Human, Too Human Letter about Inhuman State

Roman Afakidze

The President of Georgia in his interview with a Spanish journalist said: “Experts from European Union assist us in training our policemen but sometimes their trigger fingers itch and they start some quarrels.” Recently, there have been too many clashes in Georgia; and they are initiated by policemen. The law enforcement officers are quarreling because their trigger fingers itch and the president of Georgia does not see anything to worry about.

I have been thinking about whether to write this letter. A sincere “conversation” in the first person is a monologue and it is more literary than journalistic. Our organization, the Human Rights Centre, tries to react to every fact of every breach of human rights. We prepare letters and statements about similar incidents and I was encouraged to write this monologue. We write about every incident that deals with the violation of human rights… we express our concern about each fact and call upon every corresponding organization to react and to eradicate all human rights violations… however, the number of  human rights violations has increased so much that the process of “reaction-concern” looks mechanical rather than human… I have an impression that we have worked out a reflex function: we have a standard form of statement for every incident and every letter; statements or news items resemble each other--they can be distinguished from each other only by number. So, I decided to write a human, too human letter, about a too inhuman state. And I am writing this letter although a monologue is not the best feature for journalism.

We live in a state where our policemen often or sometimes have itchy trigger fingers. In this country the laws are amended though everybody is against the changes except one person or one group of people. This is a country where only those can render “justice” who disregard the law; a the state where parents of a 12-year-old child cannot find 2 800 GEL (app. 1 500 Euro) for a medical operation the child needs; a state of lie where the price of a person is minimal, almost zero; we live in such a country and cannot change anything in the near future…

Many people face a choice to leave the country to find better living conditions abroad or to stay in the state where there is no guarantee of an honorable life in the future.

Over one million people have left Georgia since 1990 and the tendency to leave has not decreased recently. However, there are two realities in Georgia and everything is different from the reality that is created by television…President invites emigrants to return back to Georgia and promises that life for them will be better in Georgia.

Georgia on TV is beautiful and wealthy; everybody has an honorable life, nobody’s rights are breached. In order to maintain this “beautiful” life the government has to break video cameras that record ugly sides of our life and policemen with “itching” trigger fingers; however, it cannot change the general view – everything is perfect!

Once I saw in Azerbaijan the police dispersing demonstrators after the presidential elections. Every local TV Company broadcasted how armed demonstrators dispersed peaceful policemen. I was honestly happy that I was Georgian because I supposed similar thing would never happen in Georgia…the conclusion is simple and too banal – one should never say “never.”

Authorities of three leading national TV Companies were changed during two days; “certain evil people” say that these TV Channels were ruled by the government. Everybody knows it but it does not make any difference in our country. The point is what one person knows; this person is president of Georgia and that’s why he knows it. He is always right and has the biggest moral image. Although he was elected to be president and leader of the country pretending to be interested in moral issues is more important for him than time spent on actual moral lessons.

His moral is: when the trigger fingers of policemen itch and demonstrators are dispersed by people who are crying “Misha, Misha” it is not a disaster but when demonstrators set up cells in Rustaveli Avenue and express protest – they are traitors and supporting Russia, the enemy of the state. Likewise, starting a stupid war is not support of Russia which overcrowded our country with IDPs. Speaking about the problems of IDPs also is criminal. A similar attitude toward the problem encouraged Revaz Kakhniashvili, head of the bureau of an MP, to call IDPS ungrateful people…

This is a country where everybody, who does not agree with the One person, is either a traitor or ungrateful.

At the end of the week, the parliament of Georgia enacted the legislative initiative of the majority in the parliament... Therefore, the Law on Assembly and Manifestation is most acceptable for the government. The amendments were adopted by the parliament despite the fact that nobody except the president and members of the ruling party supported it. It is not important. The most important thing is to leave the least space for ungrateful people.

Georgia is not a state but a factory of one person where this person decides everything.

What else shall I say? Unfortunately, I can continue this monologue endlessly but I already have said that a monologue is not very much appreciated in journalism. I wrote this letter to convince you and myself that we are not statists. Those identical texts published on our website are human, too human.  Although we live in an inhuman state – where lie is more important than truth – we are getting angry when policemen beat people and leave them alone in the street but they are sure that nobody will ever punish them for such behavior!

No, they will be punished!

If human beings still live in this country…