I have already reminded you of the Ancient Roman principle, “Cum protestas in populo auctoritas in senate sit”, which means while power resides in people, authority rests with the Senate, where the Senate is not the legislative body, it’s the group of people who has moral and military authority. It’s not accidental that the Western Armenians use the word “ծերակույտ” (tserakuyt) for Senate.
I remembered this formulation because now it seems that there is a need for such moral authority, whose call to the conflicting sides inside Armenia to “step back” will be effective. The first president of Armenia, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, made a similar call, but the reaction from both sides was negative. And their hired and spontaneous trolls wrote comments close to the swearings (“who have you become?”, “when you were …”, “you think you’re so smart”). I suppose that if Václav Havel, Andrei Sakharov, and Nelson Mandela had made such a call the reaction would have been the same.
Do you doubt that anything bad can be written about these people (including the true ones)? And after 10 comments, what they say will not have value. Unfortunately, the clergy, who have tense relations with the government, don’t have authority, and corresponding preachers are ordered to “spoil” them.
The Public Council was once formed to formulate an authoritative opinion. Do you remember that such a body exists? It even has a constitutional status now. According to the idea, the council should have included experts, respected, authoritative people who, as a result of discussions, reach a conclusion, which should be taken into consideration by the governmental bodies and the society. There have been such discussions until 2018, the conclusions were published, although I doubt that they have affected the decision-makers.
Read also
Frankly speaking, I haven’t heard about the activities of the Public Council in the last 4 years. The reason for this passive behavior is clear – if the opinion is in favor of the government, the opposition will start “spoiling” the council. If the government feels that the opinion would harm it, then the same thing will be done by Pashinyan’s “adepts”. Even if it’s not organized, then there are thousands of people on the internet suffering from obsessive ideas.
Is it possible to conclude from this that one should keep silent worrying about the opinion of the obsessed and full-time propagandists? Of course, not. As I started the article with Ancient Rome, let me quote emperor and philosopher, Marcus Aurelius, “How much time he saves, who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks, but only what he does himself, to make it just and holy”.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
