For the authorities the population is a gray mass which should be bribed during the elections, put pressure on, threatened, and motivated to provide the wanted result, and afterwards it is desirable that throughout forthcoming 4-5 years they, the authorities, “are not bothered”. It is possible that they will not be bothered, but it is not an ideal solution for the government (from the perspective of state it is obviously bad), inasmuch as 1/ humiliated people are not inclined to working, creating, composing, 2/ within them, maybe in a latent way, the hatred towards the ones humiliating them boils, 3/ to get out of apathy people try to escape from themselves and forasmuch as it is impossible, for majority the solution is leaving the country. When the escape lasts for a quarter century, it brings about unsolvable issues which cannot be solved even via genius economic programs. In parallel, consumer moods, idleness, indifference, disbelief reign within the ones who stay, that similarly are not good impetus for the development of the country, mildly said.
For the revolutionists, the population is a gray mass alike, which should stand, go out into the street and rebel, to bring the authority to them – the revolutionists. If that succeeds, it is not an ideal solution to the revolutionists as well (again it is clear: for the state, particularly for today’s Armenia, those barbarities are strictly dangerous, but I leave it aside.) For the revolutionists it is bad from the perspective, for example, if your population is a furious mob feeling the taste of anger and blood, it no longer is subject to you and tramples down not merely the “servants of the regime”, but also innocent people, insiders and “red leaders” comprised. In that case, more radical revolutionists “eat” less radical revolutionists and then more radicals come who create “revcoms”, revenge without the judiciary, etc, until a tyrant comes and restraints everyone.
For 26 years Armenia’s political thinking, eventually, has been aspiring to reach those two poles – erosive stagnation and similarly erosive “brutality”. But besides these two sad scenarios, there should be the third one as well. I am not ready to represent that scenario in details at the moment, but it seems to me, the basis of it is not considering the population a gray mass, respect towards the Human and Individual. In this case the Human becomes not a means to solve some issues, but an objective.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
