Georgian Press about Georgian-Abkhaz “Post-Colonial” Conflict and Cultural-Political Relations between Georgia and Russia in Post-Soviet Time

NATALIA SVANIDZE^*

Summary

The subject matter of the present article is the reflections of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict and Abkhaz war (1992-1993) in the Georgian print media and the Georgian-Russian public and political relations.

The Georgian media discourse analysis the period from the 1980s to the present outlines feasible prospects for the resolution of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict.

We will look at the revaluation of the Soviet paradigms, as well as the intentional  mistakes made in order to underscore the necessity for  Georgia, Abkhazia and Russia, to overcome their negative stereotypes in favor of the future civilized interethnic relations. We aim to show the absurd and paranoid nature of violence, the need for kindred nations to have relations in order to maintain their identity, the advantages of rational consensus of nations located on the same geopolitical plane vis-a-vis violence, and that there is no alternative to the humanitarian will of bilateral political forgiveness and reconciliation.

Key Words: Mimicry, Hybridity, Subaltern, Binary oppositions of ‘My own’ and ‘Other’, the Colonizer and the Colonized, the Centre (Metropolis) and the Periphery.

“The Georgians’ right to this land and sea should also be protected. . . . There is always a place for cultures; only uncultured people are not able to find a place, because the very expression of ethnic hatred is anti-cultural per se.”^[1]

April 9, 1989, marked the day when Georgian resistance to the bureaucratic ideology of the Soviet empire was officially and universally declared. Georgia started to assert its own identity in the global politics as early as since the 1990s.^[2] The process of self-determination of nations in our country signaled joining the new world order, i.e. the adversary of the socialist system, the ‘Other’ (the West). However, the pre/postcolonial criticism contributing to the extensive process of decolonization persisted^[3] in the Georgian literary/media discourse^[4] for over two centuries.

It is impossible to conceptualize the postcolonial theoretical approach towards the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict^[5] without taking into account the history of Georgia’s “accession” to the Russian Empire / the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; whereas the precedent of one country subordinating another by force can safely be described by the term “colonization”. The present article singles out certain stereotypes^[6] that have had their toll on exacerbating the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict.

Importantly, the cultural processes in the post-Soviet Georgia were significantly influenced by public figures (such as A. Bakradze, M. Kostava, Z. Gamsakhurdia and others).^[7] The postcolonial sub-cultural social and political journalism itself, with its negative and positive features appeared to comprise the basic category of the new Georgian identity. From the very moment Georgia embarked on the path of building an independent state, the newly fledged country came to face a natural need to get to know the world at large and adapt to it. It has been correctly noted that after the 28 October 1990 elections, the conjectural newspapers, previously strictly controlled by the Soviet Government, start to change their names. So, this process is indicative of “a switch of emphasis not only within the categories of identity, but also within the dominant ideology.”^[8]

Franc Fanon argues (Fanon, 1961) that the purpose of decolonization on the global level is to change the world order, but, unfortunately, it is not something one can make appear by a magic wand.^[9] According to D. Moor, (Moor, 2001)^[10] the postcolonial extraordinariness of the Soviet regions has not yet been properly assessed. In the process of strengthening political power through seizing freedom by violence, the Georgian and Abkhaz subaltern^[11] makes use of the available resources anew trying to regain autonomy damaged under the colonial oppression.^[12] However, the post-Soviet subject, intrinsically aggressive to any form of totalitarianism, but politically unprepared and used to being patronized by another, recognizes, as would have been expected, the part of the National Movement that fights the subordinate past with the most primitive methods (besides, subordination is not characteristic of empires only; dominant elite groups can also have qualitatively subordinate subjects, just like they are subordinate to dominant institutions).^[13] In this respect, an interesting picture is provided by publications such as: “Once again about the ancient inhabitants of Abkhazia” by A. Oniani, “The scientific mischief continues” and “Scientific ignorance in the Abkhaz studies”, “Khrushchev, the Abkhaz and Georgians”.

From the liberal point of view, due to objective reasons, it was simply impossible for Georgia to have consistent and rational political references to the West in the 1990s. The heightened conflict that escalated into a serious military action, affected all ethnic groups living in Abkhazia, including, of course, Georgians and Abkhaz, who, although were by far not numerous, represented^[14] titular ethnic groups.^.[15] The UN observers came to the conclusion that both sides (Georgia and Abkhazia) were responsible for obvious violations of human rights. In May 1998, however, the warfare resumed.^[16] This fact, as the political analyst Svante Cornell comments (Svante, 2000), “once again dashed the hope of resolving the conflict in the near future”.^[17] Obviously, the step towards the “metaphysical” freedom taken by the national government proved to be a step back with respect to civic interests (quite often, the leaders of the struggle for liberation were making public statements that caused negative feelings among ethnic groups enjoying status of national minorities in Georgia. “Anti-Georgian forces” were also taking advantage of the situation).^[18] Under “Perestroika”, both Georgia and Abkhazia found ways to justify their claims to independence.

The Western scholarly language has defined the Georgian-Abkhaz type of conflict by a relevant term as “postcolonial conflict”.^[19] The Georgian discourse of the 1990s explicitly points out that the given conflict is essentially the post-Soviet conflict between Russia and Georgia. It does not stem solely from the antagonism between “the Georgian and Abkhaz nationalists”, but rather derives from the two-century-long controversy between Georgia and Russia (since the early nineteenth century until present).

Resorting the “icons”

The practice of resorting to “icons” is, in general, a strategy directed at maintaining collective identity; it creates a sense of increased threat, thus even more strongly consolidating the community members. The above technique has been used as a means of information warfare by all three parties – Georgia, Russia, and Abkhazia.^[20] It might as well be due to the artificially created information vacuum – or other internal reasons – that the Abkhaz side failed to fathom profoundly that the post-imperial Russia, in fact, was applying its tactic to achieve a complete assimilation of the southern periphery. The transforming metropolis, having claims to be the world’s leading power, had no intention whatsoever to give up this century-old plan – it would mean relinquishing the entire region of the Caucasus and amount to the recognition of its own fiasco. The scrutiny of the materials in the Georgian Media of the 80s and the 90s of the 20^th c. as well as the 2000s shows the validity of several stereotypes that have to different degrees been further reinforced by a series of essays such as: “False legends”^[21] and “The Abkhaz people and the Abkhaz language”.^[22] The results epitomize the following Abkhaz / Georgian stereotypes:

1.      The Georgians are to blame for all problems the Abkhaz have;

2.      The Abkhaz people are “Not our own people”, they are “Other” Caucasians;

and Georgian/Russian stereotypes that have been largely reinforced by articles such as: “The Russian cruelty”,^[23]or “Let’s call enemy its name”^[24]:

1.      The Russians are conquerors /aggressors;

2.      No one had ever been successful in bringing the Caucasus and Russia together by force;

3.      Russia remains to be an “eternal enigma”.

If we take the spatial notch of the “Soviet Culture” for the historical time pertaining to general culture, then it is possible to harmoniously locate the complex of self-perception by Georgian culture in the Soviet space, on the one hand, and place the Abkhaz cultural complex within the boundaries of Soviet Georgia, on the other.

The situation in the state becomes complicated when one nation perceives the other as “Other”/ “not belonging to it” while the relatedness to others often has a markedly negative / confrontational nature. Subsequently, we come across clear indications of bipolarism of Russian politics in periodical discussions. Unfortunately, the stakeholder parties do not hesitate to freely interpret the norms of the international law and the UN Charter. This exactly circumstance is highlighted^[25] in the article “Georgia is ready to break up” when he construes that the historical reality of our country against the background of the dispersing (Soviet) Union has turned into a major source of “ethnic” conflicts ever since the 1990s as the Soviet ethnic policy were on a par with the common goals of the Empire to manage the peripheries by “time bombs" guided by the Devide Et Impera principle:^[26]

The imperial politics of Tsarist Russia and Bolshevik Russia in Abkazia in the 19^th and the 20^th centuries are almost identical. The unrestrained striving to propound the Georgian regions as ethnicities and set them up against each other, deliberately inciting feud between the Georgians and the Apsua appears to be the fundamental right of the Soviet politics.^[27]

We can see different modes of impacting the imperial power as active and continuous ever since colonization. The resistance discourse and interaction are what factor most in the sustainability theory. The mutually beneficial relationship established between the governments of the metropolis and the peripheries is evident enough. As highlighted by Edward Said (Said, 1995)^[28]: Scholars, whether consciously or unconsciously, were creating a new ideological mechanism enabling the conquerors to exercise control and exonerating their actions.

Successfully implemented strategies

It can be said that the colonial strategies: a) assimilation of the subjugated / hybridization through language and b) developing a historical myth – creating an exaggerated perceptions of their past and origin – had been successfully implemented with respect to Abkhazia. A rather brusque political language had been forcing its way through against the background of the ongoing global and national self-determination and vis-à-vis a “balanced” political discussion. The Georgian print Media of the 1990s, full of national rhetoric, apparently did not or could not take into account how Abkhazia (Ossetia) would act after Georgia attained independence. The government of the newly fledged country was sending ethnic minorities living in Georgia the same messages on the official or unofficial level that had itself considered as the main flaw of the metropolis (throughout two centuries) and had criticized it for that. Unwittingly, the figures bearing a new national identity (A.Bakradze, Z. Gamsakhurdia, M. Kostava,  Ch. Amiredjibi,  and others) started to resemble “tiny” orientalists”.^[29] The attempt to legalize the term “Absua” with respect to the Abkhaz at the academic/ public level, and that with a connotation offensive to the Abkhaz, was a manifestation of this very shortcoming: ”the Apsua, same as Abazinians, appear on the territory of Abkhazia only in the late Middle Ages. No Apsua had ever lived in Abkhazia until 1621.“^[30]

It has been justly asserted that scientific assumptions have totally destroyed the historical consciousness of Georgian-Abkhaz unity. Therefore, as the researcher Z. Abzianidze (Abzianidze, 2000) says, “before sitting down at the table of negotiations, we all need to first look into our own souls . . . determine our share of blame in what has happened . . . , ” forget about revenge, and discard “Homo Bellator” (an armed man) from our thought.^[31] Even today, one can hear conflicting theories passed off as “scientific" contending, on the one hand, that “the contemporary Abkhaz" / Apsua are people who have come from outside, while, on the other hand, stating just the opposite: that the Abkhaz are Georgian just like Pshavs or Rachvelians . . . being mixed does not mean that the Circassians are Abkhaz or vice versa.”^[32] Exaggerated national self-esteem is a certain reflex to compensate for the lost war in Abkhazia. The myth of “Georgian nationalism”, an attempt to “forcefully georgianize” minorities, the so called “Georgianization Theory”, “discriminating” ethnic minorities – this is how some western authors characterize the Georgian policy towards national minorities pursued until the beginning of the twenty-first century.^[33]

Thus, there are at least two reasons – a) placing the Abkhaz in an ethnic area not of Georgian provenance; B) scientific re-signification of the Abkhaz subject as its “Other" kin – due to which the Abkhaz intellectual elite quite logically casts the Georgian subject out of the physical / virtual territory perceived as “its own” just like the Georgian ethnic subject itself discards Russificators (especially considering that the Georgian subject is better informed and, subsequently, carries a greater responsibility); the Abkhaz subject, on the other hand, as stated in certain Georgian circles, is “misinformed"^[34] about the real historical processes and its information policy is also under imperialist rule.

Destroyed social constructs

The postcolonial subjects discoursing from the rationalist scientific position, those who pioneer to resolve the conflict, have always understood that the endless clamor about the aboriginal roots would not lead anywhere but to deepening the rift: any version about the origin was equally irritating for the disoriented ethnic unity serving the purpose imposed on it by the Empire. Permanent violence characteristic of the colonial world was immanently repeated in the former Soviet Union, at a time when the indigenous social construct / everyday life was already destroyed.^[35] The Abaz, Apsua or Apsar, defending Georgia were alienated from the concept of Georgian-hood by the scholars or intellectual elite that shaped the so-called “Abkhaz separatism". The irritation of the Abaz consciousness reached its extremes, “their existence was ejected from the Georgian-hood” and the remaining vacuum was filled in return with the Russian “brotherly friendship".^[36]

According to the researcher U. Gruska (Gruska, 2000),^[37] the conflict in Abkhazia comes mainly as a result of the confrontation between the Georgian and Abkhaz nationalists. In our opinion, this is just one factor that kindled the conflict. The key role in the Abkhaz conflict goes to Russia’s desire to retain political influence in the “near abroad”. Creating the resistant anti-colonial discourse, the contemporary (2000s) Georgian print Media are tenaciously trying to prove their truth in the controversy with metropolitan subject: “The concept of “Georgian colonialism" is unknown to literature; it is familiar with “Russian colonialism”. Having Georgians live or settle in their own homeland / country (in the case, Abkhazia) cannot be considered as Colonialism.’’^[38] Both sides, the Georgian and the Abkhaz, know perfectly well that the only way to get rid of a colonist is to expel him from the world he has colonized, is a certain representation of Manichaeism^[39] on the secular level. As F. Fanon notes (Fanon, 1961), “not only is a colonist content with the physical space due to its totalitarian nature, but achieves the quintessence by declaring the colonized society devoid of value. The native is declared unethical, the one that denies values; it is the enemy to  meanings, i. e. the absolute evil.”^[40] Thus, the Abkhaz identity was expressed for the Georgians in an unusual toponym Apsua,^[41] while a successful experiment, that of the Russification of their cultural codes, was carried out on the Abkhaz ethnicity.

According to Susan Layton (Layton, 2005), “The correlation of the subject of a smaller ethnicity to the subject of a greater ethnicity can be described as sexual, as the strong one wants to take responsibility for the weak one at the expense of offending her virginal nature”.^[42] In our opinion, because of the unconscious gender, the Georgian nominal discourse inadvertently reinforced the resistance persisting on the unconscious level, “transferring” all possible guilt onto Russia (and the Abkhaz, in their turn, blaming Georgians), under the pretext that the “virginal nature” cannot be blamed. The responsibility for the committed evil is placed on the experience-bearing masculine icon: “Russia’s deception and treachery is not surprising to anyone. For half of the world, it is not a reliable partner [...] Russia cannot be trusted, of course.“^[43] However, the collective perceptions of the anti-Georgian oriented Abkhaz did not coincide with our own perceptions. During the self-determination period (1988-1989), the legitimate paradigm of “being Georgian, speaking Georgian and building an independent state” is illegitimate for the Abkhaz elite / public circles. “My own” of the Georgian academic historical discourse – “the Georgians and Abkhaz had a common misfortune in the face of Russian colonialism in the 19th century"^[44] – becomes “Other”, it becomes alien to the Georgian context because its standardized national language factually / legally has long been Russian. Language in the post-colonial philosophy^[45] is synonymous to thought; being part of culture, it is used as a tool of oppression by the metropole in the same way as any other method is. “Language has always been a weapon of spiritual enslavement”, - says Ngugi wa Thiong’o (Thiong’o, 2004).^[46] There is no denying that the Soviet empire prioritized the promotion of the development of art and culture as well as various fields of science,^[47] but in Georgia, who was creating a new identity, what had been installed by force could not be eradicated by the same force.^[48] It is exactly this type of force that ethnic minorities have been underscoring (this view has been permanently rejected by Georgian objects of discussion). It might be true that the new ethnicity had lost touch with its old homeland and, now referred to as Apsua, did not have any other homeland (by contrast with Ossetians),^[49] but the derogative terms only intensified the hatred between participants of the dialogue, prolonging reconciliation for uncertain time and reinforcing all the more the status of the frozen conflict".^[50] In the narratives of the 1980s and the 1990s, the Abkhaz subaltern perceived itself for the most part as victim, just like the Georgian counterpart did in its turn. This “Martyrological Paradigm”^[51] implies primarily a political idea^[52].

Fazil Iskander, an authority among the Abkhaz, wrote as early as in 1989: “I cannot see any special national peculiarity here. Injustice, stupidity, bribery reigned everywhere in our country”.^[53] S. Chervonnaya ranks the Georgian-Abkhaz “ethnic was "as a “Myth”:

. . . Ни "добровольного," ни "прогресивного," ни "независимого от Грузии" присоеденения Абхазии к России не было [...] Российское самодержавие, действительно, постепенно продвигается в Закавказье, по кускам, по частям аннексируя страны и порабощая его народы, постоянно чередуя при этом кровавое население с посулами, обещаниями.“ (There has not been either "voluntary" or "progressive", or "independent of Georgia" merger of Abkhazia with Russia [...] Russian autocracy is indeed gradually moving forward in the Caucasus, annexing countries piece by piece, part by part, and enslaving their peoples, constantly supplying the blood-spattered people with alternative promises.)^[54]

Conclusion

The separation of Georgia from the General Soviet space did not occur without a loss to the state. Disintegration of the territorial integrity, protection of monolingualism, and legal equality are the key problems that emerged as soon as Georgia began to break away from the uniform Soviet body. As to Europe, in whom excessive hopes might have been placed as a mediator in the Georgian political discourse, as D. Chakrabarty (Chakrabarty, 2000) justly observed, it acted as “a silent reviewer of the historical knowledge.“^[55]

The analysis of the journalistic materials pertaining to the period of the 2000s shows the need to overcome the belligerent stereotypes and bring ethnic relations to the cultural wing in order to secure non-false / non-violent peace, provided this is really grounded on sincere repentance and oblivion. The principles of peaceful coexistence without territorial / human losses are relevant to all three parties. The subject of the post-Soviet Georgian ethnos, the homo ex-Sovieticus, creates a reality that attempts to replace the Soviet Union with the virtual post-Soviet Union. However, it is not directed at overcoming the Soviet stereotypes / myths within itself, as it sees the paradigms established in the Soviet era in absolute terms. The subordination period models of thought come back in the form of obsessive ideas and actions showing resistance to the attempts of unshackling oneself from the past. In the article “The Cultural / Socio-Cultural Conflict in a Transitional Society”, ^[56] B. Tsipuria notes that, surprising as it might seem, since the 1990s “the post-Soviet, traumatic, but nonetheless stagnant situation in Georgia has not resulted in a conflict between cultural spaces”. The cardinal difference between the discourses of the 1980s, the 1990s, and the 2000s is that a requirement to break the stereotypes emerges in the 2000s. This change can be achieved through a cultural dialogue, since culture is a function and source of identity, and alternatively, the most powerful weapon of resistance in the postcolonial society. Consequently, throughout three decades (from the 1980s up to the 2000s), the character of the Georgian print Media can in the main be defined as an “anti-imperialist discourse” that stands as a guarantee for the assertion / preservation of one’s own identity (that of smaller nations) in the global, rapidly changing world.