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Checkmate - Strategy of a Revolution feat. by Susanne Brandstätter

savulescugabriel — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 09:59:38 +0000

“Tyranny to Freedom: Diary of a Former Stalinist”, by Ludwik Kowalski

savulescugabriel — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 16:32:42 +0000

The author of this autobiography is one of many deceived communists who abandoned their former ideology. Born in 1931 in Poland, Ludwik Kowalski lived in the Soviet Union up to age 15. His undergraduate and graduate education was completed in Poland and France. After returning to Poland in 1963 with a French Ph.D. in Nuclear Physics, he was invited to a scientific conference in the US, and became a research associate at Columbia University. His teaching career began in 1969, at Montclair State University, in New Jersey. After retiring in 2004, he wrote “Hell on Earth: Brutality and Violence Under The Stalinist Regime,” a short and easy-to-read book for those Americans who know very little about Soviet history.

Kowalski’s autobiography is based on his diaries, starting in 1946; it is a fascinating story of one man’s struggle to clarify his political identity. But this is not all; some readers might be interested in other aspects of his story, such as scientific work, affairs of the heart, religious belief, etc. After re-reading his voluminous diaries (written in Polish), Kowalski realized that they contained enough substance to be of interest to others. Seeking editorial help, the author asked his wife “Are you going to be embarrassed to read descriptions of episodes from my sexual life?” The answer was “we are senior citizens now.”

“Tyranny to Freedom: Diary of a Former Stalinist” can now be purchased online at:

http://www.wastelandbooksonline.com/shop/index (click “details”)

or at:

http://www.amazon.com .

It can also be ordered from a bookstore (The ISBN number is 978-1-60047-390-6).

To see the cover of the book go to:

http://pages.csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/mybook.html

Royalties will be donated to a Montclair State University scholarship fund.

Comments and reviews will be highly appreciated. Contact the author by e-mail:

kowalskiL@mail.montclair.edu

Share the above information with others who might be interested (for example, by forwarding this message to a friend). A self-published author needs help to make the book known to potential readers. What can be done to accomplish this? Suggestions will be appreciated. Thank you in advance.

The Commie Trifecta

padresteve — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 04:58:58 +0000

Once upon a time there was something called the Cold War. It was rather frosty, even in the sub-tropical paradise of Cuba. During the Cold War the Soviet Union aka Russia led what was called the Warsaw Pact in a global conflict of world domination against the United States and it’s Allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, better known as NATO. Both sides had minor surrogates around the world.

During the Cold War there were several places where the United States had forces face to face with the Soviet Union and its Allies. The most prominent of these were Berlin where the Berlin Wall surrounded West Berlin keeping its prosperous citizens from the great deals to be found on the East German economy and the East Germans out of the decadent West.

The Wall Comes Down

In the far east the United States and its South Korean ally faced the DRNK or the Democratic Republic of Nutso Korea headed by a man named Kim who would pass the leadership of the DRNK to his son who also is named Kim. I think that the second Kim was named after Kim Novak but this is just a rumor started by the CIA to attempt to undermine the DRNK. The demarcation line was that of the Armistice line of the Korean War located in the general vicinity of the 38th parallel. This remains one of the most heavily fortified locations in the world.

The final point of direct contact was in Cuba at Guantanamo Bay where failed baseball prospect Fidel Castro took his revenge on Major League Baseball by taking over Cuba, allying himself with the Soviet Union. He almost helped start a thermonuclear war between the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cuban Missile Crisis. After this Castro isolated Cuba from the Major Leagues and prevented them from having access to his star baseball players, except for defectors.

Padre Steve at the Brandenburg Gate on the East Side of the Berlin Wall

To have served in the US Military at all three flash points was nearly impossible akin winning Major League Baseball’s hitting “triple crown.” By this I don’t just mean the American or National League crown but the entire league. The last player to do this was Mickey Mantle in 1956 who hit .356 with 52 home runs and 130 in a mere 154 games. I refer to the feat of serving at all three locations as accomplishing the Commie Trifecta.

PT on the Korean DMZ

To do this now is an accomplishment because you had to be serving in the military in Germany before the Soviet Union went Tango Uniform and the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. Thus it is an accomplishment that few can attain unless they enter an alternate time line were the the Soviet Union survives.

On the North Korean Side of the Armistice Line

However Padre Steve has accomplished this feat. Back in November 1986 he and the Abbess made the trip from West Germany along the Helmstedt corridor to West Berlin and then through Checkpoint Charlie into East Berlin. 12 years passed and Padre Steve was now in the Navy serving with the the 3rd Battalion 8th Marines in Korea from February through April of 2001. Part of this involved camping out at Warrior Base a mere 800 meters from the South side of the Korean Demilitarized Zone, or DMZ. Serenaded by nightly musical serenades and inspiring messages approved by the boy named Kim we trained and also got a tour of the Armistice village of Panmunjom where in the conference room guarded by really tall and scary looking South Korean Soldiers one can actually cross over the to North Korean side of the room. I would also do PT along the DMZ carefully avoiding anywhere marked “mines.”

Overlooking Commie Cuba from Leeward

The third portion of the Commie Trifecta was in November 2003 while assigned to the Marine Security Forces who manned the Colonel Nathan R Jessup Memorial Fence Line which separates the Guantanamo Naval Station from Communist Cuba.

This makes Padre Steve a relic albeit one who has been around long enough to get to do the Commie Trifecta. That friends is is way cool.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

The Suicide of the East? 1989 and the Fall of Communism

savulescugabriel — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 23:58:43 +0000

There was no World War III. A fictional one, depicted in the 1978 international bestseller The Third World War, was imagined by one of the most remarkable soldier-scholars of his generation, a retired British general named John Hackett. His war begins when a 1985 crackup in Yugoslavia lights the great-power fuse, 1914 style. Analogies to World War I, of decaying empires and military machines primed to attack, were very much in the air when the book was published. It was the late 1970s, and Soviet interventionism had reached a high point, while the Soviet Union combined a sprawling, ill-governed military with an aging, insecure political class.

But by the time the real Yugoslav war did come, in 1991, another kind of chain reaction had already transformed Europe. In the late 1980s, Moscow was experimenting vigorously with economic and then political reform. The Soviet Union and Poland held limited elections in early 1989 that, in different ways, shook the foundations of their communist establishments. Soon, Poland had a noncommunist government. Hungary effectively defected to the West, attracting a flow of refugees from East Germany, thus undermining the bastion of Stalinism they left behind. The cascade quickened. Czechoslovakia’s government was toppled by a “velvet revolution,” and the Berlin Wall was breached when a bureaucratic snafu inadvertently opened the floodgates. Bulgarians overthrew their leaders, and as the year ended, Romania’s brutal dictator died before a firing squad. As the Germans created a new unity for their divided nation, national movements splintered the Soviet Union itself. By the end of 1991, the Soviet empire had disintegrated.

Although there had been some bloodshed in China and Romania, there had been no great war. Hundreds of millions of people now led new ways of life in new states with new borders. The world was rearranged as in a great postwar settlement — but without a war. So profound were the changes that when Yugoslavia started to break apart and the outside actors — conditioned by habit to play leading roles in the drama — stumbled onto the stage, the players seemed bewildered and scriptless.

Seen two decades later, it seems like a blur. As this episode passes into historical memory, 1989 has become the totemic year when the people rose up, and the November collapse of the Berlin Wall is its exemplary moment. A fresh crop of books now attempts to unpack this epic story. Was it really a revolt from below, or was it more from above, a civil war within the Communist elite? Both is the obvious answer, but these books put more weight on the struggles within the Communist elite. Some focus on the revolutions of 1989. Others emphasize the settlements that shaped the world of today. Two of them take in the full narrative arc of the communist experiment in organizing modern society. Hardly any discuss the challenge of fashioning a tempting alternative to it. That is unfortunate, because so many of communism’s initial adherents were men and women disillusioned by the apparent failings of liberalism.

SEEING RED

Once upon a time, the “ten days that shook the world,” in Russia’s 1917 revolution, had a comparable grip on the public’s historical imagination. Once upon a time, the future of the world seemed to belong to the states descended from that older bolt of revolutionary lightning.

These were total states. They encompassed the unprecedented forces of creation and destruction that humanity had so recently discovered, and they were driven by Nietzschean supermen with a will to power. Or so it seemed to the disillusioned Trotskyite James Burnham by the end of the 1930s. In his influential 1941 book, The Managerial Revolution, Burnham argued that ideologies such as socialism or fascism were just masks worn by new kinds of “managerial states,” their resources mobilized and industries led by a technocratic elite. The states that would triumph were those that could carry their principles to their logical limits and use power ruthlessly. Capitalism, he predicted, was “not going to continue much longer.” Shortly after World War II, Burnham returned to his theme of governing power elites, “the Machiavellians,” who might adopt democratic forms to perpetuate their rule. If U.S. leaders hoped to survive, they would have to acquire their own will to power and use their fleeting nuclear advantage, in a preventive war if necessary.

Especially in light of Burnham’s former prominence on the American left, his arguments intrigued George Orwell, a self-described “democratic socialist.” Writing from the United Kingdom, Orwell noticed the fascination with power and force that so imbued what Burnham called his “realism.” In early 1947, Orwell wrote that for Burnham, “Communism may be wicked, but at any rate it is big: it is a terrible, all-devouring monster which one fights against but which one cannot help admiring.” Against Burnham’s visions of monsters and cataclysms, Orwell hoped that “the Russian regime may become more liberal and less dangerous a generation hence, if war has not broken out in the meantime.” Or perhaps the great powers would “be simply too frightened of the effects of atomic weapons ever to make use of them.” Yet Orwell acknowledged that such a nuclear standoff was a dreadful prospect, as it would mean the lasting “division of the world among two or three vast super-states,” run by Burnham’s technocratic dictators — the Machiavellian managerial elite.

For Orwell, the only way of avoiding that outcome was “to present somewhere or other, on a large scale, the spectacle of a community where people are relatively free and happy and where the main motive in life is not the pursuit of money or power. In other words, democratic Socialism must be made to work throughout some large area.” He thought that this would have to be in Europe, a Europe unified to serve this ideal. So for Orwell in 1947, the prescription was to avoid war long enough for communist governments to become less dangerous and, meanwhile, to build an appealing alternative to communism.

Not a bad throw at the dartboard for the man who was about to write a novel, 1984, warning of a Burnhamite dystopia. If Orwell had lived to witness the real 1984, he would have been relieved to see that global war had been avoided. There had been a few serious scares and several regional wars, helped along by the triumph of an especially radical set of Communist enthusiasts in China. But by the early 1980s, their revolutionary dynamism spent, the Communist rulers had turned into a paternalistic managerial elite.

CAPITALISM IN CRISIS

David Priestland’s The Red Flag is a far-reaching, vividly written account of that evolution, both the best and the most accessible one-volume history of communism now available. Priestland charts the rise of “romantic” Marxism, which once in power morphed into either a “modernist” or a “radical” variant. The first espoused an authoritarian high modernism to reshape society according to the visionary master plans of the guiding party. The second added the killing fervor of continuing revolution, with its militarized mobilization of every element of society and unceasing struggle against the revolution’s enemies. By the early 1980s, the somewhat more benign modernist variant was dominant.

But the other half of Orwell’s prescription is the relative success of the other side, a factor easily neglected in books that concentrate on communism’s failings. Wars are not just lost; they have to be won. Traditional accounts of the Cold War understandably focus on the United States and the Soviet Union. But that contest was a kind of global election, and the swing states were in Europe and East Asia. From this perspective, the turning point of the late Cold War is less a story about 1989 and more a story about the period between 1978 and 1982.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, capitalism was in obvious crisis. “Can Capitalism Survive?” cried a Time magazine cover from 1975. “Is Capitalism Working?” asked another in 1980. Yet divided after Mao’s death among competing visions of national development, the Chinese made a pivotal choice in 1978. They rejected the Soviet model, opting instead for market-oriented economic reform, but without political reform. (At about the same time, Hungary’s Communist leader, János Kádár, with his similar market-opening program of “goulash communism,” showed how such a model could work in Eastern Europe, too.)

The Chinese were probably influenced less by the example of the United States itself than by U.S.-backed examples closer to home, such as Japan, South Korea, and — although they would not admit it — Taiwan. Not only had Moscow lost its power of attraction, but its political-military posture — not least its backing of the increasingly powerful government in Vietnam — also unsettled the Chinese.

In Europe, the model of social democracy achieved much in the late 1940s and 1950s. Its ideal of a big welfare state umpiring among big companies and big unions was at the core of the new European community. But by the 1970s, that model was sputtering on both sides of the Atlantic. The Bretton Woods system, which put national economic autonomy ahead of the free movement of global capital, had collapsed. Galloping inflation was combined with high unemployment, labor strife seemed endemic, protests and terrorism wracked much of Western Europe.

But capitalism broke out of its slump during the 1970s and into the early 1980s. At different moments, leaders in various states threw their weight behind a liberal economic orthodoxy of hard money and the unregulated movement of capital, limiting national economic autonomy but facilitating unprecedented flows of global investment. The globalized economy of today was shaped during these years, and the Americans played an important part. With his work to liberalize capital markets and coordinate monetary strategies, George Shultz may actually have influenced the course of world history more in his two years as treasury secretary for Richard Nixon than he did in his six-plus years as secretary of state for Ronald Reagan.

The Europeans also played a critical role in this reinvention of capitalism, while winning voters who wanted public order restored. West Germany became an anchor for this new vision of the world economy, especially the Free Democratic Party, which was the indispensable coalition partner of every West German government from the 1970s to the 1990s. The West Germans, in turn, found common cause with the French technocrats who saw in this shared vision of Europe’s political economy the basis, first, for a European monetary system, then, for a true European single market, and, finally, for a common currency.

The story can be mapped as a tale of two U-turns: In 1972, there was the U-turn of a conservative British prime minister, Sir Edward Heath, who was broken by the unions and then scorned for it by his successor as party leader, Margaret (“the lady’s not for turning”) Thatcher. The other U-turn was in 1982-83, when French President François Mitterrand — the first Socialist to take office in France since World War II — abandoned his agenda of state-owned finance and industry to make common cause with Jacques Delors (his economics minister and later the president of the European Commission) and the West Germans. European integration had trumped the independent socialist path.

This rebooting of capitalism and reinvigoration of the European idea came at a critical time. The left was contesting the future not only of France but also of Italy and Spain. In West Germany, the Free Democrats brought down the Social Democratic government of Helmut Schmidt and made Helmut Kohl chancellor rather than compromise their preferred vision for Europe’s political economy. Thatcher, elected in the United Kingdom in 1979, survived thanks in part to the tonic of a victorious small war against an Argentine dictatorship that had recklessly occupied some sparsely inhabited British-owned rocks in the South Atlantic. By the end of 1982, the swing states of Europe were making their choices.

THE ALTERNATIVE APPEAL

The rebooting was about ideas, too. Again, Europe was a fulcrum. Self-described “realists” on both the right and the left wanted to stay clear of alignment with either Washington or Moscow. But many others, including Schmidt, Kohl, and Mitterrand, disagreed. Reagan’s condemnation of the Soviet Union as an “evil empire” was a rallying point for both those he inspired and those he frightened. The European contest was decided less by outsiders than by the Europeans’ own battle of ideas, with the victory of what Germans called the Tendenzwende (change of course), which revived a spirit of “militant democracy” amid the turmoil of the 1970s. Leaders of this movement spoke, as the historian Jeffrey Herf once put it, “in the language of [Konrad] Adenauer and Clausewitz, but also in an international discourse of [Alexis de] Tocqueville and Karl Popper, Raymond Aron and Leszek Kolakowski, Montesquieu and President Jimmy Carter.” A colossal political fight over NATO’s deployment of U.S. nuclear missiles to offset new Soviet deployments, an initiative pioneered by Schmidt, became the central battle. The issue was effectively decided in West Germany, with the formation of a conservative-liberal governing coalition in 1982.

Most of the writers chronicling the demise of communism give short shrift to these crucial developments in Western Europe, and especially in West Germany. The outstanding exception is a perceptive essay by James Sheehan in The Fall of the Berlin Wall, a collection edited by Jeffrey Engel that compiles several national perspectives on these events. Sheehan’s subject is less how Europe changed in 1989 and more “how the transformation of Europe after 1945 affected the timing and character of the Cold War’s end.” Sheehan thus stresses the way war became discredited in European politics and how European politicians subsequently constructed an appealing new European vision for functional modern societies. He shows how these successes created magnetic forces that, standing adjacent to the Soviet empire in Europe, slowly and surely pulled apart the decaying assumptions underlying communist rule. The European ideal of democracy and pluralism became a kind of lodestar for Mikhail Gorbachev himself — as it did for Italian and Spanish Communists and Socialists.

Against this background, contrast two landmark choices of the communist world in 1979 and 1980. At the end of 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Its reason — that Afghanistan might fall under the influence of Chinese or Western rivals — was nominally defensive, but even this rationale revealed a monumental insecurity. Although their political purposes were also defensive, Soviet forces were configured to invade Western Europe, molded by a military-industrial complex that had first claim on resources and operated with little constraint. (The political weight and consequences of this complex are neglected in most of these books, save some discussion by Archie Brown in The Rise and Fall of Communism. But interested readers will find it handled well in William Odom’s 1998 work, The Collapse of the Soviet Military.)

And at the end of 1980, the Polish government declared martial law and imprisoned leaders of a movement, Solidarity, that had been inspired by a workers’ union and a Polish pope. Constantine Pleshakov’s There Is No Freedom Without Bread! puts the Polish story at the center of his account. Pleshakov, a Russian émigré now teaching at Mount Holyoke College, writes with great verve. He concentrates on major characters, such as Pope John Paul II, and tries to recover the way they saw their world. Pleshakov gives his characters human scale and fallibility, explaining, for instance, the strange Marian mysticism that was so important to Pope John Paul II and many other Polish Catholics. He has a keen eye for the factional contests among Communist barons, Catholic prelates, and Solidarity intellectuals. His is a story of the intellectual bankruptcy of the elite, out of fresh ideas even before it ran out of money. This was the impoverishment that the West German Free Democratic leader Hans-Dietrich Genscher grasped when he told a party gathering in 1981 that “like the U.S.A., we are a part of the West. One must say to those whose talk arouses another impression: American troops are in West Germany in order that free trade unions exist, and Soviet troops are in Poland to see to it that free trade unions there do not exist. That is the difference.”

The choices of all the communist governments in Europe were made under the shadow of financial debt — its scale a carefully guarded secret. In the 1970s, the Communist managers started borrowing the hard currency they needed to buy the goods that kept their populations happy. By the 1980s, these governments faced some hard choices. Other less developed countries were entering a series of debt crises that accompanied global capitalism’s deflationary transition to hard money. Instead of curbing their debt, the communist countries borrowed even more. They found creditors, mainly in Western Europe, willing to extend new loans.

One of the great strengths of Stephen Kotkin’s contribution to this group of books, Uncivil Society, is his emphasis on issues of political economy. Kotkin (with help from Jan Gross) shares with Pleshakov the view that the real story of 1989 is less one of a bottom-up revolution than one of a fatal split within the ruling elite, the “uncivil society” of his title. Gorbachev opened the mismanagement up to public inspection. “What Gorbachev did,” Kotkin writes, “was to lay bare how socialism in the bloc had been crushed by competition with capitalism and by loans that could be repaid only by ever-new loans, Ponzi-scheme style.”

By the mid-1980s, socialism had clearly lost its appeal in both Asia and Europe as an ideology for the future. But there were still many possibilities for how communist governments might evolve, some of them quite violent. Dissent was being managed. China and Hungary were both developing creative ways to use the market. Martial law in Poland had effectively contained the opposition. Then came Gorbachev.

GORBACHEV’S NEW THINKING

Archie Brown, one of the greatest living Kremlinologists and the author of The Rise and Fall of Communism, was paying attention to Gorbachev long before ordinary people had heard of him. Gorbachev was a model young Communist, carefully prepared for high office. He had been handpicked for the leadership by Yuri Andropov, then the head of the KGB. Andropov liked creative moves such as those by Kádár in Hungary, but he was also, as Brown writes, “an implacable opponent of overt dissent and of any development in the direction of political pluralism.” Andropov had led the way in the choice to invade Afghanistan. Looking to Gorbachev, he wanted a first-rate modernizing Marxist to sustain the momentum against Politburo colleagues so senescent that, nostalgic for Stalin, they were still complaining about Nikita Khruschev even in the 1980s.

Some historians are brilliant interpreters who offer provocative new syntheses of the record. Others, perhaps not so flashy, build up the bedrock of knowledge with thorough, careful scholarship. If Priestland, with his book, is an example of the first category, Brown illustrates the second one. (Fortunately, the profession has room for both.) Brown has carefully assembled his facts when he importantly observes, of the 1985 selection of Gorbachev to lead the Soviet Union:

The views of every member of the Politburo at the time of [Konstantin] Chernenko’s death are known. It is, accordingly, safe to say that if anyone from their ranks other than Gorbachev had been chosen as general secretary, the Soviet Union would have neither liberalized nor democratized. . . . If Andropov had enjoyed better health, minor reform, stopping far short of what occurred under Gorbachev, might well have proceeded. If Chernenko had lived longer, nothing much would have changed while he was general secretary.

The Soviet empire did not end up crumbling from the outside in. It changed from the inside out, starting at the top. Gorbachev’s initial reforms failed and even made matters worse, exposing problems and causing panicked hoarding as goods disappeared from shelves. Especially in 1987 and 1988, Gorbachev redoubled reform instead of backing away. What is more, instead of following the Chinese and Hungarian model of trying economic reform without democratization, he went for some political reform, too. The decision to seek legitimizing elections came simultaneously in the Soviet Union and in Poland. It was a deeply un-Marxist initiative. Marx and Engels had never had much use for democratic processes. Historical materialism was a doctrine of science, not political marketing.

THE SOVIET CENTRIFUGE

The words “Soviet” and “union” are worth a moment’s reflection. They were extremely meaningful, and they were originally devised to replace two other words: “Russian” and “empire.” If the republics were no longer bound together by their supposed Marxist-Leninist ideological fraternity, what would happen to a “Soviet Union”?

As the Soviet Union entered 1989, Gorbachev was increasingly preoccupied with domestic dilemmas. Separatism had already become a major internal challenge, including from the Russian republic and its new leader, Boris Yeltsin. Priestland covers this in the style of a landscape artist; Brown handles it in fine detail; Pleshakov paints a series of impressionistic portraits.

Beset at home, Gorbachev needed peace and support from the United States. Reagan provided it. As Melvyn Leffler argues in a recent book, For the Soul of Mankind, the conciliatory Reagan made a major contribution to ending the Cold War. So did Reagan’s successor, George H. W. Bush, after he and his advisers took several months to judge whether Gorbachev was still Andropov’s protégé or really was qualitatively different. (Some of Gorbachev’s own advisers, especially on the military side, were struggling with the same question. They did not become convinced that he was different, which for them meant becoming disillusioned with him, until 1990.)

By August 1989, communism was mutating. Along with the Soviet Union, Poland and Hungary led the way in Europe. Poland installed a non-Communist prime minister, and Hungary’s leaders, already reform-minded, shrugged their shoulders and readily tacked to pick up the westerly winds.

China, however, chose quite a different path: it crushed political reform. Then, in 1992, its leaders devised a strategy to offset political oppression with a redoubled commitment to economic reform. Chen Jian has a superb and up-to-date summary of these choices in his contribution to Engel’s The Fall of the Berlin Wall. Some Eastern European leaders were attracted to a “Chinese solution” of dealing firmly with dissent. But such a strategy would have done little to reaffirm communism’s vitality.

The revolutions of 1989 cascaded into East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and — bloodily — Stalinist Romania. It is a stirring story. Anyone wanting to recapture the passion and tumult of that year will enjoy Victor Sebestyen’s journalistic narrative, Revolution 1989. Sebestyen, a Hungarian émigré living in the United Kingdom, has done an excellent job. He has touched all the bases, knows the terrain, and has skillfully woven in material from interviews and primary sources. Another journalistic account is Michael Meyer’s The Year That Changed the World, in which Meyer revisits his work for Newsweek in 1989 and provides some eyewitness snapshots. Meyer is concerned with knocking down the notion that the Cold War was just won by Reagan, but today this is something of a straw man. A more substantive contribution from Meyer is the significance he gives to the discussions between Hungary and West Germany that set in motion the events leading to the fall of the Berlin Wall. His evidence strengthens the case that Kohl was trying to shape events, not just reacting to them.

In starting the chain reaction that brought down the Berlin Wall and led to Germany’s unification, Hungary was more important than Poland. In August and September 1989, the internal upheavals of the communist world uncorked the long-bottled German question and, with it, much wider questions about the future of Europe. As the Cold War began to unwind, a whole new set of issues arose about the character of a postwar settlement. This is the point at which the coverage of the “1989 books” by Pleshakov, Kotkin, Sebestyen, and Meyer falls off.

AFTER THE FALL

Although they start earlier, Mary Elise Sarotte’s 1989 and Frédéric Bozo’s Mitterrand, the End of the Cold War, and German Unification are really “1990 books.” They are mainly about the settlement that shaped the new Europe. When historical scholarship works as it should, historians build on prior work to extend and improve it. That is what Sarotte and Bozo have done.

Sarotte’s book is compact and highly interpretive. Yet Sarotte has thoroughly mastered the original source material in all the key countries. She distills it with great skill, constantly enlivening her account with a sensibility for what these changes meant in life and culture. Hers is now the best one-volume work on Germany’s unification available. It contains the clearest understanding to date of the extraordinary juggling performance of Kohl. After describing several possible models for a postwar settlement, Sarotte documents the triumph of what she calls the “prefab” approach, which extended the proven institutions of German democracy, European integration, and the security umbrella provided by NATO and the United States. Perhaps the book’s only weakness — shared with all the books under review — is a lack of attention to the military settlement codified in the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), which addressed the unglamorous but vital balance of armies and air forces across the continent. Military imbalances had been the most costly and potentially destabilizing aspect of Europe’s security environment for the previous 40 years — and the 400 years before that.

Bozo’s more detailed book seeks to reappraise Mitterrand’s achievement, especially in coupling German unification with greater European integration — a monetary union and a political union, which later produced the European Union. But Bozo is too modest when he claims to concentrate on Mitterrand’s role. He provides a general account of the diplomacy of German unification that, although it stresses the French perspective, is informed by sources in other countries, too. Paris was close to the action, but on most issues not at the very center. Thus, telling the story primarily from the French perspective provides a more detached yet highly informed account of the diplomacy.

In some ways, Mitterrand’s vision for Europe was the closest to Gorbachev’s own notion of a “common European home.” But, Bozo writes, “instead of a rebalancing that favored a Western Europe called to become a strategic actor itself, there followed an unexpected reaffirmation of the established Atlantic order. . . . It was in the pan-European dimension that the balance sheet of French policy was most unfavorable in 1991.” Yet Bozo also notes that now, 20 years later, the United States, preoccupied with other global concerns, is retreating more from Europe, putting questions about European leadership into the foreground once again.

Sarotte and Bozo both give good marks to U.S. diplomacy in late 1989 and 1990. Sarotte, in particular, does a good job of judging old disputes about how to assign credit and blame at some critical moments. She also clarifies how both money and NATO reform were building blocks in getting to a final agreement.

Sarotte qualifies her praise by wondering, quoting former British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd, whether the Americans, had they been geniuses on the order of Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, could have said, “The whole game is coming into our hands,” and updated all the institutions, including the United Nations. As a former diplomat who served in the George H. W. Bush administration, I am biased. But consider the architecture that was being put in place by the end of 1990: a unified Germany, a transformed EU, the most significant arms control arrangement (the CFE) in European military history, a preserved and extended Atlantic alliance, a revitalized UN that mobilized a coalition to reverse Iraq’s conquest of Kuwait, a Euro-Atlantic agreement on principles of political and economic life (the Paris agreement of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe), the Brady Plan to clean up international debt crises, a revived global trade round that would produce the World Trade Organization, and a new framework for diplomacy in Asia (the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum).

Sarotte makes a good argument that Russia was left resenting the outcome. Yet consider this passage from her book: “Gorbachev would complain to [U.S. Secretary of State James] Baker in 1991 that the money from Kohl had already vanished: ‘Things disappear around here. We got a lot of money for German unification, and when I called our people, I was told they didn’t know where it was. [Aleksandr] Yakovlev told me to call around, and the answer is no one knows.’” “Clearly,” Sarotte goes on, “Moscow needed more than just credits to ease its transition to being a modern market economy, but (other than from Bonn) it got little. Western advisers would descend on Russia later en masse, of course. But they arrived after fatal resentments had already piled up.” After rereading that passage a few times, it seems that devising a happier outcome would have indeed required the application of some rare form of genius.

Given the collapse of communist rule in Eastern Europe, the backwash that accelerated the collapse of the Soviet Union itself, and the return of Russia’s borders to approximately those it had had in the eighteenth century, what may instead seem amazing is that the diplomacy muted Moscow’s resentment as much as it did. This again is a tribute to Gorbachev and several members of his team. The cordial relations between Washington and Moscow in August 1990 were invaluable as the endgame of German unification converged with another crisis, the need for diplomacy to rally the world — and the UN — against Iraq, a country that, as it overran Kuwait, was also hosting 10,000 Soviet military advisers.

A FUTURE OF FREEDOM

When, in 1947, Orwell articulated his scenario to save the world, with his vision of a humane example of progress led by a more united Europe, he identified four formidable obstacles: Russian hostility, American hostility, imperialism, and the Catholic Church. The future seemed bleak. “The actual outlook, so far as I can calculate the probabilities, is very dark,” he wrote, “and any serious thought should start out from that fact.” These four fears still deserve serious thought, although now, aided by books like these, one can reflect instead on Russians who fell for the European ideal, Americans who nurtured a positive vision, the decline of the imperialism Orwell knew, and a Catholic Church that inspired fights for freedom.

In 1964, Burnham, the author of the nightmare vision that so provoked Orwell, was helping William F. Buckley edit the National Review. (Reagan would later award Burnham the Medal of Freedom.) At the time, Burnham’s latest book had administered another powerful dose of pessimism. Titled Suicide of the West, in it Burnham argued that modern liberalism had lost the fervor of classical liberalism. The modern variant treated peace and security as equal to or greater than the commitment to preserving freedom. Since the focus on peace denigrated the use of power against a ruthless foe, Burnham predicted that the West was slowly committing suicide.

History dealt Burnham’s argument a strange hand. He would be pleased to see that a belief in defending the West was a factor in the American and European revival. But the positive, dynamic ideal offered in Western European countries and Japan was so magnetic precisely because those countries seemed to be discarding their traditional reliance on force and hard power.

At supreme moments of crisis in 1989 and 1990, critical choices were indeed made in favor of peace, in favor of nonviolent change. But those choices were made by men groomed from adolescence to be model Communist leaders. The suicide was in the East, not the West. And the suicide was not an act of self-destruction. Theirs was an act of creation.

Credit: Foreign Affairs

When Does History Begins?

infotorch — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 16:10:14 +0000

http://www.bbchistorymagazine.com/feature/history-it-started-second-ago

A Letter to a Local Politician Regarding the Net Filter

Mike — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 19:33:25 +0000

The following is an e-mail I personally wrote and sent to my local politician regarding the Net Filter initiative undertaken by our government. I would love to hear your thoughts. Please comment.

Dear <name withheld>,

I am contacting you regarding the mandatory internet filtering initiative undertaken by our government.
I believe that not only is this effort an exercise in futility, as the internet is too vast and ever-changing to be able to block in its entirety, but is also ethically wrong.
While I can agree with blocking access to such content as child pornography, I do not agree that websites that offer space for the discussion of gay and lesbian lifestyles should be blocked.
This internet filter effort, I believe, runs counter to the Australian spirit and has more in common with totalitarian regimes. It is a true step back for our great nation. Australia has already become an international laughing stock due to the refusal to allow an adult rating for video games.
It also violates several articles in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as passed down to us by the United Nations. The articles in question being Articles 2, 6, 12, 19, and 28.
The protection for children is minor, or at worst, little more than the illusion of safety. This filter does nothing to protect children from real threats like cyber-bullying, online sexual predators, viruses, or the theft of personal information. It will provide a false feeling of security and lower a parent’s monitoring of their children’s activities on the internet.
This effort is a waste of taxpayer money, money that could easily be used for programs that would benefit children further, such as the school systems. It is already clear that content is being wrongly blocked and will reduce the quality and speed of Australian internet connections; connections that are already considered substandard in other western nations.
I, and the people of Australia hope you make the right decision.

Sincerely, <name withheld>

i wrote on the wall - for you xx

otherpeoplesart — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 02:09:50 +0000

Berlin Wall, East Side Gallery

Australian Civil Rights in peril

Mike — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 15:32:43 +0000

Recently it has come to my attention that the Great Australian Internet Firewall is going ahead of schedule. To those who do not know what it is, the Great Australian Firewall is the new Net Filter being put in place by the Rudd Government in order to block out things like necrophilia, snuff videos and child porn.

But oh wait, this is in control of a government that hasn’t seen fit to issue us with such nice things as decent internet connections, non-privatised power services or something as rudimentary as a Bill of Rights.

So anyway, the list of blacklisted websites is on Wikileaks, a lovely anonymous data upload website. Conspiracy nuts love it, I’m told. Out of the thirteen hundred sites on the list, less than half of the websites are actually content they’re willing to say they’re blocking.

The Net Filter is also going to block content that the government doesn’t agree with, for political, philosophical or cultural reasons. There was outcry not long ago that a Victorian Dentist’s website was blocked, but that was just the beginning. Now it seems that Gay and Lesbian discussion is also going to be blacklisted, along with any sites that can be used for recreational drug users to minimise harm to themselves.

I can agree with filtering child pornography and horrible things of its kind, but when the government decides to use the censorship for their own agendas, it corrupts what was originally a good idea. Using power for one’s own gain is one of the very ways to define corruption. I admit I may overuse the word corruption but it damn well fits in here. It’s already being referred to by some as the Australian Berlin Wall.

In addition, the government has also made it illegal to know what is on the list. So it’s now a nationa offence to know that the government has chosen to decide what is and is not moraly obstructive to society as a whole.

This is the same idiotic government that has a standing policy of enforcing the most extreme views and limits on laws, which is why we currently do not have an R18+ rating on games. Because South Australia makes it illegal, no matter what the other states say, it has to be so, as they hold the strictest laws. We are a country that is quietly run by religious zealots that are forcing archaic beliefs upon us.

I don’t much know what I can do, but if you’re reading this, spread the word to all you can who’d care. The rights of every Australian are being blocked without their knowledge. Alert all those who you can.

So much for the fun-loving, laid back country that we used to be. Internet censorship and our policy on games has made us a joke worldwide. And our government doesn’t seem to care.

So much for Australia.

ONE GLOBAL COUNTRY

Global Citizen — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 01:28:18 +0000

Countries end their domains at their borders. But Internet has aleady crossed borders without checks. Citizen of any country can cross-over with their opinions, thoughts, expressions and information to another country. People can work in a different country without even travelling to that country. So why are the countries holding to their borders?

European Union is already without borders. It is expanding and europe is finding difficult to stop finding where to stop expanding. If Turkey enters the European Union, it is going to open the pandora box of candidates. Canada and US have no borders, they have check points. They are one step behind Europe. In simple words, countries are moving towards fewer fences.

My idea is about ”ONE GLOBAL COUNTRY”.

This is not a new idea. Internet has already made the globe, one single place. Do I care to know in which country is the wordpress server hosted? Does a company in this hemisphere care about its sourcing from other side of the globe?

If we can talk, see, meet, work, share in a virtual world, why not in real? It is only being at the location, that remains.

So what is stopping the making of ”ONE GLOBAL COUNTRY”?

Finally!! Some photos...

merrancourtney — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:18:20 +0000

Bron in a sleigh!!

This is Bron in a sleigh at the airport in Helsinki. Teehee. Finland. The place of all glee

Memorial for the murdered Jews

This is me at the Memorial for the Murdered Jews…\

The Berlin Wall

Me outside a section of the Berlin Wall

Prague Castle

Athens!! Hadrian's Arch

And this is Athens – Hadrian’s Arch and blue blue skies!

Okay that’s all I have time for for now.

When I Was Younger -by Gryphon

pochp — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 04:40:03 +0000

from Admin – This is an inspiring story about surviving the pitts of life:

When I was younger (not young) I was in love with studying politics as an art and watching current world events. Bosnian War crap and ethnic cleansing was going on in the Balkans and the Clinton administration was having a grand old time. This was before we knew anything about Monica and Slick Willie hadn’t Wagged The Dog in Somalia just yet.

It had been several years since the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union had collapsed and news du jour always pushes the previous day’s fare off the map. Regardless of how monumental positive world events are they always get relegated to the dead letter file–unless you are a dead Princess named Diana and that seemed to NEVER go away.

What were YOU doing when the Wall came tumbling down?

I was watching it happen on CNN, but I was also quite likely stone drunk which I usually was in those days. Who do you know who can talk intelligently about the end of the Cold War and the ramifications today? I’m a junkie for that kind of stuff and I know no one. Well, years later, fast forwarding to 1995, I was younger by nearly 15 years than now (of course). I had gone back to college in my mid 30s and was in my junior year at the illustrious University of Christopher Newport. My son was still alive in 1995 but not for the whole year.

I was studying for my PoliSci degree and living as nearly the oldest man ever in the university dorms. I’m sure I couldn’t have been the oldest man to ever do it as I was still a Spring Chicken in my 30s but I was pushing the envelope and no news reporter was doing a story on me. What a shame, anyway…….

I had a great sense of humor–still do–but it went away for a while. And when it went away, it didn’t announce it was going and then stick around to say its fond farewells. Oh no. You see it was my sense of humor in all its weird and wonderful permutations that kept me sane. My humor went away in March of 1995. That was when my son died. He was my only biological child. I had two adopted daughters and if anyone tries to tell you that the love you feel for an adopted child is any less than the love you feel for a biological child is different you can tell them that I say they are a damn liar.

But he was my only son, and that is a special relationship that can’t be explained in a short space here. Add to this the sense of guilt I was carrying for the disastrous physical health with which he was born. He was born with multiple handicaps that the doctors told us would cause his early demise–they said maximum age 13. They missed it by only two years. He was eleven when he died.

The Bosnian War in what was formerly Yugoslavia had been raging since 1992. I was following it closely in the news. Ethnic cleansing, rape and murder of women, and wholesale massacres were going on. It was absolutely horrendous. It made me ill to read about it in the press and to see it on television but I was hooked into it. You see my major field of politics was theory. I was ALL up into the past masters; Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau, Rawls, Hegel, Marx, Mills, et. al. and etc. I was trying to apply some grand political evolutionary plan based on theorhetical poltics and doing my whole Karl Marx/GWF Hegel thing on thesis and antithesis equals synthesis.

By the way, that doesn’t work for the most part but it’s fun trying.

And then my boy died.

And suddenly I could find NOTHING humorous about ANYTHING anymore–not even stuff that was SUPPOSED to be funny. My intake of alcohol very nearly tripled and it was already nearly off the scale as it was. I didn’t know it at the time but I think I was subconsciously trying to kill myself. uh huh. Instead of watching the news and laughing it off as “that’s the way the world is” and playing my fiddle while Rome incinerated–instead of throwing down with the philosophers and historians and trying to find a synthesis in the whole fetid, septic mess . . . INSTEAD . . . I was left only with the absolute paralyzing HORROR of the whole damn show.

Humanity was going to hell and I had a front row seat! Suddenly I wanted to get up and run out of the theater. But, I wasn’t here as a regular member of the audience. I had a job as a Reviewer. And objective criticism flew out the window the moment the voice on the telephone told me that he was gone. Everything became totally subjective from the rain on the window to ethnic cleansing in Herzegovina.

I began to rave and rage and rant. I did it best when deep in my cups but could raise a little mania even in times of relative sobriety.

Now I just looked at the bottom of this post text entry box and notice that I have got to 0ver 900 words and am not sure if I am getting anywhere I wanted to be when I started in regards to making an actual damn point.

I’m going to light a cigarette and think about this a moment. Don’t go anywhere.

O.K. Still here? I got it now. Sometimes it pays to look at the title.
When I Was Younger

I am fifteen years older now. Nearly a generation older. Had my son lived he would have turned 25 this year. But he didn’t. So he’s not. I hope that doesn’t sound cold. I still think about him and get very deeply sentimental and retrospective about him at certain times of the year, like around his birthday and Christmas, you understand?

I eventually got sober after a long hard struggle. I had already lost the care that a lot of people had for me over the destructive way I was treating myself and them as a byproduct. And for the most part and for most of those people the care will not be restored. But time passed. Bad events became things of the past and things of memory. I regained my humor. Thank God. I changed. Thank God.

I met more people. I did more things. And the present became something in which to actively work for things that suddenly seemed to be worthwhile. The present stopped being merely a space in which to rehash the past and criticize everyone around me. The present became a place in which to live.

And writing those last words I just had a freaking epiphany but that’s for another time, maybe. But it tells me that it’s time to wrap this up and try to impart a moral or some such shit, so here goes . . .

Time Passes

Too simplistic? I happen to think it very profound especially if coupled with

Nothing Lasts Forever

Too Cliche?

Look People! Just try to be good to yourselves. The people I know in this world amounts to NOTHING compared to the actual number of people in this world, but I love every last loony one of you! SO BE GOOD TO YOURSELVES! And if you think that LAST commandment is tough, try this one: BE GOOD TO ONE ANOTHER! ‘kay?

All you or I or your pet gerbil have is today. Stop burying yourselves in regrets and griefs of the past. Stop worrying about what is going to happen and how you’re going to live and eat then. Isn’t today bad enough for you that you have to take time off from getting things right RIGHT now to worry about things that for the most part you have no real control over. Take care of today and tomorrow will take care of itself. and love love love love. One more time, love.

I love you guys. Now go love each other.

Merry Christmas.

Gryphonscry

When I Was Younger

Gryphon — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 08:26:46 +0000

What were YOU doing when the Wall came tumbling down?

By the way, that doesn’t work for the most part but it’s fun trying.

And then my boy died.

I began to rave and rage and rant. I did it best when deep in my cups but could raise a little mania even in times of relative sobriety.

I’m going to light a cigarette and think about this a moment. Don’t go anywhere.

O.K. Still here? I got it now. Sometimes it pays to look at the title.

When I Was Younger

Time Passes

Too simplistic? I happen to think it very profound especially if coupled with

Nothing Lasts Forever

Too Cliche?

I love you guys. Now go love each other.

Merry Christmas.

Octotonic Teuton Remix // 为记得柏林墙的说唱歌

adamcathcart — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 03:33:58 +0000

Chinese fragment of Berlin Wall tumble commemoration -- der neue Mauerfall-- 柏林，11月 20大周年via France 2 Pekin

rimer, verb intransitive, to rhyme. Rimer avec = to rhyme with //[German] sich reimen…

Steam on black monuments when again the Wall tumbled//Sleep-garbled China ripped her clock from the wall// repetition stains on that blunt blade of loyalty // Punished recollection, fueled by smog.

Now Dances with Pandas says//that superpowers newly so minted//by opinion surveys twiddled in with idle digits envisioned // and fueled by draughts of Brazilian orange sludge//bring us business//and drop that scrap of paper down 大纪录通:

Word-shards atomize//ewig? no, digitized//那网站surmise//that the prize of being prized// lingers。。。// in a brain manifold // unexplored lingos breathe coldly//AWACS girded firmly//against snatchers territorial//and Uighurs in a gurney//because the PRC lacks the VCD that would make us all crazay//it’s the black and white attack on cerebrums brought back//from J.Edgar Hoover night patrols and Strangelove’s visage//now they seem to love Henry//though he’s awfully predatory//those thick books grown hoary//hortatory locations in horticultural vacancies eternal//thoughts grown prey to the new forte//firebombing Babylon//your text in the way

[CHORUS] 柏林墙，再掉//柏林墙，我挑超//柏林墙，您知道//柏林墙我去你妈

Wann ich reimen dort druben, dann ya don’t stop//wann ich kehren mich zuruck nach Hause ohne Pause statt //mic check im Mikrophone, erstaune mich die Alle // oder nein, dass brauche nicht, wie Rechtspartein in die Wahle // fuer die Gruenen, Neu Koeln, sag ich mein Unterstutzung // am U-Bahn es klagen, ich kling Gloechlein im Wagen, lang oder kurz muss Schoepfer es schaffen // darueber wass? natuerlich! sagen die Musik // fange mich an jetzt, fuer die Maedschen welch ich liebst // hab etwas verdringen, die Sorgen zu verbinden, zusammen im Hause oder im Koepfer unbedingen… ay, Bratscher! yo! spiel mal noch….[outro]

柏林墙，再掉//柏林墙，我挑超//柏林墙，您知道//柏林墙我去你妈

====

Vergess’ nicht der Mauer! [Don't forget the Wall!] 别忘了老柏林墙！

Stasiland, 20 years after: an essay by Tom Tangney

Ryan — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:56:43 +0000

Many thanks to KIRO’s Tom Tangney for his permission to re-post this essay in connection with our ongoing Divided Cinema series (which runs through this Wednesday, December 16). Tom was among a handful of American journalists who visited Berlin in October on a RIAS/Berlin fellowship.

Stasiland, 20 years after – the visible made invisible, and vice versa.

Paris has the Eiffel Tower, London has Big Ben, Rome has the Coliseum and Berlin, like it or not, has its Wall. Despite centuries of rich political and cultural history, Germany’s capital city is still probably best known for those 97 miles of barbed wire (and eventually, reinforced concrete) that divided and isolated Berlin for almost 30 years. And that will no doubt remain the case for at least another generation or two.

Despite this past month’s major hoopla over the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the most striking thing about this particular symbol of Berlin is its absence. It speaks to the power of the imaginative hold the Wall had over not only Berlin but also the world that its presence still captivates decades after its disappearance.

Like most every other major city in the world, Berlin is grappling with how to preserve its unique past without strangling its growth and progress. Europeans are especially sensitive to the dangers of “Disneyfication,” whereby their homelands become carefully preserved historical playgrounds for tourists the world over. It’s going too far to suggest that great metropolises like Paris and London are held hostage to the demands of their spendy visitors, but the power brokers there certainly recognize the financial benefits of keeping their History front and center. The Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, and the centuries of accumulated royal trappings are certainly central to an outsider’s image of England’s capital city. And that goes double for Paris, what with its Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame Cathedral, Louvre Museum and its centuries of accumulated cultural and artistic trappings.

But these symbols of national heritage are not just for tourists. They’re also highly prized by the town’s inhabitants. They’re markers of civic pride and social identity. They help the citizenry define itself.

That’s what makes the case of Berlin so particular and piquant. Of all the capitals of the world, is there any with a more troublesome or problematic 20th century past? As many historians have noted, so horrific were the 12 years of National Socialism that they threaten to permanently color, if not actually wipe out, centuries of German history in the minds of most everyone now alive. And to have the monstrosity of Adolph Hitler and the Holocaust followed immediately by the Soviet-controlled experiment called the German Democratic Republic, one has to seriously wonder how Germans in general and Berliners in particular can muster any civic pride at all.

If any capital has earned a sense of cataclysmically low self-esteem, it would seem to be Berlin. How much does the city want to remember, let alone commemorate, its Nazi past, for instance, or life behind the Iron Curtain in “Stasiland,” as journalist Anna Funder so sharply coined it? With a past as notorious as Germany’s, the danger is not in getting stuck in the past. It’s far more likely to be a denial of the past that could cripple this great city.

It’s preposterous, of course, to try to address such profound issues in such a short essay. But I hope to at least frame the complexities by looking at two striking examples now in evidence in Berlin: the startling ABSENCE of the Mauer (the Wall) and the powerful presence of the Hohenschonhausen prison. In a nice twist of historical irony, the once visible is now invisible, and the invisible now quite visible.

For the most part, all that remains of the Wall is a line of cobblestones through the heart of the city. It’s such a quiet marker that it goes unnoticed by the millions of pedestrians trampling over it as they rush hither and thither. The contrast is striking. What had been a nearly impregnable barrier to so many for so long is now traversed without a second thought. As I did my best to walk the Wall’s path through the city, I continually found myself disoriented enough to have to stop and check – now is this the East side and that the West? Twenty years after the Fall, it’s not so easy to tell. I’m sure I’m not the first visitor to Berlin who wished, if only momentarily, that the Wall was still standing in some form … as an aide-memoire to those of us in search of history. In fact, I can imagine someone like Christo or perhaps the artists at Tacheles organizing a massive performance art piece in which a lifesiize replica of the entire Berlin Wall would be reconstructed out of, say, cloth and strung along the path of the original wall. That’s too fanciful for most people, I’m sure, but I personally would have preferred that to the oversize dominoes that were used in the 20th anniversary celebration.

Although I was fortunate to have visited Berlin when the Wall was in full operation and been able to wander the streets of East Berlin on one memorable day, it’s still hard for me to imagine what life must have been like during those nearly 30 years of bi-section. I remember thinking at that time, in the late 70’s, how outlandish and unimaginable the Wall was, even as I leaned up against it. And with each passing year, it gets harder and harder to imagine and/or accept that reality. The further away I get from my specific memory of it and of the fall of the Wall itself, the more it becomes as unreal (or real) as an episode of THE PRISONER, that classic TV series of paranoia.

Berliners have a complicated relationship with the Wall. As a quite literal symbol of oppression, the Wall was so hated, on both sides, that once it was breached, it seemed to fall down by itself. The rage over the Wall eventually consumed it. You can hardly blame Berliners, East and West, for wanting to obliterate every scrap and remnant of the hated divider. Twenty years later, I suppose it’s to Berlin’s credit, that any stretches of the Wall persist at all. Curiously, it’s Checkpoint Charlie and not the Bornholmer Strasse border crossing that’s best memorialized. After all, it was Bornholmer that served as the border crossing for Germans, not Charlie (which was restricted to non-Germans.) Perhaps because it has always been a privately funded endeavor, the preserved Checkpoint Charlie station and accompanying museum has become a major tourist attraction, catering primarily to tourists, I suspect. Its excellent if somewhat rickety museum still bears the stamp of its origins in the early 1960’s. No better holdings exist of the various (and all rather amazing) means of escape under, over, and through the Wall.

By contrast, Bornholmer, where thousands of East Berliners first crossed over into West Berlin that fateful night of November 7, 1989, has nothing more than a pop art bench and a non-descript stone marker by the side of the road to acknowledge the historical significance of the place. It’s now such a quiet, almost pastoral place, it’s hard to imagine this was where the sixteen year-old girl featured in the book “Stasiland” was tracked down and caught at the very edge of the “death strip,” just inches from freedom and the prospect of a very different life than the life she ended up with in a Stasi prison. But this rather more subdued approach may be the way most Berliners prefer to remember. For them, the Wall is a matter of historical record but no longer a pre-occupation.

This is not to say Berliners are in any state of denial over the Wall. As a people, I can’t imagine how Germans could say mea culpa any more than they already have for their hand in many of the major horrors of the 20th century. And the Wall is well-memorialized on Bernauer Strasse with the block long preservation of the original Wall and its corresponding death strip, an extensive Berlin Wall Documentation Center across the street, and the Evangelical Reconciliation Church rebuilt on the spot where its previous incarnation once stood in the middle of said death strip. Nearby, there’s even an outdoor stainless steel sculpture of East German soldier Conrad Schumann making his famous leap over the barbed wire into West Berlin. There’s also a small Wall park and a lengthy stretch of wall known as the East Side Gallery, which features Wall Art created post-Fall. And finally, occasional swaths of the Wall crop up in the most unexpected places – some are covered in ivy and apparently forgotten, others form the back walls of cemeteries, while still others seem to be backdrops for billboards and traffic signs.

In other words, The Berlin Wall still exists for those who want to seek it out but for all intents and purposes, it’s non-existent for those who don’t.
That may be the proper balance for Berlin to strike. There’s been a lot of talk about the “wall in the mind” that persists for some Germans, and a segment of the population even calls for the return of the Wall – mostly East Germans who nostalgically remember full employment and conveniently forget the Stasi. But the vast majority on both sides of the divide reject that notion outright. The most recent and intriguing call for the return of the Wall is from Dr. Rita Kuczynski, a German writer who says the Wall should have been left standing as a memorial, a commemoration in stone that would serve as “a resistance to amnesia.” As sympathetic as I may be to this line of thinking, the impracticality of such an idea makes it seem more like academic posturing than a real call for action.

If the Wall was the most visible manifestation of Germany’s division, the work of the Stasi was, obviously, the most invisible. When it became clear that
as many as one in seven East Germans were spying on their fellow citizens, that neighbors were reporting on neighbors, priests on parishioners and vice versa, that spouses even betrayed each other – it was a testament to the secrecy skills of the Stasi bureaucracy that the news stunned everyone, East Germans most of all.

The exposure of the Stasi machinery is the most important work (and accomplishment) of the reunited Germany. The destruction of the Wall was an understandably immediate priority – it satisfied the emotional needs of the time and its physical presence was a literal hindrance to the unification of Berlin.
But it was the dismantling of the operations of the GDR, and most notably the exposure of the Stasi apparatus, that did the most to pave the way for unification.

A good illustration of the institutional invisibility of Stasi operations is Hohenschonhausen Prison. This Stasi prison in northeastern Berlin was so well-hidden it didn’t even show up on East Berlin maps. Like many Stasi buildings, its map footprint was simply blacked out and never identified. So effective was this official invisibility that a one-time political prisoner there in the 1950’s says he had no idea where he had been held until after the fall of the Wall, 30 years later. Hans Eberhard Zahn, who at the time of his imprisonment was a West Berlin college student legally visiting East Berlin, is now in his 80’s but he gives tours of the prison to this day as a way to shed light and bring attention to the darkest underbelly of life in the GDR. His compelling account of the psychological torture he endured and his tales of how he combated it were made all the more poignant for being told to us from inside the very cell he was once imprisoned in. And when he began reciting for us the Shakespearean sonnet that he said helped keep him sane, he managed to covey to our group of jaded journalists a hint of the emotional costs of life in what he also called “Stasiland.”

The Hohenschonhausen Prison is now visible for all the world to see, but most importantly, for Berliners themselves. In addition to the daily tours of its once heavily guarded premises, the prison is even featured prominently in the Oscar-winning German film “The Lives of Others.” In his work as a prison guide, Hans Eberhard Zahn is the very embodiment of this so-called “resistance to amnesia.” He represents the living past. And as for the future, the most hopeful sign is this: schoolchildren now regularly tour this once most secret and awful manifestation of the German Democratic Republic. Those children are the best antidote to amnesia there is.

The Future

marcel barang — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 12:50:25 +0000

Un autre Cohen ? Jean Guiloineau a fait sur « The Future » du bon travail. Voyons si je peux faire mieux.

The Future [Leonard Cohen, 1992]

Give me back my broken night
my mirrored room, my secret life
it’s lonely here,
there’s no one left to torture
Give me absolute control
over every living soul
And lie beside me, baby,
that’s an order!

Give me crack and anal sex
Take the only tree that’s left
and stuff it up the hole
in your culture
Give me back the Berlin wall
give me Stalin and St Paul
I’ve seen the future, brother:
it is murder.

Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won’t be nothing
Nothing you can measure anymore
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world
has crossed the threshold
and it has overturned
the order of the soul

When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant (ter)

You don’t know me from the wind
you never will, you never did
I’m the little Jew
who wrote the Bible
I’ve seen the nations rise and fall
I’ve heard their stories, heard them all
but love’s the only engine of survival
Your servant here, he has been told
to say it clear, to say it cold:
It’s over, it ain’t going
any further
And now the wheels of heaven stop
you feel the devil’s riding crop
Get ready for the future:
it is murder

Things are going to slide …

There’ll be the breaking of the ancient
western code
Your private life will suddenly explode
There’ll be phantoms
There’ll be fires on the road
and the white man dancing
You’ll see a woman
hanging upside down
her features covered by her fallen gown
and all the lousy little poets
coming round
tryin’ to sound like Charlie Manson
and the white man dancin’

Give me back the Berlin wall
Give me Stalin and St Paul
Give me Christ
or give me Hiroshima
Destroy another fetus now
We don’t like children anyhow
I’ve seen the future, baby:
it is murder

Things are going to slide…

When they said REPENT REPENT…

[Traduction de Jean Guiloineau]

L’avenir

Rendez-moi ma nuit brisée
ma chambre aux miroirs, ma vie secrète
On est seul ici,
il ne reste personne pour torturer
Donnez-moi un contrôle absolu
sur chaque âme vivante
Et couche-toi près de moi, mon amour,
C’est un ordre !

Donnez-moi du crack et baisons par-derrière,
Prenez l’unique arbre qui reste
et enfoncez-le dans le trou
de votre culture
Rendez-moi le Mur de Berlin
rendez-moi Staline et Saint Paul
J’ai vu l’avenir, mon frère :
ce n’est que meurtre.

Les choses vont partir dans toutes les directions
Il n’y aura plus rien
Plus rien que vous pourrez mesurer
Le blizzard du monde
a franchi le seuil
et il a renversé
l’ordre de l’âme
Quand ils disaient REPENTANCE
Je me demande ce qu’ils voulaient dire

Vous ne me connaissez pas vraiment
Vous ne me connaîtrez jamais
Vous ne m’avez jamais connu
Je suis le petit juif
qui a écrit la bible
J’ai vu les nations dominer et sombrer
J’ai entendu leurs histoires, toutes leurs histoires
mais l’amour est le seul moteur de survie

A votre serviteur ici présent, on a conseillé
de le dire clairement, froidement :
c’est fini, ça n’ira pas
plus loin
Et maintenant les rouages du ciel s’arrêtent
vous sentez l’arrivée de Satan
Tenez-vous prêts pour l’avenir :
ce n’est que meurtre.

Les choses vont partir dans toutes les directions

Il y aura l’effondrement
de l’ancien code occidental
Votre vie privée explosera soudain
Il y aura des fantômes
il y aura des feux sur la route
et l’homme blanc qui danse
Vous verrez votre femme
pendue la tête en bas
le visage caché par sa robe renversée
et tous les petits poètes pouilleux
arriveront
en essayant de ressembler à Charlie Manson

Rendez-moi le Mur de Berlin
rendez-moi Staline et Saint Paul
Donnez-moi le Christ
ou donnez-moi Hiroshima
Détruisez un autre fœtus
Nous n’aimons plus les enfants
J’ai vu l’avenir, mon amour :
ce n’est que meurtre.

[My take]

L’avenir

Rendez-moi ma nuit brisée
ma chambre aux miroirs, ma vie secrète
On se sent seul ici
Il ne reste plus personne à torturer
Donnez-moi un contrôle absolu
sur chaque âme vivante
et couche-toi près de moi, poupée
c’est un ordre

Donnez-moi crack et coït anal
Prenez le seul arbre qui reste
et fourrez-le dans le trou
de votre culture
Rendez-moi le Mur de Berlin
rendez-moi Staline et Saint Paul
J’ai vu l’avenir, frangin
c’est l’enfer

Tout va déraper, déraper dans tous les sens
Y aura plus rien
rien qui se puisse mesurer
Le blizzard, le blizzard du monde
a franchi le seuil
et il a renversé
l’ordre de l’âme
Quand ils disaient Repens-toi Repens-toi
je me demande ce qu’ils voulaient dire

Vous avez pas idée de qui je suis
ni aujourd’hui ni demain ni hier
Je suis le p’tit juif
qui a écrit la Bible
J’ai suivi l’essor et la chute des nations
J’ai entendu leurs histoires, je les sais toutes
mais l’amour est le seul moteur de survie
Votre serviteur ici présent, on lui a dit
de le dire clair et net, sans ambages
c’est fini, ça n’ira pas plus loin
Et maintenant les rouages du ciel s’arrêtent
vous sentez la cravache du diable
Tenez-vous prêts pour l’avenir
c’est l’enfer

Tout va déraper, déraper dans tous les sens…

Il y aura la faillite du code occidental ancien
Votre vie privée explosera soudain
Il y aura des fantômes
Il y aura des brasiers sur la route
et l’homme blanc qui danse
Vous verrez une femme
pendue la tête en bas
le visage caché par sa robe à l’envers
et tous les rimailleurs pouilleux se pointeront
imitation Charlie Manson
et l’homme blanc qui danse

Rendez-moi le Mur de Berlin
Rendez-moi Staline et Saint Paul
Donnez-moi le Christ
ou donnez-moi Hiroshima
Détruisez un autre fœtus
On aime pas les gosses de toute façon
J’ai vu l’avenir, poupée
c’est l’enfer

Tout va déraper, déraper dans tous les sens…

Quand ils disaient Repens-toi, Repens-toi…

2009 redux

randasfans — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 11:00:56 +0000

So, I think I’ve done a decent job here since I resumed blogging in September. That’s right, I’m patting myself on the back. However, I confess: I simply do not think I can maintain the delicate balance between my own sanity and the emotional roller coaster of the holidays that would be required to keep Randa’s Fans going. And thus, another hiatus. But not before we reflect a bit on the highlights from the year:

January: 01/20/09.
February: Randa’s Fans was born; thanks Rat Tail Boy! Also, traveled to South Carolina to surprise DP for her birthday; while there, got to see 16 year olds with babies in Target.
March: I went to Seattle and finally saw their amazing Public Library, and then never blogged about it. But if I had, I would have pointed you to these articles and photos: here, here, and here. Some photos that I took:

I also spent a wonderful week in Denver, got to meet Hazel, and encountered creepy baby doll #1 (in a museum):

April: Spent more time with Hazel and, for Easter, took a page out of Martha Stewart’s book and dyed some beautiful eggs:

May: A little of this, a little of that. We traveled in May: white water rafted outside Chattanooga, saw family in Greenville and Hilton Head, swung through Charleston and Savannah, and reunited with friends in Atlanta for a wedding. No sooner did we get back home then, naturally, we moved.

June: Housewarming!
July: presented at a conference in Montreal, and encountered creepy baby doll #2 (at a wedding):

August: we sweated a lot, and went to the White House.
September: I returned to ye ole blog after a summer hiatus, and spent time with wonderful people I absolutely love and adore:

October: we had an amazing weekend; also, toured the gardens and grounds of the White House. Twice a year, in April and October, the National Park Service opens the South Lawn and distributes tickets for people to get the chance to get up close and personal with things like the Jackie Kennedy Garden, the Rose Garden, and the Oval Office.

November: began the month with a bike ride down to the Mt. Vernon Estate, had a piece of giant Berlin Wall cake, and rounded it out by spending Thanksgiving with friends at their inn in Vermont.

December: The highs and the lows. We hosted a wonderful tree-trimming party, and also learned that mom has cancer.

That last one may be a bit of a bombshell; it certainly was for us. But we are hopeful as we take steps toward her surgery on December 29th followed by treatment to begin in January. Stumbling toward the great unknown, here’s hoping for a happy, healing, healthful 2010. In the meantime, consider a holiday gift to help fund breast cancer research.

And finally, to wrap, here’s the Daily Beast’s take on 2009’s most embarrassing people. May as well cap it off on a lite note with a bunch of folks it’s easy to make fun of!

Anyway, there it is: a year in the life. Truly, there’s so much wonderful, funny shit out there that I may be back with something else grand, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year. Take nothing for granted and let the ones you love know it.

You say goodbye

Superbian — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 07:56:42 +0000

You Say Goodbye.m4a

My embrace is your refuge

Music by: This Happy Breed

Ideas 003: event based reporting

adamwestbrook — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 10:12:28 +0000

I’ve opened up a new category on the blog. It’s called Ideas for the future of news and here I’m collating good, tangible, positive, innovative ideas on how journalism can move forward.

Previous articles:

Ideas 002: students as investigators

Ideas 001: the news aggregator

Idea: The Berlin Project

By: Alex Wood, Sheena Rossiter, Marcus Gilroy-Ware, Dominique Van Heerden, Marco Woldt

The five people behind the Berlin Project are the perfect example of young journalists refusing to be battered by economic storms, or waiting for journalism to sort itself out. When many recent graduates would have been preparing themselves for another 3-week unpaid internship at some dodgy music mag, or scouring the papers for PR jobs, these guys decided to go do some journalism instead.

It takes a fair bit of chutzpah to fly yourself out to Germany to cover the Berlin Wall anniversary with no real audience and not much financial backing. But they did, and you can see the results on their website.

Under the banner “journalism like you never thought possible” they went into Berlin under the radar covering the unofficial story. The site is a real multimedia mash too with audio, video packages, mobile video and photographs rolled into one.

Something lots of the big boys talk about all the time, but rarely produce themselves.

This aside, I’ve labelled the Berlin Project as an example of event-based reporting, a different angle on journalism, and one perhaps with commercial possibilities?

The Berlin Project was about one event, and offering in-depth coverage of that time defined moment. It is nothing new of course, we’re all used to ’special coverage’ of the Olympics, elections, and remembrance services in the mainstream media.

But until now, they’ve been an extension of larger broadcasters or papers.

I think the advantage of the Berlin Project is its size (small, nimble) and therefore flexibility. They were also able to work cheaply, getting footage on iPhones and editing it quickly with iMovie. All told, a valuable alternative to mainstream coverage.

And I wonder for a second whether there’s a business model here too? Imagine being commissioned to cover all sorts of awesome events, because its what you do really well. It’s not a traditional niche, but hey- a niche is a niche right?

The Berlin Project team were able to get backing from Reuters and do some business with smaller sites and Alex reckons they’ll break even, all told. Not bad for a pilot project. And there could be plans for more events coverage in 2010.

And even if you don’t like the idea, these guys have shown what’s possible when you just get off your ass and do something.

THE BERLIN WALL

whsword — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 19:24:51 +0000

By Puneet Riar Gr. 12

At the end of World War Two, what remained of Nazi Germany was divided into four; each Allied powers claiming an area for its own. Britain, America and France took territories to the West and the Soviets took to the East. Berlin, the capital, was subdivided into four parts, even though it was deep in the Soviet territory. Because of Cold War tensions, the American, French and British territories became the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and the Soviet side became the German Democratic Republic (East Germany).

West Germany became a capitalistic country with a market economy and a democratic government. The East created an authoritarian government with a Soviet-style economy. As the West’s economy and standard of life improved, many people, living in East Germany at the time, wanted to cross over. They feared that a Stalin-type ruling was going to take place and in 1950, 1951 and 1952, some 544,000 people fled. In the first six months of 1953, 226,000 fled to West Germany.

Up until 1952, crossing over to the other side was not a big problem, as there was no physical barrier blocking the two sides. In 1952, East German leaders met with Josef Stalin in Moscow. During the meeting, Stalin’s foreign minister proposed that a system of passes be created for visits for residents of West Berlin to East Berlin; this would hopefully stop the migration of residents to the West. Stalin agreed, and declared that a border should be put up between East and West Germany. The Inner German Border was then erected, but the border between the Western and Eastern sectors of Berlin remained open. Desperate GDR residents fled to the Western Berlin. The Soviets realized that this was not to their advantage, and so this wall was closed later on in 1952.

To further combat the issue of migration, East Germany introduced a new passport law on December 11, 1957. This cut down the number of people leaving East Germany but increased the number leaving through West Berlin. The Berlin sector border was essentially a “loophole” through which East Germans could still escape. By 1960, the massive emigration had left East Germany with a population where the working class accounted to 61%. Somewhere between $7B and $9B of manpower was lost because of engineers, teachers, lawyers, physicians and other skilled workers who had fled to the West. This lack of professionals is known as a “brain drain”.

August 1, 1961, was the date of the telephone call between Nikita Khrushchev and the GDR State Council chairman Walter Ulbricht, Khrushchev suggested erecting a wall. On August 12, 1961, at a government house garden party in East Berlin, Ulbricht complied and close down the border for the construction of the wall. This was the beginning of the Berlin Wall. At midnight on that day, the border was closed and the following morning German troops and workers put up barbed fence and ripped open the streets to make them impassable. The first concrete elements of the wall were put into place on August 15. Security was put in front of this construction in case any defectors tried to escape.

Now, it was especially difficult to travel or immigrate to West Germany. July 25, 1961 was the date that John F. Kennedy said in his speech that he could defend only West Berlin and Germany. Furthermore, the US government also said that they would not use force against the construction of the Wall. They also saw the wall as a way so that the Soviets would not take over the whole of Berlin. This could have also meant that there would have to be less military spending on Germany and that the money could remain in the National Treasury, set aside for different military spending.

As the construction wore on, it was widely accepted that the Wall was used so people would not flee over to the West side. As the years went on, the Wall was transformed, from a wire fence (1961), improved wire fence (1962-1965, concrete wall (1965-1975) finally becoming the Border Wall (1975-1989).

West Germans were authorized to enter East Germany, and not the other way around. Citizens from Western countries were also allowed to go into East Germany, as long as they had the proper visas. West Berliners were not allowed to visit the east side at all. The Wall had many border crossings, and according to nationality, there was a specific border crossing to go through. For example, Allied personnel and foreigners were to go to Checkpoint Charlie (crossing point between East and West Germany).

After the wall was built, there were still many attempts to cross over. There were successful attempts and failures. These people were killed by the shots fired by the guards (Grepos). Over 200 people were killed. Guards alike crossed over the Wall. People were desperate to escape, whether the method was running through tunnels and sewers, sliding along wires, or simply driving through the wall.

In June1987, President Ronald Reagan delivered his speech, and the famous line, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” In the speech, Reagan challenged Mikhail Gorbachev to liberate the Soviet bloc areas.

Hungary removed its physical barrier with Austria on August 23, 1989, resulting in East Enders escaping to Austria. When defectors refused to return, East Germany allowed them to stay where they were. History repeated itself in Czechoslovakia. Residents of Eastern Germany were getting restless. Protesting voices chanted about leaving the East. The Exodus of people leaving East Germany found their way to Czechoslovakia. On November 9^th, 1989, the government, in order to ease complications, allowed their citizens to exit directly through the crossing points between East and West Germany. On the same day, they modified this stand to include private travel. Günter Schabowski made the news public in a conference, mistakenly declaring that it was effective immediately. Afterwards, tens of thousands of East Berliners massed the checkpoints in the Walls. Overwhelmed, the guards let them through without proper checks. The Easterners were welcomed by the Westerners. The Wall was down.

In the following weeks, people came to the wall with sledgehammers in order to chip off some of the Wall to keep as souvenirs, slowly destroying the Wall. The tearing down of the wall went on from June 13, 1990 to November 1991.

The Berlin Wall was the most hated symbol of the Cold War. It stood for division, oppression, suppression of humans, infamy, hatred and death. It showed how a simple barrier could tear apart a country, and its people. Could there be a justification for it? There was plenty of propaganda that went around supporting the Wall, claiming that it ensured peace and socialism and the authority of farmers and workers. The Eastern Government at the time said the Wall was to keep out aggression from the West. Myself, I think this conflict could have been avoided. I think that if the nations had intervened sooner, instead of trying to avoid the situation, something would have sparked. Instead accepting the Wall, the combined power of the nations could have formed a veto.

Ironically, the Berlin Wall offered a sort of security in the time of looseness of the Cold War. The Wall secured people on one side of it, and prevented them from being defectors; unlike in the Cold War where everything was chaos and nothing was definite. The fall of the Wall also provided a positive impact. Some say that it was a good thing because it showed the clear differences between a capitalistic and communist society and how one is better than the other. In my opinion, I think that the Wall was negative, because people don’t try to escape something that is positive.

kapirasongkritika — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 17:08:41 +0000

Mahusay ang pagtuligsa ni Noam Chomsky, Amerikanong intelektwal at anarkista, sa mga hakbangin ng US sa ibang bansa sa kanyang sulating kaugnay ng ika-20 anibersaryo ng pagbagsak ng Berlin Wall noong 1989. May iba namang ginawa sa mga sanaysay nila sina Tariq Ali, aktibista at intelektwal na Pakistani, at Slavoj Zizek, pilosopong Slovenian.

Berlin Wall: Tatlong Tanaw

kapirasongkritika — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 16:43:46 +0000

Taun-taon, ipinagdiriwang ng mga tagapagdiwang ng kapitalismo ang anibersaryo ng pagbagsak ng Berlin Wall, na siyang kinikilalang hudyat ng pagguho ng dating Unyong Sobyet. Para sa kanila, nangangahulugan ito ng pagtatagumpay ng kapitalismo sa sosyalismo at ng Estados Unidos sa Unyong Sobyet sa Cold War na tunggalian nila. Para sa ilan sa kanila, nangangahulugan din ito ng “katapusan ng kasaysayan,” sa mga salita ng “intelektwal” ng State Department ng US na si Francis Fukuyama. Ang tambalan daw ng kapitalismo at liberal na demokrasya ang hantungan ng kasaysayan, at ang anumang tunggaliang susulpot pa sa hinaharap ay nasa balangkas na lang nito.

Malinaw ang sagot ng mga Marxista. Hindi sosyalista ang Unyong Sobyet noong bumagsak ito, kundi sosyalismo sa salita pero kapitalismo sa gawa. Dulot ito ng pagkaluklok sa poder ng mga tinatawag na “modernong rebisyunista,” mga dating komunistang sistematikong bumago sa batayang mga prinsipyo ng Marxismo at nagdala sa mga bansa nila sa kapitalismo. Anila, hindi sosyalismo ang bumagsak sa Unyong Sobyet kaya hindi sosyalismo ang namatay kasama nito. Ang totoo, anila, habang nagdiriwang ang kapitalismo, nananatiling batbat ito ng krisis. Ang totoo, sabi pa nila, ipinapakita ng krisis ng kapitalismo na kailangang-kailangan ang sosyalismo.

Nitong Nobyembre 9, 20 taon na ang pagbagsak ng Berlin Wall. Kakatwa ang mahalagang pagdiriwang, dahil nataon ito sa pinakamatinding krisis ng kapitalismo simula noong dekada 1930. Nahirapan siguro ang mga lagi nang tagapagdiwang nito kung paano bibigyang-parangal ang pangyayari. Maging si Mikhail Gorbachev, susing tao sa pagbagsak ng pader, ay nagsabing bagamat kailangang maganap ng nangyari, hindi pa rin mahusay ang mga sitwasyon sa kasalukuyan. Nanawagan pa nga siya ng perestroika – o pagbabago ng ekonomiya – sa iba’t ibang bansa, kasama ang US. Tiyak, gayunman, na hindi na sosyalismo, o anumang katulad nito, ang tinutukoy niya.

Mainam naman na sinamantala ang okasyon ng iba’t ibang intelektwal na maka-Kaliwa para maglabas ng mga popular na sulatin. Dapat lang, dahil napakainam ng sitwasyon ng daigdig ngayon para maglinaw sa iba’t ibang usapin kaugnay ng kapitalismo at pakikibaka para sa sosyalismo. Bukod pa sa nakakatuwa kapag ang mga intelektwal na laging sangkot sa matatayog na mga teorya at pilosopiya ay nagpipilit na mangusap sa mas malawak na publiko nang inilalapat ang kanilang kaalaman sa kongkretong mga usapin. Sa ganitong pagkakataon, hindi lang sila nangungusap sa mga organisador ng mga manggagawa at magsasaka, halimbawa, kundi nagbubukas din sa paghatol nila.

Sa sanaysay niyang “The Legacy of 1989, in Two Hemispheres,” pinili ng sikat na kontra-imperyalista at anarkistang intelektwal na si Noam Chomsky na tuligsain ang US sa mga hakbangin nito. Dapat daw ibagsak ang mga pader na itinatayo ng Israel sa mga lupain ng Palestina. Nagbalik-tanaw rin siya sa pagpatay sa El Salvador ng anim na intelektwal, pari at tauhan nila noong 1989, kasabay ng pagbagsak ng Berlin Wall. Kasabay raw ng paglakas ng pag-asa sa Silangang Europa ang pagguho nito sa Latina Amerika. Tinurol niya ang responsable sa mga pagpatay, at sa pagpatay sa teolohiya ng paglaya (liberation theology) sa Latina Amerika: School of the Americas ng US at Vatican.

Mahalaga ang punto niya, na ipinagdiriwang ng US ang pagbagsak ng mga diktador na hindi nito hawak habang pinapalakas ang mga diktador na hawak nito. Ipinapakita ng mga salaysay niya na nananatiling marahas ang US kahit sa panahon ng pagbagsak ng Berlin Wall, dahil nga patuloy itong binabayo ng krisis ng sistema ng monopolyo-kapitalismo. Pero ito lang ba ang kaya niyang sabihin sa paggunita sa pagbagsak ng Berlin Wall? Isa na namang pagtuligsa, bagamat bukod-tangi, sa imperyalismong US? Hindi ba’t napakainam ng okasyon para palutangin ang usapin ng ano ang dapat gawin ng mga mamamayan at ano ang dapat ipalit sa nabubulok na sistemang ito?

Sa panayam naman niyang “The Idea of Communism,” tinalakay ng Trotskyistang intelektwal na Pakistani na si Tariq Ali ang itinuturing niyang negatibong aspekto ng pakikibaka para sa komunismo sa mundo kaugnay ng bago niyang libro. Aniya, bagamat ayaw nina Marx at Engels na ituring na relihiyon ang kaisipan nila, ganito ang nangyari sa maraming kilusan sa mundo. Ipinaliwanag niya ang itinuturing niyang sanhi ng mga naging suliranin sa mga bansang naging sosyalista: atrasadong lagay ng ekonomiya, nagkaroon ng Estadong awtoritaryan, nagkaroon ng monopolyo ang Estado sa daluyan ng komunikasyon, at nasyunalismo ang lumaganap na kaisipan.

Bagamat mahalagang balik-aralan ang kasaysayan ng progresibong kilusan sa mundo, hindi ko alam kung ano ang mapapala sa mga padaskul-daskol na paghahambing – Marxismo at relihiyon, sosyalismo at kapitalismo – katulad ng ginawa ni Ali, at madalas ding gawin ng mga pa-intelektwal sa mga anti-komunista sa bansa tulad ni P. N. Abinales. Nakakabilib siguro kapag bata ka pa na makarinig ng ganito. Pero ano ang punto? Eh ano kung parang relihiyon? May mga nagsasabing hindi masama agad para sa Marxismo ang ganito. Guilt by association? Lahat ng masama sa sistema na “makikita” rin sa Marxismo at sosyalismo, kasiraan na ng huli? Anu-ano naman ang pagkakaiba?

Ang problema sa partikular na paghahambing ni Ali ay hindi nito tinuturol ang mayor na mga usapin sa mga bansang naging sosyalista. Kaya ba nanumbalik ang kapitalismo sa Tsina at Unyong Sobyet ay dahil naging relihiyoso ang pagtanggap ng mga tao sa desisyon ng mga namumuno? Hindi. Bukod pa rito, mas kumikiling ito sa maling paghalaw ng aral sa karanasan ng mga bansang ito. Relihiyon ang naging turing ng mga tao sa Marxismo, kaya ba hindi na ito dapat ituro sa kanila? Hindi rin. Mauugat nga ang mga mayor na kahinaan ng mga bansang naging sosyalista sa hindi sapat na pag-aaral sa Marxismo, at hindi paglalapat nito sa praktika ng sariling bansa.

Kailangang lagyan ng mga pahabol ang mga kahirapang ayon kay Ali ay hinarap ng mga bansang naging sosyalista. Oo, atrasado ang mga bansang nagtagumpay sa paglaban para sa sosyalismo – at nagiging matapat dito si Ali sa pagiging Trotskyista, sa paniniwalang kailangang sa mga bansang abanteng kapitalista magsimula ang pagtatagumpay ng rebolusyon sa mundo. Dapat kilalanin ang pagiging atrasado ng mga bansang ito, pero hindi ito ang buong paliwanag sa kahinaang dinanas nila. Kaibang nasyunalismo naman ang naimbento sa mga bansang tinutukoy niya – kontra-imperyalista, mapagpalaya at nakabatay sa alyansa ng iba’t ibang uri sa lipunan.

Totoong nagkaroon ng kahinaan si Stalin sa pagharap sa mga kontradiksyong sumulpot sa Unyong Sobyet noong magtagumpay ito, na dumulo sa paggamit niya ng mga mapanupil na hakbangin. Ipinagpatuloy ang mga hakbanging ito ng mga pumalit sa kanya kasabay ng pagtuligsa sa kanya at sa tinawag nilang “Stalinismo.” Pero natukoy ito ni Mao Zedong sa paglalagom niya sa karanasan ng rebolusyong Ruso. At sinikap itong alpasan ni Mao. Kahit ang pagwawasto ba ni Mao sa mga kahinaan ni Stalin, itunuturing pa rin ni Ali na bahagi ng sinasabi niyang kawalan ng debate sa iba’t ibang antas ng lipunan? Kahit ang Dakilang Proletaryong Rebolusyong Pangkultura?

Madalas sabihing “diktador,” o “awtoritaryan” si Mao. Mas kumplikado rito ang reyalidad. Nasapul ng pilosopong Pranses na si Alain Badiou ang hindi nasapul ng mga historyador at mamamayahag na katulad ni Ali, at Abinales na rin, tungkol sa pagkatao niya. Ayon kay Badiou, “Sa lahat ng aspekto, ang ‘Mao’ ay pangalan ng isang paradox: ang rebelde sa kapangyarihan, ang diyalektisyan na nasubok ng nagpapatuloy na mga pangangailangan ng ‘pag-unlad,’ ang simbolo ng partido-estado na naghahanap ng pag-alpas, ang hepe ng militar na nangangaral ng pagsuway sa mga awtoridad…” [“The Cultural Revolution: The Last Revolution?” 2002, nasa Polemics, 2006.]

Ang pilosopong Slovenian na si Slavoj Zizek naman, sa kanyang “20 Years of Collapse,” ay nagsimula sa pagsuri sa tatlong penomenong iniluwal ng pagbagsak ng mga nagpakilalang sosyalistang rehimen at ng “di maiiwasang pagkadismaya” sa “reyalidad na demokratiko-kapitalista.” Tinutukoy niya ang pagbabalik-tanaw sa “mabuting lumang” panahong Komunista, makabayang populismo, at nahuling kapraningang kontra-Komunista. Pagluluksa lang daw ang una, at ang ikalawa ay hindi partikular sa Silangang Europa. Kaya mas nagpokus siya sa ikatlo. Aniya, ang tinutuligsa ng mga kontra-Komunista ay walang iba kundi ang mismong kapitalismo.

Sabi niya, mas nakaangkop sa reyalidad ng kapitalismo ang mga dating Komunista. Malamang: naniniwala sila sa tunggalian ng mga uri, pero nagbago na ng panig. Naniniwala silang komiteng tagapagpaganap ng naghaharing uri ang Estado kaya mulat nilang ginawang ganito ang kanilang Estado. Inulit ni Zizek ang pangamba niya: Na hindi lalakas ang liberal na demokrasya sa Tsina kaalinsabay ng paglakas doon ng kapitalismo, gaya ng sinasabi ng iba. Sa halip, itinuturo ng Tsina ang hinaharap ng sangkatauhan: mas matinding kapitalismo sa ilalim ng awtoritaryan na Estado. Paano kung hadlang lang talaga sa pang-ekonomiyang pag-unlad ang demokrasya?

Paglilinaw niya: “Noong ipinrotesta ng mga tao ang mga rehimeng Komunista sa Silangang Europa, ang malaking mayorya sa kanila, hindi kapitalismo ang gusto. Gusto nila ng kalayaang mabuhay nang labas sa kontrol ng estado, magsama-sama at mag-usap batay sa kagustuhan nila…” Dagdag pa niya, “ang mga layuning nagtulak sa mga nagprotesta, sa malaking bahagi, ay galing sa namamayaning ideolohiyang Sosyalista mismo – gusto ng mga tao ng bagay na pinakaakmang tawaging ‘Sosyalismong may mukhang makatao.’ Siguro, karapat-dapat itong bigyan ng ikalawang pagkakataon.” Modelo niya si Victor Kravchenko, kontra-Stalin na naging kontra-kapitalismo rin.

Matagal nang sinasabi ni Zizek ang pangamba niyang ang kasalukuyang Tsina, na tinatawag niyang “awtoritaryang kapitalismo” ang hinaharap ng mga bansa sa mundo. Makabuluhang pangamba ito, dahil kahit naman ang demokrasya sa mga bansang kapitalista ay pinalawak – mulat man o hindi – ng mga pakikibaka ng mga mamamayan sa pamumuno ng Kaliwa sa mundo. Kaya nga may pagka-pesimista ang pagsusuri niya, na para bang wala siyang natatanaw na paglakas ng mga kilusang Kaliwa sa daigdig. O baka naman nang-aalarma lang siya sa pwedeng kasadlakan ng sangkatauhan kung mananatili ang mga kahinaan sa Kaliwa na pinupuna niya.

Pero ngayon ko lang nabasa ang matatag niyang pag-endorso sa “Sosyalismong may mukhang makatao (Socialism with a human face).” Kung babalikan pala sa kasaysayan, islogan ito ni Alexander Dubcek na naging lider ng Czechoslovakia noong 1968-1969 at nagsikap maglunsad ng mga reporma sa bansa niyang sosyalista. Sinupil ang mga pagsisikap niya ng pamunuan ng Unyong Sobyet, na sa panahong ito’y pinapamunuan na ng mga modernong rebisyunista. Ang problema ko rito, malamang na ang itinuturing na kalaban ng ganitong klase ng sosyalismo ay ang tinatawag ng mga maka-Kaliwang Europeo-Amerikano na “Stalinismo” – diktadoryal, awtoritaryan, mapanupil.

Laging sinasabi ni Zizek na ang Leninismo ay imbensyong Stalinista. Pero ang Stalinismo, sa kalakhan, ay imbensyon ng mga modernong rebisyunista at anti-komunista. Labis nilang pinalaki ang mga pagkakamali ni Stalin sa pagharap sa mga kontradiksyon sa pagitan ng mga mamamayan, ang mapanupil at burukratikong mga paraang ginamit niya. Ito, sa tingin ko, ang pag-unawa kay Stalin na laging kasama ng katagang “Stalinista” – na, ang kakatwa, ay ginagamit din sa mga modernong rebisyunistang kontra-Stalin pero mapanupil. Tinuligsa rin si Stalin ni Mao Zedong sa puntong ito, pero hindi niya iniendorso ang ganitong lahatang pagbasura kay Stalin.

Sabi ni Zizek, “Nalinlang ng Komunismo ng ika-20 siglo at nadisilusyon sa kapitalismo ng ika-21 siglo, wala tayong magawa kundi mag-asam ng mga bagong Kravchenkos – at ng mas masayang wakas nila. Sa paghanap sa katarungan, kailangan nilang magsimula sa wala…, mag-imbento ng kanilang sariling mga ideolohiya.” Kakatwang panawagan ito mula sa intelektwal na malawak at malalim ang kaalaman sa pilosopiya at iba pang larangan ng kaalaman. Magsimula sa wala? Taliwas ito kahit sa pagbabalik-aral niya sa kasaysayan ng komunismo sa daigdig. O sinasabi ba niyang walang anumang mapupulot ang mga progresibo sa kasalukuyan sa kasaysayang inaral niya?

Mas malamang, eksaherasyon lang ito ni Zizek. Baka mas gusto lang niyang idiing kailangan ang pag-aaral sa kasalukuyan ng mga progresibo, sa halip na ang palaging pagbabalik-tanaw sa nakalipas. Pero problematiko rin kahit ang ganitong pag-unawa. Kailangan ang pag-aaral sa kasalukuyan, at ang pag-aaral din sa nakalipas. Kung tutuusin, ang mga takot na makikita sa Kaliwa sa ibang bansa – takot sa organisasyon, sa dahas, sa mahirap na pakikibaka at pagbubuo ng sosyalismo, halimbawa – ay nakaugat sa hindi masinsing pag-unawa sa kasaysayan ng Kaliwa sa mundo. Sa panahong pinapawi ang progresibong alaala sa nakaraan, mas mahalaga ang ganito.

Hindi man nila gusto, ipinapakita ng mga sanaysay nina Chomsky, Ali at Zizek ang mga kahinaan ng Kaliwa sa Kanluran at iba pang bansa: ang pagkakasya sa pagtuligsa sa sistema, lalo na sa pinakabulok na aspekto nito, bagamat makabuluhan ang pagtuligsa at bago ang mga punto; at ang pangkalahatang pag-unawa sa kasaysayan ng kilusang progresibo sa mundo, na nauulapan pa ng mga pagsusuring Trotskyista. Sa tingin ko, kailangang idagdag sa mahusay na pag-aaral sa kasalukuyan ang pangangailangan sa mahusay ding pag-aaral sa kasaysayan para wastong matukoy ang mga kahinaan at pagkakamali, at mahango ang mga paglilinaw na kailangan ngayon.

10 Disyembre 2009

Mabuhay ang mga lumusob sa UP Diliman sa nakaplanong pagdalaw ni Gloria! Narito ang mga larawan sa Arkibong Bayan sa nangyari. Narito naman ang nakakatawa at nakakatuwang tala ni Prop. Sylvia Estrada-Claudio sa kanyang partisipasyon sa protesta.

Kasunod ng matatagumpay na lektura sa Inglatera tungkol sa kasalukuyang krisis pampinansya at pang-ekonomiya – kasama ang lekturang ito ni Zizek – may reyalisasyon o naisip si Nina Power, progresibong blogger at teorista, tungkol sa posibilidad ng “proletaryong unibersidad” sa kanilang bansa. Ubra kaya ito sa Pilipinas?

May mahahalagang punto si Mike Ely, komunistang Amerikano, tungkol sa militaristang patakaran ni Presidente Barack Obama ng US, at sa ilusyon ng ilang maka-Kaliwa, liberal at repormista sa kanya.

May isa, dalawang isinulat ang Marxistang intelektwal na si E. San Juan, Jr. tungkol sa madugong rekord ng rehimeng US-Arroyo, kaugnay sa partikular ng kakatapos na masaker sa Maguindanao. Heto naman ang kay Ellen Tordesillas, mamamahayag.

Sinuma ni Gingmaganda ang sentimyento ko tungkol sa Facebook. Pero baka para sa aming nakakaunawa lang sa kantang “At Seventeen” ni Janis Ian ang modang ito? Hehe.

May sulatin si Harpal Brar tungkol sa ugnayan ni Stalin sa rebolusyong Tsino.

Anibersaryo noong Disyembre 4 ng pagpatay ng FBI kay Fred Hampton, lider ng Black Panther Party sa US.

Muli na palang nailibing si Victor Jara, ang progresibong musikerong Chileano na minsan nang naging paksa ng isang entri sa blog na ito.

Ang doktrina ng strained relations na mahalaga sa mga maka-manggagawa sa bansa, ayon kay Atty. Remigio Saladero, Jr.

German civil service chock full of spies

Tom Henheffer — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:08:43 +0000

(This article originally appeared in Maclean’s Magazine)

Between the Second World War and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, scores of East Germans were tortured and intimidated by the Stasi, arguably one of the most repressive secret police agencies in the world. So last week, when it was discovered that roughly 17,000 former Stasi agents are still working as bureaucrats, many Germans were horrified.

The revelation was made by the respected Financial Times Deutschland newspaper, which noted that thousands of Stasi were hired or kept on in Germany’s civil service despite routine background checks. Organizations representing those harmed by the secret police, such as the Victims of Stalinism, are calling for the removal of any former agents from high-ranking positions in the government. Some politicians and civil rights activists also want new background checks and a full investigation of the civil service.

“Germany hasn’t seen this kind of moral panic since the ’60s, when people started looking around and seeing all these Nazis in the civil service,” says Dr. Jennifer Evans, an associate professor at Carleton University who specializes in German history. But she says people shouldn’t be surprised the Stasi are showing up in government ranks: the secret police was a massive organization employing over 90,000 agents directly and using approximately 200,000 “unofficial collaborators.” That’s about one agent for every 50 East Germans.

The backlash against the discovery is particularly intense because it was recently revealed that a police officer who murdered a student in 1967—sparking massive protests that mobilized leftist dissent in West Germany—was, in fact, a Stasi agent. But Evans thinks the calls to start firing government workers go too far.

“Postwar West Germany wasn’t able to function without Nazi-era teachers and Nazi-era engineers,” she says. “A society can’t function without its professional elite. It’s inconceivable to think that the civil service could have been purged of everybody who bore the taint of the Stasi connection.”

manifesto

barenot — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 22:20:53 +0000

Men who are half men, women who are more than all women, hermaphrodites who are part vampire, cats who are three quarters toaster and a sexually ambiguous spermwhale...

Looking for the most enlightening collation of thoughts this side of Dianetics? bare/not manifesto is here to show us all the way…word…

Caged Bird Sings

‘Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.’ George Bernard Shaw

‘Madness is freedom’s most faithful companion’ Jacques Lacan

‘All oppression creates a state of war.’ Simone de Beauvoir

We live in a world fraught with contradiction – bikinis and burqas, the moneyed and the minimum wage, left-wing or right-wing, faith and nihilism and the hetero-normative and the ‘other’ – are just some of the ongoing struggles which both restrict and affirm our personal freedom. Our media perpetuates this no man’s land of perceived autarchy, where stories such as the Fritzl cases or the anniversary of the Berlin wall’s disintegration reaffirm the ability of individuals to fight for freedom despite overwhelming and terrifying conditioning, while the repercussions of official prisons such as Guantanamo Bay, the Iraq war and the ‘war on terror’ (in itself a linguistic minefield) continue to remind us how blithely our freedoms can be disrupted and taken away.

Are we made to feel that the kind of safety, which undermines liberty in the name of security and protection, is acceptable and desirable? Concerns about claustrophobia, stereotypes, security constrictions, moral and physical obligations, cultural and religious beliefs, and political ideas are a few of the encounters which make up our daily worlds, bombarding us in advertising; threaded through the plots of literature, movies and songs; and worked into our political ideologies. These are big themes to tackle for first-time curators but then why not go naked and bare all?

What we feel as an act of freedom can be lived as an act of violence by someone else. We adjust our sense of personal freedom to fit into our community, which defines and legitimises our freedom, but requires a different set of rules from the individual to function freely. Images, as powerful, empathetic and wholly personal signifiers are a strong way to convey these dichotomies and awaken society to their place in the world, especially the ways in which society has accommodated the idea of the female and the way in which race is represented. It is with this in mind that we have selected a group of artists to tackle the cultural, political, sexual and racial themes of restriction. However, how many of those ties are really inevitable, how many of them are self-imposed by our collective or personal conscience? Many of us want to escape the obligations deriving from them to explore a ‘free’ life, but total freedom is a Utopian ideal, defined by philosopher and anthropologist Roland Barthes as a world where there are ‘no conformities or stereotypes, no clichés or myths or anything which is either given or dictated; a world where it is possible to eschew all conflict because everyone and everything is allowed to be different’ – a beautiful and improbable dream; however freedom is a terrifying thing – some people cope with it by restricting themselves in order to make their world more manageable.

For the exhibition, we chose a space in which it would be possible to recreate a claustrophobic sensation. The space we have selected is the Crypt at St Pancras Church. The church is somewhere people have sought refuge but its institutions such as the monastery and nunnery have also been places of living entombment where the inhabitants are enclosed in their cells and live by a unilateral religious doctrine. Barthes posed that if we are subject to the whims of language as a collectively recognised placement of signs and signifiers, then our ability to redefine words and images, to create our own language, allows us to assert and potentially attain our personal freedom. In this context, the word ‘church’ can be defined then as both a sanctuary and a prison. And the crypt? Is it possible to redefine this space – physically going down onto another level, the act of going into a dark space much like entering the subconscious and playing with the notion of revealing and concealing darkness and light. Come and see.