Who Would Ascend on Georgia’s Olympus

Cronus never handed his power to heirs, just as his father Uranus never did. Transition happened, however, thanks to an asylum on a faraway island, and to someone who dared to resist incumbent autocrats. Zeus did not win alone. Great Mother Earth opened her gates to free the titans and help the new generation shine and prosper.

The principal difference with older gods became clear: new divine forces organized the universe and shared spaces to reign; dark forces got darker, waters were taken to waters, forces of light got skies and brought daylight. Myriads of other goddesses and gods, nymphs and daemons shared the universe to rule. The era of humanity and civilization hence commenced, myth died, and it became literature, architecture, philosophy and science, laws and states, education and organization.

Unlike post-Cronus Ancient Greece, the “age of mythology” would still describe Post-Soviet Georgia’s reality better than any political theory could. You have forces of darkness, and forces of light – cultural forces, not of civilization. Heroic leaders prevail; whoever wins does so with cultural domination. Hierarchic ethos does not tolerate difference; earth is as plain as a leader’s sight; wisdom – absent; Civilization – simply not there.

Meanwhile, a new divine kid is being raised by a new Amalthea – the West. He is not a hero, but the light itself. He is growing, expanding and occupying hills and plains, streets and houses of a new nation, living in social networks and in highland villages, schools and universities, and expanding without any pre-planned schedule and without a ruler. A light, stemming from its main source – the West, comes through Western universities, internships, business contacts, and various traditional and social media.

Georgia’s new reality includes new young leaders, – something never seen before in this particular environment. These are young people who do not just obey the bosses in the capital, but act with shared beliefs and their own agendas – in the spheres of politics, social affairs, business and education. They have visions and energy, and are better professionals than their seniors, and their daily struggle is based on vision and leadership and horizontal ties and responsibilities that have nothing to do with the old-style “nomenklatura” politics, evil or kind-hearted demiurges, or even with a brilliant visionary manager. A nation is commencing, a new kid is about to take on the country’s political Olympus.

Yet, what they still lack is a clear new message, new ideas, a logo, an established trend, a wide-functioning consensus that the future belongs to a new generation. They still need a leader among equals who would breakthrough, make titans move waters and pave roads for their own futures. This is not going to be simply “new faces” on an old canvas. This is going to be a new force, a new canvas, a new reality that will make Georgia discover new miracles in its future, and follow some new religion, leading to literature, architecture, philosophy and science, law and a state, and education and organization.

But little happens without the help of titans. They, forces of light themselves, who have once been thrown into Tartarus by the evil god Cronus, must listen to their mother Earth, come together and overthrow an ugly tyrant who is barring the way to light, which is coming.

Light will emanate anyway. Let only the source live long. The next inhabitants of Georgian Olympus will be a new generation who grew up in freedom and were exposed to Western values not in the singles, but in the masses. This is going to be a team of likeminded civilized leaders, not a mix with darkness in their minds. Georgia has a very bright future and it is coming now. Based on its internal forces, and while energetically returning to its civilizational home, Georgia is building a bridge to civilization, and preparing to shed light around the region – just as it was once named a beacon of freedom and democracy…. This was not an erroneous alias, it is holding truth, and continues to further evolve…

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Andro Barnovi is the Chair of the Saakashvili Presidential Library and Founder of the Movement for Independence and EU Integration. He is also the former Head of the Administration of the President of Georgia; Governor of Shida Kartli Region; Dean of Social and Political Sciences; Deputy Defense Minister; and Rector of National Defense Academy.

Andro Barnovi