Arbak Khachatryan: Strangers among our own… — 26 April 2019 — NL

The latest cycle in the alternation of the material and the spiritual was marked by the unconditional victory of materialism. The thunderous triumphal march of the “new world order” following the collapse of the USSR was accompanied by the initial accumulation of capital. The “cow” had fallen, and the “knife-wielders” had multiplied. It was time for those fishing in muddy waters—the Koreikos—to “emerge.” The nimble appearance of “instant rich men” in this act of history shuffled all the cards. The logic of evolutionary theory was completely disrupted.

The initial astonishment that gripped broad sections of society gradually transformed into capitulation with an ever-expanding reach. The “lucky ones” who find pots of gold in films and fairy tales became the envy of broad sections of society. The “caste” who became rich “out of thin air” became a yardstick, a distinctive standard and model to imitate for many, especially young people who were still unformed. The godlike conduct of the new masters—the oligarchs—introduced into our lives customs befitting slave-owning Rome.

Luxurious castles, kilometer-long entourages of shaven-headed bodyguards, extravagantly expensive furnishings, “Japanese women servants” attending to the whims of uncrowned kings, and countless possibilities that stirred ordinary citizens’ envy and became their secret dream. Thousands of dispossessed people “signed up” to serve them in order to provide their families’ daily bread.

A substantial segment of the people dubbed “intellectuals” also became inseparable “visitors” to their feeding troughs. The “commanders of the parade” had understood one thing: with a tangible base of capital, you could have everything, even your own justice—a judicial and legal system that, when necessary, would allow the dark history of capital accumulation to be “deciphered” only “over its dead body.” A history whose roads would again lead to Rome…

The new masters were everywhere—in the air, water, on land, and underground… They, or rather their dirty money, branched out everywhere like metastases, becoming an obstacle to a liberal economy. But the insatiable appetite of the wealthy, multiplying their millions by oppressing a people that had won a war, sought more. With the state machine behind them, and having become owners of economic and political power, they avoided acting on equal terms and within the law like everyone else. The entrenched monopoly became the gravedigger of the formation of a middle class.

Everything possible was “scraped off”; under threats of physical elimination and through deception, everything was concentrated in the same hands. The people who had won the war, left with no alternative, became exiles. Meanwhile, capital of dirty origin flowed into international waters. The wealth plundered from their own people—enormous, bottomless fortunes—was deposited in banks around the world and offshore zones. The banks they opened at home, setting unheard-of interest rates, continued to oppress ordinary citizens with countless problems and hard-working peasants battling capricious nature day and night.

However absurd it may sound, the people hit in this situation were not the exploiters taking plundered money out of the country and entrusting it to foreign banks, but the country’s workers, who had fallen under the banks’ yoke to buy clothes and stationery for their children and pay their tuition. It is said that, by rough estimates, around thirty billion dollars has been taken out of the country. Can you imagine the scale… At the same time, Armenia sinks ever deeper into foreign debt, and life in Armenia becomes increasingly difficult.

The looters, entirely confident of their impunity, continue the exploitation without any pang of conscience. They continue, more than certain that the expensive lawyers they will hire will clear their names if necessary, and, if required, use international law to hold the country accountable, expecting a penalty for an infringement of the inviolability of property rights.

All right, you will say, everyone knows this, but what is the way out? Honestly, I do not clearly see the way out either, and I do not have exaggerated expectations of transitional justice. But I am more than certain of one thing: something in the world is changing nonetheless. The legitimacy of money traveling from country to country is being checked. In other words, the time is coming to take advantage of the opportunity that has arisen. So we must appeal to every country with a single demand: stop and freeze everywhere the possibility of using money of suspicious origin plundered from its own people, and return it to its lawful owner—the people of that country.

Otherwise, the countries accepting that money for safekeeping should also be recognized as accomplices. I am more than convinced that this proposal will receive approval at the UN too. The other, undesirable option is applying the “eye for an eye” method under the law of the boomerang, which could lead to highly undesirable consequences…

Arbak Khachatryan