Political Mud-Slinging

OPED

The Georgian political field is infested with hate-mongers and disseminators of resentment to society. The impression is that all our politicians detest each other so vehemently that they cannot even use minimum diplomacy to conceal their, let us call it, unconstructive thoughts about each other, especially if those politicians represent different political powers.

The feelings in Georgia’s political realm are so hard, sometimes even within the framework of the same political force, that the mutual resentment is often driven to the brink of political explosion, a bomb which could go off at any time. Sooner or later, the political hatred in Georgia will play its unsavory role in the life of our people, conducive to the collapse of the post-socialism political system, created through sweat and tears, with the help of which we are scarcely managing to regulate and balance our boisterous political sentiments and actions.

The examples of political abhorrence, seen within the walls of all four governmental branches – and among these branches too – are so vivid and numerous that throwing in those examples would take us far beyond my word-limit, so let us only theorize today about the character of the Nation’s political image and style.

The next parliamentary elections are almost here, and the feelings I’m talking about are exacerbated on a daily basis. Often, the vile political fluids are latent, but when they do reach boiling point, at which time the temperature turns them into political vapor, they start oozing out to overwhelm all society, the result becoming the best entertainment, thus turning us all into real political zombies.

The hottest season of the most acrimonious political charges is approaching fast, and, unbeknownst to us, the rank-and-file, it is taking over the public hearts and minds. Notwithstanding the fact of our electorate’s political maturation and worked-out-by-experience political finesse, people still want to go to the polls and vote with sincere political naiveté, as if keeping the hope alive that something good will happen with every upcoming change of the players in the country’s political scene. No, this will not happen! The political arena here is a genuine slaughter house where our political gladiators have assumed the role of professional fighters for their own spot under the sun. This is the way they make their living, and there is no chance that they’ll let their grip weaken.

Noting randomly here, political professionalism is very different from any other type of professional behavior in general, and the Georgian political professionalism has its particular national features. This is a species which bases its survival on political cunning and intrigue, on fitting various political skins on the same political body if the circumstance dictates, on selling out colleagues for peanuts and often casting today’s friends into tomorrow’s sworn enemies. Hoax, treachery, perfidy and bigotry are the commodities that are both available and usable if need be for reinforcing the process of political hatemongering. And the disgust is so obvious among the protagonists of our overcrowded political show that sometimes it becomes too scary to watch, although we have been used to this mutual repulsion and antipathy since the collapse of the evil empire. Yes, the ‘evil empire’ has left in its wake a lot of political morbidity, which we are still afflicted with and cannot very easily get rid of. I personally call it a post-soviet political confusion, covering the entire territory of the former USSR, which will most probably linger on for a while, until the generational gap becomes so wide that the remnants of the past will no longer be able to step over the created chasm and disappear into the political abyss.

The only hope to free ourselves from the universal political hatred, reigning in the field, must be the growth of a new generation of politicians who know the price of fair play in politics and stand for appreciating the main principles of this fair play, excluding unwanted strain and vain hatred which only ruins that society of our which is somewhat enjoying its fragile democracy and flimsy national freedom.

Nugzar B. Ruhadze