In the first half of the 80s I was working as a music teacher, in another place I was teaching solfeggio, in one place I was accompanying children, I had already started broadcasting on television and so on. It is clear that the wages in such places are very small, and their summand was extremely modest. I could hear from everywhere, “what a man are you that you cannot make normal money.” It was said both in malice, contemptuously and quite friendly, “Now, bro, it is the era of the nimble, if not you, others will deceive you.”
“Normal money” can be earned by a bribe, stealing, “on the side” and so on. No wages assumed “normal money”; the pot-bellied traffic cop standing in the street with a stick in his hands was “earning” several times more than the university professor was, and no one condemned this traffic cop, as well as the other “good money earners”, “Well, they are people too and keep their home.” Today, people have forgotten and the young people do not know what the real situation was and have some illusions of the past allegedly there has ever been a “justice” or “the government has belonged to the people.” Whereas, people who were complaining of their life at that time were as many as now. Usually, those to steal less complaint about those who steal more.
The psychology of Armenians has not changed in 30 years. I am the same “simple-minded” who works in several place but “does not make normal money” (it is another matter that I was concerned about this appraisal when I was 25 but not now), those who complain are likewise complaining, those who steal continue stealing. Simply, nowadays, there are a plenty of channels to talk, complain and express your dissatisfaction, and there are also figures who are said, “Yesterday, it was better than today.”
The point that there is an opportunity to talk and discuss certainly is a progress. But so far, it has not resulted in a psychological change because the subject of the talk is not we, the citizens, but the “ones above”. The minor official taking 100 USD for a reference may not temper his passion and exclaim, “Ah, when are they going to leave?” He sincerely believes that he is not one of “these” because he takes only 100 dollars, while “these” are taking 100 thousand dollars. But the 100 of the first one is the foundation of the 100 thousand of the second one.
Replacing the first secretaries and the presidents, the communists by PANM party members and the latter by RPA party members, moreover, with constitutional amendments, the situation is not and cannot be changed. Not because there, in “above”, good or bad people are sitting, but because the same system functions for decades and we are the foundation of this system.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
