International Relations and Security Network (ISN)
ISN Security Watch
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August 21, 2008
Letters from Georgia: Nationalism and fear
People fleeing to Tbilisi arrive by the truckload into an atmosphere filled with apprehension and nationalism.
By Ben Judah in Tbilisi for ISN Security Watch
Ben Judah is a senior correspondent for ISN Security Watch. He is based in London and Paris.
Children are playing outside Tbilisi's School Six but they are not taking a break from their studies. Inside the dilapidated classrooms almost 400 internally displaced persons (IDP) from South Ossetia and Gori are unpacking the few belongings they have brought from rubbish sacks and plastic bags. Georgian sources estimate that as many as 60,000 such IDPs are now in the capital.
Dali Dzarcemi points out his village on a map of Georgia hanging above a blackboard. "A week ago Russians, Ossetians, Chechens and Cossacks came and burned our house," he told me. "All of the Georgian people living in the village had to flee.
"I don't think I will be able to go back to my village. It's in the area the Ossetians want to keep. I'm terrified. I'm a farmer. I have no clue how I can make a good life for me and my family in the city," he told me.
Dzarcemi said his wife's brother was shot during the fighting and is in the hospital, but he is mostly concerned about his two year old son Sergo.
"We are not hungry. We have what we need. But the special stuff you need for children is expensive and they don't give it for free. My wife is pregnant, how can I raise a newborn and a small boy in a classroom with two rubbish bags of possessions?"
In the next classroom along the corridor Achiko Yelkcenuli worries about his brother in the army. "I haven't heard from him today. Normally he calls every day. You never know if something could have happened."
Achiko says he has lost his home and knows dozens of people who have either lost family members or friends. I ask him if those who fled the fighting blame Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili in any way for the conflict, which began when he ordered a military incursion into South Ossetia on 7 August, prompting Russia's fierce response.
"No. I am a proud Georgian. I am proud of my leader. He is defending our land against the enemy."
There are similar replies from others in the center; and often nationalist claims that the Ossetians only arrived in thet 1920s, on the back of Russian troops who invaded the area.
The school's director, Shota Manjavidze, has hastily become the man in charge of the group. When I ask him about their feelings toward the Georgian government, I get a more nuanced reply. "There are people who don't like Saakashvili here in this center: I think half of them. But they keep quiet about it. It's best not to be heard speaking against him. It's not patriotic. People could get very angry about that."
As I make my way to the Georgian state television center I pass three military truckloads of people who fled the fighting. One of the passgeners, Dato, is from Gori and has just finished studying at the Georgian Technical University. When I asked him for his opinion of the government, he said that it had tried to bring Georgia into the European and NATO fold, and was almost successful.
"But this war is not about that – Russia can have on its borders only slaves or enemies. She could not have a free and successful Georgia."
Dato's views are a reflection of how Georgians themselves are interpreting the war – not as an opening clash between former president and now prime minister Vladimir Putin's resurgent Russia and the West in a second Cold War - but as a national struggle for land and independence.
Walls around Tbilisi are covered with nationalist graffiti and the press here is full of patriotic photos of Georgian soldiers holding holy icons. For most people I speak to, the EU and NATO are dream-like concepts while the real story is about reclaiming territory they view as having been stolen from them by Russian-backed separatists.
Dato argues that Saakashvili is the right leader at the right time. "The Rose Revolution was about national pride. He personifies that. When I see how the whole world is with him during this war it makes me proud to be Georgian – and certain that somehow we will win."
Inside the buildings the Georgian state television center I meet Tamar Urushadze, a young reporter who says she was shot four times by Russian troops live on air. Her arm is bandaged and hangs in a sling. She says will never have full use of it again.
For Urushadze these are frightening times. "There is fear. Nobody really knows what will happen to our country and our people. Right now people are rallying around the flag and the government. Even the opposition parties are behind Saakashvili now. This is about our survival as a free and sovereign state."
The atmosphere in Tbilisi is one of nationalism and fear as more people continue to arrive from South Ossetia. There is uncertainty over what will unfold, which only only deepens the conflict narrative sold by the government and taken up by most of the population: a national struggle against a barbaric enemy to defend the inviolable borders of the state. European peacemakers and Georgia's ally, the US, should consider this as they attempt to bring not just a cease-fire to Georgia – but also a lasting solution to its woes.