DO YOU REMEMBER Wind, Sand and Stars, by Saint-Exupéry? It is 1926. The author, a pilot in training, is to make the flight from Toulouse, across Spain, to Dakar. Aviation technology is in its infancy; airplanes break down; the pilot must be prepared for a landing at any time, in any place. Saint-Exupéry studies the map of his route, but it tells him nothing; it is abstract, general, “vapid.” He decides to consult his older colleague, Henry Guillaumet, who knows this route by heart. “But what a strange lesson in geography I was given!” the author recalled. “… Instead of telling me about Guadix [Cádiz], he spoke of three orange-trees on the edge of town. ‘Beware of those trees. Better mark them on the map.’ ” And those three orange-trees seemed to me thenceforth higher than the Sierra Nevada.” Guillaumet draws his attention to a stream flowing somewhere far away, hidden among the grasses. “ ‘Careful of that brook: it breaks up the whole field. Mark it on your map …’ Meandering among the grasses in this blessed paradise of a field where I might have sought salvation, it lies in wait for me two thousand kilometers from here. It would transform me at the first opportunity into a ball of fire.… I also assumed a defensive posture vis-à-vis the thirty sheep scattered as in a loose battle formation on the slope of a hill.… ‘You think the meadow empty, and suddenly bang! there are thirty sheep in your wheels.…’ ”
I think that every Georgian, every inhabitant of the Caucasus, has such a map encoded in his memory. He has studied its particulars from childhood — in his home, in his village, on his street. It is a map-memento, a map of dangers. Only the map of the inhabitant of the Caucasus does not caution him about orange trees, a stream, or a herd of sheep, but about someone from another clan, from another tribe, of another nationality. “Be careful, this is the house in which a man from Ossetia lives.…” “This is an Abkhaz village, try to avoid it.…” “Don’t walk along this path, because you are not a Georgian. The Georgians will not forgive you.…”
When one talks with these people, one is struck by the fact that each one of them has an excellent, intricate knowledge of their region. Who lives where, from what tribe, how many of them there are, what the relations between them were once upon a time, yesterday, what they are today. This improbably detailed knowledge of others extends only to those in the most immediate neighborhood. What is beyond its borders (which, moreover, are extremely difficult to define), this nobody knows or — more important — cares to know. The world of the inhabitant of the Caucasus is closed, cramped, confined to his village, to his valley. One’s native country is that which one can embrace with a single glance, that which one can cross in a single day. The Caucasus is an extremely rich ethnic mosaic, woven from an infinite number of little, sometimes downright miniature, groups, clans, tribes, and, rarely, nations (although on account of the prestige and respect of the term “nation,” it is in common usage here, even if the talk is of small communities).
The second thing that is immediately noticeable is the immemoriality of prevailing judgments, the tyranny of stereotypes. Here everything was fixed, determined, defined in times that have receded into the obscure mists of history. No one is really able to explain why Armenians and Azerbaijanis hate each other. They hate each other and that’s that! Everyone knows this; everyone imbibed this with his mother’s milk. This immutability of judgments was fostered by mutual isolation (mountains!) and by the fact that the entire region of the Caucasus was squeezed in between very backward countries — Iran, Russia, and Turkey. Contact with the liberal and democratic thinking of the West was impossible, and existing neighbors did not provide constructive examples; there wasn’t anyone to learn from.
The people living here are also characterized by a startling and incomprehensible emotional seesaw, unpredictable, sudden changes of mood. In general they are friendly, hospitable; after all, they have been living together, relatively peacefully, for years. And then suddenly, suddenly, something happens. What? They don’t even ask; they don’t even listen; they just grab daggers and swords (these days it’s machine guns and bazookas) and, in a trembling fury, rush at the enemy and do not rest until they see blood. But each one of them, on his own, is pleasant, well behaved, kind. The only explanation is that somewhere a devil must lurk, fomenting strife. And then, just as suddenly, everything calms down, the status quo ante returns, the everyday, the ordinary — simply, provincial boredom.
IN THE SUMMER of 1990, at several points along Rustaveli Avenue, people are sitting, holding banners, posters, photographs, for any curious passerby to read and inspect. It is a form of protest, or, simply, of drawing public attention to one’s problem. I remember it from Iran and Lebanon, and it is everywhere customary to refer to it in English: sit-in.
The number of people participating in any given sit-in can vary — from several to several or more thousand. There can also be one-person sit-ins, but they aren’t very effective: a serious matter calls for some numerical strength. (The groups on Rustaveli Avenue number several dozen.) Sit-ins are most frequently organized on the steps of office buildings (to force the authorities to act) or on the steps of churches or mosques (because it is safest there).
Put most straightforwardly, a sit-in means that one sits, publicly demonstrating one’s demands. And that’s it. Nothing more. It is a remarkably peaceful and gentle form of action. No one here shouts; no one shakes his fist, curses, calls God to witness. Those who take part in a sit-in are silent. They try not to talk either among themselves or to passersby. They are focused; they are vigilant. A sit-in is a strange conjunction of protest and acceptance, mutiny and humility. The participants in a sit-in fundamentally accept reality and its most general outlines and want only to make some corrections of their own and mark their own presence in it. They accept that the world is unjust, and it is only an excess of this injustice that elicits their opposition. If someone were willing, he could readily enter into negotiations with them. That is really what they desire deep in their hearts — they need some sort of social psychiatrist, someone warmly disposed toward them and who would gaze sympathetically on their pained souls.
A sit-in is a very Eastern form of protest. In Europe demonstrators march forward in a unified mass, but such a demonstration quickly disperses and disappears. In Argentina, they walk in a circle, but this too cannot go on for long. The sit-in, however, has two principal strengths as a form of protest. First, it is long-lasting. Sitting, one can demonstrate for weeks and months. For this, of course, one needs people of the East — their stony patience, their astounding endurance and stubbornness. Second, removing sitting people is more difficult than dispersing a marching crowd.
But why would one chase off these poor souls who are sitting on the steps of the City Council building? They are not doing anybody any harm. By and large they are women, dressed in black, who want to share the tragic news: a daughter has been killed during a demonstration, a son has been killed in the Red Army. I notice that these women, holding before them photographs of their deceased children, want people to stop, to take these photographs into their hands, to gaze at the young, sometimes astoundingly beautiful faces. For us this would perhaps be difficult, but here, in Georgia, no, here mourning is celebrated openly; it is an act of public and heartrending demonstration.