"Making sense of the Russia-Georgia conflict requires unbiased examination - by Joy Franklin
Many things influence how a person or a group views a political situation like the unfolding drama in Georgia and South Ossetia. Identification, self-interest, fear, ideology and many other factors weigh in as we watch from afar.The citizens of Asheville’s Sister City, Vladikavkaz, located in the Russian Republic of North Ossetia-Alania in the foothills of the Caucuses, see the conflict in very different terms. And for them, it’s much more personal. Vladikavkaz is only a few miles from South Ossetia where the majority of the population, like that of North Ossetia, is Ossetian. “I cannot even try to explain in words how terrible it was in Tskhinvali (South Ossetian capital) and other villages on the nights beginning with the eve of the 8 of August (beginning of the Olimpiade, by the way) and up till now,” Georgy A. Tuayev, a native North Ossetian who lives in Vladikavkaz, wrote in an e-mail to his friend Kitty Boniske on Aug. 10.
Though internationally South Ossetia is viewed as part of Georgia, as far as Tauyev and most Ossetians are concerned, South Ossetia is independent of Georgia. “To start with I want to remind you that this is not the first war that Georgia has unleashed against South Ossetia,” Tauyev said in his e-mail. “You remember that almost the same scenario was played out in the early ’90s. At that time South Ossetia managed to survive and protect its independence from Georgia, although thousands of South Ossetians have fled to North Ossetia and most of them stayed here.”
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