Recently a traffic officer approached me and without a preamble he started, “What’s going to be with these people. Something needs to be done. Everyone is leaving the country…these injustices… this corruption…”. When I asked him, “do you take bribes from drivers yourself?”, the response was predictable, “of course I do, how else can I afford my family only with my salary of pennies?”
The key word here is the “must”. Some things MUST take place, regardless of my will and my actions. Trees MUST blossom, fields MUST yield harvest, there MUST be a considerate power in Armenia, who will “take care” of people, etc.
This topic can be discussed for hours, for days, getting excited and irritated. However, we think of a simple question very rarely, “What MUST I do?”. Particularly, my interlocutor “cop” MUST stop fabricating cases to afford his family. Speaking of global issues is easy, taking and throwing a sweet wrapper from the sidewalk into the trash is much more difficult.
Politicians host press clubs every day and they all talk from the perspective of “must”, “Armenia MUST become a developed and civilized country”, “branches of government MUST be separated”, “the judicial system MUST be independent”, “military industry MUST be developed”, “a real fight against the corruption MUST be carried on”, “people MUST rebel”, “this power is evil and MUST immediately leave”. As I hear all this and reproduce it as a journalist already over 26 years, I would like to express my humble opinion: meaningless fluctuations of air MUST be ceased.
Recently another public figure visited from a distant country and said, “Armenia is in a very poor condition, people are few, space is small, there are no natural resources, and some actions MUST be taken to get out of this bad situation. Diaspora MUST be convinced to come and set some factories in Armenia”. The public figure also noted, “We MUST make a diamond of Armenia, we MUST create jobs. If people are unemployed, there is no future”. Thanks God he enlightened us, as if we did not know.
As Paruyr Sevak has written in his time, “if words were to decide we could turn the world over and instantly build a new world instead”.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
