At the very moment of that unbelievable soviet collapse 35 years ago, the world received 15 new independent countries right out of the blue, and what a geopolitical tremor that was! All those former soviet socialist republics were in a flash embraced by the United Nations, and all of them called themselves democracies. Sakartvelo was among those newborns – as swift and easy as that! I didn’t know a metamorphosis of that caliber was possible, but that’s exactly what happened, with the 20th century just 10 years shy of its roaring end: just one quick step from a totalitarian into a democratic political system!
The question is if the world and these newly hatched sovereignties were ready for a change of that magnitude. My personal impression is that none was prepared to proceed hand-in-hand smoothly and successfully. And here is why: democracy is a fragile process within the realm of politics, something which requires much nursing and wooing. It is not a mechanical structure that is built to only technically serve people who want to live a long, happy, healthy, fair and free life. It simply purports, as Abraham Lincoln would put it, that national governments have to be made of the people, and run by the people, in favor of the people. This kind of governance has to be learnt very diligently by the people, and can only come to life if that people’s mentality concurs with the principles of that kind of rule.
Mastering democracy as a political system, and mustering an army of followers of its principles, cannot happen overnight, as was attempted in the former soviet countries. It takes a while, considerable political education, and a gradual elevation of political consciousness. We can’t say “we want to be a democracy,” and by golden-fish magic, we turn into one. Democracy needs a lot of labor put in to make it work for real.
In this strange time of ours, when our wellbeing greatly depends on political correctness, nobody is suggesting anything better and socially more functional than democracy. Certainly, there might be other ideologies and political systems out there, like dictatorship, monarchy, theocracy and what not, but nothing sounds as optimal and humanly justified as democracy, which fits perfectly well into a parliamentary or presidential configuration, or even some sort of semi and hybrid regimes of the kind.
The world is full of fighters for democracy, who are ready and poised to plant this high-quality political system everywhere they can, be it in fruitful soil or somewhere with less favorable conditions for growing it. Yet these good and knowledgeable warriors of democracy must learn better ways to instill democracy in our utterly diversified world. No doubt, Georgia is formally a democracy, and quite a developed one at that, but I can’t readily reason how democratically minded we the Georgian people are at this moment in time. If democracy is the best political system for this nation, then we have to elevate the national mentality en-masse to the level of genuine democratic values.
At the very least, democracy might allow us a chance to consider other political systems, if any such system seems to be more optimally functional for the future felicity of our people. Nothing is harmful and stubbornly deniable that could help us live better. Conventional wisdom has it that autocracy cannot be better than the insight of the entire people, although any collective decision might have certain faults in the package, alongside a number of merits.
Popular vote, which is the main tool of expression in democracy, has an inner constructive power, but only when the voters are qualified enough to make the right decision when faced with an often-blinding ballot-box. Democracy can operate as a positive power in the hands of a public feted for its political enlightenment and inner social conscience; likened to a fair judge, in whose hands is placed the fate of a human being facing justice.
Some nations do well with democracy, and some find it difficult to handle. It might not be very easy to say how well this nation is doing the job, but it goes without saying that an effective version of democracy asks for a sharp mind that is compatible with democracy per se.
Op-Ed by Nugzar B. Ruhadze
