Filling the Void: Ethnic Politics and Nationalities Policy in Post-Conflict Georgia

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Notes

1. Given a context where incumbent regimes in Georgia have regularly relied on a significant margin of fraud through electoral roll manipulation, and also the politically sensitive nature of the census results, many domestic observers have cast doubt on the accuracy of the 2002 census. However, it is our only source of information on demographic trends in Georgia, and the aforementioned criticisms notwithstanding, a reasonable indicator of broad trends.

2. International Organization for Migration (IOM), Hardship Abroad or Hunger at Home. This is attested, for example, by rising numbers of compulsory expatriations of illegal immigrants from Georgia from Western states and by rising refusal rates for visa applications at the US embassy in Tbilisi. Zakareishvili and Svanidze, Emigration from Georgia and its Causes, 2.

3. Ibid., 18–19. Research conducted by the International Organization for Migration suggests that it is other categories of social vulnerability that are disproportionately represented in human trafficking: women, youth and inexperienced travellers. IOM, Hardship Abroad or Hunger at Home, 53.

4. Laitin, Language Repertoires and State Construction in Africa, 5.

5. One possible explanation for this anomaly is that Georgians under-reported their knowledge of Russian in 1989 as a result of the already politicized nature of the language issue at that time.

6. Nadareishvili, Genocide in Abkhazia.

7. See, for example, Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire; Brubaker, “Nationhood and the National Question in the Soviet Union and Post-Soviet Eurasia,” 47–78.

8. Brubaker, “Nationhood and the National Question in the Soviet Union and Post-Soviet Eurasia.”

9. Shevardnadze, Akhali prioritetebi akhali sakartvelostvis, 2, emphasis in the original.

10. Paradoxically, one of the arguments put forward by a co-author of one of the drafts in favour of the law is to curtail intolerance within minorities, not the majority. Zhorzholiani, “Protection of the Rights of National (Ethnic) Minorities (Historic Background of the Draft Law of Georgia on the Rights of National Minorities),” 19.

11. Article 1.3 of a draft national minority law proposed by the NGO Public Movement—Multinational Georgia defines a national minority broadly as “a non-dominant group of the population, living permanently on the territory of Georgia and constituting a numerical minority, differing in origin from the titular nation and aspiring to preserve its national, linguistic and religious identity, way of life, traditions and culture.” Article 1.1 of the draft law authored by G. Zhorzholiani and A. Abashidze defines national minority as “a group of citizens of Georgia, for whom the state language of Georgia is not their national language (the ethnic or native language), a group that possesses other sustainable ethnic characteristics whereby it differs from the majority of the country's population and constitutes a numerical minority striving to preserve and develop its native language, culture and traditions.”

12. Kokoev et al., National Minorities in Georgia, 7.

13. Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship, 11–26.

14. The distinction between the older generation comprising the “intelligentsia,” located in traditional academic institutions and state-funded media, and a younger generation of “intellectuals” located in NGOs and the independent media has been suggested by Georgian political scientist Gia Nodia. Nodia sees the former as more likely to espouse loyalty to “traditional” national values, such as the primacy of Georgian Orthodoxy, and look cautiously upon Western influences, and the latter as having embraced Western liberal democratic values (many having studied in the West), which they see as incompatible with what they see as conservative nationalist ideology. This cleavage is by no means impermeable but nonetheless accounts for radically differing approaches to the issue of ethnic diversity in Georgia, emblematic not only of contrasting intellectual influences but also social locations vis-à-vis the state. Nodia, “Dzveli inteligentsia da akhali intelektualebi sakartveloshi: paradigmis tsvla?,” 9–22.

15. The theory of the Abkhazians' “immigrant” status was first mooted by historian Davit Bakradze in the late nineteenth century. It was revisited in historian Pavle Ingoroqva's 1954 work giorgi merchule, and popularized in the Georgian media in the late 1980s. The theory was lent further legitimacy by Georgian Academician Tamaz Gamqrelidze's indirect corroboration of its core assumptions. See Gamqrelidze, “On the History of the Tribal Names of Ancient Colchis (On the Historical–Etymological Relation of the Ethnonyms “Apxaz-/Abazg-” and “Abaza/Apswa”),” 237–47.

16. Nodar Natadze, “Apkhazeti sakartvelos tsentraluri khelisuplebis iurisdiktsiis garantirebuli aghdgenis kontseptsia,” b5–b6.

17. This distinction also needs to be seen in the context of the current employment context obtaining within higher education institutes in Georgia. Apart from the fact that lecturers currently face swollen classes and totally inadequate salaries, the appointments system within Georgia's state-funded universities was until the accession of the United National Movement government in 2004 dominated by considerations of personal and political loyalty. Employment in the non-governmental sector has offered the only outlet for many younger Georgian intellectuals, contributing to a genuine gap between generations and their respective intellectual influences.

18. The capacity for civic activists to produce actual policy proposals, and thereby put pressure on policy-making officials, is increasing. One recent example is a proposal for the reintegration of Abkhazia along federal lines, published in the independent newspaper 24 saati. “Kontseptsia sakartvelos sakhlemtsiposhi apkhazetis gansakutrebuli statusis shesakheb,” 5–8.

19. See Nodia, Ethnic-Confessional Groups and Challenges to Civic Integration in Georgia, 68.

20. The absence of anti-Semitism in Georgia does need to be seen in context, however. Historically it is Armenians who fulfilled the socio-economic function associated with Jewish communities in other parts of Eastern Europe, that of a mercantile bourgeoisie, and to a debatable extent Armenophobia has acted as a similarly motivated surrogate for anti-Semitism in Georgia (though without the same connotations of extremism). Armenophobia was a significant exception to the generally liberal nationalism of the “father” of the modern Georgian nation, nineteenth-century activist Ilia Chavchavadze, and in the form of the large-scale expropriation of Armenian-owned assets, harassment of the Armenian population of Tbilisi and territorial conflict with the newly emergent Armenian state, an important aspect of interethnic relations in the 1918–1921 period of independence. A sense of rivalry, and suspicion of Armenia's traditionally cordial relations with Russia, continues to suffuse popular views of Georgian–Armenian relations.

21. The claim regarding Ossetic does have a basis in fact. In North Ossetia 89% of Ossetians registered knowledge of Russian as a first or second language compared to 53.1% of Ossetians in Georgia registering knowledge of Georgian.

22. See Gordadze, “La Géorgie et ses ‘hôtes ingrats,’” 161–76.

23. Nodia, Ethnic-Confessional Groups and Challenges to Civic Integration in Georgia, 67.

24. Kaplan, Balkan Ghosts; Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.

25. Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man.

26. Rustow, “Transitions to Democracy,” 14–41.

27. Consider, for instance, this recent commentary from The Economist: “For the western institutions that have spent billions of dollars trying to exorcize the demon of chauvinism from the Balkans and the Caucasus—and to promote the idea that nations and ethnic groups must co-operate to solve their post-communist problems—the persistence of nationalism is a puzzle and a disappointment” (24–30 July 2004, 13). For a critique of this view, see Kymlicka and Opalski, “Introduction,” 1–10.

28. See Kymlicka, “Western Political Theory and Ethnic Relations in Eastern Europe,” 16–21; Yack, “The Myth of the Civic Nation,” 103–18.

29. Kymlicka, “Western Political Theory and Ethnic Relations in Eastern Europe,” 18.

30. Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy, 338.

31. Ibid., 338–39.

32. Schöpflin, “Liberal Pluralism and Post-Communism,” 121.

33. According to a data set gathered by Grey Hodnett, Georgians occupied 97.2% of leading political positions in the Soviet Georgian republic in the period between 1955 and 1972. By contrast, the Georgian share of the population in 1970 was 66.8%. Hodnett, Leadership in the Soviet National Republics.

34. Nodia, Ethnic-Confessional Groups and Challenges to Civic Integration in Georgia, 87–88.

35. Nodia, “‘Polietnichnost’ Gruzii,” 88.

36. Although the prospect of “affirmative action” programmes was mooted by representatives of the political opposition in the campaign for the November 2003 elections, this issue has not been publicly revisited since the victory of the opposition in the “Rose Revolution.”

37. “Saakashvili encourages appointment of ethnic minorities on high positions.”

38. See Nodia, “‘Polietnichnost’ Gruzii,” 85. Virk itself rejected the compromise option of registration as a social organization, and remains an informal grouping.

39. Fuller, “Georgian Parliament Shelves Debate on Language Law.” For critical responses to the draft, see the articles published in Burji erovnebisa, the bulletin of the Besarion Jorbenadze Society of language activists: “Daskvna kanonproektze sakartevlos sakhelmtsipo enis shesakheb,” 2–3; “Akhla davtmot tavisupleba?!,” 3–6.

40. Arnold Stepanian and George Khutsishvili, information supplied to the “Education as a Tool for the Equal Participation of Minorities” conference, Tbilisi, 16–17 September 2004.

41. Nodia, “‘Polietnichnost’ Gruzii,” 89–93; Stepanian, “The Status of Minorities and Inter-ethnic Relations in Georgia,” 22–23.

42. Author's interview with Bela Tsipuria, Deputy Education Minister, Tbilisi, 14 October 2004.

43. A recent report on the state of higher education remarks that “[T]oday, Georgians can easily obtain a diploma without undergoing rigorous preparation from any state or private higher education institutes (with a few well-known exceptions).” Rostiashvili, Corruption in the Higher Education System of Georgia, 11.

44. 24 saati, 5 October 2004, 3.

45. For an overview see Zurabishvili, “Freedom of Confession and Religious Minorities in Georgia,” 24–27.

46. See Subari, “Georgia.”

47. See Fuller, “Who is Protecting Georgia's Maverick Priest?”

48. See Rayeva, “Georgia.”

49. Baazov and Baachi, “Tbilisi Tightens Screws on NGOs.”

50. Zurabishvili, “Freedom of Confession and Religious Minorities in Georgia,” 26.