The Albany Gazette - Rival football fans show diversity of Georgia's pro-EU protest movement

On Sunday, fans of Spanish football teams Real Madrid and Barcelona -- who have one of the fiercest rivalries in sport -- marched together, side by side wearing each team's jerseys and scarfs, from the Philharmonic to Parliament.

Their bitter "El Classico" rivalry was set aside as they joined the mass protest movement grappling against the small South Caucasus nation's authorities.

"We are protesting together against our pro-Russian government," Giorgi Mantidze, with a Barcelona scarf draped over his shoulders, told AFP.

The passions stirred by their love of the "beautiful game" have little to do with the political turmoil rocking the country bordered by regional powerhouses Russia and Turkey, as well as arch-foes Armenia and Azerbaijan.

But they have a shared fervour in opposing the governing Georgia Dream party that controversially claimed victory in October elections -- decried by the opposition as rigged -- and then exacerbated the public anger by announcing last month it was suspending European Union ascension talks until 2028 in a country that is constitutionally obliged to seek EU membership.

Since "Barca and Real fans are used to confronting each other", said 18-year-old Barcelona fan Ana Tepnadze -- whose mother is a Real aficionado -- they are showing that they "love (their) country more than any club".

"Our country needs unity. So, for us, it's a type of shop window to give an example for others," said Shota Natenadze, 29, brandishing a Real scarf.

The competing football fans were not the only ones marching for Georgia's future: business school students, artists, archaeologists and even veterinarians were amongst around a dozen individual groups protesting separately in the capital's streets under their specific identity.

Their common target was parliament: the symbol of pro-Russian authority that is denying them new elections.

- 'Plurality and diversity' -

Natenadze, an artificial intelligence engineer, on Friday joined a different protest group with other people from his industry.

His switching from one group to another was a way of showing the "plurality and diversity" of people who, "despite their differences of opinion, can rise up behind a common goal", he said.

Internal refugees from the separatist northwestern Abkhazia region -- whose bid for independence has been recognised by Russia, which has stationed troops there since a short but bloody war with Georgia in 2008 -- patriotically chanted the names of towns in their region.

Amongst the marching artists, Akaki Makatsaria, 27, stood out in his medieval helmet, studded leather vest and Byzantine-style bracers.

"The illegitimate government says it is the only one defending Georgian culture, that Europe is full of degenerates that want to destroy Georgian culture," he said.

But Georgian Dream offers "no support" for "the protection of Georgia's historic culture", added Makatsaria, a fan of historical reenactment.

- 'Identification game' -

Nino Kavshbaia, 25, joined a protest made up of people representing the televised game show "What? Where? When?" that was created in the old Soviet Union in the 1970s and is considered a favourite of intellectuals.

A lawyer, Kavshbaia said this "little identification game" amongst the diverse demonstration groups keeps the whole protest movement "interesting" as demonstrators constantly need to boost their morale and motivation following more than two weeks of action that has failed to buckle the government.

On the contrary, the government has been accused of suppressing the protests by having arrested opposition leaders and vowed to crush, by force if necessary, the movement it accuses of being fomented abroad.

Police have arrested more than 400 people, most of whom claim to have been subjected to violence, according to the Social Justice Centre NGO, which provides legal support to detainees.

Wrapped in a Barca scarf, technology employee Giorgi Merebashvili said it was "important to diversify" the movement to have more "flexibility".

That way, police "cannot control all the small demonstrations around the town".

(Y.Harris--TAG)