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The US lifts some restrictions on uclear cooperation with India.

Yes, I know this looks like some kind of proxy war, where the US backs India and China backs Pakistan – but it isn’t. China is far more pragmatic than that – they want trade, they want oil, and they aren’t interested in petty power politics. So they don’t have a problem supporting India and Pakistan. No doubt Hu’s visit to India today will lead to the announcement of some big industrial project or other – and then he’ll move on to Pakistan and do the same again.

That Georgian defence minister who got shunted off to ‘economy minister’, and was replaced by a 28-year-old? He’s just resigned, which presumably means he’s going to take on Saakashvili. Drama on its way…

I’ve now had some time to read the reports on Okruashvili’s resignation. Most are brief, and the only attempt at explaining his reasons is this fairly implausible comment from [Itar-Tass](http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=10993643&PageNum=0):

>Some reports said he intends to give up politics and turn to business, while other reports said he wishes to continue his education abroad.

Also worth reading is Molly Corso’s rush-job analysis at [Eurasianet](http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav111706a.shtml), which summarises the background nicely, but doesn’t explain what’s happening today.

But what’s he up to? I can only imagine that Okruashvili has decided to split the [United National Movement](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Movement_-_Democrats), the party which contains both him and Saakashvili, and form a more nationalist opposition.

If so, it’s not a stupid move. After the president, Okruashvili is the most popular politician in Georgia. He could plausibly bring the opposition together into an anti-Saakashvili coalition. The country is littered with small parties which have little hope of making it by themselves. Most of them are driven less by ideology than by pragmatism and the personalities of their leaders, so it should be possible to get them into bed together.

The only thing I don’t understand is why Okruashvili has made this announcement from abroad. Perhaps that’s a sign that he hasn’t lined up supporters yet, and is hoping that being away from Tbilisi will give him more time to do deals before making a public statement when he returns to the country?

Quick summary of what the Russian press & blogs are saying about Okruashvili, before I leave it for tonight.

[Gazeta](http://gzt.ru/world/2006/11/17/220003.html) explains this as a result of his humiliation by the president, and expects him to go into opposition:

>For a country in Georgia’s position, Minister of Defence is a key position. But Minister for Economic Growth – that’s the equivalent of somebody “retreating to his Dacha” in Soviet times

There hasn’t yet been all that much Livejournal comment yet (that I’ve found), but this seems typical:

>”Essentially, he understood that nobody shines in the post of Economy Minister. Winter is on its way and energy relations with Russia are shit. And he decided to jump ship, which is reasonable”

And the news sources are only now getting over the idea that it might [all have been an elaborate bluff](http://www.trud.ru/issue/shortnews.php?id=44559), an idea fuelled by Okruashvili being out of the country.

Meanwhile the Georgian opposition are already swarming around Okruashvili as a potential leader. [Levan Berdzenishvili](http://www.vz.ru/news/2006/11/17/57575.html) of the _Democratic Front_, wonders if Okruashvili is going to move into opposition, saying “It’s too early to call, everything depends on Okruashvili himself”. That’s about as blatant an offer to join him as you can get, and I imagine there will be a lot more Georgian politicians coming out with something similar.

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When [Radio Free Europe](http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/11/678c546b-425c-450c-ae5a-cfd9879a166d.html) report that “

Georgian parliament speaker Nino Burjanadze today slammed the [Commonwealth of Independent States](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_independent_states)

“, they’re missing the point slightly. The news isn’t that Georgia dislikes the CIS (we know that already), but that they aren’t doing anything about it. ‘Slamming’ is a de-escalation, not an escalation, compared to their other options.

If Georgia wanted to cause trouble, they would be trying to leave the CIS. That’s [what the opposition want](http://civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=13874), and what Russia is afraid of: this summit was due to be held last month, at the height of Georgian-Russian anger, but Russia arranged a [postponement](http://mosnews.com/news/2006/10/10/cissummit.shtml) to avoid a rash pullout by Georgia.

Leaving the CIS is one of the few weapons Georgia has against Russia: the organisation represents the last vestige of Moscow’s control over its ‘near abroad’, but is being held together with chewing gum and bits of string. To the East it’s being eclipsed by the [Shanghai Cooperation Organization](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Cooperation_Organization), and to the West by [GUAM](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUAM). Since these can fulfil most of the functions of an international talking shop, nobody except Russia has an interest in keeping the CIS running. If Georgia left, it could plausibly bring down the whole house of cards.

But the Georgians are being smart. If they actially leave the CIS, they lose a barganing chip and don’t gain much beyond the joy of watching Russia suffer. Much better to turn up, [refuse to pay membership fees](http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=10988607&PageNum=0), grandstand about Russia’s crimes, and [keep that threat on the table](http://www.regnum.ru/english/740070.html):

>

“We are here to make sure once again if we have any reasons to stay in the organization, or it has no future,” Burjanadze announced.


Along with the recent replacement of the Defence Minister, this seems to be part of a very sensible pattern of de-escalation by Georgia.

I can’t put it better than Emarkienna

As much as I might like to hear the Queen say words such as “pornography” and perhaps “necrophilia”, I really hope tomorrow she doesn’t.

[Good explanation of problems with the proposed ban on extreme pornography [here](http://emarkienna.livejournal.com/131743.html), old news reports [here](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/berkshire/5297600.stm) and [here](http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,1861301,00.html)]

The latest surprise in Georgian politics is…a substitution. Out goes defence minister Irakli Okruashvili, in comes Davit Kezerashvili, a 28-year old neophyte whose main claim to fame is as chief tax inspector.

What’s going on here? Is it because Okruashvili has been shooting his mouth off, backing Georgia into a corner by talking tough at Russia? Molly Corso at Eurasianet writes:

According to analysts, Okruashvili, infamous for his blunt,

anti-Russian rhetoric, became a liability as Georgia strives to fight

Russian attempts to portray Tbilisi as the aggressor in the bilateral

row. “In Russia and the United Nations, Okruashvili was identified with

war,” said Tina Gogueliani, a political analyst with the Tbilisi-based

International Center on Conflict and Negotiation.

I’m not convinced. Yes, he has made a few awkward comments – but that hardly seems fair when other ministers are accusing Russia of ethnic cleansing and the like, and aren’t being fired.

If this is about Russia, it’s only via Ossetia. Okruashvili said he wanted to spend the New Year in

Tskhinvali, capital of the South Ossetian region which, with Russian support, is trying to separate itself from Georgia. He was born in Ossetia, and is pretty determined to bring it back under Georgian control. So, the argument goes, Saakashvili is trying to calm down the tensions over Ossetia, and avoid some embarrassing PR over the new year.

I find that a lot more plausible. Saakashvili himself has a basically mainstream attitude to South Ossetia – that is, something which looks over the top to outsiders. He knows the voters like the idea ofdefeating the separatists, made that a plank of his presidential campaign in 2004, and has let things escalate to armed scuffles both in August 2004, and in July of this year. So if Ossetia is behind this, it’s not because of a fundamental difference of opinion. But right now, when Georgia is trying to look

like the innocent victim of Russian aggression, it’s probably best to keep this conflict on the back burner. And that’s especially true after last week’s South Ossetian referendum (the people voted heavily for independence, surprising nobody but ratcheting up the tension), which makes this an even trickier dispute to handle. The new defence minister’s won’t be going overboard on Ossetia: his protestations that he isn’t soft on South Ossetia just demonstrate that he

is

seen as softer than his predecessor.

But, by itself, that’s not enough to explain putting your defence policy in such inexperienced hands. Granted, Kezerashvili’s previous job as head tax inspector is a lot more macho than it sounds – in this part of the world tax

evasion is closely linked to organized crime, and the financial police

have a reputation for dramatic, heavily-armed raids. But that’s a long way from running the army – the opposition are branding him “

a deserter…with no clue about the army

“. And Kezerashvili has been forced into making a fairly laughable attempt to prove his military creds:

Like most Georgians, I also like weapons…. I have a favorite sword.

If it was just about foreign policy and PR, couldn’t Saakashvili just

have told Okruashvili – and old ally – to keep his mouth shut for a few

months?

So if foreign policy can’t explain it, what about the domestic angle?

It can’t quite be a case of Saakashvili putting his men in charge,

since the old defence minister was already a close ally of his. But if

Okruashvili was an ally, Kezerashvili is entirely Saakashvili’s

creation: a peon in the Justice Ministry until Saakashvili grabbed him

as a personal assistant, and helped him into ever-grander jobs. There’s

an element here of grooming Kezerashvili to become a major political

player (being made minister at age 28 isn’t bad going, even in a

country with a population of 4 million), combined with the knowledge

that for now he’s going to follow Saakashvili’s lead.

But however competent and loyal Saakashvili expects Kezerashvili to be, he’s also relying on him

not

being one of the big guns. Okruashvili was getting hard to push around: in a recent poll,

90% of Georgians considered him to be Georgia’s second most powerful

politician. There are suggestions that the president thought

Okruashvili was planng a coup, but even without going so far, it’s very

likely that Saakashvili wants to be the dominant figure in foreign

policy right now. And he’s probably managed it in the short term – but at the cost of turning a powerful ally into an enemy

Maṇḍalas and memory palaces: that’s the theme of something I might have written, had I managed to stay in the academic world. The idea is that the intricate visualisations peformed by a Tantric adept during a ritual work as keys to remembering doctrine, in the same way as Roman orators and renaissance scholars used ‘memory palaces’ to organise their knowledge. And because all these groups relied on their memories more than we do, they were immeasurably better at putting them to good use.

A lot of Buddhists, modern and ancient, would have a hard time understanding the point of a ritual like this one, where they visualise a kind of hideous monster:

terrible indeed, roaring ‘PHAT’, adorned with skull ornaments, with sixteen legs, naked, ithyphallic, left legs extended, with a great belly, with hair standing upright, causing great fear, roaring ‘pheṃ’, with thirty‐four arms and holding a fresh elephant skin

[From the Vajrabhairava Tantra]

But when you read the commentary, all this is explained in terms of traditional Buddhist doctrines:

he is ornamented with skull ornaments because he is born from the sphere of dharmas…his sixteen legs are the complete ascertainment of the sixteen emptinesses…he is naked because he understands without obscuration all dharmas….he is ithyphallic because he becomes the great bliss…his left legs are extended because all dharmas are individually penetrated by emptiness…His hair standing up is a sign of his freedom from suffering….The thirty-four arms are the complete ascertainment of the thirty-four aspects of bodhi

Yes, some of the connections are a bit dubious (the usual argument is that the commentators were taking bizarre, transgressive rituals and trying to make them seem orthodox) ‐ but the principle is clearly there: visualise something colourful, and it’ll help you remember what`s going on.

In fact, this isn’t new. Buddhism was designed from the start to be easy to remember. Why do you have four noble truths, a noble eightfold path, five aggregates, and so on? Because lists are easy to remember, and when you’re a wandering monk with only a bowl and a robe for company, you need to keep things in your head.

But go back to that odd Tantric visualisation, because things get even more

interesting here. It isn’t just many-armed gods that were being pictured here, but maṇḍalas with intricate patterns of lines and symbols. One of the underlying themes is the one known in the West by the tag “

as above, so below

” and in India by “tat tvam asi”: i.e. that the maṇḍala represents the world as a whole. And by meditating on aspects of the maṇḍala, you can recall what you have been taught about the universe.

Apart from the Buddhism, this isn’t so different from something similar in Europe. Cicero used this ‘ars memorativa’ to remember his speeches, but the most detailed surviving source is Quintilian, who

describes

a memory method based on placing symbols of things to be remembered around a home. It’s quite similar to the Indian method, except based around a real building not an imagined maṇḍala, and aimed at the law-courts not at religion. It all fits far too comfortably into stereotypes of practical Rome and the mystic East, doesn’t it?

This ‘art of memory’ dribbles on through the centuries, and gets a shot in the arm in the Renaissance, as it’s picked by by people like Robert Fludd (who develops a memory palace possibly based on the Globe theatre) and Giordano Bruno (who was famous as a mnemonicist long before the Church burned him as a heretic). These people were still talking about ‘memory palaces’, but they were moving them away from Quintilian’s real buildings and closer to the imagined spaces of Indian rituals.

Now, although I did find

one tantilising suggestion

of contact between Indian and European mnemonicists, I don’t think they’re sharing ideas. They’ve independently come up with similar techniques, because they work.

And that’s partly why I’m so fascinated: this is one of the few areas where the modern world lags massively behind the great cultures of history. The mnemonics we retain are laughable shadows. Libraries, computers and cheap paper function as our outboard brains so we don’t need onboard brains in the form of maṇḍalas and memory palaces.

In turn, that makes this one of the few areas where humanities scholars can justify their existence. Bringing back these old techniques, and combining for the first time the memory techniques of India, Europe, and anywhere else, is a project that would contribute something useful to the knowledge circulating in our culture. I almost wish I’d stayed in a university, so I could do it.

Mnemonics East and West

: I don’t seriously think that there was any direct interconnection between Indian and European mnemonic traditions, but I did find this intriguing line in the

Ars Memorativa

, a memory guide printed in Germany in 1490:

There are some masters who use loci other than doors. Such as chairs, benches, tables, bridges, windows or villages. But they recognise that the door is the easiest to know.

Those from India paint in their loci like in a book, like birds, animals, fish. First they have an eagle, then a sparrowhawk, thirdly a hawk, etc.

Some from Chaldea use all sorts of strange things. They paint sheep, birds, carts, wheels, horses….

Almost certainly, the author here (who, to be honest, seems to be something of a hack) is just using ‘_India_’ to mean ‘_some wacky far-out place_’. But you never know, I could be wrong.

Quintilian

: He wrote a full chapter on the art of memory, going through his method in detail. Summarising the crucial bits:

Some place is chosen of the largest possible extent and characterised by the utmost possible variety, such as a space house divided into a number of rooms. Everything of note therein is carefully committed to the memory…

The next step is to distinguish something [to be remembered] by some particular symbol which will serve to jog the memory….

These symbols are then arranged as follows. The first thought is placed, as it were, in the forecourt; the second, let us say, in the living-room; the remainder are placed in due order all round… and entrusted not merely to bedrooms and parlours, but even to the care of statues and the like. This done, as soon as the memory of the facts requires to be revived, all these places are visited in turn and the various deposits are demanded from their custodians, as the sight of each recalls the respective details