Tainted Love: Ogden on Domestic Violence

OP-ED

As angry and horrified as I was by the recent death of a woman in Telavi, killed by her ex-husband, I cannot claim to be particularly surprised. Incidents of violence against women are hardly uncommon here, a sad fact which I am loathe to record, since I like Georgia and take no satisfaction in dragging it down to the level of Turkey or Pakistan. It is, however, hardly my fault.

Another incident earlier this year took place in Samegrelo, when a man murdered his young wife after “discovering” that she was not a virgin after their wedding. Exactly how he was so sure in his conviction was never disclosed, but seeing as the bulk of experience for most Georgian males comes from prostitutes, I would hardly be confident in his diagnosis. More importantly, however, is the fact that virginity at marriage is little more than a pathetic expectation from men who in truth have little self-confidence; for a people who like to boast that they are the best lovers in the former Soviet Union and the dream of every Russian and Ukrainian girl, they seem to harbor a great fear over their women being with other men. Such great lovers should surely not worry about such a thing if they truly believed in their prowess.

Anybody reading so far might be under the impression that these attacks are limited to Georgia's regions, but just last year a lecturer was murdered in the middle of her lecture by her ex-husband in Tbilisi. An ex-girlfriend of mine still receives death threats from her Georgian ex-husband (despite the fact that she divorced him after a very brief marriage over three years ago), and my friend is regularly threatened with violence from her husband if he suspects she is talking to other men, even colleagues. He does not even allow her to travel to her office much, and when she does, he will call her phone constantly.

I'm sure I have written elsewhere that I can hardly claim to be anti-violence, since I have boxed since I was 12 and served a brief stint in the Army, but I do like to see violence directed against people who have a chance to fight back. For my part, I took no satisfaction in boxing a stranger and finding that he was overmatched; victory lost its sweetness when the opponent was just not good enough. To the uninitiated, a hard fought fight with broken lips, bleeding noses, ringing ears, black eyes and bruised torsos may not sound appealing at all, but it is infinitely preferable over battering an overwhelmed opponent who simply cannot fight back. What satisfaction Georgian men can take in battering a smaller man with the help of three friends (as happened to my brother-in-law; he still bears the scars), women or gay people (who, as much as I respect them for who they are, are not famous for their fighting prowess), I really cannot imagine.

A related phenomenon I have encountered is an unusual consequence of jealousy. All men are jealous, whether they are Georgian or Western, but it is where envy and anger are directed that separate the East from the West. Jealousy-inspired relationship violence is probably far more common in Britain than Georgia, but the fighting is between two men; in Georgia, it is usually a man attacking a woman. During my earlier years in Georgia (when I did not keep quite so agreeable company as I have done for the last three years), I asked a number of men what they would do if a man was looking at his wife or girlfriend. To do them justice, not all of them were inclined to belt her around the head or break her ribs, being comfortable enough in their powers to verbally intimidate her (so help me, it's the truth), but the belief in where fault lay was unanimous; the man was only doing what came naturally to him, it was the girl's fault for attracting his attention. The deep, dark pit underneath that particular mentality must be excavated another time.

As my wife often reminds me, the fault does not lie with Georgian men alone, but also with women; with the mothers who raise their sons in the belief that they are perfect, and the women who, on being told they cannot wear certain clothes or shoes, tell their men where to stick their jealousy. In the latter category's defense, I am sure it would not be easy to be so confident without support mechanisms, or even help from family; one Georgian woman told me recently she simply cannot leave her abusive husband because her family will think her tainted. Hers is not the only story of this kind I have heard, nor will it be the last.

The word count has crept up on me again. I shall conclude by saying that last week, I wrote about education reform and how Georgians could be directed towards leading more productive lives with better education, but I think this issue is even more pressing. The EU, an institution that runs the risk of losing its credibility, should increase its involvement, perhaps even threaten to suspend the much vaunted visa liberalization for Georgia until this issue is properly tackled.

And why not? A severe penalty for a severe crime; surely the very definition of justice.

Tim Ogden

Picture by Brian Patrick Grady