News from the Friends’ Meeting in the Georgian Republic
The Peace Committee has been in contact with Peter Dyson, who works with Moscow and St. Petersburg Friends Meetings. People in Georgia have expressed the wish to formalise their Meeting for Worship and this has happened. There is now a Friends’ Meeting in the Georgian Republic. Georgia is in a very confused state nationally and internationally. Groups identified as minority religious groupings are often regarded as a threat.
Enclosed below the text of Peter’s report concerning this Meeting and its situation.
If you feel moved, could you send a message of support soon to the address just below. Friends in Georgia are feeling lonely and isolated, so it is important that we offer our help and communication,
I said I would give you Tbilisi’ Meetings Clerk’s email address so that you could send messages of greetings in this difficult time for them.
Misha Elizbarashavili’s email address is
(Misha runs the diabetics NGO in Georgia: hence the address)
I have included the visit report I had at our meeting just in case anyone wants to print it off.
A link to an overview of recent events is
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sozar_Subari
Best wishes,
Peter
Tbilisi Visit 2007:
A General Overview: Peter Dyson.
From June 30th to July 3rd Julia Ryberg (Woodbrooke / FWCC-EMES / Sweden YM), together with Sergei Grushko (Friends House Moscow/ Moscow MM) and Peter Dyson (Friends House Moscow / Moscow MM) visited F(f)riends in Tbilisi, Georgia with the specific purpose of interviewing those members of the Tbilisi Group who had applied to IMC for membership of the Religious Society of Friends. The opportunity was also taken on Saturday June 30th and after Meeting for Worship on Sunday July 1st to share spiritual journeys and experiences amongst this gathered group and to talk about Quaker principles and practises with them.
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Sergei and I arrived after midnight (Saturday morning) and we were met by Misha and taken to our Hotel (a mini-hotel with ten en-suite bedrooms – no other facilities) Julia’s flight did not arrive until 0350! In the hotel we had three rooms, one of which proved to be large enough to hold the entire assembled group. The Hotel staff could not have been more helpful in providing extra chairs and letting us take over their space for three days. The corridor/reception area became our waiting room whilst individual interviews were held.
After a midday café breakfast across the street, we held a preliminary meeting with Misha and Bagrat to clarify the agenda for the next three days.
Our first mini-Woodbrooke session commenced at around 3pm when everyone arrived. To those names shown on our interview list, a number of first time enquirers needed be added who came to meet us. This shaped the content of our First Workshop Session which ran until around 6pm with a break for tea in the middle. We agreed an outline timetable for ten interviews over the weekend.
We left the hotel to eat in a restaurant with Bagrat’s family near their home with the firm intention of conducting four interviews but by midnight had only conducted two! Bedtime became 0130!
Sunday morning: 1000: simple breakfast after shopping first. Timetable: First interview at 1100; Meeting for Worship at 1200; Second Workshop session 1300. I missed this session as I was typing up the first interview. We continued the practice Sergei and I established in Barnaul of reading and translating interviews back to applicants so that they could fine tune the language used and so that we were all satisfied with the end-documents produced.
At the end of this session an opportunity was given for individual questions to be taken as some individuals had expressed this wish to talk to us privately. Further interviews were conducted from 1430 until around 1900 when we went back across the road to the café to eat.
A most pleasant evening walk round the centre of Tbilisi with Misha and Jimsher gave us an opportunity to wind down after a very intensive day.
Monday: 0900: simple breakfast again!
More private questions at 1000.
1100 Meeting with Sozar Subari, Public Defender of Human Rights in Georgia, and Beka Mindiashvili, Senior Expert of the United Nationals Development Programme Tolerance Centre. Venue: Office of the Public Defender.
We spent two hours with Sozar and Beki and their interpreter in a meeting organised by Bagrat who accompanied us. The position of Public Defender is one appointed by the Georgian Parliament and Sozar was elected three and half years ago. His term of office continues for a further 18 months. When he presented his first report in 2005 a large number of Members of Parliament walked out in protest because they did not want to hear the painful truth about torture in police station and attacks in public on members of religious minorities. The protection of freedom of religious practice has been a particular focus of Sozar’s work. The Centre for Tolerance he set up to document abuse is headed by Beki and occupies accommodation on the top floor of the building with other NGO’s.
We spent an enjoyable and very informative time with Sozar and Beki who charted the progress made and changes taking place now in Georgia. They listened to our exposition of Quaker values and their roots and asked many questions about Quakers and Quaker work; building on a firm foundation of knowledge obtained from Bagrat over the previous two years. They had hoped we might have been able to arrive earlier in order to attend a Conference of Religious Minorities that had taken place earlier in the week with 60 delegates. Bagrat had represented The Religious Society of Friends at that gathering and taken the opportunity to distribute our newly translated Booklet on The Quaker Testimonies. (Perhaps I should add the comment that I have no hesitations whatsoever about Bagrat’s capability to act as an effective advocate for Quakers in Georgia and that he has established an important working relationship that will be a vital link in the future).
We were very impressed by what we found and heard and this was an important connection to make and a unique opportunity taken. Sozar is clearly a fearless principled protector of human rights. It is clear that both he and Beka have clear expectations of the values an active Quaker Group might bring to improving tolerance in Georgian society. I was glad Julia asked him the question if his work was dangerous; to which he had replied that some people wanted to kill him. We affirmed him most firmly in his work
The meeting was but one of a number of humbling experiences that took place during this visit. Part of the reason of Beka’s presence had been in preparation for what followed.
The Tollerance Centre publish a bi-monthly(?) magazine called “Solidarity” By being present, Beka was able to frame a set of questions for his colleague Mariam Gavtadze to pose during the interview that took place over the following hour. Their objective was to raise the profile of Quakers in Georgia so that people will learn about us, about our work and what we stand for! The next issue with us in it will come out at the end of August.
After a late lunch in our regular cafe we returned to the hotel to conduct our final two interviews with Bagrat and Misha. Mission accomplished.
Our flights home were not until 0400 on Tuesday morning. We spent a leisurely late afternoon visiting the old capital of Georgia and driving up the winding road that leads to the Church on the very top of the rugged mountainside on the opposite side of the valley. And then a final evening wandering round the centre of Tbilisi looking at old and new churches, not forgetting the outside of the Mosque and the Synagogue.