The Plundering is focused on Georgia's problem, whose unstable situation has impoverished a wide part of the population. But perhaps, we have to do self-criticism, because unfortunately, the situation the film is talking to us about could be the imperfect future of the next years in countries as ours or in others european countries, at least if the social politics continue being what they are, nonexistent.
“We can talk about the ‘plundering’ of Georgia. Public property, which in fact should serve the common needs of society, has become the property of individuals. For example, if that project became successful, the citizens now using this park would not be able to use it.” – Mikheil Svanidze, The Plundering.
Through small interviews, the documentary film presents us with four different cases of aggressive, state-property privatization policies in the city of Tbilisi. Those policies are, of course, in favor to individualities close to the Government.
Synopsis
Extreme levels of privatization can only be carried out under conditions where people are under severe pressure, as in the transformation of former Soviet republics towards independence and capitalism. Since the Rose Revolution in 2003, the former Soviet republic Georgia under went such a radical transformation. President Mikheil Saakashvili implemented one of the most extreme neoliberal projects in the world. Today, Georgia is 9th of 185 states in the World Bank ranking “Ease of Doing Business”. While the “common good accumulated within the communist regime during 70 years of its existence” (Rusudan Mirzikashvili, The Plundering) is being sold off, the unstable situation in a radical, free-market economy and the liquidation of most social safety nets drove most Georgian residents into un-experienced levels of poverty.
The film The Plundering focuses on four cases of aggressive, state-property privatization policies in Tbilisi. Through interviews, it discusses the privatization of the water system in Tbilisi and of Tbilisi’s popular market, the Dezerter Bazaar. A newly emerging movement prevented the attempted sell-off of the National Scientific Library, and the destruction and conversion of the historical Gudiashvili Square in Tbilisi’s city center into a shopping mall.
“Objects of strategic importance were sold to the benefit of some people close to the government”, Levan Asabashvili describes these processes of systemic corruption in the film. Usually the purchasers are hiding behind companies registered offshore.
