question about Georgia and its linguistic minorities and their status ("rights")

[Harold Schiffman]

All:

I've been disturbed in the last few days by the attacks in Georgia,
assuming that Russia
is the culprit. But then I read that Georgia had abrogated the
autonomy of previously
autonomous  districts/regions such as Abkhazia and South Ossetia, where during
Soviet times, Russian was the main language that linguistic minorities
in Georgia
learned in schools, rather than Georgian.  Georgia naturally would
like its minorities
today to learn Georgian, and there have been a number of messages on this list
in recent  months  about the status  of Armenians and others in Georgia.

My question now is what  exactly did the abrogation of autonomy mean in Abkhazia
and South Ossetia, and why would it make the residents of those areas feel they
would be more comfortable in the arms of  Russia when the current 'war' began?

I cite a message sent  to this  list not too long ago by one of our members,
Rusiko Amirejibi-Mullen, by way of background:

Saturday, 7 June 2008 5:39 AM
From: Rusiko Amirejibi-Mullen
Subject: Georgia's Policy towards its National Minorities

After the 'Rose Revolution' of 2003, the new government, especially President
Mikheil Saakashvili, began to refer to the issue of national minorities
on a frequent basis. President Saakashvili in his speeches likes to
emphasise Georgia's multiethnic makeup and the great potential this
carries. The president and other high officials now frequently talk of
the need to integrate national minorities into Georgian society and
stress that this does not mean assimilation and abandoning own
identities. Rather, the new government is promoting civic nationalism
over the ethnic pride that has so far dominated Georgian history. Still,
to date Georgia has neither developed a comprehensive document outlining
its policy towards minorities nor shown a coherent policy orientation in
its actions. However, on the institutional level, the Office of the
State Minister
on Civil Integration was created following the 'Rose Revolution' to signal the
importance the new administration gives to bettering the lot of the
minorities in Georgia and integrating them into the mainstream society.
This body headed by Zinaida Bestaeva, arguably the least active and
recognizable minister of the entire Cabinet, is in charge of formulating
the civil integration policy and coordinating its elaboration and
implementation with all other state institutions.

Hal Schiffman
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