Old posters

from pre- and Soviet Russia.

1989

one of the best in the history of Europe.

1989-The Struggle to Create post-Cold War Europe

1989-2009 - 20 years after the start of the changes in Europe. A process still on the run, as long as even integrated as full EU and NATO members, the Central and Eastern European countries are still struggling to create functional market economies and political institutions. And, other countries - former parts of the Yougoslav Federation - are at various stages of the process of meeting the Western criteris.

1989-The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe is based on documents, television broadcasts, and interviews from many different locations including Moscow, Berlin, Bonn, Paris and Washington. The aim is to recontruct the starting process of the new Europe: the reunification of Germany, the NATO expansion and the redefinition of the role played by Russia on the world stage. A wide array of political players - from leaders as Mikhail Gorbatchev, Helmut Kohl, George H.W. Bush and James Baker, to organisations like NATO and the European Commission, as well to dissidents - all proposed courses of action and models for the future. The author explains how the aftermath of this fateful victory, and Russian resentment of it, continue to shape world politics today. The author is presenting diverse perspectives from the political elite as well as ordinary citizens.

Mary Elise Sarotte is associate professor of international relations at the University of Southern California. Her previous work includes the book, Dealing with the Devil and German Military Reform and European Security. She has served as a White House Fellow and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Read Central! Europe

Read Central! Europe is an informal association of four publishing houses from Central Europe: Magveto from Budapest, Hungary, Arhipelag from Belgrade, Serbia, Studentska zalozba from Ljubljana, Slovenia, and Fraktura from Zapresic, Croatia.

The common trait of all is the concern to publich literary works speaking to readers around the world and to offer a common basis of understanding in an area where disagreements were more often than the common perspectives.

Geography and conflict

The case of the Mountain Paekdu/Baekdu/Chengbai - the dispute between the two Koreas and China.

Iris Murdoch and Roma

Iris Murdoch's Philosopher's Pupil is not too complicate and metaphysical, with a certain story you could follow, at certain point, as a crime novel. John Robert Rozanov's death, for example - the character around whom all the main presences of the book are gravitating, with clear or unclear literary reasons - is something in between parody and real crime, as in the case when Rozanov's disciple George McCaffrey missed the only - psychoanalytical as well - chance of liberating himself of the power of his master : George wanted to kill his thinking master of whom he was existentially obsessed about, but in fact this one was already dead, after taking an overdose pills, soon before he thought he sunk him in the bathroom.

Shortly, it is a story loaded - and overloaded in some parts - with intellectual ideas, inserted and not always skilfully translated in a literary form through the characters. And many Freudian-interpreted couples.

What I found as well in the book, are the two characters of two Gypsies: Ruby and Pearl. Both of them are assigned the roles of servants/helpers of Alex - George's dominant mother -, respectively Hattie - Rozanov's daughter. They are portrayed as black, not very trustworthy, changing characters and with doubtful honor and morality, with bad habits acquired from the nomad camps they are frequenting from time to time. With prostitution family history. And obsessed with various superstitions, as Ruby's one related to the bad signs brought by the foxes.

October 9, 1989, Leipzig

The day of the wake-up call in Eastern Germany.
and
Preparing for the "20 years after" celebrations.

Herta Mueller, Nobel Prize in Literature

The profile of the Romanian-born German writer Herta Mueller, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in a family of ethnic Germans, she was both critical against the Ceausescu regime and other communist regimes in Eastern Europe, including the former East German writers who collaborated with the secret police. While she was not extensively published and discussed as an author in her home country- mostly through her positions against members of the cultural and political establishment - in Germany she is well known and appreciated and her works are translated in at least 20 languages. Probably now she will benefit of extensive laudatio and impressive articles.

Longer list of UNESCO intangible heritage

with traditions and customs from Latvia, Belarus, China, Mali, Viet Nam and Kenya.

Also, 76 new inscriptions were made in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, among which Aubusson tapestry and the tango.

20 years after

I've read and watched and heard many discussions and points of view, related to the fall of communism. I will not outline here the aspects related to the mechanisms of the system or other recent history backgrounds. What I would like to explain, in a couple of words, is why I consider all the discussions about "nostalgia" and thoughts of a possible reconsideration of those period, misleading. For sure, the liberal or social-democratic systems in the West are not always meeting the expectations and needs of a big share of the population, as the new political parties in the Central and Eastern European countries, are still clumsy and are hardly resisting the temptation of corruption - material and financial altogether. But, in the same time, the solution is not to look back for inspiration, in a past remembered in an extremely mistorted way, but to try to evaluate the situation starting up to what do you have on the ground.
- Even from the very beginning, we were having on the walls and in our textbooks various quotations from the writings of Lenin and Marx and Engels, what matters in fact was the wonderful and unique way of thinking of the representatives of the ruling party. The whole system was created around an outrageous personality cult. It is nothing to be nostalgic about.
- This personality cult was based on a personal relations system, corrupt, centered on the self-assumed humility of accepting to discuss with idiots because your own and family survival was at stake. Accepting to write an ideological standpoint only because at the end an addition kilo of bread or eggs or cheese was at stake. Never, the system was in itself egalitarian. Always, from the very beginning of the regimes, it was an elite - understood as the top of the social system - replaced another one and tried to steal - no abuse here, some of the old regime representatives were put out of their houses and their goods transferred in the houses of the new communist leaders - the goods and privileges. If somebody is ever dreaming about equality, I must warn it is dreaming about an utopia. Communist produced one of the most selfish and lacking common responsibility political subject. If it is living together in the old, almost destroyed block houses it is more likely that - two of the most common examples:
- It will not care about the other neighbors and will always listen its music at the highest volume possible
- It will threw the garbage directly out of his/her window, preferably in the front of the main entrance in the common building
The so-called common feeling of belonging to "something" as I found expressed in some nostalgic writing, with the example of the youth gatherings was faked: the people gathered there found a reason and a way to spend time together, but it was not the aim they were brought to. The aim was, of course, propaganda and indoctrination. The rest is thinking by substitution.
Cheep and affordable products? Subnutrition and products of low quality, not for everybody, not anytime.
Holidays for everybody at low costs? In bad quality conditions and with the required company and the desired destination. Yes, indeed, it was possible to have at least three weeks out of the town, but in the same places, and with the same people and in precarious conditions.
Cultural opportunities, books at low prices? Another bad joke, because in fact the whole cultural production, in all the Central and Eastern European countries was under the strict control of the party and security system. It was not freedom of thought. Nowhere.
It is anything to be nostalgic about?

The Alternative Textbooks in Romania: Live from the Prison

Why living - from time to time - in a former communist country could be an astonishing experience.

I will shortly give an example - in a very condensed way, because, of course, in Eastern Europe, the stories are long and a long explanatory background is more than necessary - from the long process of reform of the education in Romania. It is not selected purposely to be ridiculous or ironic. It is simply how some of the fact took place chronologically.

In 1999 - 10 years after the end of the dictatorship -, following an agreement with the World Bank, it was decided to start a reform of the school textbook, including by the creation of an alternative system of textbooks. By then, there were a list of handbook, one version for each domain, compulsory at every level of education. The alternative system was making possible to choose among a list of textbooks, agreed by a special Commission set by the Ministry of Education. One of them, designed for teaching history of Romania for high-schools, was the subject of an intense political and media campaign.
Shortly: the authors - mostly young historians from Cluj - tried to present in a very systematic and synthetic way the historical moment, focusing more on the history of the present time. One important detail, when we are talking about textbooks in Romania: due to the communist legacy of propaganda, many of the texts for the school use were/and in some cases still are extremely rich in information, data, details, chronology. You don't have the opportunity to think too much by yourself, because you might learn thousand of data about reigns and historical periods. This new texbook was relatively free in this respect and, as the authors themselves explained, it was tailored to answer the preoccupation and the cultural sources of the nowadays Romanian teens.
The scandal started after, one day, the Romanian MP Sergiu Nicolaescu, film director, well known for his movies with heavy historical bias, extremely successful during communism. He took the floor and protested against the way in which the history of Romania is presented in those handbooks, the short space alloted for the moments considered, in his opinion, very important for the historical evolution, as the unification moments, the successful wars etc. At the end of his intervention, he recommended that such a textbook deserves to be publicly burned. Sounds familiar? Not too, for the Romanian MPs who listened indifferently.
From this moment on, the scandal was getting bigger and bigger. The nationalist parties united against the Ministry of Education, the government, the Hungarians, the historians - one of the historians, Sorin Mitu, whose workings haven't been discussed before this public undeserved exposure, is married with an ethnic Hungarian - the World Bank, the European Union and everything was different of speakers. Some of the young historians supported the idea of an alternative presentation of history and a couple of discussions were held, but the "anti" noise was so big, than hardly a professional point of view was heared. The Romanian Academy and a couple of historians from the History Chair of the University expressed their disagreement with creating alternative narratives of the national history and considered the textbook not meeting high standards - nobody pretended it is perfect, it was, we might remember, the first such an alternative textbook after more than 60 years - asking equaly moderation in addressing the issue in the media.
But, the media was continuing the accusations against - hardly to specifically mention who was the target, as nobody was considered clean in this "scandal". The highest point of this tensions was an inquiry made in a Romanian prison: the inmates were asked what do they think about the way in which the national history is presented in those alternative textbooks. Do they consider fair and normal such an approach? Of course, they disagreed.

The European Project - A Myth or a Reality?

An Interview with Tony Judt, for RFE/RL.

The Greeks and their myths

an essay on deconstruction the myths.

What was wrong?

Interview with one of the most lucid Eastern European intellectuals, Tamás G.Miklos , about the ups and downs of post-communism and what happened after the fall.

The Bad Side of the Internet in Human Sciences Research

I am referring now strictly to the Human Sciences, where the definition of concept is apparently a never ending story and the information is so diverse that only recognizing modestly the strict limits of our knowledge could offer a chance to believe that our "writing" are really worthy and bring something valuable to the general appropriation of a subject.

Just an example of the daily struggle of imposing yourself limits to find out more about your topics: you want to check something, and while searching, you find another information and you stop yourself from the writing and read more. And then, you discover that THIS was something new, not covered yet. And you continue to read more and more, and to do more searches and your thoughts are high-speed rolling over and over again. No more writing, or you reconsider chapters or paragraphs, and you need, of course, new ideas to fit or another checking of the basic starting point. Before, it was easier, as the time-space limitations were higher: needed to go to the library, to find out the bibliography carefully prepared before and at the end of the day, you got some clear ideas, ready to be put on paper. None of the situations are enviable and the less of them all is when you should stop finding out for the sake of the time&space pressure of finishing your fantastic papers.

The Retiring Intellectual

A 1959 article about Martin Lipset's stance on the Intellectual choices during the Cold War.

And an appreciation he made, referring to the difficulty to define intellectuals:

Definition of intellectual is sharpened by the existence of intellectuals in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union who used, or still use, the tools and trainings associated with intelligentsia in the science of anti-intellectual values. Are they really intellectuals?

Another brick in the Wall

and the Nostalgia.
The good news is the Wall will remain only a memory.
Good Bye, Lenin, for ever!

The Power of the Powerless

Vaclav Havel's text from 1978, about the dissidence, the origins of Charter 77 and the choice of refusing to live in a lie.
For me, what it defines very well the former communist societies:

Because the regime is captive to its own lies, it must falsify everything. It falsifies the past. It falsified the present, and it falsifies the future. It falsifies statistics. It pretends not to possess an omnipotent and unprincipled police apparatus. It pretends to respect human rights. It pretends to persecute no one. It pretends to fear nothing. It pretends to pretend nothing.

Memories of the Cold War

Thatcher's Britain, Germany and the Soviet Union.

OSCE media freedom representative expresses concern about Lithuanian public information law, welcomes authorities' co-operation on improving it

VIENNA, 4 September 2009 - Miklos Haraszti, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, expressed concern today that a recently amended law that aims to protect minors is sovague that it will restrict legitimate media content, but he also welcomed the Lithuanian authorities' readiness to co-operate with the OSCE in improving the law."The law sets numerous limits on freedom of expression generally, not only on children's programmes," Haraszti wrote in a letter to Arunas Valinskas, Speaker of the Lithuanian Parliament, and to Vygaudas Usackas, Minister of Foreign Affairs. "It introduces dubious and vague media content regulations that can be arbitrarily applied against media."Parliament, the Seimas, adopted the amendments to the Law on the Protection of Minors against Detrimental Effect of Public Information on 14 July.

New initiatives put forward in the Seimas aim to improve the law before it enters into force on 1 March 2010.The July rules outlaw public speech "agitating for homosexual, bisexual and polygamous relations" as well as "portrayal of physical or psychological violence", "promoting bad eating, sanitary and physical passivity habits" and "portraying mockery of a person"."Some of these norms are discriminatory, and all of them hamper the production of artistic or documentary content," Haraszti said. "But their main problem is a vagueness that makes their application unavoidably arbitrary, selective and politicized."Haraszti welcomed the Lithuanian authorities' readiness to co-operate with his office on the reform of the new law before it comes into force.

For PDF attachments or links to sources of further information, please visit: http://www.osce.org/item/39387.html

OSCE launches video contest on civil society to mark anniversary of fall of Berlin Wall and Iron Curtain

VIENNA, 24 August 2009 - The OSCE launched a video contest today to highlight civil society initiatives in the OSCE area to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain. Initiated and financed by the Permanent Mission of Germany to the OSCE, with the support of the Greek OSCE Chairmanship, the contest aims to raise awareness about the importance of civic participation and highlight positive examples of civil society in action.The winners will get a trip to Vienna to attend high-profile events commemorating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain on 5 and 6 November.

The winning short videos will be shown at a special exhibition on 5 November and showcased on the OSCE's YouTube channel and website.

The video contest - "Taking part - civil society initiatives in the OSCE area" - is open to all residents of the 56 OSCE participating States between the ages of 18 and 30. Students, journalists and civil society members are particularly encouraged to enter. The deadline for entries is 2 October.

Contest details can be found on the OSCE website: http://www.osce.org/item/39260.html.

Statement by OSCE Minorities Commissioner on Slovakia's State Language Act

THE HAGUE, 03 September 2009 - The OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM), Knut Vollebaek, released the following statement today:

"Over the past two months I have had numerous discussions with the Slovak and Hungarian Governments and Parliaments as well as representatives of the Hungarian minority in Slovakia in connection with the promulgation of amendments to Slovakia's State Language Act. All parties have sought my good offices in order to help find an amenable solution to outstanding issues surrounding the promulgation and implementation of the Law. In my talks I emphasized that it is important that an appropriate balance is ensured between strengthening the state language on the one hand, and protecting the linguistic rights of persons belonging to national minorities on the other. I suggested specific measures on how this balance can be enhanced and recommended a number of steps to be taken in order to implement the law in an appropriate and proportionate way. It is essential that the implementation of the Act does not negatively affect the rights of persons belonging to national minorities in Slovakia.

I also encouraged the Slovak and Hungarian Governments to engage in constructive dialogue on outstanding issues in the spirit of friendly and good-neighbourly relations and to make full use of existing bilateral mechanisms. It is also imperative that the next steps are taken in close co-operation with national minority representatives in Slovakia.In this context, all sides have welcomed my participation in the upcoming meeting of the Slovak-Hungarian Joint Commission on Issues of National Minorities and have invited me to provide my assistance in ensuring that the next steps will take account of the rights and legitimate needs of all stakeholders. This includes my assistance with the drafting of the implementing guidelines. I intend to remain engaged with this matter until it is resolved in a way that all sides accept. I will visit Budapest and Bratislava in mid-September to continue assisting Hungary and Slovakia in resolving their differences."

For PDF attachments or links to sources of further information, please visit: http://www.osce.org/item/39377.html

When the memories of the past

are different and contradictory and apparently as alive as the present.

Unpleasant truth

and denial regarding Roma in Eastern Europe. A pop-star sparkle.

Cultural patrimony, reconsideration of the past and history

in the case of the Altar of Zeus from Berlin.

European cities ask EU

to be more involved in elaboration of immigration policies. This shift from the general/global level to the particular - and with an approach closer to the real situation - it is more than necessary. Immigration policies should be concerned with individuals and their needs. General policies could neglect the specifics - demographic and social aspects. Local communities are able to offer the feed-back and the information in order to reevaluate those policies according to the demands.

Germany's worrying

undemocratic trends.

Education and peace treaties

A 2008 Report of Save the Children outlines the limited place offered to education in peace treaties and the need to reconsider the schools, at the international level, as "places where intellectual curiosity and respect for human rights is fostered".

The writer's heart, in exile

Being forced to reconsider your writing universe in a foreign language is a painful experience. In the former communist Central and Eastern Europe, the outcome is mostly a love-hate relationship with the mother country, an overcriticism against what it is perceived as cultural and economic underdevelopment and political immaturity. Or, they are dreaming about an utopian space, whose traditions were brutally destroyed by the foreign influence - specifically, the Soviet one.

Practically, the pain is the way in which you should reinvent yourself, your words, the new dictionary you should learn - culturally (because otherwise you cannot be took into consideration by any serious edition house) and from the point of view of the language in itself. You should reinvent your style, yourself. And even after the successful integration and the first edition published in the new language, the feeling of being a foreigner remains: in the interviews you are asked to express yourself as belonging to the other world and you are still considered a curiosity, not part of the Western canon.

If in the case of the case already mentioned - of the former communist countries writers - it is possible to find common references - obsessively considered as a proof that Central and Eastern Europe is part of Europe too, for the writers beloning to the Middle East, this link should be reinvented. And, the use of "big" regional categories - as Central and Eastern Europe, or the Middle East - cultural constructions we are using because of our laziness of thinking - is explanatory enough to proove our serious limits of understanding the other.

But our knowledge in itself is quite limited. And all we could do is to try, as much as possible, to improve little by little the confuse shapes of our knowledge, by reading and trying to find out more about other cultures and representatives of those cultures. And you need passion and a lot of perseverance, even you assume for the very beginning you will never be able to learn "all". An incentive and a possible reason to try to coexist with our own ignorance.

Rafik Shami's book - Damaskus im Herzen und Deutschland im Blick - is my first contact with Syria, viewed from a writer. Who was forced to left the country and reconsider himself as a writer. Who is now published in Germany and in other countries, but not in his home country. We are living in a globalized world, where the identities are shaped and reshaped several times during our life-time, according to the influences we are receiving from various environments we choose or we are compelled to chose. But we cannnot refuse ourself the question: who I am, which is the main narrative I am belonging to? A given political context - the dictatorship, in this case - should force a choice, you assume because no other opportunity for intellectual survival. But after this situation is gone - not yet the case in Syria - this choice is to be reconsidered and your identity rewritten. The red-line of the entire writings of a writer in exile: Who I am? Who I dare to be? For how long? How to go beyond the permanent status of a foreigner - in the home-country as in the chosed country?

And how to explain yourself? Using what kind of language? And the context in itself is not very helpful: the "mediators" - foreigners familiar with the language and culture of your home-country - are lacking, or are misleading. Your voice could be without any impact, because your difference don't fit the usual stereotype about your culture - mainly shaped by various political and geopolitical elements. Another added value to your loneliness.

The foreigners, with different cultures, backgrounds, level of education, are a part of the Western societies you cannot neglect. Sometimes it is difficult to understand. A very useful example - with some comic accents - in the book is related to the ways in which patients originary from the Middle Eastern countries are behaving in relation with the doctors and various medical requirements. A translator should be there to explain to both parts about the tabus and cultural limits and how to find a "healthy solution".

If it will be to find a word to resume to whole book, it is dialogue. It is not about strengthening the differences and to fight an enemy - not easy to find, just to have the disponibility. From the tradition of the coffee houses - put under political observance, since the very beginning, the 16th century - to the 1001 Nights, everything is about dialogue, discussion. When the weapons started to talk, it is only under the political influence. How to counterweight the political influence with the intellectual power it is still problematic and, at least for the moment, impossible.

The misleading names of post-communist parties

For example: the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia.

It was created in 1989.
Among its "aims":
- Capital punishment for those convicted of terrorism, premeditated murder, and other serious crimes;
- The abolition of "non-traditional" and "fanatic" religious sects in Russia;
- Control of all agricultural land by the state

Mentioned just a couple of example, prooving the full contradition between the name and the practical objectives. The leader, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, is currently mentioning the need to reinforce the "Russian power', "accusing" its political opponents of being "Jews".

Once again, in order to open the ways of understanding the post-communist world, it is necessary a very careful lecture and decyphering work of words, expressions and attitudes.

Remembering

the Night of the Troubles, 1969.

Multicultural stages

in Oregon.

Beauty and murder

in Dresden.

We love aliens

but not illegal kids.

Or how the political choices are reflected into the movie subjects and, mainly, their fundings.

Sommer time

and intercultural problems on the beach.

in Egypt

and

in France.

And what the "burqini" creator thinks about.


Plus: another view from the Middle East: the religious Israeli beaches customers.

The lost children

of the Romanian Revolution.

Saving the cultures, on-line

How to help a culture to still remain present, despite the decresing number of its representatives? The on-line, virtual environment it's creating a huge opportunity in this respect. In this case, the museum-without-walls about the Jewish culture in Poland, iniatiated and maintained mostly by non-Jews.

Eastern Europe's Muppies

or how the transition in Eastern Europe is nothing but waiting. The aim of this waiting is usually called "change" but by now it is hard to understand if it is a slim common understanding of the content of this great, great word.

Who are the Uighurs?

a photo-reportage - Foreign Policy

When East meets West

and don't want to see each other again.

It is more a matter of ignorance than a purposive behavior. Those cities are not chosen because of their history, but because are affordable. The same is happening each year in Cyprus or in the Greek islands.

New violences against Roma in Hungary

Another deadly attack against the Roma community.

There are here two problems.

Roma is a huge transnational minority, with lots of problems and, mainly in Eastern Europe, lacking the proper organisation allowing them to defend in an organised way their rights. EU is mostly unable to tackle this issue, as the Central and Eastern European countries should go beyond a long inherited racism.

On the other side, you have an increasing violent and aggresive extreme-right, targeting - for the moment - mostly the Roma minority, without being countered with the proper tough actions. Finding the perpetrators of deadly attacks is in many cases a closed case, without any result.

Are the Central European countries ables to react in full awareness to those past threats to their present and future?

The future of handbooks

is on-line.

Social discrimination of Roma

in Central and Eastern Europe.

A short history of the post-war archives in Romania

The administration of the national archives is part of the effort to reorganize and assert a historical identity, in the new created states from the beginning of the 20 century. In the conception of some inter-war period Romanian historians, those archives should be more than a depositary of history but most be used at maximum for the "knowledge, clarification and solving the issues of the national history", also by the creation of the specialists able to read and interpret the documents. In Romania, the communist regime, obsessively preoccupied with history, gave to the archives the role of certifying the various ideas and legitimation strategies envisioned by the ideologues of the party. What happened after was facing the culture of secrecy, without specialists able to cope with the documents and to read them from a scientific perspective, free of any kind of ideology.

Jewish Assimilation in Hungary

by far, one of the most interesting example of integration in Central and Eastern Europe.

One single example, to be found in many other cases: the mathematician Lipót Fejér (1880-1959) was born Leopold Weiss. Around 1900, he changed his name, to make himself more Hungarian.

But this decision wasn't enough to be fully considered a Hungarian, and on the occasion on his appointement, in 1911, to the chair of mathematics at the University of Budapest the following incident took place:

Although already world famous and warmly endorsed by Poincaré on the occasion of the awarding of the Bolyai Prize, Fejér's appointment to a chair at the University had been opposed by anti-semites on the Faculty. One of them, knowing full well that Fejér's original name had been Weiss, asked during the occasion of Fejér's candidacy: 'Is this Leopold Fejér related to our distinguished colleague on the Faculty of Theology, Father Ignatius Fejér?' Without missing a beat Loránd Eötvös, Professor of Physics, answered "Illegitimate son". After that the appointment sailed through smoothly.

K Tandori, The life and works of Lipót Fejér, Functions, series, operators, Colloq. Math. Soc. János Bolyai 35 (Amsterdam-New York, 1983), 77-85.

Education and Islam

in Germany.

The Case of the Missing Russian Crime Novel

An interesting feature published by Radio Free Europe.

The new elites, by themselves- The German case

Being part of the elites - the best and the first from any domain - wasn't never easy. There are always certain family and professional and financial networks you should be part of in order to get a chance to arrive in this exclusivistic club - how to you succeed to keep your membership being another part of the problem, mostly up to yourself and your professional and intellectual capacities.

The idealistic turned into generational nightmares communist "aim" of a society without classes and with equal opportunities for all was in full contradiction with a reality where the party leaders and their heirs - starting from the top of the leadership - see Romania, North Korea or Cuba, as only a couple of examples of inherited power, from a leader to the members of its family. In some cases, the right to apply at university was guaranteed mostly to those with "healthy origins", meaning from a low social background.

In liberal societies, a guarantee for success is still the social origin. And, in a way, it is easy to understand way. You inherited money and the prestige and you are trained to continue the business of your family. The career and future plans are tailored from a generation to another. The democracy guaranteed by Constitutions are counterweighted by the aristocratic system in the economic sphere. In the same time, a public school system, free/state-supported is guaranteeing to the children the minimum education, to be continued further, on the basis of abitilies and knowledge tests.

But, independently of this public system, the members of the elites have the choice, on the basis of their financial resources to follow the private system, from kindergarten to university, allowing - on the basis of curricula, proportionally evaluated in the prices of the scholarhips paid by the parents - the guarantee of a place in the elite system. Your direct environment is 80% made of the people with the same social background - of course, some exceptions are allowed, as the chances of a scholarhip offered for gifted children - with the same set of values and ways to spend the free time - from the favorite brands to the Swiss winter ski resorts and the exclusivistic expensive social networks.

What Julia Friedrichs is presenting, in Gestatten: Elite, auf den Spuren der Mächtigen von morgen is an inside view of this nascent society of youngsters intensively preparing to be the tomorrow's elites. Even the author is limiting at maximum the academic references and current discussions in the political science and sociology regarding elites, the perspective still remains interesting. Once enrolled in this system you close the doors to the outside reality: intensive works, reading, preparation of various tests. Even if you would like to have an eye outside, it is no time and the opportunities are limited. And, with the time, you loose any interest in it. And the danger in itself is the lack of adaptability and limited sociability. Of course, you have many friends sharing the same values. But, when it is about economy or leadership or mainly politics, the key is not to be good for being good, but to be as fit as possible and as flexible as possible to change and find new ideas corresponding to the needs of the reality. So, for a balance, you don't need an internship to a big company, but a couple of months spent in the real world: travelling with the public transportation, living in a poor neighbourhood, doing social work. Otherwise, you will have the theoretical knowledge and the resources, but you will lack the power and wisdom.

Geopolitics and airlines

The division of Cyprus and the economic consequences.

How to Write?

Not necessarily the subject matter, it is always about the style and the capacity to express what you are thinking about. Because the first rule is to have clear in mind what do you want to write and why. Nowadays, audience is becaming more and more unclear, but still the simple exercise of imagining another one reading your work is useful.

How to Write, by Alastair Fowler is an easy guide about words and how to make them to send messages. Including from general considerations to a couple of tips how to introduce paragraphs, connection words, use of the metaphors. Plus, at the end, an extensive list of dictionaries and thesaurus to be used by any kind of writer, a professional or an amateur.

Writing could be a passion or a full-time job. The aim is to be read/understood by the other and in order to attain this at least a minimum of general requirements are needed. Understanding the needs to use certain rules - grammar and ponctuation, as the need of a logical organization of the whole material - is the first stage and don't have nothing to do with creativity. Unless you want to be a dadaist-suprarealist writer. And, whatever the language and the natural gift, reading and updating permanently, including with a technical and sometimes arid bibliography - as how to use the "full stop" - could be useful. And lots of exercise as well. Exploring various technical and stylistical potentiality of the words is a full-time rewarding activity. Probably, many writers consider humiliating and worthless to write an ad or a news in the newspaper, or a political discourse - even they are many doing this, and successfully. But, at least for fun and as an exercise of creativity is worthy doing this. Each side of the words is opening new ways to understand and thus, better use them.

For me, the section 24, about Practicalities, was interesting because made me think about various cultural and civilizational habits we share with our time or inherited from a professional lineage. This section it is about: where to write, when, how to warm-up, management of the materials, ordering papers and writing instruments. Each of this issue deserves at least one book in itself.

The Language Row between Slovakia and Hungary

continues.

The never ending battle with the past

in Central and Eastern Europe.

The issue at stake is how to start a capitalist future without having a clear property situation. Poland and the Czech Republic are good examples of a good post-communist capitalist start and are successful EU and NATO members. Still, the restitution problem is dealing with the ways to solve the past problems. In countries as Ukraine, Russia or Serbia this process is just at the beginning if not started at all, meaning that, sooner or later the issue will be solved following the death of many of the possible individuals who would have something to request.

Germany, 20 years after

Is there any East or West Germany identity? Or only one, with the same problems? A recent study, about perceptions of democracy and of the way it turned 20 years ago. (in German)

OSCE minorities commissioner discusses amendments to Slovakia's language law

THE HAGUE, 22 July, OSCE

The OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities, Knut Vollebaek, received delegations from Slovakia (on 21 July) and Hungary (on 22 July) to discuss the amendments to the "Law on the State Language of the Slovak Republic".Vollebaek heard the views of the two sides and in confidence shared his opinion and recommendations on the proposed amendments with the two delegations.He said he would continue to remain engaged in the matter with a view to providing a possible venue for the two sides to address matters of mutual concern in a way that promotes both interests of minority communities and enhances friendly relations between the two countries.

The High Commissioner on National Minorities, created in 1992, is a unique OSCE institution with a mandate to identify and seek early resolution of ethnic tensions that might endanger peace, stability or friendly relations between OSCE participating States.

For PDF attachments or links to sources of further information, please visit: http://www.osce.org/item/38979.html

Obituary

Leszek Kolakowski

How extended was the Stasi network in DDR?

Questions and relative answers - Die Zeit (German)
Also in Die Zeit - Liebe Ossiversteher

OSCE Kosovo Mission helps sustain Bosnian-language education

An OSCE report.

Richard P. Feynman, on scientific freedom and responsibility

"I can live with doubt and uncertainty. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong"

He proclaimed himself as being an "utter ignoramus about politics" but realized how important the science could be in promoting democracy and human rights:

"I feel a responsibility as a scientist who knows the great value of a satisfactory philosophy of ignorance, and the progress made possible by such a philosophy, progress which is the fruit of freedom of thought...to proclaim the value of this freedom and to teach that doubt is not to be feared, but it is to be welcomed as the possibility of a new potential for human beings. If you know that you are not sure, have a chance to immprove the situation. I want to demand this freedom for future generations".

Richard P.Feynman, Don't you have time to think?

Belfast

back in focus. A BBC commentary about the last racist attacks in Northern Ireland.

The racist actions in Northern Ireland continued

and a couple of arrests have been made.

Belfast attacks

on Roma.

More than 100 Romanians are forced to go back home.

Going beyond divisions

in Israel, through sports.

After the first African-American president

the first Disney African American princess.

Minorities and the economic crisis. The Hungarian case

The current economic crisis will not affect the support of the Hungarian state for minorities.
"The government has duties and moral obligations to Hungarians living beyond the borders which it has to fulfill even under difficult circumstances", said the Hungarian prime-minister, Gordon Bajnai, on the occasion of a meeting with Hungarian representatives from Romania, Slovakia, Serbia and Ukraine. In the same time, the new 41 year-old billionaire prime-minister should fight the economic crisis and the worrying rise of the extreme right.

Kosovo minorities leave, claiming discrimination

Deutsche Welle

May 27


The refusal of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leadership to ensure minority rights is driving out many non-Serb minorities, a new human rights report says.

The London-based Minority Rights Group International (MRG) says exclusion from political and social life and discrimination are forcing ethnic Bosniaks, Turks, Roma, Croats, Gorani, Ashkali Egyptians and even some Serbs out of Kosovo.

Non-Serb minorities have criticized the international community for paying too much attention to Albanian-Serb relations and ignoring other groups.

"The priority for the international community should be to ensure that there is some kind of international human rights mechanism to which minorities in Kosovo can turn," MRG director, Mark Lattimer, said.

Lack of political will

Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence in February 2008 and Serbia's opposition to the move had resulted in a vacuum in international protection for minorities, the MRG report says. Since declaring independence, ethnic divisions have worsened between the enclave's two million Albanians, 120,000 Serbs, and 80,000 others from smaller ethnic groups, despite the presence of 14,000 NATO peacekeepers and a 2,000-strong European Union mission overseeing a fragile peace. "There is a lack of political will and substantive investment in effective implementation of minority rights among majority Albanians," the report says.

"Together with a bad economy, these conditions mean that many members of minority communities are now leaving the new Kosovo state altogether," MRG concludes.
Integration "a fantasy"

The Kosovo government has called the report "not factually accurate" and says minority rights are guaranteed by the constitution. But Lattimer, in an interview with Deutsche Welle, described that claim as "a fantasy" and stressed that the trend toward greater ethnic segregation was continuing. "Effectively," Lattimer said, "ten years of international rule have seen an increase in segregation between communities." The MRG report says that the poor treatment of minorities was due to a perception that they had been allies of, or did little to oppose, the former Serb regime in the 1990s.

Serbia still regards Kosovo as part of its historic heartland and has asked the International Court of Justice in The Hague to rule on the legality of its secession. Serb President Boris Tadic, ahead of a visit to France on Wednesday, told the French daily Le Figaro that Serbia would "never recognize" the unilateral independence of Kosovo.

Kosovo's independence has only been recognized by 60 of the world's 200 countries.

Muslims in Europe

The most recent report on discrimination of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights is indicating a discrimination for 31% of the Muslim population in Europe. The worrying sign of the report is the fact that many of them do not report the incidents to the police, because fear or lack of trust in the authorities. When the authorities are not trust, most likely the next stops are to isolate by the rest of the community and after to react on your own to discrimination or your own perception of it.

On-line research

Two useful professional tools to create web surveys.

- Zoomerang - www.zoomerang.com - with a limited free access

- Survey Monkey - www.surveymonkey.com - providing a software able to create web surveys, allowing to anyone intersted the opportunity to have its own study.

One of the advantages of the extended use of Internet in various scientific domains is the possibility to acquire with very limited costs data relevant for the study. Once you set up the survey, you could distribute it to a wider list of contacts, space and geography being less important than before. The disadvantage could be in the sometimes randomly choice of the sample. If simply distributed on various lists or discussion groups, the surveys could be filled by people not necessarily included in your wishful sample.

Street Life

By Amy Waldman
Sidewalk

By Mitchell Duneier

Farrar, Straus & Giroux

Washington Monthly

Sidewalk examines how societies and subcultures form and regulate themselves. It explores and explains the life of cities, from how public space is controlled, both formally and informally, to how local laws get made and why they get broken. It tells a story---dozens of stories---about how people relate across boundaries of race and class and experience.

It does all of this simply by probing very, very deeply into the world of a small group of men, most of whom are black, that has adopted a stretch of sidewalk in Greenwich Village. There, depending on their proclivities and ambitions, they sell books, magazines, or secondhand goods, or guard the tables or spaces of those who sell, or panhandle, or in some cases, sleep. These are men, one of whom, Hakim Hasan, writes in an afterword to Sidewalk, whose identities "are hidden in public space."

Some of the men in the Village are ex-convicts, for whom the street means a fresh start; others are ex-corporate men, for whom it means liberation. Some of the men are "unhoused," in Mitchell Duneier's preferred term, while others go home to apartments each night. Some are intellectuals selling books specifically about the black experience; others subsist by charging those vendors money to guard their spaces overnight. Some get up and go to work each day; others, occasionally unhinged by drugs or alcohol, live less predictably.

What is significant is that, in one form or another, all of them work as entrepreneurs in the informal economy, and as such, their stories are a tribute to the redemptive, stabilizing, power of work. And what is surprising is how the men have constituted a strangely nurturing network in which newcomers are taught to scavenge and sell by old-timers; rules about social behavior are as much enforced within the group as from outside; and conduct is shaped by a combination of logic, integrity, anger, and the drive for respect.

For them, the sidewalk has become a sustaining habitat, but they do not exist in a vacuum. Some of their small social transgressions, from peeing in public places, to harassing women and bank-goers, to drinking, make many urban dwellers, including some who live in the neighborhood, just wish they would go away. Under Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, they have borne the brunt of quality-of-life policing.

The essential question running through the book is whether these men are "public characters" or "broken windows." The term "public character" comes from Jane Jacobs' 1961 classic, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, a study of city life based largely in Greenwich Village. Jacobs laid out the concept of "public characters"---those, such as shopkeepers, who serve as benevolent conduits of information and "eyes on the street." When Duneier first meets Hasan, the book vendor who serves as his initial guide, he describes himself as a "public character."

The term "broken window" comes from a theory originally advanced by James Q. Wilson and George Kelling and adopted by elected officials and police chiefs across the country---that to leave behaviors like minor vandalism unchecked leads to more serious crime. Duneier points out that the theory has subsequently been broadened to refer to social behaviors like panhandling.

Duneier concludes that the larger community does not necessarily see the men as public characters. To understand why that is, he spends much of his book examining the barriers of race, class, culture, and behavior that have shaped the relationships between local businesspeople and residents and the vendors.

By the end, he has identified a central contradiction that the city's policies miss: "Many of the men who are succeeding in living a 'better' life through their entrepreneurial activity are panhandlers, drunks, addicts, loiterers, and possibly the mentally disturbed, as well as unlicensed vendors."

He continues: "The men working on Sixth Avenue may be viewed as broken windows, but this research shows that most of them have actually become public characters who create a set of expectations, for one another and strangers (including the criminal element---as, indeed, many of them once were), that Œsomeone cares' and that they should strive to live better lives."

In other words, to drive them off the street and away from their livelihoods is far more likely to cause crime than allowing them to exist on the street.

"Tearing down the informal structure carries with it the cost of eradicating positive and inspiring models that are misunderstood for their opposite," Duneier concludes. And the misunderstanding, he argues, results from judging these men simply on the basis of race and class.

Before that conclusion come innumerable rich observations and details. To describe Duneier as obsessed would be an understatement: He spent several years reporting and writing a publication-ready book based on Mr. Hasan, then decided, with Mr. Hasan's urging, that he needed to look at the wider network of vendors on the street, scrapped the original book, went back to the street, worked for magazine vendors, and wrote something new.

He has a relentlessly curious mind---not to mention far better fact-checking skills than most journalists---and, accordingly, Sidewalk ranges far, and rewardingly, from Sixth Avenue, where the men are concentrated.

Duneier tracks down the city councilman who, almost on a fluke, sponsored an ordinance allowing the sale of written material on the streets of New York, which became the men's livelihood. (That same councilman later becomes a lobbyist for business interests and helps pass a law that cuts the space allowed for vending in half, leading to all sorts of fights on the street.) Curious about how the men learned about the ordinance, Duneier discovers that it was the policemen who enforce the law on the streets who passed on---sometimes in garbled form---information about what was now legal and why. He travels to Penn Station, the former habitat for many of the men, to explore how they were literally squeezed out by architectural modifications that deliberately eliminated the spaces where they had gathered.

But mostly, he spends time with the men, observing, interviewing, tape recording, having them tape each other. The book, as a result, often feels like a documentary. The men argue over space, instruct each other on what prices to demand, haggle with customers, harass women, and the like.

Duneier tries to understand why some of the men persist in behaviors, despite the efforts of both society at large and their fellow vendors to reform them. He makes a powerful case that antisocial behavior is often a reaction to a lack of sociability on the part of local businesses and residents.

Consider, for example, the way many of the men pee in the street, in courtyards of buildings, even in cups that they store on a tree. The men do so because they believe that they are not welcome in local restaurants; and public bathrooms are located at such a distance that, to use them, the men must leave their goods untended on the street, where they are likely to be confiscated by the police.

Duneier describes a white Vermont family that comes each year to sell Christmas trees in the Village. They have been embraced by local residents and businesses, given keys to their apartments, invited in to shower, and so on---generosities that have never been extended to the vendors. The difference is not exclusively race, Duneier notes, but that is certainly part of it. Whatever the reasons, the result is that the family members do not have to relieve themselves in cups or on the street. Duneier also aptly points out the usual double standards: A homeless black man peeing on the street is a transgressor; a drunk upper class white man who does so is drunk, and thus forgiven.

The term "humanize" is overused, but it is worth using here only because of the way Duneier accomplishes it---not only by making invisible lives visible, but also by showing the commonalities between these men and those with less pigmentation and more money. Their haggling over prices, for example, is as much about the preservation of "respect"---feeling that no one "got over" on them---as about the money. No different, it seems, from many businessmen.

The only criticism of Duneier is, perhaps, an excess of idealism, or liberalism; in his hope that local residents and businesspeople can somehow overlook the behaviors they do not like in order to focus on the fact that the men are working. Duneier is too optimistic and he may also be asking too much of the neighborhood. For example, shouldn't a woman feel she can walk down the street of her neighborhood and not be harassed?

Still, that is only a small quibble with a remarkable book that brings urban life, and the hidden webs that give structure to it, into focus. These men may be perceived as the weakest among us, but if Sidewalk is any indication, their resilience, and spirit, is more powerful than the drive to eliminate them from view.

Amy Waldman is a reporter for The New York Times

Economic crisis sharpens need for effective migration management, say OSCE Forum participants

OSCE Press Release
May 18

Policymakers and high-level experts are in Athens to discuss effective labour migration management at the OSCE Economic and Environmental Forum which started today against the backdrop of the global economic and financial crisis.

In her keynote address, the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis, urged OSCE states to further increase co-operation on migration issues and develop comprehensive and effective policy frameworks.

"We have all witnessed the increasing trends of migration as an effect of globalization. The recent developments of the financial and economic crisis complicate the problem and its multifaceted character calls for a more focused and co-ordinated approach as a response of the international community," she said.

"Migration issues are being discussed nationally and regionally, as well as at the international level, and we should start from the understanding that all actors eventually face common challenges and therefore we should all explore, together, possibilities for policy responses."

The three-day meeting will focus on the development impact of migration and gender-sensitive approaches in migration related policy making. The Forum will also review OSCE commitments in the economic and environmental dimension focusing on migration, and identify possible follow-up OSCE activities in that field.

OSCE Secretary General Marc Perrin de Brichambaut emphasized the need to safeguard the rights of migrants in the face of the economic crisis.

"In troubled times, it is vital that we communicate clearly about the positive contribution that migrants make to our societies and also that we counter firmly any rise of xenophobia or scapegoating of migrant workers. Violations of human rights and threats to social cohesion cannot be accepted or ignored. These are our starting points," he said.

Goran Svilanovic, the Co-ordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities, said it was important to recognize the benefits of migration to both countries of origin and destination.

"Migratory flows do have significant positive effects on national economies. Some of the wealthiest countries in the world have the highest proportion of immigrant workers, who, in fact do not substitute national workforce, but complement it. On the other hand, origin countries can benefit from remittances and acquired skills and knowledge of their returning migrants," he said.

According to the International Labour Office, regional migrant remittances in the OSCE area amounted to some 50 billion dollars in 2007.

The Athens meeting concludes the 17th OSCE Economic and Environmental Forum and builds on the recommendations and findings of two preparatory conferences and the first part of the Forum, which took place in Vienna in January.

For PDF attachments or links to sources of further information, please visit: http://www.osce.org/item/37691.html

Triumph and tragedy mark 60 years of German sport

DPA May 18

Hamburg - Radio reporter Herbert Zimmermann's emotional match commentary in the closing seconds reverberates down the years. "The Hungarians are given a throw-in. It's taken - comes to Bozsik - it's over! Aus! Aus! Aus! Das Spiel ist aus! (The game is over!) Germany are world champions...!"The few black and white clips of the 3-2 win over Hungary in football's 1954 World Cup final are testimony not only to another age - when radio rather than television was the medium to galvanize the masses - but to a defining moment in German sporting history. The win in Switzerland became known as "the miracle of Berne," returning pride to a people humiliated and devastated by World War II. Players such as captain Fritz Walter entered Germany's footballing hall of fame. Others were to follow, notably Franz Beckenbauer who led the then-West Germany as captain in 1974 and coach in 1990 to two more world titles. The latter, shortly before German unification, prompted "The Kaiser" to predict Germany would "probably be unbeatable for years" - rashly as he was later to admit. East plus West did not make Germany twice as strong, as the nation was also to learn at the Olympics when the medal tallies soon dwindled and sport had to deal with the legacy of systematic doping. Beckenbauer, however, could claim another major triumph when the nation hosted the 2006 World Cup - 32 years after the tournament took place on West German soil in a nation then divided by the Cold War. With Beckenbauer as organizing committee chief, the event proved to be a catalyst for an outpouring of patriotism and flag-waving. Since the war, many Germans had felt uncomfortable with overt displays of nationalism, but here was a clear sign that people could now demonstrate uninhibited feelings of national pride without shame. Or, as Britain's Times newspaper saw it after witnessing hundreds of thousands at a street party off Berlin's Brandenburg Gate, Germany had become "a normal nation" once more. "Not since the Third Reich has there been such a public outpouring of national pride, though this bears no comparison to the stage management of the Nazis," the paper wrote. As with 1954's "miracle", a World Cup had offered the country a chance to take another look at itself - and it liked what it saw. "The Germans are identifying themselves with their country and its national colours. I think that's great. And I think it's great that I'm not the only one with a flag on my car," President Horst Koehler said during the tournament. If the 2006 World Cup was a high point, the 1972 Munich Olympics - also an opportunity to present the friendly and welcoming face of Germany - marked an abject low in the history of the Games. Munich was the second summer Games to be held on German soil since the Nazi-tainted 1936 Berlin Olympics, and the deaths of 11 Israeli athletes as a result of a Palestinian terrorist attack remains a lasting stain. Members of the Black September group had seized the athletes inside the Olympic village, immediately killing two of them. In a failed rescue attempt at a military airport the remaining Israelis, a German policeman and five of eight terrorists were killed. The Olympic events were briefly suspended but Avery Brundage, the International Olympic Committee president, controversially decided that "the Games must go on. "Although terrorism was a new dimension, sport had always been used and abused for political prestige, none more so than in communist East Germany, which became a formidable power in Olympic sport. East also famously triumphed over West on the football field at the 1974 World Cup - a result which did not stop West Germany going on to beat the Netherlands in the final in Munich. There have been many other great sporting moments and sporting heroes. Steffi Graf and Boris Becker triggered a tennis boom in the latter 1980s and 1990s. Michael Schumacher did much the same for the popularity of Formula One motor-racing, while East Germany's figure skating queen Katarina Witt was popular on both sides of the divide. Although rivals before unification, both German teams in fact took part in the Olympics as a united team under one flag between 1956 and 1964. But according to historian Uta Balbier, the East German leadership had soon realized it could circumvent diplomatic isolation by promoting cultural relations. "Sport was the ideal vehicle for this," said Balbier, author of The Cold War on the Cinder Track - German-German Sport from 1950 - 1972. A Political History, in an interview with the Goethe Institute. The state could prove how good it was by the number of medals it won and take pride in the hoisting of its flag and the playing of the anthem at victory ceremonies, she said. East Germany won 409 medals (West Germany: 204) at summer Olympics from 1968 to 1988, despite a boycott in 1984. But it was tarnished glory. Germany is still coping with the aftermath of its state-sponsored doping programme and the exploitation of many innocent young athletes.

Panel Seeks Solutions To Albanian-Serb Divide In Kosovo

Over a year after independence was declared, Kosovo's Serbs and Albanians are no closer to coexistence.

Nikola Krastev
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
April 27

Three panels were brought together by the U.S.-based Association for the Studies of Nationalities to examine the challenges facing Kosovo one year after it declared independence from Serbia.

But as the debates intensified, it because clear there were no simple answers.

Panelists had sharp disagreements about the best way for Pristina to deal with its sizable Serbian majority in Kosovo's north, the majority of whom remain deeply loyal to Belgrade.

Some discussion participants suggested a federalist system of government might prove the best fit for Kosovo.

Nebojsa Vladislavjevic, a Serbian analyst who has written extensively on Kosovo, suggested a model close to the 1995 Dayton accord that divided power between Bosnia's Serbs, Croats, and Muslims might bring lasting peace to Kosovo's Serbs and Albanians.

"You need substantial territorial solutions, very radical territorial autonomy for a minority which is essentially under existential threat. And you also need some sort of overlapping sovereignties," Vladislavjevic said.

"That's why I said that the Bosnian-Dayton model is applicable to the Kosovo conflict as it stands right now, because it will provide security to the minority, self-rule, and also extensive links with Serbia. And at the same time you will have power-sharing between the Serbian and Albanian entities."

Others suggested a formal partition was a more practical solution. That would reunite northern Kosovo, where Serbs make up 90 percent of the population, with Serbia proper -- and leave the remaining territory as an undisputed, independent state that even Belgrade would willingly recognize.

But Shinasi Rama, a Kosovo expert and professor of political science at New York University, said such a partition could prove destablizing to the entire Balkan Peninsula, still grappling with the ethnic divisions resulting from the Yugoslav breakup.

While Kosovar Serbs have a natural patron in their fellow Serbs in Belgrade, Kosovar Albanians are far less reliant on their ethnic kin in Albania. A formal partition, Rama said, could hand the Serbs an unfair advantage.

"Serbs [in Kosovo] are being used by Belgrade because they are fully funded, financially supported, structurally organized," Rama said. "The Serbian elite provides leadership to them at the local level, etc. So, in a sense they see themselves as Serbs living in Kosovo."

Social Collapse

Adding to Kosovo's ethnic tensions is its rampant poverty. Unemployment hovers at a staggering 45 percent, suicide rates and criminal activity are rising, and corruption is widespread. Social services like garbage collection are largely defunct, leaving growing piles of refuse piling alongside village roads.

Hundreds of Albanians have had their electricity cut off during the past year for failing to pay their utility bills. But Kosovar authorities have been far more reluctant to cut off services to delinquent Serbian consumers, some of whom have reportedly gone years without paying for electricity.

In another notorious case, ethnic Serbs employed by Kosovo's police force failed to show up for work for over a year but continued to receive their salaries of 200 euros ($260) a month.

Such a situation, said Anna Di Lellio, a sociologist and journalist who has worked for years as a UN consultant in Kosovo, has left many Kosovar Albanians with a sense of deep distrust toward the central government in Pristina.

Anytime the majority feels the minority is enjoying special privilege, Di Lellio said, it's dangerous. "If a minority is not happy, we may solve the problem. But if the majority is not happy, it becomes dangerous for the minority," she said.

"So, actually my concern is for the Serb minority; that they not be presented as special, privileged. Nobody in Kosovo can not show up for work for a year and still receive a salary. But Serbs can do it, and these [Albanian] guys are going to think that they are privileged," Di Lellio. "But they're not. I'm not saying that."


See also:
Joe Biden started the Balkan tour

Le bonheur en Allemagne?

Michel Tournier, about France and Germany, how they see each other and a long time cultural relationship

About stereotypes and how it is necessary to look into reality in order to overcome them:

"Chaque peuple revendique la vertu dont il est en vérité le plus dépourvu. Il en va ainsi du fair-play anglais, du sens de l'honneur espagnol, de la propreté hollandaise et de la prétendue joie de vivre méditerranéenne.

S'agissant de l'Allemagne, il faut se garder de prendre pour argent comptant ses prétentions à l'ordre, le travail et la rationalité, l'efficacité, la méthode". (:49)

As for France:

"Ils revendiquent l'esprit, la légéreté, la finesse, l'ironie, bref toutes les qualités qu'on trouve chez Jean Paul, Holderlin, Goethe, Heine, les petits chateaux baroques et la musique de Mozart et de Schubert. (...) En vérité, le Francais esf un fier-à-bras dont l'ambition est toujours d'éclipser le reste de l'humanité. Ses écrivains sont des encyclopédistes qui prétendent faire entrer la totalité du savoir et du monde dans une oeuvre massive, énorme, définitive. Faire en sorte qu'il ne reste plus rien à écrire après eux". (:51)

Rock against/with communists, in DDR

Rock music in the Eastern block fought between survival and playing with the communist regimes. Some of them were banned and fuelled the main stream opposition against the regimes, some of them supported the regimes and fully enjoyed the advantages of being on the "good side" - state contracts, concerts, involvement in the public life.
Klaus-Renft-Combo band was created in 1958, in Leipzig, then in Eastern Germany. For a while, they supported communist party politics - SED (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands) - with songs as "Chilean Metal" or "That's How Neruda died Too". But, songs like "Doubts" and "The Rock Ballad of Little Otto" criticized the Wall and contributed to the disbanding of the group and the emigration of its members to the Federal Republic. (Photo: concert from May 7, 2009, in Alexanderplatz, on the occasion of the events celebrating 20 years from the the fall of the Berlin Wall)
More luckier, the Pudhys, enjoyed the favors of the communist regime. Considered as "The Beatles of DDR" (in comparison with the "Rolling Stones" - the bad boys from Renft), they played until the end of the regime the role of exemplary socialists. Peter Meyer, the leader of the band, used to say: "We aren't the party types. We prefer drinking milk and cola over alcohol". This non-conflictual attitude brought them lots of advantages. In the 70s-80s, they sold over 16 million records, almost one for each citizen of the DDR, were rewarded with state honors, television and film contracts and toured constantly the Eastern block. The later STASI records revealed later (August 1993) that it was a price - as usual - for such advantages. Peter Meyer had provided between 1973-1989, as Stasi informant (Inoffizieller Mitarbeiter) information about artists and media personalities.

Rote Stern uber Deutschland

Before the German reunification, on the territory of the formerDDR, they were around 320,000 members of the Red Army, with 220,000 members of their families. The German state paid 8,35 mld. DM to the Russian state in order to be built new houses for them, in Russia, Bielorusia or Ukraine.

In the heart of Java

The Economist
April 2

A Shadow Falls: In the Heart of Java By Andrew Beatty Faber and Faber; 336 pages; £12.99 Buy it at Amazon.co.uk

EVERY year Indonesia enjoys a national holiday for nyepi, the Hindu day of silence, which this year fell on March 26th. It is not a holiday in India, Hinduism’s homeland. Similarly, in Bayu, once part of one of the last Hindu kingdoms in East Java to be conquered and converted to Islam, villagers welcome the Ramadan fast with a feast, scandalising some of the clerics.

Indonesian religion is “syncretic”, a unique confection, and nowhere more so than in Java, much the most populous island in much the most populous Muslim nation on earth. This fascinating and moving book describes what “syncretism” means in daily life. The author, Andrew Beatty, an anthropologist, spent two periods in Bayu in the 1990s, with his young family. As he documented local customs and rituals, he became drawn into its cultural conflict: between “Javanism” (the pre-Islamic mystical tradition) and orthodox Islam.

Mr Beatty describes the mystics’ ceremonies with sympathy: the interment of the afterbirth of a baby girl by her father, dressed and made up as a woman for the purpose; the night-long dramas finishing with the appearance of a were-tiger, the neighbourhood spirit; the seblang, a “fertility rite at which a nubile girl went into a trance and channelled local spirits”.

The “shadow” of the title is that of encroaching Islamist orthodoxy. A religious teacher seeks out the author as a fellow educated man, assuming he must be on the side of modernisation, since “Islamisation and progress were the same thing”. Politicians in Islamist parties in Jakarta make the same assumption. Women go to university, learn the proper way to do things and start wearing headscarves, chiding their mothers for being backward.

When the first woman in Bayu covers her head, during the author’s first stay, her foster mother “could not bear to look at her”. By the time Mr Beatty returns for a second stay, orthodoxy is on the march. He becomes embroiled in a dispute about the insomnia-inducing amplification of sermons from the local prayer house. One night the speakers blare out a preacher’s rant about the need for holy war.

It is tempting to see this depressing scene as the book’s conclusion: the Javanese idyll smashed by the incursions of alien extremism. But that hints at one of the book’s two frustrations: it is not the conclusion. Well-written, with vivid characters, “A Shadow Falls” is as enthralling as a novel. And like a good novel, it poses the question: what happened next? At the time, 1997, Indonesia was in turmoil, on the brink of economic meltdown and the end of the Suharto dictatorship. East Java suffered a wave of mysterious killings. After Suharto, there was an explosion of Islamist parties. Most have now moved firmly into the mainstream. What the author calls “the ebb and flow of orthodoxy” moves both ways. The reader longs to know what Bayu is like today.

The second frustration is shared by all books on modern Indonesia: its failure to explain a terrible paradox. The author depicts Java as almost an ideal society “of social harmony, empathy and gentleness”. Yet, a generation earlier, as Suharto came to power, Indonesia suffered a terrible peacetime slaughter when at least 500,000 people were killed. The author meets a man who ferried prisoners to their deaths in the back of a lorry. They were tipped over a cliff, and sometimes doused with petrol and set alight. “You could see them twitching in the ravine below.” Bayu was home to both death-squad veterans and the families of their victims. Darker than the shadow of a putative future of Islamic orthodoxy is a bloody past that is both unexpiated and unexplained.

A Shadow Falls: In the Heart of Java.
By Andrew Beatty.
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Hungary: Police ups reward for information on Roma crime

MTI April 25 Hungary's national police chief told MTI on Saturday that he had increased the reward for information leading to the perpetrators of recent attacks against the Roma to 50 million forints.

Jozsef Bencze said the attacks committed against Roma in Nagycsecs, Tatarszentgyorgy and Tiszalok are connected and the perpetrators are believed to belong to the same circle. Instead of the 10 million forints reward that police offered in each of the cases, 50 million forints will be given to anyone supplying information that will lead to the perpetrators, he added. Bencze noted that two people were killed in Nagycsecs last November and a father and his five-year old son were shot dead in Tatarszentgyorgy in February. In the most recent attack, a Roma man was shot dead on Wednesday. The attackers left behind various traces, including two DNA samples, but these have not been found in the criminal registry, Bencze said. A team of 70 police officers are involved in the investigation, including highly experienced criminal experts, he added. Police have so far investigated as many as 10,000 people who were in the vicinity of the incidents, including 2,000 who were questioned, Bencze said. Hungarian police has also received much useful help from international experts in drawing up the suspects' profile, he added Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai said that the government will do all it can to assist the police and create law and order so that no one should have to live in fear in Hungary. He said that the killing of a Roma citizen in Tiszalok was part of a series of shameful acts, and amounted to an offense against the whole of the Hungarian Republic.