A Step At A Time

There is going to be a break in posting, while I'm on holiday. Things should be back to normal by May 17 or thereabouts.

Clearly, the opposition between Mexico and the United States belongs to the North-South duality as much from the geographical as from the symbolic point of view. It is an ancient opposition which was already unfolding in pre-Columbian America, so that it antedates the very existence of the United States and Mexico. The northern part of the continent was settled by nomadic, warrior nations; Mesoamerica, on the other hand, was the home of an agricultural civilization, with complex social and political institutions, dominated by warlike theocracies that invented refined and cruel rituals, great art, and vast cosmogonies inspired by a very original vision of time. The great opposition of pre-Columbian America – all that now includes the United States and Mexico – was between different ways of life: nomads and settled peoples, hunters and farmers. This division greatly influenced the later development of the United States and Mexico. The policies of the English and the Spanish towards the Indians were in large part determined by this division; it was not insignificant that the former established themselves in the territory of the nomads and the latter in that of the settled peoples.

Mexico is the most Spanish country in Latin America; at the same time it is the most Indian. Mesoamerican civilization died a violent death, but Mexico is Mexico thanks to the Indian presence. Though the language and religion, the political institutions and the culture of the country are Western, there is one aspect of Mexico that faces in another direction – the Indian direction. Mexico is a nation between two civilizations and two pasts.

In the United States, the Indian element does not appear. This, in my opinion, is the major difference between our two countries. The Indians who were not exterminated were corralled in “reservations”. The Christian horror of “fallen nature” extended to the natives of America: the United States was founded on a land without a past. The historical memory of Americans is European, not American. For this reason, one of the most powerful and persistent themes in American literature, from Whitman to William Carlos Williams and from Melville to Faulkner, has been the search for (or invention of) American roots. We owe some of the major works of the modern era to this desire for incarnation, this obsessive need to be rooted in American soil.

Exactly the opposite is true of Mexico, land of superimposed pasts. Mexico City was built on the ruins of Tenochtitlán, the Aztec city that was built on the likeness of Tula, the Toltec city that was built on the likeness of Teotihuacán, the first great city on the American continent. Every Mexican bears within him this continuity, which goes back two thousand years. It doesn’t matter that this presence is almost always unconscious and assumes the naïve forms of legend and superstition. It is not something known but something lived. The Indian presence means that one of the facets of Mexican culture is not Western. Is there anything like this in the United States? Each of the ethnic groups making up the multiracial democracy that is the United States has its own culture and tradition, and some of them – the Chinese and Japanese, for example – are not Western. These traditions exist alongside the dominant American tradition without becoming one with it. They are foreign bodies within American culture.

-Octavio Paz (1979)

In the Washington Post, a consideration of Mr. Putin's Verdict:

What was "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century"? The rise of Nazi Germany? The spread of genocide as a tool of state power? Some might say it was the crushing of a host of nations by the totalitarian Soviet Union, at the cost of millions of lives. But not Russian President Vladimir Putin. For him, the greatest catastrophe was not the Soviet Union's rise but its collapse -- an event that freed 14 of those nations, from Latvia to Kyrgyzstan, from Moscow's domination. "The old ideals were destroyed," Mr. Putin lamented during his annual state-of-Russia address on Monday.

Most accounts of Mr. Putin's speech focused on the passages intended for Western consumption: his claim that "the development of Russia as a free and democratic state" is now his highest priority; his assurance to Russian and foreign business executives that their investments will not be seized by rapacious authorities, despite the state's recent confiscation of the country's largest oil company; his announced plans to strengthen political parties and make the state-controlled media more independent.

Yet the former KGB officer's nostalgia for the former Soviet empire seemed as telling as any of his promises. So did his denunciation of the "disintegration" of Russia before he came to power, which he defined as the "capitulation" of granting autonomy to Chechnya and the "unrestricted control over information flows" that allowed private business executives to operate newspapers and television networks. Mr. Putin has reversed both of those liberalizations -- in Chechnya's case, by means of an ongoing war that has killed tens of thousands.

Read the whole thing.

Alan Dershowitz on the AUT boycott:

"I used to think that it didn't matter what we did," an Israeli moderate once told me. "They will hate us just as much even if we give back the whole West Bank as well as Gaza."

He paused and then continued: "I was wrong. It does make a difference. They hate us even more when we give more, because it confuses their image of us as totally evil. And our enemies see it as a sign of our weakness and their strength."

My friend was right. This academic boycott makes clear that when Israel does precisely what its detractors demand that it do, even then – especially then! – extreme left-wing academics will only despise Israel more for putting the lie to the professors' hate-filled views.

By targeting Israeli Jews, Britain's "Professors Against Peace" – that's what they really should be called – have displayed bigotry against Jews, done violence to academic freedom and anti-discrimination laws, and are fast closing a window of opportunity for reconciliation in the Middle East.

Norm has a Who's Who of the Iraq War.

In the Moscow Times, a report about the current head of the Dresdner Bank division in St Petersburg, who knew Vladimir Putin well, and once spied for the Stasi - sending its clients' documents to the GDR, while working as a bank official in the West.

(via Marius)

Marius points me to an article in the Guardian by Monika Scislowska, from which it transpires that the priest in charge of caring for Polish pilgrims at the Vatican apparently collaborated with the communist secret police in the 1980s during the reign of Pope John Paul II:

An investigation into communist-era persecution of the Roman Catholic church in Poland turned up documents showing that the Rev. Konrad Stanislaw Hejmo, a Dominican, ``was a secret collaborator of the Polish secret services under the names of Hejnal and Dominik,'' said Leon Kieres, head of the state-run National Remembrance Institute that investigated Nazi and communist crimes in Poland.

Hejmo's Dominican superior, the Rev. Maciej Zieba, said he saw the files, which he termed ``convincing and shocking.''

Publius has a post about the resignation of Mexico's attorney general.

Try, if you can, to picture the scene. A vast crowd in Red Square: Lenin's tomb and Stalin's memorial in the background. Soldiers march in goose step behind rolling tanks, and the air echoes with martial music, occasionally drowned out by the whine of fighter jets. On the reviewing stand, statesmen are gathered: Kim Jong Il, the dictator of North Korea, Alexander Lukashenko, the dictator of Belarus, Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, the former dictator of Poland -- and President George W. Bush.

That description may sound fanciful or improbable. It is neither. On the contrary, that is more or less what will appear on your television screen May 9, when the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II is celebrated in Moscow. I have exaggerated only one detail: Although Kim Jong Il has been invited, his attendance has not yet been confirmed. But Jaruzelski is definitely coming, as are Lukashenko, Bush and several dozen other heads of state. President Vladimir Putin of Russia will preside.

Anne Applebaum, writing in the Washington Post about the upcoming May 9 commemoration in Moscow.

eng.kavkaz.memo.ru
Caucasian Knot
26/4/2005

Finland delaying answer

Andrei Nekrasov's documentary Distrust about explosions of apartment
houses in Moscow in September 1999 will make its debut in Helsinki on 9
May, film producer Olga Konskaya told Caucasian Knot.

Distrust's main characters, Timur and Lydia Dakhkilgov, have been invited
to the premiere. They were to come to Finland on 12 March, invited by
Nekrasov, but Finnish authorities insisted that they should leave the
country without any explanation and after a search. Upon arrival to
Moscow, the couple at once lodged a complaint with the Finnish embassy
and filed another one to a Finnish court of law. Nekrasov applied to the
same court with a "protest and demand of apology to the Dakhkilgovs and
reimbursement of their costs."

The couple recently obtained new visas, Lydia Dakhkilgov told Caucasian
Knot by phone. She said they had not yet received any answers to their
complaint and lawsuits. The embassy promised to give the answer as far
back as in early April. However, they have since answered by phone that
the secretary supposed to give the answer is away.

Nekrasov's film describes how Timur Dakhkilgov was accused of blowing up
the houses on Guryanova Street and Kashirskoye Highway; he spent three
months in prison, where he says he was subjected to torture.

http://eng.kavkaz.memo.ru/newstext/engnews/id/795861.html

In response to the dangerous rantings of Richard Gott in today's Guardian, Norman Geras has some strong criticism of

senior figures on what once saw and represented itself as a new, democratic, anti-Stalinist left, but who have lately caved in and gone politically berserk; people who have been on the wrong side of nearly all, or indeed all, of the key international conflicts since the first Gulf War, resolutely anti-American and ready in this with cheap and grotesque Hitler-Nazi references, but somehow a little bit less resolute in what their alignment might mean with respect to the likely future of the most noxious movements and lethal regimes there are; 'democrats' in everything except a proper recognition of the democracy that exists in the US and other Western nations, and of what the absence of democracy means for those peoples for whom it is in fact - daily, ruinously - absent; loud denouncers of the abuses and crimes or alleged crimes of the US, or the UK, or Israel, but more tactful and tactical in relation to other and much worse; people for whom George W. Bush is a more hated figure than Saddam Hussein or anyone else is or was, and for whom the discontinuation of that monster's rule in Iraq today seems to be of less importance morally than the failure to find WMD there or an 'international law' to which many of them have never shown any visible attachment hitherto.

What is it that has led to this intellectual and political debacle of so much of the left of (roughly) my own generation? The pathology of anti-Americanism? The failure to call certain political phenomena by their proper names? A loss of nerve and/or moral perspective in face of a capitalism seemingly everywhere triumphant? Perhaps (three times). But a debacle is what it is - the loss to progressive opinion of half a generation or more of those who might otherwise have been expected to pass on a mature wisdom to younger others. Instead, this shameful legacy.

Writing in the London Review of Books, the veteran left-wing historian Eric Hobsbawm describes An Assembly of Ghosts:

I find myself seated between Reagan’s National Security Adviser in 1981 and a French ex-spook, and opposite an anti-Sharon Israeli I talked to at lunch and who turns out to have been deputy head of Mossad in pre-Likud days. I also recognise a Czech apparition from a past I would like to forget: Rudolf Slansky junior, expelled from the Party for his part in the Prague Spring, later a Charter 77 protester. He even seems to me to look like his father, executed in 1952, the most prominent Communist victim in the last and most overtly anti-semitic of the show ‘trials’ of Stalin’s Eastern Europe. Somewhere along the table Lech Walesa is explaining that neither Russian policy nor Polish Communists had anything to do with Poland regaining independence: it was all due to Solidarity and the pope. (My neighbour, who had signed the cheques for the CIA’s Polish operations at the time, is unimpressed.) Walesa has the air of a Polish John Prescott, only bigger. He has not carried the last 25 years as well as the other Poles.

Reading this, one wonders whether even Hobsbawm himself really believes the part about the "cheques". The whole essay turns out to be a curious two-handed "tribute" to ex-Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev:

If the historian in me was slightly disappointed, the fan of Mikhail Gorbachev was not. Was he a great man? I do not know. I doubt it. He was – he visibly continues to be – a man of integrity and good will whose actions had enormous consequences, for good and bad. I regard it as a privilege to be the contemporary of this man. Humanity is in his debt. All the same, if I were a Russian I would also think of him as the man who brought ruin to his country.

(Hat tip: Marius)

Norm has a link to Engage - against the AUT boycott.

Belarus is increasingly turning to Russia for military assistance. Roger N. McDermott writes in EDM that

On April 20 Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenka met senior Russian defense officials in Minsk in order to examine mutual security threats and consider ways to deepen bilateral military cooperation. Lukashenka told Sergei Ivanov, Russian Defense Minister, and General Yuri Baluyevsky, Russian Chief of the General Staff, that Belarus looks towards Russia to learn from its experience with military reform, learning from both its successes and failures. He particularly seemed keen to emphasize the role of Belarus as a reliable partner against Western intrusion into the affairs of the former Soviet Union, while criticizing the West for adopting policies of intervention. "We have not bombed Afghanistan into penury and brought some Asian countries to the brink of poverty," he said. "A flood of illegal immigrants washes over Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and other countries to the West."

Behind Lukashenka's anti-Western diatribe and search for stronger security cooperation with Russia lies a curious mixture of old-guard thinking and an assessment of security threats fixated upon the concept of Western intervention near Russia's borders. Colonel-General Leonid Maltsev, Belarusian Defense Minister, addressed a joint board from the defense ministries of both countries in Minsk on April 20, stressing that the joint handling of defense issues and cooperation between the Russian and Belarusian defense ministries laid the basis for strengthening the union state and supporting the Collective Security Treaty. The recent history of bilateral military cooperation, largely generating multiple paper agreements and providing a legislative basis for more practical measures, has persistently escalated in its nature and scope.

While politically Belarus remains "a thorn in the flesh of Kremlin policy planners",

concentration upon intelligence, joint air defense, and the rehearsal of rapid deployment of Russian strategic bombers suggests that planners in Minsk and Moscow are not considering terrorists, first and foremost, as potential future mutual threats, but rather the prospect of Western humanitarian intervention within Belarus as a theoretical flashpoint.

At On An Overgrown Path, an interesting post on the mystery of the Siegfried Lauterwasser Collection.

(via The Periscope)

Did the Russians spike Kekkonen's drink?
By Teemu Luukka
Helsingin Sanomat
30.3.2005

I recently received a startling e-mail. It contained an extract from a
book published in the United States in 2000, according to which the
Russians had used something called a "friendship drug" on Finnish
President Urho Kekkonen and the leadership of the Finnish Communist Party.

The book was written by Joseph D. Douglass, who has a doctorate
from the renowned Cornell University, and who has studied the use of
drugs in international politics for several decades. The extract was
from the book Betrayed, on how various medications and drugs were used
to influence prisoners of war.

The book tells about how governments in various countries - especially
the Soviet Union - became interested in synthetic drugs in the 1950s.
The Russians tested drugs which undermine will power on clergy and
others considered suspect by the Soviet system.

The drugs were placed in people's drinks, and apparently were
administered in such a way that the victims could not recognise the
effect of the substance. The goal was to get the victims to agree with
the Russians after a few days.

The allegations are quite astounding, but are they true?

First we must ask Finnish experts about the matter. One expert
on the history of the communists, Kimmo Rentola, says that he has
never heard that the Russians would have given Kekkonen anything
stronger than vodka. Timo Vihavainen, a professor of Russian studies,
also says that he knows nothing of any such activities.

But what about Kekkonen's biographer Juhani Suomi, who knows
more about Kekkonen's activities than anyone else in Finland? He has
also never heard that Kekkonen would have been under the influence of
the friendship drug.

"It would certainly have been noticed. In negotiations there was
always someone there who was sober, and a doctor would have noticed in
the morning at the latest if Kekkonen was behaving in an exceptional
manner", Suomi insists.

But what does Dr. Douglass base his claim on? On the basis of
biographical data, the man would seem worthy of being taken seriously.
He has a long history in research institutes studying security
matters, as well as a career in the US Defence Department.

The book does not actually say when the Russians might have
slipped Kekkonen a Mickey.

The former Finnish President is mentioned in a part of the book
explaining how seminars would often be held in Czechoslovakia, where
participants would unwittingly consume the friendship drug during
breakfast. The book does not actually claim that Kekkonen would have
been drugged specifically in Czechoslovakia. Kekkonen paid a state
visit to Czechoslovakia only once, on October 1st - 4th, 1969.

All I can do is to ask Dr. Douglass himself.

"Sorry I can not provide additional details. You are most
unlikely to obtain any 'documents' because of their sensitivity and
because such materials would be written in code language and be very
obscure to anyone who did not know what the words meant", Douglass
wrote in an e-mail.

He says that he heard about Kekkonen being drugged from Jan
Sejna. "Jan Sejna died in 1997 before I could learn more details about
this operation", Douglass wrote.

"What he said is what I wrote. He did mention Kekkonen as one of
the targets, as I recall, and I believe he was talking about the early
50s or thereabouts."

Jan Sejna was a famous man. He was a major-general, and served for a
long time as a member of the Central Committee of Czechoslovakia's
Communist Party. He also led Czechoslovakia's Ministry of defence.

Shortly before his death Sejna admitted in the US Senate that he
smuggled 200 American prisoners of war from Vietnam to the Soviet
Union, and that the Soviet Union used drugs on the American POWs.

He defected from Czechoslovakia to the United States in 1968. He
is one of the highest-ranking communist leaders ever to escape to the
west.

After his defection, the communists claimed that he was a drug
dealer.

Sejna's information has been used by various people, including
former Soviet expert, the present US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.

Not everyone in Finland likes Sejna. In his memoirs, he described how
Soviet Defence Minister Andrei Grechenko had said during a meeting
that Finland had promised to put its transport facilities at the
disposal of the Soviet Union if war breaks out between the Warsaw Pact
and NATO.

It has not been possible to verify that claim either.


(via Marius)

Russia's Putin says will crack down on unrest

MOSCOW, April 25 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin
declared on Monday that Russia would decide itself how it would
develop democracy and said authorities would crack down on any
"unlawful methods of struggle."

Apparently responding to sharp Western criticism that he is
backsliding on democracy, the Kremlin leader said in a State of
the Nation speech: "Russia .... will decide for itself the pace,
terms and conditions of moving towards democracy.

But he added that this was possible only through legal
means. "Any unlawful methods of struggle ... for ethnic,
religious and other interests contradict the principles of
democracy. The state will react (to such attempts) with legal,
but tough, means."

(Reporting by Oleg Shchedrov)

México desde fuera takes a more pessimistic view of the crisis of power in Mexico, and wonders if Alberto Fujimori might not be a better analogy than Hugo Chávez when considering the potential future role of Manuel López Obrador:

Si como todo parece indicar Peje el Toro se saldrá con la suya y estará en la boleta electoral del 2006, nada le impediría que de ganar la elección de ese año diera un golpe al más puro estilo Fujimori contra la Corte que lo quiso devolver al nivel de ciudadano común y corriente. Con ello las posibilidades de transitar de manera efectiva a la democracia se habrán estrechado una vez más.

Qué triste es pensar así, pero no me cabe duda, en la actualidad en México no hay espacio para la esperanza de que las cosas pudieran mejorar.

Rossana Fuentes Berain, writing in the Washington Post about fears of a populist president in Mexico:

Lopez Obrador may well garner enough support for his cause to get on the ticket, raising this question: Is this populist mayor someone to be feared? Is he another Hugo Chavez, who will create turmoil in domestic and foreign affairs while pursuing an agenda of radical change?

Not likely, I would say. Mexico is not Venezuela. State and federal institutions are strong. We also have a more diversified economy and a private sector less dependent on governmental actions. So, even if he is not defeated at the polls, which he very well could be, we in Mexico would do better to learn to live with him than to risk derailing our young democratic process.

It's clear that no politician should be above the law. But the misdemeanor with which Lopez Obrador is being charged (the building of a road in violation of a court order) should not be allowed to trigger a political crisis that could undermine hard-won economic stability.

This is a situation that requires an enlightened approach by many people. The defendant himself should stop acting as if he would rather play the role of a political martyr than embrace a valid legal defense.

The judiciary should expedite the process and base its action on the legal facts of the case -- not political considerations.

President Vicente Fox has to overcome his obvious dislike for this contender and behave in a statesmanlike manner. As a president who wants to go down in history as a beacon of Mexico's democracy, he needs to understand that it's up to the electorate, not him, to decide whether Lopez Obrador is the right man for the office.

Finally the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) should bet on its proven record of electoral strength rather than reverting to its old, bad habits of rigging the process or the results.

And what should the United States do in this situation? Nothing. At least nothing but sit tight and be patient. I know that's hardly within the nature of an activist country, but it's exactly what Washington needs to do.

Lopez Obrador, should he win, is unlikely to join Chavez and Fidel Castro in a sort of Latin American axis of evil. That is so not only for the institutional reasons mentioned above but because of important economic considerations, the most important being the fact that monetary policy in Mexico is set by an autonomous Central Bank whose head, Guillermo Ortiz, cannot be removed.

As for Lopez Obrador's comments about restructuring Mexico's debt (comments that understandably frighten the markets, given the recent Argentine experience), his economic advisers are adamant in maintaining that this would have to do with renegotiating terms rather than with seeking debt reduction.

Where a Lopez Obrador presidency could really be a problem is in the matter of unfinished structural reforms -- in energy, labor and fiscal affairs. His political shortsightedness could stall long-overdue action in these areas, with unfortunate effects on Mexico's competitiveness with China and other countries.

In a perfect world, this and Lopez Obrador's disregard for the law, as shown in the current case against him, would be enough for the electorate to reject him. In the real world, where there is deep discontent in many parts of the population, he must be regarded as a serious candidate. These are difficult times. We need to weather them and to keep our eyes on the main prize: a long-term North American compact.

The good news is that Mexico has changed radically in the past 20 years. We have chosen a free-market model, our private sector is competing internationally, our citizens are enjoying their freedom to choose -- whether it is consumer products or politicians they are choosing. We will not let that be taken away from us. There is no room for a Chavez in Mexico.

"On 15 April the pro-Kremlin youth organization Nashi (Ours)
held its inaugural congress and elected Vasilii Grigorevich Yakemenko
and four others as leaders of the movement. The same day, retired
chess master Garri Kasparov blamed Nashi for an incident earlier that
day in which a young man attacked him with a chessboard. Many
political analysts -- and Kasparov, apparently -- see the group's
agenda as trying to tap into Russia's growing nationalism and
xenophobia.

"In an interview with kreml.org on 1 March, National Strategy
Institute Vice President Viktor Militarev argued that with Nashi,
Yakemenko has developed a more effective doctrine than he did with
the pro-Putin youth group Walking Together. Instead of 'Putin is our
president and he is always right,' Militarev noted, Yakemenko gives
lectures to youth activists in which he describes 'the American
authorities as our geopolitical opponent and says Russia needs to
defend itself.'"


Julie A. Corwin, writing about the leader of Russia's latest youth movement, Nashi, in Endnote (RFE/RL).

Leonid Nevzlin, Menatep Group owner and majority shareholder in Yukos, has given a press interview:

Asked about the possibility of Putin running for president
for a third term in 2012, Nevzlin said Putin "must think not about
new elections but of the Hague tribunal. He will have to be charged
with Chechnya, the Nord-Ost [theater siege in Moscow in fall 2002],
and the Beslan [school tragedy]," Gazeta.ru reported.

RFE/RL Newsline April 25

An AP report notes that

The UN Human Rights Commission, widely accused of shielding
some governments from criticism, concluded what might be its last
annual meeting Friday with a top UN official calling its performance
"demonstrably deficient.''

During its six-week session, the 53-nation commission condemned human
rights abuses in Belarus, Cuba, North Korea and Myanmar. But it did
not consider potential abuses in Chechnya, China or Zimbabwe.

Louise Arbour, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights,
told the commission at its final session that its performance was
"demonstrably deficient."

"There is something fundamentally wrong with a system in which the
question of the violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms in
any part of the world is answered only by reference to four states,"
said Arbour, a Canadian legal expert.

Other critics say authorities in Russia, China and Zimbabwe — whose
representatives are on the commission — have been shielded from
condemnation. Under UN rules, members are picked by regional groups,
which means that several states which have been criticized for abuses
are on the panel. Countries criticized by the UN body face no
penalties, even though most governments push hard to avoid such censure.

(Via chechnya-sl)

In a very well-reasoned piece in the Observer newspaper, David Aaronovitch comments on the AUT boycott of Israeli universities:

...the object of those wanting peace and justice in the Middle East is to bring about an end to [the] occupation, and enable the establishment of a viable, contiguous Palestinian state. It is to persuade both sides that such a settlement is practical and to persuade both sides to make the difficult sacrifices that are necessary. It is to build confidence between Jews and Palestinians, and to strengthen, always, the hand of the peacemakers.

Unless, of course, you don't believe that Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state at all within any borders. And this, as it happens, seems to be the view of Sue Blackwell, who describes Israel as 'an illegitimate state'. Unlike the United Nations, she does not believe it should have been set up and she would rather it disappeared. As she pointed out in 2003 to a previous AUT council: 'From its very inception, the state of Israel has attracted international condemnation for violating the human rights of the Palestinian people and making war on its neighbours.' Or, to put it even more bluntly, everything is all the fault of the Israelis.

The problem is that many Jews understand very well that this is her view and, unfortunately, will believe that it is also the view of all her fellow campaigners. Consequently, there will now be a battle royal (of which this article is part) about the rights and wrongs of these particular tactics, and the bigger picture will inevitably be lost. Everyone will return to their trenches and take the tarpaulins off their heaviest and most inaccurate artillery.

However, there may be a saving grace. Two years ago, Blackwell predicted that Tony Blair would be ousted at the next general election over Iraq. But if not: 'Then it may well be time for international pressure to be brought to bear, since the British electorate will have failed in their moral duty'.

So, one last reason, perhaps, to vote Labour on Thursday week. To enjoy the sight of Sue Blackwell busily boycotting herself.

via Harry's Place

At Orange Ukraine, Dan McMinn writes that

Pora is still around, or at least the people in the organization are still around. However, during the events in the fall, a second group calling itself Pora also appeared (the original being "Black Pora [ru]" the newer one "Yellow Pora"). Since January the split between the two Poras has made it difficult for the group to establish a Pora party line even though they now have a political party [ru] because at least some would like to get into the Parliament [ru] in the March 2006 election.

The Students for Global Democracy website now has a Belarus Campaign (BELL), to which it's possible to make financial donations. From the campaign literature:

Often referred to as “Europe’s last dictator,” President Lukashenka has openly and consistantly repressed the people of Belarus—eliminating opposition and forcing the nation into both economical and political isolationism. Independent media barely exists in the country and the KGB - which still tellingly goes by the old Soviet moniker - monitors every form of communication. Just recently, the government has demanded that all radio stations submit transcripts of their broadcasts in advance so that Lukashenka’s censors can vet possible criticism of the dictator. The Belarussian president has also given himself the power to appoint all 110 members of the upper house of Parliament—meaning that a body which would normally check the executive’s power does nothing more than rubber-stamp his proposals. Fear runs rampant throughout the nation as Lukashenka stands poised to undo the constitutional term limits of the Belarusian presidency to officially become nothing less than the permanent dictator of Belarus. All opposition has not ceased, however, and lives on in such groups as Zubr, Free Belarus, and Charter 97. Zubr, for example, is the largest civil society group in the nation; completely non-partisan and non-violent, they organize the majority of demonstrations and opposition in Belarus today. Threats of personal or family-related torture, financial ruin, and potential death make the life of a Belarussian democrat a difficult one. In 2004 alone, monitoring groups were able to identify at least 650 acts of repression and violence against Zubr alone. 350 arrests for the distribution of literature, 200 arrests for protest, at least 10 military searches of known Zubr residences, more than 400 days in combined recorded prison time—the Belarussian people are trying their best to receive their entitled freedoms. They have not lost hope for the day when they and their children can decide their livelihoods for themselves. Zubr—as with any group—needs financial aid to operate effectively. Andrei Sannikov, leader of Charter 97 and former Belarussian deputy foreign minister, told SGD President Charlie Szrom how domestic funding is simply impossible due to dire government pressure on whoever attempts to aid the democratic opposition. Andrei spoke of one particular incident that occurred in 2004 when Sannikov met with a business friend in order to attain funding for the Belrusian democrats. The businessman said he thought he could help, and promised to do what he could. Only ten minutes after the meeting’s end, however, the businessman called Sannikov and said he could not help at all. As it turns out, immediately after the meeting, a KGB agent had caught the buisnessman and told him that the government would shut down his business if he gave even a dollar to the opposition. The government also puts extreme pressure on businesses that employ democrats, meaning that simply getting by day-to-day poses a challenge for those who would seek their country’s freedom. In essence, only international funding of groups such as Zubr is possible. Yet, since 2001 such funding has essentially dried up. After the 2001 Belarussian election, Lukashenka began to crack down on those who had run against him in the election to punish them for daring to oppose his rule. Instead of increasing their aid to respond to the worsening situation, most large international donor organizations pulled the majority of their funding. Such organizations also usually demand that aid recipients be officially registered with the Belarussian government—a ridiculous demand considering that Minsk would never officially recognize an organization that seriously threatens its dictatorial status. SGD aims to play a different role than these larger organizations by effectively using its donated funds to achieve the best result possible for the people of Belarus. We listen to those on the ground—the democrats—to determine what is actually needed and how to best change the situation there. We simply want to bring democracy to Belarus, not serve the interests of a bureauratic aid organization with inefficient policies. Together, we can make a true difference in our world and for the people of Belarus—all in a peaceful and powerful way. We ask only for your support in this effort, be it through a monetary contribution or by spreading awareness to colleagues and friends about the drastic need for action to aid the Belarussian people. Help the people of Belarus get the rights they are entitled to and the liberty that should be enjoyed by all people, and note that whatever contribution you can make to this effort will help the bells of freedom ring just that much louder in Belarus.

A debate in which the thoughts are not expressed in the way in which they existed in the mind but in the speaking are so pointed that they may strike home in the sharpest way, and moreover without the men that are spoken to being regarded in any way present as persons; a conversation characterized by the need neither to communicate something, nor to learn something, nor to influence someone, nor to come into connexion with someone, but solely by the desire to have one’s own self-reliance confirmed by marking the impression that is made, or if it has become unsteady to have it strengthened; a friendly chat in which each regard himself as absolute and legitimate and the other as relativized and questionable; a lovers’ talk in which both partners alike enjoy their own glorious soul and their precious experience – what an underworld of faceless spectres of dialogue!

- Martin Buber, Dialogue [Zwiesprache] (1929)

Condoleezza Rice: Lost in Translation

Created: 21.04.2005


Natalia Gevorkian

Gazeta.ru

No, we are not that perfect just yet. We will be perfect only once Ms. Condoleezza Rice, with her difficult character, opens her mouth over Russian television and translators insert a text edited by the Kremlin.

For example: Ms. Rice says that she hopes President Vladimir Putin will not alter the Constitution or try to use his power to remain president. But instead of that we will get the translation: Ms. Rice has said that she has no ambition to become president of the United States. Now, she may have said that, but not at that time, and in this shot she was talking of a different president of a different country. But of course this feminine gossip on the part of the secretary of state doesn't have anything to do with our viewers. Of course, later the secretary of state may argue that she never said those words during that shot or that her right to free speech was violated in Russia, but that would be later. For now, we've missed that train.

Lost in translation - it happens.

During Condoleezza Rice's visit to Moscow a rehearsal of sorts was staged for turning off the microphone when a guest says something that people here in Moscow don't want to hear. First of all, Russian television viewers were not told what it was exactly that Ms. Rice said on the plane just after landing in Moscow. By the way, she spoke about the limits placed on democratic freedoms in Russia. Incidentally, at the time she spoke there was a report of a bomb placed at the hotel where she would be staying, so the television media was focused, on the orders of the Russian president, on the fight against terrorism.

That was the first day of Ms. Rice's visit. When it turned out that there was neither a bomb nor any terrorists to be found, they decided to give at least some sort of information - after all, it was the second day, and the lady was always talking about something. So they reported briefly that Ms. Rice is concerned about freedom of speech in Russia in general and on the Internet in particular. That's exactly what they said - the Internet. And here Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov gave a press conference where he announced that yes, they spoke of freedom of speech, but that he, the minister, doesn't quite understand what is meant when people speak of freedom of speech "in general,"that we need concrete examples. Ms. Rice gave a specific example, but it looked like Mr. Lavrov did not understand it. She stressed that when she spoke about freedom of speech problems in the "electronic media," she specifically meant television and not the Internet, as it was "translated" for the Russian public. The woman knew what she was doing. She understood who and why "mistranslated" her words, and insisted on a correction, which, as unfortunate as this was for Mr.Lavrov, was broadcast on television.

That same day, speaking on Ekho Moskvy radio, which is not prone to mistranslations, Ms. Rice said that during her meeting with Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov she was successful in getting more American access to Russia's nuclear objects. Sergei Ivanov rushed to deny Ms. Rice's statements, saying that they did not touch on this topic at all during their meeting. For fairness' sake, however, that there was no mistake in translation here. Ekho asked Ms. Rice to clarify her answer several times, and she did so. Ivanov, meanwhile, made his statement in Russian. Moreover, Ivanov and Rice already found a common language some time ago, and it was English. So it would be hard to imagine that during their meeting the translator mistranslated part of their conversation. Either they did not agree on what to tell the press, or Rice did not see the need to hide her "little victory," while Ivanov
found it unpleasant to admit that the Russian side gave in to the secretary of state.

Ms. Rice is a very smart lady. Yes, it's possible not to tell the Russian viewer everything, to fail to mention something, or to "mistranslate" something. But this lady understood everything perfectly, I assure you. This experience with Russia's "freedom" of speech for a leader of her rank is priceless. Someone tried to cut and edit the U.S. secretary of state to put her in line with state television's information policy. The attempt failed, because the woman caught on. But the attempt was made, and that is sad. It's wrong to show such cowardice, especially to a lady.

A disgraceful decision:


* Israel universities - statement by AUT general secretary Sally Hunt *
*
* AUT Council today decided to boycott Haifa University and the Bar-Ilan University. *

*
The executive committee will issue guidance to AUT members on these decisions.

Council delegates also referred a call to boycott the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the executive committee will investigate the background to this and will report in due course.

Council delegates also agreed to circulate to all local associations a statement from Palestinian organisations calling for an academic boycott of Israeli institutions.


via LGF and Harry's Place

From today's RFE/RL Newsline:

RUSSIAN PRESIDENT CONFIRMS MISSILES WILL BE SENT TO SYRIA; 'JOKE' UPSETS ISRAEL.

Vladimir Putin announced in an interview on 21 April with the Israeli television station Ayal Hasson ahead of a visit to Israel and Egypt on 28 April that Russia has decided to complete a deal with Syria for advanced Igla (SA-18) antiaircraft missiles despite the objections of Jerusalem and Washington, Russian and international media reported. Asked whether the deal will spark security fears in Israel, Putin said jokingly: "It will, of course, make it difficult to fly over the residence of the Syrian president," the "Jerusalem Post" reported on 21 April. Reacting to Putin's statement, the daily "Ha'aretz" wrote on 21 April that "Russia fights terrorism with one hand but with the other it helps a state that supports terrorists." Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said on 20 April that Israel does not accept the Russian assessment that antiaircraft missiles pose no threat to Israel, "Ha'aretz" reported. "What concerns us is that they can find their way into the hands of terrorist organizations," Sharon said. VY

In connection with IAJE, Ian Darrington writes that "In order to ensure that the UK and its members are well represented within the organisation the IAJE UK has been created. A constitution has been drafted and an organising committee has been set up to promote and develop membership and raise funds. Additionally, it is intended in 2005 to begin the distribution of a regular newsletter."

Ian notes that "it has been acutely difficult to persuade UK jazz musicians of the values of IAJE membership with many seeing it as exclusively American." Hopefully the new organisation will do something to counter that.

From the NATO meetings in Vilnius, Lithuania, news that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has met Belarusian dissidents. The BBC reports:

She told them there will be "a road to democracy in Belarus", which she has described as the "last true dictatorship" in central Europe. She defended the right to public protests and called for a free media as well as credible elections.

Modern intelligence is in utter confusion. Knowledge has become so diffuse that the world and the mind have lost all point of reference. It is a fact that we are suffering from nihilism. But the most amazing things are the admonitions to “turn backward.” Return to the Middle Ages, to primitive mentality, to the soil, to religion, to the arsenal of worn-out solutions. To grant a shadow of efficacy to those panaceas, we should have to act as if our acquired knowledge had ceased to exist, as if we had learned nothing, and pretend in short to erase what is inerasable. We should have to cancel the contribution of several centuries and the incontrovertible acquisitions of a mind that has finally (in its last step forward) re-created chaos on its own. That is impossible – in order to be cured, we must make our peace with this lucidity, this clairvoyance. We must take into account the glimpses we have suddenly had of our exile. Intelligence is in confusion not because knowledge has changed everything. It is so because it cannot accept that change. It hasn’t “got accustomed to that idea.” When this does happen, the confusion will disappear. Nothing will remain but the change and the clear knowledge that the mind has of it. There’s a whole civilization to be reconstructed.

- Camus, Notebooks (1942)

If one believes in moral value, one believes in all morality, even and including sexual morality. The reform is total.

- Camus, Notebooks (1946)

In a world that has ceased to believe in sin, the artist is responsible for the preaching. But if the priest's words carried, this is because they were fed by example. Hence the artist strives to become an example. This is why he is shot or deported, to his great distress. Besides, virtue is not learned so rapidly as the handling of a submachine gun. The fight is unequal.

- Camus, Notebooks (1948)

Two Poems by Tua Forsström

Tua Forsström was born in 1947 in Porvoo, Finland, and lives in Tenala. She made her literary debut in 1972 with the collection En dikt om kärlek och annat (A poem about love and other things). She has worked as a publisher's editor at the Finland-Swedish firm of Söderströms in Helsinki, but for most of her life has been a full-time writer. Forsström has won more literary awards than any other Finnish poet of her generation, and is as well-known in Sweden as in her homeland. Her collections of poetry have been translated into Finnish, Danish, Dutch, French, Spanish and English.

The two poems here are from Parkerna [The Parks] (1996). [my tr.]



The snow whirls over
Tenala churchyard

We light candles so that
the dead will be less

lonely, we believe they are
subject to the same laws

as ourselves. The lights twinkle restlessly:
perhaps the dead are longing for

company, we know nothing of
their doings, the snow whirls

The dead are silent as cotton.
A flock of thin children who

inaudibly take one step closer
They look at us closely for a

moment: is it because they’ve
forgotten, or remember? The snow

whirls over Tenala churchyard

As when you in
over a city at night at

low altitude: the lights become
motorways, the headlamps of

the traffic, you arrive
from somewhere

Soon you are driving along a
road, one of the twinkling

lights in the whirling snow






We make such a pitiful
sight that the circus-master
is in tears. What is more, we’re cold. Ach!
He wishes us to hell, he wishes
this muddy market-place in Ekenäs to
hell, with eyes closed he leaves
this slush-puddle for the continent, a
different place: where the ballerina’s lace isn’t
dirty, where the trapeze artist doesn’t
smell of spirits, where the lion doesn’t stare
despondently. Where cracks don’t open
in the powder. Where cracks don’t open
anywhere! The circus-master doesn’t know
any such city, but it is painful to
grow old and remember without pain. Somewhere
the horses’ coats are shining, spangles,
glitter, the audience roars far away
from these bumpkins. There it is never
October with snow-mingled rain, there art
is memory and shimmering coins.

Siberian Light has a link to a briefing given by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice en route to Moscow. As the blog points out, some of Rice's comments are particularly interesting, including one that suggests she thinks Putin will seek a third term as Russia's President. The blog also rightly points to Rice's even-handedness:

It is a fascinating insight into how Condoleezza Rice views Russia, and I have to say her comments seem very well balanced to me - she was quite prepared to dish out praise as well as criticism where it is warranted.

In Jamestown Foundation's Chechnya Weekly (April 20) John B. Dunlop contributes the following article:

RUB ‘EM OUT IN THE CRAPPER!

The First Channel (Russian state television) serves de facto as the most influential voice of the Putin regime, reaching as it does into nearly every village and hamlet in the vast sprawl that is the Russian Republic. One of the best-known political commentators on the First Channel is journalist Mikhail Leontyev, who has his own television program called "Odnako" (However). According to Moscow-resident and pro-Kremlin Chechen, Shamil Beno, Leontyev is "a propagandist whom they appreciate a lot in the Kremlin." Leontyev recently featured the following grisly scene on one of his programs, Beno said in an item published on kavkaz-forum.ru on April 4: "On Leontyev's program, ‘Odnako,' they showed this: someone is coming out of a basement [in Chechnya] dragging after him a toilet seat. He says: ‘It smells in there. You see, they just rubbed Maskhadov out in the crapper…'"

Leontyev's crude "humor" concerning the March 8 killing of Chechen separatist president Aslan Maskhadov was intended to recall Russian President Vladimir Putin's gangster-like vow, made in the autumn of 1999, to "rub out the bandits in the crapper." The seemingly endless Russo-Chechen conflict, with its tens of thousands of civilians killed, as well as the marked rise of xenophobia in Russia in recent years, are traceable in no small part back to the sentiments expressed in Putin's vengeful promise.

In an item published by kavkaz-forum.ru on March 28 under the provocative title "The Chechen people interest no-one," Leontyev elaborated on the theme addressed in his television program. "From the political point of view," Leontyev underlined, Maskhadov's killing "represents a great success for Russia." Now, for example, the U.S. State Department is no longer able to whine, "We continue to insist that the sole way out [of the Chechen conflict] is a political resolution," a refrain which represented "a mockery of Russia."

As for the Europeans, Leontyev continued, they should now stop simpering over the rash of kidnappings in Chechnya, particularly those carried out by the pro-Moscow Kadyrovites. True, the Kadyrovites are bandits, but they are pro-Russian bandits fighting anti-Russian bandits. Those who seek to apply European human rights standards to the Caucasus are "cretins" and "sick people."

Leontyev's cynical commentary seems to be the authentic voice of the Putin regime as it is addressed to the Russian populace. It should be noted that the regime's treatment of Maskhadov's body, which was publicly displayed stripped to waist, as well as the gleeful celebration of his having been "rubbed out," have proved deeply offensive to virtually all Chechens, who believe that his remains ought to have been turned over to his family for a proper Muslim burial. One Russian specialist, Maksim Shevchenko, noted on kavkaz-forum.ru on March 22: "I have to work a great deal with [pro-Moscow] Chechens, the Zavgaevites and Kadyrovites, and, especially after the defilement of the body of Aslan Maskhadov, even the enemies of Maskhadov say that with the Kremlin, with this Moscow, which treats a deceased person in such a fashion we cannot have any dealings." Other visitors to Chechnya have reported similar reactions.

Aimed at Russian intellectuals, kavkaz-forum.ru and the associated website polit.ru, recently provided the transcript of a lengthy round-table discussion containing remarks made by specialists on what Maskhadov's killing tells us about Putin and the Russian leadership as a whole. "What does the death of Maskhadov demonstrate?" asked Ida Kulklina, a member of the Public Council of the President of the Russian Federation to Assist the Development of the Institutions of a Civil Society. "First," she answered, "[Maskhadov's elimination] is a gesture by which the Kremlin showed that it intends to ‘rub them out in the crapper' to the end. In addition, it liquidated the last symbol of legitimacy in Chechnya…. The Russian side says ‘crappers,' "rub them out to the end.' What does ‘to the end' mean? On average, the group [of separatist fighters] is estimated at between 1,500 and 2,500. You kill two thousand of them, and another two thousand appear. It is an endless process, one not conducive to negotiation but rather to a continuation of the war."

Sergei Gradirovsky, chief advisor to the Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the Volga Federal District, focused on Putin's deepest psychological impulses in his comments: "There is of course," Gradirovsky said, "a fear of Khasavyurt [the town where the 1994-1996 war came to a negotiated end], a fantastic fear of appearing weak, because negotiations, especially negotiations with Maskhadov, could be interpreted as the weakness of the Kremlin and, in particular, the weakness of the president."

In addition to an intense fear of appearing weak, there was, Gradirovsky believes, an additional element of personal vengeance in Putin's decision to liquidate Maskhadov: "He [Putin] could not agree to negotiations [with Maskhadov], it would have been a personal humiliation before a man who said: ‘God is above us, but the kozly (billy-goats) are below us.'" As pro-democracy journalist, Andrei Piontkovsky, has written: "When British Prime Minister Tony Blair…timidly reproached Putin for annihilating Grozny, Putin replied sincerely and with conviction. It turns out that one of the Chechen rebels called him a ‘kozyol' – something close to ‘bastard'. In the St. Petersburg courtyard of his childhood, such insults were never forgiven. Turning Grozny into Dresden or Hiroshima is, in Putin's understanding, a perfectly suitable response to being called a bastard." (Quoted in Matthew Evangelista, The Chechen Wars, 2002, p. 74)

If Kuklina and Gradirovsky (both employees of the Putin regime) are correct, an intense fear of appearing weak coupled with a strong psychological impulse to avenge a perceived insult is behind Maskhadov's killing.

But what motivated the separatist president in the lead-up to his assassination? Grani.ru reported in a piece published on April 6 entitled, "Aslan Maskhadov was lured into a trap under the pretext of negotiations," that Maskhadov spent his last days living under the illusion that the Russian authorities, assisted by the Europeans, seriously intended to negotiate a settlement to the bloody conflict with him. "[Maskhadov] descended to the lowlands, where there are more federal troops and more Kadyrov police about, actively made use of a mobile phone, conducted several meetings, moving from place to place. In so doing, it should be specially remarked, he constantly called upon the [separatist] field commanders to strictly observe a cease-fire."

According to Taisa Isaeva, director of the Information Center of the Council of Non-Governmental Organizations of Chechnya, copies of a tape of one of Maskhadov's last interviews – perhaps his last – have been circulating among human rights activists. "In this interview," Isaeva said in an item posted by the hro.org website on April 5, "the President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria speaks about impending peace negotiations with Russia. In so doing, he names those countries that are to serve as intermediaries in the impending political dialogue between him and the Russian side. In Maskhadov's words, the ministries of foreign affairs of Germany and Switzerland were to assist in the negotiations. To one or another extent, representatives of the OSCE were also to take part. These proposals had been transmitted to Aslan Maskhadov through his special representative [in Europe] Umar Khambiev…" It was because of these perceived fast-approaching negotiations that Maskhadov was insisting that "the unilateral ceasefire declared by him be observed."

So there seems to be evidence that at the end of his life Maskhadov was energetically seeking to help bring an end to the second Russo-Chechen war, as he and the late General Aleksandr Lebed had earlier stopped the bloodshed of the first conflict in 1996. But the Kremlin, we now understand, had a different scenario in mind.

John B. Dunlop is a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. He is an expert on Russia's two wars in Chechnya, nationalism in the former Soviet Union, Russian cultural politics, and the politics of religion in Russia.

At Harry's Place, David Hirsh has a round-up of the current state of the controversy over the proposed AUT boycott of Israeli academics. The arguments for and against are apparently being thrashed out almost entirely in the columns of the Guardian newspaper, with the actual AUT debate due to take place this week.

David Hirsh writes:

In yesterday’s Guardian there were letters signed by 262 academics setting out 3 different but overlapping arguments against boycotting Israeli academia. In Today’s Guardian there is a reply from those who are proposing the academic boycott . Also this leader in the Guardian and this story written by an Israeli, so if you’re in favour of the boycott, you are not allowed to read it.

The pro-boycott argument goes like this: Israel is, like the old South Africa an apartheid state. We know what to do with apartheid states – we boycott them. This is their only argument. They do not address any of the criticisms made in the 3 letters.

An AP report focuses on the story of Tadeusz Olizarowicz, an 81-year-old Pole who spent 8 years in Stalin's prison camps, suffered a crushed fingertip and still has headaches that were the consequence of a mine explosion: "I am an old man ... I feel it very strongly," Tadeusz Olizarowicz said. "It all has a negative effect on my emotions and my health."

As the world prepares to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II on May 9, the mood in Poland and other former communist republics is less than celebratory. Here, the feeling is that the end of the war simply replaced one horror -- Hitler's -- with another -- Stalin's.

Poland was forced into the Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact, while the Baltic countries -- Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania -- were incorporated into the Soviet Union. They did not regain their freedom until the collapse of communism in eastern Europe 15 years ago.

The lingering bitterness has led Presidents Arnold Ruutel of Estonia and Valdas Adamkus of Lithuania to refuse invitations to Moscow for the May 9 celebrations, though Presidents Vaira Vike-Freiberga of Latvia and Aleksandar Kwasniewski of Poland will attend.

That Olizarowicz had already been thrown into a Nazi camp didn't help him with the Soviets. Today, he remembers the Nazis and Soviets as "equally bad."

"If you did something bad in the German camp, a guard would take out a gun and kill you immediately," he recalled. "But in a Soviet camp, they would starve you to death so the death was longer and more painful and then they would shoot you and finish you off with a sickle."

Olizarowicz's "crime" was serving in Poland's Home Army, the clandestine force that fought the Nazis, and which the Soviets feared would remain a rallying point for resistance. Convicted in 1947 of "anti-Soviet activity," he was among nearly 800,000 Poles, Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians shipped to labor camps.

During the train ride in cramped cattle cars, Soviet guards would count their prisoners by hitting them. They fed them only salty dried fish while denying them water on hot summer days. In a camp in Minsk, in Belarus, where he spent a year laying bricks before being taken to Siberia, Olizarowicz saw guards slashing the corpses of inmates to make sure they were dead.

The report adds:

Today, resentment is stoked by the perceived unwillingness of today's Russian authorities to acknowledge the suffering.

(via Marius)

Roy Medvedev, on what Russians have to be proud of after 15 years of postcommunism.

At the website of the Council on Foreign Relations, Uffe Ellemann-Jensen, who was Denmark's Foreign Minister from 1982 to 1993, writes eloquently about the struggle of the Baltic States for the restoration of their independence:

I believe that the free world is sustained by the presence of American power and America's willingness to use that power against those who threaten us. Even though the Baltics did obtain their freedom, it is adequate to question whether it was the right decision to leave the Baltics on their own during these critical days in January 1991. The Baltics stood up bravely, much to the surprise of the Soviet leaders who had completely underestimated popular resistance. Nevertheless, Gorbachev could easily have ordered a bloody end to the independence movements in the Baltics.

(Via MAK)

As the May 9 Moscow meeting, ostensibly being held in order to commemorate the victory over Nazism, approaches, Yury Vdovin, who was 7 years old on May 9, 1945, reflects on Russia's own resurgent fascism:

On the face of it, there would seem to be no way for fascist ideology to take root in Russia. But in the 1970s, it was widely rumored that youth groups professing a fascist or quasi-fascist ideology had been rounded up by the authorities. Fascist literature and regalia had been confiscated along with weapons. According to the rumors -- which have never been confirmed -- the children of highly placed party functionaries and of top brass in the KGB and the Interior Ministry belonged to these underground fascist organizations. This was long before glasnost, of course. The rumors nevertheless received a mixed response. On the one hand, people were pleased with the chekists for rounding up these groups. On the other hand, they found it difficult to believe that such groups could exist in a country that had suffered so terribly from fascism.

Those rumors from the 1970s would have long been forgotten if not for the recent surge of xenophobia, racism, religious intolerance and nationalism that quickly spilled over into plain old Nazism.

In the early 1990s, an organization called Pamyat, or Memory, responded to a natural desire to restore values lost during the Soviet era with an ideology of Russian superiority. Pamyat's ideologues didn't shy away from using terminology and regalia -- black shirts and armbands -- based on Nazi models.

Pamyat eventually disappeared, but it gave rise to hundreds of as-yet-uncoordinated fascist, nationalist and xenophobic organizations across the country, all claiming to defend Russia against alien elements that are ostensibly turning Russians into drunks, swindling them in the marketplace and stealing their jobs.

The authorities traditionally regarded such developments as the work of agents of influence and fifth columns. In fact, in times of social and economic instability, the regime has always sought to deflect popular discontent by blaming the current state of affairs on various enemies.

In recent years, Russia has been gripped by serious socioeconomic instability. When the Soviet system collapsed, it left a legacy of empty shelves and a socialist economy incapable of meeting the country's basic needs. The constant shortage of food, the lack of goods and services, and the terrible living conditions in dormitories and communal apartments all reached a breaking point in the early 1990s. To get out of this mess, the country needed new leaders capable of implementing new ideas. Instead, the old party nomenklatura retained control of the country's chief resources and went about reforming them insofar as their limited understanding of reform and democracy allowed. As a result, a chosen few thrived while most people endured grinding poverty.

This created an opportunity for Pamyat, the skinheads and faux patriots to capitalize on this popular discontent, blaming people's atrocious living conditions not on the political leadership, but on oligarchs , merchants and minorities.

At the same time, Russia's "traditional" religions -- which often leave little room for Catholics, Protestants, atheists or the non-religious -- began to assert themselves. Nationalists of all stripes, intentionally set loose by the authorities, have gone to war against anyone they consider "alien." Hundreds of newspaper and web sites advocate ridding the country of non-Russians. Meanwhile, there are numerous attacks on and killings of non-Russian university students, workers and even defenseless young girls.

Yet the trials of neo-fascist groups drag on for years. Evidence is analyzed by expert after expert until one of them finally concludes that the obviously inflammatory texts involved do not incite ethnic hatred. Those convicted of promoting Nazism, fascism and racial intolerance have even been amnestied in connection with Russia's victory over the Nazis.

In the short term, the regime clearly benefits from shifting the blame for the country's woes onto "alien" elements. But in the long term, the country as a whole suffers as people are made to believe that they are superior to others simply because they were born into the right ethnic group. This mindset is almost a guarantee of future tragedies.

(Via MAK)

"I have not the possibility of judging Luther, who refused fellowship with Zwingli in Marburg, or Calvin who furthered the death of Servetus. For Luther and Calvin believe that the Word of God has so descended among men that it can be clearly known and must therefore be exclusively advocated. I do not believe that; the Word of God crosses my vision like a falling star to whose fire the meteorite will bear witness without making it light up for me, and I myself can only bear witness to the light but not produce the stone and say "This is it". But this difference of faith is by no means to be understood merely as a subjective one. It is not based on the fact that we who live today are weak in faith, and it will remain even if our faith is ever so much strengthened. The situation of the world itself, in the most serious sense, more precisely the relation between God and man, has changed. And this change is certainly not comprehended in its essence by our thinking only of the darkening, so familiar to us, of the supreme light, only of the night of our being, empty of revelation. It is the night of an expectation - not of a vague hope, but of an expectation. We expect a theophany of which we know nothing but the place, and the place is called community. In the public catacombs of this expectation there is no single God's Word which can be clearly known and advocated, but the words delivered are clarified for us in our human situation of being turned to one another. There is no obedience to the coming one without loyalty to his creature. To have experienced this is our way."

Martin Buber, Dialogue [Zwiesprache] (1929)

vm.ee reports that

according to a recent survey 70 per cent of election-age Estonian citizens are in favour of Estonia's membership in the European Union (EU); the support has been stable for the past five months.

The AS Emor poll carried out in March revealed that 70 per cent of the election-age citizens interviewed were in favour and 24 percent against Estonian membership in the EU, with five percent unable to take a stance.

The percentage of support for Estonia's membership in the EU has been stable since last November at 67-70 percent of election-age citizens.

Sixty-two percent of election-age citizens and 58 percent of all respondents had heard at least something about the EU constitutional treaty.

Television and newspapers are still regarded as the main sources of information about the treaty. The role of the radio as a source of information has slightly increased.

Forty-four percent of election-age citizens regard the treaty as useful. There are as many of those who are unable to say whether the treaty is beneficial or harmful for Estonia. Four percent of election-age citizens think the treaty is disadvantageous.

CNN Late Edition had a short discussion with Zbigniew Brzezinski and Henry Kissinger about the upcoming May 9 meeting in Moscow, and President Bush's part in it. From the transcript:

BLITZER: All right. We don't have a lot of time, but I want your thoughts, Dr. Brzezinski, because I know you have some serious thoughts on this subject: 60 years, the end of World War Two. There's going to be a big meeting coming up in Moscow, in Russia. What do you anticipate, the opportunities, the pitfalls of what's about to happen?

BRZEZINSKI: The opportunity is for reconciliation between Russia and its neighbors in Europe, particularly those who were occupied by Stalinism. The risk is that a celebration of the defeat of Hitlerism might become a celebration of the victory of Stalinism.

And just consider who is invited. In addition to the democratic leaders, foremost President Bush among them, standing with him there near the mausoleum for Lenin will be Kim Jong Il of North Korea, whom the president has described as a despot -- he's been invited now; Niyazov, the dictator of Turkmenistan; Lukashenko, the dictator of Belarus; and General Jaruzelski, the repressor of solidarity in Poland.

These have been invited as official guests to be with the democratic leaders.

BLITZER: So what your fear is that Russia, that Russians, could get nostalgic for Stalin? Is that what you're saying?

BRZEZINSKI: Well, there is a tendency in Russia in that direction. I don't think it should be internationally sanctioned.

But more importantly, I think what is being missed here is the opportunity for denunciation of Stalinism, reconciliation with the Baltic Republics and the others who harbor grievances for being occupied by Stalin. And I think Putin is missing that, and I think the president runs the risk of being embarrassed in the photo opportunity of the kind I described.

BLITZER: I'll give you very briefly the last word, Dr. Kissinger. You want to weigh in on it?

KISSINGER: I think the fact the president is stopping in Latvia on the way in and in Georgia on the way out symbolizes that there is a new order in Eastern Europe and...

BRZEZINSKI: That's right.

KISSINGER: ... that the Stalinist domination of Eastern Europe is decidedly over. There is that danger, but I think fundamentally the itinerary of the president is more significant than the visits of these relics of the Stalinist system.

BLITZER: We'll leave it right there. Dr. Kissinger and Dr. Brzezinski, thank you, to both of you, very much for joining us. Always an interesting conversation -- we always learn something when both of you are on this program. Thanks very much.

(Hat tip: Marius)

From Tallinn, Estonia, a correspondent writes:

Mart Niklus was released a few months before the other well-known Estonian prisoner Enn Tarto. Both continued to languish in Soviet camps for years after the beginning of "glasnost" and "perestroika". They had been incarcerated for speaking out for human rights - something that the new Soviet "openness" under Gorbachev supposedly no longer criminalized.

Estonian ex-Gulag prisoners urge world leaders to shun Moscow V-day event

TALLINN, April 13 (AFP) - Two Estonians who were held in labour camps as political prisoners during the Soviet occupation of the Baltic state urged world leaders in a letter published Wednesday to boycott events in Moscow on May 9 to mark the end of World War II.

"Seeking to divert the attention of the world from both past and present crimes, the leaders of the Russian Federation intend to stage on May 9 a grand propaganda event to which leaders of many countries have been invited," the ex-prisoners, Kalju Matik and Mart Niklus, said in their open letter, which was sent to the leaders of five countries.

The letter is addressed to US President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Jacques Chirac, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, all of whom have accepted Russian President Vladimir Putin's invitation to the May 9 ceremonies.

The two ex-prisoners said that the only way world leaders could justify their attendance at the event would be by presenting a joint demand that amends be made for crimes committed by the former Soviet Union and, more recently, Russia.

The letter cites atrocities carried out against civilians during the five-decade Soviet occupation of the Baltic States and Poland, including deportations and the mass murder, as well as in present-day Chechnya, where tens of thousands of civilians have been killed over the last decade as separatists battle the Russian army.

Matik spent six years in a forced labour camp in Russia and Niklus more than 16 years in Soviet prisons and camps in the 1970s for "anti-Soviet" activities. Niklus was only set free in 1988.

"Expressing the sense of Congress that the Government of the Russian
Federation should issue a clear and unambiguous statement of admission and
condemnation of the illegal occupation and annexation by the Soviet Union
from 1940 to 1991 of the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania."

House Bill Number: H.CON.RES. 128
Sponsor: Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL)
Last Sponsor Date: Apr. 12, 2005

Official Title as Introduced: 'Expressing the sense of Congress that the Government of the Russian Federation should issue a clear and unambiguous statement of admission and condemnation of the illegal occupation and annexation by the Soviet Union from 1940 to 1991 of the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. '

Sponsor/Co-sponsor(s) 9
Apr. 12, 2005 Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA)
Apr. 12, 2005 Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)
Apr. 12, 2005 Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI)
--- Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL)
Apr. 12, 2005 Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX)
Apr. 12, 2005 Rep. David Dreier (R-CA)
Apr. 12, 2005 Rep. James McGovern (D-MA)
Apr. 12, 2005 Rep. Christopher Cox (R-CA)
Apr. 12, 2005 Rep. Michael Rogers (R-MI)

Text of Resolution:
http://www.postimees.ee/140405/gfx/13013425e6abe0f91f.doc

House Concurrent Resolution 128
109th CONGRESS
1st SESSION
H.CON.RES. 128
Expressing the sense of Congress that the Government of The Russian Federation should issue a clear and unambiguous statement of admission and condemnation of the illegal occupation and annexation by the Soviet Union from 1940 to 1991 of the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Whereas the incorporation in 1940 of the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania into the Soviet Union was an act of aggression carried out against the will of sovereign people;
Whereas the United States was steadfast in its policy of not recognizing the illegal Soviet annexation of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania;
Whereas the Russian Federation is the successor state to the Soviet Union;
Whereas the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 [Hitler Stalin Pact of 1939], including its secret protocols, between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union provided the Soviet Union with the opportunity to occupy and annex Estonia,Latvia, and Lithuania;
Whereas the occupation brought countless suffering to the Baltic peoples through terror, killings, and deportations to Siberian concentration camps;
Whereas the people of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania bravely resisted Soviet
aggression first through armed resistance movements and later through political resistance movements;
Whereas, in 1989, the Congress of Peoples' Deputies of the Soviet Union declared the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of the 1939 void;
Whereas the illegal occupation and annexation of the Baltic countries is one of the largest remaining unacknowledged incidents of oppression in Russian history;
Whereas a declaration of acknowledgment of such incident by the Russian Federation would lead to improved relations between the people of Estonia,Latvia, and Lithuania and the people of Russia, would form the basis for improved relations between the government of the countries and strengthen stability in the region;
Whereas the Russian Federation is to be commended for beginning to acknowledge grievous and regrettable incidents in their history, such as admitting complicity in the massacre of Polish soldiers in the Katyn Forest in 1939;
Whereas the truth is a powerful weapon for healing, forgiving, and reconciliation, but its absence breeds distrust, fear, and hostility;
and Whereas countries that cannot clearly admit their historical mistakes and
make peace with their pasts cannot successfully build their futures:

Now, therefore, be it:
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That it is the sense of Congress that the Government of the Russian Federation should issue a clear and unambiguous statement of admission and condemnation of the illegal occupation and annexation by the Soviet Union from 1940 to 1991 of the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, the consequence of which will be a significant increase in the good will among the affected people and enhanced regional stability


Cosponsors needed for H. Con. Res. 128

The Resolution has been referred to the Subcommittee on Europe of the House International Relations Committee. However, before the Subcommittee can act on HCR 128, we need to have 25 cosponsors.

To Contact Your Congresspersons

You can find who your congresspersons are by going on the Internet and contacting Thomas Guide to Government: http://thomas.loc.gov/. You will need to have your 9 digit zip code. You can also send e-mails to Congress from the Thomas Guide.

(via MAK)

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is due to make a two-day visit to Moscow this week, starting tomorrow (her schedule also includes a stop in Lithuania, for a NATO meeting). Ahead of the visit, Reuters reports that

the former Soviet specialist will visit Moscow to shore up a deal meant to stop anti-American militants from stealing Russian nuclear material while stemming what her predecessor called Russia's democratic backsliding. With many Russians suspicious Washington wants to curb their country's development and influence abroad, Rice said she would stress the benefits for the Russian economy and its relations with the West if it improves its democratic record. "My message there will be that a democratic and vibrant and prosperous Russia is in everyone's interests," said Rice...

Not everyone is hopeful about the outcome of the Moscow meetings. Richard Lugar, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is quoted as saying: "Even as relations with Europe are improving, tensions continue in the U.S.-Russian relationship. Russia's retreat from democracy at home and its attempts to influence elections abroad have raised considerable concern..."
(via MAK)

Gosia Wozniacka, a student journalist at UC Berkeley, has a moving and vivid column in the San Francisco Chronicle on her personal experience of life and politics in Belarus:

I came to a halt just next to the "Belarus Lives" banner where the riot police were pulling out their batons. And at the very second they launched themselves on the protesters, my microphone stopped working and the camera ran out of film. Empty handed, I faced KGB agents in long, black coats and heard the first skulls crack.

"Come closer," one agent beckoned, grinning, motioning to the melee. Beside me, two police officers had a young boy by his jacket -- one of the several thousand demonstrators disputing a rigged parliamentary election. They were kicking and beating him enthusiastically with nightsticks. The boy looked like a frail, flailing bird with outstretched wings. "Come snap a photo," the agent hissed.

Wait a minute, I told myself: The Soviet Union collapsed 14 years ago. My own country of birth, Poland, had already galloped toward full-fledged democracy, and neighboring Ukraine was just then boiling on the edge of revolution. So why did this poker-faced goon seem so confident? Didn't he know he looked like a bad Hollywood stand-in?

My fists and stomach clenched. Images of militiamen beating up Polish protesters, agents searching my family flat, and tanks rolling through Gdansk, Warsaw, Budapest and Prague flashed through my mind. My father had been interned for six months. We fled communism looking for a better life. But that was in another age, before the Iron Curtain crumbled and wildly celebrating East Germans dismantled the Berlin Wall stone by stone.

Why, I wondered, hadn't Belarus heard the news? This question was already on my mind when I first arrived in the capital, Minsk, to see the land that time forgot, the last petrified outpost of European communism.

In the Moscow Times, Vladimir Kovalev muses on documentary footage showing Soviet soldiers in 1940 opening the gates in the border fence between Estonia and the Soviet Union. It's footage that is unlikely to be shown in Russia today:

One question was stuck in my head as I watched the screen. Would the 60 percent of Russian citizens who, according to a recent public opinion poll, believe that the Baltic states are hostile, be happy about some idiot breaking into their apartment and smashing their belongings? But let's give credit where credit is due. The average Russian's biased approach to the question of invasion is in many cases inspired by the country's leadership, which shouts to the four winds about its wish to be integrated into European society but at home sows the seeds of nationalism.

It is well known that deep down, many people in Eastern Europe still consider Russia a potential enemy. The reason for this is clear: Those who do not admit mistakes are wont to repeat them.

It is unlikely that Russia will repeat the history of occupation today, but the unpleasant memories are still there. Russia, as well as Russian people traveling to Europe, has a certain image abroad because of the Soviet Union's actions in the past. To change things for the better, the Kremlin should review its foreign policy and start presenting the country as a tolerant state that is open to Europe and its history and intentions.

Russia has a long way to go to achieve this, but we have to start moving in this direction some day if we want to become a civilized nation.

(via MAK)

Douglas Davis, author of a new book, Israel in the World: Changing Lives Through Innovation, said: “Some British universities are reminiscent of Germany in the 1930s. Let us not forget that the first place Hitler had Jews banned from was the universities.”

From an article in today's London Sunday Times about the proposed AUT boycott of Israeli academics.

The best and most comprehensive review of Angels in America I've been able to find online is the one by Daniel Mendelsohn in the New York Review of Books. Mendelsohn pinpoints many of the movie's strengths and virtues, but also lays emphasis on what he sees as a major failing: Kushner's "desertion" of Joe Pitt, the play's (and the movie's) central character:

Of all the sufferers in Angels, only Joe is left alone at the end, the only character who is neither forgiven nor redeemed in a way that conforms to Kushner's sense of "Perestroika" as a "comedy."

Why is this? When you look over the cast of characters in Angels and think about whom we're supposed to sympathize with, and who gets forgiven, you can't help noticing that the most sympathetic, the "best" characters are either ill, or women, or black, or Jewish. Looking over this rather PC list, it occurs to you to wonder whether, in the worldview of this play's creator, the reason why Joe Pitt, who alone of the characters is the most genuinely and interestingly torn, who in fact seeks love the hardest and suffers the most for self-knowledge, can't be forgiven by his creator, and is the only character who goes unredeemed in some way at the end of the play, is that he's a healthy, uninfected, white, Anglo-Saxon, male Christian. This in turn makes you realize how much of the second part of this play depends, from the in-joke of San Francisco as Heaven to the closing scene in which Prior addresses the audience and in a valedictory blessing vapidly declares us all to be "fabulous creatures, each and every one," on a certain set of glib, feel-good, politically correct gay assumptions about the world, assumptions that in the end undercut the ambitions and, occasionally, the pretensions of what has come before. I, for one, would have respected much more a play that invited its presumably liberal, often largely gay or gay-friendly audiences to see as its central and truly tragic figure a white, healthy, Protestant male on the verge of something truly transformative and redeeming: not illness and suffering, but self-knowledge. When all is said and done, Angels itself is guilty of its own kind of reprehensible abandonment: abandonment of the tragic for the merely sentimental, of real intellectual challenges for feel-good nostrums, of hard questions about guilt and responsibility for easy finger-pointing at all the usual suspects.

And, Mendelsohn concludes, this detracts from the work's central message of reaching-out and reconciliation:

Within Angels lurks that great work about America itself, one that could well speak to the heartland, a work about migrations and revelations and about the essential tragedy of American and possibly even human experience, in which one person's liberation —now more than before—often means another's suffering. But the play as we have it is a more limited affair, one meant to reassure not the heartland but the marginal groups whom the play cozily addresses. What, in the end, can the "heartland" be expected to make of the play's real message: that those who come from it are unforgiven, and unforgivable by those of us who reside on the coasts?

I just watched the Mike Nichols television adaptation of Tony Kushner's Angels in America for the first time (I haven't seen or read the original play). This was in some ways a disorienting experience, as the the genuineness of the movie's emotional and human appeal seems to clash irrevocably with so many of the philosophical and ideological concepts that underlie it. The film's "absent God" theology, and its implicit suggestion that Marxism would have worked as a creed for social renewal had not those nasty prelapsarians in the Kremlin subverted its original aims, seem rooted in an earlier age - and although Ethel Rosenberg emerges strongly as a character in the plot, the actual implications of her role are never clearly drawn, or drawn at all in any meaningful way. As a disquisition on AIDS and the domestic problems of America in the mid-1980s, the film is probably unique and without rivals. So powerful are its action and rhetoric that the viewer begins to expect it to carry out its apparent intention of revealing a universal message to the world. And yet, with the exception of some oblique references to the now almost forgotten era of Gorbachev and "perestroika" (the film's second part bears this as its title), and some unimaginative commentary, right at the end, about the aftermath of the events of 1989-90, it somehow manages to ignore the rest of the world - and in particular the realities of the world of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe - altogether. For a work that claims to be rooted in principles that are "dialogic and dialectic", that seems strange.

The Kremlin's charge of "Russophobia" against those in the outside world who question or challenge its policies continues to resonate. Just where Moscow stands in the present world scene in the run-up to the May 9 commemorations was made abundantly clear not long ago by a RIAN correspondent, discussing - and encapsulating - the Kremlin's view of Poland. It appears that neither Poland nor the United States hold much appeal for the present Russian leadership:

While the European Union is successfully preparing for a summit with Russia on May 10, some new EU members consider it good form to occasionally demonstrate their anti-Russian sentiments.

Poland particularly excels here. A country with a large population, no small economic potential and a rich culture, it could be a key partner in developing a united Europe. Instead Polish diplomats have recently concentrated on two fundamental ideas. One is total orientation toward the U.S. and the other, rabid Russophobia. Adam Michnik, a well-known Polish author and editor of a newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, admits:

"Poland is the most pro-American country in the world. It is more pro-American than America itself." Warsaw's servile support for the American military invasion of Iraq prompted Jacques Chirac to publicly censure the "uneducated" young EU members from Eastern Europe "who missed a good chance to keep quiet."

The rest can be read here.

From Mexico, news that Mexico City Mayor Manuel Lopez Obrador could be pardoned by President Vicente Fox, thus keeping him in the race for the 2006 presidential election.

In the Education Guardian, Luciana Berger outlines the reasons for her resignation - together with two colleagues - from her position as a National Executive member of the UK's National Union of Students:

To my dismay, for all the talk about the values of equality, diversity and respect at last week's NUS conference, in practice nothing could be further from the truth, in relation to anti-semitism. A leaflet was readily available on the GUPS stalls at the conference for two days. The text was the typical anti-semitic work; the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Once again, complaints were met with unacceptable delays and silence.

Many people claim that being anti-Israel/Zionist isn't being anti-semitic. But why does hatred of Israel lead them to turn a blind eye to the Protocols on a GUPS pamphlet? Furthermore, while the UJS has always preached a two-state solution and peace, time and time again we see others reject it. This is evident in the attack on a UJS peace stall at the European Social Forum. University authorities are also dismissive of these issues - look at the Israeli boycott motions put to this month's Association of University Teachers conference.

Via Harry's Place

From a correspondent:

"May 9 marks not the end of World War II in Europe, but the beginning of the Cold War."

In the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza, Leopold Unger discusses Reconciliation According to Putin:

"Let this be a day of reconciliation," said Vladimir Putin, as he sent out the invitations to the May 9 commemoration in Moscow. Putin had the best of intentions. But a misunderstanding arose. The word "reconciliation" is understood differently in the countries to the east and west of the former Iron Curtain.

In the East - in the view, for example, of citizens of Poland and the former "Pribaltika" - reconciliation means repentance and truth. Therefore, independently of this decision" to go or not to go" to Moscow, the Poles and the Balts see this dilemma in moral categories and wait for some Russian "mea culpa" on the issue of the Ribbentrop-Molotov agreement, the crime at Katyn, the interpetation of Yalta, and so on.

The political attitude of the West (in general terms) towards Moscow's invitation is a different one, not so much immoral as amoral. Firstly, it is rare that anyone knows or understands what the Poles are talking about, what Katyn was, what the Nazi-Soviet agreement meant for the Poles and Balts. Here the war began not in September 1939, but in May 1940. Yalta, which sealed the Soviet domination over there in the East was here in the West the beginning of stabilization (the Marshall Plan) and prosperity.

Secondly, here in the West they know (and if they don't know, then the Kremlin will explain this to them) that May 9, after the liquidation of November 7, is the only one great true holiday of Russia, the ally that shed most blood in the war with Hitler, and is today the most important partner in the fight against terrorism. After all, they say here, we keep silent about the present massacre in Chechnya, so as not to grieve over some episodes dug up from 65 years ago. Poland is a member of EU and NATO, whose members need the best relations with Russia, the main provider of energy to the West. For Putin, as Schroeder has just said, there is no alternative.

Thirdly, what’s all the fuss about? Everyone has had their 60th anniversary. In Normandy, in the summer of 2004 the West had its reconciliation, it was a solemn occasion, everyone was crying. The Poles have already had their two 60ths, in 2004 – the Warsaw Uprising, in 2005 the Liberation of Auschwitz, and those were also solemn occasions, everyone cried. So now it’s the turn of Russia and her 60th. When they call for truth and repentance, the Poles are morally in the right, but they shouldn't spoil this party, either for the Russians or for the invited guests. However, it's hard to expect and demand that the Russians specially on this occasion of their biggest holiday should open before the world the horrible pages of their recent history, in which many Russians, who are still alive, took part.

Fourthly, the banal observation that absentees aren't in the right is not always correct, but, as could been seen from the distance, the absenteeism of the Poles might have even suited the Russians. The Kremlin is anxious to see a few heads of the really big states legitimizing the Putin’s world-wide status and shoring up his diminishing prestige. On the other hand, for Putin and his Chekists, the arrival of the Poles or, devoid of any complexes, the Lady President of Latvia, brings the risk of a scene, and possibly also qualms of conscience (if a such thing exists in this profession).

Obviously, it could be wondered why the Russians haven't been able, as for example, the Germans and also to some degree the Church have, to settle accounts with their dark past. Why, far away from moral considerations and the imperative of historical truth, didn’t Putin - a pragmatic and skillful player – just unload it all on Stalin and close this reckoning of wrongs? Why? Perhaps because he doesn't consider Stalin a criminal, and can’t see any wrong?

(tr. by Marius, my minor editing)

Vytautas Landsbergis, the first post-communist president of independent Lithuania, now a Euro MP, on a tribute to evil.

(Hat tip: Leopoldo)

At Neeka's Backlog, Veronica Khokhlova writes from Moscow about the student rally held outside the "White House" (government building) there yesterday, and comments:

I'm really sick of all this revolution-in-Russia talk. You know, stuff like this:

"Orange spirit" creating sense of unrest in Russia

By Peter Finn
The Washington Post

MOSCOW — Suddenly in Russia, everybody's talking about a revolution.

In a country with a popular president, a growing economy and a fragmented and weak opposition, Russia does not seem ripe for the kind of revolt that toppled governments in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan over the past 17 months.

But as Lenin once said, "a revolution is a miracle," and the Kremlin and its political opponents seem bewitched by the possibility of one.

"There is an Orange spirit in Russia," said Andrei Sidelnikov, the young head of the new Russian youth group Pora! (It's Time!), which took its name from the young activists at the heart of the street protests late last year that ultimately brought Viktor Yushchenko to power in Ukraine.

"We are living through a new era of street politics. Our young people are becoming more and more active. ... They might explode when they can't take it any longer."

[...]

The blog continues:

I wouldn't want to be stuck in the middle of a revolution in Moscow. I'd rather watch it on TV from Kyiv - or read about it on someone else's blog. It'd be safer that way - and more fun.

It seems that in spite of reports to the contrary, Ramzan Kadyrov did after all show up in Putin's Hanover entourage with "President" Alu Alkhanov. Le Monde has the details.

The Telegraph has a disturbing report on an incident in East London, when the MP Oona King was pelted with eggs as she attended a memorial to Jewish war dead:

Miss King, 37, the black Jewish Labour MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, was attacked as she joined mourners to commemorate 60 years since the Hughes Mansions Disaster, when 134 people, almost all Jewish, were killed by the last V2 missile to land on London.

Oona King has enraged her Muslim constituents by supporting the war in Iraq. The eggs missed her, but one hit a war veteran, Louis Lewis, 89, in the chest and an onion struck Richard Brett, a bugler from the Jewish Lads and Girls Brigade who sounded the Last Post at the ceremony.

Chechenpress reports that Chechens and the Welsh are the first to join "The Union of Small Nations of the World":

The Application of the ADS CRI and the CR

In spite of the fact that we are parted with language, geography, culture, and religion, we, representatives of the Chechen and Welsh people - on behalf of two organizations "The Assembly of Defense of Sovereignty of the CRI" (ADS CRI) and "Cymru Rydd" (CR), declare the beginning of cooperation and partnership in defending of independence of our people, and establishment of the organization "The Union of Small Nations of the World" (USNW).

The USNW rejects all forms of imperialism and colonialism. The necessity of such a Union is natural for identity of our purposes: a political fight for independence of small nations and people all over the world and for their right for this struggle.

The initiative of the USNW is aimed at achievement of equality of people, progress of Freedom and validity all over the world. The USNW is sure, that its initiative will become an important step for consolidation of all oppressed small people all over the world.

The USNW hopes to direct the partnership between small peoples into the channel of true friendship and trust. The new organization intends to achieve execution of the principles declared by the United Nations Organization fixed in the Charter of this organization. The USNW is guided with three items from the Charter of the United Nations, defining its activity:

1. Each nationality has the right for self-determination: the right to take their destiny into their own hands.

2. Each nation has the right for creation of an independent state.

3. No nation in the world has the right to impose its laws to another
nation and to interfere with its natural desire.

The ADS CRI and the CR declares the agreements concluded between the
organizations:

1. The organizations protect the Sovereignty of the peoples, their
rights and cultures, from imperial aggression.

2. The organizations intend to render political, financial and
information help to each other in the common struggle against
imperialistic claims.

On behalf of the members of the USNW

The Head of the "Cymru Rydd" Chris Davis

The Head of the ADS CRI Sardali Ahmad

Information of the Chechenpress:

The Welsh are the people of the Celtic origin; they are the native
population of the Wales Peninsula (the Great Britain ). The Welsh total
about 900 thousand people. More than 100 thousand Welsh live in the USA,
Canada, Australia and New Zealand. They speak the Welsh language (of
the Celtic group); believers basically are adherents of the Anglican Church.

Chechenpress, the Department of operative information

11.04.05

Normblog has reproduced the text of a communication by Eve Garrard, sent to AUT colleagues at Keele University, on the subject of the proposed AUT boycott of Israeli academics.

"You can learn something from everything," the rabbi of Sadagora once said to his disciples. "Everything can teach us something, and not only everything God has created. What man has made has also something to teach us."

"What can we learn from a train?" one hasid asked dubiously.

"That because of one second one can miss everything."

"And from the telegraph?"

"That every word is counted and charged."

"And the telephone?"

"That what we say here is heard there."


- Martin Buber, Tales of the Hasidim

Writing in Yezhednevnyi Zhurnal about the statement by Alexei Mitrofanov of the LDPR faction in the Russian State Duma, who suggested on Wednesday that the parliamentary policy committee should limit the coverage the Pope’s death receives in the Russian media, saying that the Russian media paid “excessive attention to the Vatican’s mourning for the death of Pope John Paul II,” Leonid Radzikhovsky comments:

Alexei Mitrofanov explained that since we are an Orthodox country, there was no reason to get so worked up about the death of this pontiff: after all, the Pope was senile, a Russophobe, and there was no reason to send our prime minister, let alone a Jew, to the funeral of such a personage. Our media need to be brought into line: they’ve done enough talking about this Pope.

"It seems to me,” Radzikhovsky writes, “that the ardent desire to insult the deceased Pope John Paul II has a very weighty underlying psychological cause.” The argument, he suggests, goes something like this:

“All human beings are swine. (There are also some simpletons. But they are just unsuccessful swine). There are no others. Nobleness is a game. Kindness is a fake. Love of God is hypocrisy. There are no decent people, because they don’t exist anywhere, and never have done. What lies behind everything is money (dirty politics, the CIA, Freemasons, a conspiracy, etc., etc,).”The reasons for thinking this way are the most solid ones imaginable: people first take a look at themselves in the mirror, and then judge others by themselves. You will agree that it’s just too insulting to admit that there may indeed be people of quite a different sort, not like yourself. So they vote for Zhirinovsky, Mitrofanov & Co, who prove that everything is indeed like that, that it all comes down to money, that everyone is a scoundrel, and that it can’t be any different.

Ultimately, Radzikhovsky asserts, the central question needs to be asked of the Russian Orthodox Church:

Why, as its “physical” strength and political importance grow (it’s clear that today the Orthodox Church is the most influential force in the country after the Kremlin, and the Kremlin is constantly taking it into consideration), are the aggressive manifestations of “Orthodox public opinion” growing more and more widespread, while the Church itself does nothing to counter them?

(via Marius)

"No one but a total madman could have wished to drag Russia into any kind of war, let alone a war in the North Caucasus. As if Afghanistan had never happened. As if it weren’t clear in advance what course such a war would follow, or just what would be the outcome and the consequences of a war declared within the confines of a multinational state against a proud, vengeful, and warlike people. How could Russia possibly have become embroiled in one of its most shameful wars during the very period of its development which was most democratic in form and most liberal in spirit? This war required the mobilization of resources and increased budgets for agencies of coercion, government departments, and ministries. It enhanced the importance and increased the influence of men in uniform and sidelined or rendered irrelevant the efforts made by supporters of peace, democracy and liberal values to maintain the impetus of pro-Western economic reforms. This war resulted in the isolation of the Russian state from the community of civilized nations, since the rest of the world did not support it and could not understand it. A previously popular, well-loved president, therefore, sacrificed the support of both his own public and the international community. Once he had fallen into the trap, he was left with no option but to resign before the end of his term, and hand over power to the FSB in return for a guarantee of immunity for himself and his family. We know who it was that benefited from all this – the people to whom Yeltsin handed over power. We know how the result was achieved – by means of the war in Chechnya. All that remains to be discovered is who set the process in motion."

- Yuri Felshtinsky and Alexander Litvinenko: Blowing Up Russia: Terror from Within, 2002

In her diary, Melanie Phillips quotes from a statement by Luciana Berger, co-convener of the Anti-Racism/Anti-Fascism Campaign of Britain's National Union of Students (NUS), accusing the union of standing passively by in the face of rising anti-Semitism:

This year, I have suffered baseless accusations of NUS being pro-Jewish and therefore biased because I tackled antisemitism where it stood. There was no defence of Jewish students by NEC members who heard those claims. This year, a comment was made in a Student Union meeting saying that burning down a synagogue is a rational act; when asked to comment NEC members could not even bring themselves to condemn that statement.

'Over five months ago serious complaints were lodged about antisemitic comments made by an NEC member in a public meeting; there is yet to be any form of official response to these complaints. When it was rumoured that I, a Jewish student, was standing for the NUS Presidency - whispers of antisemitism were used as a political football...At the beginning of this conference I stood here and warned you against the BNP presence in Blackpool. But it is within these walls I feel most afraid. We have talked for the past three days about NUS' values of equality, diversity and respect. In practice this could not be further from the truth.'

Comments are off for a while - while I do some spring cleaning.

"Over the word humanism hovers the scholarly dust of four centuries... To grasp the intimate meaning of humanism, let us conduct an intellectual experiment. Let us suppose that social and scientific progress has reached its height. Imagine a society without war, without class struggles, without any struggle for existence. Social and sexual problems have been solved. Sickness has disappeared and the prisons are closed. There are no governmental or economic restrictions. Production increases without obstructions. The terrors of death have been eradicated by officially approved euthanasia. In this ideal society there is nothing for socialism to do, nor for pacifism, nationalism, or imperialism. In this society, however, men will continue to be born and to die. All the technical problems of society are solved; the only problem remaining is this: to find out the meaning of human existence. How should I live? How should I love? How should I die? These questions will always be asked and perhaps now with more anxiety than ever. This utopian man, who exists in the best of all possible worlds, will wonder in anguish and sorrow: What am I? What is humanity? How can we make life into something more radiant and profound?... But it's unnecessary to await this imaginary humanity of the future. Those questions persist today just as they have persisted throughout history, because they are questions born with the being and nature of man."

- Ernst Robert Curtius

From today's RFE/RL Newsline:

AIR DEFENSE COMMANDER PROMISES TO SHOOT DOWN THREATENING AIRCRAFT.

Colonel General Yurii Solovev said on 7 April that his forces will shoot down any suspicious aircraft near Moscow during the upcoming celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II, even if the planes have passengers onboard, newsru.com and other media reported. Solovev is responsible for the air defense of Moscow. He said: "I will not allow anything to crash into Moscow. Besides, if I do not shoot down an aircraft with terrorists [and passengers], they will put me in handcuffs, and if I do do it, they will [also put me in handcuffs]. So, I already made my choice." He added that during the celebration, more than 20 fighters will patrol the skies. Meanwhile, Duma Defense Committee Chairman Vladimir Vasiliev said on 7 April that the possible destruction of a passenger aircraft with terrorists onboard will soon be incorporated into the Russian law on terrorism. VY

Discussing the so-called "desafuero" action, in which Mexico City Mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador was stripped of his official immunity so he could stand trial in a minor land dispute, the New York Times commented yesterday, before the result of the vote was announced:

Last week, a congressional panel voted along party lines to strip Mr. López of his immunity as an elected official. Congress's lower house is expected to take up the issue today and to confirm the decision. Then he'll probably be indicted - and by law, no one facing a criminal trial can run for president.

Mr. López has taken full advantage of the situation, which has distracted attention from serious charges of corruption against his top aides. He has compared himself to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and vowed to campaign from jail. Certainly, he is no Martin Luther King. A longtime PRI official who moved to the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party, he has built a machine in Mexico City modeled on the PRI nationwide. He is increasingly a demagogue, and he has fought reforms like making information available to the public. He responded to a huge march against a crime wave by calling it an attempt by dark forces to attack him.

But since the powerful can still get away with anything in Mexico, few people believe his opponents' pious claims that they are just trying to uphold the rule of law by indicting him. He may not be the right man for the presidency, but that issue should be for Mexico's electorate to decide.

With the result now confirmed - 360 in favour of lifting the immunity, 127 opposed and 2 abstentions - the paper's correspondents note that it "casts doubt on the strength of Mexico's fledgling democracy":

Political analysts said that the proceedings were a critical test in this country's transition to a full-fledged democracy that began just five years ago when Mexicans broke seven decades of single-party rule with the peaceful election of Vicente Fox, the first president to come from an opposition party.

The protests, which had largely ended by late Thursday, brought comparisons to the recent pro-democracy demonstrations in the Ukraine that helped lift Viktor A. Yuschenko to power. But while Mr. Lopez said support for him would grow, his adversaries seemed confident the protests would die out soon.

GoLeech points to the obvious dangers to Mexican society that the result of the vote presents:

El problema de fondo es político. Las pasiones se pueden desatar. Las tentaciones heroícas, la calentura, el descontento, las malinterpretaciones, el oportunismo, etc. son ingredientes para que estalle un conflicto social. Ya ni hablar de la imagen que damos al mundo, de las inversiones, de la supuesta construcción de la democracia. El capricho de unos cuantos se les puede salir de las manos.

Por eso desde aquí desapruebo y denuncio el acto antidemocrático que se ha orquestado. Pero también denunciaré y desaprobaré las actitudes malintencionadas y/o manipuladoras que puedan ser usadas para agitar a la sociedad, de parte de quien sea.

A DPA report quoted on chechnya-sl states that

A leading German human rights group on Thursday protested plans for a visit to the upcoming Hanover Fair by Chechnyan President Alu Alkhanov and Deputy Premier Ramsan Kadyrov, calling the two men "suspected war criminals".

The Goettingen-based Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) sent an open letter to Lower Saxony Premier Christian Wulff demanding that he make it clear to the public that the two Chechnyan leaders were unwelcome in the state. Hanover is the capital of Lower Saxony.

The GfbV protest came three days before German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Russian president Vladimir Putin were due to open the Hanover Fair, with both Alkhanov and Kadyrov also due to attend.

The group said Schroeder and Putin were permitting themselves "to be accompanied by two suspected war criminals".

Another fascinating post at México desde fuera: the blog's author describes his personal experience of the visits to Mexico of Pope John Paul II (the "Lolek" of the title), and the discoveries, both about Catholicism and about Mexico, to which they impelled him:

En enero del año siguiente, Juan Pablo II viajó por primera vez a México. Mi familia difícilmente podría calificarse como católica, de modo que quienes piensen que lo que escribo lo hago movido por ser un ser irracional y cegado por una institución retardataria, están mucho, muy equivocados.

Más aún, mis profesores en la 189, como era la norma en esos años, eran en su gran mayoría furiosos y ridículos ateos. Lo cual no quiere decir que no les esté agradecido o que desestime todo el trabajo muy valioso que hacían por personas como yo. Es sólo que oírlos despotricar contra Juan Pablo II porque iba a viajar a México o porque estaba en México o porque había viajado a México, lejos de convencerme de alguna virtud de su ateísmo trasnochado tuvo el efecto opuesto.

Haber visto, como me tocó ver, a José López Portillo, con sus desplantes de emperador romano desvelado, ir a recibir a Juan Pablo II en el aeropuerto de la ciudad de México, fue--en cambio--una experiencia iluminadora. No sólo evidenciaba la vacuidad de la legislación vigente en México, sino detonó un proceso que es, en última instancia, lo que me tiene acá en Nueva York haciendo investigación sobre el papel de la Iglesia y la religión en general en los procesos de cambio político en América Latina.

El efecto combinado de la incapacidad de López Portillo para acallar a los masones rabiosos que formaban parte de su gabinete o para de plano enfrentarse a su madre, una devota católica, me descubrieron algunas de las paradojas más fundamentales de la identidad mexicana de la segunda mitad del siglo XX. No sólo eso, despertaron en mí una sed, entonces insaciable, por entender las razones profundas de las contradicciones que se desplegaban frente a mis ojos y los de millones de mexicanos que seguíamos por la televisión cada detalle de la visita de Lolek a México.

Anne Applebaum, on how Pope John Paul II really helped to overthrow totalitarian communism.

Once again, the sense of something distinctly unpleasant in British public life: the Guardian reports that Israeli academics who refuse to condemn their government's actions in the occupied territories risk a boycott by the UK's leading university teachers' union, the AUT. Coming right on the heels of the recent publicly-made anti-Semitic remarks by London's Mayor Livingstone, this again makes one wonder just where British society is headed in the mid-2000's. Melanie Phillips makes some concise and critical comments in her diary.

Elena Bonner, widow of Russia's most famous dissident, Andrei Sakharov, reflects on the murder of Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov by Russian security forces:

Aslan Maskhadov was a soldier and never lost his soldier’s, or officer’s, honesty. I would assert that he was not only a grateful person, but a good man. And I do not say this without grounds, but based on a personal impression resulting from an acquaintance with him. The death of a human being is always a great misfortune for the relatives, and I grieve together with them and with his people.

Death, especially in battle, is a bell which rings for both those who have perished and those who survive. Let the lieutenant colonel, commander-in-chief of Russia; let all his generals cheer their success, brought not by military valour and skill but meanness and corruptibility. The bell which rings for Aslan Maskhadov rings also for them, and for the Russia they have corrupted, the land immeasurably further from peace today than it was yesterday.

Do they remember that for nearly two hundred years Russia has been looking for the ashes of five people hanged by Nikolai I on St. Petersburg’s Golodai island? And do they grasp that they are following a hangman who will not grant them a worthy burial?

How does a soldier differ from a bandit or executioner? A real soldier never dishonours his killed enemy. A real soldier would never put the corpse on public display, but would return it to its relatives, to be buried or given up to fire according to their customs, or the soldier buries the body himself.

In the search for a national raison d’etre, parading their adherence to God, the new directors of the Russian future play the lie of international terrorism just as they lie when honouring the memory of all the soldiers who died 60 years ago. The soldiers, who achieved victory with their blood. Those were soldiers, but today’s are simply killers and gangsters.

At chechnya-sl, Marius has translated part of a recent interview with Alexander Torshin, head of the Beslan commission of inquiry:

There is evidence from the only terrorist who was taken alive, Nurpasaha Kulayev. According to him, the "Colonel" (Khuchbarov) announced them, that Beslan - that was Maskhadov-Basaev's order. The commission has all grounds to consider that precisely they were the organizers of this terrorist act. Basayev took responsibility upon himself..

- Do you confirm authenticity of Basayev's letter?

- There's no final conclusion of graphological examination as yet. This case is complicated, especially in the absence of the suspect. Is increasingly more-less clear with the organizers. To find those who had ordered it...

- Any assumptions - who are they?

- Let's not give play to imagination. All this mystery will become sooner or later overt, and we compulsorily will find them. But that, that Maskhadov with Basayev [zakashchiki] aren't those who had ordered it - is accurate.

Let us wait for the results of examination of Abu-Dzeit and Maskhadov's archives. There are in the world forces for which it is profitable to rekindle a new Caucasian war.

The Beslan terrorist act - it's multi-vector and multipurpose. For example, the fighters attained that the relations between North Ossetia and Ingushetia, putting it mildly, hasn't warmed up. And a point of junction - that what they found: two religions, two nations, children, complex situation in the whole North Caucasus, indecision on the territorial problems, tension on the border with Georgia - simply a more vulnerable point for the act of terror cannot be found.

It was well planned. And it was executed by the well trained fighters,who knew how to fight , who knew what to do. They considered all lessons of the "Nord -Ost" - they broke glass, took gas masks with them, they didn't conducted any negotations, but immediately began to kill, after being pin down by activity of our special services.

- Did the commission discover a "Georgian trace" of the Beslan events, about which they talked a lot in Beslan?

- Certainly, this theory will be exaggerated. There are still unidentified corpses of the bandits. However, we haven't discovered the "Georgian trace". Although there were signals that it was existing, and we checked it out.

[passage omitted]

In the context of Terry Eagleton's LRB attack on the career and actions of Pope John Paul II, Pearsall Helms has an interesting post on the similarities and differences between Fascism and Communism:

The lessons of Auschwitz are not difficult to comprehend: guard against bigotry and work to protect the weakest people and groups. What are the lessons of Kolyma, though? This is why I find Communism as it actually exists infinitely more depressing than Fascism. Fascism began with terrible, monstrous intentions, and fulfilled them and in the process merely showed that people will commit horrible crimes for primitive tribal purposes. Communism set out with beautiful intentions, and transformed most places it took hold of into vast necropolises. If this is what happens when people try to build a new utopia, what does it say about us as humans if this, virtually without fail, seems to be the result of a revolutionary striving for change?

At México desde fuera, Rodolfo Soriano Núñez takes issue with Publius Pundit on the latter blog's analysis of recent events in and around Mexico, and elsewhere in Latin America:

Más aún, creo que en su "análisis" de la situación en México y, sobre todo, en Venezuela, hay profundos y muy graves prejuicios. No logran entender, entre otras razones porque no leen, porque no conocen la realidad política latinoamericana, que lo que derrotó Chávez fueron años de corrupción creada por el propio diseño institucional venezolano. Para quienes no lo sepan Venezuela era hasta antes de la llegada de Chávez, una república presidencial y centralista, como Colombia lo era y como Chile y Bolivia lo son hasta ahora.

With a view to improving my spoken Spanish, I've been following the podcasts at El Bloguipodio. It's a news magazine programme, and from rather hesitant beginnings - one whole issue was recorded with the handheld microphone of an iRiver, with predictable results - it has developed into quite a listenable radio show, with music and news items alternating. On the Creative Zen Touch I'm using, the sound quality is now perfectly acceptable. Who knows, perhaps soon I'll even convert this blog into a podcast - no, just kidding.

For those who doubt that Russia may be on the brink of some very strange transformations indeed, a look at the website of the International Eurasian Movement may be instructive. According to the website (information is from 2004), the members of the Higher Council of this organization include:

Troshev A.P. – vice speaker of the Russian Senate;

Aslahanov A.A-M. – the adviser of the President of the Russian Federation;

Margelov M.V. – the president of the Committee for International Affairs of the Russian Senate;

Kalyuzhny V.I. – vice-minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia;

Tadjuddin T.S. – grand mufti of the Russian Federation;

Mitropolit .Andrian (Chetvergov) – the chief of Russian Orthodox Old Believers Church;

Sagalaev E.M. – the President of the National Association of Media;

Zagarishvili S.A. – Academician of the Russian Academy of Science;

Djumagulov A.D. – ex-prime-minister of the Kyrghystan Republic;

Chernychev A.S. – Plenipotentiary Ambassador of the Russian Federation;

Efimov N.N. –director of “Red Star” magazine, the official organ of Russian general Staff

"and," says the site, "many other highly distinguished personalities from different countries."

The aims and policies of the Movement are many and varied. To take just one example, here is a short extract from the section containing information on, among other things, military pacts:

The axial significance of the Russian Armed forces (and especially of their strategic sector) must entail the creation of a serial of military pacts, which are required to provide steadiness to the eurasist block along its strategically relevant borders. Major of these pacts is the Russian-Iranian military alliance, which for the first time in history could open to Russia an exit to the «warm seas», and allow the disposition of Russian strategic weapons on the southern shores of Eurasia. As Iran is strategically oriented against West domination and is guided world policy by eurasist priorities, objective reasons for such military do exist. In a medium term outlook just the Moscow-Teheran military axis is able to organise a strategic power space countering the West in the Near East, in the Caucasus and in Central Asia.

Among the Arab countries, military pacts must be concluded with Iraq, Syria and Libya, that will allow Eurasia to receive a major lever of control on the Mediterranean space.

In Eastern Europe a military pact with orthodox Serbia is relevant, and also it is desirable to neutralise (even better, to attract on our side) orthodox countries (Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, Macedonia etc.), contributing to their distancing from NATO.

Other major pact is the military alliance of Moscow with India and China. (Though it is hardly possible to hope for strong geopolitical ties with China, since between Moscow and Peking there are too many strategic contradictions, and in a critical situation China will probably act as a coast base of atlantism).

In a parallel way to the conclusion of military pacts within the framework of Eurasia, it is necessary to actively cooperate to splitting the unity of NATO countries, and to contribute to the strategic neutralisation of the Central-European region (more widely, of all Europe) and the Pacific region.

Very important to the conclusion of these strategic pacts will be to demonstrate, that the issue is not about the religious, ideological, political likeness of the participants of the Eurasist Block, but about unity of common purpose — the opposition to atlantist hegemony, to the autocratic establishing of US «new world order» and to the oligarchic «world government». Hence, any given military alliance pursues a defensive and, most important, liberation purpose, ensuring geopolitical conditions of sovereignty to all states and peoples before the planetary offensive of the mondialist pattern, which means depriving them of this sovereignty.

At EDM, Oleg Varfolomeyev writes that

Russian emigre tycoon Boris Berezovsky claims that he has the tape recordings made by Mykola Melnychenko, the fugitive former bodyguard of former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, in Kuchma's office in 1999-2000. Many observers believe the recordings may shed light on the murder of journalist Heorhiy Gongadze and secret sales of Ukrainian arms to rogue states such as Iraq and Iran. Berezovsky, ahead of Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko's visit to the United States, has accused Kyiv of being unwilling to solve the Gongadze puzzle. He also hinted that the recordings might cast a shadow on Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Religion as risk, which is ready to give itself up, is the nourishing stream of the arteries; as system, possessing, assured and assuring, religion which believes in religion is the veins' blood, which ceases to circulate. And if there is nothing that can so hide the face of our fellow-man as morality can, religion can hide from us as nothing else can the face of God. Principle there, dogma here.

- Martin Buber, Dialogue [Zwiesprache] (1929)

Will you always know how to keep intact that which was begun in you?
Will you always distinguish what is good from what is evil?

Poems by Karol Wojtyla

10. 30pm

Former Prime Minister Baroness Thatcher paid tribute to Pope John Paul II as the greatest pope of the modern era.

"We should remember Pope John Paul II not just as the greatest Pope of modern times but also as a valiant fighter for the truth," she said.

He was the first Polish pontiff and the youngest of the 20th Century

"His life was a long struggle against the lies employed to excuse evil. By combating the falsehoods of communism and proclaiming the true dignity of the individual, his was the moral force behind victory in the Cold War.

"Millions owe him their freedom and self respect," Lady Thatcher added.

BBC News | UK

On the Observer blog, David Aaronovitch describes the narrow and condescending narrative "the British intelligentsia collectively creates, reproduces and conforms to":

As reported or argued in articles, reviews, interviews or diaries, this story includes the following necessary elements: Labour would have won in 1997 anyway without Tony Blair; Labour are now pretty much the same as the Tories, that’s why there is so much apathy; Blair has no social vision, he just wants power for its own sake; new Labour is in hock to America for strange psychological reasons to do with power and weaponry; Labour wishes to privatise the public services; Labour hasn’t achieved anything of any note; Labour represents a unique threat to our ancient liberties; Blair is a pious, lying hypocritical warmonger; he is trying to scare us unnecessarily; there is no such thing as a terrorist threat – or if there is such a thing, then it’s no worse than when the IRA was active, or if it is worse, then it’s the consequence of Western arrogance and globalisation.

This orthodoxy, I would argue, has become – in its own etiolated way – as stifling as anything imposed on the faithful by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. There are people who never meet people who think anything other than the things I’ve listed above, yet their influence on debate in this country is out of all proportion either to their numbers or their political understanding. Inactive themselves, they spread hopelessness and cynicism and help pave the way for a return of the right, a return that many of them would – unconsciously perhaps – welcome.

(via Harry's Place)

This post continues an overview of Robert Conquest’s recent book The Dragons of Expectation (Norton, 2005).

In a final essay in the “Horrible Examples” series, Conquest examines “A Collapse of Unreality” – the collapse of the illusions produced by the mental distortions of the Soviet order. Both the confrontation with the West and the ruin of the economy were largely, he argues, symptoms of the mindset that prevailed. The “insane militarization” that Gorbachev spoke of stemmed from that mindset, which required “an unceasing struggle with all other cultures”:

And, above all, it was a militarization the Soviet economy was unable to make decisive, even though ruining itself in the attempt. So the only way the West could have been put in an impossible position was if it could have been prevented from responding with adequate armament. And since this was not physically possible, it would have to have been secured by other means – that is, by inducing the West not to respond to the real threat. This could only be done by in some way destroying or radically weakening the West’s will to respond adequately. And this was, of course, the aim of Soviet propaganda and diplomacy and the general effort to mislead the Western peoples and governments.

This was undertaken, with a long-drawn-out production of false claims of devotion to peace and, unbelievably, to freedom, goodwill, and all the other amicable evidence of progress and liberty. Though some elements in the West were sweetened, or silenced, by this ploy, it failed, just as the economy had failed to outmatch the West’s response. The main reason for this failure was, of course, that the realities of Soviet actions and intentions could only be concealed by an enormous and, as it turned out, inadequate effort.

And, turning to the present, and the increasingly pressing requirement to make some kind of definitive judgment on what really occurred in the Soviet period, both inside the Soviet Union and in the West – the notion of “learning from one’s mistakes” comes to mind here – the author presents a large question-mark:

The big question remains. In the Soviet bloc itself, all who reached any reasonable level of knowledge or judgment were aware of and repelled by the actualities. It was outside that zone that the Soviets had a measure of success. And this is, above all, fearful evidence of the murky mental atmosphere we have tried to analyze and detoxify in these pages.

This was in part owing to the whole Stalinist heritage, but most of all to the brain-numbing atmosphere; in addition to being the product of an abnormal mental setup, the Soviet establishment was, or the larger part of it was (at the highest level) stupid. It was the product of a party that had well under ten thousand members in 1910 and over the postrevolutionary years had been purged of all tendencies to see reality in terms other than dull fantasy.

Conquest says that it is not his purpose to examine the current and future state of Russia:

It is clear that the huge mental and physical distortions inflicted on the population, and the painful emergence from “Under the Rubble” [a reference to the title of Solzhenitsyn’s 1975 book] have not been anything like fully overcome. And it has been reasonably argued that the mental regression of most of the last century has left in much of the nation’s consciousness the remnants of earlier unprogressive cultural attitudes. Russia’s history, and with it its habits of thought, are not those of the West. Or rather, the flowering of civilization in the country, from Pushkin on, was largely confined to a nondecisive urban stratum (and that not in all cities).

Looking for historical parallels, Conquest casts an eye back to 1945, but sees some essential differences between then and now:

The current condition of Russia is deplorable in a number of ways, Yet we may note that a revolutionary transition took place without total disruption.

As Vladimir Bukovsky has often pointed out, there was no equivalent to the de-Nazification program that was instituted in West Germany after World War II. De-Sovietization did not take place:

In 1991, Russia was not in the position that Germany – West Germany – was in in 1945, when a democratic or open society could be built almost from scratch. One result of the less complete and more gradual changes in Russia is that a huge burden of both physical and mental trappings and actualities of the past remain.

So we have a Russia with thousands of warheads and a chauvinistic tinge. We coped, the world coped, with a much worse Russia.

It has been, and will continue to be, a long hard slog.

See also: Dragons and Democracy
Dragons and Democracy - II
Dragons and Democracy - III
Dragons and Democracy - IV
Dragons and Democracy - V
Dragons and Democracy - VI
Dragons and Democracy - VII
Dragons and Democracy - VIII
Dragons and Democracy - IX
Dragons and Democracy - X

Desde que tuve memoria sufrí la tortura matinal de que Mina me cepillara los dientes, mientras ella gozaba del privilegio magico de quitarse los suyos para lavarlos, y dejarlos en un vaso de agua mientras dormía. Convencido que era su dentadura natural que se quitaba y ponía por artes guajiras, hice que me mostrara el interior de la boca para ver cómo era por dentro el revés de los ojos, del cerebro, de la nariz, de los oídos, y sufrí la desilusión de no ver nada más que el paladar. Pero nadie me descifró el prodigio y por un buen tempo me empeciné en que el dentista me hiciera los mismo que a la abuela, para que ella me cepillara los dientes mientras yo jugaba en la calle.

- Gabriel García Márquez, Vivir para contarla, 2002

In the Moscow Times, Joshua Rubenstein discusses Emma Gilligan's recent book Defending Human Rights in Russia: Sergei Kovalyov, Dissident and Human Rights Commissioner, 1969-2003. As Rubenstein notes,

The differences between the media's ability to cover the first and second Chechen wars tell us almost all we need to know about human rights in Russia today. A decade ago, Kovalyov and a team of activists could go to Grozny, witness the bombings and discuss their findings in Izvestia and on the then-liberal NTV television channel. While Kovalyov was roundly denounced by Russian nationalists, his principled, courageous efforts contributed to a ceasefire in 1995 and to the Khasavyurt peace treaty the following year.

Vladimir Putin learned from Kovalyov's breach. Ever since the outbreak of the second Chechen war in 1999, Russian reporters have been either systematically excluded from the region or arrested and assaulted en route to Grozny. Monday's court decision finding Sakharov Museum director Yury Samodurov guilty of inciting religious hatred with a provocative art exhibit only cemented the forces arrayed against activists who speak out against the war and other human rights abuses.It's ironic to think that the leader who initiated democratic reforms 20 years ago was an unelected Communist Party boss, when today an elected president strangles democracy and presides over an increasingly repressive state. As hard as Kovalyov and his colleagues worked, Russia failed to escape what Kovalyov calls its "cave-dwelling legal consciousness." Gilligan's book makes clear how hard he tried. Moscow may look like a normal European capital -- a tribute to the power of capitalism -- but the state of Russia's democracy reflects the renewed power of the KGB.

Eye on Eurasia

By Paul Goble

Tartu, Estonia, Mar. 31 -- Russian analysts this week argued a Ukrainian or Kyrgyz-style revolution in their country will begin in one or more of the country's far-flung regions and then spread to Moscow rather than the other, and historically more typical, way around.

Most Russian commentators continue to downplay the possibility of an Orange-style revolution in Moscow (see, for example, the sampling of opinions in Nezavisimaya Gazeta March 28). Muscovites are significantly better off than people elsewhere. And the Kremlin is more attentive to the city and has the resources at hand to deploy against any threat.

But the recent challenges to the authorities in Bashkortostan and Ingushetiya has sparked concerns it may be "easy" to organize a revolution in the Russian Federation "not along Ukrainian lines but rather according to the Kyrgyz model and not in Moscow but in the regions," according to Ivan Yartsev this week (politkom.ru).

The protests in the Bashkir capital, Ufa, last week attracted particular attention because protesters there employed slogans eerily similar to those used by the Georgian, Ukrainian and Kyrgyz opposition. They demanded the local president be removed from office, that social services be improved, and that the authorities acknowledge that Bashkortostan is a "Political Gulag".

But the continuing pressure on officials in Nazran, Ingushetia, have also led many in Moscow to worry that things there could get out of hand and quickly spread to other regions. Discussion of these individual events has led some Russian analysts to consider precisely the way that might happen first in Muslim areas and then in ethnic Russian ones and to ask just what resources Moscow has or might need to develop in order to retain its grip on power.

Aleksandr Yeliseyev, who writes frequently on regional issues, agrees with those who say there is little chance of a revolution breaking out in Moscow, but he argues "the regions (whether Russian or non-Russian) are a different matter".

He points out that in many regions people are furious both at their local rulers and at Moscow. Anger at the first sometimes takes the form of popular demonstrations, and anger at the second, either directly or when local officials try to deflect popular unhappiness, sometimes takes on a "separatist" character.

That is especially the case in Muslim regions, Yeliseyev continues. In addition to the anger other citizens of the Russian Federation feel, the country's Muslims increasingly view the authorities both local and central as Islamophobic or worse. And in some cases, they are prepared to follow those who want to challenge the government.

Yeliseyev cites the words of Kirill Frolov, the press secretary of the Union of Orthodox Citizens, about Ukraine to suggest how an ethnic element might lead to a revolutionary explosion in the Russian Federation.

In Ukraine, the revolution emerged as a result of the combination of the Uniate Ukrainian western regions and the educated elites in Kiev. An analogous situation, Yeliseyev suggests, could emerge in the Russian Federation, either directly because of a Muslim challenge or because of a possible ethnic Russian response to that challenge.

And Yeliseyev concludes somewhat ominously with the observation that now "a new 1905 is already dawning." The question, he says, is whether there will be "a new 1917."

Other analysts share his perspective if not his rather hyperbolic language. On March 29, Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported that five of the six "most volatile" regions in the Russian Federation now are Muslim: Chechnya, Daghestan, North Ossetia, Karachai-Balkaria and Bashkortostan. Kalmykia, the sixth, is the exception: it is historically Buddhist.

That list of regions will surprise few observers either in Moscow or in the West. Muslim regions have long been viewed as a threat, albeit a marginal one, except for Chechnya. But other analysts have begun to look at the situation in the ethnic Russian regions and have concluded that secessionist and revolutionary sentiment is growing in some of them as well.

In an article in the Internet publication Politicheskiy Zhurnal, a St. Petersburg-based specialist on regional affairs argues that in the Russian Federation, more regions are quietly but ever more definitely opposing the central government in Moscow. (politjournal.ru , March 28).

Daniil Kotsyubinskiy notes both Russian officials and ordinary Russian sense this. President Vladimir Putin, he points out, keeps talking about working to prevent the disintegration of the country. That has not reassured Russians but rather led more of them to conclude the country's territorial integrity is at risk -- though fewer of them see this challenge coming from Chechnya.

Under Putin, Moscow has taken back from the regions an ever greater share of resources and has imposed a variety of unfunded mandates on the leaders of the regions, an approach Kotsyubinskiy argues means more regional leaders are prepared to challenge the center and to exploit popular anger.

He cites the words of Valentin Fedorov, the deputy director of the Academy of Sciences' Institute of Europe, that "today the problem is not in the Russophobia of (former U.S. national security adviser) Zbigniew Brzezinski and those who share his views but rather in the extremely shortsighted policy of the central government toward the regions."

Kotsyubinskiy suggests the following ethnic Russian regions are increasingly influenced by separatist ideas, a trend with revolutionary implications for the country as a whole. Among these regions are Siberia, several portions of the Russian Far East, St. Petersburg, Kaliningrad and Rostov where there is talk about a Cossack Republic.

Even if none of these projects goes very far -- and it is far from clear any of them will -- the simultaneous existence of and discussion about non-Russian and Russian challenges to Moscow means each will feed off the other with some non-Russians viewing Russian assertiveness as a reason for their own and some Russians seeing non-Russian actions as the reason for rallying around the center or moving further away from it. Several Russian nationalists are proposing the organization of popular militias to oppose the non-Russians , and others argue Moscow can rely on veterans of the war in Chechnya to put down any challenge .

As the latter source put it, "The principal distinction of Russia from Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, and other post-Soviet states consists in the following fact: none of the above named countries have fought for 10 years." Russia has, he continues, and the Caucasus war can provide the foot solders for "a future Russian counterrevolution."

Such assertions will do little to calm the situation. And the central Russian government is likely to find it increasingly difficult to cope with it. As a result, the Kremlin almost certainly will be tempted to move even further in an authoritarian direction, something that could quiet things for a brief period but would likely lead to an even greater explosion later.

--

(Paul Goble teaches at the EuroCollege of the University of Tartu in Estonia.)

There were some growing problems with the Minima template I'd been using for this blog - I'm not sure what caused them, but in any case I've decided to use a different Blogger template, Bluebird, at least temporarily. It will take me a little time to restore the list of links and other features - also, comments have reverted to Blogger comments for the time being.

The last time I made a change like this, I got emails asking me to go back to the earlier format. If you have problems accessing the blog, do let me know.