THE ROSE REVOLUTION (Roza-"Rose"-is a common name in Georgia)
by Galina Petriashvili
The events of November 2003 here in Georgia-the popular protests that resulted in the ouster of Georgia's president-have been called a revolution of roses, because of the flowers that were grabbed up from flower-beds at the height of the drama. I wrote "Rose" with a capital "R," and a name was born-a name that refers collectively to the women who stood on that square. I am not at all trying to say that they-our Roses-made that revolution. But what was their role in it? And, more importantly, what can they expect from it?
All our revolutions of the past ten or 12 years have been entangled with the pain of women-or, more accurately, with the pain felt by our nation as a whole, which women are more apt to articulate. They are the national receiver into which the pain flows, takes the form of words, reaches boiling point.
And that is when the receiver becomes both a transmitter and a catalyst. . .
As I attempt to analyze all this, I think of Nino, Sandra, and Rose.
Everyone knows Nino, because her last name is Burdzhanadze. Everyone knows Sandra too, but to a lesser extent. No one knows Rose, who came in November from a little Imeretian village near Samtredia to be there for our revolution.
NINO
Nino Burdzhanadze, a distinctive young politician, turned 40 in 2004. A jurist by profession, she graduated from Tbilisi State University and did her postgraduate studies in Moscow State University's School of International Law, earning a postgraduate degree in jurisprudence. She was elected to Georgia's parliament in 1995. Her parliamentary career has taken her from head of the permanent delegation to Great Britain, via chairmanship of the parliamentary committee on legal affairs, of the Committee on Cooperation with the European Community, and of the Foreign Relations Committee, to the post of speaker. . .
She was one of the three leaders of the Rose Revolution, the other two being our current president, Mikhail Saakashvili, and Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania.
An interview with Burdzhanadze was published in We/Myi No. 16(32), 2002.
In the early hours of the "peaceful transfer of power" (a.k.a. the Rose Revolution, a.k.a. the Velvet Revolution) Nino Burdzhanadze found herself frantically working to legitimize what had happened-since, as parliamentary speaker for the most recent convocation, she carried the greatest political weight of the three.
One can feel fairly confident in surmising how Zhvania and Saakashvili divided up their roles. The former was the most experienced, sophisticated, and, as we say here, crafty politician-the ideologue of the revolution. The latter was a favorite among ordinary folks and a master of populist action-the motive force of the revolution. But Nino's real role is difficult to judge.
Did she stick to her guns at certain moments? Did she hand over the reins of government to the men without a care in the world? Those are hard questions.
Some observers are convinced that it was not easy for her to declare herself acting president. Nani Chanishvili, a member of one of the preceding parliamentary convocations and now a leader of the women's movement, is certain that Madam Speaker delivered that historical announcement under pressure from her two
partners: "They were straight up breathing down her neck when she declared the president unable to serve, and assumed his functions. . ."
One can only guess what burdens lay upon the interim replacement for the deposed president. Although the constitution strictly limited her rights in such a case, her moral responsibility during those early days was enormous.
The entire dilapidated state economy had to be somehow held back from the brink of chaos. An opposition that was all at sixes and sevens, the economic stupor, the wholesale destabilization, a series of explosions in the center of Tbilisi. . . How harrowing was the Adzharia situation alone? What was at stake there, after all, was civil peace.
It was extremely important for the autonomous region of Adzharia-Georgia's problem child-to be involved in the extraordinary elections to be held after Shevardnadze's fall. After several consultations on numerous levels, including mediation by Russia's Foreign Minister, Nino Burdzhanadze set off to meet with Zurab Abashidze, the leader of Adzharia. The diplomatic assessment of the ensuing talks was that they had been a failure. Abashidze certainly did not seem to think much of this visit from a female politician, and he demonstratively refused to discuss any matters of importance with her.
And although the person of Burdzhanadze was neither here nor there and the game that the Adzharian leadership in Batumi was playing required them to keep Tbilisi on tenterhooks just a little while longer, a leader as hidebound as Abashidze would hardly let slip any opportunity to show how little the gender of our acting president impressed him. . . In any event, the decisions that Tbilisi was looking for were not taken in Batumi until after Zhvania came calling.
Burdzhanadze's second failure was in Moscow, where she went in response to an invitation from Putin and where the main topics for discussion were the simplification of visa requirements, conflict resolution, and the removal of Russian military bases from Georgia.
Naturally, no one was fostering any illusions with respect to that visit: there were just too many problems and too many sources of mutual recrimination. The meeting between Putin and Burdzhanadze was purely symbolic in nature, since Burdzhanadze was no more than an acting president, which meant that any guarantees she gave could not be given in writing and would at best be only "draft-quality."
This meeting was viewed with a good dose of skepticism in Russia, whereas in Georgia expectations were very high. But Georgians came to realize how naïve those expectations were the very next day, when the newspapers pulled themselves together and announced to their readers the obvious fact that the decisive role in Russo-Georgian relations belonged not to Moscow and Tbilisi but to Moscow and Washington.
As I write this, it makes me wonder if I studied every accessible detail of, say, Shevardnadze's official visits so minutely? Of course not. Nor is it likely that we would have counted the minutes Saakashvili spent cooling his heels in the Russian president's waiting room. But for many in Georgia, Burdzhanadze's visit was special, and not only because of the revolution. If I might be allowed a metaphor here, there had been a house fire, the relatives had come to blows, and the neighbors were getting anxious. Who would be the first to start reorganizing the remnants of the furniture, sweeping the floor, feeding the children, and hanging up the clothes-lines? The women, of course. I believe that was more or less Nino Burdzhanadze's job, albeit on the level of high politics.
Just before the New Year, Moscow proffered something of a small apology, in a very roundabout way, when ORT, the Russian Public Television channel, named her one of the most popular people of the preceding year and did a special feature on her. Who could have doubted that one of the first shots would be of a rose? And there it was, in a vase on a table in Nino Burdzhanadze's home-a golden rose, a symbol of the "Velvet Revolution" and a gift to its heroine.
And, since the Acting President does not care for artificial flowers, the rose was real but gilded. She joked that it was just like a woman politician: metallic on the outside with tender petals in the inside.
The segment writer mentioned that Georgians call this woman Iron Nino and that "for the Caucasus to have a woman leader with such standing is even more sensational than it would be for Russia." Even before Burdzhanadze, truth be told, Georgia was ruled by a woman-Queen Tamara-though that was some 800 years ago. But that did not interest the writer, nor did what might be called the process of governing of the country. He was, rather, interested in what happens in the kitchen of the Acting President and her unconventional husband, "the only man in the Caucasus to forbid [!] his wife to cook."
As Burdzhanadze herself put it, "My husband yells at me when I start doing housework. I get upset and tell him that it's usually the other way around-that the woman gets yelled at when she doesn't do anything around the house.
But now he understands the load I'm carrying, and nobody's scolding anyone."
But they could have been, you know. They certainly could have been.
Of course the presidential bodyguard has its own complaints, because guarding a woman is just too weird: "Madame Acting President might suddenly change her itinerary and spend an hour at the hair salon. Or refuse to leave home without talking to a girlfriend first. . ." And that is the vulgar nonsense they were spouting about a woman who had but recently been the heroine of an out-and-out political drama.
SANDRA
Sandra Rulovs is the wife of our nationally elected new president. He got 96% of the vote in the special election on January 4 [2004] and without a doubt an appreciable number of those votes were thanks to his wife. Sandra is “our bride,” as we say in Georgia – that’s what we call wives whom Georgians bring from other countries. Sandra is Dutch, blond, smiling, and European to the core. She is lively and open and she jokes a lot. When she starts to speak in Georgian, and all the more so when she sings our folk songs, the whole of Georgia sheds tears of emotion.
This is an unusually felicitous feature in the portrait of our beloved Misha [short for Mikhail]. “Mi-sha! Mi-sha! – they chanted at meetings. And alongside him, such a wife – beautiful and intelligent, and so advanced and forthcoming, and so tolerant, and with such subtle feeling for our national spirit. I think she also senses how to behave, for the political interests of her husband.
During the short hastily organized electoral campaign, Sandra had dozens of meetings with voters in the various corners of Georgia. She urged people to vote for her husband, she gave out sweets and promises. She smiled and sang “Tbiliso,” she spoke not only in Georgian, but also in Mingrelian, if that language was called for. To further the symbolic significance of the rose, she promised to name her second child Vardiko (in Georgian “vardi” means rose). Joking aside, in Georgia where the cult of family continues, these “image-making” gambits are politically astute and surefire.
So our revolution was not endangered even by Sandra.
ROZA AND ROSES
On November 15 [2003] Roza Mchedlidze came to Tbilisi from a little village near Samtredia and I made her acquaintance on the 22nd on Rustaveli Prospect. By then Roza had already been standing on the square for a week, leaving by metro only to spend each night with distant relatives in one of Tbilisi’s bedroom districts. She told me that many people from her village region had come to Tbilisi through some organized effort, on buses. Family matters kept her from getting to the group in time for departure, and she rushed to catch up along the way. Many in her group were allowed to treat this as a business trip, but because she was late in joining, she had to go as a volunteer, on her own time, for the idea itself. And the idea was: we cannot live like this any more!
Here is how Roza lives. Her husband went to Russia five years ago, apparently as a construction worker, and disappeared. Well he’s alive, she gestured dimissively, and a year and a half ago he telephoned, from Tashkent for some reason. Why – you couldn ‘t understand over the telephone. Anyway, he wasn’t coming home yet, he had no money. At home with Roza are three children, the youngest born immediately before her husband’s parting. Also at home, her in-laws, both pensioners. Their pensions together amount to fourteen dollars a month and come irregularly, about three-four times a year. There is also the sister-in-law, a teacher, who doesn’t get any pay whatsoever.
Roza says that in the village there’s no money. People exchanges goods and services, handicrafts have revived, smokers grow their own tobacco. She says that from October to April-May there is no electric light to speak of in the village. You get up at dawn, you go to bed when night falls. Autumn comes, you unplug the refrigerator, you cover the television to protect it from dust. It’s sad for the children. Come spring they rush to the TV as though seeing it for the first time.
VELVET GENDER OR THE GENDER ASPECT OF THE VELVET REVOLUTION
This time there were noticeably fewer women than at the meetings in the time of Zviad Gamsakhurdia. Then, at the start of the 1990’s, women were the frightening force and shield of the first president [when Georgia became independent]. The First Lady had only to raise an eyebrow and a crowd of women immediately produced what was needed – a burst of applause or a barrage of damnations. On television there is a very simple but effective way of rousing the public in one direction or another: a picture of hysterically screaming women. She (someone’s sister, mother, wife, daughter) is full of emotion and screaming, and you are sitting in front of the screen and getting angrier by the moment. Isn’t this the classic beginning of all ethnic conflicts?
During the days of our revolution and afterward, I talked with two other Rozas – friends of mine in the Coalition of Women’s NGOs of Georgia. I asked them and other colleagues into what model could you fit the gender composition of what had happened here in Georgia.
Roza Kukhalashvili, chair of the NGO “Women’s Council of Abkhazia,” said approximately the following:
What has gender got to do with it? Right now everyone is united, everyone is in the upsurge. Just wait, people will go home and then we’ll recognize gender. Some will go home and mop floors, and others will stay and divide up the power.
Roza Tsindeliani, leader of the NGO “Sabinebi,” commented in this way:
Women were very active, they showed tremendous citizen willpower. Without their participation it is fully possible that the result of the confrontation could have been altogether different. New parliamentary elections are approaching, to replace those that were falsified. And so what? Women again find themselves in positions amounting to nothing, with nothing shining for them this time around either. We say we want to be a democratic country. Then let’s take our example from Europe. In many European countries parties don’t get registered for elections if men and women are not equally represented on their candidate lists.
Nani Chanishvili, leader of the NGO “Association for Gender Development,” and chair of the Club of Women Parliamentarians:
Gender disproportion is a stable factor of government power under any president – under Gamsakhurdia, Shevardnadze, under any political configuration. The share of women in the parliament is insignificant, 6-7%, not more. No political change will influence this. The imbalance was, is, and will be there. In March we’ll have new parliamentary elections, and I think the percentage of women will be still lower. Falsified elections or not falsified, it makes no difference for the representation of women. What does this tell us? That no political forces are interested in bringing in the women.
Charita Dzhashi, leader of the NGO “Gender for Socio-Economic Development,” remarked on an interesting pattern:
In 1990 we had our first multi-party elections. Gamsakhurdia’s “Round Table” was the winner. There was a lot of national romanticism, and the majority of those at public meetings were women. Now pragmatism is the thing, issues are decided by power. The time has come for necessary radical changes, and the gender proportion at meetings has also changed. Power entices men.
However it is interesting to look not only at gender proportions but also at generational ones. Young people were the majority at the November meetings [of the Rose Revolution] and the most active were young men. Why? It is this category that today has the most access to resources, and this is the result of all the cataclysms that we’ve experienced over the past decade. Women are remote from resources, they face far more obstacles on the path to a good education, to social guarantees, and so forth. Because of this, they think differently. The conclusion: we have to work more with women. Activating them will make the victory of our democracy irreversible.
Lela Khomeriki, from the organization “Center for Civic Culture,” has this to say:
The gender balance in such a specific thing as the composition of a crowd at a meeting is an indicator of the democracy of social processes. This is why men and women, according to my observations, were about 50-50. On this score it is interesting to look at the group supporting the former president. … There the majority were men.
In Lela’s thinking, romanticism brings a women’s majority out into the square, democracy makes for an equal representation, and the “command” style brings a preponderance of men.
In all the variety of evaluations and thoughts, the majority of activists of the women’s movement with whom I spoke on this theme were at one in welcoming Nino Burdzhanadze in the triumvirate of revolutionaries [with President Saakashvili and Prime Minister Zhvania – the latter is now dead -- editor].
EXCHANGING THE MALE MEMBER FOR MEMBERSHIP
“The Women’s Political Forum of Georgia” (several NGOs worked within it) considered its main task to be conceiving appropriate initiatives for lawmakers. In 2001 the “Women’s Political Forum” prepared an explanatory memo for our parliamentarians. It contained a detailed argument in favor of a quota for women, analyzing world precedents and demonstrating the advantages. From all these arguments came a proposal that the following practice be included in the election laws: each gender must have at least 40% representation on the parties’ candidate lists at all levels of the political structure.
The second attempt at this began in 2002 and crashed in 2003, not long before the revolutionary events. The new initiative for the electoral law was then drafted more carefully, this time the initiative coming from the local organs of power. The proposal was as follows: a party’s candidate list could be registered only if at least every fourth person on the list was a woman. The proposed amendment had two parliamentary hearings and was killed on the third. They say it was something of a scandal. Madame Speaker left the hall during the voting. The story has been repeated so often that it has already grown a beard. They say the leadership of the parliament showed clear opposition – that the speaker gave a direct instruction to ridicule the proposal and thereby destroy it. Which was done. One of our prominent parliamentarians, speaking from the chairman’s seat in the assembly hall, put it this way: if this proposal passes, men will have to have sex change operations. Hilarious! Many of our deputies are capable of going even further in the realm of sacrifice. For the time being they find it much easier to block any effort to introduce even the most temporary and smallest quota for women.
What is interesting is that an absolute majority of the existing small contingent of women in our parliament is against the quota. Nino Burdzhanadze is categorically against; she considers this a “complicated issue.” Our human rights defender Elena Tevdoradze, and a number of less well-known women parliamentarians also reject the very core of the idea.
So a sex change operation in the Georgian parliament will not take place in the visible future.
THE REVOLUTION CONTINUES
I don’t know whether this actually was a revolution – if by this is meant a big and qualitatively progressive leap forward. It inspirers will have to demonstrate over a long time what it really was. Essentially there can be only one proof – a revolutionary change in the quality of life. And this, apart from the sincerity of intentions, depends on too many circumstances.
Hence the revolution continues. The redistribution of power continues, everything is upended, standing on passions and nerves. And because so far we haven’t gotten to normal relations, we have not come to a gender balance. Even though our president is a European man in outlook, with an especially democratic orientation. Although the previous one also positioned himself in the same way, the new one has a large and so far unexpended credit of trust.
My acquaintance Roza -- the one who sells apples, lives in the same conditions as before. She still freezes from dawn to dusk over her vegetables. But she is content that her view prevailed, that we now have a new president. About the other Roza, I don’t know. I can’t even recall the name of her village. I’m sure she is patiently waiting for changes.
I also know it will take a long time.
Tbilisi