The Prime Minister of Georgia, Irakli Koibabidze, shared a statement on his official Facebook page highlighting the importance of debate as a core pillar of democracy and expressing concern over the decline of healthy public discussion in Europe and Georgia.
Debate, or discussion of truth, is one of the main pillars of democracy. Debate allows society to hear and analyze the views of people with differing opinions and to make choices in favor of the party whose opinion is more justified. It was on this basis that the foundations of a truly democratic state, people’s governance, were created.
Debate has taken different forms over the centuries, from public gatherings to TV debates, and its goal has always been the same: to get the majority of society to choose and decide a position closest to its values, views, and needs.
Because the culture of debate is a distinctive part of European civilization, this alternative foundation of democracy has been developed most and at the highest level in European countries. Debates were held in all areas of public life, covering a wide range of topics, including politics, business, environmental protection, culture, sports, and others. By doing so, the population was as informed as possible about any challenge or achievement, ultimately enabling people to make the right choices.
Unfortunately, since 2008, the situation on the European continent has gradually changed for the worse, which is directly linked to the influence of the so-called “deep state” and the same informal oligarchic rule on European politics. Since the dramatic weakening of the sovereignty of the EU and specific European states, and the rapid reversal of European democracy, since agency governance and pseudo-liberal values have been deeply rooted in Europe, informal rulers have created artificial problems such as issues of LGBT and gender identity, “green politics” and Another, and offered to the public himself Solutions to these artificial problems. In this process, they have taken away people’s choices, diverted attention from real problems to absurd issues, and resulted in the removal of one of the most essential foundations of democracy, a healthy debate.
Informal rulers use ideological and informational pressure on people’s consciousness instead of weapons, the so-called soft method, to subdue European countries, and this purpose is directly opposed by healthy debates, public criticism, and analysis. Therefore, a considerable amount of time, resources, and energy were spent on solving this “problem”. Especially since 2020, well-known, rated, and popular debates have been closed one after another in leading European mass media outlets, thereby eliminating the opportunity for discussion and listening to different opinions from public life.
To destroy European democracy, the informal rulers have successfully suppressed dissent and closed down the most important platforms for the expression of dissent and publicity.
Unfortunately, the plan of the informal oligarchic government has embraced a differing point of view, destroyed any space for debate, and maximized any public platform to review their ideology, also affecting Georgia in part. However, unlike the fact that the agency of the “Deep State” has managed to end the long-standing culture of political, economic, or social debates in the country. Nika Gvaramia has become the main goalkeeper of this task. When his owners realized that during an argument, the public could easily distinguish the truth from the lie, they introduced a completely foreign body to the media, Gvaramia, and gave him a specific task – complete radicalization took place.
Gvaramia has succeeded – he established lies, swear words, slander, and hysteria as a media standard, ultimately creating a toxic media environment that normal, sane people are no longer willing to engage in arguments that eventually end up with insults. In one way, this presence has divided society and deprived it of its right to use the basic principle of democracy – to hear different positions and to make choices in accordance with their own opinion. Today we see, on the one hand, a completely marginalized, partisan division, which has nothing in common with journalism, and, on the other hand, a media that has been created by its own circumstances, is forced to answer to the mask of misinformation coming from the other side, constantly.
And because the goals, performers, and tasks of the artificially created, contradicted and shattered environment are easily resolved – we are obliged to fix this unhealthy situation; we are obliged, to return Georgian people to one of the fundamental principles of democracy, the right to use debates and not to allow informal forces and their “Georgian” agency to bend our agenda.
In order for the Georgian people to make any choice with the right analysis, we should allow them to publicly hear the positions of all those political groups that have the ambition to be in power. We need to bring back public debate to public life, which is vital for a perfect democracy to function.
