‘CIVIC PATRIOTISM’ IS EASIER SAID THAN DONE

The Messenger, Georgia
Feb 20 2007

On a recent visit to the Georgian controlled villages of South Ossetia
President Saakashvili emphasised that "Georgian patriotism is not about
ethnicity". The president spoke at length of the "civic condition" that
he believes makes a Georgian a Georgian. Saakashvili stressed that he
wanted to create a Georgia where all citizens were patriots regardless
of their ethnic origin, and we could not agree more with him.

Georgia is, and always has been, a multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic,
and multi-confessional place. The earliest records of Georgia in
western histories speak of how ancient explorers had to hire dozens of
interpreters in certain towns, and while that isn’t necessary today,
it is easy to forget that a fairly large chunk of Georgia’s population
today-more than ten percent-would need a translator or interpreter
if they wanted to go to court deal with the local authorities.

Georgia’s large Armenian and Azeri minorities are put at a large
disadvantage by not knowing Georgian, the state language in which
all official business is legally required to be carried out in. From
independence until the Rose Revolution the integration of these
minorities was at best ignored, and at worst they bore the brunt of
Zviad Gamsakhurdia’s ultra-nationalist campaign. Things are better
now, but integration efforts spearheaded by Tbilisi have often been
poorly thought out and implemented-only further alienating the people
they were designed to help.

One such example is the well meant but ultimately foolish plan to
send teachers of Georgian as a foreign language to the economically
depressed Armenian populated areas of Javakheti. The teachers were
given high salaries to compensate for the move to the harsh conditions
of Javakheti, but when the locals saw these Georgians from the capital
being paid much, much more than local teachers, they naturally took it
as favouritism and another example of discrimination by the central
authorities.

In spite of the new government’s more pro-active stance on integration,
some of the their policies have been deeply counterproductive, such
as enforcing the law whereby all official business-including criminal
cases-must be conducted in Georgian. This means that in areas where
minorities make up more than 90 percent of the population, there are
no minority officials, lawyers or judges.

The constitution of the short lived Democratic Republic of Georgia
allowed minorities, in areas where they made up more than 20 percent
of the population, to conduct official state business in their mother
tongue, as is the case in many other multi-ethnic European states
like Romania and Macedonia.

If the government are serious about creating a civic form of patriotism
in Georgia it is essential they do not put the long neglected ethnic
minorities of the country at further disadvantage.

The existing generation of Armenians and Azeri’s cannot be expected
to master Georgian, and their children only will if they see while
growing up that they have a future in Georgia the nation while not
being in Georgian the nationality.

Georgia has no conflicts with either its Azeri or Armenian minorities,
so imagine what message a decent and equitable integration strategy
with full respect for language and culture would send to the conflict
zones.

Perhaps the government should take a hint from its pre-Soviet
predecessor.