You are a pedestrians and want to cross the street. The light is red, but you’ve got bait to run and across the street, adroitly maneuvering between cars. And here, you see that someone has carried out your “dream” and is running in the red light. “So, I may do it also,” you are thinking and and follow the example of the man “permitting you”. You turn back and see that three more people are running after you and five more behind them. All of a sudden you see a traffic jam, mutual discontents, squeak of breaks, vehicle honks. In short, Asian, sorry to say, clutter. It is our model and of the states identical to ours.
The same goes for smoking epidemic. When I see that some of my classmates are smoking in the school restroom, I also try not because I have a nicotine irresistible demand, but because it is accepted in the frames of a “real men”, and no claim that a nicotine drop kills a horse (it was preached during the Soviet time), no horrifying picture of smoker’s lungs will affect me. The same for epidemic of suicides that occasionally arises among adolescents. A detailed description of a case with relevant colors and accents over the media is enough, and many teenagers may think that it is a way that they want to refer a “message” to their unrealized, underestimated parents or the dear ones.
The same goes for emigration. In the streets, squares, villages, “courtyards”, Internet, the Parliament, and in the speeches of the figures, the matter is introduced as follows: “everyone is leaving, no one will stay here, cause this country is not worth living here, look, my sister-in-law’s husband’s uncle’s son is doing an asphalt job in Kemerovo, and makes a good money. “The vocabulary, of course, could be more literal, but “beshrewing” intonation is a must, especially with those who have already gone and sought to justify their move. Migration to some extent is also a “message”, which is directed to our authorities (onto which the latter, naturally, care less), but it is also, let me say, is a fashion, a moth, an epidemic. Here, it is “accepted” to speak and act in a certain way.
What is the solution? To place a police officer on every intersection? To explain the teenagers that smoking is harmful to their health? To say those leaving the country, do not leave, this is your homeland? No, it might generate an opposite reaction. But, we can quietly stand under the red light and not to take the bait by following the example of those running. Not to smoke, and generally to think about your own physical and mental health. And, most importantly, to live in Armenia and contribute with your work to make your country become a better place. I do not think of anything better so far.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
