Sorry mom, I left you alone … I had no way

Demur Sturua

Fuck this life!

Luka Siradze

When Demur Sturua committed suicide and the principal suspect was announced not guilty, I understood that nothing has changed since 2012. Absolutely nothing. Faces, actors, executors were changed. In the beginning, they were pleasant to us, smiling, behaving politely, promising angel-wing democracy and the court of our dreams, but as soon as they tasted the limitless power, as soon as they understood that “petting” of us, people was unnecessary, smile and politeness have vanished like snow. And the hope for ever having a government interested in real problems of the population, and simply not letting its citizen to die, not pushing them to commit suicide, to throw from the window and put a bullet in head while they are still in bed, vanished with it.  Same picture again, the government elected for the second time has the feeling of eternity. 

If we pardon the system even a single crime, it will definitely repeat it. We have witnessed this practice since 2003. Couple of month ago, Luka Siradze died. He was just another innocent victim of the system. And of course, the government tries all its best to cover up the executioners, because every government needs own executioners. Position of the executioner is always vacant.

In one of my favorite writers, the protagonist fights to prove his innocence that he did nothing, and he certainly didn't do anything, only that the system decided to charge him for doing nothing. Throughout the entire story, Joseph K (protagonist) seeks justice and fails to find it. I got exactly the same feeling when I look at the individual cases, where the system goes against one person or the whole family.

We all share the fate of Joseph K, if the state decides to punish us. An individual is extremely doomed, if he or she confronts with the center of power. The system is already ready to finish with the individual with dirty, offensive soviet methods.

If not destroyed physically, it morally leads to the point that the only way to avoid it is to leave. And if the dish of scale bends improperly, opposite to the government, then the factory of trolls and bots come to the limelight and changes the way of public thinking in its favor. But, if the trolls and bots fail to manage the situation, then they bring out their Joker - “bloody nine years”, which truly works even now. And we keep turning and turning around one spot and while doing so, we are losing a very important thing – empathy.  

After the Synod meeting on October 31, 2019, the whole country seemed to be the part of thriller movie, whereas the director, totally in love with his work, simply was not stopping, daily offering the brilliant action scenes. I think that after such a period, a large part of the population simply develops a nervous disorder that ultimately leads to the loss of empathy.

Why is the policeman leading up to the suicide of Demur Sturua walking freely in the streets? Why does the government keep quiet about the murder of 19-year-old Temirlan Machalikashvili? How did the Ministry of Internal Affairs lead a 15-year-old boy to suicide? How many more innocent people have to sacrifice to the system in order to more loudly and clearly raise the issue of not punishing a particular criminal, but of a whole system absorbing its own population like Kronos?

P.S I don't know what to expect in the 2020 elections. The only thing we need is a multiparty parliament where more reasonable and rational politicians will come on the stage. If we do not go to the autumn elections, our future will be questioned more than it is today. Or to be straightforward, if everything goes the way the "Okhanashvili-Mdinaradze" duo wants, we will have a situation when life will be unbearable for most of us. If it hasn't already happened.

The project is supported by the Writers' House of Georgia.

Translated by Tamar Mirianashvili