Freedoms and dialogue

Apologies for missing last week's post. As I'm sure way too many reading this blog know, life abroad keeps you moving at a furious pace and when life starts to feel normal somewhere else - it becomes harder to find the need to use words to make sense of it all.

The past few days in the United States have undoubtedly been historic. A basic principal of foreign affairs is that the US needs to make sure its affairs are in order before it can go around the world, dictating values or what form of development works. By affirming government action that makes sense, through the Affordable Care Act, and by refusing to relegate LGBT to second class citizens in terms of marriage; the Supreme Court showed that the US retains a privilege to both affirm the ability of government to intervene to improve the lives of others and the economy and that the US is on a constantly forward, albeit at times slow, march towards equal freedoms and protections under the law.

Last week, I was fortunate enough to take part in TEDx Tbilisi. Many of you are familiar with TED as the two cent bits of fast food wisdom, shared by elites and randomly selected accomplished individuals, and then spread like wildfire over Facebook. I enjoy them but I'll be one of the first to admit that they can carry a cloying air in the US.

However, it serves a much more interesting purpose here in Georgia. The actual TED conference is an event along the lines of the Davos World Economic Forum or Clinton Global Initiative - closed to primarily the elite and based on invitation only. This forum is open invitation and curated to have a particular mix of Georgian youth and activists and expats engaged with change-making in Tbilisi and Georgia as a whole.

In the US, we take the open dialogue of ideas for granted. A thousand and one views and more bounce across the internet and our TVs. A public common forum was built over the past few centuries. The rest of the world is far from that privileged.

TEDx served as a day long event for that kind of space. Activists, artists, and academics spoke on a range of issues; both particular to Georgia and relevant to other points in the world. The audience and speakers were cut from a very specific demographic, English speakers with an eye towards the outside world, but there was something to be said for some of the statements that people were making in public.

An eco-activist shared about the overlap of environmental activism, technology, and social engineering in a fashion that sounds advanced compared to American methods. A tech social entrepreneur elaborated on the need for client driven development. The winner of Georgia's Got Talent performed an elaborate dance routine with her wheelchair bound partner. Of note, the closing speaker was a lesbian woman who helps to lead an LGBT rights activist group.

The Georgian Orthodox Church is a powerful institution in the country. Georgia stands as the "second Christian nation" - converting as early as the 4th Century. While the Georgian Constitution recognizes a separation of church and state, it still sees a special role for the Georgian Orthodox Church. Religious devotion is commonly visible.

Also, the church is not accepting, some may say to the point of discriminatory, against LGBT people.

In public, they have been beaten or insulted. There are no legal protections. And this is nothing to say of the terrible struggle that some must go through with their very own family.

Conditions are not as bad as they are in neighboring Russia or other nations, but the rights of LGBT are far from accepted. Whether its due to the role of the church, a need for society to advance in its understanding, or any number of other causes - its worth recognizing the hard place that many are in, even in forward looking countries such as Georgia.

Events such as the TEDx conference can only contribute to understanding and promote the diversity of sexual orientation into the light. Open dialogue and forums such as this one might have topics that seem basic for Americans but they can represent large steps in other places.

Over the past few days since the Supreme Court's ruling, many Georgian friends have toasted to the legalization of same-sex marriage. People have congratulated me for the better evolution that the US has gone through. While many of them are already the type who look towards the US as a model, there's still something to be said for when our country lives up to the perception.

Even if it takes time.

 

Donut and Dive Bar Diplomacy

The flash of familiarity on the other side of the world can be seen as the imposing cultural blanding of globalization or stimulate a sense of pride in belonging to a powerful tribe.

When I was traveling through the northern desert mountains of Argentina, I was hit with a welcome sense of common presence when a convenience store owner had a Celtics game, broadcasted from the Boston Garden, playing on his TV. Its probably a bit of the extremely innate tribalism of being from Boston speaking, but it felt like a significant moment.

Here in Tbilisi, the parallel has been Dunkin Donuts.

Dunkin Donuts is a relatively new phenomenon in Georgia, arriving at some point last year. As opposed to the ubiquitous canteen of coffee and snacks back in Boston and the rest of the united states, its more akin to a Starbucks (but with a tackier decor) here. Menu items call images of American luxury to mind with a New York sandwich being salmon on a bagel (not available in the US Dunkin) and a variety of donuts that are more whimsically frosted than their American counterparts. Notably, the Boston Kreme donuts are prominently placed.

Lines stretch out the door and are only surpassed by the crowds that you find at Georgian Wendy’s (franchised by the same company and possessed of an even greater level of stimulating American imagery).

Illinois doesn’t particularly own McDonalds and KFC, well it stopped being straight Kentuckian when it became known as KFC and not Kentucky Fried Chicken. But as far as Dunkin goes, there is something distinctly Bostonian about that chain.

Dunkin's presence was also felt at America Days – an interesting mash up of cultural diplomacy and trade show. Set in a park underneath the sprawling President’s Mansion, America Days was comprised of a string of circles of white tents. The main occupier of the tents were individual USAID supported projects ranging from stimulating the Georgian wine industry and artisan cheese to increasing civil participation and society’s transparency. 

However, right after the embassy and Millennium Challenge Account’s tents at the front of the fair was Coca-Cola’s tent, with a portable soda fountain. Strung off on another arm of the core fair were tents for Domino's (staffed by a group of young women dressed in Domino’s red and blue and wearing roller skates) and a tent whose staff were passing out boxes of baker's dozen of Dunkins.

It’s an interesting form of diplomacy that was packed with Georgians of all ages. It was the last stop in a string of America Days fairs that the embassy had been hosting across the nation. Each stop was also accompanied by a concert featuring a country singer, local Georgian performers, and a randomly obscure hip-hop group from Miami called Dangerflow.

The fleeting showcase of direct and indirect aid from the United States, set up in a carnival atmosphere, showcased the wide range of cultural diplomacy, direct assistance, and foreign investment that the U.S. serves to Georgia but I developed a better understanding of diplomacy in a basement bar resembling a terrible college party.

Dive Bar, is well, a dive bar built into a basement down a random dirt road in Tbilisi. It’s packed with a ragtag group of what primarily seems to be young Americans, a mix of other nationalities, and a decent amount of Georgians. The bar serves only one kind of beer, and it comes in a red solo cup. Beer pong tables are strewn about under US State flags and license plates.

A significant amount of the Americans milling around were peace corps volunteers or participants in a Georgian government program, TLG, that brings English speakers to rural parts of Georgia to teach English. While I'm left to assume that all of us who were gathered into this dive spend plenty of time immersing ourselves in Georgian culture in ways both token and sincere; there was something still surreal about everyone overly indulging in stereotypically American college party behavior in a Tbilisi alley.

But these collected idealists, propping up NGOs in small villages and finding a way to teach English, were taking a first step towards diplomacy and ambassadorship. They weren’t nursing ambitions to change the world in a vain manner with a self instilled sense of superior abilities or management – they were throwing themselves into the muck of an uncertain and far corner of the world for months and up to a year. Knowing very well that they were only a piece in the puzzle of the United States lending support to another nation.

On first attempt, this post began as a pillorying of artifice in the spread of American culture and the surreal nature of Dive Bar. Hell, there’s even an element of full circle symmetry in the sense that the bathroom at Dive Bar was lined with flyers from a tasting for Sam Adams beer, the one cultural product that Bostonians will defend as viciously as we do Dunkin Donuts.

But, there’s something else to be said.

Diplomacy comes in many forms but to build a strong and honest relationship, sincerity of intent of all participants is essential. Diplomacy can be seen in the spread of the American dollar, a grand exhibition of government policy, or the relationships built by American youth who travel somewhere with at least a spark of idealism.

JFK was referring specifically to the Peace Corps when he said this, but I think it applied to most of the crowd at Dive Bar that all of them, “will know that he or she is sharing in the great common task of bringing to man that decent way of life which is the foundation of freedom and a condition of peace.

And you know what else, if a Georgian enjoys a Boston Kreme donut and thinks better about the United States afterwards, isn't that diplomacy too?

Straddling the barrier

There's a public truth and a personal truth when sharing the deep reflections and minute passings of a time abroad. A certain level of sensitivity and censorship is necessary on a blog. 

This summer, I am living in Tbilisi as an intern for the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a development agency of the United States government. The last time I worked on this blog, Facebook was barely a thing, so the distance through my network that this would go was slim. Now, everyone out there will probably dig in and enjoy it.

I'm starting this summer's blog with a reflection on privacy and sharing in an open world for some context on everything to come. I still plan on writing with honesty and the deepest effort I can to immerse you in what I feel, see, and do. However, buy me a drink at some point and that's when I'll really dig deep into depth. :-)

I've been in Tbilisi for seven hours short of a week.

The city tempts one to use stereotypes as a shorthand to communicate how it feels. Granted - my frame of reference is narrowly limited to the United States, Buenos Aires, and film.

Tbilisi has a clash of tree lined avenues and winding streets that diminish into hillside collections of wooden homes with elaborate terraces. Sidewalks have a constant churn of people but the streets are a never ending flow of speeding cars. Crossing the street is foolhardy and comparable to being Frogger. Cars do not slow down and there are limited crosswalks on the main roads but a network of tunnels can be found scattered across the city.

Car culture in Tbilisi is a good window to start understanding Georgia's recent history. According to Georgian friends of mine, street lights (and reliable electricity in general) are fairly new. Before street lights, everyone had to be an aggressive driver, yet a driver who understood the street's rhythm, in a defensive manner. Now, there are many street lights - so many that at night, the city is arrayed below you in a beautiful constellation of orange pips populating the valley.

History and how far Georgia has come always seems to be at the front of any conversation about Georgian politics, economics, or history. With a deep history of independent identity, even under Soviet rule, there is a mantra of Georgian uniqueness of identity and heritage. Yet, befitting my narrow frame of reference, of course all nations do carve out their own unique role in history.

Yet...something rings true about what Georgia represents. Going hand in hand with Tbilisi's European nature is another sense - the long history of multiculturalism brought on by being a Christian enclave for thousands of years within the gateway to Asia.

What does this mean and what balance can be found within it now? And what is there to learn for an American with idealistic, just short of naive, ideas about the role of the US abroad? 

Despite knowing only about two words in Georgian and acknowledging the Georgian script for all its complexity, after a week here, I don't feel as isolated as I did in Buenos Aires (despite having studied Spanish for years before moving there). Is it my own sense of adaptability that's changed? A greater tapping of the universal language that has happened? Is it the nature of Georgia? Or a bit of it all?

As before, understanding this barrier (or lack of it) is what this blog will be about at its heart. And here, its tapping the cosmopolitan nature of Tbilisi and what it means to the rest of the country and what I am here to do and learn.

There's more to come, probably imminently, but as far as introductions go, I think this went pretty well.

What do you think?