"Georgia On My Mind" by Laurens and Rachel

Member Article submitted by Rachel on Tuesday, 26th May 2009. 07:51 PM

Much of the media commentary on Russia's recent invasion of Georgia has viewed the situation through the lens of post-Soviet geo-politics with Georgia playing David to Russia's mighty Goliath.

However, Mark Almond, a history lecturer at Oxford University, disagrees with such analyses and in a recent article for The Guardian, described criticism of Russia's actions as 'crudely simplistic'.¹ He also spoke at a Stop the War Coalition meeting in London entitled Georgia, NATO & the Spread of War and, as the StWC's report on the event suggests "provided the meeting with the sort of background information on Georgia so sadly lacking on the BBC".²

Since Georgia's so-called 'Rose Revolution', President Saakashvili has been determined to secure NATO membership and has sent troops to both Iraq and Afghanistan. Anyone seeking to oppose the corruption of his regime can expect to be intimidated, beaten or tortured by his security forces.

What Mark Almond seems to grasp is that the superpower pitted against superpower analysis doesn't take into account the role of those who curry favour with powerful regimes to forward their own micro-nationalism. As he points out "small nationalisms are rarely sweet-natured" and whilst the Western media may have sought to portray Georgia as the victim here, many South Ossetians and Abkhazians welcome the presence of Russian troops to protect them against the Tbilisi regime.

You would think that the West had learned its lesson from its blinkered meddling in Kosovo, where the perennial ogre of Serbian nationalism has been employed to further Western influence in the former Yugoslavia. What those seduced by the myth of Kosovo's gezuar pavaresia (happy independence) are not so keen to hear is that whilst Pristina was preparing to celebrate independence with 80 tons of fireworks, elsewhere in Kosovo (like the northern city of Mitrovica) things weren't so simple. In Mitrovica, Serbs live to the north of the River Ibar with Albanians to the south and the city has become an evocative symbol of a divided nation.

In claiming to be exorcising the spirit of a 'Greater Serbia', the West have merely opened the door for other nationalist ambitions to prevail but of course, only those with a seemingly more pro-Western flavour than the regime of Milošević. Scratch beneath the surface, however, and your average 'humanitarian' might uncover the inconvenient truth that the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) is likely to have been trained and funded by everyone's favourite demon of the hour, al-Qaeda.

Those who point out such hypocrisies leave themselves open to the usual accusations that they are apologists for dictators but just because someone suggests that Milošević wasn't the only pernicious influence in the Balkans, it doesn't mean that they support him. There may be those with a worrying tendency to jump into bed with anyone who refuses to toe the West's party line but many of the voices of concern about the situation in Kosovo have come from those directly involved in the most recent Balkan conflicts. For example, Major-General Lewis MacKenzie (the commander of UN forces during the 1992 Bosnian Civil War) told the Canadian National Post in 1994,

The Kosovo-Albanians have played us like a Stradivarius. We have subsidized and indirectly supported their violent campaign for an ethnically pure and independent Kosovo.³

As with the Balkans, the governments wringing their hands at the human cost of the Georgian conflict are also delighted that, once again, nationalism has given Western capitalism an excuse to launch an assault under the cover of humanitarianism. Not that it ever needs that much of an excuse, its agenda is hardly covert.

Georgia's economy went into freefall after the collapse of the Soviet Union - a situation exacerbated by constant tensions with the Russian regime. In 2006, Russia banned the import of Georgian wine and broke financial links between the two states, before increasing the price at which it sells gas to its neighbour. The civil wars in South Ossetia and Abkhazia haven't helped and the recent heightening of tension will have done little for the tourist trade upon which Georgia has come to rely.

The World Bank has named Georgia as 'the number one economic reformer in the world' after its rank in the 'ease of doing business' stakes improved from 112th to 18th in one year. And of course, Saakashvili's willingness to play ball with the West has brought with it 'sweeteners' from both the World Bank and the IMF.⁴

Georgia has to import gas and oil but whilst its own 'security of supply' is precarious, the country is integral to fuelling the West's consumption-driven lifestyles, being home to a section of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline and the parallel South Caucasus gas pipeline.

Some Georgians see the pipeline as a way of achieving political stability and economic security whilst others welcome the presence of Western interests as a balance to the influence of Russia and Iran in the region. Perhaps unsurprisingly, these voices tend to be those emanating from those who will profit from the pipelines whilst those whose land was violently appropriated, who died during construction or who suffered imprisonment and worse for opposing the scheme tend to be overlooked.

In addition to human rights issues, the BTC pipeline has been highly controversial with environmental groups pointing out that the area is highly seismic (the pipeline passing through three active faults in Azerbaijan, four in Georgia and seven in Turkey). There are question marks over the 'technical solutions' that the project's engineers claim to have implemented to reduce the risks from earth movement and a spill from the pipeline in Georgia would also affect one of its major exports. Somewhat ironically, given our focus on the demands of Western consumerism, this is one of the most wasteful and pointless commodities - bottled mineral water.

It should, however, be noted that supporters of the scheme offer an environmental trade-off, pointing out that the pipeline eliminates 350 tanker cargoes per year through the congested and ecologically sensitive Bosphorus and Dardanelles.

From another angle, opponents suggest that the pipeline poses a major security risk, given that there are a number of violent conflicts raging both in the countries that it passes through and surrounding areas, not least that in Georgia. Despite being constantly guarded and buried underground, at the time of writing the pipeline was closed after an explosion and fire on 6 August 2008, for which the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) claimed responsibility.⁵

Whatever mitigation is offered in the form of reducing the transportation of oil by sea and alleged socio-economic benefits for the Georgian people, this pipeline is ultimately in place to maintain the West's energy-greedy lifestyles based on finite resources. So whilst it's hardly a shock that competing local interests in this region have erupted into violence, it is equally unsurprising that the West are poking their noses in under the guise of humanitarian intent.

Very few of us have been able to rid our lives completely of fossil fuels and even for the most committed amongst us, the transition to a lifestyle where we no longer use these fuels to cook, wash, drive or heat our homes won't happen overnight. The fact that we are aware of the problem and the need for urgent action means that we are a step ahead of most but too many people are completely detached from the effect that their everyday lives have on global issues - even in light of ever-rising energy prices.

All too often, the threat posed to our future on this planet by capitalism and climate change are seen as secondary to protecting the 'rights' of those who would rather find a blinkered solidarity within invisible geographical borders. In the Caucasus, as in the Balkans, conflict is the result of a complex mesh of interwoven issues and although nationalism is often cited as one of these issues by commentators, it seems to be perceived as an unchangeable factor of human society, despite being largely the invention of nineteenth century power politics.

This will be epitomised in the undoubted hysteria that will greet those returning home from the Olympic Games in Beijing with medals, not least here in the UK. China has failed to honour any of the promises it made to address environmental and human rights concerns when it was awarded the Olympics and yet once a few shiny trinkets on ribbons are handed out, international disgust makes way for national pride.

It's not even as if these people are actually doing something of direct benefit for their nation as a whole, mostly they're satisfying their own ego and creating an environment where winning (and the associated financial rewards) are all important. One Afghani athlete at the Olympic Games will receive £25,000 from a mobile phone company because he won a bronze medal but this money could surely be put to better and wider use amongst those living in poverty in Afghanistan.6 Meanwhile, here in the UK, community spaces (including open-access sports facilities, green spaces and allotments) are already making way for facilities for the London Olympics where a select few will be groomed for medal success.

Whether it's showing its acceptable face via the adoration of Olympic medal winners or its more frowned upon alter-ego of BNP bigotry, nationalism is a pernicious pest in our society and, as Mark Almond suggests, we should be as wary of its use by small states as by superpowers.

In the context of free market economics, globalisation is supposed to erode national boundaries but the capitalist elites who advocate it, whether they are in America or Armenia, the UK or Uganda, also need spurious social constructs like nationality to prop up the industries from which they profit most, not least war. In addition, the transformation of natural resources into commodities to be traded between nations further alienates us from the idea that such resources and the planet that provides them are the common heritage of us all.

Patriotism and national identity aren't really about unity, they're merely a veneer of unity for an otherwise broken and divided society. More importantly, they are employed by governments across the globe to keep the majority competing with one another rather than challenging them. Whether Russia and Georgia are battling in military uniforms in South Ossetia or in bikinis on the Olympic beach volleyball court, it will always be those at the top who benefit from the social divides caused by such competition.

Notes

1. See http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/09/georgia.russia1

2. See http://www.stopwar.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=705&Itemid=27

3. See http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1112681/posts

4. Information from Wikipedia page on Georgia, which is a good general overview of the country and provides links to other areas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_(country)

5. For more information on BTC pipeline see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan_pipeline

6. See http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/mar2005/afgh-m02.shtml

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"Georgia On My Mind" by Laurens and Rachel