Stalin's Legacy and Georgian Democracy Posted by The Editors

NSN Intern Eric Auner provides his take on the state of Georgia's Democracy"

According to a New York Times story today, Stalin remains a revered figure for many Georgians.  This makes some sense, given that he himself was Georgian, but seems puzzling considering that he is widely considered to be a mass-murdering psychopath (I imagine that he is not so popular in Ukraine).  A historian quoted in the article claims that most Georgians regard him as “higher than man, more than human and less than God.”  Even if one does not accept this story at face value, which is probably the correct response, this article can serve as a doorway to a greater discussion about the state of Georgian democracy today.  How democratic is Georgia?  Here are some quotes from a recent Newsweek article on the subject:

“The NGO Freedom House puts the country in the same category as Venezuela and Nigeria”

“Georgian democracy suffers from having no real line between state and party… President Mikheil Saakashvili has never created a meaningful judiciary, has weakened the legislature and has centralized executive power.”

“If anything, the country is becoming less democratic, according to Freedom House. In November 2007, Saakashvili cracked down on antigovernment demonstrators in front of Parliament, declared martial law and shut down a private television network.”

None of this is meant to bash Georgia.  Rather, the existing discourse, propagated by people like Sarah Palin, about a struggling democracy facing an “unprovoked” invasion (even though Colin Powell himself has said that “the match that started the conflagration was from the Georgian side”) from a resurgent empire needs to be modified and fleshed out.

Henry Kissinger and George Schultz, former Secretaries of State, put it more bluntly: “This drift toward confrontation needs to be ended.”  Both campaigns need to deal with this, John “We are all Georgians” McCain especially.

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