American Dream, Georgian Dream

Is what's happening in Tbilisi a preview of what's to come in Washington? Alexandra Hall Hall, the former British ambassador to Georgia, talks to Greg and LB on "The Five 8"

While most Americans could not find it on a map, the nation of Georgia, in the Caucasus region, is a very old country: Bagrat, the father of Maria of Alania—wife to two Byzantine emperors and lover of a third, and the main character in my historical novel Empress—was the king of Georgia back in the eleventh century.

Today, Georgia is in a precarious position: a small, vulnerable country close to a vast and bellicose Russia, and largely forgotten by the West. And there is a shared history with Russia, not least of which the fact that Joseph Stalin is from Georgia.

Worse, the country is in thrall to an oligarch, Bidzina Ivanishvili, who holds some 40 percent of Georgia’s wealth and, like our oligarchs in the West, is closely aligned with Moscow. There has been a tug-of-war in the country for years, and in the last three weeks, it’s come to a head. The Western-leading president, Salome Zourabichvili, has been replaced by the candidate of choice of both Putin and the oligarch Ivanishvili—Mikheil Kavelashvili, a hardliner and former professional soccer player who isn’t the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree. Think a Georgian Herschel Walker.

To which you might ask: so what? What does a small Black Sea country have to do with the situation in America? In many ways, Georgia is a microcosm of the United States. What’s happening there now can be seen as a bellwether. If Putin has his way in Georgia, he may well have his way in the United States, too.

Alexandra Hall Hall, the former British ambassador to Georgia, flew back from Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, last Friday, and an hour later was our guest on The Five 8.

Her report on the situation there so critical that I wanted to share it on PREVAIL as well. There is much to be learned from Georgia, in terms of how a Kremlin-aligned government oppresses its citizens—and how the people should resist.

Here’s what she had to say to me and Stephanie Koff last Friday, December 13th:

I spent the last week in Georgia. Georgia is a tiny nation in the heart of the Caucasus Mountains, originally part of the Soviet Union, that broke free, [and] declared independence when the Soviet Union collapsed. And ever since then, it’s gone through a series of governments, kleptocracies, corruption, criminality.

But bit by bit, each government has been a little bit better than the last. And in 2003, it had something called the Rose Revolution, where it threw out a very corrupt Ancien Régime still affiliated with Moscow, and really started introducing democratic reforms, rule of law reforms, and very firmly committed to trying to join the EU and NATO, as a way to anchor themselves at the heart of Europe—which is where they see themselves belonging—and finally breaking free from Russia. What has been happening in the last few years is that a new government has come to power that has continued to go along with trying to join the EU and NATO, but in practice has slowly begun a process of democratic backsliding.

Everything came to a head about a year ago as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, because the EU, in response to the Russian invasion to Ukraine, realized it really had to make a tangible offer to countries in this gray zone—the sort of countries that are trying to break free from Putin and Moscow and anchor themselves in the West. The EU couldn’t really keep them waiting any longer. So it finally granted official candidate status to Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia.

And for the Georgian Dream [Party] government, it was: they’re finally offering us a tangible entry to the EU. And this government has been riding two horses. It’s been trying to keep relations going with Russia while telling its population it was committed to the EU. And when that offer came from the EU, they realized they had to make a choice. And what has happened is, I think it has become clear that they have made a choice. They think Russia is going to win in Ukraine, that Georgia is better served staying with Russia. And so they started introducing laws to clamp down on civil society, announcing that they were going to outlaw the opposition, suppressing the free media space in Georgia.

And it all came to a head just in the last two [now three] weeks. They had elections which are widely believed to have been rigged and fraudulent and illegitimate. And immediately after the elections, the incumbent government announced it was putting on hold for four years any attempt to join the EU.

This is what the straw that broke the camel’s back. And I don’t know how many of your listeners have been following this on the news, but it led to massive protests out on the streets in Tbilisi that have slowly spread all the way around the country.

There are hundreds of thousands of Georgians, and this is a tiny country. There’s less than four million population. So it’s been huge protests, night after night after night. And today, the day that I was flying back, they even had a general strike. And they’ve had all these different groups of protesters. They’ve had IT guys. They’ve had human resources guys. They’ve had architects, artists, NGOs, aid workers. And then at eight o’clock they had the techno music scene coming out and protesting. I mean, it has been this widespread protest because what they realize is, it’s not really about the EU, it’s about the soul of their country. Are they going to be sucked back into the Russian orbit to become a satellite of Moscow again? Or are they going to be a free and independent country?

. . . I was ambassador there eight years ago. We could never have imagined what we’re now seeing on the streets of Tbilisi, which is sort of black-coated thugs and goons with water cannon, with tear gas. They’re putting tear gas in with the water. So when you get jetted with the water spray, it stings your eyes. There are random gangs of black-coated thugs with no official insignia on them, grabbing people off the streets, throwing them in the back of vans and roughing them up very badly until they’re unconscious and then charging them with trumped-up charges that they were resisting the police or they were guilty of hooliganism. Georgia has never seen this.

Just for your listeners, I want to put this in perspective. They have rounded up almost 500 people now, over 80 percent of [whom] have serious physical injuries because they’re being beaten up in a very deliberate way. That is the equivalent of over 45,000 Americans being detained. . . if you compare the population size. So this is massive.

And it’s not just about the heart and soul of Georgia. . . If Georgia slips back into Russia’s orbit, Armenia will slip back into Russia’s orbit. It’s disheartening for Ukraine. This is Western credibility at stake. This is a country that sent troops to fight alongside American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. . . [T]his is a country that was really committed to partnership with the West. And they now have a kleptocratic regime that wants to drag them back. This is on the cusp of becoming Belarus. And it is chilling to the bone.

For the rest of the conversation, please listen to the podcast and/or watch last week’s Five 8.

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LISTEN TO THE EPISODE

S8 E13: American Dream, Georgian Dream (with Alex Hall Hall) SEASON FINALE

For more than 30 years, Alexandra Hall Hall worked as a diplomat in the British Foreign Office, with postings in Washington, Bangkok, Delhi, Bogota, and Tbilisi, where she was the British ambassador to Georgia. She is now the co-host of the Disorder podcast. This is an interview from Friday’s episode of THE FIVE 8. Having just returned from Tbilisi, she talks about the situation there. Plus: Holly Jolly.

Follow Alex Hall-Hall:
https://bsky.app/profile/alexhh.bsky.social

Follow Greg on BlueSky:
https://bsky.app/profile/gregolear.bsky.social

Subscribe to The Five 8:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0BRnRwe7yDZXIaF-QZfvhA

Check out ROUGH BEAST, Greg’s new book:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D47CMX17

ROUGH BEAST is now available as an audiobook:
https://www.audible.com/pd/Rough-Beast-Audiobook/B0D8K41S3T

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PROGRAMMING NOTES

This is the 160th episode and Season 8 finale of the PREVAIL podcast. We will return in a month or so—probably after the inauguration.

Please subscribe to The Five 8 and watch us live tonight!

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Photo credit: Thousands of pro-EU demonstrators filled the streets of the capital Tbilisi on Friday, December 13th. (AP)