Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Georgia's bloody and brutal past

Melik Kaylan writes about the The Museum of the Soviet Occupation in Tbilisi, Georgia. 'Occupation,' of course, is a very polite word in this case.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"A lie repeating 1000 times become a truth in minds."
P. J. Goebbels.

Concentrate your attention on many implicit psychological statements that terror of that time was directed only against georgians and only by russians. What a primary aim of this article and that "museum"? To cause a quarrel between russians and gerogians. Very shameful aim.

Kathryn Judson said...

Dear Anonymous, If that were the aim it would be a very shameful aim indeed. But I think you're wrong about that. I also doubt that very many people think that it was a case of all-Russians-bad, all-Georgians-good. I certainly don't.

The point, I think, is to make sure that people know that Georgians were murdered and deported and imprisoned en mass by the Soviets. In a world where it's fashionable to pretend that all people would be nice to everybody if they only had a chance, I think we need reminders that ruthlessness has been known to have long and successful runs, including government sanctioned or organized runs. This, of course, is not specific to Russians. But will you deny that what was launched out of Russia during those days was one of the worst examples of it?

Which is better, to pretend it didn't happen, or to say "let's try to do better in the future, with our eyes wide open to - and our hearts set firmly against - the temptations of tyranny"?