The word “lustration” has its core sense – “purification”, acceptance of stately-made crimes and the creation of guarantees of not repeating them. The mild type, presuming merely moral responsibility is perhaps acceptable. The solid version, when we try to “revenge”, accusing each other of some things, I think creates a senseless tension among the public. Russia, as known, rejects even the mild type, and at the present the Head of the Federal Security Service of that country explicitly justifies Stalin suppressions, the victim of which became millions of innocent people. That is, according to the contemporary Security Head of Russia, the millions of gunshot people or the ones tortured in “Gulag” were foreign spies, trotcysts and malefactors indeed. Russia does not succeed in forgetting the mischief of the past. It is painful, but, eventually, it is their business.
Nevertheless, the word “lustration” also has other senses. On Armenian Facebook, for example, “to do a lustration” means to disclose “friends” and “enemies” among public. The simplest way of that “disclosure” is the following. You write a “status”, which encompasses a strong swearing towards any given high-ranked official, and add – whoever “ticks” in the comments, is a “struggling type” and “the creator of the future bright Armenia”, whoever does not tick, is the “server of the regime”. And then, when a “respectable” row of comments is accumulated, you make a conclusion – “here is a natural lustration”. Meanwhile the real lustration is called to not dividing, but uniting people, clearing them from the sins of the past.
In that sense, U.S. President Donald Trump also does a “lustration”. He makes more than scandal-evoking decision on recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and then threatens – we will cut the countries which are against from our money supply. In reality, yesterday, during the General Assembly of the United Nations, a few countries got afraid of Trump’s threats, and such countries as Guatemala, Honduras, Marshal Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Togo appeared beside the U.S. In Armenian sense, the “natural lustration” of the states did not result in very impressive incomes.
The word “lustration” by its etymology, means a bright thing. It does not have any connection with people’s dark habits.
