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Georgian Dream talks about Western pressure on country's culture
In an interview with Imedi TV, she recalled how “envoys from Brussels put papers on my desk describing how Georgia should perform at foreign cultural festivals.”
“These envoys told me what Georgia was, what Georgian culture was,” she recalls. “I resisted and started asking specific questions about why we didn’t want Georgian cultural traditions to be presented the way we saw them.”
"They said they didn't care what Georgians thought about their culture. They were interested in what Europeans thought about our culture. This approach was completely unacceptable to me," said Tea Tsulukiani.
“From that moment on, serious political problems (in terms of the West’s attitude) towards our culture began,” she said.
"We were told that they did not want to see Georgian men in chokhas on stage in Europe. For me, it was just a disgrace. After long conflicts, we finally achieved our goal. And at European concerts, the halls were packed, literally filled with people," recalled Tea Tsulukiani.
She said that shortly after she was appointed culture minister in 2021, she had a meeting with "the ambassador of one of the leading EU countries" during which he "pulled out a small piece of paper from his inside pocket with a list of things to follow people." "We needed to raise funds."
"It was a small list, but today all these people are openly against the Georgian Dream. Then I told the ambassador that Georgian culture does not consist of these five or six people," said Tea Tsulukiani.
"All this is interference in Georgia's internal affairs. "If the Georgian ambassador had done this in any country, he would have been immediately expelled under the Vienna Convention," said the former vice-chairman of the Georgian government.