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Greed, inertia, or `excessive burying'? Why isn't the dictators'
punishment becoming a lesson for others?
March 1 2014
Former Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovych's pictures with golden
walls palaces flooded the entire media. The topic about Yanukovych's
greed and his punishment has become topical today. It seems that such
a negative public reaction and bringing Yanukovich to responsibility
can become a lesson for other leaders, whose obsession is the
appropriation of public funds. Anyway, the experience and history show
that dictators' punishment and their abandoned palaces are not
becoming lessons for other leaders. The evidence of what was said is
the life imprisonment of the former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak,
what happened with the Romanian dictator CeauČ'escu, and so on. What is
this? A greed, or this phenomenon has a different name? Aravot.am
talked with ethnographer Hranush Kharatyan regarding these issues. She
noted, `In all of these examples, specific individuals and their power
and management circles have not passed preparation in use of power. I
think under bringing to responsibility they have always found
leverages to evade from responsibilities and evade the law. In these
cases, the court and the prosecutor's office are supporting, or there
are always guarantees, for example, Russia in this case, and so on.'
The ethnographer believes that the inertia coming from Soviet morality
and the Soviet times plays a serious role in this matter. Ms.
Kharatyan, in particular, said, `We are all from the same moral plane,
where the appropriation of state property has not been a theft; there
was an opportunity for additional earnings. The Soviet trial court was
judging, the morality was rejecting. This morality has come until now
and the state property has become a perception of individual's
ownership exercising power.' Our observation that this perception is
still dominant in Armenia, Ms. Kharatyan responded as follows, `I
think that now a more rational judgment prevails among the civil
society activists. People see that this kind of concentration of power
in the hands of individuals, and the infamous appropriation of all
resources through personalities leads to a catastrophic situation.'
Ms. Kharatyan does not know under which mechanisms the control of
using levers of internal power there can be mutual control and
balanced situation. Alternatively, according to Hranush Kharatyan,
`will go to the square as Shant did and would say, `people, let's
usurp the power `. To our final question of whether what happened to
Yanukovych will at least somehow make the leaders of Armenia sober up,
Ms. Kharatyan responded, `I do not believe, I very much doubt. Our
people are so much buried in all of these things that they can not
just come out of the daily swamp. They have so much mutual
responsibilities to each other and for each other. What? Can the
solution be exercising normal tax mechanisms? But, how? In the event
when they have taken money from these people, and be elected, and now
they say give me money, they will not give it.'
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
Read more at: http://en.aravot.am/2014/03/01/164035/
From: Baghdasarian
punishment becoming a lesson for others?
March 1 2014
Former Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovych's pictures with golden
walls palaces flooded the entire media. The topic about Yanukovych's
greed and his punishment has become topical today. It seems that such
a negative public reaction and bringing Yanukovich to responsibility
can become a lesson for other leaders, whose obsession is the
appropriation of public funds. Anyway, the experience and history show
that dictators' punishment and their abandoned palaces are not
becoming lessons for other leaders. The evidence of what was said is
the life imprisonment of the former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak,
what happened with the Romanian dictator CeauČ'escu, and so on. What is
this? A greed, or this phenomenon has a different name? Aravot.am
talked with ethnographer Hranush Kharatyan regarding these issues. She
noted, `In all of these examples, specific individuals and their power
and management circles have not passed preparation in use of power. I
think under bringing to responsibility they have always found
leverages to evade from responsibilities and evade the law. In these
cases, the court and the prosecutor's office are supporting, or there
are always guarantees, for example, Russia in this case, and so on.'
The ethnographer believes that the inertia coming from Soviet morality
and the Soviet times plays a serious role in this matter. Ms.
Kharatyan, in particular, said, `We are all from the same moral plane,
where the appropriation of state property has not been a theft; there
was an opportunity for additional earnings. The Soviet trial court was
judging, the morality was rejecting. This morality has come until now
and the state property has become a perception of individual's
ownership exercising power.' Our observation that this perception is
still dominant in Armenia, Ms. Kharatyan responded as follows, `I
think that now a more rational judgment prevails among the civil
society activists. People see that this kind of concentration of power
in the hands of individuals, and the infamous appropriation of all
resources through personalities leads to a catastrophic situation.'
Ms. Kharatyan does not know under which mechanisms the control of
using levers of internal power there can be mutual control and
balanced situation. Alternatively, according to Hranush Kharatyan,
`will go to the square as Shant did and would say, `people, let's
usurp the power `. To our final question of whether what happened to
Yanukovych will at least somehow make the leaders of Armenia sober up,
Ms. Kharatyan responded, `I do not believe, I very much doubt. Our
people are so much buried in all of these things that they can not
just come out of the daily swamp. They have so much mutual
responsibilities to each other and for each other. What? Can the
solution be exercising normal tax mechanisms? But, how? In the event
when they have taken money from these people, and be elected, and now
they say give me money, they will not give it.'
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
Read more at: http://en.aravot.am/2014/03/01/164035/
From: Baghdasarian