Society

Generally, we are not envious like the Georgians, but it turns out that we don’t envy others, but rather, ourselves. And you know what’s interesting? If that envy enlightens others and makes them strive to be better, in our case it is the opposite. We envy without any strive. Some may say that that is a good envy. I agree with that because I think it is envy with no meaning. We can come up with the following idea: “we not only envy because we don’t have something that we want, but rather, we envy because we don’t want to have it.” There are new forms of envy coming into the light these past couple of years. For example, if in the past Armenians used to envy each other on, let’s say, because a friend was getting married, or the neighbor got a better job or someone’s friend went to Rumania instead of Sochi to relax in the summer, today it is totally different. Nowadays, the person living in Karabagh envies the one living in Armenia, the wife of the husband who is working in Russia envies the woman whose husband is working in America, the child singing on ALM who receives a silver award envies the other for winning the diamond, the person who has an Easy Card for his or her cell phone envies someone who has the SIM card, and finally, the person who votes for a political figure envies someone who votes for an oligarch. In a word, as everything in Armenia, envy among Armenians has degraded. The most interesting is that we envy people who actually lend a helping hand, be it our relatives, friends or close friends. After receiving a sealed envelope from abroad, we often hear this expression: “Who knows how much they are making if they send this much money?”

New Years is on the way and in order for the reader to understand what I am saying, I ask him or her to pay close attention to the New Years dinner tables. When you look at those tables, you get the impression that Armenians are the wealthiest people in the world. However, the table is full not because that family is rich, but rather, that is a sign of envy. There is envy within the inter-political field. The political parties of the coalition envy each other-Geghamyan envies Demirchyan, “Armat” envies the Armenian National Movement (ANM). We can simply say or state the name of the next candidate running for president, and all of a sudden everyone, despite any political orientation or gender starts to envy that candidate. However, during the past couple of days a new type of envy came into the light-the envy towards international opposition. Armenia’s opposition started to envy Ukraine’s opposition. There is one thing traditional about all of this-people envy just to envy. But I hope that soon we will not envy, let’s say, how fast the economy is rising in Korea, Greece’s soccer team or the civilized elections taking place in Rumania, or Ruslan from Ukraine who won in the EuroVision competition, but on the contrary, we will do the best we can so that we can at least be envied just a little.

Looking at the world realistically, however always optimistic, A.K.