Paul
Goble
Staunton, December 9 – Tbilisi’s continuing
problems with its two largest Muslim minorities, the Azerbaijanis and the Adjars,
have resurfaced since Georgia’s parliamentary election, and while these have
received less attention than events in the capital, they may ultimately be even
more important for the development of that South Caucasus country.
When his party dominated the
Georgian parliament, President Mikhail Saakashvili was able to restrict coverage
of these problems, but under the more open media regime of Prime Minister
Bidzina Ivanishvili, they are attracting more attention, leading some to blame
the new government for them and others to suggest that this attention will help
resolve the situation.
According to the Georgian census of
2002, approximately 10 percent of Georgia’s population are Muslim, but Muslims
there say that the actual figure is twice as high. Most are Azerbaijanis and Adjars, but there
are also Tatars, Chechens, Chechen-Kistintsy and other North Caucasians.
As a result, relations between the
Georgian government and Georgians in the opinion of Avraam Shmulyevich, president
of Israel’s Institute for the Eastern Partnership and an expert on the Caucasus,
“the religious sphere is almost a question of life and death for the
preservation of the Georgian state” (www.politrus.com/2012/12/08/georgia-islam/).
Most of Georgia’s ethnic
Azerbaijanis live in the Kvemo-Kartli region, where they form roughly half of
the population According to observers, “both the Georgians and Azerbaijanis
consider this region theirs historically and are certain their ancestors lived
there from time immemorial” (peacekeeper.ru/ru/?module=news&action=view&id=16624).
Tensions
between these two communities have risen over the last several months as a
result of more than a dozen attacks on Azerbaijani families. Mubariz Akhmedoglu, the director of the
Azerbaijani Center for Political Innovation, says that the motive behind these
attacks was “not theft but rather a desire to put pressure on the Azerbaijanis
in Georgia.”
A
recent independent study released in Tbilisi suggested these problems were
intensifying because “for every 20 Georgian babies” in the region, there are 80
Azerbaijani children.” This demographic divide, the study continued, would mean
that “the number of Azerbaijanis really living in Georgia would already have
reached 15 percent of the country’s population if there were not so great an
outflow of the population from these regions to Azerbaijan and to Russia.”
Faced with these demographic challenges, Ali Mamedov, a
Georgian Dream member of parliament, said, the Saakashvili government
restricted the rights of the Azerbaijanis in Georgia in never-before-seen
ways. The number of Azerbaijani language
institutions was cut, and ethnic Georgians who did not know Azerbaijani were
put in charge of Azerbaijani secondary schools.
Moreover,
according to Mamedov, the previous Georgian government carried out a land
reform in the region in a highly discriminatory way. Ethnic Azerbaijanis received less than a
sixth of a hectare while ethnic Georgians received on average “three to four
hectares.” And Tbilisi even renamed “numerous Azerbaijani villages and
population points.”
But
the sharpest interethnic conflict involving Georgia and it Muslims in recent
weeks has been with the Adjars. On October 25, “local residents in the village
of Nigvziani [in the Adjar area] blocked access to a Muslim prayer room and
demanded an end to the conducting of Muslim religious services there.”
Not
only did Georgian law enforcement agencies intervene to protect the Muslim
Adjars, but Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili spoke out about this clash,
saying that it was “completely alien” to Georgia and asked followers of both
traditions in Georgia not to fall victim to provocations (regnum.ru/news/polit/1602194.html#ixzz2ES8N3YKR).
These clashes have led outside
observers to reconsider the ways in which the previous Georgian government
dealt with its Muslim minority, why such conflicts are surfacing now, and how
the new Ivanishvili regime is likely to proceed (www.politrus.com/2012/12/08/georgia-islam/).
In the view of some, like
Azerbaijani political analyst Chingiz Mamedyarov, Saakashvili created many of
the current problems because he sought to portray his country to the West as “the
leader of the entire Caucasus” and thus acted in ways that violated existing arrangements
about Islam in Georgia and Azerbaijan.
Last year, Saakashvili promoted the
establishment of the Administration of Muslims of Georgia as an institution
separate from and not subordinate to the Administration of Muslims of the
Caucasus based in Baku, headed by Sheikh Allakhshukyur Pashazade, and
responsible for all the Muslims of the Caucasus from the time of the Soviet
Union.
Not only did that cut off the Azerbaijanis
of Georgia from Baku, Mamedyarov said, but because many of those involved in
the new administration have links to radicals in Turkey and Saudi Arabia, this
move brought “to the borders of Russia international Islamic extremism” and
assisted “the financing of militants in the republics of the North Caucasus.”
But others suggested that however
much it might have upset some, Saakashvili’s move in this direction was completely
understandable given the desire of Georgia to have administrative control over
its own Muslims. And it is simply not the case, Shmulyevich argued, that the
new group is infected by Salafi extremism.
“The official leadership of the
Georgian Muslims,” including administration had Dzhemal Paksadze, are “ideological
opponents of the Salafis.” “For ideological reasons, it has no ties and cannot
have ties with the Salafis. On the contrary,” Shmulyevich insists, it is
engagedin “a struggle for influence among the Muslim population of Georgia.”
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