WHEN BREAD AND CIRCUSES NO LONGER SOLVE THE PROBLEM
Although the principle of government about feeding people with bread or circuses is very old, it is not covered with the dust of time and has maintained simplicity of its meaning even for those governments which are not based on knowledge and intellect and have just started talking about relying on them, such as in Armenia. The so-called new government of Armenia is facing this dilemma, bread or circuses to people. In other words, either you give people bread to reduce its social discontent, or if you cannot feed people with bread, you distract them with circuses to watch and forget about bread, like children. The government seems unable to solve the problem of bread. The price of bread is going up in the direct and figurative sense of the word. In other words, not only bread becomes expensive but also the other products, and this tendency will continue, which even the government is not hiding. However, this problem would have been possible to solve if the government were able to disturb its oligarchs and oligarch-like officials. However, it is perhaps an unsolvable problem which is typical of all the systems of government which are shaped and operate on arrangements rather than the law. The point is that “disturbance” has no place in the framework of those arrangements. And perhaps it is for ruling out this notion that the law is bypassed, and the system is based on arrangements. Consequently, the participants of the system are disturbed by the notion of “disturbance”. Meanwhile, in order to solve the problem of bread the government has to disturb its friends not only with taxes and customs duties. These solve a mere fiscal problem, guaranteeing the welfare of the class of people who get salary from the budget. Meanwhile, the majority of the people of Armenia gives to the budget but does not take. It means that the government must make its oligarchs and oligarch-like officials honor the Labor Code, pay a normal salary to their workers, provide equal competitive opportunities not to let them capture all the spheres of economy, leaving the bones of the economy for all the others. It seems that considering this reality soon the government will be unable to solve the problem of bread. At present, without public confidence, the government cannot risk to lose the confidence of their entourage as well. However, the same problem occurs even in case of circuses. In order to feed people with circuses it is necessary to disturb their friends, and disturb well because unlike the government the society has enough intellect and knowledge to understand that arresting and bringing charges against a couple of cadastre officers does not mean that the government has launched battle on corruption. The knowledge and intellect of the society allow understanding the structure of corruption in the system of public administration of the Republic and realizing that corruption in the lower tiers of the structure is not the cause but the consequence. The consequence of the reality in higher tiers of the structure. However, the dilemma of bread and circuses, despite its insolvability, is a trifle to the government compared with the problem which is set forward to the government by a class of the society, thought to be small by many but nevertheless active class of the society, who are mostly young people. It is the class of the society which struggles for rights and freedom, which emerged after the presidential election and crystallized after the tragedy of March 1. The government’s problem is that this class of the society does not want bread and circuses but rights and freedom. For this class of the society right is authority and freedom is pride, which makes it impossible to feed them with the main dish of our national propaganda cuisine with heroes and heroic battles, millennial culture and unity, external foes and world coup because unlike the government, the intellectual and information resource of this class is enough to realize the real value of all this, and to distinguish the real and virtual threats to the state of Armenia and its citizens. For any government shaped through repressive mechanisms the existence of this class is itself a problem because it is alternative to bread and circuses, reminding constantly about rights and freedom. Even if for the time being the part of the society does not notice this because they are not full, after becoming full they will inevitable pay attention to that. In other words, in order to repress the surge of struggle for rights and freedom the government should not feed the society with bread and circuses in order to maintain the demand for it. In that case, however, the society struggles for bread and circuses, meanwhile history shows that the society fighting for bread and circuses is more dangerous than the citizens fighting for rights and freedom because if in the second case idea leads, in the first case the instinct dictates. The present intellect of the government must be enough to understand this. HAKOB BADALYAN
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- 0 Armenian National Media Day.
- 1877 Russian forces, led by General Loris-Melikov, occupy Ardahan (Western Armenia).
- 1892 Khreemyan Hayreek is elected Catholicos of All Armenians.
- 1912 Death of Yeprem Khan, one of the leaders of the Persian emancipation movement and unsurpassed militant of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation party. He was born in 1868.
- 1912 "Pravda" (Bolshevik paper) starts publication.
- 1920 The government of Khatissyan falls. President Ohanjanyan organizes a new government with special powers.
- 1920 The Armenian Revolutionary Federation party seized power in a struggle against Bolshevik and Azeri Turkish forces. It replaced Khateessyan's government with Ohanjanyan's.
- 1923 The first number of the "Avangard" newspaper (Official Organ of the Central Committee of the Leninist Youth League of the Soviet Union) is published.
- 1972 Death of Martiros Saryan (artist). He was born in 1880.
- 1999 Portugal, Indonesia, and the United Nations enter into the East Timor Popular Consultation Agreement Regarding Security and the Agreement Regarding the Modalities for the Popular Consultation of the East Timorese Through a Direct Ballot. Some aspects of these Agreements may be significant in the process of finding a resolution to the Artsakh crisis.
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