I Am Looking Forward to Forgetting the War … (I am Looking forward To Starting War)
Ia Antadze, Radio Liberty
When
I learned at school, we had one subject on the time-table - “military
lesson”. I remember only entertainment from those lessons. Our teacher
was former military servant who did not recognize girls. He taught boys
how to fall gun into pieces and then compose again. Besides that, this
process was always followed by laughing. The teacher, whose name and
face I do not remember, was very serious person but we became unserious
having seen the gun. In short, when I try to recall those lessons, I
have vague but pleasant feeling because I see the smiling faces of the
boys with arms.
I can assure
everybody that for my friends and me, who were reading Victor Nozadze,
Soljenitsin and Nietzsche in the late 1970s before the “Perestroika”,
military lessons seemed very irrelevant and funny – we laughed just
like children laugh at the sight of the clown’s nose and large shoes.
Now, when the
president of the independent and free state Mikheil Saakashvili states
that from September of 2010 older pupils of Georgian public schools
shall have military-patriotic lessons instead old military lessons, I
do not laugh at all because I do not think they are irrelevant to the
state politics which is advocated by the president himself.
Before announcement
of the initiative of military-patriotic education president made two
public statements which aimed to connect patriotism with the necessity
to defend country by weapon. In those statements he spoke about the
safety of our families that turned out our own responsibility – because
the army cannot protect everybody. On December 26, 2009 Mikheil
Saakashvili clearly stated on the opening ceremony of the new building
of National Guardia. “12 000 soldiers cannot defeat treacherous enemy
who are descendants of Mongols… when we face similar moment – though we
should do our best to prevent similar invasion – men and women shall be
ready to fight for Georgia. I do not mean psychological readiness - I
mean their armament.”
In his
salutary-statement on New Year the president said we should hold either
hoe or computer in one hand and gun in the second one. Mikheil
Saakashvili could not indicate to the urgent situation better than he
did by this statement – five minutes before the New Year, when people
congratulate New Year to each other and wish happy New Year, our
president suggested us to take arms. Initially he suggested us to take
arms and 12 days later he told the same to the children and juveniles.
Militarist
statements of Mikheil Saakashvili were already replied and will be
replied in future. Wherever people are able express opinion openly,
they started to expose their aggression; culmination of this aggression
was letter published on the Facebook which was supported by many
subscribers of the social website; the title of the letter is: “I am
looking forward to start war!” Author of this article is ordinary
citizen, one of us. The context of the article will be clear from the
following extract: “Have you heard that pigs have damaged our fence in
two places? And those pigs are so numerous and aggressive that we
cannot kick them out by shouting. So, every male shall take gun and
will fight until we kill everybody from the enemy army or kick them out
from our territory! Nobody wants to have coward friend!!!! We must not
be cowards!!!
This letter, full
of aggression and hatred, failed to astonish people. However, it gained
many supporters. Having read this letter I remembered the program which
was aired by TV-Company “Sakartvelo” two weeks before the August war.
In this program, which told story about the lives of soldiers, suddenly
TV-presenter started to read the following text: "It must
be thoroughly understood that the lost land will never be won back by
solemn appeals to the God, nor by hopes in any League of Nations, but
only by the force of arms" Adolf Hitler, 1932.
Why does Mikheil
Saakashvili need to increase patriotic spirit in Georgian adults? Why
does he call upon the entire national to take arms? Why does he
encourage people to think about war? Why do the representatives of the
state-controlled TV-Company read the quotations of Adolf Hitler?
It is fact that
impulse of aggression and hatred language is coming from the first
person of the state and it is accepted by the lower lawyer of the
society. Davit Paichadze asked question in his program: “Do you like
the initiative of military-patriotic education in schools?” and 64% of
audience gave positive answer.
This reply could
have been less concerning before the war of August 2008. Now, after the
loss in the so-called 5-day war – which was being prepared for 5 years
and required most resources of the state – patriotism should be
associated with everything except weapon; more over in public schools.
I do not know
exactly, what is the aim of the recent statements of Saakashvili about
turning each of us into soldiers but I definitely know that I will
never be a soldier and I do not want anybody to be a soldier except
professional soldiers. So, I am looking forward to forgetting the war…
Request of the
scared commander-in-chief to become brave might look as funny and
irrelevant as military lessons in my tenth form at secondary school.
However, state machine is prepared to attack and it might be more
dangerous than fraud elections, uncontrolled media, scared business and
subdued court in total.
20 Jan. '10 ...back
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