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28 Aug 2008 08:15 am

Georgia: In Context

A reader writes:

Equating Georgia and South Ossetia/Abkhazia as 'factions' is totally silly. Georgia exists as a polity for  a millennium (incorporating Abkhazia and the area known now as South Ossetia), it has a literate culture going way back (their alphabet was invented in the 5th century AD, their national epic, Rustaveli's The Knight and the Panther skin was written in the 13th century). This is a culture that has produced great theatre directors (Robert Sturua has directed acclaimed productions in London and at the Edinburgh festival), films shown at Cannes,  women's world chess champions, world renowned choirs etc. This cultural richness has involved  the various ethnic and linguistic groups resident in Georgia (Kartvelians, Mgrelians, Laz, Svan, Jews, Armenians etc.).

Neither Abkhazia nor South Ossetia (or Ossetia) have any past as (independent) polities.

They emerged due to Russian attempts at divide and rule, fueled in part admittedly by the fact, as Totten's source indicates, that some ethnic minorities in Georgia have not always been given their due. But this is not a situation qualitatively different from the centralism characterizing e.g. Spain or France.

In time, as Georgia would try to fulfill the conditions of EU accession one would hope to see appropriate autonomy granted to certain provinces. The impatience you seem to display when discussing Georgia seems to stem from the fact that Saakashvili (unwisely) got very deep into bed with a variety of neocons, not realizing that involvement with as incompetent an administration as Bush's could lead to disaster.

If Totten's report is correct, Saakashvili didn't manage to avoid a trap set for him by the Russians, a clever tactician he aint. But that's quite different from being a crazy adventurer, as he was originally portrayed (and as the Russians seek to portray him.). It is certainly in the interest of the West to support Georgia, not only as an embattled people with a long standing and rich culture and not least due to its strategic importance (oil, proximity to Iran etc) but also because this is a case of a domino effect: if the Russians get away with this, they will move on to Ukraine, Moldova etc

   

My point was not to diminish the cultural richness and national identity of Georgia. It was to worry that the US does not have a dog in the fight over regional autonomy within Georgia or within Russia. And the question of how we can deter further Russian pressure on Ukraine, Moldova or Azerbaijan while securing critical Russian cooperation in the war on Jihadist terror is not reducible to Cold War blather.

But again: this is not to excuse Putin or Medvedev. It's to insist that the West needs to respond to this intelligently, rather than moving instantly to isolating and marginalizing Russia.

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