Those who say that nothing has changed are wrong or not sincere. But the same can be said of those who say that everything has changed. And it is probably true that those who say that things have not changed as much as we wanted to. During Robert Kocharyan’s administration, the oligarchs’ “guards” beat people with impunity and opened fire in “intersections.” Under Serzh Sargsyan’s administration, those cases were significantly reduced, but the bodyguards of state officials and the “red berets” were just as cruel and arrogant. These traditions continue even after the revolution. And the problem is not that people in that profession suffer from some pathological sadism. No, they are guided by the wishes and preferences of their “bosses.”
It used to be Serzh Sargsyan’s brother, now it is Alen Simonyan and Arayik Harutyunyan’s brothers. Again, I do not believe that in 2018 our revolutionaries lied that they came to power to become like the “former,” as some opposition members now say. No, I’m sure they sincerely thought that once they came to power, they would remain the same person, that they would not think about taking over businesses and media resources, that they would not bother anyone with their movements, and that they would often go to work by bicycle or subway. And why didn’t it happen the way they and we wanted?
To answer that question, let me recall two well-known psychological experiments conducted in the second half of the 20th century. One is named after Stanley Milgram and the other after Philip Zimbardo. To save space, I will not describe those experiments that took place in 1963 at Yale and in 1971 at Stanford (those who wish can easily find these descriptions on the Internet). In the second case, the students, who did not suffer from any psychological pathology, took on the role of prison guards and began torturing their friends, and in the first case, they became “strict teachers” and electrocuted the person for each wrong answer. What are the scientific experiments talking about? When you are an ordinary person (student or driver), you follow one model of behavior, and when you are a jailer or “security guard”, that role requires completely different behavior from you. The same when you are an ordinary citizen (you are an activist, you are a Facebook status writer), or you are in power, with all the consequences that come with it. The proposed role requires appropriate behavior from the person. The problem is that such a demand is not made before a person.
…On Monday at around 6:10 PM, I was crossing Arshakunyats Avenue near the Circus. There were whistles from all sides and shouts through loudspeakers. “What a police buzz,” I thought for a moment, then shifted my focus to other thoughts. I did not predict anything bad…
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Aram Abrahamyan
