Past but no present?

Monday night after work, Vacho (who works with Operations here) offered to take me to the former capital of Georgia, Mskheta (pronounced something like MesChhheta. It is now the capital of the region Mstkheta-Mtianeti (Georgia is divided into 11 regions + Tbilisi). It turned out to be quite a magical experience, and I understood why the place is of mythical significance here. One of the churches was 12th Century, stately and tasteful. During communist times, the inside was covered with white paint so people would forget about their religion, as were most churches in the country (though Maya here at work says they still practiced although it was more difficult). The church also contained a painting of a woman lying in the ground beneath a tree. The story goes that she was holding tightly to her chest what Jesus wore on the cross. She was buried with this cloth and a tree grew up from where she lay. That is where the church is now situated... The other church (Jvari) is 5th century, proudly overlooking the town from the mountainside.

Georgians are proud of their history, perhaps rightfully so. Vacho had many stories and great knowledge of the past. So does the security guard here, Vladimir. Giorgi, who also works here, has explained the history of Georgian language—that it is one of the oldest in the world, unlike any other in the world. My coworkers and other Georgians know their history, they have a strong sense of their roots. They can all site places of historical significance, the names and dates of kings, queens, saints, buildings—not just older people but people far younger than me. Although the proud view of Georgian history is almost universally shared, there is one exception. Petre (who works with IT here) sat down at lunch today and announced that Georgia has no present: “People boast endlessly about the past, but the reality is that the country has nothing as it is, and the people are lazy.”

This, naturally, incited a variety of responses amongst those of us around the table. Maya was shocked at his pessimism and could not understand how he could live with such an attitude. Petre continued, “Georgia has a past. There are beautiful churches, much great history, but we cannot take credit for this. We did nothing of it. It belongs to the worlds heritage.” He was very frustrated with how things are at present. Maya became more and more defensive, arguing that there are things she is unhappy about in Georgia, but there is also so much to be proud of—the culture, religion, literature. Petre was not convinced.

My initial reaction was that he was entirely wrong and though I have only been in the country a short time, I have found so much to praise. He said it is different when you have been around for a while: “People have nothing and they are selfish.” I asked him what a “present” would look like—what would be the nature of a Georgia that he would feel was somewhere he could be proud of. He thought about it but was not sure of the answer. It was more a sentiment.

It made me wonder, what does it mean to have a present? What does it mean to not just have a proud history, but a good today? What, in a country, should make us feel like we are somewhere? Is it GDP? Infrastructure? Great leaders?


We then got into a discussion of what a person’s role is in the world. Petre’s conclusion was that it is to do no harm... The best we can do in the world is to avoid doing anything bad. If we try to do good, we may end up hurting people, so the best thing is to be neutral. Again, my immediate reaction was to disagree, saying that there really is no point to your life if your only goal is to always take the middle ground. It doesn’t really help people if you just sit there and watch the world go by. But when I think more about it, Petre is right in that people with the most noble intentions have caused such pain and destruction and the world would have been far better off if they had been less convinced or neutral....