Respecting Georgians

To me, it seems like there will be endless protest in Georgia, from now on. Because opposition politicians have nowhere to go. There are no university posts, think tanks, book deals, or wherever else politicians in their off years go to meditate on their next moves. There is only one city, and only a few paying jobs. You're either in it, or you're not.

And Georgians love protest. Because they have plenty to protest about, and because they are an emotional people who demand basic standards of living, and even more importantly, basic standards of respect. There is a long history of class structures in Georgia, and beginning in the late 19th century, a history of class struggle (see Stephen Jones, "Socialism in Georgian Colors").

Unfortunately, a culture of disrespecting working classes seems to have been the norm in the late Communist period in Georgia, and is an absolute intolerance for this type of disrespect that in my opinion is at the root of many people's discontent. Yes, for some it's a lack of jobs, poor economy, etc. but actually, that's nothing new in Georgia, and people know how to get by. What is unacceptable, and perhaps ultimately unforgivable, is the promise of radical change followed by the perception of the same old disrespect.

I think this is most clearly evident in the judiciary, which seems to be an institution formed not for defending people's rights, but for prosecuting those people that the government thinks are stealing from them. In the case of Saakashvili's paranoid leadership, people that are considered to be stealing from the government includes just about everyone. And so people live in fear of prosecution, again. It's the State vs. the people, again. And fundamentally, it's a respect issue.