Guerrilla History - Post-Soviet Georgia History, and Today's Events w/ Sopo Japaridze

Episode Date: January 17, 2025

In this episode of Guerrilla History, we bring on Georgian labor union leader and writer Sopo Japaridze to run through post-Soviet Georgia's history to help us understand the events that are unfolding today!  This is a critical discussion that hopefully will be of use to many of you who find yourself not knowing as much about Georgia as you wish you did, and will allow you to understand the ongoing events much better.  We certainly found quite a bit of value in this episode, and look forward to bringing Sopo back to discuss the history of Soviet Georgia in the future!   Sopo Japaridze is a Georgian labor union leader and writer.  You can follow her on twitter @sopjap, and keep up to date with many of her writings on her Substack.  Also subscribe to her podcast Reimagining Soviet Georgia wherever you get your pods, and follow the show on twitter @ReimaginingG Help support the show by signing up to our patreon, where you also will get bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/guerrillahistory  Also subscribe to our Substack (free!) to keep up to date with what we are doing.  guerrillahistory.substack.com

You don't remember den, Ben, boo? No. The same thing happened in Algeria, in Africa. They didn't have anything but a rank. The French had all these highly mechanized instruments of warfare, but they put some guerrilla action on. Hello, and welcome to Gorilla Haleigh. History, the podcast that acts as a reconnaissance report of global proletarian history and aims to use the lessons of history to analyze the present. I'm one of your co-hosts, Henry Hukmacki, joined as

usual by my co-host, Professor Adnan Hussein, who is a historian and director of the School of Religion at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada. Hello, Adnan. How are you doing today? I'm doing great, Henry. It's great to be with you. Absolutely. It's nice to see you as well. I know that we had a little final writing session yesterday. We just had a piece published in the Rope blog, review of African political economy blog. When the listeners are listening to this, it'll be a couple of days old at that point. But, you know, do check it out. It's on rope.net forward slash our dash blog, I think.

In any case, before I introduce our guests and the terrific, our terrific guest and the topic that we have for today, I would like to remind you listeners that you can help support the show and allow us to continue making episodes like this by going to patreon.com forward slash gorilla history. That's G-U-E-R-R-I-L-L-A history. And you can keep up to date with us on social media. We're on Twitter at Gorilla underscore pod, G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A underscore pod, Instagram, gorilla underscore history. Again, Gorilla 2-Rs. And we recently were able to get our substack account kind of reinstated and running again. That's a free thing. We'll give you updates of what we're doing on there as well, but we won't be relying on the algorithm to get it delivered to you. If you subscribe, you'll get those updates directly in your email inbox. You can subscribe to that at I'm pretty sure it's garrillihistory.com, but if you look for it, you will find it. And I'll put it in the show notes as well so that we don't is said. In any case, terrific guest today. We have Sopo Japariza. Hello, Sopo. It's nice to have you on the show long

overdue. I know that we've been talking off and on for years at this point, but I'm happy to see you here today. How are you doing? I know a little bit under the weather. Yes. Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here. And I'm glad that finally it worked out that I was able to be on it. I also take some responsibility for my timing as well. So that's all right. You know, better late than never. And to make up for it, we're going to be bringing you back on again soon for a second conversation.

So listeners, this conversation today is going to be focused on the post-Soviet period of Georgian history and the lead up to today's events. So those of you who have been watching the news recently, whether that is Western media or alternative media, you've probably seen Georgia, the country that Sopo lives in, in the news fairly recently, and including even today, it was in the news. We want to understand a little bit about how these events that are unfolding today came to be. Now, I mentioned before that we're going to bring Sopo back on. You might be a bit sad that we're only talking about the post-Soviet period of Georgian history. But don't worry, Sopo has agreed she'll come back on and talk about Soviet Georgia as well.

so stay tuned for that future conversation. But Sopo, let's get into this conversation now, talking about the post-Soviet period. Of course, the logical place to pick up with this is, how did Georgian independence happen? What was that process like when the Soviet Union was dismembered? Yeah, long story. But Georgia, you know, along with other Soviet states,

also had like a nationalist movement called the National Movement. called the national movement. That was mostly, you know, the more well-to-do people from the Soviet nomenclatura or whatever, like the more higher elites, let's say, who form the national movement. Of course, the elites within the framework of Soviet Union, which are not as elite as, say, under capitalism,

which is really important to point everybody thinks it's like they had this much more, you know, massive privileges or material wealth, but it wasn't quite so. But still, so these people were, and, you know, there's also a lot of exchange. So, like, you look at what, like, the Baltic countries are doing, and they're sort of taking certain things from there, trying to mimic each other in some ways. And so, one of the leader of this, Zviad Kamsa, Hurtia, he's, you know, a very gregarious person that sort of whips up Georgia nationalism and that, you know, he's a very gregarious person, and that

you know he's kind of a controversial figure still today i think so if you follow some of his politics so my friends who are fans of kamsa who do argue with me i think he's pretty much a fascist but um they believe that um what he said before he got into power was much more fascistic let's say and then toned it down once in power and that he was framed for a lot of the ethnic turmoil that caused civil wars and so on. And so I believe that it was twofold, like Russian nationalism, which was actually more dangerous than any kind of Georgian nationalism, because Russian nationalism, you know, Russia was the sort of the biggest part of the Soviet Union. And so when they sort of threatened to secede and then like having, you know, there were the narratives even today in Russia

of these, like, small countries, like, taking from them and they should have their own country and their own control over their own resources and so on. That, I think, ricocheted and sort of emboldened a lot of, and I think, in power, encouraged nationalisms from smaller places like Georgia. And within Georgia, you have even smaller places called, you know, Abkhazia or Settia.

So then they get also nationalists, against Georgian nationalism. So you have this, like, horrible dominant effect of nationalism happening at all levels. Then you have, you know, idiot Gorbachev, like lifting, you know, whole glossness and lifting of censorship and so on. And then, you know, it wasn't like people were withholding from speaking about beautiful events and, you know, great things. Often it was a lot of these hatred, you know, hateful, sort of vitriolic, horrible ideas they had that

weren't allowed to share before were sort of unleashed on people. And that also led to sort of agitation of nationalism. And of course, you know, I don't want to go into how the Soviet Union collapsed, but, you know, the elites sort of said, you know, they packed it up and, and stopped the incredible project that was happening for in over 70 years. And so Soviet Georgia, you know, got independence because Moscow ended Soviet Union and not because they ended it, even though now it's retold that somehow Georgians got their independence because they protested and were correct on the right side of history. So all of this is very much, you know, changed. And also I believe this kind of bullshit fake protests that they always refer to as like peaceful and, you know,

we're just correct. And that's why we won is actually pervasive. and I would say very much dominant now where they believe that after 30 years that these similar kind of ideas about protests that the reason they got their way was because they were good and correct and they didn't really realize like how much the Soviet Union

on its own just like conceded and gave up this power which has never been done before at this level. Like, I don't know any historical example where you just have this huge project, a huge, you know, conglomerate, you know, sort of a confederation of countries and just be like, well, we're finished now. And so it is so unique that I do believe that it gave a false sense of, let's say, victory to a lot of dissidents and protesters. and that now that say the Georgian government is not yielding in the same way as the Soviet one they find it crazy like how dare they we've already won we won against the biggest evil

empires like how they would say it right and it's like and the current government's like no we're not going to do what you want but it's like you're not going to get your way and so it's this really interesting dynamic that I see how you know the forgot the book that was I forgot the name of it. But it's like, you know, this sort of this peaceful people just, you know, broke down the Berlin Wall, put some candles up and, and then all was, you know, all was cured. And so with that, I think a false sense of an origin story was created that feeds this sort of mythology. Second, because the people, and I think about this a lot now, because the people that were part of the dissidents

that wanted, and dissidents and protesters against the Soviet Union in the late sort of the last stage, a lot of them determined what the post-Soviet world would look like. So the church was really active, so you have a lot of religious, religiosity, it's not just religiosity, the cuffs stemming from sort of strengthening the church and sort of destroying all secular Soviet structures, right, and defunding them. And also because they had no money, it defunded itself. And then you also have, you know, people who were very much into, of course, nationalists as another.

And then you have, you know, sort of free market liberal, like zealots, I would say. I would call them zealots. I think they're fanatics. And so, you know, I was wondering, where were the workers like where were the unions and i realized because they weren't the ones trying to destroy so union it's like that's why they were not really hard of the rebuilding of it because they put their you know their stock or whatever with the soviet union and so unlike say in poland where you have like a trade union you know no matter how reaction you read is now and i would say then but like having you know certain union presence that shaped some of the at least the politics post social We don't have that in Georgia.

Don't have in most places because, again, the people that were against the Soviet Union, they took part in destroying it were members of elite who thought they could do more in capitalism and win more. They were the nationalists, sometimes with the same people, and the church. So you get a, you know, then you have sort of the end of history. You know, neoliberalism is in its most in the heyday. while Russia was devastated and so many other post-Soviet countries Georgia was the most devastated

because it was the most entitled country to Soviet Union. So our, I think it was like, let's say 80% of our economy was just like destroyed. Something crazy. It was like eight or nine times of Great Depression. I can't recall the exact.

But it was something like that. So Great Depression, U.S. marked as like, oh, the worst times, you know, everybody remembers the Great Depression that sort of set the stage for so many policies later on. I mean, Georgia had like eight, nine times that. And civil, two civil wars, complete collapse of economy, and a bunch of, I would say, morons in charge, who are the people who never really, who really thought that, because they're so, like, I'm always shocked how anti-materialist Georgian consciousness is, like, they completely have this very idealistic vision of life. Like, they believed that they were

great because they're great, not because the Soviet Union created them. So they completely dismissed material conditions. They even gave rise for them to be, you know, physicists, artists, writers, whoever. They thought this was granted to them because they're so smart and they're just so great. And so you have these kinds of people, you've had supposedly the smartest parliament ever right after the collapse

with like physicists and, you know, writers and scientists filled. And they couldn't do anything because they don't know how to run a country, first of all. And second, I don't think they understood what it's like to deal with a complete collapse and have no

support from any country besides people. telling you to sell everything and privatize everything, which at first comes to Chordia, and some people like him because of this, was against sort of privatization, sort of went against a lot of the prescriptive, the meal, libel kind of stuff. And so there was like a lot of negative press about him at the time, but also because, you know, I mean, I have a friend of mine just told me, It was like her house was actually belong to Azeris, and he stole a house from the Azaries, and the state had them in reserve and then sold it to her family later on.

And just like, you know, these kinds of policies that were ethno-chrovenistic, ethnic nationalists. Not to mention, you know, though we also had huge refugees from Abhazia and Ossetia, Ossetia, less more than Abkhazia, this sort of main, main, conflict where tens of thousands of refugees being sort of ethnically expelled after Georgians lost the war because Russia at the end

like towards the end back the Qasian over Georgians which was also something that was usually unlikely because during, I want to say Soviet Georgia, of course Georgia was very much the architect of Soviet Union so very much privileged position there

but if you go back to the Russian Empire Georgians, despite having, well, at numerous times more uptick against the Russian Empire, the elites that was sort of settled by Voronsov at some point around 1840s, Georgians were actually very loyal to Russian Empire and used to, like, help take out the other Caucasian rebels, you know, for them. So usually Russia would have backed, let's say, Georgia over a Prasian, over Ossetians. But in this particular case, I don't know what happened. I think it's because Russia was also just falling apart. Everybody sort of falling apart, you know, whatever was decision

was made. It was at the benefit of Abkhazians and not at the benefit of Georgians, which led to a mass expulsion of Georgians and sort of cemented this anti-Russian sentiments. And this is, you know, so the Abkhazians got there. their dream in that sense, like the most, like, nationalistic dream of Abkhazians, of, like, Abkhazian completely free of Georgians, right? That's kind of, you know, a very radical ethno state, and they got that. Georgians wish that, but they didn't get that, right? So in this case, I always, like, you know, I go back and forth sometimes, like, trying to

understand what happened there. And it's like, sure, Georgians are, you know, especially in that time period and even now, they're very ethno-nationalist and they did a lot of things but at the end of the day they never got their their sort of most fascistic dream you know like and so there's also lots of

you know like Georgians who say we've always refugees Abkhazim so we died we have so many deaths on our side because they're a small population with more deaths like every family has someone died in the war so you have all these like sort of very difficult

parts where both sides feel very, very emotional about who is correct and deserves sort of backing, you know, moral, moral backing. And so, of course, the West 100% supports Virja and that races, the Abbasians are completely erased, or the Ossetians, which they complain all the time about, which I get, but they're completely erased from all all narratives that they're called there it's just called russian right like also if you look at it's much more dynamic right i mean it's because the appraisans actually run their own stuff they've actually been going against russia and a lot of the stuff they have the laws they have been pushing on them so that you have um you know the in the in the real way let's say the real

way russians supported a prosa and sotians and they got what they wanted but in a narrative way we won, right? So, and of course the Western dominant narrative is more important than anything that Russians will say, right? We're at Pazians in this case. So they also feel very angry about that. I was wondering, like, you know, what will happen because both, I think, both sides are, we're all very invested in sort of getting 100%, which of course cannot happen. And so this set the stage for Russia becoming someone, like, you know, very, like a sort of post-colonial kind of figure for Georgia. And it's various times different kind of approaches. So it wasn't always just like directly anti-Russian.

The way politics are now discussed around Russia is very different than every other time, right? So I believe it's very much shaped by the West, sort of Russia gate. I believe shaped the way anti-Russianism is manifested now. So because like Georgian Dream, 2012, one based on let's have more practical approach to Russia is about resuming flights, it was about resuming certain trade and so on, normalized relations, right? You look at early 2000s of Sakashuli, who was the third president, sorry, third president, you know he's like in the in journals he's like oh shavartnate the second president always uses the russia to distract from you know domestic issues so this has been going on for a very long

time like come sehurtia like he was obsessed anti-russian and anti-west that you know got taken out there was a coup of overthrow and it's also important because almost every single government aside Georgian Green has come with an overthrow, right? So Gamsa Houdi gets taken out, and Shavarnati is in power. Shevardanahti also gets overthrown by the Rose Revolution. Yeah, maybe it would be worth, like, you know, we should untangle some of these things so that people have context. So that's a very useful and important overview of the important rise of nationalism

that you were mentioning and competing nationalisms, that are also being formed partly by, as you're pointing out, anti-Russian sentiment, you know, as part of the way in which nationalism is operating in this. But I just, you know, before we collapse all of the pre, you know, contemporary history, I did want to go to that situation in the aftermath. You referenced a couple of civil wars. maybe people have picked up that you're talking about conflict with farts of what were originally within the borders of the new nation of Georgia, Abkhazian, Ossetia. But maybe you could give a little bit, you know, two things.

One, a lot of people may not know that much about Georgia and its position. It's obviously, it's a small population, but it's, you know, a decent-sized country in the Caucasus on the Black Sea. And this is a very mixed area and region. There's a lot of different kind of ethno-linguistic communities that had all been under the Russian Empire and then later the Soviet Union. And it seems that the politics of which parts of these became independent countries and which didn't and under what conditions. ended up fueling a lot of successive conflicts in exactly these years in the early mid-90s, while, as you've been explaining, the transition from a Soviet economy that had made a place like Georgia, actually, you know, quite a prosperous and educated society is collapsing, just like it did in Russia,

you know, like the imposition of neoliberalism just absolutely crushed the Russian economy. and, you know, you have so many people who's declined in their living standard in their health outcomes and, you know, all of that is happening at the same time. How did Georgia emerge out of that kind of very chaotic situation where those groups you mentioned that had been, you know, elites in the late Soviet period and then, you know, nationalists reestablishing, you know, the church as a kind of significant force in institution? and these neoliberals who were connected with, you know, Western programs of so-called economic and social and political reform. That sounds like it was a pretty chaotic sort of period. How did it kind of emerge from some stability into some kind of stability? And I'm thinking here of the second president you're mentioning Edward Shevard Nanzi. Perhaps you could tell us a little bit about how he comes to power, what kinds of movements were part of that, or, you know,

because it seems, and I don't know if this is the case, but it seems like in some ways it's restoring perhaps a more state control in response to the absolute neoliberalization that had been taking place. It's an attempt to kind of reintroduce some kind of institutions in society and economy through, you know, governance. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about that, which will help us understand what you just mentioned, which is why the Rose Revolution, in 2003 takes place. So before we get to the Rose Revolution,

I think listeners would benefit from understanding from you a little bit. What happened, you know, out of that immediate post-Soviet period to lead to Shavard Naze's administration? As I said, the Soviet Union collapses, during this collapse, there are lots of political mobilization around sort of ethno-nationalism. which leads us into two civil wars with these two different areas that were mixed with Georgians and Abkhazians, Lesothetians, and Georgians, and also other nationalities as well.

I would say cosmopolitan, but so, you know, it's very cosmopolitan, right? Which is very much a problem for the rising ethno-nationalism everywhere, right? Not just in Georgia, but literally everyone from the Balkans to Ukraine to wherever, right? but there were no Russians though the only difference like a lot of times they think that these people are Russians or it's not true they're not even they're pretty much no Russians there's

there was some Russian population but Georgia still maintain a pretty high sort of mono ethnic constituency and so with this and through the collapse of the entire central budget because Georgia was very much tied to the Soviet Union

he went from um zero money like it's a like i said it's like eight or nine times a great depression um which led to political or economic instability inflation like pensions all of a sudden became nothing overnight seeing that people lost everything at the same time there were civil wars there was also like street fights like gang fights and stuff and this is very important because a lot of people think that the 90s, the end of, you know, Soviet Union in the beginning of disability was the Soviet Union. So they'll always be like, I don't want to go back to the Soviet Union thinking it's the 90s, right? My brother was shot twice during, he was like 15, 16 at the time. All these sort

of kids all of a sudden had weapons. These were unheard of. Like, it's just really unheard of. People but very peaceful, no violence, like very kind of almost like naive, like bubble life was like, I think of Soviet citizens is very, very sheltered from the real world of your capitalism, you know?

And so very catastrophic. I had to go to the U.S. and emigrate. And I was nine, almost nine, because my brother was in danger of being killed. And so last thing, what before

before I left was something like the parliament was surrounded while the president was hiding like downstairs in a basement in the bunker and he was ousted by there was all these different political leaders and

some militia leaders because there were all this are militias that were created during civil wars with Georgian with Abkhazians and Sotians and so they brought back Shavard Naza because he was a very well-established

politician in the Soviet Union, British Secretary of Georgia, and then all six of her, Gorbachev's white-hand man. She was not, as I, you know, as it's told that he didn't really want to come back, but he was sort of asked to as sort of like, I take it as like the kids really fucked up,

they called their dad in to like clean up the mess. He comes in and he stabilizes Georgia more or less, but in 1994, during his watch, is when the first time you get World Bank IMF in Georgia. So it wasn't during Gramsafobia, it was during Shred Nazic. He, you know, we have to remember

he was the golden boy of sort of the West, this idea that somehow he was more pro-Russian, sometimes like rewritten, but it's just not true. Every single... A little bit like how Putin was, like when he first emerged,

was, you know, after the chaos of the Yeltsin, you know, years and collapse, they thought, well, let's put in a more competent guy, but he'll still be pro-Western, right? So that was sort of similar that it was, you know, not somebody who was just a pro-Russian,

but analogous in some ways. Well, actually, I would say more because, I mean, Shevard had helped destroy the Soviet Union. So he was ill over. You know, he was very much a Western guy. So is Gamsakhud. Kamsako just kind of like lost the plot a bit

because he was again kind of fascistic and like kind of had medieval ideas about stuff and he sort of lost the plot kind of thing went too far you know like I didn't understand he was kind of you know zealot I'm sorry Shavard Nadez for Pearl West

Ring stability but it was still a lot of power outages severe problems with power and privatization of this still privatization is happening. And, you know, Shabrana is compliant. She is making reforms. But if you read, and I have read some of this World Bank reports, they are not happy with the pace. And really, he kind of like around 1999, 2000, they're really becoming unhappy with him

because he's just not doing what he, you know, he was supposed to do. and I could tell that this is like, you know, he's at the end of the rope of the West liking him. And so with Chevronauts as well, I mean, one explanation, and I haven't gotten enough research over other different explanations, but one thing that seems most correct to me is that because there was a price to pay for stability, and that was to sort of let different sort of, of families and clan types

that groupings that emerged sort of collectocratic kind of groups to sort of keep feeding and so I look at as someone who maintained peace but was not able to make drastic changes.

He would have over time it would just take him like a lot longer let's say, you know? And so people would kind of fed up with the slow pace and sort of the A lot of petty crimes were always happening. You know, people were being robbed still. You know, there's all this fear, you know, fear, just a lot of, what's the word, corruption, I'd say, you know.

Though one of his fans always tells me, no, there was actually progress, huge progress. He was just all, you know, destroyed after sort of radical major of Sakash really made it look like he wasn't doing much because he was so, you know, radical. But, you know, people weren't happening. But generally, I mean, I don't, I mean, again, I don't, I don't know because I think it's also difficult when you have a post-Soviet world where you don't really have socialist countries anymore to learn from who can guide your development like there was for so deep colonization, so union around for other countries. I just, you know, there really is no alternative to like neoliberalism. Like what else is supposed to do? Unless you're like, so smart that you somehow followed Chinese model in the 90s, right? But like nobody had that kind of level of, you know, foresight or in 90s it might have been actually hard to even see that, what China would become now, right? So it's difficult, especially when you don't have resources like Georgia, where like 3.7 million people were 5 million at a time, like we don't have a lot of resources nor more the kind of

labor force that China has, right? So it's like, so really it's Georgians mostly, I think they're, you know, from Chevronate, he also is sort of a mastermind. I think he's a connoisse into the Baku-Tbilisi pipeline away from Russia. So he says like, so again, his sort of pro-Western

anti-Russian kind of things, like, it's like, well, Russia is providing, you know, pipe, like a gas. So why don't create corridor away from Russia and get the gas out and apparently Armenia was much cheaper to do it through Armenia. So clearly Georgians like waged the political fight

to make sure it went to Georgia which was I believe from from reading is that that was even more expensive to do than Armenia. So they kind of forced themselves into this to be part of the Baku

you know, sort of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey pipeline away from Russia as a political maneuver to get the West interested in Georgia. So then they have to defend it because their sort of pipelines there. So it is like an attempt to leverage our position, in this case, like artificially created, we inserted ourselves, you know. So then we return ourselves. So then we we don't we can have a bargaining like chip with russia right so which i think is is politically smart for georgia i think we should have as many bargaining chips as we possibly can because we're very small and easily stopped so um with russia with turkey with everybody we need to be having lots of lot you know lots of bargaining chips and so anyways shahvernazza through this

make some kind of these kinds of strategic things but also like is not able to deliver. And then you have, you know, this Serbian example, the, I would say, like, kind of color revolution type of thing where you'd have, like, sort of outside of intervention and you have NGOs and these kinds of foreign funding

and foreign tutelage, like, you know, these videos that would show, there was some kind of, that had this, like, one, like, video, like, odd poor video, where they would show all the new recruits to Georgian students. and stuff. And so they all had to watch this video. And then they were going on the same page

about how to nonviolent overthrow, whatever. So you mentioned, I'm going to step in for a second, you mentioned the entry of Western interest groups, NGOs, groups like this. This is something that we've also seen in the more recent events as well. And, you know, this was a driving factor of the so-called foreign agents bill that was passed relatively recently. And, the protests that surrounded that, but, you know, this is also something that was happening in the early 2000s. So what I want to do is focus. And I just also want to go back for a second. You know, you said Georgia doesn't have a lot of resources in which it can use. I'm fairly sure that most of the listeners of the shore will show what will be unfamiliar with the

economic, you know, nature of the Georgian country. Essentially, Georgia runs on tourism grapes and tea. Like, you know, I know I'm being a little bit flippant and kind of oversimplifying things, but not, you know, not really when you actually look at it. When you look at what really drives the Georgian economy in terms of exports, it's fruits and tea. I mean, I had Georgian tea this morning.

Georgian tea is terrific, but... And mining. And, yes, absolutely. But tourism, in particular now, maybe not so much in the early 2000s. But with that being said, can you take us through that early process of the lead up to the so-called Rose Revolution and the interest groups that were at play in the build-up to that, both domestic and foreign?

Because, you know, this eventually became known as the Rose Revolution, which it becomes known as a result of the culmination of the, you know, so-called revolution. but there was a lot of groups that were playing roles particularly in the early phases and at the end we had Sakashvili coming out of the revolution and then perhaps we can talk about that. So can you talk about a little bit about the lead up to the Rose Revolution and the groups that were at play here? Yeah, so I have, it's been a while since I've had like went back and like really looked

at all the different details. So I can say that one of the centers, say, was like a economic, I think it's called like New Economic School, which was like a libertarian, new liberal, NGO school kind of thing, where it still exists today, less prominent. So they were very much part of this. There was a student group, Kamada, that's the ones that watched the, the op-or video I told you about. And then also dissatisfied elites that had, you know, who, I can't really say exactly if there was, like, from the beginning of how much Sakashu was, like, groomed or any of that, because it's been a while, have to go through it. I don't want to say something that's not quite correct, but, like, sort of very similar, just generally dissatisfied elites. It was not like a working class revolution or something, you know, it's like, in the students are generally, you'll just pretty much easily, easily agitated. say. And so

political dissatisfaction going along with also Western distress, because you can have to look at the satisfaction all you want or if you don't have the Western support, you're not exactly going to generally, you're not going to be victorious. If you don't actually have some kind of a

real working class, like majority kind of revolution situation, mostly if it's sort of an overflow of elites, you're going to need the support of Washington and the embassy, which he did was able to get. And so with also open society,

it was also one of the leading components of this. So all these different NGOs that have been established, studio groups and with a little bit of help and also like a willingness by the West. They were able to, and also because

Chevron's step down, you know, he kind of this is why it was called bloodless, you know, the rose is he's given a rose to like leave and, you know, nothing happened to you. And so a lot of things had to happen for that to be successful because this was tried in many other countries and wasn't as successful, right?

So the new elites and the people who, you know, again, the Sakashu's elites, there's always this sort of, now it's kind of changed, but there's a part of town in the UC, which are sort of the communist elites that used to live there. And, you know, they always say Sakashui could never win that district, right? So a lot of his people that he kind of empowered were people who were sort of left out of traditional more post-Soviet and then post-Soviet sort of similar kind of elite structure. So like a new fresh, you brought in sort of new fresh blood in governance.

And so that, you know, I was too young then. I didn't live in Georgia, but I could see how that was also attracted. he was able to channel a lot of young people who are probably very upset with the same sort of government structures, older people, because there's also a similar thing now where it's like this feeling that young people are not integrated into and in advance in the system. You have a lot of professors who are very much older and still keeping their jobs and so on. So that was kind of that was happening back, you know, in the early 2000s. And so Sakashvili comes into power and he has things like he gets, he fires a lot of people who are older. Like over 40, he was like firing them to make way for his young people that he would sort of easily greenwash in some way, right?

So it's like people who don't have a lot of connection to history. And it's like his people and also just younger. and it's like my father was also fired and during this period because he was told to he's like part of a like a deputy chair of the public broadcasting

and he like he was told to fire a lot of people he refused to fire them and then he was fired because of that something like that you know so there was like a lot of upheaval I know like you know some of the Georgian immigrants I have interviewed in Italy.

One particularly tells about being fired from being a professor because she was told she was too old. And so lots of sort of cult. It was like a cultural revolution, which also is happening now, like a second. And a new way of thinking. And his was, you know, at first, if you read some of the Sakashwili stuff, which I can say is like,

it's much more of a statist at first. I think he'd say he's always been a status. but he was linking himself to U.S., because he's from the U.S., when he was a Columbia lawyer, like a graduate lawyer in New York or whatever, and he always says, like, I would just be a normal lawyer here on the president in Georgia. Like, it was much more lucrative to be, you know, president of Georgia, because he would just been like a nobody if he stayed in the U.S., which is actually true. You know, he's a complete narcissist.

And so the, you know, this is the war on terror. This is the time where Bush, you know, the neocon heyday. So he's very much linking his politics with U.S. politics. So he says more of a status. He changes the flag to our Crusader's flag. Sort of, you know, what state? Yeah, the St. George's Cross and with like the smaller ones, it's very much like a Jerusalem cross. It's a very crusader.

That's one thing I've noticed. It has definitely a lot of visual and iconic connection with medieval crusader or medievalist crusader crosses. And so that's very interesting that you mentioned that he was linking his politics as a, you know, maybe another one of these Eurasian frontier states confronting the world of Islam during the era of the war on terror. I mean, you could see that how that would be a way to position yourself geopolitically within the Western Alliance. And at the same time that there was a lot of this neoliberalizing at a higher pace, you know, than was happening under Chevard Nazis. So I imagine this is also what leads to soon after in the second Bush administration, these ideas of formalizing that kind of standard. of being a part of the Western military alliance during the era of the war on terror to dangling the NATO membership.

So I imagine that that's somehow connected. Perhaps you could talk a little bit more about. And also to add in, I would like to also add in on that, you know, to focus a little bit more on the economic side of things as well. I mean, of course, what Adnan raises is absolutely correct and very interesting. but adding just a little bit more of the economic side of things. So we talked about how Saakishvili was this radical neoliberal undertook, extremely aggressive privatization, much in excess of what was previously being carried out,

extreme austerity measures, and also trying to bring in a lot of foreign investments into the country. What this often led to was corporate dominance over enterprise, in the local economic structures, and as you mentioned, Sopo, a very vulnerable labor force. But the banking sector in particular was extremely heavily dominated by foreign entities at that time, which not only as a result of loans coming in from these international organizations like the IMF and the World Bank, but I mean, control of the banking system within Georgia itself, which really was stripping Georgia of sovereignty,

in its own economy, both internally and externally, and what a lot of scholars are pointing out when you look at this sort of analysis of the economic ways that things were unfolding at this time is that really this was creating a cycle of economic dependency as well. So Adnan is talking about this other dependency in terms of fitting in within the system militarily in terms of all of these other things, but also if you look at the banking side of things, the monetary side of things, the economic side. side of things. We see this cycle of dependency that benefits the oligarchs and the Western investors, but continually disenfranchising and emiserating workers within the local area

and then requiring additional influx of foreign capital, which then continues to disenfranchise local workers and local economic structures. So not only is there these components that Adnan brought up, but also I just wanted to add in a little bit more about. about kind of the economic dimensions, and particularly the foreign investment and essentially takeover of large sections of the Georgian economy and structures of the economy, including many of the banks within the country. Yes, there's so much to talk about, but thanks for giving that small context. So quickly, so Sakashuri alliance himself, let's go back to war and terror, you know,

as the sort of Eurasian outposts, like, said very well for it. And, you know, Putin was also doing similar things. You know, it was calling that Bush and war and terror sort of in his own, you know, to get rid of his own, like, enemies kind of thing. Well, Saakashu was signaling because he wanted to be part of the West, the Christian West. And during this time, it's important to note that how did all the Eastern Europeans get into NATO and you by supporting when the Western Europeans,

did not support the illegal invasions of the U.S. in Iraq. Yes, we did. He was the Eastern Europeans, and that was their ticket in. Sakashvili is just learning from them. Sakhashri is just a, you know, a cheap version of all the Eastern European countries. They are setting the stage for all this, you know. How to sort of ingratiate yourself. and this was a

prime example of that the U.S. needed a coalition of the willing or whatever the fuck they were called back then. So this was a way to get in. And we all know U.S. controls the EU, NATO, and it's bullshit. It's nothing about what Europeans actually have anything to say. So, Sakash really commits the most troops to Afghanistan and Iraq.

That's how he tries to increase himself. And so this is, also why there's also controversy now, right? Because, no, it's not about merit to get into the EU, right, in NATO. It's really about how much you suck up and how much you make yourself like indispensable, some kind of, you know, moment at some moment, right? So that has nothing to do with, oh, we did all this stuff that you told us to do. It's like all the reforms. Like, that's bullshit. So to go back to, Suck Ashrily. gets the sort of support from the neoconservative, you know, Bush era, follows the leading

examples of like Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, whatever. And also does this sort of memory politics, tries to have a similar Soviet occupation museum as a sort of concretize this like idea that we were also victims, because everybody's down in Eastern Europe is like, I was a victim of communism and really sort of mimics the you've ever been to Poland or ridiculous museum against you know like communists everybody occupied them right the Nazis communes you can't tell the difference they're they're both terrible and I mean in Georgia it's actually much more we were the architects of the Soviet Union so it doesn't fly reality history doesn't like add up but of course you can say

technically because there is sort of a Bolshevik-Menshevik rivalry that this is somehow a Soviet occupation museum and creates this new European understanding of communism as equivalent to Nazism as victims. And so that's like another element to this. And then later on, the sort of communist history is mixed in with economic strangulation, right? So around the same time, one's called Liberty Act, one's called Liberty Charter.

One forbids communism, the other forbids progressive taxation and spending budget, right? So it limits budget, you know, government spending, and completely bans like institutionally progressive taxation, what also, you know, banning communism. So a lot of these things are sort of interlinked to how the sort of anti-communist history has been used to, crush all kinds of like any resistance to capitalism and neoliberalism. So Saka Shuli is like

neoliberalism on steroids. Like if there was any kind of hesitation in other countries or during Shavardanaad, because still there was some decency from a Soviet Union of how much you can squeeze people, right? He has none of that. He

developed two things. One is the police. He completely reformates the police, he needs the new police to crush the resistance to anything that he proposes. In second, he said that financial institutions, banking and so on,

he really overhauls that. So you have police, and you have the banks, and then you have cleaning up of crime, which means like very similar to broken windows in New York, like it's like Giuliani, kind of

if you get people for the smallest things and then how you get to the big guys, you know. So jails and prisons, everybody was like 99% conviction rates. You know, like this was a crazy, crazy time. So lots of young people also go to jail. And that's how he creates. And then, sorry, and then sort of does this, gives you this sort of financial side

where you can get loans now and store credits and you get in debt. And so this desire to steal before which you used to. to be able to, say, steal from someone or whatever, is sort of subdued by the access to financial, like, you know, loans and, and getting, like, you know, store credit for, like, refrigerator or something. So that's how we kind of, I would say, um, restarts, um, sort of primitive accumulation, right? Like, setting the stage for, uh, neoliberalism, um, to sort of

work better, and then he gets rid of tons of, like, there's, like, 18 months where they say they're going to sell everything the state owns, you know. So he slowly moves into much more libertarian vandukita, who's the architect of the grand policy, like a straight-up Russian made oligarch who was, like, chop everything, you know, like sell everything but your dignity was like his saying. And he had, like, create a school and everything. And he's, he has own university here and he is like a shrine when you go in it's crazy but anyway so this approach meant also that in the name of so-called corruption his whole thing was corruption transparency so it's like making all these police stations that were like glass or whatever it's obsession with glass

everywhere like oh we're so transparent and on some new liberalism architecture is like horrible here his tongue. It's like I can't stand it. And so with this so-called anti-corruption, so he also knows how to use the language of the West wants to hear, right? Transparency, anti-corruption, democracy, rule of law, whatever. It's like mostly bullshit. But he gets rid of like labor inspection. He gets rid of food and health safety. He gets rid of all this stuff in the name of corruption. So he dispossesses workers and also consumers, right, from how

any kind of regulation over their own work or their food or their nails from not getting hepatitis C or whatever. So it's like a horrible, quickly done. It's like what, like this was scares like Elon Musk. He's like, I'm going to cut all government. We're going to get rid of this government agency and this go. We don't need it. It's like that is the crazy, because that's exactly what happened here. Like what is the worst nightmare of Americans? It's like happened here already where they cut all these different agencies to combine that. and there was nothing there. But the law, the labor law was like,

whatever the employer tells you and you agree to, that's the law. They, like, as far as I know, like the former, the bigger trade union where I came back to Georgia 10 years ago told me they couldn't win a case in court with any kind of labor violation. Really, nothing.

No kind of mechanism to safeguard. Like our metro workers say that when they wanted to strike, there were snipers on the roof threatening them. So not a lot of strikes or not a lot of movement during this time, and it also has a secret fund where he extorts businesses and stuff. So Sakashuri was using a lot of, so while keeping a certain kind of veneer for the Western accountants

and the auditors or whatever, he has like another layer where it's like a secret fund where he's extoring businesses and threatening people and stuff in the background. that's not shown so because we always like my friend i would joke like if you actually did whatever the iMF world bank told you you would destroy your economy so you kind of have to like you have to have like extra ways in this way was extortion and using force to actually keep a country together right and even when i was in u.s i remember opening up sorry i'll say economists and they'll have like uh invest in georgia so it was like he invested heavily in this

marketing all over, D.C. all over American, you know, magazines and whatever. Invest in Georgia's the best place. And if you went to invest in Georgia, it was like, we have no labor laws. Like, we'll do whatever you want. Just come here. Sorry, go ahead. You wanted to say something. No, it's okay. It was just the phrase that you said, keep the country together is very ironic because now I want to turn to 2008. You know, when we were talking about the way in which Sakashvili was trying to orient Georgia and orient himself. It was very much in a Western orientation, but not only that, but also

fitting within these military structures. And also reflecting on something that you said earlier, Sopo, in terms of the number of Georgian soldiers that went to Iraq and Afghanistan, those same soldiers are very important to note when we talk about 2008 and then the soldiers that were in 2008 are very important to note in conflicts that have happened in the region since then as well. So we'll probably continue to reflect on that specific point as we go on. But turning to 2008, of course, talking about the war that broke out between Georgia and Russia. Now, there was, there has been a lot of obfuscation

over the years in terms of how that war started. But, you know, at this point, the picture is fairly clear, despite, you know, what some actors continue to say about that. But the reason that I brought this up in this way is that when you were talking about keeping the country together, this is part of, it fits in within NATO's strategy of containing Russia. And Georgia was an outpost of that in terms of pushing back on Russian influence within various places, these autonomous regions, and Saakshvili very much had the idea that, and you'll be able to articulate this much better than Nisopo, and I recognize that, but just in way of introduction, kind of pull these areas back into Georgia's sphere and away from the Russian sphere.

However, what happened, and again, you will surely articulate this better than myself, that does not go particularly well, and the aftermath of that actually, when talking about the way in which Georgia has national sovereignty and it has this sort of unity and various ways of holding itself together, that illusion was really shattered in a moment and led to subsequent fallout, which I'll let you get to as well. So that was kind of an overly long introduction. As I said, I'm sure you'll articulate it far better than me. Can you Tell us about 2008 Sopo. Yes.

So one of the, well, first of all, Georgia being an outpost is a very willing outpost. So it's like, you know, they, I would say, you know, again, Georgia has been lobbying to be an outposts, but very much wanting to have that, to being able to have, like I said for many reasons, but one of them is having like a bargaining chip to, you know, have maintained some certain kind of autonomy. well, autonomy away from Russia, but also problematic with how much power U.S. and Mito and so on have. And so, you know, U.S. sells weapons. Like, it's really no-brainer. Like, that's, the U.S. model is selling weapons. If there was no wars or U.S. can sell weapons, like U.S. would, like, end, right? The entire thing, it's like Israel. Like, every, the entire purpose of U.S. is to sell weapons.

Like, and so they were selling weapons to say, goshudi, he was buying. them. He, they, you know, we did their army. You had the U.S. soldiers and stuff come here and train and so on. Israel was also selling weapons. Not sure how much, how many comparatively, but for sure they had drones because it's a funny story of how the Israelis give the drones to the Russians, Georgian drone codes and take them out in two seconds. That's like another story. I was, well, I was real lighting a little bit. So there's like you know and I was thinking about it because Sarkas, truly

I believe he's like very much all the other sort of Western ally like allies of the U.S. who they start to I think overestimate the support the U.S. Like I believe he was

convinced that the U.S. would rally to him. Wow. Absolutely. I mean you know you see what happened is first there's this kind of talk about Georgia joining NATO without, you know, really developing the exact procedures by which this is going to happen and all of that. But it's sort of promised and dangled. You'll be part of this Western alliance. You've been participating in the U.S. wars in the Middle East and, you know, broadly in the region. And as you're pointing out, there's a lot of investment of U.S.

military hardware training and such. So they're all getting NATO ready, as it were. with those preconditions, and it seems that he thought, oh, you know, they're saying we're going to be part of NATO, and he assumed that everyone will react like we are part of NATO already, you know, if we try and take, what was it, Ossetia, right, Ossetia that he, that he attempted to take, take back, as it were, and then it, but it didn't happen. also let's remember if we don't know was that um achara which is another kind of a break i wouldn't say break awake they're they're georgians more even the dark muslim georgians and kind of tied like with links with turkey he had brought achara back into a much more or even though there's like a federal system there they have their own sort of autonomous kind of zone um he brought them back so i think he was also convinced because he had done that and I also think he's like a maglomaniac and you know it's hard to also like you're not like

I don't trust the US but that's because I've seen what they've done for a very long time like I don't think suck I've never been like oh I believe you you know so like I think Saka shrily believed that if he and I do think there was definitely like I think Putin definitely wanted him to do something that stupid and he did definitely do it you know because it does come right after the neo summit that, you know, Ukraine and Georgia was were being promised or, you know, to let in, but, you know, very unclear

always. And then there were skirmishes. So it could have been, there was some bait by the Ossetians, could be. But then the escalation really comes with, with Sakashri. And his whole thing is, well, it's my, de facto, it is, you know, separatists,

but really, legally, it belongs to Georgia. So you can't say I'm unleashing sort of, you know, like the fire on my own, like it's, he's not invading because it's his country, it's like how it's been explained, right? It's on my territory. But then I'm like, well, even if it's your territory, why would you unleash, you know, in the middle of the night or any time, like, fire on your own citizens, right? And so this leads to the escalation of him unleashing fire.

on Ossetians and then in the morning he says a press conference which he seems very satisfied with himself like I've seen it it's not like I'm imagining it he's like yeah we have he goes now we have the control of the commanding heights he's like bragging you know because now it's phrase is like that's not true you know like it was all Russia from the beginning but he clearly does it and then condoines the rice and the new conservatives are like are you crazy what are you doing You know, it's like, so they, like, publicly, like, tell him this is, this is, you're wrong in this. EU writes a report and actually blames Georgia, you know, Georgian side, not Georgia, and so we didn't have nobody had any, you know, vote in this, blames Sakashuni for this.

But interestingly enough, now it's completely rewritten now. They're told that the E. report is false. All of that is fault. Conway's Rice has also said, I take back my words, you know, like all this stuff. And the whole thing has been outframed. You didn't listen to Georgia, and now you get Ukrainian, you know? And so, you know, this war was ended in a few days. It's, I've translated some stories from there, and it's like, it's, I mean, there's so many various conspiracy theories, too, that they didn't tell even the Georgians that lived on the border what they were doing, that they didn't tell them to leave.

and a lot of people got killed because of the way they lied to people, misled them. There's even one story where the woman says that the local politicians took out loans and then high-tailed the three days before the war started. So, like, there's a lot to unpack, and unfortunately, we're not allowed to. Like, most, it's become all this another taboo that no one can ever really, like, tell a story that people will not accuse of being some Russian narrative or political party trying to use it, you know? Like all these windows that you could have had

some honest truth have closed so much. It's difficult. But, you know, the stories from the actual people that I have translated I read are much more nuanced than anything that you ever hear on TV. And so you even have, I mean, this woman says that, like, I mean, there was a lot of stories even the banks were still calling

and giving them late fees. Well, they were being bombed by Russian bombs and stuff. So it's like this, so many levels of exploitation and trauma that the Georgians went through, not just because Georgians is the one that's, I know better. You know, I can't speak to all the Ossetians and so on, is that they were massively misled and they lost their homes. they were they had to pay late free state of banks some of the banks actually took away the houses that they had in other places and so on like just really a huge disaster and since then that

you know russia then before they didn't acknowledge the sort of so-called independence of these territories and so then russia acknowledged recognized them as independent from georgia that was the punishment that you know was meted out by Putin and so and then there was like various other things that happened so again I have more refugees you have a political discourse around 20% of my countries occupied by Russia that's become like everywhere you know you hear it daily bases and this was something that could have been very much avoidable I believe and you have any kind of re-ignition of

such a horrible ethnic fighting that already happened like 10, 15 years or 18, 17, whatever, 18 years prior or whatever makes it very difficult

for any kind of ethnic, ethnic wars makes it very difficult for any kind of peaceful resolution later on. You know,

like I always like think about this as well in Ukraine and Russia. It's like, you know, it's like reconciliation becomes so much

more difficult, right? And so renewal of like fighting also Georgia and again three two or three days that the war was over Russian

helicopters and planes were able to like bomb very quickly cluster bombs as well and like you know lots of you have like lots of victims and then you have no state

to support them like even giving money for people who were lost their husband or father during the war if they were bombed there's like $30 or something a month, you know, maybe less any kind of compensation. People talk about like losing their homes, putting in, putting these refugee camps,

they're terrible with some like Danish like cherries giving them like one chick to have as a chicken, you know, like some like horrible stories of like all the things that happen with refugees and all the things that happened with like a, and this was like a three or four day war, right? So it's like a very short time. I can only imagine what would have. And so since then, knowing that in the three wars that happened, we have lost more each time Georgians, smarter Georgians are like, we should not have wars anymore, you know, which sort of brings to today what the discourse is. There's still a lot of fresh memory of that.

And then this has been, you know, becoming, now it's, you know, became more and more, while it was like open space for a while to discuss that it was Sakashvini that was guilty of all this that window so we start closing their political party was very much pushing 20% of my countries occupied by Russia as being like the truth to all this and nothing behind of what's happening or any kind of responsibility

by Sakashvili the NATO membership that never came that's been constantly on the table but never given to Georgia. And the Georgian Dream Party, after it keeps on, so let's say it's 2011, at this point, the only way you could really get rid of Sakashri, I mean, he's, at this point, he's kind of disliked by the West, but not to the point where you can, you want to get rid of him. So there's like some negative press, some, you know, he's now, like, racked up a lot of, imprisoning a lot of people, started a war, you know, like, he's done a lot of things that,

not the best like not what you want in your little ally your little puppet but not enough to forcefully get him out i do think probably some americans or whoever probably americans had a talk like if you lose you got to go like i'm sure something like that uh but really you you could only get him out with someone who has a lot of money which is edina ivani shui otherwise you still be stuck with him probably not and this is actually the fear of now is that because Bidina has more money than other people he's able to maintain political power

while if he didn't have as much money he would have been ousted much quicker right and so Bidina comes in on mostly the critique was that because there was all these videos that were shown how prisoners were being raped in prison

and ultimately peaceful protesters were beaten businessmen like rich rich men were imprisoned and so there's like levels of Sakashuri

are being a bloody regime but because Georgian Dream has pretty much the same politics and neoliberalism everything that Sakashuri has there is never really

a real critique of his horrendous economic like you said foreign direct investment heavy tourism heavy you know financialization or zero rights for workers like all of the stuff that we criticize the lack that we have been you know dangin in saying out we're saying the same thing against Jordan Dream against that cash really the same bullshit

neolism they're not saying it that's not really that that's not what's shown on TV, right? It's not shown on the opposition channel. It's not shown on a government channel, because that's how everyone agrees. The elites all agree that neoliberalism, who cares if all the poor people emigrate,

who cares about whatever. It's like we're staying the course of this, capitalism all the way. You know, more free market, the better. The criticism is always like, it's not free market enough. Right, right. So, but could you explain

just a little bit who this, I don't know if I'm saying it correctly, Bidzina Ivanovili is and the Georgia Dream Party, how it got started. You mentioned that they were a kind of alternative. They don't seem to represent very much of a change, but they're something of an alternative to the late Sakashvili government that was running on fumes because of all of the terrible decisions, the political oppression, the war that was, you know, a disaster and so on. But who, you know, you mentioned that he had a lot of money, but I mean, is this basically like an oligarch, Georgian oligarch who kind of comes to power? Maybe you could, you know, just elucidate that for people who don't know who the Georgia Dream Party is and who this wealthy

figure who's behind the party, you know, is. yeah so btia rush really made his money in russia uh i'm not sure how millions he has now maybe seven or eight maybe he had less before so he also used to fund sarah shrily so where a lot of his people that are in government now also part i mean this was like um at first like i have you have to understand georgians so when they elect a new government they like almost elected a hundred percent okay like and they get rid of them 100 percent the next like it's like a very what they would call, you know, developing democracy, whatever the terminology is, that's like the political scientists like to say, or it is not a, political parties are usually tied to one person and maybe not like, you know, American political party where you have Congresses and internal elections, whatever, even though, of course, they got rid of those as well in, you know, in some places and they're pretty rich. But so-called a political party where you have to bring internal democracy and it's not tied to one person and you have resolutions.

Like that stuff doesn't really happen here. It's just like one dude and his people and another dude, his people, and whoever is bankrolling it, right? So, so Sack Ashrily gets only, he's like, again, everybody, all his former supporters, a lot of them have left, right? only sort of die hard or with him at the end. Bidina and like the mayor of George of Trici and others like him. And everybody who was just pissed off at Sakashiri all joined in a giant coalition with Bidina. So George and Green really was like a giant coalition of everybody who hates Sakashrii. And that was like, you know, a spectrum of politics.

I mean, they're all poor capitalist. But there was also like even social democrats or some. like the critical of capitalism in it. Everybody was in it. And there's also student movements as well that a lot of my friends come from, that were much more left-leaning.

So the interesting thing about this is that the protests against that Dachshri-Di created some sort of socialist and social democrat type of people. Because there was a social democrat

that was taking part, and some of the students who got into a little bit of Marxism not like radical but you know just like a little bit at least you have this huge coalition and this is why

the Georgian dream over the past 12 years have changed radically from how they began to what they are now because most of the people have left over time because they got angry with them you know so it's like it was not like a party that had some discipline or strict ideas

It was just like everyone who hates him, get him out. Here's this billionaire, binko and the whole thing, you know, it was nice. And so, Georgian Dream, having no real politics besides being against violence. This is also important now because they're blaming for violence, right? But they're against this sort of bloody repression, police regime that was San Kashri. And no other real critique besides that. And there was a bunch of businessmen and people who were imprisoned by him also being, like, hardcore supporters of Bidina against Sab Khashvili, who till today are still very much hardcore against Sakakashvili and serve his like most, you know, like cadre kind of fighters, like I refer to him as like old guard, who always wanted more political persecution of Sarkashvili's regime. But Bidina did not do that.

because as I understand it, the Americans told him to lay off the political persecution. So it was going to be a little bit, but not a lot. So I think that also complicated a lot of things because there was, you know, cohabitation, cohabitation with the old regime. They used to really upset the old guard and caused a lot of problems. And so here's Sakashrude, because he had already done all the violence, all the, financialization, all the sort of dirty deeds to get capitalist, you know, transformation rolling. George and Dream didn't have to do any of that. So in some ways, they were, they were privileged because then they would have to also beat up people and jail them and, like, force, like, you know,

force down their throat freedom, right? But this was already done for them. So in some way, they can say, like, oh, this is already started. We're just going to continue down this road, the same kind of reforms. You know, we're going to do even more. and then through this process they were just sort of bumbling along like not a very interesting party Georgian Dream mostly we just I had like millions of fights with them over different labor issues

so many things some of them started with Sakashu's period they sort of get a shittier but like better shitty but better version of labor code in 2013 you know they start moving with the EU association agreements some kind of ureforms that were taking forever always very watered down and through this and i shouldn't mention that a lot of sakashu's people went into NGOs when he was ousted this is important and i have to say a lot of them also went quiet like they weren't so

loudly pro-sakshu he slowly emerged afterwards you know i was And so Georgian Dream, cohabitation, continuing seeing policies, some lukewarm reforms here and there, slowly labor inspection kind of came back, but much weaker version that took like millions and millions of dollars and like years to get to a mediocre version. You know, so it's like everything they do is like so-called, just slightly progressive. and they keep the progressive taxation. They could have taken out in the Constitution to ban it. They get rid of profit tax if you reinvest. Just, again, a lot of things that already were there, just more of it. And they also, because they don't have that extortion that that Sakashuri had,

a lot of monopolies emerge with their time period. And they kind of, these people, like most of the leadership, they're very businessman types they're like you know like i don't get the sense that they have um now i feel like they've developed more because of the two years of pressure from from the west as being russian or whatever but like you're like milk toast kind of business then like they don't have a vision they don't not have a vision they're just like just mediocrity all the way you know and so around 2020 and again a lot of things happen in this

2019 is when this whole Russia stuff really starts to take off and let's not forget around 2016 and so on with Russia Gay tons of money is given to this find the Russian propaganda, find the Russian propaganda I would say probably start in 2014

and 2014 with kind of changes some of these things. 2016 is really like you know East West management and the CIAD everybody's giving up money for finding Russian propaganda or Russian propaganda stuff. It's like, I went to a couple of presentations. I thought it was a joke. Like, are you joking? Because they had no proof of anything, you know? Like, Georgia has zero Russian influence. Like, it's completely a Western kind of a space. Like, the Russian influence is what? Like,

the fact that there's some movies still that with Russian, like, you know, subtitles? Sorry, go ahead. No, but Soppa, you know, I just say no. Just because there's no evidence doesn't mean that there's not a lot of money to be made in this endeavor of trying to find Russian influence. I mean, you said a lot of money was put into trying to find the Russian influence, but we have to be honest about it. Much more money came out of this search, which, you know, yielded basically not much in terms of getting money put back into the project by other sources later on. I mean, it was a money-making endeavor to look for Russian influence, both in Georgia as well

is in the United States and beyond. And, you know, that also extends to media, and that explains also how the media portrays these things. You know, think back to, let's use the American context, just because it's one of the more blatant ones. Think of how MSNBC's ratings increased during this RussiGate period, and particularly Rachel Maddow's ratings increased. She went from being a some,

popular news host on the television to being the most popular news host in the United States overnight. And that overnight, the reason that she was able to shoot to superstardom at that point was not because she was on MSNBC. MSNBC was never the network for news. It was because she was the one who was pushing Russiagate the hardest and who had the most money coming in to investigate what was going on in this Russiagate period. that went on for years. So, yeah, not to derail the conversation too much, but a lot of money

went into trying to find this influence, but a lot of money also came out from that endeavor as well. Yeah, that's such an excellent point. Thanks for bringing that out. You're so right. And everyone in Georgia, who was part of that, also made tons of money with these reports and media and being hired for, you know, German Marshall Fund type of organizations and Lain Council. Yeah, people found their professions, like, I'm a disinformation specialist. Like, are you joking? Like, you know,

so many of this stuff was fueled by that. People made money, made their careers, and continue to do so. So I think that's where the sort of, this new wave of anti-Russian stuff really took off even more. Of course, if I said that there's wars, there's like all of the stuff that, you know, most territories that are very much a context of all this. So like very ripe, fertile soil. And with it now this like propaganda, disinformation and the so-called, you know, disinformation studies and so on, which, you know, started also because a lot of the anti-terrorism institutes were losing money because they couldn't. you know the age of terrorism was pretty much over so all they did was just we you know

re-re did their profile to counter influence and disinformation right and so that also is like a huge again like a lot of this stuff is coming from the u.s and then Europe takes whatever the US says and that this maybe slightly less even though I would think now it's a little bit more And so you have all this stuff and also just a lot of how to, you know, pro-West messaging, your EU, why EU is great, why Western democracy is great, tons of studies and campaigns and whatever. And, you know, I always think like punishing someone for rhetoric is like a joke. Like, I think I'm like too, to my socialist world because I cannot imagine. imagine punishing someone for being like, this is anti-Western rhetoric or like, or something

like that, right? And, you know, I was kind of, I almost laughed when the EU wrote reports saying this government was not punishing anti-Western rhetoric and instead of promoting it. I was like, got to be a joke. Like, who is, who seriously writes that? And so, you know, it's become like a dominant thing where somehow rhetoricing from so-called information. And we see this again with the meta right now. You know, look, Elon Musk, I mean, again, we're just like a, we're just like a little tiny part of this giant thing that's happening. But of course, in Georgia, nobody really knows what's happening to that level. So they just think everything here is like, like unique and, and, you know, only happens here. And it must be true and so on. Because often the gatekeepers

don't tell them it's happening everywhere. Or they just really don't know. Or they do know. and they on purpose will make it seem like it's like an organic anti-Russianness. Well, you know, Sopo, the anti-Western rhetoric couldn't have been too effective because a French lady became president. You know, if the anti-Western rhetoric was really that effective, nothing like that could ever happen. Now, of course, I am being very flippant with that comment, but how did that happen? Can you tell us a little bit about, so again, this is turning towards more, a little bit more recent? events. But, you know, how does it happen that a minister in the cabinet of the French government, who is a French citizen, become the president of Georgia?

I mean, she's, of course, she's French and so on. But she also is particular in the sense that she, her grandparents, fled Soviet Union, Soviet Georgia, because they did not want to be communized they were from noble wealthy family so that did some time during the menshevik government that we had for three years and fled afterwards when after sovietization so these people are she comes through like an ardent noble family who's anti-communist okay like her i think great-grandfather was also like like a major liberal during the Russian Empire in Georgia. And of course, I should mention, when we say C,

where she, we're talking about Salom Zurbishvili, which we haven't mentioned her name yet. Sorry, I apologize. Salam Zurbishu, who is the former president who just ousted, though she claims she's still the president. It's also important, too. She's the Guaido of Georgia at this point. So she comes from a long line of not even socialists,

Because we actually have some Mensheviks and, like, socialists who fled, didn't want to be part of Soviet-ties. But she was, like, not even from that. She was, like, her family is, like, anti-socialist, anti-communist, noble family, fled to France. Her uncle was, like, worked for, it was a Nazi, you know. It's just, like, very checkered past, like, someone in no world would I ever like. any of her, none of her background is appealing to me, right? And then she studied under, like, cold, like, sir, cold. She's like a stone cold, cold warrior, let's say.

That's where she comes from her ideology, her family background. Her uncle also had this, like, delusions of grandeur that the Nazis were just going to give him Georgia to rule. So, like, very staunchly anti-communist, pro-Western. And she has, I mean, from, you know, her history, like, she has a very privileged life, goes to top universities, become the French diplomat, like, very elite life, very cohesion, you know. So she comes to, as a French diplomat, I think she's a French diplomat to Georgia, and then gets, like, Georgian citizen, gives up her French,

to become a Georgian diplomat, and then later a politician. I believe, well, she also was against Sakashuli at some point, you know. She might have the, I want to say, because she's French and she's pretty much established in her own right and looks like she does think she's, I'll say, better than everyone, but she has, like, a certain hubris, you know. I do believe she had the audacity to go against anyone she wants in Georgia. So she went against Sakashuri, and then she recently went. against Georgian Dream that put her in power. She's so unlikable that there's no way she would have been voted in.

Like George and Dream pretty much paid cash for her. Like paid tons of money, forced her down our throat to elect her as president in 2018. So she was elected by the Georgian Dream supporters who all hate her now. It's like reverse. The opposition used to hate her. used to say horrible things about her. I'm horrible all the time. Also said her elections were rigged, by the way.

They boycotted her elections. They were rigged. They would not even recognize her for a while. Very similar stuff that's happened now. She was also part of that. And so it happened to her as well. They called her per Russian, you know, all these things that are happening to Georgian Zee now.

I believe Jordan Dean chose her thinking because the presidency was converted around 12 years ago into a symbolic head not actually presidential parliament but like it was the prime minister is the most important

in Georgia not a pleasant so she was supposed to be like a symbolic head she's Western she's French whatever so they were like see we have a woman she's your people

because Georgian Dream was completely and utterly interbreeding with the West just along the same line as every other government before or Georgian. The only difference is

is that even Salome said of this in the interview, 2022, Russia, Ukraine, and then we have severe problems. Georgian dream let's think changes. Let's say for me

it's more like they become aware that they're a real country and they have to rule it. Like for me because they were again very mediocre didn't do anything that stands out nothing. They handle, I think, COVID pretty well in the beginning. In 2019, they're already being called by some pro-Russian because of this incident by Russian MP sitting in a parliament seat,

which is ridiculous to begin with, but whatever. And so they have been flinging mud at them for a long time. If you go back since 2012, they've been called Russian because Sakhashuri has been telling his lobbyists in European Parliament to keep saying making resolutions how it's a pro-Russian government. But Sackashuri like, you know, you do that, but it doesn't really catch on, you know? And everything they've done is, like, very Western. They, they're all Westerners.

So, like, if most of them do I know or even interacted with or just seeing their posts, they're like America-loving, like, we're all West guys. Like, there's not very many, even, like, China or kind of the Orient or something. Like, they're not even that kind of people. They're just, like, straight up, like, I love Kissinger and I love Margaret Thatcher and Reagan is my hero. Like, they're that kind of people, you know? Like, what happened?

Like, why would this very pro-Western government put their old French president and tries to appeal to the feminism and, you know, girl power, whatever, girl boss? And all this stuff, they're trying to signal to the West, how come it changes? And that's because of Russia. And this is when I believe that Georgian Dream believes that they have to be careful in their politics because there are signs that want to open up a second front. It could be, I believe, that some kind of American told them, I believe it's probably an American that told them to open up a second front.

Ukrainians were making this call nonstop. and I believe that they're afraid that Russia could invade that could be pressure from the opposition to invade or start a second place. So they do believe they're in danger from whatever, whichever side. Then with added on with Israel and Palestine,

fears around Iran, there's like a lot of tension with greater Turkey. So Turkey's on the moon. I think they want to be very careful and because of their careful politics, which also means to sort of be good with everybody, you know, they're trying to be like,

let's be diplomatic with everyone around the region, let's be in bed with Turkey, with EU, with U.S., with Russia, you know, at least trade with them or whatever. You know, let's try to be cool with everyone. Israel, like they love Israel and they also go with Iran. You know, like everybody. That's how we survive. You know, that's like, I think this is what they're pushing.

But, see, the EU and U.S. said, you can't do that. You have to be on our side or your enemy. It wouldn't let them have this kind of, let's say, neutrality, or actually the opposite of just being for everyone. You know, some not very well-developed, but some kind of working neutrality they got going on. I don't think they were ready for the confrontation that came. Because again, this is we're pro-America, pro-West.

Like, again, I don't think they were ready for the level of pushback they were going to get. And they're not, say, now they're getting better, but they're not trained statesmen to the level of speaking the European tongue in a way, you know, to make them, like, Sakashu was much better at, like, convincing the, you know, the stupid Americans and Europeans that he was, like, the

Democrat guy. Like, they're not very trained on a sort of PR. You know, even the way they write all the time, the MPs and so on. Like, I'm just like, dude, do you not know how to write, like, a much more neutral-sounding, like, post? You know, like, they have this,

like, they don't have this sort of and sophistication of like the corporate talk or whatever like they wouldn't say like and so they come off really harsh and they say things that are so-called like anti-western rhetoric and a lot of things are of course taken and kind of cut up and not never really shown anything that's happening you're always kind of seeing another side and so you have all these NGOs you have all this foreign money you've all these obstinate political parties all investors now to take Georgian Dream out and they

have the ear of the West because they are funded by them they have meetings with them new parliament, new members Americans who everyone is now listening to the opposition and their version of events

when they go to look at the Georgian Dream side they're sort of tumbling and Georgian dreams like because they're not anti-Western right? They're not like, say, me, who I would have like a critique of the West, had one since, you know, I don't know how many years or decades at this point. So what they do is they're trying to, they don't have like an educated, like, or kind of comprehensive theories they can pull from. You know what I mean? So what do they do? They sort of align themselves with like right-wing Europeans and Americans. So Republicans, more Trump. So they try to mimic some of their talking points, like deep sense. states, which what we would call military industrial complex, right? So, like, we have our own, like, a leftist way of explaining things, but they don't have a leftist in the government.

They don't have anybody like this. So they kind of pull from Tucker Carlson and whatever. And of course, these right-wing people, like even Hungary or Slovakia, commentaries of Tucker Carlson, even Elon Musk, whoever, is also tied to Russia, right? Because Russia is also leaning on them to like get some of their ideas out so they don't have any liberal Georgian dream doesn't have any liberal supporters anymore in the west plus because they're also pushing which is domestically affected for them anti-LGBT law like a anti-LGB propaganda law which Georgians a lot of the constituents like like they're more conservative sales system influence of the church you know so a lot of things like that which are

disgusting for like the european liberals and the greens and social democrats so they're caught off like there's no way you're going to have them backing you at this point because they were part of some socialist international or something something kind of supposedly social democrat for supposedly social democrat 10 years i have never ever seen anything resembling social democracy of theirs in 10 years. The most socialist stuff they did is when they became conservative. So they were neither. They were neither, socialists, they just kind of became conservative.

They've just been plain old neoliberal for a long time. But they've lost their social democratic type of supporters. And because in most of the countries, besides Hungary, right, you have social Democrats or Greens or whoever in power, you're getting a lot of heat on Georgia and you're getting a lot of the opposition who I think are opposition are neither social democrats nor liberals

they're also pretty neoliberal probably more fanatical than Georgia Dream you know like more fanatical neolibers but they're just like also pro-West fanatical neoliberals you know and so you get almost you know European Parliament elements, you get statesmen, everyone just completely against George and Drain. That's why they were betting so much on hoping Trump would get elected.

Some of this pressure would be relieved from them. And you have Salamis Robichrilli pretty much tied to Macron, who is leaving the way to all these meetings. He clearly got her next to sitting Trump, got her a brief exchange with Trump, and all these are optics to show here that she has more power, opposition has more. more power than Georgian dream, like this kind of war. All of this, of course, has been going on for a while, but really catapulted everything. The elections were Georgian Dream won more than they had one before, and so I would be sure

called it completely rigged. She had no proof, of course. She blamed Russia, then changed the story to Russian tactics, to Russian methods, to Russian special operations, you know, like all this kind of stuff. She's like, we need time to figure out. how they rigged the election to some kind of what she called Armenian carousel to then their vote not being protected the like the mark that it bled out you could see whatever it changed like a million titles because they didn't have one working theory they were trying to go for

what was most winnable and again my opinion there's always rigging in these elections it's just that it's about how much her reflections were rigged the same way I would say about the same sort of garden variety region you know like in the again if you look at the reporting actual you know the international observers what they observed was not that dire like 24% weren't fully covered 6% you could see the mar you know very kind of I have nothing to be alarmed about But of course, the report is like one page about that day, and then 90 pages supposedly about polarized environment that the elections took place. And the second part is about the polarized aster election.

So, like, the report is, like, 99% before and after elections and, like, 1% about the actual elections. And so you can put a lot of descriptive and hyperbolic words before and after elections, right? So that's what they're really leaning on. So it's kind of bullshit. desolate. You know, I've also learned a lot about how much a lot of the election observation is fictional. Like, all of it is just like, they like you, they write

something very different, you know, if they don't like you. The same numbers can be turned into something great, fair elections, or something horrible. You know, like, it really just depends politically how they feel about you. So I had like a, I have never been observing anything this closely. So I I learned a lot just by observing nonstop and reading everything and watching them. They try to overturn the elections here. There will no go in the courts, and they say the courts were rigged or the courts are not impartial, so on and so on.

And really, this was kind of dying out. And then where the real protest began with Georgian Dream, making, I think, a stupid comment because the EU candidate status that we have gotten, because they told us to submit during the Russian war with Ukraine. They said, okay, now is the time Moldova and Ukraine. Like, it was a geopolitical move.

We submitted the application, got the candidate status later on. And then this was paused due to the foreign influence law. There's supposedly just about transparency of like foreign funding and LGBT law and so on.

And this has been stopped. I believe every six months, they review it like you say like every six months they'll say okay it's still your candid status status is like halted you know so supposedly and i think this is a really stupid part on georgian dream to supposedly take that political tool away from them from every six months to sort of intervening in our domestic affairs but telling um the opposition you know like

georgia's canist status is still halted knowing that this is not a real path anyway right So a lot of, nobody actually believes we're going to get EU membership. Well, I don't. Georgian Dream, clearly does not. But, like, the people are led to believe that we were about to get membership. And George and Dream dashed their hopes. So they just said, like, we're going to withdraw from even playing this every six months game. And in 27 or 28, we will come back and we will be stronger.

Because I think they're hoping that there will be elections and better, more favorite. governments that will not treat them as badly as these sort of centrist liberals have. This was looked upon as, ha, ha, you were Russian, you were trying to stop our EU membership, you were taking us towards Russia, and these gigantic

protests have erupted and have been going on for like 40 days or something since the end of November, and I think October in November. So now of just a full on political crisis, police you know, there's been like 500, around 500 people arrested.

At some point, there was a lot of like tens of thousands of people out, maybe even 100,000. And of course, they always say more and protesters and Georgian cream always says to less. There was like all these fireworks that the protesters were using against the police. And they were saying this is like organic, then like Georgian cream just like stormed a hit the opposition party headquarters and confiscated all the fireworks and next day there were no more fireworks so it was like almost I didn't even believe it

I was like no way because I'm still like you know I'm still like a leftist so some so I just I don't believe like everything's always engineer like because I've also been at protest with my own reasons and like organically so I'm always very like skeptical and calling everything

like socially engineered or controlled you know because I But, you know, I grew up in protest. So I'm always skeptical, and then I'm always shocked when some of it actually is true. I'm like, no way. Like, there's no way they all got fireworks from the political parties. Like, I'm sure they brought their own. It's like they got rid of fireworks and they didn't bring their own.

Like, that was it. So it wasn't organic in that sense. Like, a lot of the violence was actually done by the parties giving them. And then my friend was like, of course, you know, expensive those fireworks were? And I was like, huh, you didn't think about it. It was just like basic stuff. So now it's like police regime, like this, of course, like, again, 500 people arrested out of, I don't know, 40 days or something with tens of thousands, if not 100,000 protesters is quite small, imperatively to where I come from the U.S. movements, which they arrest thousands of people. like um but you know this is i think georgians generally have a very low tolerance for violence

like it's not something that's normal there's the expectation that cops should not meet protesters um that the government shouldn't despite like having all these like um dark times still i i believe there is a very low tolerance for violence in georgian as opposed to us which is like yeah of course he's got killed deserved it like that that's like a very American kind of mentality in Georgia it's like they're much more sheltered in that way you know like so like these sort of police violence very small place ever knows each other it gets really like overblown and so even if you're like dude this is not even close to what happens in Europe which a lot of people would say you know or America they like don't believe it

and for them it's like that's not a good like that's not a way to calm down situation for them you know because they were like but then it's so like oh we cannot have this like kind of violence but also like there's zero accountability for foreign funding or how journalists act like activists you know they claim media freedom right so like they will straight up be activists and then if there any kind of pushback on them then they'll say oh you are this we're media you know we're like journalists and it's just like you are taking away our freedom of media so it's like a lot of things are sort of stacked up in a way and then you have all of these like European American Pulitzer just come out like a chorus and just be like come down this police regime

totalitarian state and it's like I'm sorry but not even close to that like Georgia it's like the freest place I've ever been you know like it is because it's always been so free like probably the most free it's ever been is under the georgian dream government because people are so used to do whatever whatever they want now that jordan dreams like tighten up because it's it's gotten you know almost overthrown at this point it's like repression authoritarianism it's like i don't see how any of these things mean like authoritarianism i think that yeah definitely it's like there's a loss of you could do anything we wanted.

You know, like there's a certain level tightening up, but not even close to what authoritarian is. I don't think these people understand. Like, you can't have 40 days of protests all day, every night, non-stop. And then call it authoritarian.

They had a fake general strike for three hours today, which mostly business is the one closed. Then you even had like banks, like letting their own employees don't even agree with, like, okay, sure, just strike, just, you know, go for three, three hours, just whatever, work it out with me. Like, just, just in ways that, like, you just

would never have in the U.S. You know, like, again, this is like the only country I've ever lived with is in the U.S., so I can only compare that sense, like, she doesn't happen in the U.S. this level. And so I'm kind of, like, there's so much freedom, and to continuously frame this is authoritarianism is like mind-boggling. Like, I don't, I don't know what would happen to these people if they're actually, in any way, written as authoritarianism, you know? They just like, it's like this level of being sheltered or being like... Or do you think, do you think SOPA that maybe it's part of being able to anchor any critique

of fitting government and enlist or express Western support, you have to frame it within the context of authoritarianism.

You know, that's almost like the, you know, fitting into the U.S. discourse about the rules-based international order. So the way,

just like the global war on terrorism was the way to position yourself in the West geopolitically and try and enlist alliance and support and military investment and so on, that now the way to express

one's, you know, pro-West orientation is to, you know, kind of appropriate exactly that framework for describing the world and you critique your government as, oh, it's part of that authoritarian coalition, which is, of course, a Russian coalition, Chinese coalition, et i.e. the enemies of the West. So it seems like in some ways that's, you know, their way of trying to express the fact that they want to position themselves as a pro-EU, pro-American party and that the critique that has come about Georgia, you know, Georgia Dream is that it's pro-Russian. It's, you know, taking Georgia away from its historic position as a Western ally, as a possible NATO member as a possible EU member and bringing it more into Russian kind of orbit, which of course

is something that you were describing is, of course, far more polemical and significant in the era of the Ukraine situation. I mean, so it seems like maybe that's, you know, part of it. So I'm wondering, you know, going forward just as a final question, you've been so generous with your time. I know it's late over there in Georgia. But just, you know, how do you see the outlook going forward for how this will be resolved? You know, the elections were a little while ago now, you know, end of October. It's been continuing political crisis. How do you see it being resolved?

What's the outlook going forward of the various political alignments in Georgia now, given that months of, a couple of months of protests and the situation that you've been describing. I don't know. I'm sorry. It's like such a long story of all this. So the opposition is asking for new elections. That's their number one demand. And the other demand is to free all political prisoners, which are, I think like 30 or 40 left. Everyone's been let go besides like those for criminal offenses. They got U.S. abiding. And before he's leaving his office, did a lot of horrible things before he left, you know.

One of them was they put Bidinger on a sanctions list, but it's on a sanctions list that's, like, kind of weaker than the, it's like the anti-Russian sanctions list, like the Russian sanctions list, but it's like a lot weaker than the other sanctions list they could have put him on. So they got that. They are really waiting. So they cannot, the thing is, Georgian Dream, whether they'd like it or not, still had

and probably still has, despite all this protest, majority support. They can't quite win because they are the minority here. What they're trying to win is external pressure. And that is, right now, there's also another EU Parliament resolution. It's kind of pressure from the EU, pressure to get them sanctioned by the EU. pressure to get them sanctioned by the U.S., which they got a little bit of, and they have tied up some of, you know,

been seen as money because of this sanction. They're making it so it's so toxic. Because they can't win any other way. Really, they can only win if the U.S., the EU or UK can sanctioned virgin-train people, then that means they cannot do business and all the other businessmen will rebel again. against them, right? So that's what they're pushing is, is winning through American sanction

pressure, as I said, because Bitya has more money, they can't out-compete with him in the money. And so, you know, again, like, because Georgia is not Russia, right? So if you sanction Georgia, they're so exposed and open, like, you know, like Henry said, that we are so highly permeable financially dollarization, so and so on, so on. This would not be like Russia where you can maintain government control

unit restrictions. So this is a real problem. And they want to get new elections that's administered by like the EU or something. So it's not even like Georgia and run but like by like foreigners, like Western governments

like doing our elections for us which I find is disturbing. from the beginning. In reality, I believe the Georgia Dream will probably win again if there were elections. Of course, I think it would be capitulation if they actually had new elections and or if it was done by the EU or any Western government or administrators. But they are working on making sure no, like,

Western government recognizes the legitimacy of this government and through various sorts of pressures. and getting them, like, kicked out of things, you know, like they have pressure campaign for anyone visiting Georgia, any Western politician, there's huge pressure campaigns on them. Really try to isolate Georgia from the Western governments, again, just fine with China and, like, Iran and so on, Israel's. Now it's just, like, game of chicken who folds, you know? I believe that

Trump is going to be decisive what he does he has the happen like it's clear that the opposition has their little little rabbit dog called Joe Wilson which is American you know hire congressman from South Carolina

to be your mouthpiece who like straight up spends like every single day 99% of his post are about Georgia and claiming that this is tied to Trump

except of course he's in say Russian now he says Iranian and Chinese because Trump is like close now trying to fix their relationship with Russia so they're like this is a Iranian China like whatever

a pro Iranian China government eventually regime you know it's very funny to me how they're just changing the Russian to Chinese Iranian now just to suit Trump And then the Georgians also started during that

Just to lock his step It's just the whole thing is a farce But we'll see what happens I mean The Hungarians also got like sanctioned That was also crazy First time, so we'll see I think

I think the next The hundred like sort of the hundred days of Trump in office We'll probably show And shed more lights Of what's going to happen here a lot of this is again the war in ukraine is driving a lot of this so if that's kind of calmed down then a lot of things could be or walked back maybe because georgian dream is hoping to normalize relations with the west again without the cost of they want to keep

they want to have normalized relationship with with all all countries as much as possible you know if they're allowed to have a more neutral stance and not so much. Hyper, or Baltic states where it's like every day it's an anti-Russian, like, threat with, you know, with NATO backing you up. But the thing is, it's crazy that we don't have NATO membership. Like, this is the most dangerous time to be in a sort of corridor with no guarantees, yet expected to be, act like a NATO member without the New York United States.

It's just very dangerous game. I think Jordan Freeman, this place is more correct in their foreign sort of foreign policy. So I do wish they were a little bit more sophisticated, you know, politicians who, like, did not throw such, you know, curve walls and just worked on a little image a little bit more because you know

Russia Iran like well China never does this but like they may have the rhetoric but they're also like have the military and they have your big countries so you could be very crude but we don't have an army or literally anything you should just

refine some of your ways you approach you could be very critical without being stupid you know so but it's difficult I mean they've never gone against I mean I for me it's like matter of patriotism like

it's a small country being completely crushed by this just onslaught of Western you know politicians just like every day like against the government every day against Georgia like that to me is like crazy

and it's having these sycophants like I love you job I get your tattoo on my face like these are my heroes just sick and they call other slaves which I find just projection you know like the level of

truly you know mental slavery they're there in but of course they only believe there's only one bad guy and that's Russia and every you know the West is like the angels come to serious

I will stop talking I'm so tired I don't know if those that's fine On that note, it's a great place to leave the conversation. And as I said, I'm hoping that we can bring you back in the future to talk about Soviet Georgia at some point. Again, listeners, our guest, who is very generous with her time today, Sopo Jeporezze. Sopo, it was great to have you on the program. I hope you enjoyed your time here.

Can you tell the listeners where they can find you and more of your work if they want to find what you're writing and doing more generally? Yes. Yes, it was my pleasure. I hope I do not bore you with my three-hour talk. So you can find me on Twitter, Soap, at Sopchap. You can also find my substack. I think it's Sopio.com. And you could also listen to my podcast, reimagining Soviet Georgia, which is never three hours long. That's about it. Thank you. We'll have all of that linked in the show notes, listeners, and Yeah, reimagining Soviet Georgia is never three hours long, but we are the ultimate enablers on this show. We always manage to find ways to make the conversations long. Adnan, can you tell the listeners how they can find you and your other excellent podcast? Sure, you can follow me on Twitter at Adnan, A. Hussein, H-U-S-A-I-N. Thanks so much to Sopo for being generous in giving us this account of the intricate character of Georgia. politics and background on, you know, what's happening today.

Really appreciate it. And you can also listen to, I guess, I would say, a new podcast that is a successor to the M-H-L-L-I-S. You'll still be able to find it on that feed, but starting a new podcast, that will just be Adnan Hussein. And you'll find it maybe on YouTube, but certainly at least on the usual feed. So the Mudgellis is being transitioned into a new, new show. And I'm sure will remain just as excellent as the Mudgellus always was. As for me, listeners, you can find me on Twitter at H-H-U-C-K-1995, H-U-C-K-1-995. You can help support guerrilla history and allow us to continue making episodes like this

by going to Patreon.com forward slash guerrilla history. That's G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A history. And like I said at the beginning, you can find us on social, media on Twitter at Gorilla underscore Pod Instagram Gorilla underscore History and do check out

our substack where we'll get you updates on releases of episodes things that we're writing appearances we're making on other shows and whatnot

without having to rely on algorithms to get it to you it'll just end up in your email box that's gorillahistory dot substack.com and until next time

listeners Solidarity. You know,