Central Tbilisi is filling up with people coming out for an officially sanctioned (and organized) but also popularly supported rally for Georgia and against Russia. In the main roads, a human chain is forming, one that takes in the main cathedral and Parliament, as well as business areas, residential neighborhoods and bridges across the Mtkvari. It’s a conscious recollection of the human chains and other protest actions in the Baltics in their run-up to independence from the Soviet Union, and the messages are the same: “Yay us!” and “Ivan go home!”
One of the accompanying web sites is at stoprussia.org, but the version at stoprussia.ge is much more graphic. Unfortunately, and perhaps typically, the English version of the .ge site is nearly devoid of text — the history and news sections were blank when I checked yesterday.
In a bit of technological recursiveness, the tv pictures are showing people on the streets taking videos and snapping pictures with their phone cams.
Just saw a guy walk by in a t-shirt with Ukrainian national emblems. Too early, dude. This is Georgia. Ukraine’s not due up just yet. Another person holding a big Georgian flag, with small Polish and Lithuanian flags. The friends and exemplars.
To be sure, the action has official sanction and support, but it’s also genuinely popular. I’ve seen flags all across the three neighborhoods I’ve been in today, and I don’t think it’s the greengrocer effect.
Video now from other parts of Georgia, where similar rallies are happening. Obviously this sort of mobilization would have been more effective before the military losses last month. On the other hand, there might not have been the broad-based unity without the losses. And even a persistent national mobilization wouldn’t have done anything to convince the S. Ossetian and Abkhazian leaderships to consent to rule from Tbilisi. With a blank check from Moscow, who needs compromise?
Pissed off older woman now burning her Russian passport for the camera. My Georgian is nonexistent, but it isn’t hard to guess what she’s saying. (Video later from another city, people in the background chanting “Ivan go home!” in English. I thought I was being at least a little hyperbolic above. Pictures have also come through from Poti, Gori and Batumi. Now a guy in a suit reporting from Brussels, where various things are presumably being promised.)
Getting rid of a Russian occupation is tough going even in the best of times, with a Kremlin leadership that’s willing to pull back. With the current crew, who knows how long they’ll stick around?
How many $$ did the NED, IRI and Soros put into that ‘rally’?
They probably organized that rally cheap. Like Saakashvili’s “election,” they probably democratically encouraged them with a couple chickens and some wood for cooking them.
These people should be rallying to get rid of Saakashvili. His faulty government decisions led to this mess.
Too bad the EU has lost all credibility to be a responsible mediator, especially since Kosovo. They’ve shown themselves as forked tongued hypocrites. They have no moral fiber among them.
It could be a cold, Cold Winter.
I especially like the “show off to EU/US” part of the rallies. Most Georgians could say and/or write it in Russian. But these rallies are not aimed at Russia, instead they are aimed at Western media corporations.
Shorter Todd: Georgians should think what I think, because I say so. (Perhaps their government, or some other government, should dissolve the people and elect another? Brecht never goes out of style.)
And the quasi-racist contempt is showing, real bad.
There’s a lot of delight in suffering in the comments here. Todd is definitely looking for punishment for those uppity Georgians, hoping they freeze in the next winter.
Hi Alex. Thank you. Brecht certainly had style. I think what is so disappointing in this is that the EU is showing that the Weimar Republic is back in vogue. “Georgia is sovereign and Serbia is not because we say to!” It doesn’t appear to take in some circles though.
Hi Hector. Well, as one diplomat has said, “what sauce is good for the gooose is good for the gander.” Georgia will have gas. I just hope the bribes have lost their value, given his action. Others, especially those in an aggressive alliance operating in Russia’s immediate zone of interest, may not get as much gas as they’d like. Cold it could be for them. The missle defense shield is a good start.
BTW Saakashvili is no democrat. That was an earlier point.
http://blogs.tol.org/georgia/2008/01/06/osce-on-the-elections-in-georgia/
The US has just paid Georgia 1 million for that war. (See Reuters today.)
I’d say a not unreasonable budget for an international PR event. Loose change out of Cheney’s back pocket.
Georgians need little encouragement to dislike Russians, but whether organised hatemongering is helpful remains to be seen. You don’t need a human chain when Russia can simply close the border altogether – to everything including the 20% of Georgia’s GDP that’s sent home by Georgians working in Russia.