The year of *their* discontent and "Unspoken Georgian"

Its been a long time since my last entry...and the cosmic dance continues to spin and swirl, the Ballad of Thomas (the renegade social worker) and Georgia (the renegade nation) is still being written. It has been a rather difficult year in regards to my relationship with Georgia. Some dear friends were deported from Ireland. Without having time to grieve this loss, I quickly found myself at the centre of a witch hunt and labelled a secret agent by most of the community (the Georgian diaspora in Ireland) that I have been serving for the past six years. This process is still in full swing so there is no resolution yet, though I hope to be able to report differently in my next blog. (There is hope, but there is no chance!) In time, I will have to write the whole sordid mess out for my own healing and understanding as the people who told me over and over again "You are my family. No one has done such good things for my family as you. We love you." have now stopped talking to me and have completely shut me out because of the reckless unfounded allegations by a 22 year old man-child fraudster with a hatred of the police who believes that 'No one gets deported without someone ratting on them.' As if Police Science is an imaginary game. More on that situation later... This past year I have had the pleasure of getting to know a fellow blogger and she has given me some incredible insight by putting into words the strange feelings I've had about the role of men, women, culture, traditions, gay people, the church and the politics of Georgia. Sarah Cobham's blog, UNSPOKEN GEORGIAN is a new voice for feminists and progressives who love Georgia, but struggle with the doublespeak and secrecy which seems to be a shared experience of most non-Georgians that are engaged with Georgian culture. The confusion of the welcoming, but 'only so far thank you.' Sarah has been an incredible supporter of Georgian Traditional Singing circles both in Georgia and in the UK. Sarah's co-contributor is Richard Aslan, a fellow Queer writer, thinker and activist who documents his own experience as a man dealing with Georgia's aggressively celebrated hetero-supremeacy. There are only three brief entries so far, but the writing is quite engaging and curious questions are raised for both Georgian and non-Georgian friends of Sakartvelo. Take a look, its very, very interesting for anyone wanting to understand Georgia from a more modern perspective. http://sarahcobham1.blogspot.co.uk Enjoy!