Mountains out of Molehills: Angry Baleful Politics

OPED

I have never seen anything angrier or louder than current Georgian politics, thrown off kilter and falling to pieces as it is right now. Parties stand apart miles from each other, smaller groupings within those parties are radically distanced, with the individual politicians within those bunches are also drastically opposed. The shockingly messy movement of political figures back and forth, marked with nervous impulsiveness, is becoming commonplace within the utterly disparate and sharply contrasting political spectrum, which is usually accompanied by irrational antagonism among those figures.

Ours is the kind of politics where hatred reigns as if no other vital substance runs in our political blood. Here, stressful passions are the main prerequisites in decision-making processes.

Watching these processes, one gets the impression that the field of political activity is mined so precariously that it can explode at any time, taking with it the lives not only of immediate players but also of those nonaligned innocents who have nothing to do with the game.

Fury and irritation between our politicians have stood as the most traditional values in the political arena since the great change which took place as a result of the soviet collapse, bringing freedom and democracy to our shores. With these values, there came the political ethics of resentment and exasperation, dominating our political heads, who can’t probably be as sinister and intolerant as they seem to be when publicly in action.

I sincerely hope and believe that they are much better than this! Often, it is not quite comprehensible why politicians should demonstrate their excessive fury at regular discussions over trivial issues without which this nation could easily survive. Why do they always entertain the vexing proclivity of making a mountain out of a molehill without reason?

The clear waste of time and energy is overwhelming at times when wits and imagination need to be in place, ready to work. Every once in a while, momentarily incensed and then gradually aggravated at some unlikely matters of routine political debates, the male politicians of Georgia get into a scuffle, mostly before the TV cameras, awkwardly but fiercely throwing their fists, hands and feet into each other’s not-especially-athletic bodies. One can also see the ladies of the same ground, profusely barking at each other choice epithets, full of vehemence and bitterness. As a consequence, in both cases, the growing tension augments the cantankerous politicians’ aversion for each other so much that the stench of the fight becomes too bothersome to stick around.

If I conventionally called myself a slightly educated observer of those politically motivated and vainly instigated ludicrous scenes, my frustration would grow even further when I start imagining that our politicians are not learning much in their numerous prolonged trips to Euro-Atlantic structures, where they are expected to coach themselves not only in contemporary technique and content of doing useful politics but in commonly known elementary ethics too, indispensable for affecting clever politics.

I have always wondered if those oral and physical clashes within our edgy and odious political elite are real or feigned. They can’t be real because sensibly oriented, reasonably thinking and rationally functioning politicians do not need to be so spitefully emotional and viciously indignant at everybody and everything when they find themselves in the arena. Yet they can’t be fake because our permanent players in political games look so genuinely truthful in their acrimonious meanness and vicious forcefulness that I almost come to believe in their theatrical sarcasm and mockery, lavishly displayed in almost every public appearance.

Where do they get so much aggression, impatience and hostility from? Why are they nursing this despicable sense of belligerence towards each other? Who has told them that their offensive style and violent animosity helps the country and improves life? Don’t they know that their irrelevant excitement and zeal makes them look a plain nuisance, and only points to their detrimental image in our truly sharp and subtle public eye? We all know that temper has a propensity in this culture to be quickly and easily displayed, but why the venom, spewed so abundantly? And it is also true that the discharged poison is not always innocuous. The ubiquitously disgorged toxic substance harms us all and we may very well succumb to it if we are not equipped with enough immunity to resist the effect.

Political argument is part of culture anywhere, but why the cruelty? Why this much offence, fume and strain? Who needs that rant and rave in the 21st century of balanced and civilized exchange of thoughts and emotions? The provocative hassling that has taken deep root in our deafening political life causes a lot of spiritual trauma on an everyday basis. The foolish unwanted anxiety and agitation keep triggering disappointment, disturbance and inconvenience that are hard to overcome later. Incidentally, the entire political performance in Georgia is executed in a stentorian tonality. Are we not getting tired of screaming all the time? Why can’t we talk in a lower voice to save our ears and nerves? This is all very embarrassing but not just that! This sounds like an ominous harbinger for further political pitfalls and failures, which Georgia does not need at all. Bile, derision, malice and brutality are found wrong and objectionable in any political culture, and destructive for any noble human activity. It is a shame that we should fall victim to such monstrous extremes.

Nugzar B. Ruhadze