In Tbilisi, as in any other European capital, you will see Turkish restaurants. There has always been a Turkish community in Georgia, and neighbouring Azerbaijan is a Turkic state, speaking a similar language. So there is nothing unusual about Georgia being like everywhere else in this regard.
However Georgia is a very nationalistic country, regardless of what its politicians wish to label themselves. There is a strong distinction between what “Georgian” is and what is not and Georgia has its own native version of everything, as you would expect considering the venerableness of its culture and its long struggles for independence and distinctiveness under foreign domination.
As everyone knows, one area where Georgia has a distinctive local tradition is cuisine. You aren’t a proper Georgian if you don’t eat your khachapuri, ajapsandali or khinkali.
So the reaction of many Georgians to Turkish restaurants is, “Why do I want to eat someone else’s food when I can eat Georgian food?” This may sound chauvinistic, but with all due respect to Turkey, most outsiders, confronted with the two, share that opinion.
Turkish restaurants have two main purposes in Georgia. Firstly; they provide a cultural locale for the local Muslim minorities, which feel more at ease if they can relate themselves to their presumed identity. Secondly, they are a projection of power – just as McDonalds represents the values of Uncle Sam, so these restaurants remind everyone that the big neighbour is around.
Turkish restaurants are not high street kebab houses, manned by immigrants on a minimum wage, as you see in many Western countries. They are meeting places of the well employed, well connected and well known.
In Georgia a Turkish businessman is a managing director, not a sweatshop owner, and he lives in one of the better parts of town. His children go to the best schools and universities, and he expects to be consulted about things pertaining to his business by the national government, not try and survive under whatever regulations it makes.
Thus are the relations between Georgia and Turkey. There is no doubt who is the senior partner. If a Georgian invests in Turkey in the same way Turks do in Georgia he will be a small player in the local economy, no matter how large his concern. Turks expect to run things in Georgia, because it is Georgia.
However the relationship is not all one way. Turkey needs Georgia more than it cares to admit. It has its own agendas like every other country, and these are not those of Georgia. But Turkey needs Georgia to show the world it can be the nice guy, not the tolerated monster, when it wants to be.
Puppet Diplomacy
We would all like to think that international relations are based on politics, pragmatism and mutual respect. In fact they are based on confirming stereotypes, and hiding behind these when things go wrong.
In the early 1980s a British government minister, Nicholas Scott, got in trouble due to the behaviour of his secretary. After a minor traffic incident, the secretary had started hurling abuse at the other party involved, who was not British, telling him he should go back to where he came from, or words to that effect.
The media reported this story with the tagline “the person concerned was Swiss”. The implication was that it was stupid to behave that way towards a Swiss person. Such abuse is reserved for Pakistanis and West Indians, where it may be officially condemned but also tacitly accepted as something people from those communities have to put up with.
There are various African countries with significant mineral resources much desired in the West. If a Western country signed a major trade deal with another Western country to obtain more of these resources, this would be regarded as a victory, and a way of ensuring success at the next election.
But how often do we see the fancy podiums wheeled out for big trade deals with African countries, even when they include these resources? This isn’t just because dealing with African countries direct would mean having to pay them fair prices for their goods.
It is because Africans don’t matter in international relations, except as people to exploit and blame. No one cares if you have good relations, economic or political, with a dirty African country. You have to be at the top table, walking the walk and talking the talk, to have any credibility with other countries or with domestic electorates.
Turkey thinks of itself as being at that top table. Most other countries know it is, but either won’t admit it or think that is a bad thing. So it needs friends of a particular type, and this is a category Georgia happens to fall into.
From Pope and Turk Defend Us, Lord
Turkey is surrounded by countries which owe their existence to kicking out the Turks. No matter how good relations are in the practice, in public these countries can only go so far towards accepting Turkey, and then from a position of supposed superiority rather than partnership.
A large chunk of Eastern Europe was liberated from the Ottoman Empire by Russia, amongst others. The states created by these wars of liberation were long under a Russian and Soviet sphere of influence, and are seeking to escape that, rightly or wrongly, as an expression of their post-Cold War independence.
But still Turkey, which can represent an alternative pole of influence nearer home, is the partner few want. Turkey would be mad to try and reconquer one inch of Ottoman territory, regardless of what Erdogan says, not least because the modern Turkish state was itself created as an antidote to that Empire and what it stood for.
For most in the extensive former Ottoman territories in either Europe or Asia, Turkey still has to be the enemy for them to be the heroes. Further West, forget it – Turks are dangerous because both Eastern and Muslim, and if they have money that only makes it worse, as it must have been stolen from the good people on the opposite side.
However crude such stereotypes appear, we have all seen them played out, dressed in different words, time and again. So Turkey has great need of a country where it can parade around as a bigwig, but still be considered more a friend than a threat.
Georgia doesn’t feel threatened by Turkey because it knows Turkey won’t dare try anything. Turkey has also been neutral on the big issues in Georgia: it wasn’t pro-Soviet but it didn’t support the independence movements either, and it has worked with every Georgian government on broadly similar terms, whatever the nature of the Turkish government, despite the internal polarisation created by the very different Georgian regimes.
Georgia and Turkey really can do business. Only Turkey can meddle in Georgia, not the other way round, but the limits of that are set by the stereotypes of others, without imposition by either party.
Grey Trade Agreement
The most controversial aspect of the relations between Georgia and Turkey is the Turkish control of the port of Batumi, and therefore in effect that of Poti, established in the Treaty of Kars of 1921. This has created a Passport to Pimlico scenario, in which neither side claims to be responsible, and therefore both can break laws with impunity.
The premise of the 1949 film Passport to Pimlico was that under a just-discovered medieval treaty the district of Pimlico in London was actually part of the Duchy of Burgundy, not the UK. Therefore post-war rationing could no longer be imposed, but this also made the area a haven for smugglers and the like.
After attempts to isolate and starve the natives out failed, and alienated the British public, the British government negotiated and the area returned to the UK because its existence was harming the UK as much as Pimlico itself. The film may be fiction, but it neatly demonstrates what happens in a world of on-book and off-book accounting, where everything is technically legal but no one is actually responsible.
The status of the Adjaran ports in also guaranteed by the fact that the surrounding district of Adjara remains politically autonomous by virtue of the same treaty. The reason for this autonomy was the Muslim majority in the area. Therefore any attempt to subvert that autonomy would be declared an attack on Turkey and a human rights breach, whatever the consequences of it.
It has been well documented that the controversial regime of former Adjaran ruler Aslan Abashidze would not have been possible without this autonomy. His main crime in the eyes of the Georgian government may have been doing better criminal deals than it was doing itself, but it was the autonomy of the region which gave Abashidze the opportunity to control its dubious activities himself, rather than working through middlemen in Tbilisi or Ankara.
However crime also has governments to answer to. There is little suggestion that the cargoes passing through Batumi or Poti are bringing great wealth to Turkey. They ultimately benefit those who want to operate legally for public consumption but illegally to pursue their interests, of which the United States is the prime example amongst international level players.
When the US wants to, for example, transport arms to terrorists, it pretends they are going to legal governments but actually sends them direct to the terrorists, which is illegal, or uses the legal recipients as a conduit for distributing them, also illegal. The best places through which to do this are ports which are sort of in one country and sort of in another, but neither side is able to exercise complete control.
Oil, drugs and other illegal commodities pass freely through the Georgian Black Sea ports no matter who is in power in either Georgia or Turkey, and much of this contraband is sourced from facilities operated by terrorist groups funded and protected by the same US which claims to be waging a war against them. This happens because all the parties concerned are getting something out of it, and changing the situation would have negative practical impacts which would outweigh any social benefits, or are perceived to.
Abashidze was accused, rightly, or being a crime boss. But you can’t be a boss without a structure, and every structure has its own inbuilt defaults, the very same ones which are good news for the relations between Turkey and Georgia.
Long Live The System
The US was founded by refugees as the ultimate liberal state. Its Constitution is full of checks and balances which give every branch of government, and every individual, enough power to operate but not so much that they can inflict harm on others, or disrupt the proper working of others.
As in all liberal states, this has resulted in some being more equal than others, and the less equal getting the blame for their failure to profit from the system. But the principles behind the US Constitution still form the backbone of the “right” side in international relations – the more you are perceived to be upholding them, the better you are.
The relations between Turkey and Georgia, whatever their faults, present an example of the very thing countries which criticise both aspire to. Turkey is the more important player, Georgia knows that, and so Turkey behaves as such and expects to be treated as such.
But there is only so far it can go, due to the historical, cultural and political differences between the two countries and their perceptions by the rest of the world. If Turkey wants to interfere directly in the operation of another country, those differences prevent it doing so in Georgia when there are many better candidates, as we have seen in the Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict .
Those same differences provide Georgia with a guarantee of its independence. No matter who you are, if you come to Georgia you are expected to behave like Turkey: so far but no further. The bigger you are, the bigger Georgia is if it can ensure that expectation is met, and that if anything nefarious is going on, both sides stand to gain from it.
King George II of England was once subject of a rhyme: “You may strut, dapper George, but ‘twill all be in vain, We know ‘tis Queen Caroline, not you, who reign”.
Turks in Georgia do strut, but know they have to let the locals reign, and let Georgians in Turkey be partners, not colonials. This may not be an ideal partnership, but it is better than most countries have, and the prejudices of everyone else have made it fall into their laps.
Seth Ferris, investigative journalist and political scientist, expert on Middle Eastern affairs, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
