“A priest of less than moderate intellect more easily succeeds in persuading people that an avenging God has punished Japan with the devastating earthquake for its sins than Saakashvili does in explaining the simplest ideas to them.”
Giorgi Liponava
The fuss kicked up in July about granting legal status to religious organizations has proved once again that the idea of liberty is still a great challenge in Georgia.
Uproar over that move reminded some of Samuel Huntington’s theory of the Clash of Civilizations and added fresh acuteness to questions about the compatibility of Orthodox Christianity and Democracy.
History has shown that the post-communist transition was much easier for Protestant and Catholic countries in Central Europe and the former Soviet Union than for Orthodox countries. In the Orthodox world, the consolidation of liberal democracy – the development of political institutions, agreement on rules of the democratic game and integration into the West – has dragged on for far too long.
This is not at all meant to suggest that Orthodox teaching is incompatible with democracy and the West. Looking back to the late-Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, we see that the Catholic Church (unlike Protestant denominations) would have been an impediment to modernization were it not for reformation that started with the papal encyclical Rerum Novarum of Pope Leo III in 1891 and culminated with the Second Vatican Council in 1965.
A wave of color revolutions at the dawn of the Twenty-First Century seemed to provide supporters of democratic universalism with new encouragement, but several years have passed since the Orange Revolution in Ukraine and the catastrophic defeat of Orange forces paved the way for restoration of the country’s old regime.
Georgia, though moving at times in zigzags, is still making headway.
Greater assimilation by our society of Western values is impeded by the protracted process of Georgia’s integration into Western institutions. The West sends a mixed message: Be content with the Council of Europe, it tells us, but your time is not yet ripe for the North-Atlantic Alliance or the European Union.
No doubt that Georgian democracy still faces fundamental challenges. But it is equally clear that those challenges are not the main impediment to integration – the real obstacle is Russia. Albania is a good example; its NATO Membership Action Plan was up and running since 1998.
Western values are often assimilated not because people analyze them and acknowledge them as proper, but rather because they are associated with success and strength. That poses somewhat of a problem for a country in which successful people are not in great abundance, where seventy percent of the population is either unemployed or underemployed. Georgians find it difficult even to connect Western values with strength because the West has failed to demonstrate its own strength at times when Georgia has faced existential threat. Rather than expressing strength when needed, the West has expressed something more comfortably familiar for everyone – concern.
For its part, Russia remains singularly unconcerned. It uses its Russian checkpoints – “heavenly roadblocks” as metaphorically termed by the Kvakutkhedi (Cornerstone) magazine, financed by the Metropolitan Job Eparchy – to prevent our integrating into the free world.
A popularity-seeking politician, who in a critical situation shies away from going against the tide, will never secure an important place in history.
Admittedly, social values do not change overnight. Transforming the Georgian mentality is a far more difficult and lengthy process than, say, reforming the Georgian police – the calling card of our modernization. Outdated values are not as easily dismissed as corrupt traffic cops.
Changing societal values, in contrast to changing police practices, cannot be accomplished by the authority alone. Fundamentally altering the public consciousness is a difficult task even for the most totalitarian regimes. Values are not so much swayed by the government as they are shaped by political, societal, media and cultural influences.
The recent legislative change affecting the status of religious institutions has again made clear that those who fight for liberty cannot rely on those institutions. Rather than fight against ignorance, they tend to indulge themselves in conspiracy theories, find excuses to turn their backs on correct approaches, step aside or feign helplessness, or choose to stand on the other side of the barricades.
Faced with religious forces that view biometric passports as a direct path to evil, the authority sees itself as the sole engine of modernization. This sense of absolute capability only adds to the authority’s arrogance. The authority deems it pointless to interact with irresponsible and cowardly forces for to do so would be perceived as its own timidity and weakness. Hence, the authority tries to push reforms through with cavalier resolve. And the domain which normally should provide a forum for discussion is filled instead with entertainment and advertisements aimed at reinforcing positive emotions rather than encouraging rational discourse.
Emotional engineering can, of course, produce short-term benefits. But one cannot win the battle of ideas in such a way. Even more, this trend of reducing politics to consumer-friendly advertisements is far more detrimental than beneficial to those values which require safeguarding.
Advertisement and marketing are certainly handy tools to achieve concrete objectives. But each serves merely to nourish desires and to stir emotions. Democracy, however, rests on reason and informed citizenship, not visceral emotionalism.
Democracy rests on reason and informed citizenship, not visceral emotionalism.
It would be naive to believe that all a political leader has to do to inform the populace and quell the opposition is to provide a rational explanation of an unpopular decision. In reality, there will always be those who disapprove – on pragmatic, ideological and/or narcissist grounds – of anything a political leader does, whether unpopular or otherwise. There will always be those who even engage in fierce opposition. Elucidation is nonetheless the first and perhaps most important step in encouraging ideological support and winning over a neutral electorate.
Anti-liberal forces do not act unknowingly. They are driven by a belief in their own truth and by a concrete idea – they fight to attain an shadowy but still clearly determined goal.
The fate of liberty is decided in this battle.
Considering this reality, it seems inevitable that any pragmatic policy of diverting attention through the Machiavellian cunning of entertainment and emotion is doomed to fail. The opinions of ideologically motivated people cannot be changed or their fervor abated by mindless entertainment.
An idea can only be replaced by another idea. In order to claim victory in the battle of values, it is necessary first to gain moral superiority over adversaries. That requires clarity of those values worth defending, against whom and from what they must be defended, for whom and for what the fight is being waged, and consolidation of a critical mass of society behind that fight.
This aim can be attained only by ideologically motivated people who are confident in their own power, not by weathervanes veering aimlessly in the direction of shifting political winds. A popularity-seeking politician, who in a critical situation shies away from going against the tide, will never secure an important place in history.
Politicians win or lose elections not only because their concrete decisions bring about results. A significant factor for success is the ability to persuade the public, to empower people to face difficulty with optimism. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected for three consecutive terms in the face of double-digit unemployment. Half that unemployment rate was enough to defeat the first President Bush because people stopped believing that he understood the electorate, or recognized problems, or sought solutions or had a strong enough will to accomplish a plan of action despite all obstacles.
When leaders of Georgia’s ruling party knew what they wanted, when they had a clear vision of how to arrange our country and, most importantly, when they shared an unwavering will to fight for their principles, they succeeded in achieving what many thought impossible. Those leaders overcame stagnation of the failed state, combated corruption and organized crime, created a customer-oriented public service apparatus and, as opinion polls showed, boosted optimism among the population. They had a positive vision, which, though often unpopular, they promoted and championed.
Today, in contrast to those first years of governance, leaders of the ruling party no longer boldly offer their agenda to the public because they find it difficult to take an unpopular stance. The proof of this is reflected in the slowed tempo of reforms. Instead of conveying a clear vision, the leaders use advertisements and PR stunts to project an image as problem-solvers.
In projecting that image, the ruling party’s slogan is: Deeds Instead of Words. Indeed, why “instead of words”? Do the people already understand everything? Is there nothing left which needs to be explained to the public? The folly of this is most conspicuous in times of peril.
Concentrating on polishing the public image instead of engaging in essential political discourse is perceived by some – and with good reason – as a retreat from the battlefield of ideas. Others believe the revolutionary zeal has vanished and that Rose Revolution idealism has yielded to comfortable pragmatism. Many perceive this as a lack of belief in one’s own values, as a sign of weakness. And weakness always provokes aggression in adversaries when given the impression that the ruling power is not prepared to fight for the idea, for its ideals.
It is clear to everyone that Mikheil Saakashvili is not just the leader of the ruling party but is also the head of state. The President must not only meet the aspirations of the electorate whose mandate he holds, but must represent the interests of the entire society, including those voters who cast their ballots for other candidates.
Reconciling those two roles requires a delicate balance. A political leader must mobilize ideological supporters because those supporters are essential to the party’s survival in a critical situation. The leader of the country, on the other hand, cannot afford to alienate hesitant voters if he/she wants to win elections. The formula for a successful election is the sum of these two factors.
However, victory in elections is one thing and the victory of liberty is another. The authority alone cannot ensure the defeat of dark forces in the battle of values. Opportunists and sycophants will fail the authority at the decisive moment – and that is quite obvious to enemies of liberty. To win the battle, the authority must seek steadfast partners from among the political class and civil society as well as among media and the arts, partners that are willing to fight fiercely for their shared values, for liberty. Action is required and words worth expressing: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
