UNDERSTANDING BAFA BAFA’S SIGNIFICANCE – A REPORT ON THE GAME Text prepared by Tinatin Zurabishvili, Local Faculty Fellow, Telavi State University, Georgia

Reference: CEP Caucasus Newsletter, Fall 2001

Understanding BaFa BaFa’s significance

On November 10, 2001 we played “BaFa-BaFa” at Telavi State University with first and second year Sociology students. Although it is technically a game, “BaFa-BaFa” is really much more. Its aim is to demonstrate that one’s feelings of attachment to a given culture are learned in the process of socialization, and that people judge other cultures based on their own cultural perspective.

Before the game, the students knew nothing about the “Alpha” and the “Beta” cultures that they were randomly assigned; but by the end of the game, which lasted for about 2 hours, all of them refused to change their culture – and this happens almost every time “BaFa-BaFa” is played. This demonstrated how these kinds of affiliations work in our real lives. We played the game in order to reveal this phenomena to the students, since such knowledge can lead to greater tolerance and understanding of other people in all spheres of life.

Making the students understand all this was another matter. All of them felt that the game was interesting and involving, and although they knew nothing about the cultures before the game, they became true patriots of their “own” cultures. By the end of the game, some of them claimed, “No one will ever make me change my culture”. Others demonstrated more understanding regarding the aims of the exercise: “The aim of this game was to make us realize that it’s not a good idea to make judgements in a hurry, before we learn more about this or that event of fact”.

One student, Sophio Margalitashvili, stated: “My best friend was in the other culture, but this fact didn’t play any role in my willingness to change my culture. I still refused to change it. Later I thought that I probably could have change my culture just to be together with my friend, but in that very moment it seemed completely impossible for me, as for any of us, to change a culture that seemed to be very much “mine”. We didn’t know each other’s cultures, that’s why we had negative feelings towards the “other” culture.

“ After this game, I came to the conclusion that people tend to make judgements which are not based on knowledge or understanding, and are made in a rush. That’s what happened to all of us during this game. And it was intended to happen, as the main goal of the game, as well as I understood it, was to make us think about the fact that that before we get to know each other, to learn what’s happening around us, we shouldn’t make judgements”.

Another student mentioned that the game also requires its participants to be very attentive while trying to guess the rules of the opposite culture. “It has only one major disadvantage, - he said, - it’s not possible to play it twice”.