Does it feel like a fragment of that famous longer quote which opens the book, citizens and guests of Georgia? Day after day for a couple of weeks now, all-night protests in the center of Tbilisi, elsewhere, and in other towns and cities too. Violent pushback, enraged response, more determination. Confusion, beatings, trauma. Technology being used in new ways. Tactics changing on both (or all) sides. All of it live-streamed into our devices and TVs. Hardly touched by world media, eclipsed by Middle East and Ukraine horrors; languishing next to Sudan, Myanmar and other mostly ignored tragedies. But here, at ground zero, it’s almost the only news item at all. Different every day, evolving, influenced by what worked or didn’t previously.
When my wife started getting really stressed at the nine simultaneous screens showing different locations of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, I urged her to turn away, get news only from text only once a day, and leave it at that. My Georgian friends are also now complaining of PTSD-like symptoms from just having their TVs on so much.
So… ignore the news? When some of you, dear readers, are even participating in protest events, or witnessing them in person, on-site? No, I’m not saying that. What’s the answer? Foreigners, too, are getting arrested for their simple presence. Of course, my wife and I are praying about the situation; as believers in God, we could hardly do otherwise.
I haven’t gone downtown at all these weeks, but I might, once, with careful preparation. I want to be a witness. But I’ll need to detox afterwards, I’m sure, whatever happens.
Not even arrest or a beating are the worst things that can happen to someone who’s made Georgia his home for 25 years. If I had to choose getting locked into this country, or locked out of it… I would choose the former. It’s home. Deportation, or denial of re-entry if I go anywhere and try to return, are my own worst-case scenarios.
Fine, so I stay, and try to make choices which will keep me informed and also not get me thrown out. And which will also help me not lose my mind from shock, fear, worry, anger, despair.
When I feel these things, I need to withdraw for a bit. For me this is easy: I walk out of the apartment to a nearby set of ponds, hemmed in by reeds and bulrushes. On a still day, the reflections can be spectacular. I have my camera, and new images abound. I fall into delight in the relative silence, and rediscover art. Restoration comes to my soul.
Without this, I fear I would indeed build up a surplus of the bad feelings mentioned above, and begin lashing out at my wife, friends, family. Really, there’s enough trouble going on around us without adding to it as reactions to collective and individual trauma! All that would result would be a vicious cycle downwards into more chaos. I NEED to balance all the bad stuff with something to lift me up: prayer, reading my Bible, time with dear people, and the sheer glories with which even tiny patches of nature, anywhere even in a big city, dazzle my ready eyes and mind.
If we despair, they’ve won, whoever they are. This recharging, too, is part of the battle.
*Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
Blog by Tony Hanmer
Tony Hanmer has lived in Georgia since 1999, in Svaneti since 2007, and been a weekly writer and photographer for GT since early 2011. He runs the “Svaneti Renaissance” Facebook group, now with over 2000 members, at www.facebook.com/groups/SvanetiRenaissance/
He and his wife also run their own guest house in Etseri: www.facebook.com/hanmer.house.svaneti
