Georgian PM argues criticism of Russia should target state, not people

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze on Monday said attitudes toward Russia as a state and its policies should be clearly distinguished from attitudes toward the Russian people, arguing that what is being presented as Russophobia amounts to transferring opposition to a state’s policies onto an entire nation.

Kobakhidze noted it was important to differentiate between attitudes toward a state and its policies and attitudes toward its people.

“Russia was an empire and continues to have imperial ambitions today. That is, of course, a fact. Every empire has committed numerous wrongs, first and foremost against neighboring countries. The Russian Federation was naturally one such empire. Russia committed numerous wrongs against Georgia before 1801 and after 1801, in 1921 and after 1921 as well. It was an empire and continues to have imperial ambitions today”, he said.

“Georgia is one of the main victims of these imperial ambitions. We have experienced tremendous pain. I was a child when the war in Abkhazia took place, and that was the first pain I experienced that was directly connected to these imperial ambitions. Another war followed in 2008. More than 400 people were killed in that war, and even more in the conflicts of the 1990s”, Kobakhidze continued.

The Prime Minister added that these experiences remain emotionally painful and are associated with a particular state.

“What is important here is to distinguish between the state as such and the nation as such. When an empire commits certain wrongs, those are the wrongs of the state”, he said.

“Of course, everyone participates in this to some extent, but to give a simple example, it has been 70 years since the Soviet Union’s occupation of Hungary. That occupation gave rise to anti-Soviet sentiment among the Hungarian people. They were living in an independent country and suddenly found themselves under occupation. At that time, the Soviet Union included many different peoples, including the Georgian people”, Kobakhidze said.

He further noted that when Soviet tanks entered Budapest, Georgian soldiers were among those deployed, some willingly and others through conscription.

“Imagine if, because of this, the Hungarian people had come to regard Russians, Kazakhs, Lithuanians, Estonians and Georgians as a hateful group of people. This is precisely the distinction I want to make”, he said.

“This is what we are talking about. When we speak of Russophobia, anti-Russian sentiment or anything else, these concepts must be clearly distinguished from one another. It is very simple: we must distinguish between an attitude toward a state and an attitude toward its people and nation”, Kobakhidze stressed.

The Prime Minister added that society must distinguish between attitudes toward the policies of a state - in this case, a state that occupies 20 percent of Georgia’s territory - and attitudes toward a people consisting of millions of individuals.

He argued that every nation contains both good and bad people and that entire nations can become victims of political systems.

“The German people are the best example of this. I can recall my childhood as well. In the 1980s, we all thought Germans were bad because whenever you turned on the television, every other film portrayed Germans as villains, killing Georgians, Russians and others. They were depicted as fighting the Soviet people, as well as the United States, France, Britain and others. We grew up with this perception. Yet, eventually, we realized that the German people were not bad at all; on the contrary, they were extraordinary people”, Kobakhidze said.

“I spent three years there, and it is truly an exceptional nation with an extraordinary culture. This is what we are talking about: one thing is an attitude toward a state and its policies, and another is an attitude toward its people. Distinguishing between the two is what matters”, he continued.

Kobakhidze concluded by saying that what was being imposed on the Georgian government in the form of Russophobia was the transfer of attitudes toward a state’s policies onto attitudes toward its people.

“This is a fundamental issue that we should discuss”, he said.