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?