In my research for a previous blog entry (“Where in the World is Georgia?”) one little element of common knowledge about Georgia shocked me more than anything else: the ignorance of its very existence. Given more thought, however, I realized that this ignorance is not quite as deplorable as I originally thought. Georgia, after all, a barely thumbnail-sized country on a wall map of the globe, is just one of a slew of baby countries that were left over after the Soviet Union collapsed, nestled in among Armenia and Azerbaijan, with former Soviet satellite cousins Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and numerous others. More than twenty years after the Soviet Union fell to pieces, Georgia is still struggling to set itself apart from the other satellites, and the larger, dominating Russia.
Georgia, a poor country with a high unemployment rate, struggles to make itself known internationally.
Fighting Their Way West
Georgia, more than its neighbors, has done this by supporting the US in its military endeavors, with nearly 1,000 troops fighting in Afghanistan at this moment, according to Radio Free Europe. (It’s interesting to note that before the Americans and their Georgian allies, the Soviet Union was also entrenched in the Afghanistan quagmire.)
Eka Tkeshelashvili, head of Georgia’s National Security Council, told RFE, “The contingent we’re sending to Afghanistan might shame Western European countries in its size and content. But we’re not doing this to shame others, only to demonstrate that we’re ready to stand with our partners.”
This demonstration is all part of Georgia’s grander scheme to become a truly Westernized country: joining NATO. However, Russian news organization Gruzia news says that because of territorial disputes between Russia and Georgia over the northern regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, NATO was wary to let the country join right away, despite its commitment to helping the US in the Middle East.
Georgia’s plans to join NATO and be recognized as a Western country did move forward finally, when a NATO envoy visited the country last April, according to Civil Georgia, a Georgian news organization. Georgia is now moving to meet membership requirements, and James Appathurai, NATO’s Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia, said that Georgia’s participation in Afghanistan was a factor in moving to let them join the Alliance. Currently, Georgia is not yet a member of NATO, but has decided to send more trips to Afghanistan, making it the largest non-NATO contributor to the Afghan operation, according to the Turkish Weekly, a news organization based in Turkey.
NATO envoy James Appathurai in Georgia capital Tbilisi last April.
Squabbling over Borderlands
Any and all of Georgia's efforts to define itself as a sovereign, Westernized nation, deserving of a NATO membership, however, are counteracted by its never-ending conflict with Russia and Georgia's northern regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Both Abkhazia and South Ossetia are regions that want to claim independence from Georgia, an independence that only Russia recognizes.
Repeated bombings in the regions are declared Russian terrorist attacks by the Georgian government, according to Civil Georgia. The Russian government, on the other hand, resents Georgia for claiming both South Ossetia and Abkhazia as part of the country's territory, and accuses Georgia of trying to start conflict.
The ill will between the two countries remain after two decades of Georgian independence as Russia tries to maintain some of the Cold War might it held, and Georgia struggles to define itself as a free nation.
Shaking off the Chains of Communism
Georgia is not just trying to set itself apart from Russia through shows of military prowess. Most recently, on June 1, the Georgian parliament voted into law the Freedom Charter, which declared that the government would purge the country of communist symbols left over from the Soviet days and ban former communists from taking roles in the government, according to Vestnik Kavkasa, a Caucasus news organization. The law was proposed by head of the “Strong Georgia” party Giya Tortladze and written by Georgia President Mikheil Saakashvili. According to RussiaToday columnist Konstantin Kosachev, the Freedom Charter stands as a symbolic legislative gesture: Georgia is not the communist country that the Soviet Union was. They are Westward-facing, democratic capitalists. Kosachev questions,
however, whether this backlash against old communist habits is even necessary. Most communist parties in Russia are small, unorganized and lacking any political power, and Kosachev argues that the Freedom Charter is an unnecessary act in a country where communist sentiment is all but nonexistent.
And that is certainly true. Most of the country is eagerly looking forward to a NATO membership, with the Georgian press frequently running articles on the state of affairs. Though there are several communist parties in Georgia, most of them are small and unorganized, with no political power, and resent the Westerners as "invaders," according to Caucaz' article "The Last of the Georgian Communists." With the fall of the Soviet Union, communism in Georgia also fell apart.
Koko Gagoshvili, one of the few members of the Georgian United Communist Party.
English Lessons
In addition to officially condemning communism, the Georgian government is also showing its allegiance to a new Westernized country by adopting the language of both capitalism and Westernized countries: English. In September of 2010, the country began running a sort of exchange program to bring native English speakers to Georgian schools to teach English, according to Al Jazeera.
English is after 20 years officially supplanting Russian as the foreign language children learn in schools. Bridging the gap between Georgia and the West is more than just a language issue, though, said some participants in the program. Despite the students' eagerness to learn from their foreign teachers, the American participants say that racism, homophobia, and an intolerance for criticism of the program make teaching in Georgia difficult. Couple that with the high rates of poverty and unemployment, and many question whether it is worthwhile to import English teachers, according to the Al Jazeera article.
Georgian minister of education Dimitri Shashkini, however, argues that the English courses are absolutely necessary, and helping future generations of Georgians to get jobs and compete globally, taking the country into the international scene.
Doing Everything They Can
Now, the country is resolutely turned Westward, fighting as allies in wars led by Western countries, learning English and working to join Western organizations. Once they've been allowed into NATO, Caucaz says, Georgia may attempt to join the European Union, making it the Easternmost country geographically to do so. This is, of course, just a little reminiscent of Russia's attempts to join European culture under the Czars.
No comments:
Post a Comment