Globalisation, diversity and minorities: discussion among teachers over the Charter’s first principle

Meeting of Teachers in the German department of the University of Western Languages and Culture, 23rd October 2004

Conference in German: beginning with the crisis of the western model of development, the risks of globalisation processes and the need for a set of global ethics, I recapitulated the main characteristics of international Charters and presented the Alliance’s initiative. There was, first of all, an outburst of questions regarding globalisation. The debate shifted towards issues of development – ill-development; my colleagues expressed their frustrations and fears, and emphasised that official information on globalisation contradicted their own experiences.

What is globalisation exactly?

Doesn’t the current Americanisation represent a threat to Georgian culture, its traditions based around strong family ties and its values of generosity and solidarity?

When I suggested studying the principles one by one, the debate heated up. We didn’t get past the first principle: “To face the challenges of today and of tomorrow, it is just as important to unite in action as to express cultural diversity.” An explosive sentence which brought out fears linked to tensions existent between Georgians, Armenians, Azeris and others.

“We feel threatened by our minorities. Today, Armenians – refugees that we welcomed into our country – are opening up their own schools where studying Georgian is no longer compulsory. The minorities are backed up by other countries, they’re doing better that us Georgians…”

Listening to them, I remembered that some of my friends had supported the nationalist president Gamsakhurdia in the early nineties, while others had fought against him. The wounds of the civil war in 92 were still too fresh for former adversaries to be able to speak about it directly. How was I to carry out my catalyst role? I spoke about how issues of integrating foreigners are trying to be dealt with in Germany and France. And so we got into a great debate about the headscarves of young Muslim women…I had to explain the issue from a less dramatic angle and express my personal point of view…before coming back to Georgian issues. This is how the Charter can be used as a catalyst instrument to initiate confrontations and elucidations.

There was, of course, not enough time to reach any satisfying conclusions. Some people expressed their interest in continuing the debate and forming part of a work group on the Charter. For my part, I thought about how meetings based on each principle could be organised using concrete initiatives related, if possible, to the country and the people’s own experience, to illustrate each principle. Project for the future.