It is said that “a picture is worth a thousand words”. And a thousand words could make a new, wonderful picture – a picture never seen before.
God did not bless me with the talent of painting. Maybe this was for a purpose, as I found my passion in words. These words, I believe – when they are spoken or written powerfully –can make a huge difference. With them, you can explain the complexity of the surrounding universe, express your feelings or deliver happiness or sorrow. Unlike pictures, which can be interpreted in many ways, words have a huge advantage: If you wish, you can give your readers the freedom to interpret everything you have said, or you can make your thoughts very precise and leave no room for further speculation.
This section of the page is dedicated to words. Here, you will find a collection of my articles written throughout the years in Georgian, English, Italian and German. Some have been published in various newspapers and magazines and others have not published at all.
Whether you like to or not, when you read my articles please bear in mind that you are seeing the picture painted by the words, and that this is intended to provide you with a different, but not the ultimate, point of view.
This last summer, when the anniversary of the Russia-Georgia war was drawing closer, a fierce debate emerged among Georgian intellectuals and public figures. Some of them have noticed (surprisingly late) that in the city of Gori, which is situated in the heart of Georgia and was occupied for a short time by Russian forces last year, the statue of Stalin still stands.
Although, the statue has been there since Georgia gained its long-fought independence at the beginning of 1990, nobody really dared to raise the issue until Russia became more aggressive. The question of whether or not to remove the statue remained unconsidered – not because Georgians were afraid of Russian negative reactions (which would be quite acceptable, considering the re-emergence of Stalin’s cult in Putin’s Russia); but rather because Georgians have very ambivalent feelings toward the politician.
On the one hand, we all know that Stalin was a despot and is responsible for killing and torturing millions of people. On the other hand, however, Stalin is probably the best known Georgian worldwide. He was Georgian who managed one of the world’s most powerful empires, and then transformed it to the superpower. Denouncing him, according to us, would diminish the meaning of the Georgian nation as such.
Furthermore, in Gori, Stalin is seen not as the person whose biography causes controversy, but as a hero and the greatest citizen the city has ever produced. Ask anybody on the street of the town, and they will happily confirm. It is my wild guess that an attempt to remove the statue from city’s main square would cause quite a strong resistance among the population – another unnecessary turmoil in an already disquieted Georgia, and a nightmare for the central government.
Let us come to the point. In my last article, I addressed this issue. I argued that in Gori, removing or leaving Stalin’s statue would not change anything. For decades, Georgian society has lived in denial. It denies many things, but among the most important of these is the question of Soviet heritage. Was it good or bad? Positive or negative? To address a question like this is quite a painful process, and we prefer to pretend that the problem does not exist. However, the ignorance of any problem only makes it harder to address in the future and leads to controversies. One such controversy is the fact that in the capital city of Georgia, we have a museum of soviet occupation that displays the cruelties of Soviet government in Georgia, while at the same time we have the statue of Stalin in Gori – the statue of the man who was the main initiator of this abovementioned occupation and the mastermind of the Soviet empire.
Furthermore, we try to honour the values that were promoted by probably the most renowned Georgian philosopher, Merab Mamardashvili – a liberal thinker who, ironically, was born in Gori and considered Stalin his personal enemy; and we are hesitant to speak about the status of the hundreds of thousands of Georgians who fought and died in World War II alongside other Soviet citizens.
The real problem of modern Georgia is not the statue of Stalin in Gori, but the failure of our society to produce a public sphere (also called res publica) where issues of past and modern Georgia can be discussed and problems can be resolved. Until this happens, Stalin´s shadow will remain cast over our future, independently of whether or not his statue stands.
The full article is in Georgian.
The essay writhen about the failures of neo-liberalistic policies, about the essence and importance of classical liberalistic values and why the world policymakers should return to them. For in depth English description please refer to my leading posits in home section of this site.
Full version available in Georgian is here.
This article was published in the Georgian daily newspaper "24 Saati" No external internet link is available jet.
My last article (see below) has caused many questions, arguments and counterarguments. This assures me that some more clarification is needed to explain why constitutional reforms are crucial for the development of Georgian democracy.
The importance of such reforms has been discussed many times before in my previous articles. But like Cato the Elder, a prominent roman senator who always repeated the same line at the end of his speeches requesting the destruction of Empire of Carthage, each time I find myself forced to repeat the urgent need for constitutional reforms.
See full version in Georgian here.
This article was published in the daily Georgian newspaper: "Sakarvelos Respublika." Here is direct link to the publication: http://www.opentext.org.ge/09/sakartvelos-respublika/107/107-5.htm
This introductory article sees the current political crisis in Georgia, which is very much like a stalemate, as the chance rather than the problem. It assumes that neither government nor opposition is truly acting in the interests of Georgian people. They are mainly concerned with preserving power on the one hand and gaining more influence on the other. Georgian people should grasp the opportunity of this political stalemate and demand the solution in which the modernization of the constitution will play a most important role. The article states that a strong, independent parliament and judiciary, and an election system which will not be prone to the falsifications, are chief priorities of the Georgian nation if it aims to build strong and sovereign democracy.
The full article is in Georgian only. Please see here.The article was published in daily newspaper “Sakartvelos respublika” – Georgian editors still maintain an old tradition of changing the titles of articles without prior agreement with authors. Whatever, here is a direct link to the article with a partially changed title: http://www.opentext.org.ge/09/sakartvelos-respublika/099/099-15.htm
This column is inspired by an article by Mr. Nodar Ladaria, which, I guess, was first published in the Georgian daily newspaper "24 Saati" but which I found and read on Facebook. After reading the article I had twofold feelings: on one hand, I was very happy reading an article of this high a quality in terms of style and profound logic. This is an exception in today’s Georgian journalism. On the other hand, I was a bit confused by the argumentation provided by the author, who blames all and everything for the failure of the modern Georgian state; but who attacks mainly the Georgian Orthodox Church for its later statements and behaviour. I partly agree that there were some mistakes in the Church's recent statements. However, I think that there are other institutions which are chiefly responsible for the actual problems. The Church, in this case, is a mere punching bag.
The article is written in Georgian. The full version is available here.
Please note that this article was published by the daily Georgian newspaper "Sakartvelos Respublica" on 1st May 2009. A direct link to the article is here: http://www.opentext.org.ge/09/sakartvelos-respublika/086/086-10.htm The title and body text are slightly modified by the editors.
This article is part of my column for the project named The Second Perspective. The project was planned for Georgian weekly newspapers. It never really came to the life due to time constraints. The idea was to publish weekly political developments in Georgia, as they were seen from the outside. I have written only three sample columns for the project. This article discusses the huge problem that is caused by the tremendously high number of people living below the poverty line in Georgia. Full text is available here.
The article belongs to the Second Perspective project. The issue discussed is elections in Georgia where we got actually one party as the winner. Full version is avalibale here in Georgian.
This article describes the activities of Russia-supported political forces in Georgia, and the government’s response to them. The column concludes that the widespread exclusion of these forces from the “legal” political file in Georgia is counterproductive to the country’s stability. It benefits only Russia itself and, paradoxically, also the Georgian government, which uses these forces to distract the attention of Georgian society from internal to external problems.
The introductory article to my series of book reviews for the Georgian press. The article is in Georgian. To go to the full version use this link.
TThis article, which was published in the newspaper "Akhali Epoka" in 2004, is remarkable. It was written at a time when the Rose Revolution, which brought Mikheil Saakashvili’s government to Georgia, was very new. At the time, the Georgian nation was very enthusiastic about the new government and one could hardly find anyone criticizing the inappropriate and autocratic changes in Georgian political system. This article claims that if it continued so, we would soon have a failed state system and a malfunctioning government.
In 2009, almost every word written in this article became a reality. The article is available only in Georgian and in PDF format. You can download full version of it using this link.As a note: shortly after publishing the article, the newspaper "Akhali Epoka" was closed down by the government officials. This was not only because of my article, but because the newspaper was generally critical toward the inappropriate policies of the government.