Georgia’s new iron curtain
It felt like geopolitical tectonic plates shifted when the country of Georgia took a full U-turn towards Russia this week. The country’s de-facto leader and the founder of the ruling “Georgian Dream” party, the oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, accused the West of being a “global war party,” and claimed it has “pitted Georgia against Russia” for decades. He was speaking to a crowd of supporters — who were really public sector workers bussed in from across the country, many forced to turn up at the rally or face losing their jobs.
Re-writing Georgia’s recent history, Ivanishvili said that Russia’s invasions of Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014 and 2022 were the fault of the West.
The speech follows days of popular protests against the so-called “foreign agents law”, a piece of legislation that wants to force civil society organizations to register if they take money from foreign entities, or face penalties. In his speech, Ivanishvili called Georgia’s vibrant civil society part of a Western spy network and announced their “destruction” after the October elections.
The “foreign agents law” is an important tool in the government’s arsenal. The law is a carbon copy of the Russian legislation which the Kremlin used to attack Russia’s independent media and civic activism. What’s interesting about the law is that it has become a Russian soft power export and a major feature of a modern day authoritarian playbook around the world from Nicaragua to Egypt.