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Yesterday, I received this sms from a Georgian friend:

The Russians started bombing the city Gori and Kareli. I am ready to go to war. WE ceased fire against separatists and Russians bombed again. This our destiny! Please spread this info, Thank you!

“This is our destiny”. Words like that scare me deeply. It reminds me of all kinds of conversations, like for instance talks with Serbian friends a few years ago about Kosovo. These were moderate Serbs, well-educated, who themselves were fighting against the right-wing forces in their country. But some of their words concerning the Kosovo Albanians really made me worried.

Yesterday, once I got online after a mostly offline day, I did some of the usual news searching about the South Ossetia conflict. I felt very sad. Sad for the country of my Georgian friends. Sad because rhetorics grow so thick in any way. Sad because I know that even though a lot of this is just a play for the gallery (Russia wants to Really make sure Georgia does not join NATO, Georgian leadership sometimes seems to have a cold-war approach to Russia), people are dying.

I don’t think that Russia will go into an all-out war on Georgia, like they did with Chechnya. But they will rattle their swords, throw somb bombs here and there, kill some innocents. Georgia will on its side defend itself against the behemoth of a northern Neighbour. The battles will mostly take place in South Ossetia or Abkhazia. The people living there are the pawns in this macro-political game of strategy.

The last day of my stay in Georgia in May/June, my friend Tornike took me to his university where he met up with a few friends of his and they sang traditional Georgian songs for me. Here is one of them:

Georgian folklore from dltq on Vimeo.

I listen to this song, and I think about all my Georgian friends, and I feel like shit.