Nov 7, 2009
November 7, 2007 – A Personal Experience
Exactly two years ago, I was sitting in my office in Tbilisi when I heard sounds resembling gun-shots. As I looked outside of the window I could see masses of people crossing the bridges followed by tanks. You can not imagine, it felt like war had hit Tbilisi. However, it was Georgia’s own government shooting with rubber guns and water-canons at a group of people protesting against President Mikheil Saakashvili.
For several weeks the opposition was holding mass protests in front of the Parliament, blocking Rustaveli Avenue, the main street in Tbilisi. On the morning of November 7th, the government decided it was enough, and forcefully tried to remove the protesters.
Seeing it with my own eyes, I felt like being thrown in the midst of battle, not to mention the grief of my colleagues, stating this was worse than what they had experienced in the early nineties. Innocent people were being beaten by undercover police, dressed in black, with their faces covered in masks. Hitting people with wooden truncheons.
On the other hand, there were groups of protesters, singling out policemen, and beating them till they could no longer move.
The government’s statement was like a typical Georgian government statement: it happens in western Europe too.
That evening, I went straight from the office, where we were clustered around the tv for more information, while looking out of our window now and then, to a friend’s house. Since me and my friends did not have a television or internet at home, we decided to crash for the night at their house.
The whole night we watched the news updates, and the next morning, I went in a deserted Tbilisi to my office. The surreal atmosphere still gives me the shivers.
November 8th 2007, Saakashvili announces early elections. After, allegedly, a harsh talk with the American Ambassador (the U.S. had allegedly even flown in someone else, because the two refused to talk to each other after a fight in the American embassy).
Today it is two years ago, but the impact of that day is still noticeable.
[ The photos used in this post are from a competition held in December 2007, organised by HRIDC (www.humanrights.ge).]
I spent all days watching TV as well and I know exactly how you would feel. Almost all of my close friends were on the protest I was scared for them and for every single Georgian who were there protesting. I remember feeling that the freedom that we think we have is just an imagination and nothing more…
2 years passed but we are still facing the same problems over and over again, and it’s sad to think all the mistakes that we are making :( hopefully things will turn out better for future :)
Thank you Inge
Best
Mako
I was returning from Riga on the morning of November 7 and was in Tbilisi. As I made my way from Alasani to Didube en route to Batumi, crowds of people, some bloody, were making there way out of Rustaveli after the police descended. In Batumi that day, university protesters had been beaten by masked police, including the university rector. Though the government was duly criticized for the tactics and Saakashvili called early elections, I think these events also contributed to the relative peace during subsequent demonstrations on the part of the authorities. The option to violently suppress demonstrations and silence opposing viewpoints with force has, I hope, expired. The only path to a Euro-Atlantic democracy is through open dialog and pluralistic politics.
From http://www.rferl.org:
“After any revolution, the revolutionaries become disappointed after their victory. Because although they were the ones who had done the fighting, it was other people — who were perhaps dishonest, who were thieves — who came to power. That’s life. Freedom and democracy are for everyone, not only for decent, heroic revolutionaries. Society has respect for decent, heroic revolutionaries for only the first five minutes after the revolution. Then it forgets them. And then it doesn’t like them anymore.
“I don’t think anyone should hold a grudge against democracy or society. There shouldn’t have been any illusion that it would be a paradise. This is probably not a paradise, but it’s not hell anymore.
“Many people — perhaps fewer among dissidents or revolutionaries — thought that if the pressure of a totalitarian police state was lifted, everything would be all right. It was not a utopia, but it was an illusion that democracy solves everything. Democracy does not just solve everything. Democracy offers freedom and basic civil rights. But democracy cannot decide who of us will be happy.”