DPM Tharman Shanmugaratnam shared his recent experience to Georgia and the lessons that we can learn from its history. Click on to find out more! DPM Tharman: A Merry Christmas to all Christians and Festive Greetings to all! The photo? I took it last week at the Jvari Church, built in the 6th century, perched above the town of Mtskheta in Georgia. It is part of the beautiful and diverse Caucasus region: one of the ancient cradles of civilization, and at the crossroads of East and West, Islam and Christianity. My family and I just returned this evening from visiting a few places in the region for a break. The region has seen tragic conflicts in recent times, and large loss of lives. But the conflicts have less to do with ancient rivalries than with modern political calculations. And the conflicts have little to do with religion. The Caucuses have actually been a region where Christians, Muslims and others lived together and mainly accommodated each other over the centuries. Incidentally, this is also where wine may have originated from. Till today, Georgia and Azerbaijan are known to produce excellent wines. For those with an appetite for more about this fascinating region, here goes. Georgia and neighbouring Armenia were the earliest nations to adopt Christianity - early in the 4th century, and before the Roman Empire did. Together with Azerbaijan, they are the three small nations that comprise the Caucasus, the region named after the magnificent arc of mountains that divides Russia from the Middle East. Azerbaijan was originally a centre of the Zoroastrian faith (one of the most important religions two millennia ago), before becoming Muslim. By the way, there is a reason for the term Caucasians, which has often been used to refer to all white people of European descent. Many Europeans trace their ancient roots to the peoples of the Causasus, including Azerbaijan. The small nations of the Caucasus have had many layers of history and culture, reflecting the influences of the large powers that controlled them - the Greeks, Romans, Persians and Arabs in early times; conquest by the Mongols in the 13th century; followed by centuries of contest between the Turkish Ottomans and the Persian dynasties; then control by the Russians from the early 19thcentury till the break-up of the Soviet Union two decades ago. But from early times, there was co-existence of people of the different ethnic groups and faiths in the Caucasus. They lived in the same towns, spoke each other’s very different languages, and shared similar rituals. They all adopted elements of Persian culture. Even during the centuries of rule of the Caucasus by Muslim empires from Ottoman Turkey and Persia, Christian peoples were allowed to keep their faiths. (The major ethnic tragedy came in the 20th century, in Turkey’s Eastern Anatolia region, where the Armenians were forcibly expelled in 1915.) The capital cities of the Caucasus were also examples of the remarkable mix and flow of people of different ethnic groups across the region. Yerevan, capital of Christian Armenia, had a Muslim majority for much of its past; Tbilisi, today’s capital of Georgia, was historically controlled not by Georgians but by Armenian merchants; Baku, capital of Azerbaijan was the most cosmopolitan and indeed a centre of jazz music. Today’s relations in the Caucasus too defy religious lines. Armenia has closer relations with Iran than with its old Christian neighbor, Georgia. Azerbaijan, which runs a secular state but whose people are Shiite Muslim, cooperates more closely with Turkey (Sunni Muslim) and Georgia than with Shiite Iran. There have been bloody conflicts in the region over the last two decades, following the break-up of the Soviet Union. But they are not about religion either. The people of South Ossetia and Abhkazia, who have broken away from Georgia (but are not internationally recognized as independent nations) are Orthodox Christian like the Georgians. Indeed the region that was also feared to break away from Georgia but did not, Ajaria, is Muslim. The Ajarians decided to remain Georgian nationals. The biggest conflict, between Armenia and Azerbaijan, is a long-standing territorial fight - over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Its people are mainly Armenian, but it is recognized internationally as belonging to Azerbaijan. It has rich soils, and has been in dispute since the 1920s when the Bolsheviks made Nagorno-Karabakh part of Soviet Azerbaijan. The conflicts and breakaways remain unresolved. But there was nothing predetermined about them. They reflect political maneuvers within each country following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and repeated failures of negotiation. And they also reflect geopolitics : Russias strategic interests in the disputed areas near its borders, and by comparison the West’s incapacity to intervene despite its promises. There can be no simple summary of the problems of the region, and they are likely to remain unresolved for some time. But we should not lose sight of the bigger history of the Caucasus: of accommodation and friendships between ordinary people of different faiths and cultures. It’s what we need more of, all over the world.
Posted on: Sat, 27 Dec 2014 13:00:01 +0000
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