HIGH SPIRITS: Georgias on My Mind
Aitken, Jonathan
ROM ATLANTA, GEORGIA, TO TBILISI, GEORGIA, is a long journey across continents, cultures, and huge dividesofwealth.Yethavingrecentlyvisitedbothcapitals I can also say that both Georgias have...
...Thisepisodedeservestheattentionofallthosewho arebecomingconcernedabouttheKremlin'sincreasingtendency to flex its military muscles against its smaller neighbors...
...THIS TALK OF VALUES resonated with me because several weeks before the missile attack I had traveled to Georgia to lead a seminar on values and character...
...Early one morning he took me upamountaintoa7th-centurymonasterywherewe lit candles and prayed together...
...We've just done a print run of 20,000," he replied...
...Wewere brought up on Communist values which we now know werewronganduseless.Wehaven'treplacedthemwith a proper understanding of Western values--which sometimesconfuseus...
...Os Guinness, with the title When No One Sees: The Importance of CharacterinanAgeofImage...
...It is applying to join NATO...
...Another theory is that H I G HS P I R I T S 5 0 T H E A M E R I C A N S P E C T A T O R O C T O B E R 2 0 0 7 GeorgiasonMyMind by Jonathan Aitken F O C T O B E R 2 0 0 7 T H E A M E R I C A N S P E C T A T O R 5 1 withRussia-Georgiarelationsatanall-timelow,Putin wants to ratchet up pressure on his irritatingly proAmerican neighbor with turns of the screw that have already included the banning of Georgia's wine imports, expulsions of Georgians living in Russia, breakingoffdiplomaticrelations,andseveringmost tradeandtransportlinks.Butperhapsthemostconvincingexplanationwasgiventomebyaconfidantof Georgia's 38-year-old president, Mikheil Saakashvili: "We are being harassed and bullied by the Russiansbecauseofourvalues,"hesaid...
...In 21st-century Georgia the laborers may be few, but I saw many reasons for optimism that the harvest in the new generation may yet be a good one...
...How many of these do you publish...
...There's a big demand for the Word out there, apparently...
...It was formerly known as the Christian Book Fair...
...It seemed likely that this would be so since Georgiaisoneoftheworld'soldestChristiannations, withagloriousecclesiasticalheritageofchurchesand monasteries...
...I was pleased but not surprised to hear it, for Georgia deserves support at the spiritual as well as the political level of international relations...
...Yetthemajorityofthosewhoprofessanykindoffaith are purely nominal in their beliefs...
...Despite the clarity of the facts, the purpose of the Russian attack remains obscure...
...It left a 16-foot crater in a field but failed to explode...
...For what could possiblybethemilitaryorpoliticalpurposeinfiringamissile atafieldnearanobscurevillageofnostrategicvalue...
...On one of their stands I happened to see a copy of a Bible in Georgian...
...Publishers of Bibles exhibit there...
...ThatiswhytheRussiansarethreateningus...
...From its Cyrillicmarkingsandotherdata,theunexplodedbomb waseasilyidentifiedbyindependentexpertsasa1,000kg precision-guided Russian-manufactured missile...
...Kremlin denials of the episode, which included the unusual suggestion that the Georgians had attacked themselves, seem incredible in the light of the evidence fromradardata,photographs,andthemissileitself...
...Jonathan Aitken,TheAmericanSpectator'sHighSpirits columnist, is most recently author of John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace...
...I asked the salesman...
...In Tbilisi our local supporters had convened a group of some 30 young government ministers, civil servants, academics, editors, businessmen, andjournalists.Wespentadayandahalfdiscussingan anthology of readings, compiled by Dr...
...One student explained the intensity of the Q&A period over coffee afterwards: "You see, we really don'thaveavaluesystemofourown,"hesaid...
...He was given a rapturous welcome, a main street named after him, and an endorsement of his foreignpolicythatwasfarmorepositiveandpractical thantheusualplatitudesindiplomaticcommuniques issued at the end of presidential visits...
...Today approximately 70 percent of Georgia's 4 million people belong to the Georgian Orthodox Church and only 15 percent are Muslims...
...When they were some 40 miles west of the capital, Tbilisi, they performed provocative maneuvers above thevillageofTsiteluban;whichclimaxedwithoneofthe fighter bombers firing an air-to-ground missile...
...Several times during my visit I asked whether spiritualvaluesplayedanypartinthelivesofthepeople...
...We want to join the EU and NATO...
...Wehavereal democracy here and a free press...
...My Georgian friends were full of explanations...
...Perhaps the greatest surprise was that my 45-minute addresstotheGeorgianInstituteofLeadershipwasfollowedbyovertwohoursofintensequestioningbyastudentbody(ofallages)thatwasclearlyhungrytoabsorb lessons on the strengths and weaknesses of Western democracy...
...In response to the courtship from the Bush administration, which included a $4 billion aid package,GeorgiahasthisyeardoubleditstroopsinIraqto 5,000, making it the coalition's fifth largest military supporter...
...One was a multi-millionaire real estate developer, Malhaz Datukshvili...
...ROM ATLANTA, GEORGIA, TO TBILISI, GEORGIA, is a long journey across continents, cultures, and huge dividesofwealth.Yethavingrecentlyvisitedbothcapitals I can also say that both Georgias have much in commoninmattersoffaith,hope,andpolitics...
...We are striving to be an independent nation embracing Western institutions and values...
...This was an initiative organized by the Trinity Forum, a faith-based discussion group that through its forums seeks to engage leaders and future leaders in the ethical, personal, moral, and spiritual issues in their lives...
...What happened was that on August 6, two Sukhoi SU34 attack aircraft entered Georgian airspace...
...I was surprised by the eagerness with which this group of talented young English-speaking Georgians waswillingtoengageinacurriculumthatrangedacross the writings of Plato, Machiavelli, Oscar Wilde, Abraham Lincoln, Augustine, C. S. Lewis, Robert Bolt, andDietrichBonhoeffer.IwasequallydelightedwhenI lecturedthefollowingdayon"CharacterinLeadership: A Study of the Careers and Characters of President RichardNixonandPrimeMinisterMargaretThatcher...
...His biographies includeCharlesW.Colson:ALifeRedeemed(Doubleday) andNixon:ALife,nowavailableinanewpaperbackedition(Regnery).J O N A T H A NA I T K E N Yetthemajorityofthosewho professanykindoffaitharepurely nominalintheirbeliefs.Thisisnow apredominantlysecularcountry...
...Two of them were the organizers of our Trinity Forum initiative...
...This is now a predominantly secular country...
...On the other hand, there is a small but rising younger generation of Christian leaders who are deeply committed to their faith...
...Others argue that it was a tit-for-tat response to the Georgian government's expulsion of four Russian soldiers accused of spying a few months earlier...
...Some say that the Russians missed their real target, which was a camouflaged military tracking station located on the other side of the village...
...Another was the academic head of the Georgian Institute of Leadership, Gia Maishvili, also a young man of faith and prayer...
...To begin with politics: The country of Georgia, a small but fiercely nationalistic former Soviet republic, probably contains a larger percentage of enthusiastsforGeorgeW.Bushthanyoucanfindtodayinany Americanstate.The43rdpresidentcametoTbilisiin 2005...
...It has had several showdowns with Russia, most recently lodging a formal complaint to the UN Security Council against President Putin's government for violating Georgian territory in an unprovoked missile attack...
...InadifferentGeorgia5,000mileswestofTbilisi this July, I found myself touring the International Christian Resources Exhibition in Atlanta...
Vol. 40 • October 2007 • No. 8
