Author : Zaza Bibilashvili
It so happened that in recent years our existence has been largely defined by fear.
It seems paradoxical, but this ancient, proud people, driven by a sense of honour and justice, is ruled by fear. So much so that their cherished dignity and pride has been lost somewhere, behind everyday worries and mores.
Some are afraid of war, some of losing their jobs, some of political change (“You may feel bad now, but if I were not here, you would feel worse!”), and all fear natural disasters (unless you are a family member of a high-ranking official, in which case the whole state works for you). At the same time, every disaster has become life-threatening: no one can protect you, no one can save you, “whatever happened, happened”, they will say, “well, where were you?”, they will reproach them as they continue to float in great, no – colossal – corruption.
Fear is a human emotion, and a legitimate response to real danger. However, when fear is artificially induced or the source of danger becomes the purveyor of fear, it transforms into a tool for controlling the masses. This leverage perpetuates human and civil degeneration, compelling individuals to set aside their dignity, self-respect, and the pursuit of justice and freedom. People are then forced to endure various forms of humiliation, all the while fearing an imaginary enemy or a fabricated threat.
The soil is fertile for the enemy: the older a nation is, the more it has seen and experienced, the more increasingly fearful and cautious it becomes... From legitimate caution to prosaic conformism, and from conformism to collaborationism, there is often only one step.
The year 2023, the tragedy of Shovi
This is how they rule our country, using the classic methods of totalitarian regimes. I used to write that they ruled, but my friend would always correct me – “to rule is different, today they are not ruling Georgia, they are controlling it.” And it is true.
In the era of Putin’s propaganda, “divide and conquer” has been replaced by “intimidate and control”: keep quiet or someone will come, catch you and kill or rape you (so what if the topic of “26,000 raped men of the best breed” has become one of Russia’s most comical propaganda myths). “Condemn the West because the West wants war and bloodshed.” (So what if NATO and the European Union mean exactly the opposite – peace and prosperity? After all, they are the heirs of Soviet propaganda that fought Western “imperialism” and “militarism” for decades). Logically, these people are afraid not of the Russian horde (which strengthens their backs), but of the mythical “global war party” and scare us with those “few families” that allegedly rule America and Swiss banks...
There is nothing more primitive than what the Russian propagandists and the Georgians who voices them come up with. But it works.
Meanwhile, the country’s Prime Minister – the one whom the oligarch sometimes refers to as “call him whatever you want” and sometimes as “the guy who doesn’t need to be told twice” – sends his son to America on a charter flight, and the government tells people that the plane was rented by the Prime Minister’s unemployed retired father... First they rob us, then they mock us.
The friends of the Prime Minister’s wife attending the Prime Minister’s wife’s birthday party are served by young men from the state security and protocol services – opening doors, moving cars to the parking lot, pushing journalists away...Whatever catches the eye – clothes, wristwatches, jewellery - leaves no doubt: no salary could buy this. You don’t have to look for corruption here, it’s obvious and visible. Never before has there been such a level of greed and cynicism (“He’s the Prime Minister, not a factory worker, isn’t he?!”) ...
The year 2008, Russia-Georgia war
Every rain brings new fears: will something happen in Racha or in the Vere valley? Maybe this time we should avoid the new road to Vashlijvari. Won’t the Rikoti collapse again? A natural disaster has buried sleeping children in Guria. The Shuahevi dam is leaking. The new Racha road collapsed here, the section connecting Ozurgeti and Chokhatauri there.
If there is no rain or flood, there may be a fire and the archive will burn down (it is a separate question how such a treasure can be left unattended, but it is also part of the struggle of the same evil force with our history, our memory, our identity)...
If you survive a natural disaster, the police may arrest you for standing in front of Parliament with a blank sheet of paper (like one of the authors of this issue) or for expressing solidarity with Ukraine in front of the Telavi Theatre (as your humble servant)...
Almost every other week is a week of mourning... From mourning to mourning, people are thinking of running away because decent, law-abiding people no longer see a future in this country.
Fifteen years ago, under the previous government, an MP used an ethnically offensive term in a public speech and was expelled from the parliamentary majority. For more than 15 years, xenophobic statements have been part of the everyday language of the government and its political and media satellites.
0The year 2023, Gharibashvili in Chinaშ
Fifteen years ago, we used to laugh at the fact that the government of that time would often solemnly inaugurate unfinished projects. In the last eleven years, we have become accustomed to the government “inaugurating” its promises. Yes – promises! They would draw something utopian on a big banner, invite TV channels, hold a briefing and sell what they had drawn on the banner as an achievement (“In 2030, Georgia’s GDP per capita will be 10 thousand dollars!”)... Thus, for example, Ivanishvili has handed over the hippodrome to the city four times.
We had to thank the oligarch four times for his ‘unprecedented philanthropy’. This was also the case with the Laguna Vera, which was ruined in his hands, and which he “restored” and “donated to the city” several times, each time through a virtual campaign. In the end, he sold both for a lot of money. He benefited, and Tbilisi will get another concrete monstrosity instead of recreational areas, which will make living and moving here even more hellish. In the past, if something bad happened, it was a topic of conversation for months. Now, for every bad thing, a few days later, or even the next day, there is a new bad thing. Sometimes even on the same evening.
Who could imagine the organised swearing at Europe and America? Haven’t they made us accustomed to it? We were the first at the door of the European Union. Our “pro-Western” government has done so much that we have been pushed to the back of the line. Who complains about Ukraine and Moldova, we are behind even Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The year 1992, the beginning of the war in Abkhazia
Do you believe this is all a coincidence? Absolutely not. It is a conscious, consistent, and deliberate policy with the aim of lowering the bar, expelling the good, and escalating despair among those who remain. The focus of this policy has been on widespread corruption and even greater moral degradation.
Remember what Putin said after the 2008 war? “What the Russian tanks could not do, the Georgian people will do.”
And indeed, we have done it. What’s more, we still fail to grasp the cause-and-effect relationship between our choices and the reality to which we are now hostages. Our contribution lies in the fact that, for the first time in Georgia’s history, we have judges sanctioned for distorting the political system and a former general prosecutor sanctioned for connections with Russian security. This same prosecutor assaulted the former head of the audit service in front of cameras yet currently enjoys full inviolability, even beating an acting minister in the basement of his house. Our contribution extends to having prisoners apprehended by a sanctioned prosecutor and tried by a sanctioned court.
So much has happened just this summer alone:
-The tragedy in Shovi – when they told us that they don’t have helicopters, and even if they did, nothing would change, or that a helicopter is not a car that you can just go and buy (if Ivanishvili needed one, would they say that?). They are telling us: what happened, happened. Let’s forget and continue the bleak routine.
- The Declaration on Strategic Partnership with China resembles a document drafted by one party and merely signed by the other, lacking any statements regarding the preservation of Georgia’s face and dignity (before they came to power they threatened us with an influx of Chinese, and after they came to power they unilaterally cancelled the visa regime for a country of one and a half billion people, against national interests and common sense).
- The 15th anniversary of the 2008 war was memorable because the representatives of the occupation regimes and the Tbilisi government used the same words and the same messages, directing the vector of anger and political responsibility at the previous Georgian government.
- Talking about the Prigozhin riot and his terrorist assassination by Putin - in yet another episode of Russian political savagery – the only interesting and meaningful thing to us was how the Ivanishvili regime wholeheartedly supported Putin.
Meanwhile, the 30th anniversary of the 1992-1993 Russian-Georgian war in Abkhazia has come. The next issue of the journal will be devoted to the topic of Abkhazia. In the meantime, let us remember, compare, and ask:
Where were we and where are we now? How did we end up here? And what is our personal contribution to this tragic but hopefully not fatal process?
Let’s not think in the context of the past, but in the perspective of the future: let’s learn from our mistakes at least once.
