Comment by Paulina Shishkova
In our country, we often hear the expressions “state conquered by the mafia”, “while in other countries there is a mafia, in Bulgaria the mafia has its own state”. However, the popular expressions are not accurate. Our country has not merged with ONE mafia. My observations in recent years have made me see something else in our reality. In our small country, there are not one and not two, but an unlimited number of small educated women who, as it were, come close to our ideas about the mafia. They are scattered throughout the country, in all sectors of society and the state apparatus. The Bulgarian people like to unite, even though they joke with the slogan of the National Assembly building “unity makes strength”. On the contrary – unites into some unit with its own structure, organization, discipline and leadership to pursue its particular goals – most often of a material nature. Associations are subject to their own rules, statutes and have nothing to do with the legal system of the state. They pursue only their own interests, which differ from those of other citizens. Some of them are visible and even famous. These are the political parties, non-profit associations, commercial companies, religious communities and others. They exist formally and legitimately (at least from the outside). What the plans and actual goals they pursue inside remain unknown to the public, especially since they do not allow their kitchen to become public knowledge.
Some of the associations are new, and others have existed since the time of socialism (along with the material base and personal substrate), although they have changed their goals and purpose. Associations are closed societies, but they maintain connections with other elements of the social system and, above all, with the state apparatus. They have their own plan according to which they introduce their members into the public and state system. They serve as the personnel base of the state and fill the institutions with officials. That's why in our country, for every newly hired person, it is known whose person it is, i.e. which group he came from.
Legislation that insists that all government posts be filled only by people released from the formal unions also make it easier. Associations create or implement their people in universities, research centers, research laboratories, BAS, bar councils, judicial organizations, etc. and drive the recruitment, training and promotion machinery. They create the rules and requirements for their career development. The latter must be tailored to the specifics and capabilities of the members of the group. Thus, the mini-primary association, inserting itself and establishing itself in a state, international, non-governmental structure, modifies the legal requirements with regulations, standards, models that take into account the individual abilities of its people in order for them to occupy the relevant positions, collect state funds and mobilize public space. These communities are flexible and adaptable, they easily change their goals if there is a change in external and especially international factors. They determine their powers and condition the change of laws. For example, if a certain position requires education or long-term experience, they prepare their people for it with diplomas, specializations, and if they cannot achieve it, they actively interfere in the activities of the parliament and force it to change the laws and remove the requirements for qualification. Thus, over the course of 34 years, the rules for higher education, for university programs, for expanding their autonomy, for the decentralized election of associate professors and professors from councils, whose members were appointed with the consent of those elected, were changed. This is how whole ancestral clans of professors grew up, a member – correspondents, academics, judges, prosecutors, lawyers, surgeons and heads of departments and hospitals, MPs, journalists, artists, TV presenters. United in unions, associations, professional organizations, they created a regulation that is entirely in their favor, and not in favor of the rest of the citizens. They set their own remunerations, prices, right of access and separated themselves into closed organizations, in which only close and deserving people enter.
Outside the system of mafia groups remained the individualists who are not subject to co-optation or do not correspond to their notions of loyalty. They don't like collectives, they stay away from them, they struggle with the difficulties themselves and....they don't succeed. These people cannot find their place in the profession and sooner or later the crowd washes them away. If they decide to carry out their goals, they come across the mafia-ridden communities that hardly admit outsiders. They can't find a job because it's already taken by the gangs. If a person wants to maintain his independence, he must be willing to give up the opportunity to realize his dreams. Because in the developed society all spheres are conquered by the groupies. The clan unites to help kin do well, depriving others of the opportunity to gain access to certain goods. Groupism is a source of discrimination in a mobbed society, a weapon to appropriate a good and not allow another to own it, something similar to the privileges of the active fighters against capitalism and fascism during the socialist society. That is why individualists in our country feel marginal, foreigners and are not sympathetic to building the common good. They are also those who are not interested in voting for the groups.
And in our country, the idea of an independent and equidistant government from the groups is being launched???