Les ratés de la réconciliation turco-arménienne

 

par Vicken Cheterian, jeudi 26 janvier 2012

Tandis qu’en France le génocide arménien est instrumentalisé dans la campagne électorale, la Turquie refuse de ratifier les « protocoles » signés avec Erevan en 2009 pour normaliser les relations diplomatiques entre les deux pays et ouvrir la frontière commune, exigeant des concessions supplémentaires.

Pour visiter le musée du génocide à Erevan, il faut se rendre au nord de la capitale arménienne et monter sur la colline de Tsitsernakaberd. L’effort physique nécessaire à cette ascension rappelle la détresse de milliers de citoyens ottomans d’origine arménienne, forcés par leur pays à fuir dans le désert syrien, mourant de faim, d’épuisement ou assassinés. Au sommet de la colline se trouve une stèle de 44 mètres de haut qui s’élance vers le ciel, comme pour réclamer justice. Juste à côté, un monument circulaire formé de douze dalles de basalte protège la flamme éternelle du souvenir.

Le jour de l’anniversaire du génocide arménien, le 24 avril, des milliers de personnes montent à Tsitsernakaberd et vont déposer une fleur devant le monument avant de redescendre par l’autre versant de la colline. Là, quand il fait beau, les visiteurs ont une vue magnifique sur le mont Ararat, avec ses neiges éternelles comme suspendues au ciel. Les Arméniens peuvent bien contempler Ararat, leur symbole national : il demeure hors d’atteinte, car il est situé de l’autre côté de la frontière avec la Turquie. Longue de trois cents kilomètres, passant à seulement quarante kilomètres du centre d’Erevan, elle est la dernière frontière fermée de la guerre froide.

A Tsitsernakaberd, M. Hayk Demoyan, le directeur du musée du génocide, nous reçoit. « Ce musée ne raconte pas seulement l’histoire du peuple arménien, mais également celle du peuple turc. J’espérais qu’avec la normalisation des relations, les visiteurs turcs viendraient en masse. » Je voulais en apprendre plus d’un homme qui a suivi les pourparlers diplomatiques de ces trois dernières années en vue de normaliser les relations entre l’Arménie et la Turquie. Pourquoi ces efforts ont-ils échoué ? « La communauté internationale, en particulier les Etats-Unis, n’ont pas assez fait pression sur la Turquie pour que la frontière soit rouverte, répondit-il. A présent, le processus est dans l’impasse. »

La source des difficultés entre les deux pays remonte à la première guerre mondiale, quand le gouvernement ottoman déporta en masse ses citoyens arméniens de leurs villes et de leurs villages, décimant la population arménienne de l’empire. Pourtant, au début des années 1990, lorsque l’Arménie obtint son indépendance de l’Union soviétique en crise, il semblait y avoir une chance d’en finir avec l’ancien antagonisme et de normaliser les relations. Erevan tentait alors d’échapper à l’influence de Moscou, et le nouveau gouvernement chercha à établir des relations normales avec Ankara, sans conditions préalables.

Mais le conflit armé du Haut-Karabagh fut un obstacle majeur. Le gouvernement turc adopta la position de l’Azerbaïdjan dans cette guerre et exigea de la partie arménienne qu’elle accède à ses revendications politiques. Au moment de l’accession de l’Arménie à l’indépendance, Ankara refusa l’établissement de relations diplomatiques et se joignit à Bakou en 1993 pour imposer un blocus économique à une Arménie enclavée, afin de l’obliger à abandonner son soutien aux Arméniens du Haut-Karabagh dans leur lutte pour l’autodétermination.

La guerre de 2008 entre la Russie et la Géorgie modifia la carte géopolitique. Ankara estima alors qu’il fallait corriger les erreurs de sa politique dans le Caucase. Le 8 septembre 2008, le président turc Abdullah Gül se rendit en Arménie à l’occasion d’un match de qualification pour la coupe du monde de football, multipliant les rencontres entre diplomates arméniens et turcs afin de discuter des mesures à prendre pour normaliser les relations et ouvrir la frontière commune.

En fait, des négociations secrètes avaient déjà commencé en 2007, avec la médiation du Département fédéral des affaires étrangères (DFAE) suisse, et une série de réunions avaient déjà eu lieu à Berne. L’enchaînement des contacts diplomatiques aboutit à la signature à Zurich de deux « protocoles », le 10 octobre 2009 ; le premier consacré à l’établissement de relations diplomatiques, le second à l’ouverture des frontières. Des membres éminents de la scène politique internationale, tels la secrétaire d’Etat américaine Hillary Clinton ou le ministre des affaires étrangères russe Sergueï Lavrov, assistèrent à la cérémonie organisée par Mme Micheline Calmy-Rey, chef du DFAE.

Tatul Hakobyan, un chercheur basé à Erevan qui termine actuellement un livre sur les relations turco-arméniennes, remarque : « L’ironie de la situation est que, durant la guerre froide, cette frontière n’était pas aussi hermétique qu’aujourd’hui. Des trains réguliers circulaient entre Kars et Leninakan [aujourd’hui Gumri]. » M. Hakobyan a une autre interprétation des causes de l’échec : « Les attentes des uns et des autres étaient basées sur des calculs erronés. Du côté arménien, on pensait qu’il était possible de changer le statu quo dans les relations turco-arméniennes sans changer celui sur le Haut-Karabagh. La Turquie s’est pour sa part trompée en croyant que le dialogue avec l’Arménie conduirait à des concessions concernant le Haut-Karabagh. Et la communauté internationale n’a pas prêté attention aux détails. »

Cela apparut clairement durant la cérémonie de signature des protocoles. Le processus n’allait pas tarder à échouer, dans la mesure où la partie turque s’apprêtait à faire une déclaration officielle dans laquelle elle liait les protocoles aux négociations sur le Haut-Karabagh. La délégation arménienne refusa alors de prendre part à la cérémonie. Finalement, il n’y eut pas de déclaration.

Conséquences imprévues

Au début du processus, les présidents arménien et turc ont pris des risques pour la paix. Le président arménien Serge Sarkissian, déjà éprouvé par une opposition puissante qui contestait la légitimité de son élection, prit des risques supplémentaires en engageant un dialogue avec la Turquie, ce qui suscita la colère du parti Dashnaktsutyun, très populaire dans la diaspora, l’amenant à quitter la coalition gouvernementale. La signature des protocoles créa également une scission entre Erevan et les communautés arméniennes vivant à l’étranger. Le président arménien en fit l’amère expérience au cours de sa tournée dans les communautés de la diaspora, juste avant la signature des protocoles à Zurich : à Paris, Los Angeles et Beyrouth, il dut affronter des manifestants d’autant plus furieux que, dans l’accord, les questions d’histoire (et donc celle du génocide) avaient été reléguées au travail d’une sous-commission.

La politique de rapprochement avec l’Arménie de la diplomatie turque avait également pour objectif d’alléger les tensions dans le Caucase, en particulier le Haut-Karabagh. Ankara pensait qu’en améliorant ses relations avec Erevan, il faciliterait le processus de négociation entre l’Arménie et l’Azerbaïdjan. Au lieu de cela, il fut confronté à une réaction violente de la part de l’Azerbaïdjan, qui considéra le rapprochement avec Erevan comme une trahison. Bakou menaça de suspendre ses relations avec Ankara et d’annuler les accords prévus sur les hydrocarbures. En conséquence, le gouvernement turc insista pour que l’Arménie « bouge » sur la question du Haut-Karabagh afin que les deux protocoles puissent être ratifiés par le Parlement turc. Il ne se contentait pas de demander des concessions supplémentaires non prévues par les protocoles, mais revenait purement et simplement au statu quo ante : les relations turco-arméniennes ne peuvent pas s’améliorer tant que l’Arménie ne cède pas aux revendications de l’Azerbaïdjan sur le conflit du Haut-Karabagh.

L’Arménie et la Turquie se sont engagées dans la négociation sans en évaluer les risques et les conséquences. Le pire est la déception. « L’échec des négociations arméno-turques va durcir la position arménienne dans les négociations sur le Haut-Karabagh », prédit M. Ara Tadevosyan, directeur de l’agence de presse Media Max à Erevan. De plus, ce qui a commencé par des initiatives personnelles et dans la confiance s’achève dans la méfiance. Le gouvernement arménien est déçu par son homologue turc : il a déjà payé le prix fort au plan politique en signant les deux protocoles, et il lui est demandé de faire encore des concessions sur le Haut-Karabagh. Cette déception va radicaliser la position d’Erevan par rapport à la Turquie, trois ans seulement avant le centenaire du génocide arménien, en 2015.

Le Monde Diplomatique

Le génocide arménien : le négationnisme d'Etat turc

           

                
Manifestation à Paris d'opposants au texte de loi pénalisant la négation des génocides. AFP/MARTIN BUREAU

Comment la recherche sur le génocide arménien avance-t-elle, malgré tout, en Turquie ?

Il y a une élite intellectuelle de très grande qualité, qui a compris qu'il y avait un devoir à la fois scientifique et civique de se saisir du refoulé, d'envisager les questions interdites : le génocide arménien, la nature de l'Etat kémaliste, présenté en Turquie comme le modèle indépassable alors qu'il s'apparente aussi à des formes de dictature, la guerre contre les Kurdes, la situation de l'"Etat profond", le pouvoir militaire, les réseaux religieux…

Ils veulent ouvrir ces dossiers, et sont prêts à prendre des risques considérables : Taner Akçam a été emprisonné, avant de devoir s'exiler ; Hrant Dink, qui lui aussi a mené un travail très important avec sa revue bilingue arméno-turque, a été assassiné en 2007 dans un contexte de chasse à l'homme. Hrant Dink a été visé parce que ses travaux tendaient à rappeler combien la société turque est en réalité mélangée, complexe, et que c'est la prise en compte de ce tissage – souvent tragique – qui permettrait de faire la paix avec le passé et de préparer l'avenir. Et puis il n'y a pas que les problèmes ethniques et religieux, il y a la place du genre, des femmes, des homosexuels…

Pour le gouvernement turc, le fait que des universitaires se décident à étudier ces pans du passé constitue une menace pour l'intégrité de la nation, pour la mémoire de Mustafa Kemal. Ils ne peuvent plus incriminer un complot de l'étranger, même s'ils essaient par tous les moyens de discréditer ces recherches et d'imposer le silence aux chercheurs, y compris en recourant à l'emprisonnement et aux procès arbitraires. Il est certain que le vote de la loi va rendre encore plus difficile leur travail en les faisant passer, encore davantage, pour des ennemis intérieurs.

Comment les intellectuels turcs peuvent-ils se tirer du piège dans lequel la loi votée par l'Assemblée française le 22 décembre les place : soutenir la loi, au risque de passer pour ennemis de la nation, ou la rejeter, au risque de devoir s'allier à ceux qui nient le génocide ?

Lorsqu'il y avait eu la première tentative française de pénalisation de la négation du génocide, en 2006, Hrant Dink et d'autres intellectuels démocrates avaient protesté contre une loi qui menacerait leurs recherches. En 2011, certains, notamment les membres de l'association des droits de l'homme turque, ont souligné que le plus important est de combattre le négationnisme.

Ils soulignent la vacuité des arguments officiels, notamment lorsque le pouvoir affirme que cette loi française est contraire à la liberté d'expression : en Turquie, la liberté d'expression sur ces sujets-là n'existe pas.

Tout de même, il est possible aujourd'hui, en Turquie, d'affirmer qu'il y a eu un génocide…

Le nouveau pouvoir dit "islamiste modéré" a créé l'illusion, à partir de 2002, qu'il était porteur d'une vraie démocratisation. Il y a eu des évolutions, indéniables, sur le plan de la liberté d'expression, surtout sur les sujets mettant en cause le régime kémaliste. Mais lorsqu'ils s'intéressent aux liens entre le gouvernement et les religieux, les journalistes sont aussitôt emprisonnés.

Cette relative démocratisation a permis des avancées comme l'édition et la traduction d'ouvrages, ou l'organisation de colloques sur les événements génocidaires de la Première Guerre mondiale, ou sur les massacres d'Adana de 1909. Mais depuis la fin 2009, il y a eu un raidissement considérable. Les intellectuels et historiens qui travaillent sur le passé vivent sous la menace permanente d'arrestations et de procès. C'est dans ce contexte, et pour soutenir ces chercheurs, que nous avons créé, à Paris, un groupe international de travail (GIT) "Liberté de recherche et d'enseignement en Turquie". Plusieurs branches sont déjà créées ou en cours de fondation, en France, aux Etats-Unis, en Grande-Bretagne, et en Turquie même, bien sûr. Il s'agit de déployer la recherche sur la recherche, et de mettre sous surveillance les pouvoirs qui terrorisent les chercheurs.

Comment les intellectuels turcs ressentent-ils que ce soit la France qui se penche, par la loi, sur leur passé ?

La vérité historique ne nécessite pas une loi pour se fonder. C'est même un risque d'affaiblissement. Mais il faut considérer l'importance de l'offensive négationniste. Ce que veulent les autorités turques, ce sont des commissions constituées uniquement d'historiens turs et arméniens. Or l'Arménie a tant besoin de la Turquie que cela ne peut être qu'un marché de dupes. Il faudrait des commissions plus larges : cette question dépasse du reste le cadre historiographique des deux pays.

Reste que même une loi pleine de bons sentiments amène un encadrement de la recherche, donc son affaiblissement, alors même que les travaux sur le génocide arménien demeurent insuffisants. La demande légitime des Arméniens de lire et de retrouver leur histoire est paradoxalement menacée. L'histoire du génocide arménien reste sous-dimensionnée. Il n'y a pas de chaire sur ces questions, d'étude d'histoire comparée sur les génocides, les publications sont peu nombreuses, les maisons d'édition fragiles. Des ouvrages majeurs sur les génocides – incluant le premier des génocides comme A Problem from Hell. America and the Age of Genocide de la politiste d'Harvard Samantha Power (2002) – ne sont toujours pas accessibles en langue française…

Même si cette loi peut se comprendre, elle aura des effets dangereux sur la recherche en Turquie et en France. D'autant que le jusqu'au-boutisme des associations, déjà puissant à l'époque des affaires Bernard Lewis et Gilles Veinstein, risque d'amener les chercheurs à se désengager de ce terrain. Il y a un vrai risque pour la recherche indépendante. La loi vise à défendre la vérité historique, mais elle en sape les bases théoriques et morales.

Mais si on ne peut pas faire de lois, comment lutter contre le négationnisme ?

La vraie solution, c'est de développer la recherche. Si un pouvoir politique veut lutter contre le négationnisme, il peut créer des chaires, ouvrir des laboratoires, soutenir des publications… Il peut aussi défendre le travail des chercheurs sur le terrain. Il est ainsi regrettable que la France n'ait pas voulu soulever la question des intellectuels persécutés en Turquie. Quand le ministre des affaires étrangères, Alain Juppé, est allé à Ankara, en novembre dernier, il ne s'est pas inquiété du sort des chercheurs emprisonnés… La mise au clair du passé, en Turquie, ne se fera que par l'évolution de la société. Cette évolution est en cours mais elle risque d'être bloquée par cette loi. Et les historiens indépendants en payeront à nouveau le prix fort.

Le Monde

Perspectives for Solving the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict: Regional and European Consequences

BULLETIN

No. 110 (186) . August 25, 2010 . © PISM

Editors: Marcin Zaborowski (Editor-in-Chief), Agnieszka Kopec (Executive Editor),

Lukasz Adamski, Beata Gorka-Winter, Leszek Jesien, Lukasz Kulesa,

Marek Madej, Beata Wojna, Ernest Wyciszkiewicz

by Tomasz Sikorski

There is growing understanding among the countries engaged in the Karabakh conflict resolution that stabilisation in the region is needed. Both Armenia and Azerbaijan are bearing the mounting costs of present tensions, while Russia and Turkey are more inclined to accept a change of the status quo. Under the circumstances, the European Union should pursue a more active policy, especially steps aimed at enhancing security and the level of trust near the armistice line, but without addressing the controversial question of the status of Karabakh.

The conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh between Azerbaijan and Armenia-backed separatists has been going on since 1988. In 1992–1994 it escalated into a full-scale war, which resulted in the secession of the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh (RNK).populated by Armenians.from Azerbaijan. This was accompanied by forced resettlements, with RNK forces also seizing control over the zone between Nagorno-Karabakh proper and Armenia. The Russia-negotiated armistice of May 1994 has preserved the status quo, with the RNK in fact independent, but not recognised internationally.

In October 2009 the threat that the conflict might be rekindled increased following attempts to establish diplomatic relations and open the border between Armenia and Turkey, which supports Azerbaijan. Azeri-Turkish relations deteriorated after respective protocols had been signed, provisionally undermining Azerbaijan’s strategic position. The process of Armenia-Turkey normalisation was put on hold in April 2010 as a result of public protests in both countries, but this has not decreased tensions over Nagorno-Karabakh. The parliamentary elections organised in the RNK in May 2010 provoked Azerbaijan’s aggressive rhetoric, with Azeri military commanders threatening to resolve the conflict by force and sporadic exchanges of fire noted over the past few months. On the other hand, it seems that both sides understand the need for stabilisation. In 2009 the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan had talks six times and on 26 April 2010 the religious leaders of the two states met in Baku for the first time. Third parties increased their interest in the conflict as well, with both countries visited on 14–16 February by OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Kanat Saudabayev, followed on 20 May by a European Parliament resolution on the need for an EU strategy for the South Caucasus; the document called for stronger UE engagement in solving frozen conflicts in the region.

The negotiations held since 1992 under the OSCE Minsk Group, co-chaired by France, Russia and the USA, have been focussed on preventing an escalation of the conflict and keeping the war frozen. For a long time the status quo was beneficial for all: the RNK took advantage of the armistice to consolidate state structures, the president of Azerbaijan was able to strengthen his position within the country after the political turmoil of the early 1990s, Armenia saw the truce as good for its image, while Russia was able to use the armistice to exert pressure on the post-Soviet states of the South Caucasus. France and the U.S. were not demonstrating a strong engagement in solving the conflict, as they had joined the Minsk Group solely in order to be present in the region and to prevent Russia from calling the shots.

Armenian Perspective. The Armenian authorities perceive Russia as their most important ally and safeguard against unfriendly Azerbaijan and Turkey. Nonetheless, in 2009–2010 Armenia launched an attempt to normalise relations with Turkey on its own, also in order to enhance its position on the Karabakh question. Failure to achieve a rapprochement could mean that the Armenians might be more inclined to make concessions during future negotiations. While in the first years of the armistice the preservation of the status quo was beneficial for Armenia, the costs of the unstable situation in the region have since been rising considerably. At present, the frozen conflict multiplies the economic problems of landlocked Armenia, which is left out when planning regional infrastructural projects and which is struggling for foreign investments. Leaving the problem as it is might also impede the talks.started in July.on an association agreement with the European Union.

Azerbaijani Perspective. The process of normalising relations between Turkey and Armenia was viewed in Azerbaijan with distrust and suspicion, with the proposal to open the Armeno-Turkish border seen as Turkish treason. Azeri fears were deepened by the policy pursued by Turkey, which took advantage of its strategic transit location in an Azerbaijan-Turkey dispute over the price of energy resources. Azerbaijan’s response was swift, embracing an ostentatious improvement in relations with Russia and a search for new routes of oil and gas exports, e.g. via the Black Sea. The prospect of improving Armenian-Turkish relations is likely to make the Azerbaijani authorities more flexible in peace talks. Another argument in favour of settling the conflict is the presence of 590,000 displaced persons, mostly from the area between Karabakh and Armenia. This group is strongly revisionist, unintegrated with society and frustrated with lack of progress in talks, so the

young generation of refugees’ children might provide a natural ground for recruiters from radical or fundamentalist organisations. The scenario of Azerbaijan regaining control over RNK by force is highly unlikely, as the quantitative and qualitative potential of the joint armies of Armenia and the RNK is similar to that of Azerbaijan. Hence it is impossible for Baku to execute a blitzkrieg-type war. At the same time, the Georgian war of August 2008 demonstrated the futility of unilateral efforts to solve a conflict by force, in addition to undermining seriously the image of the parties to the conflict.

External Actors’ Perspective. The Turkish Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has been in power since 2002, is pursuing a „no problems with neighbours” policy. Hence it is trying to normalise relations with Armenia while maintaining its partnership with Azerbaijan. The Karabakh conflict curbs Turkey’s freedom of action and room for maneuver in the South Caucasus, so Turkey is likely to intensify efforts aimed at reaching a settlement on the Karabakh question. Meanwhile, Russia’s policy targetted at maintaining good relations with Armenia while keeping it isolated is no longer effective due to Armenian efforts to cooperate with Georgia, Iran and the European Union. If Turkey and the EU were to enhance their engagement in the region, Russia, with its credibility as mediator undermined after the 2008 war in Georgia, might be more willing to accept new peace initiatives and even pressure Armenia to accept them as well.

The American role in solving the conflict has been marginal from the very outset as a result of balancing between the pro-Armenian and pro-Azeri stance, with the former taking into account the position of the influential Armenian diaspora and the latter stemming from geopolitical interests badly in need of energy cooperation with Azerbaijan. As the U.S. is now focussed on the war in Afghanistan, non-proliferation of WMD and the Middle East conflict, its involvement in solving the Karabakh conflict is expected to diminish.

Recommendations for EU and NATO. The unresolved conflict results in instability in the South Caucasian states embraced by the Eastern Neighbourhood Policy and—within the ENP—the Eastern Partnership program. Failure to settle the conflict is not only detrimental for security reasons, but also corroborates the weakness of EU’s foreign policy and undermines the efficiency of EU projects aimed at economic growth, good governance and regional cooperation in the South Caucasus. It would be worthwhile for the EU to boost its engagement in the peace process as Armenia and Azerbaijan are now more willing to accept small mutual concessions, the significance of Turkey is on the rise, Russia’s approach is more constructive and the U.S. is less active. This engagement should concentrate first of all on confidence-building initiatives improving security in the RNK-controlled zone between Nagorno-Karabakh proper and Armenia. The most feasible proposal is to introduce a joint Russia-NATO security contingent there while guaranteeing the security of Armenians and right of way from Karabakh to Armenia and back. Raising the issue of RNK’s status seems premature in turn, because under the circumstances the position of the two sides can by no means be reconciled.

Poland’s policy towards the Karabakh conflict should be pursued through the European Union and OSCE. Constant pressure should be put on EU institutions to increase their interest in the region, the post of EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus should be retained and stabilising initiatives should be promoted. In bilateral relations with Armenia and Azerbaijan, the policy of equal distance should be emphasised and Poland should remain impartial in the conflict.

Source - The Polish Institute of Foreign Affairs

Saakashvili Pledges to Create a Nation of English Speakers

September 10, 2010

By Molly Corso

As Georgia’s school year gets underway, the country’s polyglot president is betting a thousand native English speakers can jump start an ambitious new policy to make English Georgia’s second language.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who speaks English, Russian, French, and Ukrainian in addition to Georgian, recently pledged that all 597,800 Georgian public schoolchildren will speak English as their second language by 2014.

The Teach and Learn with Georgia program, implemented by the Georgian Ministry of Education, seeks to place 10,000 native English-speaking volunteers in schools throughout the country by that date, with 1,000 native speakers in public schools by 2011.

To date, 205 such individuals -- mostly from the US -- have arrived for the September 15 kick-off of Georgia’s school year; the Ministry of Education predicts roughly 300 more participants by the end of 2010.

Never one to downplay an idea that casts Georgia as open to the world, Saakashvili has called the campaign “the greatest contribution we will make to the future development of our country. “ And the “largest breakthrough…in the entire post-Soviet space.”

Georgia’s longstanding goal to break with its Soviet past and to be accepted as a European country with Western values explains the hyperbole in part.

The program, however, also reflects a generational change -- Georgians of Saakashvili’s age (42) and younger generally see English, rather than Russian, as the ticket to success, making English the foreign language of fashion. By comparison, knowledge of Russian carries no hipster value and far less economic weight.

The challenge lies, though, in making sure all young Georgians have an equal chance at that perceived linguistic ticket to success.

Rural schools are the primary target for the program; Tbilisi, where youngsters have greater access to English language instruction, will follow behind.

Some critics, though, accuse Saakashvili of trying to turn education into a new field of battle between Tbilisi and Moscow. One schoolteacher in the village of Supsa in the western region of Guria wistfully noted that children have been “poisoned” against the Russian language as relations between Georgia and Russia have soured.

But Maia Siprashvili-Lee, an advisor to Education Minister Dmitri Shashkin and the organizer of the Teach and Learn program, counters that the program’s aim is educational, not political.

“I wouldn’t say that it is a political program; it is purely educational at this point,” Siprashvili-Lee said. Russian, along with German and French, remain part of the Georgian education system, she added.

Other plans include introducing even more languages to the national curriculum, including Italian, Spanish and Turkish.

“A person in Khulo [village in western Georgia – ed] or a person in Svaneti who is a very talented kid and his parents do not have money to send this kid abroad and introduce him to the 21st century -- this is what the government is doing,” Siprashvili-Lee elaborated.

Much like the US Peace Corps and the Japan Exchange and Teaching program on which Teach and Learn with Georgia is modeled, the program does not require any prior teaching experience.

Instead, participants are given an eight-day crash course in Georgian language and culture, as well as teaching methodology. Participating schools are responsible for deciding how to use the volunteers to teach English, Siprashvili-Lee said.

Volunteers receive a free round trip ticket to Georgia, a 500 lari (approximately $270) monthly stipend and free accommodations with a host family.

A 1,000-lari (about $540) incentive program to sign up friends and associates also exists, although Siprashvili-Lee said that no bonuses have been paid out yet.

But some participants, excited by the chance to travel abroad, nonetheless express concerns about what they term a lack of training and organization.

Daniel Celvi, a 23-year-old volunteer from Illinois based in the village of Khelvachauri near the Black Sea, comments that his local school has been short on answers about its plans for the school year.

“I am still waiting for my lesson plans,” Celvi said, adding that national program staff has been more responsive to questions.

Blog entries by other volunteers echo Celvi’s comments.

A volunteer in Poti who blogs under the name “Dream Weaver” complained that she felt “frustrated and annoyed” by the lack of information from her school principal, who also doubles as her host mother.

“I understand that she is very excited I am here however I have no clue what's expected of me,” she wrote. “I have so many questions and things I want to say but… I… can’t. It sucks that we both speak English but neither of us are communicating.”

A Tbilisi school principal interviewed by EurasiaNet.org expressed enthusiasm for the program, but stressed that implementation could prove the key. “This is a great idea…if it is managed well in the classroom,” commented Public School No. 1 Director Amiran Jamagidze.

Siprashvili-Lee says that her staff will receive monthly progress reports once the school year starts from both the local school faculty and volunteers to assess how Teach and Learn with Georgia is being implemented on the ground.

Success, she noted, will be as much about interaction outside the classroom as inside it.

A “volunteer is talking and showing that there is a whole other world out there,” Siprashvili-Lee said. “People who didn’t have a chance to see what is out there, this is this person telling them, or showing them…the indicator of success will be what happens after school.”

Editor's note: Molly Corso is a freelance reporter based in Tbilisi.

Source - eurasia.net

Georgia's mental revolution

Seven years after the Rose revolution, Georgia has come a long way

Aug 19th 2010 | Tbilisi

FOUNTAINS dance, children play and families stroll along Batumi’s five-mile seafront boulevard, lined with palm trees, hammocks and playgrounds. Less than a decade ago, Ajaria, a verdant south-western corner of Georgia of which Batumi is the regional capital, was the personal fief of Aslan Abashidze, a strongman who seemed to own the place more than run it. He never appeared without an army of goons, and closed the streets when his son felt like racing his Lamborghini. Cut off from the rest of Georgia by checkpoints, the economy was stagnant.

Today this gently beguiling holiday resort is an exhibition of Georgia’s capitalist achievements, a showcase of its transition and an advertisement for what Abkhazia, a separatist region to the north, could have become had it not been, in effect, annexed by Russia following the short Russia-Georgia war two years ago.

Like any advertisement, Batumi does not reveal the full picture. Away from the seashore, there are striking signs of poverty and unemployment in Georgia. But the change here is real—not just in the five-star hotels springing up in Batumi, its restaurants or the casinos full of Turkish punters, but in the way Ajaria is administered. So real, in fact, that some Russian officials are starting to worry about the unflattering gap between Ajaria and unreconstructed Abkhazia.

Ajaria’s governor, 38-year-old Levan Varshalomidze, has done much for Ajaria and rather less for himself. As he walks through Batumi’s old city, clad in jeans and without a bodyguard in sight, locals come up to thank him—and there is nothing forced in the gesture. Mr Varshalomidze belongs to the cohort of Georgians that came into their own after the Rose revolution of 2003. For all its problems, Georgia is in the hands of a young, pragmatic generation which has thrown off the Soviet-era personality cults, privileges and paranoia.

Merab Mamardashvili, a Georgian philosopher, once wrote that “A Soviet man is a product of invisible changes, degradation and progressive deformation. Breaking the chain of those changes is hard. Perhaps they are irreversible.” No post-Soviet country is completely free from its legacy but Georgia has gone further than many in breaking the chain.

Gia Kancheli, a 75-year-old celebrated Georgian composer, says: “In the old days the decent people of my generation tried not to be Soviet. Today we are again trying not to be Soviet, but the new generation is different. They don’t have to try: they are simply free of that pressure and those lies.”

Georgia suffered gravely under Stalinist repression, but in the late Soviet period it learned to play by the rules and profit from the system. It became a playground of the Soviet empire, a source of wine, culture and entertainment. But when the empire collapsed, Georgia descended into a near-failed state: dysfunctional and disfigured by banditry and ethnic conflict. By 2003 the violence had largely stopped but the state remained weak and corrupt.

Today Georgia has reinvented itself as the star of the Caucasus. It is less corrupt than most former Soviet republics and one of the easiest places in the world to do business, according to the World Bank. Its liberalised economy has weathered Russian embargoes, and the state held together during the war with Russia. Its police do not take bribes and electricity is no longer a luxury. Most important, people are no longer surprised by such success. The biggest transformation is in their minds.

A playground no more

Georgia’s transition from a former Soviet republic into a non-Soviet one began with the Rose revolution of November 2003, in which the 36-year-old Mikhail Saakashvili and his friends pushed aside the 75-year-old Eduard Shevardnadze. This was not the move from dictatorship to freedom sometimes portrayed in the West; Mr Shevardnadze was no dictator, and some of the reformers were his protégés. Rather, as Levan Ramishvili, who runs the Liberty Institute, a Georgian think-tank, says, it was a social and generational shift, almost a cultural revolution.

It was certainly a change of elite. Some of the new guard, like Mr Saakashvili, a graduate of Columbia University, had studied and worked in the West. Others came from NGOs. Most were under 40. All were free from Soviet bureaucratic baggage and electrified by the promise of getting their country back and rebuilding it as a modern state.

The support base for this revolution was not the capital, Tbilisi, the traditional driver of Georgian politics, but villages and small towns, where family structures and individualism were stronger and Soviet rule was weaker. The new ruling class did not seek approval from Tbilisi’s intelligentsia, which had become enormously powerful in the late Soviet period. Piqued by Mr Saakashvili’s lack of reverence, many started to oppose his rule. Vano Merabishvili, Georgia’s interior minister, recalls that a few weeks after taking office he received a call from a famous theatre director pleading for the release of two of his actors, who had been arrested in a drunken brawl. Mr Merabishvili refused, violating the special relationship between the state and its cultural elite.

The reformers have also eschewed popular legends of Georgian exceptionalism, which the intelligentsia and their nationalist opponents fought to appropriate in the early years of independence (and which some opposition leaders are trying to revive). The young Western-educated elite cringed at the day-long banquets laced with toasts and songs, the celebrations of idleness. They promoted an alternative national story, of a hard-working, dynamic and European country: “Switzerland with elements of Singapore,” as Mr Saakashvili once put it.

Georgia’s modernisation was vigorous, even brutal. Gia Sulkhanishvili, a businessman and a former student of Mr Mamardashvili, says: “The government took an axe to the Soviet practices and destroyed the environment which bred nepotism, hypocrisy and idleness.” The change is all the more startling when Georgia’s fate is contrasted with that of other former Soviet republics, including Russia. “As in Russia, there were laws in Georgia, but then there were informal rules which trumped them,” says Mr Sulkhanishvili. “Those rules are largely gone.”

Overnight, the reformers abolished the corrupt 15,000-strong traffic police and replaced them with 2,300 American-style road patrollers. The new recruits were motivated not only by decent pay and new cars but by the fact that their new bosses did not take bribes. Entire ministries were culled, along with 30,000 bureaucrats. The government slashed red tape, privatised everything from hotels to hospitals and used the money to build new roads.

Much of this liberalisation was pushed forward by Kakha Bendukidze, a business magnate of libertarian temperament who had made his fortune in Russia before Vladimir Putin started to put pressure on business. Georgia, Mr Bendukidze argued, was so poor that only radical reform would do. But he also realised that economic reforms needed to be backed by humanities and education projects to engender a new national elite. In 2007 he founded the Free University in Tbilisi, which teaches law, business and languages. Each graduate undertakes to finance a new student, creating a sense of stakeholding in Georgian society.

A virtual democracy?

In 2003 the young, energetic, English-speaking Mr Saakashvili represented a visible change from the old Soviet-style nomenclature. Today an even younger generation has come of age. As liberal, patriotic and Westernised as the president, its members object to his obsession with power, his centralisation and his populism. They see the state not as a sacred cow but as a provider of basic services and security.

.The decisive moment, some of them say, came in November 2007, when Mr Saakashvili, faced with the prospect of losing power, sent riot police to crack down on a demonstration and to trash a television station. The government said it acted to avert a coup. But its decision shocked Georgia, and the outside world.

Shorena Shaverdashvili, an American-educated editor of the Liberal, a weekly magazine, says this was the point at which Mr Saakashvili became more interested in retaining power than in pushing through reforms. “He alienated and then turned against the part of Georgian society which was most willing to catalyse the transformation,” she says. Several of Mr Saakashvili’s former allies have now turned into opponents.

On paper Georgia has all the institutions proper to a democracy. In practice few of them enjoy real power. Parliament, dominated by Mr Saakashvili’s United National Movement party, has become little more than a rubber stamp. The police and judiciary are beholden to politicians. Key decisions are taken by a circle of insiders whose influence often extends far beyond their job titles. Democratic procedure is often sacrificed to expediency—catastrophically so in the case of Mr Saakashvili’s decision two years ago to attack South Ossetia with heavy artillery fire, giving Russia the excuse it needed to invade.

The situation is not helped by the motley state of Georgia’s opposition, which often does a better job at discrediting itself than the government, or by the weakness of civil society. Yet, as Ms Shaverdashvili puts it, “The government makes sure that we don’t get strong fast.” Businessmen are wary of financing the opposition or advertising in Georgia’s critical media for fear of incurring the government’s displeasure.

Mr Saakashvili is more a moderniser than a democrat. Yet in order for his reforms to become irreversible, Georgia needs strong democratic institutions; above all an independent judiciary and the rule of law. Mr Merabishvili argues that these cannot be simply decreed; they need to become entrenched tradition, recognised by Georgian society as a whole. So for the time being, he believes, it is the government that is best equipped to administer justice. This argument is all the more dangerous for being persuasive.

Too much personal power is concentrated in the hands of Mr Saakashvili and Mr Merabishvili, his feared interior minister. That is ominous for a country where power has not been transferred peacefully since independence. A set of proposed constitutional changes would shift more power to parliament and its nominated prime minister. But Mr Saakashvili’s critics say that discussion of the proposed reforms has been limited. They fear that the president will follow the example of Vladimir Putin and stay on as prime minister when his term expires in 2013. If he does, he risks destroying his own legacy.

After the collapse

Despite all the progress, Georgia’s future is fragile. Two years after the war, relations with Russia have not yet normalised. Russia’s heavy military presence in Abkhazia and South Ossetia remains a threat to Georgia’s security. There is also a risk that Mr Saakashvili will exploit this threat to consolidate his own power. Earlier this year a television channel controlled by a friend of the president broadcast a spoof documentary about another Russian invasion, sparking panic among Georgians. The film, allegedly made with Mr Saakashvili’s approval (although the channel denies it), was meant to mobilise the population. Instead, it infuriated it.

And yet the mental shift which has occurred in Georgia will make it hard to turn the country backwards. On June 25th police cordoned off the central square in Gori, the birthplace of Stalin, and, in the dead of night, toppled a statue of the former dictator that had survived the Soviet collapse and Russian bombardment in 2008. Yet there was neither celebration nor protest. Georgians had moved on.

Source - Economist.com

Georgia: Cultivating a Martial Spirit

In the wake of war, Georgia adds “military patriotism” to the curriculum. Part two of a series.

by Tamar Kickacheishvili 16 March 2010

In mid-January, Nona Mikiashvili found out that her 11-year-old son, Lasha, would begin studying something the authorities here are calling military patriotism in the fall.

Lasha was excited at the prospect that he might get to handle a weapon, but his mother had doubts. “I don’t object to a military course if it includes emergency situations, but it should never be mandatory for all students,” she said. “As for patriotism, it’s impossible to teach at school. I’m really curious how they’re going to teach it. What will they do? Telling students that we [Georgians] are the best, only to have them find out differently later in life, it might cause problems.”

Lasha also does not know what to expect from the new lessons in patriotism. He understands that a patriot loves his country, he said, but “Can someone teach you how to love?” he wondered.

President Mikheil Saakashvili’s announcement about mandatory military patriotism courses in public schools came about a year and a half after the August 2008 war between Georgia and Russia. Presidential spokeswoman Manana Manjgaladze said military-patriotic education, part of a package of proposals by Saakashvili and Education Minister Dimitry Shashkin, would include training in civil defense and cultivating a martial spirit, “which historically was always in the nature of the Georgian people.”

MODERNIZING AN OLD IDEA

The ministry is still working on the curriculum for the course. Natia Jokhadze, director of the National Curriculum and Assessment Center, said the new curriculum will be ready by the fall and classes will start in the upcoming school year. She said military patriotism classes will be taught at every grade level and they will include civic participation, civil defense, and emergency situations.

The announcement of the course has raised fears about the possible militarization of the country’s schools and questions about how patriotism will be defined.

David Zurabishvili, one of the leaders of the nonparliamentary opposition Republican Party of Georgia, said the inclusion of civil defense is simply to give a pretty shape to an ugly idea. “The president announced it, and now the Ministry of Education is trying to figure out how to soft-pedal it to our society. This initiative amounts to militarization, and the idea that everyone must be a militant is the wrong approach,” Zurabishvili said.

Saakashvili was not the first to broach the idea of patriotism classes. In November, Irakli Aladashvili, editor in chief of the military magazine Arsenali, said military education should be taught in public schools. “I think that the upbringing of the motherland’s defenders should start at the school desk,” Aladashvili said, calling for classes in civil defense, first aid, and, optionally, weaponry.

In light of Georgia’s recent experience with military conflicts in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Aladashvili said its citizens should be able to defend themselves. “We shouldn’t be compared with other countries that never experienced war. We had wars within the country as well as in the Caucasus region. I covered the war in Chechnya as well. And I think that Georgian students should study military patriotism,” Aladashvili said.

In the Soviet era students were given military lessons, and some countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States still have the subject in their curricula. The textbook for those classes typically included praise for the Communist Party and its ideology. Aladashvili said it would be key that the new classes should not be used to indoctrinate students. “I think politics should not have any place in this modern military patriotism course. It should just be about patriotic souls.”

PATRIOTISM WITHOUT MILITARISM?

Confused parents are not the only ones uneasy about the new courses. Some opposition politicians say it’s a distraction from Tbilisi’s bungling confrontation with Russia. “The Georgian government wants to replace people’s disappointment with a sense of patriotism. They’re just trying to cover up their mistakes and the pain of a lost war with this new initiative,” said Guguli Magradze, leader of the Women’s Party, a member of the opposition Alliance for Georgia.

Better to offer peace education in schools given Georgia’s recent history, Magradze said.

“Peace is the only thing that would give Georgia a chance to take its normal place on the geopolitical map of the world,” Magradze said.

More perniciously, Magradze said, the authorities are hoping to cultivate a more pliable citizenry with such courses. “This subject is in the interests of the ruling party, for the purposes of having obedient citizens who obey the dictates of authority. They want slaves. This idea should cause protest in our society,” she said.

Tamar Chabashvili, principal of a secondary school in central Tbilisi, disagrees.

Calling the new courses “extremely necessary,” Chabashvili said the project would help bring up a new generation of patriots and active citizens. “I think that this subject should include the history and present of the country, including the battles that Georgia had in Abkhazia and the war that happened last year in South Ossetia. It must be a mandatory subject,” she said.

Pavle Tvaliashvili, a consultant on education management and reform at the private Center for Training and Consultancy in Tbilisi, said a course that teaches students how to behave in emergencies would be welcome. Nor would he have a problem with a course that aims to instill patriotism.

“I think that patriotism should be used to teach the important values of mankind such as peace, responsibility, freedom, love. … In my opinion, it’s wrong to kill others. However, sometimes when someone attacks you, you must be ready to defend yourself,” Tvaliashvili said.

Psychologist Gaga Nizharadze, who has written extensively about post-Soviet culture and behavior, said he fears the courses could fuel an increase in violence or bullying among students. Nizharadze said patriotism cannot be taught in a classroom. “Patriotism is not a subject, it’s a personal characteristic and that’s why it’s impossible to have separate lessons in it and to teach it this way,” he said.

Nizharadze said the decision to give elementary school students military courses suggests that the country’s priority has become militarization.

“Actually I’m against teaching patriotism or any other ideology at school. The only ideology in a democratic country should be that all ideologies are equal,” Nizharadze said.

Tamar Kickacheishvili is a reporter for Georgia Today, an English-language newspaper.Home page photo by Rob Sinclair.