In the Middle of Nowhere
OPED
The Constitution of the Republic has been altered and re-altered many times and still needs further alterations in order to turn it into the most reasonable and reliable blueprint for running the country. The main law of the land is not yet – and has never been – a trustworthy enough document to make sure that everyone is protected by the law, everyone must obey the law and no person or office in Georgia may be above the law. Accordingly, our unalienable rights are dubious, government of laws perennially faltering, self-government shaky and the separation of powers weird.
Look, we happen to be a semi-parliamentarian and semi-presidential republic. As a consequence, it has become next to impossible to identify a number one Exec of the country, and certainly a female figurehead who would play up a First Lady stint to the nation. There are so many chiefs to boss us around, and we see so many hands in the main pouch of the nation, that the frequency of confusions on a decision-making level might soon reach a scary height. But the weird precariousness of the scenery on the leadership dais is just peanuts compared to what we really see around us on an everyday basis via broadcast and print media.
Take, for instance, the current Georgian and Eurounion intercourse: they are engaged to be married with no foreseeable wedding date set. They might linger on in the live-in situation forever, although the nuptials have already been signed. Fulsome laudations in Georgia’s address are heard several times a day on the part of the happily operating Western diplomats, but those panegyrics have never hit the bull’s eye, to put it figuratively. So we don’t really know where we stand in the wake of the Eurounion Association Agreement with Georgia which is supposed to bring thicker bread-and-butter on the tray to our undernourished people.
For more clarity, the NATO-Georgian unconsummated and annoyingly procrastinated relationship is based on a more complicated scenario which promises more than a regular financial relief and straightening-out of the country’s moribund economy. The promised shelter in the NATO realm of secure European nations has not yet loomed on the horizon in full size and contour for Georgia. Drills, documents, signatures, meetings, conferences, ambassadorials, ministerials, summits, and all those sort of shticks have all been in place with a very modest result, not totally unfruitful, though. And the process has been on in the last two decades with bilateral enthusiasm to drag us into the Alliance. Nobody can say with confidence where exactly and in what position we stand in the European military game – in occasional ephemeral hopes or in complete prostration – although the indigenous PR loud-speakers are at full blast for us to hear that we are almost members.
To make the Georgians feel at home in Europe, and in full kinship with West, a new consular term has been launched and put into circulation in recent years, a term which has tenaciously caught on and has forcefully grasped our hearts and minds. The lexical neologism, called Visa-Liberalization, has become a huge and beautiful blimp, carrying all of us freely, safely and legally to tens of European capitals where we will supposedly take a deep sigh of relief to be happy ever after. But, behold, the blimp has been forced into a stopover. Thank God it’s still hanging in the air with flicking lights of hope that better days are still in store for us to enjoy, provided our patience keeps strong and unexhausted until the blimp reaches its destination. The only problem is that blimps are fragile and they need favorable winds to reach the Promised Land. So, we don’t quite know where Georgia stands in terms of a visa-free entrance to Euro-nations.
The state borders of Georgia are not precisely and completely demarcated, hence are often violated and brutally moved at the whim and discretion of an invading northern neighbor. From time to time we even get murdered right at the border-line, as a result of which disapproving voices are heard internationally, while protests within the nation are heard like a voice in the wilderness. So, we don’t quite know where we stand in terms of our border security.
Georgia is torn between two geopolitical orientations – Western and Northern. Both directions are strong enough to offer something promising. The respectively oriented political powers in the country are adamantly sitting on the platform they believe is most favorable for the nation, but none of those powers are smart and strong enough to take responsibility to lead us to that haven. So, we don’t quite know where we stand when it comes to our political future and the secure prospect of our posterity.
The multilateral uncertainty we are deeply in makes us look like we are in the middle of nowhere, this meaning a major confusion about the nettling past errors, current unpalatable bungles and the immanency of future scary blunders. We need to know exactly where we are, speaking economically, ideologically, geopolitically and diplomatically. We need to know precisely what status we happen to have. We have to know in scrupulous minutiae what is in store for us both in the short and the long run– the Western version of bliss and prosperity or the Russian story of déjà vu indigence. The choice is not totally in our hands, but we might at least have our pinky in the pie.
Nugzar B. Ruhadze