In the news...Georgia demolishes a World War II monument, killing two people.
Relations between Russia and Georgia have long ago transpired into theatrics. Since the 2008 armed conflict, which seemed more of a popularity contest for the attention of Western media, the two countries re-embarked on the tour of mutually-assured embarrassment. This came to a tragic high point on December 19, when a mother and her seven year-old daughter were killed in an explosion that demolished a World War II memorial.
The 150ft monument was erected in 1981 to commemorate lives lost in the war which is still referred to in Russia as ‘holy’. And no matter how hard President Saakashvili wants to sever ties with its neighbour, 700,000 Georgian lives lost in WWII sanctify it in the country’s collective memory. The two Soviet soldiers placing a flag over the fallen Reichstag were a Russian and a Georgian - more than a poster-image for the two nations. So while it is safe to assume that President Saakashvili was thinking when he signed the order to destroy the monument, it is not at all clear that it is safe to let him think at all.
It is difficult to say what benefits either side gains from the spat. The five-day war had left both Russia and Georgia discredited by bilateral lies and false accusations and the lack of a sober political agenda. But although Russia seems to have emerged from the incident if not with grace, then at least with public opinion back on its side, it has since been working hard to undermine itself. Firstly, it refused to remove the remainder of its troops from the contested region of South Ossetia, to which Georgia responded with the resumption of NATO training exercise. Then, in a move that defies all common sense and all sense of measure, Russia paid the Pacific nation of Nauru $50m in return for recognising Abkhazia. A move that makes George W.’s ‘coalition of the willing’ sound like a solid political force. According to The New York Times, ‘Nauru, the world’s smallest republic, has been desperate for income since its most important resource, phosphates formed by centuries of bird droppings, is nearly exhausted. The island has tried housing refugees for Australia and investing millions in a West End musical. (It bombed.)’ I have nothing more to add.
It is understandable that Saakashvili wanted to get back in the game, and he did that with a grand furore. It is worth a mention that initially the demolition was scheduled for December 21, which is Saakashvili’s birthday. A birthday he shares with one other infamous Georgian Joseph Stalin. Talking about being unlucky. A fact not lost on either the Russian and Georgian opposition media or the Kermlin, who are not shy to draw parallels. Even The Guardian carried an article claiming that Georgia’s first lady Sandra Roelofs stated in an interview that her husband ‘aspires to follow in the long tradition of strong Georgian leaders "like Stalin and Beria"’. This is of course mostly media-hype. But Stalin made history by not only annihilating millions of Russians, Georgians and everyone else who stood in his way, but also by erasing an enormous chunk of history by replacing churches with public pools. If Mr. Saakashvili wanted to avoid unpleasant parallels, he should have thought twice before asking for the dynamite.
What is strange is that the Western media paid absolutely no attention to the event. Only the BBC website carried a small story. Clearly, this mishap does not rival another blast in Baghdad; the politics behind it are much less explosive and thus not really newsworthy. But it is the absence of such small components of a complex mosaic that leads to erroneous preconceptions - just like it happened in August 2008 when the world immediately took Russia to be the bad guy. Conversely, if one turns to the Russian media, it will be rather difficult to distil an accurate portrait of the Georgian leader from the blood and oil-thirsty, lunatic images he is so often prescribed. In this reality-vacuum that has formed in the Russian-Georgian public space, the silence of the Western commentators seems unprofessional at best. Especially as the memory of a woman and a girl buried alive under a block of concrete seems to me to deserve more than a moment of silence.
