For those hoping that Georgia’s seemingly endless political turmoil would subside after 2012’s transfer of power, the last seven months have offered little respite. Though the new government has made some genuine headway with a variety of important reforms, such initiatives have largely played second fiddle to a regular drumbeat of despair. The latest such dispatch came on the heels of a May anti-gay pogrom in Tbilisi and the arrest of ex-Prime Minister Vano Merabishvili only days later. But the reaction to these events by some Western politicians and media has hardly been constructive or elucidating. Unfortunately, this kind of reaction has come to typify prevailing views of the Caucasus region: an addiction to symbolism over reality.
There was some irony in the backlash to Georgia’s violent May 17 counter-demonstration in which a large crowd of Orthodox Christian extremists attacked a peaceful gay rights rally in central Tbilisi. Understandably dismayed by the jarring displays of violence, Western observers and Georgian liberals alike called for swift justice against the perpetrators. But when the long-feared former Interior Minister turned Prime Minister Vano Merabishvili was arrested on unrelated charges of abuse of power, some commentators suggested that Merabishvili’s detention was not only an obfuscating distraction from the May 17 tragedy, but further proof of vendetta politics in today’s Georgia.
Somehow, the prevailing critiques suggest that, while Merabishvili’s detention is an exercise in wanton political persecution, the week and a half it took the state to charge eight people for participation in the May 17 events was too long. Such cognitive dissonance is broadly characteristic of the way in which Western media portray Georgian politics, when they pay any attention to it at all.
Of course, there is no question that those responsible for the May 17 pogroms should be punished. And the Georgian government should do everything it can to ensure that something like this never happens again; true democracy cannot take root without respect for minority rights. But while Georgians overwhelmingly disapprove of homosexuality (88 percent as of 2011), it would nonetheless be a stretch to assume that the several thousand radicals who took to the streets and attacked a peaceful assembly are statistically representative of Georgia as a whole. The general population may be uncomfortable with alternative lifestyles, but the crowd on May 17 was no ordinary, impromptu gathering. Rather, the well-coordinated counter-demonstration was only the latest move from extremist groups that have attacked gay rights advocates, liberals, and Halloween revelers with increased impunity in past years.
Contrary to the reactions from certain Western officials and pundits, it is as unhelpful as it is incorrect to blame the violence on the current Georgian government. Though it was clearly unprepared for the outbreak of violence, it has, to its credit, begun arresting perpetrators and has spoken in defense of minority rights, including, significantly, during an address on Georgian independence day. Ahead of May 17, Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili made it clear that sexual minorities were equal citizens and claimed that society would eventually “get used to it.” After the violence, the Prime Minister vowed that those responsible would be punished, even saying that being a member of the traditionally untouchable clergy provided “no alibi.” Parliament speaker Davit Usupashvili was even more pointed and directly criticized the Church’s role in the mob violence. And the ex-ruling United National Movement (UNM) has not exactly covered itself in glory on the issue either, having done little to curtail the escalation of Orthodox extremist violence over the past several years.
Many Western observers incorrectly perceive the May 17 tragedy as being inherently related to Merabishvili’s arrest—with the common denominator being the Georgian government. Where May 17 was an expression of its retrograde values, these critiques imply, Merabishvili’s arrest underscores a retributive, political crackdown. And yet, despite the scores arrested or brought in for questioning since the new government took power in October, a grand total of zero senior members has been convicted, and only two—former prisons head Bacho Akhalaia and now Vano Merabishvili—are being held in pre-trial detention. Meanwhile, the sentences rendered to junior officials implicated in last fall’s prison abuse scandal have been surprisingly light. This is no crackdown.
Among serious Georgia watchers, Merabishvili’s detention is an unremarkable development. While the timing of his arrest was perhaps unhelpful from the standpoint of optics, nearly every major abuse of power scandal under the previous government bear his markings. In the prisoner abuse scandal this past fall, Merabishvili was accused of ordering the recordings in the first place. In last August’s mysterious shootout between unspecified militants and Georgian special forces, the Georgian public defender and an independent journalist have linked the militants back to Merabishvili’s interior ministry. Merabishvili is also closely implicated in the murder of Sando Girgvliani, who allegedly made the fatal mistake of insulting the former Interior Minister’s wife. Tellingly, Merabishvili is more often defended by touting his accomplishments rather than rebutting allegations—a cynical omelette-and-broken-eggs view of governance. Although Merabishvili may just be a victim of circumstance and association, there is nothing surprising about his arrest.
In a May interview with Georgia’s Inter Press News, my interviewer asked incredulously how Western critics could be so animated about the troubling role of the Georgian Orthodox Church in the May 17 attacks but shrug off the abuses of the previous government. I did not have a good answer. I glossed over the incongruence and restated the importance of holding those responsible for criminal behavior to account. But there is something disconcerting about the way many of us in the West seek to enforce our values and ignore, or even denounce, the legitimacy of local priorities. To many Georgians, this comes across as arrogant at best, and perhaps duplicitous at worst.
By all means, the West should be upfront and vocal in promoting the importance of respecting minority rights. Anti-gay or anti-minority violence cannot be tolerated in a democratic society, especially for one with long-term aspirations to join with the Euro-Atlantic community. At the same time, however, the desire to redress the excesses of the previous regime should be understood as an equally legitimate pursuit. To most Georgians, the previous government’s abuses of power were all too real. While the West should counsel against undertaking a retributive crusade that would come at the expense of badly-needed public policy initiatives, especially in economic development, there is nothing untoward about investigating and, yes, prosecuting injustice.
That Tbilisi remains so profoundly pro-West despite the enduring perception that Western capitals were pulling for the UNM in the previous election speaks to the depth of support for Euro-Atlantic integration. But this is not helped when when Georgia’s relatively open and deliberative investigations are portrayed at every turn as post-Soviet vendetta politics. Put more broadly, Western observers are constantly grasping for larger, tectonic significance to events, when the realities are far more mundane. May 17 is not proof of Georgia’s slow-motion descent into radical theocracy; Merabishvili’s arrest does not signal an onrushing wave of repression.
Despite the previous government’s masterful understanding of the political power of symbolism, Georgia itself is not a symbol but an actual place with actual constituents. The West should not regard Georgia as somehow a reflection of our own standing in the world or as an unfair benchmark for liberal values. May 17 or even Merabishvili’s arrest are not clever metaphors for the rule of law versus corruption, Russia versus the West, or even the UNM versus the ruling Georgian Dream coalition.
The West should do everything it can to assist Georgia in its development into, one hopes, an inclusive and fully democratic state. But we do ourselves no favors in this long-term process when we meet Tbilisi’s (thus far, quite moderate) attempts to address the injustices of the past with insinuations of political repression and inapt comparisons to democratic backsliding in Ukraine. If the West is serious about promoting democratic ideals, it would do better to advise Tbilisi on the best ways to go about addressing the mounting evidence of serious abuse rather than pretending it never happened.