Corruption in Latin literally means perversion. It exists everywhere and can be briefly defined as the fraud of an appointed or elected official in order to obtain an illegal interest that is contrary to the interests of the public and the state. Naturally, there are also corresponding schemes of corruption. However, what happened in Armenia can not even be described with this word. This was brought to the most primitive phenomenon in Armenia, a description which former Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan once formulated.
Two years ago, Karapetian became the author of one winged phrase: it is a question of "primitive theft". "Exclude primitive theft in your systems and everything will be put in order. They tell me what schemes they are dealing with, in fact, only on fantasy ... If these people use this mind elsewhere, then definitely everything will become more effective," he said.
Karapetyan was mistaken in only one thing: in many cases even fantasy did not work - there was primitive theft by the most primitive means.
Recent discoveries of the fight against corruption shock the public, and the shock is not generated by the amount of money, or the fact that those who are responsible for different spheres are capable of this, but by the moral side of all this.
All of us have long been psychologically ready for such discoveries, many are even disappointed that we are talking about such "small" sums. The reasons for the shock on the moral plane: Theft of donations collected by schoolchildren during the April war or the embezzlement of the money of the All-Armenian Fund "Armenia" for betting. This is one of the last signs of moral degradation. Another issue concerns control, that is, there was no proper control in any Armenian sector, whether in the case of army at war, panarmenian fund or any nationwide major program that is financed by credits and for which future generations will pay. And all the officials were well aware of this, a vivid testimony to the abovementioned words of Karen Karapetyan.
We are dealing with system-forming primitive theft. Why the system-forming -- because the ruling elite was based on primitive theft, and the cadres were elected in accordance with this feature. In fact, we still need to grow as a state to ensure a smooth transition from primitive theft to complex schemes of corruption, characteristic of developed countries. But perhaps, such schemes in Armenia still acted? ... you need to look not for millions of stolen dollars, but for tens of billions of dollars withdrawn from the country.
Disclosures of primitive theft are important, and for their disclosure there is not even a special need for serious specialists. We will wait for more serious disclosures. But the moral side of all this is a more serious problem that society must be able to outlive and overcome.