Wednesday, July 25, 2007, #140 (1407)

Survey: Ethnic Minority Populations Consider Georgia Their Homeland
By M. Alkhazashvili
(Translated by Diana Dundua)

80 percent of polled people in Samtskhe–Javakheti and Kvemo Kartli provinces consider Georgia to be their homeland, says a recent USAID-sponsored survey. The significant ethnic minority populations there are participating in elections and see a future as part of Georgia, the newspaper Akhali Taoba writes.

Yet respondents in these provinces feel Georgia still fails to fully accommodate ethnic minorities in the country—only 28 percent of those in Kvemo Kartli and 35.9 percent in Samtskhe–Javakheti considered Georgian law to protect ethnic minorities’ rights.
 
The USAID-sponsored program, ‘Evaluating Integration and Tolerance in Georgia,’ surveyed 2400 people over four years.

Levan Tarkhnishvili, who led the research, says that the key problem now for ethic minorities is political and social integration, where the language barrier is a major obstacle.
 
A significant 83.1 percent of Kvemo Kartli residents outside of Rustavi, and 75.4 percent of Samtskhe–Javakheti residents cannot speak Georgian, according to the newspaper Svobodnaya Gruzia. While this purportedly does not usually affect everyday life, respondents reported problems when leaving their native region.

The research also revealed that ethnic minorities in Kvemo Kartli and Samtskhe–Javakheti are concerned about the effect assimilation may have on their language and culture. Overcoming the language barrier while preserving minority languages, then, is a core concern in overseeing ethnic integration in Georgia.

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