Crises in the Caucuses

Who is to blame and what to do? The first of these two classical Russian questions will be answered by historians, but the second needs an urgent reply today. I regret that the world learns the geography of my country, present and/or former, mainly through the names of places where terrible things happen: Nagorny Karabakh, Grozny, now Tskhinvali, Tbilissi… Which is next? These names are difficult to pronounce, even more difficult to understand what is going on there. The unknown often seems scary. Who are those Ossetians?  The bearded bandits with wild eyes and Kalashnikovs?

For a change, why not take Russian conductor Valery Gergiev - an Ossetian - as an example. It is a pity that not a single TV channel broadcasted the extraordinary concert he and the orchestra of the Mariinsky Theater gave last week in Tskhinvali, Georgia [Editor’s note: south Ossetia] to the crowd of grieving people. All his regular performances, like a recent one in Verbier, are broadcasted worldwide, and there were plenty of cameras in Tskhinvali… Strange, isn’t it?

Talking of broadcasts. I happened to be in Tokyo during the heat of the crises, and could only watch CNN, mostly with a Japanese voice-over. I could hardly believe my eyes, and yet I am so used to take CNN’s word and image at its face value. Then, upon my return to Geneva last Friday night I watched the coverage of the events in the Caucases, alternating CNN and a Russian channel. While talking on the phone with a Georgian friend, who was watching a Georgian channel, in Berlin. Clearly, we followed three different events.

English-speakers might remember “Fawlty Towers” (a television comedy series) and a brilliant John Cleese uttering to his German guests “You started it! You invaded Poland!”. It is amazing to see how quickly the Western press chose to forget who has actually started it, who invaded Ossetia. And this shortage of memory is even more surprising when more and more arguments are put forward to prove that the US and NATO were aware of the forthcoming attack. One should be very naïve to imagine that Russia would not respond.

The verbal escalation on both sides of propaganda fence is indeed scary. After lots of screaming and stone-throwing the media came back to its senses and started breaking it down to pragmatic, even cynical, facts, but facts nonetheless. On August 22, Peter Baker in International Herald Tribune summarized the Russian options for applying pressure on the West, and those of the West on Russia. Well, the Russian list is much longer. A shorter but even more explicit summary of the situation was given last night by the TF1 correspondent in Moscow who said that Europe has neither a carrot nor a stick to negotiate with Russia.

With all my respect to Professor André Liebich, I do not share his conviction, expressed in Le Temps today, that President Saakashvili comes out as a winner, even in long term. The winter is approaching, and Europeans want their houses warm, hence the need for Russian gas. Of course, this sounds terribly synical, but à la guerre comme à la guerre…

And there is another complication which probably escapes the West: Russian and Georgian leaders may hate each other but the people do not. The three major Russian poets of the 19th century, Pushkin, Lermontov and Griboedov, all glorified the beauty of Caucases in general and Georgia in particular, and sang praise to the courage and nobility of its warriors, gentleness and modesty of its women, its melodic songs, the contagious fever of its dances, the quality of its food and incredible hospitality of its people on a whole.

These images are still valid. Any Russian schoolchild knows, thanks to Lermontov, the exact location of a tiny monastery on top of a hill at the feet of which cross the streams of Aragva and Kura in Georgia. By the way, the monument to Lermontov still dominates the highway between Tbilissi and Mstkheta. At least it did, only a few weeks ago. Likewise, during my recent trip to Tbilissi I felt no animosity whatsoever, quite on the contrary.

Besides poetry, Russian have always liked chess and have been strong at it. Much more so than Americans. Clearly, this is a shortcoming in Georgian President Saakashvili’s education: when attacking Ossetia he did not plan his next move. The consequences are tragic for his country. To conclude, my personal opinion is that the Russian response was legitimate but it went too far, unnecessarily so. But the question remains: what to do next? The floor is open for discussion.