Ruling Class Stonewallers
Op-ed
Those who govern want to govern forever, in other words, once a ruler – always a ruler. This political attitude has nothing to do with democracy, national freedom or an individual’s right to life and pursuit of happiness. And the strongest stock in trade for a ruler of this type seems to be stonewalling as such. I am certainly alluding to Georgia as a country with this kind of a juridical and political landscape. For instance, you ask a ruling class member a question about a murder, robbery, abduction, bribery or any other criminal activity of the sort, and you will hear a predictable rubberstamped answer – ‘let us wait for the investigation’. And the investigation might last forever!
The ‘let-us-wait-for-the-investigation’ has become a sacramental phrase, for the speaker providing a magic charge of momentary relaxation from ceaseless media pestering, while to a listener, it represents merely the flimsy hope of at some point understanding what’s going on. Everything is under investigation here. Investigations have overwhelmed us. We are living from investigation to investigation. We hear the word everywhere, at all times. This country has become a land of perpetual investigating, and all those investigations are widely ramified and shrouded in secrecy. At the beginning of the investigation of a case, public involvement and excitement is usually high, and then, interest fades and the facts and curiosity begin to slip our minds until we forget completely, perhaps tired of the procrastination. Meanwhile, new cases to investigate come up for us to digest and build our hopes on. No doubt, we are a nation of rule of law, or we at least try to be one. But this democratic image has two sides – both light and dark. The light side is that we are enjoying a life that is safeguarded by law and its enforcement, and the dark side is that, formally based on legal fairness and celebration of law, most politicians feed people with prefabricated phrases like ‘we must abide by the law’, ‘nobody is above the law’, ‘investigations will reveal the truth’, ‘let us wait until the case is looked into’, ‘we must not obstruct justice’, ‘investigation needs time’, ‘we need to be patient’, etc.
The answers of ruling politicians to questions concerning the legal cases that attract our attention are typical stonewalling. Most of the time, their answers are unclear and obfuscated, or in the best-case scenario, only approximate something that sounds like truth. The impression is that nobody knows anything about the criminal goings-on and the way those cases are being handled. As a result, media starts looking into those cases by themselves, trying to find something that could cater to the curiosity of the public. In the end. a question arises: who is a better investigator- the State or the press? I’m tempted to give preference to my colleagues in terms of investigative resource and talent, but I will refrain from incisive comments this time as this is just my personal impression, not a lived-through experience. When it comes to investigating this or that case, media has no reason to stonewall. Stonewalling is the forte of our politicians who need to be careful so that they do not endanger themselves to the point of losing their cushy jobs. They need stonewalling to save time and politically survive. They have to stonewall every so often because they might not look too perfect if they don’t. But what about a politician’s image – does this count or not? Stonewalling corrupts a politician’s image so badly that reelection might very well fall under doubt. Stonewalling works to the detriment of any person who wants to build a long-term political career. So why not drop it and work in public with an open heart and mind? Politics is also in need of open hearts and minds. At least sometimes!
Nugzar B. Ruhadze