Mariam Betlemidze

Caucasian Conflicts and the Way Out: Scarsities V.s. Abundances in the Lands of Onesidedness and the Lines of Flight in the Rhizome of Nomadic Activists Mariam Betlemidze

Are there more scarecities or multiplicities in the three South Caucasian conflicts of Azeri-Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh (1988-1994), Georgian-South Ossetian (1990-1992) and Gelorgian-Abkhazian (1992-1993)? As Deleuze (1983) says, ?a thing has as many senses as there are forces capable of taking possession of it? (p. 4). ?Forces? are something Caucasians claim to have fought against throughout centuries to survive numerous conquerors. Those war machines, however, do not imply solely state armies or guerillas, but rather are based on actions and existences of everyday individual life in the Caucasus. The lines of one-sidedness logically merge into militarism in striated space, which could be traced to the lines of an instant communication network in the smooth space keeping societies in a constant state of modulation through popular culture and mainstream media. The nomadic multiplicity of people that helped put the war machines into motion can speak up directly through the rhizome of creative media activism and, thus, challenge the militarist aspirations of the society.