You Can’t Have Your Cake & Eat It, Too

Op-Ed

Historically speaking, there have been tons of fits and starts, pros and cons and ups and downs in Russian-Georgian relationships, but the geopolitical deadend that the two nations are suffering right now is the worst of all the previously endured incisive bygones. Russia and Georgia are today nowhere in their state-to-state relationships, within which diplomatic methodology is no longer functional, economic exchange is moribund, political efforts are ineffective, cultural ties are lackadaisical, grassroots interaction is lukewarm and military action is irrelevant. The past was a little better: something, if not everything, worked somehow and had a certain effect. Currently, the name of the situation is frustration, impotence and hopelessness. The future is blurred. And there is not even an iota of exaggeration in all this.

So, what to do? Nothing! Just watch and wait, and do not upset the hardly moving remaining Russian-Georgian applecart, as decrepit as it is at this moment in time. This is one position. There is another out there: go and talk to Russia and make them do some positive thinking in favor of the wounded and defeated Georgia which does not seem to be very interesting to Russia right now. The impression is that, for Russia, Georgia has lost the charm it once enjoyed. The mainstream Russian political thought has it that Mother Russia needs no more panhandling satellites and dependents on her dilapidated bandwagon.

Notwithstanding this Russian attitude, there are some political groups and personalities in Georgia, some of them officially recognized and some not, who are tearfully squeezing their rugged path through the piles of the rotting debris of Russian-Georgian fumbled-up affairs. There are many of them and they have a good number of supporters in the country, too. The proponents of the undelayed reinstatement of the Russian-Georgian marriage, as unequal as it has always been, think that Georgia’s western orientation is a huge pain in the neck for the lost nation, and a mended love affair between Russia and Georgia could very well be an effective painkiller. Conversely, the western-direction fans maintain that a recovered Russian-Georgian embrace is conducive to an inevitable fiasco for the Georgian nation, which might even mean that Georgia will plunge into poverty and misery forever as a result.

Two controversial positions, within which the Russophiles are desperately trying to break the ice and endear themselves into Russian decision-making circles to earn certain dividends and favors. At least, this is what the wicked tongues are saying and perpetuating. One cannot persist with the idea that the Russophiles are not doing anything useful at all, as the lovers of the West try to purport, but the results of the Russophile efforts are nothing but peanuts as yet.

One of the reasons for the paucity of the outcome should be the fact that those Russia-oriented groups and politicians are egregiously disparate. What if somebody put them and their endeavor together as one monolithic political power and went on the offensive together instead of making separate ways to the hearts and minds of the reigning Russian political and administrative elite? Well, to do this, you need to be a little away from the Georgian national character which has its solid say in politics: we are separation-prone more than consolidation-oriented, and this must be the gist of every evil that we have been stumbling over in the last thirty years, not to say the full history of our nation! The West-lovers in Georgia have every chance to take it easy and relax because the western vector of prospective development is part of the political officialdom of the country. Russia-lovers are in a more difficult stance for two reasons: the first is that the Russians are not wealthy enough potential partners and the second must be the broken-down Russian-Georgian relations that have come to this tragic political cul-de-sac. Understandably, this is very difficult to overcome. The lightest and brightest Georgian dream would be that we have the friendship, benevolence and cooperation of both Russia and the West, but can we have our cake and still eat it?

Nugzar B. Ruhadze