{"id":6203,"date":"2020-05-07T21:34:55","date_gmt":"2020-05-08T01:34:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs-test.newschool.edu\/tcds\/?p=6203"},"modified":"2020-05-07T21:34:59","modified_gmt":"2020-05-08T01:34:59","slug":"nyc-tbilisi-traveling-through-the-pandemic-into-uncertainty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs-test.newschool.edu\/tcds\/2020\/05\/07\/nyc-tbilisi-traveling-through-the-pandemic-into-uncertainty\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC \u2013 Tbilisi: Traveling through the Pandemic into Uncertainty"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Malkhaz Toria, current student of the graduate program in sociology at New School for Social Research (NSSR) and the coordinator of the Memory Studies Group at the New School<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The\u00a0\u00a0writing\u00a0in Georgian\u00a0on the box says “daddy open the mailbox”<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The pandemic came slowly but steadily. The last public event\nI attended at the New School hosted UN Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres on February 27, 2020.<\/strong> He was awarded an honorary\ndoctorate before delivering a speech on \u201cWomen and Power\u201d. He also warned the\naudience that the world was about to face the global COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the event, though still not fully convinced about the\npossibility of a coronavirus outbreak — and so just in case — I dropped by a\ncouple of pharmacies in Greenwich Village to get some possibly useful things like\nmasks, gloves, and hand sanitizer.  The\ncashiers suggested that if I came back in the morning I \u201cmight be able to find\nsome of these things\u201d. That was the first time I got a taste of all-encompassing\nfeelings of imminent disaster and dramatic changes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From then on we began to receive updates from the president\nand provost of the New School related to the spread of the novel coronavirus. In\nthe meantime, the mid-March Spring break was approaching and we began to hear\nabout a possible move to remote teaching for the remaining part of the semester.\nFirst, the administration announced that the week following the break would be\na study week,  a \u201cpost-spring break alternative teaching and learning week\u201d. At that point\nit was not clear yet whether face-to-face classes would resume or not, and so I\nbegan to wonder whether perhaps I should go back to Georgia. These were\ntroubling times, and it made sense for me to be at home with my family and fulfill\nthe class requirements online. As soon as I began to discuss with my professors\nthe possibility of going to Georgia and joining the classes via Zoom,  things began to change rapidly. On March 16th<\/sup><\/strong> students were\nnotified that the remainder of the semester would indeed be conducted online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My worries about keeping up with classes from home were transformed into an almost existential anxiety about both the risks of air travel and the pressure to get home as soon as I could get a ticket. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On March 18<\/strong>, 2020,\nI began searching for airplane tickets online. Just a couple of options for the\nlast flights were still available. Initially I had wanted to leave for Georgia\non March 21st<\/sup> because I thought three days would be enough to pack\nwithout a rush.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I found a good option through NYC \u2013 Doha \u2013 Tbilisi. But I was unable to conclude the payment because the web service was overloaded. It seemed the high demand for tickets had caused spikes in site traffic. I then called the Consulate General of Georgia in New York, where someone advised me to leave NYC as soon as possible because in two or three days all flights would be canceled. They put me through to a travel agency and after a while I was lucky to purchase a ticket on a flight scheduled for the next day. I thus had only several hours to pack and get to JFK.\u00a0 But in the process of hastily throwing things into my bags, I also managed to have a glass of Georgian wine with my Ukrainian roommates in Brooklyn, to say goodbye before my departure.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next day, on March\n19th<\/sup>,<\/strong> together with another Georgian student, I was sitting in a\nhalf-empty plane flying to Doha from where we would transfer to another flight to\nTbilisi. It was not like any other trips home full of happy expectations of\nembracing my family. I was not returning home after completing a post-doc program,\nor because I had a semester break and could comfortably fly on Christmas Eve. This\ntime I was forced to leave NYC and The New School \u2013 famous for its \u201cUniversity\nin Exile\u201d history — in the middle of the semester. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had already experienced the drama of forced displacement when\nin 1993 my family had to leave our home in the Abkhazia region of Georgia at\nthe end of the armed Georgian-Abkhaz conflict. But strangely, this time, I was\ngoing simultaneously through mixed feelings of joy and distress. I was not being\nforced to abandon my home, but was rushing back to reunite with my family \u2013 my\nwife and two kids — in Georgia.  My impatient\nexpectations of meeting them had a bittersweet taste amid the mounting pandemic.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a journey into uncertainty. Even though I was going\nhome I did not know what to expect at the end of the trip: would I be put into\nsome sort of quarantine facility or allowed to stay in self-isolation at our\nplace?  Mainly, I was troubled by the\npossibility of catching the virus while traveling, as that would mean a much\nlonger delay of our family reunion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile in the plane, as if it were not already enough to be\nobserving passengers and flight attendants in masks fully embracing the\npandemic atmosphere. No idea why, but I exacerbated the creepy post-apocalyptic\natmosphere by watching the whole season of Netflix\u2019s original South Korean series\n\u201cKingdom\u201d. The show depicts how in medieval Korea some sort of mysterious\nplague brought the dead back to life as blood-thirsty zombies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of the trip, I went through the thermal screening\nand other necessary procedures at the airport in Tbilisi. Fortunately, the\nresults were satisfactory, and I got permission to spend the mandatory two\nweeks of self-isolation at home instead of in a state-run quarantine\nfacility.  At the same time, while I was\nproceeding through the preliminary infection checkpoint at the airport, my\nfamily was preparing for a trip to my wife\u2019s parental house in the Kakheti\nregion, leaving the empty apartment to me, with luck for only two weeks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I approached home, through the window of the taxi I caught\na glimpse of our car with my wife and kids inside heading out from our neighborhood.\nAnd that was it: I entered the apartment building, and my \u201clegitimate\u201d self-isolation\nhad begun. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I was entering our place a colorful hand-made mailbox\ngreeted me, which my nine-year-old daughter Martha had made to hold some cute\ndrawings and letters welcoming me home. She had included her four-year-old\nbrother Luka in the project. One of their lovely drawings depicted the whole\nfamily, including our poodle Bibi.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Initially, we had refrained from informing the\nkids about the date of my arrival, as it would be difficult for them to\nunderstand why they could not greet me at home. So they just expected to see me\nin approximately two weeks, once my self-isolation was over. However, Martha\nbecame so agitated whenever she heard news about the pandemic in NYC that eventually\nmy wife Maia had to reveal the truth and explain to the kids that I first had\nto stay at home alone for a while. And indeed, after my two-week quarantine, and\nwith no sign of any COVID-19 infection, my family came home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So here I am in Georgia, and out of the apartment, and\nfinally able to observe how my country has been handling the coronavirus\noutbreak and how the old\/new problems of internal political struggles,  conflicts, and geopolitics are playing out under\nthe conditions of a pandemic.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Initially, the Georgian government\u2019s measures to cope with the outbreak of COVID-19 received quite positive assessments from both the World Health Organization and local experts. Even some opposition parties recognized that the authorities had taken necessary preventive steps in a timely and adequate manner. In particular the country\u2019s top epidemiologists — three men and a woman, sometimes referred to as \u201cthe four musketeers\u201d – are praised for coordinating the successful efforts of the country\u2019s health care system against the pandemic. Every day they update the public through their media briefings about new cases of infection, the number of recovered patients, and ongoing preventive actions. \u00a0They assure people that thanks to the government\u2019s proper undertakings (state of emergency, shutting down major cities to decrease mobility, nationwide lockdown, quarantine, and curfew), the country avoided a dramatic acceleration in the number of cases at the peak of the pandemic. \u00a0And so hospitals and healthcare professionals in the country have enough beds and medical equipment to treat all infected people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed,\nby the time of my arrival, Georgia seemed a safe island in the sea of the world\u2019s\npandemic. That is why my friends and relatives congratulated me on having\nmanaged to get out of NYC, which would soon become the epicenter of the virus\noutbreak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At\nthis time though, criticism is mounting over the government\u2019s responses to the crisis\ncaused by the pandemic. There are questions as to whether the relatively low\nnumber of confirmed cases of infections reveals flaws in the tracking of infected\npeople because of the state\u2019s inability to do nationwide testing. (As of May 3,\nthere were 589 confirmed cases of COVID-19, and 8 deaths.) And so the\nauthorities try to sell their failure as an example of successful management. Opposition\nparties have also slammed the government for not having a real anti-crisis strategy\nto address the impact of the coronavirus on the economy. There are no plans to\nease the financial burden for ordinary people or businesses by cutting taxes\nand\/or subsidizing them, for instance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ngovernment is accused of leaning toward authoritarian methods of rule in approving\non April 23, 2020 — quickly and without proper procedures — tough penalties for\nbreaking emergency-law regulations. According to its opponents, these changes\nin the criminal code that impose up to six years in jail for a repeated\nviolation of these regulations, do not conform to the basic human rights laws guaranteed\nby the country\u2019s constitution. There were even Facebook check-in protests\nscheduled that demanded \u201cStop the state of emergency. Say no to excessive power\u201d.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According\nto many, the imposition of the state of emergency and curfew does not help to halt\nthe spread of the coronavirus because its special restrictions do not apply to\nall. This became evident when the Georgian Orthodox Church (GOC) allowed\nbelievers to attend Easter Vigil on Easter Eve, April 18. Even though the GOC had\nagreed to follow essential recommendations and called parishioners to maintain\nsocial distancing during the Easter celebration and remain within the churches\u2019\npremises until the end of the nighttime curfew at 6 am, holding the service during\na state of emergency was widely perceived as an open challenge to secularism\nand democracy in Georgia by a powerful and widely trusted religious\ninstitution.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Along\nwith the internal political debates, the coronavirus outbreak became a new tool\nfor Russian propaganda regarding the United States\u2019  interest in Georgia. These geopolitical tensions\ncenter on the theme of the US-funded bio lab, the Lugar Research Center in Tbilisi,\nwhich is the only laboratory in Georgia and the region where it is possible to test\nsamples for COVID-19 and turn results around in under 24 hours. It is thanks to\nthis modern biological lab that healthcare workers were able to locate cases in\nthe initial phase of the pandemic. The lab has\nbeen a target of Russian fake news and propaganda since its opening in 2011,\nbut the COVID19 outbreak has made it a central theme again for various\ndisinformation agencies in their task of generating conspiracy theories. In\nthis context, the major Russian TV outlets, along with some officials, have referred\nto the lab as a potential source of assorted viruses and\nbio-weapons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore,\nother symptomatic news has come from the Russian-backed breakaway South Ossetia\nregion of Georgia that exemplifies the essence of a parallel Russian Universe (Russkii\nMir<\/em>). It is hard to believe that the capital of this so-called \u201cde-facto\u201d\nstate, Tskhinvali, has been given a second name — \u201cStalinir\u201d — to honor the\nSoviet dictator Stalin and commemorate the 75th<\/sup> anniversary of the victory\nin WWII. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A\nsimilar erasing of Stalin\u2019s crimes has taken place in the occupied part of\nEastern Ukraine, the self-proclaimed \u201cDonetsk People\u2019s Republic\u201d. Beginning on May\n9th<\/sup>, Victory Day, the city of Donetsk acquires a second name \u2013\nStalino.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            And so yet again: the more things\nchange, the more things stay the same! I now have the strange and\nindeed uncanny sense of participating in parallel spatial-temporal spheres, being\nboth in Tbilisi and in New York City at ones —  both with my family and, via Zoom, with my colleagues\nat the New School. It seems that the difference between what\u2019s real and what\u2019s\nvirtual has lost its prior meaning and should be reduced to the difference\nbetween our physically accessible surroundings and the virtual — but no less\nreal and accessible — dimension of our lives. In this sense, the \u201creal\u201d means our\nphysical surroundings extended into a virtual realm. My \u201cto do\u201d list has not disappeared,\nbut rather has re-appeared in a more condensed form. We are still meeting in our\nclasses and having our regular one-on-one meetings thanks to Zoom.  Nor have societal, political, or geopolitical\nproblems disappeared from sight. In this situation of lockdown and quarantine, the\nperennial questions and familiar issues appear within a horizon that extends\nbefore us on little screens.   Of course,\nthis is not normal, and bearable only for the time being, as we are constantly\nasking ourselves the trivial but fundamental question of how long should, or\nwill, we be living in this bizarre time? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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by Malkhaz Toria, current student of the graduate program in sociology at New School for Social Research (NSSR) and the coordinator of the Memory Studies Group at the New School…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":289,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50909,18694],"tags":[32731,6483,61850],"class_list":["post-6203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fieldnotes","category-events-news","tag-georgia","tag-nyc","tag-pandemos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-test.newschool.edu\/tcds\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-test.newschool.edu\/tcds\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-test.newschool.edu\/tcds\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-test.newschool.edu\/tcds\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/users\/289"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-test.newschool.edu\/tcds\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6203"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-test.newschool.edu\/tcds\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6209,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-test.newschool.edu\/tcds\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6203\/revisions\/6209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-test.newschool.edu\/tcds\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-test.newschool.edu\/tcds\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-test.newschool.edu\/tcds\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}