The government has been doing everything since the mid-1990s, in order that there was no class of independent owners in our country. It is in the government’s interest for two reasons: firstly, everything is concentrated in the hands of tame oligarchs; secondly, the lumpen deprived of property may raise a hue and cry about wages or pensions, curse the government all day long, but they don’t pose any danger to the latter – they may rob a market during riots at best.
Gaspari’s position is independent from the government and the opposition. As I said, he was holding a poster condemning oligarchs recently, which was impolite from the tactical perspective. The thing is that Gagik Tsarukyan was mentioned among oligarchs, and it was a period, when the Armenian National Congress (ANC) cherished hopes that the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) would carry out a bourgeois democratic revolution. Therefore, the ANC coordinator, Levon Zurabyan, urged to take Tsarukyan off the poster, which Vardges readily did. Such an instruction may not be given today; everything is changeable in politics. However, Gaspari’s advantage is that he is not a politician; he is just a citizen with oppositional views.
He went on a “lie-down” strike outside the ANC central office the other day, demanding that present and former members of the ANC not personally insult each other on websites. Admittedly, it is a very topical demand that, naturally, is related to all participants in the political process. However, Gaspari himself doesn’t meet that demand, and when a few representatives of the government “mistakenly” came out of the Government Building through the front door yesterday, he started to shout “Rogue,” “Murderer,” which are also personal insults. However, even Gaspari’s inconsistency is honest.
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Aram Abrahamyan
