The fifth President of Georgia, Salome Zourabichvili, has commented on the tragic events of recent days: an armed conflict in the Vere district of Tbilisi, which left three people injured and two dead—a minor and Nikoloz Gunashvili—as well as an attack on comedian Onise Okriashvili and a confrontation on Kote Abkhazi Street involving civil activists. According to Zourabichvili, humor became the target in all three cases.
“What helped society and individuals survive the hardest days during Soviet times, what is an integral part of our character, they now want to eradicate as well…
I cannot even write anything about yesterday’s tragedy; it is so terrible and absurd that a young life was cut short by a single shot. Words fail, replaced by anger. Why? Why has this country become a country of tragedies, death, injustice, hatred, and cruelty? What has happened to us, and what have they done to us?
If you think about yesterday’s completely different events, they are united by one thing: in all three cases, humor was the target. Children were laughing in a car. ‘What are you laughing at?’—and they were killed.
A journalist used irony to mock a repressive social media monitoring agency and its bans. ‘How dare you?’—and he was arrested.
A comedian in a stand-up show mocks everyone and everything, because irony is part of a philosophy, a way to look at the world from a different angle. And four men attacked him.
What helped society and individuals survive the hardest times of the Soviet regime, what is part of our national character, they now want to eradicate too.
Russian Dream!” Zourabichvili wrote.