“I Am Afraid of Chinese People!” “Negros Have Attacked Us?!” – Racism Problem in Georgia

Tako Khutsishvili,

Ana Sheshaberidze 

"No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite,” said Nelson Mandela, laureate of Nobel Prize in Peace who fought against racism for many years.

General Assembly of the UN declared March 21 the International Day for the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination in 1966. On March 21, 1960 police of South Africa opened fire at the peaceful demonstration in Sharpeville; 70 demonstrators died as a result.

International organization UNITED fights against racism, xenophobia and all forms of discrimination throughout Europe. NGOs from 48 different European countries mobilize against Racism under slogan “Enjoy Diversity”. The Human Rights Center, member of the international network joins the anti-discriminative action. 

Within the anti-racist week the Georgia-based organization “Ertoba” will organize photo-exhibition in various regions of the eastern Georgia – “Peace Inside – Peace Outside” – it is the idea of the exhibition dedicated to the anti-racist discrimination. Mostly the photos of amateur photographers will be exhibited.

Increased number of black and Chinese people made the racism problem more urgent. This topic has been actively discussed on internet-forums and printed media.

“Soon we will be inserted in the Red Book; the Chinese people have occupied our territory; they are breeding like rats; how those Negros smell,” you can read similar racist posts in internet-forums. However, there are opposite comments too whose authors call on aggressive users to be more correct in their expressions. Here we publish several of them:

Topic on Furm.ge “Have Negros Attack Us???”

“They come here and earn money at the expense of Georgian people. That brigade-leader finished his work and remained unemployed for a long time. Should we employ somebody from Namibia instead Georgian man?”

“Person cannot be discriminated because of his skin-color.”

“Racism should be punished in normal states. It is pity that there is similar topic on the forum and it has such a discriminative title…”

“Well, shall we allow people of all race, origin and religion come into our country and make friends with us? Shall we feed them and get married with them? Shall we mix up with them which will end in our transformation? No, there is no problem. I cannot see any problems and you?”

“Negro is also a human being and if he behaves badly you should teach him the lesson like others. Maybe they smell bad and have bad manner of speech but we cannot do anything; we cannot change them.”

Topic: “Negro Beggars in Our Capital… What Is It?”

“Beggar is beggar; what is difference between black and white beggars.”

“He asked me to give one lari”

“If you prohibit Negros to beg, than we should prohibit Chinese, Roma and others too.”

“Why are you prohibiting Negros? Are they black?”

“I think, racism is demonstration of a spoiled soul of a person.”

“Let him go to his homeland.”

Topic on the Forum.ge “What do Chinese people do in Georgia?????”

“Oh, my God! They will overlap us. We are so few. Do you see what they have done with Russian people; they have already reached 3 million in Russia! Initially they were standing in the street and later they opened large shops. Gradually they will become superior over us!! We should enact a law – we must not let them in.”

“And why should not we let them in? When Georgian people are lazy to work, Chinese people managed to start business.”

“Anyway, they are bad and we are good. Help, they will overlap us.”

“In twenty years we will have narrow eyes like Chinese people and you will see then.”

“What the hell it is. These Chinese people are breeding rapidly. They are everywhere; at the light-post you will see a Chinese is crossing the street; nearby there is a shop of Chinese people; some beggar is lying on the street and he is also Chinese…”

“Their negative influence is that we, Georgians, are few people and if so many foreign and dirty people come here we will not resist them; our nation will be transformed physically, culturally and in every direction. Soon, we will be inserted in Red Book… finally, we will start speaking in Chinese; so they must be evicted from here and very soon.”

“I am afraid of Chinese people.”

“How terribly do Chinese people smell?”

“During Edika’s (Eduard Shevardnadze) government 1-2 Chinese people were in Tbilisi; but after Misha is president their number has reached 1-2 thousand. Thank you Misha.”

“And problem is not only about Chinese people; if they allow me I will evict Russians too but nowadays we face danger from Chinese people more.”

“People cannot imagine yet what problems Chinese people will create for us in Georgia. It will result into the fall and transformation of the nation; and it all happens because Saakashvili is crazy about foreigners and raging at their sight. Chinese who arrive in Georgia have one purpose – to breed more and more generation.

Youth Forum Teen.ge

“By the way, it is interesting that many think that racism is problem of only group belonging, perception and unequal relations based on skin color (pigmentation of human skin).”

“Yesterday I was standing with my boy-friend in Rustaveli underground station and a foreigner approached us… he was tall…with trainers on … he had his trousers stretched up to his arm-pits; his white skirt was buttoned to the end… he was holding huge rucksack and he was cool man… he had such an impression… completely different from ostrich look of Georgian man… some boys were standing next to him and laughing at him… those boys who are wearing sun-glasses in the underground station even at 9:00 pm but they are laughing at others… it is funny… we got angry…it is stupid racism…. Do not they like black people? … Why are they running to solariums for suntan then?

We applied to the Public Defender’s Office in regard with the Racism problem and they clarified that they work only on the issues of religious minorities.

Professor and sociologist Zura Davitashvili at the Tbilisi State University does not have information about any sociologic survey about racism. But he said the racism is less acute problem in Georgia than it was in the previous years.

Zura Davitashvili: “We really face facts of racism, xenophobia and intolerant attitude towards ethnic or religious minorities. For example, the noise about Chinese people. We often hear phrases: “how many Chinese have come here,” “Chinese people have overcrowded Georgia and soon Georgian people will not have enough space here”, etc. Chinese people live in every state. The increase of their number depends on the economical situation. As you see, many Chinese people have left Georgia already. They do not create problems in any country that can transfer into ethno-conflict. Similar thing has never happened in any country. I read several articles full of racism in newspapers but lately the situation has improved in comparison to the situation of 5-10 years ago. There are two understanding of racism in Georgia – large and narrow understanding. Large sense of racism is everywhere not only anthropologically but racially. We call racism to the discrimination on ethnic, religious, language and other grounds. Narrow understanding of racism is hatred based on anthropologic grounds. In the countries, where racism had similar understanding, for example in the USA, there was no ethnic difference between them- they all were US citizens, spoke one language and in fact were brought up based on one culture. The only difference between them was racial – based on it, black people were considered to be second-level citizens. When racism was more-or-less reigning in the USA there was no racism in Georgia; however, we differentiated people on ethnic and religious grounds. Thus, this problem originated here now because in the past nobody of different race lived in Georgia before. If we discuss large understanding of racism which means hatred of ethnic and religious minorities, Georgia always had this problem at some level and it still exists. We are no proud that we have orthodox, Armenian, catholic churches next to each other in Tbilisi. I do not know when and who carried out the research but when people were asked whether they would support construction of temples for other religious minorities next to Orthodox Church, 94 % of population refused.

“I think zoological racism – I hate him because he is black – still exists in Georgia.”

Sozar Subari, former public defender of Georgia: “There is no nation in the world who is completely tolerant to minorities. But in general the government shall encourage its citizens to be more tolerant and we do have this problem. For example, when I made a report to the parliament of Georgia and described the incident of May, 2006 when policemen arrested 48 ethnic Ossetian people and beat them ruthlessly without any reasons, the chairperson of the defense and security committee and one of the leaders of the National Movement Givi Targamadze blamed me in protecting the rights of Ossetian people instead Georgian citizens. When similar statements are made at the parliament session, of course it increases racism among population. First of all, state policy shall be tolerant.

When we carried out researches at the Public Defender’s office it was clear that part of society was intolerant. There were cases when black people were insulted near Isani underground station because of his skin color. However, similar facts do not occur often.”