EDUCATING MINISTERS

A phenomenon penetrated from the cafeterias of the Soviet offices into the routine of the Soviet people, which established the famous perception among the public that Thursday is fish day. On that day the cafeterias of the Soviet offices offered fish to their customers, workers and bureaucracy. For the public of independent Armenia, Thursday acquires a different, maybe additional, maybe new meaning, and it is thanks to our new prime minister Tigran Sargsyan. Thursday is gradually perceived as the day of lectures. The point is that the meetings of government take place on this day, and Tigran Sargsyan who conducts the meetings of government has introduced the practice of making long speeches on one topic or another before every meeting of government, which are based on almost the classic rules of a lecture. For instance, the topic of the “lecture” of the meeting on September 4 was effective government or the effectiveness of the government. Tigran Sargsyan spoke about working out benchmarks of effectiveness of performance for the staffs of ministries, presenting them to employees, assessing their work, encouraging or reprimanding them in accordance with those benchmarks. In other words, Tigran Sargsyan actually told the ministers that the ministries they head should know what they are doing, how they are doing, and why they are doing. They say with this methodology of work Tigran Sargsyan achieved considerable success when he used to head the Central Bank. In fact, it is insulting for the state when the government is compared to the Central Bank, but maybe it is a matter of taste. Generally, everything is a matter of taste. For instance, there are many people who admire the “lectures” of the new prime minister. It is possible that in order to admire them it is necessary to have a peculiar approach and benchmarks for the perception and assessment of the functions of the prime minister, which ordinary citizens lack. Perhaps the ordinary citizens think that the prime minister is not supposed to teach the ministers how to work because a person who knows how to work should be appointed as minister. It is possible that some people think ordinary citizens do not understand this simple device of propaganda when people are appointed as ministers who are ready to listen silently to the prime minister’s lectures, like students, only for the sake of reporting to the society on television or in the press what wise things the prime minister tells to educate the government. And again the question occurs why all this is performed for press reports, why the prime minister does not dwell on the same topics in private meetings with the ministers. After all, the result of work is important. If so, and perhaps it is so for almost everyone, an ordinary citizen does not care after how many lectures that result is reached. It is important to produce the result, then the citizen will realize that if there is a result, it means the government led by the prime minister worked well. Meanwhile, when Tigran Sargsyan makes long speeches to show how smart, how educated he is, how fluently he speaks Armenian and conveys his thoughts to others, an ordinary citizen thinks maybe Tigran Sargsyan has done nothing to display, and so he displays his thoughts. On the other hand, however, the problem is other. In fact, we deal with a new government logic by which Tigran Sargsyan acts. Apparently the system with a criminal-oligarchic content has defined his functioning as prime minister in this way. Tigran Sargsyan has become the outer layer of the system, under the new cover of which the traditional style of action should continue. Simply the system did not realize the need for that cover or merely did not feel the need before because there was no social factor in the country, whereas the developments before and after the presidential election made them think at least that much and insure themselves at least with the outer layer, a veil. The new prime minister functions as a veil. It is hardly possible that Tigran Sargsyan or those who trust him do not realize this situation. Consequently, this functioning is either their choice or the prime minister has no other way but to fulfill the instructions and tasks of the system within which he has been for many years, heading the Central Bank and actually the entire financial system of the country. Perhaps, however, it is already pointless to speak or write about this since it is already a banal truth for the society, the ordinary citizen, just like the topics of the prime ministerial “lectures” of Tigran Sargsyan. JAMES HAKOBYAN

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Headlines for September 05, 2008

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