I think we will discover the source is endless energy (perpetual motion) once we learn how to save the energy we already have in Armenia. The best way to combat any civil unrest, revolution, movement is to direct its energy to another target.

This is happening to so called “civil society” in Armenia. People naively thinking that they are civil society, or at least that they represent civil society enter into useless, endless, irrelevant actions of protest, discussions and even TV debates.

For not to sound empty I’ll try to bring few examples below, but first let me say that there are groups of people calling themselves civil society however in reality, they are “target-changers”, i.e. their mission is to protest, demand, sound sincere, but blame not the actual cause of a problem, but the consequence of the problem. Ideal way of escaping the bomb is not running away, but changing the target of a missile.

Now examples,

When the Government decided to exclude the Moscow cinema’s Summer Hall from the list of state-protected monuments, it appeared a lot of people liked that monument. Although that monument for already many years became a cafe, a car wash and unregistered public toilet. But never mind. People wanted the Summer Hall to remain Summer Hall. The movement began on Facebook. Being a devoted Yerevantsi I did not know someone loves my city more than me. The movement became bigger within days, it went to press and TV. “Civil society” was protesting. But one would ask, against what? Be ready, against Armenian Apostolic Church! Yes, against church.

It appeared the owner of Moscow cinema allowed the church to build an Armenian church there. But he could never do that if Government kept that monument in state-protected monument’s list. So, instead of protesting for inclusion of this monument back into the list so no one can touch it in the future, “civil society” protested against church, which had all legal rights to build whatever it wanted, as that monument was not of any value for the state anymore.

Energy was spend to blame church, target of unrest was smoothly, silently changed. Civil society never asked the government about the reasons of excluding the monument from the list. I could not believe debates on TV between architects, social activists and church. Church was trying to explain, that it can manage its own property. Waste of energy. It was a parody, an absurd theatre.

Just want to mention that the monument is still excluded from the list of state-protected buildings.

Another example of target changing and waste of energy is when the government decided to change the Law on Language to allow internationally recognized and certified schools open in Armenia. One of the reasons was to attract Diaspora Armenians or simply foreigners so they could move here with families. Another reason was income generation, as wealthy people in Armenia are sending their kids to UK and USA. Now those professors would come to teach in Armenia. Great, isn’t it?

Again, it was even bigger noise, but with less people. I did not know we had so many patriots, so many dedicated but misled people. You would again ask – against what would one protest here? First, the energy was targeted to protest against internationally certified and recognized schools in Armenia. I know its stupid, but for artificial movement there should be something to protest against. The maxim of the movement was: “Education only in Armenian!”

Later, the demand motto has changed, the demand was to “Protect our language!”. One may ask, from whom? Or from what? I have an extensive piece written in Armenian about it here.

So again, so much energy was spent on some irrelevant things. Instead of spending that energy for demanding proper education in our regular Armenian schools, people were protesting against world class schools appearance in Armenia. Or for saving our language?!? Nobody was talking about our gas supply, electricity, water resources, mobile and landline operators, airports, all given to foreign companies to manage, but was blaming foreign language school (I’m not against all those if managed properly, I just bring examples of another reasons for possible protests). No one would say, look if there is a mosque in the center of Yerevan city, why shouldn’t we have one English school? (I’m not against mosque too).

To finish this call for energy saving:) I want to ask everyone to look at the cause of a problem, not the consequence. And if you have so much energy and you are in Armenia, contact me, I will tell you where to direct it and earn money. There is always a job, if you have an energy to spend. After all, energy is what is valued most nowadays.