If the transport fare becomes AMD 150 from January 1, it would be a wrong, unjust and ill-considered decision of the municipality. I’ll write and speak against it, I may participate in peaceful demonstrations organized against it (I am emphasizing, a peaceful), I will try to transport people to the editorial house by the car, I’ll call for boycotting the transport (by the way, in the 60s, Martin Luther King was fighting against racial discrimination with such methods, which, as we know, was expressed by “good seats” in the transport for especially white people). But if I appear in the transport, and the fare is defined 150 drams, I’ll pay 150 drams. We should fight against bad laws with the claim to amend the laws, and not by violating the laws. Here, in my opinion, is the borderline, where the state respecting citizen (the state, and not the authorities) should stop.
Yes, the laws in Armenia, CIS, in many African, Asian, Latin American countries, as well as the Constitution and the courts, the whole state system exist solely for one purpose: to legitimize the decisions of the authorities, to provide material comfort of authorities. However, it does not imply that these laws should not be ignored. The “And what about them” argument should not be the case, otherwise guided by your reasonability, you do not differ from “them”. When in 2003 and 2013, the authorities were fabricating the elections, one of their main arguments was “but do you imagine Styopik or Raffi be the president, the country will be destroyed.” I am confident that the aforesaid opposition candidates would not lead the country properly, but the problem of legitimacy, as the experience shows, is much more important for solving the internal and external problems, than mere ability of leading.
We will not have a legal state unless the people of Armenia, including the authorities and the opposition, suffer from legal nihilism, until those who consider themselves intelligent, justify any iniquity with “higher considerations”. In short, when we walk in the street and see that it spitting and littered, and say, “Well, anyway, it’s a mess, let’s spit also.” Isn’t it clear that several thousand people before us thought just like that?
The famous Russian film director Andrei Konchalovski, in one of his last interviews, said, “The intellectuals in Russia are the people who think that they know how to change the life in the country. They should have had a place in the government, but for some reason, this place has never been given to them. When a man gets into government, he would cease to be an intellectual… I do not know what the intelligentsia is. I know who an intelligent man is. This is a man who is conscious of its responsibilities rather than its rights.”
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
