Georgian Tunes: How Tired We Are of the “Same Old Songs”, by Alexey Lomiya

Many eagerly awaited what Georgia’s "dreamers" would offer to Abkhazia and South Ossetia amid the warming of relations with Russia. The party leader announced a sensational proposal for the "breakaway regions."

The Same Old Refrain

To be honest, I am highly sceptical of any initiatives from our neighbours across the Ingur River. And there’s a solid reason for that. Any so-called peaceful proposals in recent history, and not only in recent times, have often led to conflicts and bloodshed.

Georgia's ambitions have traditionally been overly inflated, and the place it envisions for Abkhazia and the Abkhazians in its future, to put it mildly, doesn’t suit us. The people of a small but independent country have long been convinced that the best prospect for all is peaceful coexistence as separate states.

For decades, we have persistently proposed signing a non-aggression pact, but alas, time passes, and Georgian politicians keep playing the same old tune, like a worn-out record, about a "happy, free, democratic country within its borders as they were at the time of the Soviet Union's collapse."

This has become so tiresome that I don’t even want to read these laments over unattainable dreams in the news feeds. But, as I wrote earlier, there was a hint of intrigue. Well, what if! What if they finally saw the futility and flawed nature of their predictable manoeuvres and wanted to propose a revolutionary approach to solving all the problems. Alas.

A New Verse

Never before had I been so eager to hear the address of Georgia’s Prime Minister Kobakhidze at the UN General Assembly. After all, it was from this prestigious platform that he promised to announce a “peaceful initiative.” And what a disappointment it was when his entire speech boiled down to the usual boasting: that, apparently, Georgia’s economy is developing by leaps and bounds, that Sakartvelo is a bastion of democracy where human rights are diligently upheld, and that by 2030, Georgia is set to join the European Union. We have heard this before, nothing new to surprise us. But where was the peace plan? And this is where the complete disappointment set in. Everything was reduced to the claim that by that time, Georgia would restore its territorial integrity and join the EU together with the “brotherly peoples of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.” This, it seems, is the “Georgian Dream.”

What is there to say? It’s all as old as time. You would think it’s time to throw out this record, but no, the Georgians still try to restore it and pass it off as fit for listening. To be fair, it must be noted that in his speech, Kobakhidze did stress that reunification would be achieved exclusively by peaceful means. Only in this aspect does the current Georgian approach differ from previous ones. But what must happen for the long-suffering peoples of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, who, after such sacrifices and upheavals, gained their freedom through the heroism and selflessness of their defenders, losing an irreplaceable number of young lives in the wars, to voluntarily return to the fold of Georgia?

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The Duet Doesn’t Work Out

Perhaps they are counting on support from Russia in this? But, as before, Russia has once again confirmed that there will be no revocation of its recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, emphasised that Russia is ready to facilitate a peaceful resolution of the conflict and the start of dialogue between the countries. But then, as expected, the Mayor of Tbilisi and Secretary General of the ruling party, Kakha Kaladze, made a statement suggesting that Russia should develop a plan for the withdrawal of its troops from 'Georgian territory', by which he naturally meant Abkhazia and South Ossetia. And that’s the whole charade.

No Illusions Here

There can be no illusions about this. To see it clearly, one only needs to look at the situation within Georgia itself. Pampered and favoured during the Soviet Union, Georgians have always seen themselves, for some reason, as a God-chosen supernation, a special elite that found itself shackled by the USSR due to unfortunate circumstances. And when the Soviet colossus collapsed, they openly declared their direction—Europe and NATO—hoping for benefits and concessions from their new patrons. And to this day, no one in Georgia has abandoned this stance.

But, as they say, old habits die hard. The defiance they are now showing towards their Western and American patrons, in my firm belief, is just a game to raise the stakes, driven by short-term pragmatism.

A new generation has grown up and come into its own in Georgia—a youth cohort that sets the tone in political struggles. Their vision for Georgia’s future is directed solely towards the West. This is how they see themselves—“modern, progressive Europeans” with all that it entails. And here lies the chasm between us; we are clearly not on the same path. Live in peace, but without us!

This article was published by Sputnik Abkhazia and is translated from Russian.