What Makes Him Tick?
Op-Ed
Popular ideas like free market, democracy and personal liberty have changed the world. One of the most outspoken instances of that change is the third Georgian president’s recent crossing of the Polish-Ukrainian border of his own will and without any relevant documents in his pocket, supported by his Ukrainian adherents and political buddies.
In the last couple of months, the former Georgian president, who is a person without citizenship, has been striding from one European country to another in the accompaniment of his beloved family members. There is no other ex or current leader of a nation in the entire world today who has made such a splash in the news. Meanwhile, his Georgian opponents are shooting from the hip some of their sedate and self-confident comments that Saakashvili has lost his political topicality. And so he may have, in this country, but not in Ukraine. Ukraine is overwhelmed with what he is suggesting by his totally unbridled, unexpected and adventurous political movements. The guy forcefully stepped over the officially delineated frontier of his former and supposed citizenship; he has happily put himself up in a wonderful hotel in one of the biggest cities in the country, together with his wife and son; he is doing populous press-conferences and holding consultations with his Ukrainian co-fighters against crime and corruption; he is loudly revealing his plans on further massive advent towards the capital city; he looks blissful and vigorous, ready to carry on with his political cause and schedule thereof; he openly denounces the current Ukrainian government and emphasizes that they will have to go, making room for new and honest national political forces.
Do things like this happen in real life? What does Misha actually rely on? Who is telling him to behave the way he is and saying he will survive? Is he really on his own? What makes him tick? I will never know the answers to these questions. And my doubts will stick, because in the country of his former presidency, a court case against him is pending on several grave counts; his extradition from Ukraine to Georgia is expected any day now, meaning he might very well be indicted and tried for unlawfully crossing Ukraine’s state border; he is deprived of citizenship; and the governments of three United Nations member countries (Russia, Ukraine and Georgia) have adverse sentiments towards him.
Could the internationally unbridled political behavior of a person in this kind of a situation instigate my misgivings that there must be more, much more, to all that we see on our screens day and night? Yes, indeed! I don’t sense concern among the ruling elite of Georgia about Saakashvili’s momentary political upsurge, albeit on a foreign soil. There might be some latent unease out there, but our poker-faced politicians reveal nothing of the kind. As far as I’m concerned, I can say straight out that Misha has lost Georgia and I strongly doubt that he’ll ever find it again in his erstwhile capacity.
His problem is that he has, maybe unwittingly, eliminated the love and trust of most of our people. Misha is talented and smart enough to have found other important employments outside his beloved homeland, but that is not at all enough for him. He dreams to be a come-back kid some day. He needs Ukraine, and the rest of the world into the bargain, only to finally embrace his motherland again and to reinstate his people’s consideration for him. I hate to know that my ex-president is desperately trotting the world and sweating in search of new opportunities beyond his own motherland, doing this without even a legal passport in hand. I have no idea what the best-case scenario for Misha is: staying in Ukraine and making a new revolution, or coming back home to stand the intended trial and then live happily ever after…or going to the United States to lecture audiences on making America a better place to live. After all, it is not only Georgia and Ukraine that need assistance, but America too.
Nugzar B. Ruhadze
Photo source: www.japantimes.co.jp