Wow, this is great! Hopefully, georgians can save themselves from being used as cannon fodder for the imperialists.
indeed
It’s still a precarious situation but with this law now passed at least they have backed off a couple of steps away from the ledge.
Gotta love the URL right there - “georgia-divisive-russian-law”. Major mistake prevented, by the way. Fuck those NGOs.
Indeed, I also love how they avoid mentioning that US has had the same law on the books for ages.
It’s not the same law. FARA (which is not without criticism either) differs significantly in scope. They “translated” it, and then tacked on a lot of other stuff. The Georgian law would require all NGOs to disclose all funding. You might see why people may be uncomfortable with donating to a group which is against something the government wants to do. It risks stifling freedom of speech and it restricts freedom of capital, which is a requirement for being in the EU.
While transparancy in politics is good, note that political parties don’t face the same scrutiny under this law. Selectively enforcing transparency can be used to go after political dissenters. This is how it started in Russia; first it was just disclosure, which already led to harassment and dismissal of anything a group put out. Then additional measures were passed to prohibit these groups’ speech. And I haven’t even touched upon the possibility of selectively prosecuting dissenting parties for supposed violations of this law, which could be very costly and difficult to fight.
In countries with strong rule of law and low corruption, these laws are tricky to get right. In countries that have more problems, they can be quite dangerous. Georgia has a complicated history with plenty of turmoil. I can see why there’s not much faith that the Georgian government will not abuse this law to stifle dissent.
It’s not like there aren’t legitimate arguments in favour of this law, and it’s not like those NGOs have all been of exemplary behaviour. But I do wonder if there aren’t better ways of fighting malicious foreign influence than a law that feels like a catch-all method of suppressing any dissenting groups (which the FARA act is also criticised for, and imo that should be significantly amended too).
The flip side here is that western NGOs are running wild in Georgia
And this is precisely the playbook the west used in Ukraine with the results we can all see now. If this law helps prevent a maidan style coup that turns Georgia into a US proxy, then it’s absolutely a good thing. So, yeah this law can be abused, but the reality is that Georgia is that it’s necessary to prevent political capture of the country by western interests.
I would think it’s far more likely that a controversial law like this would trigger a Maidan-style coup, no? Or that if this law does end up frustrating EU accession talks, the population may be swayed to coup the government if they don’t follow up on their promise to become an EU member?
The current ruling party is still pro-EU and aims to become a member by 2030, which follows the large support for EU membership in Georgia. I’m not sure if the “political capture of the country by western interests” is relevant here, seeing as they are already fairly west-aligned.
I guess we’ll see how it plays out, but my guess would be that Georgia isn’t quite where Ukraine was yet, and hence why they want to prevent that eventuality while that’s still possible to do. Wanting to join EU and wanting to be sovereign are two separate concerns. Clearly, sovereignty is becoming a sharper issue than joining the EU right now. The picture that the interview I linked above paints is pretty wild, so I don’t really find it surprising that they want to put an end to that. Also, the fact that EU politicians have been prancing at the rallies against the law kind of gives the game away.
Noice
“I do believe that if there is proper understanding of the objective of this law, nobody would prove why transparency can go against European integration,” Bochorishvili said
That part, that fucking part! Transparency should not disqualify them from joining the EU and if it does then that is a huge red flag. Why join an organization that demands opaqueness? The protesters still baffle me… did anyone see the video of said protestors doing the Hunger Games three finger salute? Embarrassing…
Color revolution. Not all protestors are paid but the organizers are trained by the US embassy, and they tell them to use those kinds of pop culture symbols. They probably didn’t tell them outright to film a video doing the salute from the hunger games specifically.
They don’t necessarily even have to pay the organizers, though they probably get paid to some extent, especially when the colrev starts to wane and people go home. In that case you want to have your NGO on the ground still keeping up the agitprop, and when it’s their job to do that, they’ll do it no questions asked. They don’t get paid directly from the state department wiring millions into their account, rather their own NGO gets paid from funds and shell companies, and then they dispose of that money as they wish locally.
As a Georgian, NONE of the protesters I asked could actually tell me what the law was. all that knew was that it was “Russian” and that they needed to burn the city for it.
I recommend reading this interview with Temur Pipia (First Secretary of the Unified Communist Party of Georgia) for better details (there’s also a video of him punching a NAFO member floating around somewhere). It’s an old interview by now but its just as relevant:
Did the protestors have a media liaison that could possibly answer much better than that 😭 that actually really sucks, the least they could know is what the actual law says, damn. Anyway thanks for linking that interview, it was a very intriguing read and I did see that video of Pipia punching that guy (skinny guy with a black anti-communist shirt?), it was incredibly iconic, we need more footage for NAFO and Nazis getting beat.
The media’s even worse. I don’t watch much cable news, but the other day I overheard my grandma watching a segment about “Putin’s plans to create a new Soviet Union”.
Is there a version of that “Xi, Please” image with Putin instead?
I have the same experience at my house with hearing the news my grandma is watching, its in Portuguese so I don’t understand everything but they talk a LOT about Ukraine and Russia (very pro-Ukraine), one of the guys on the news is also very anti-communist and USSR so there’s that element added too. It’s funny how the media in Portugal is similar to Georgia…
It’s weird because when you join the EU you have to adhere to basically similar laws regarding transparancy in NGOs. But the goal is to get Georgia into the EU so then it doesn’t matter anymore. Right now they aren’t, and this transparancy law would painfully show the amount of EU funded NGOs in Georgia, stirring up shit.
Wow, so it’s even more shady.
did anyone see the video of said protestors doing the Hunger Games three finger salute?
They make reference to western media so the western liberals think they love freedom and democracy, when what they really love is the money they get paid by NGOs to go to these protests.
Exactly, it’s incredible to watch libs doing mental gymnastics trying to explain why transparency in politics is bad actually.
Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili is rolling in his grave rn
he’s still alive in Gori
There’s a statue of him iirc
there was one in front of the museum, they took it down unfortunately, its still lying out back somewhere
i visited the museum some years ago, i’d recommend it to everyone. although recently the neolib government made them add a whole section on “stalinist terror”.
if you’re a of stalin, and you’re not socially inept, go give it a visit. you’re also bound to get along with some of the locals. rural Georgians tend to be extremely friendly, and Gori is pretty much all stalinists. knowledge of Russian will help.
Maybe one day when I can, my country is VERY far away from Georgia haha, but thanks for info!
it’s pretty easy to come here, getting a Georgian visa is honestly no biggie.
