(1)

The editor of The Spectator, Matthew d'Ancona, is not what you'd call a combatative journalist. I tend to feel that the Spectator, while still a highly readable publication these days, has tended sometimes to tag along a bit too tamely behind the Cameron/Brown consensus, although the magazine retains its robust elements, not to mention that entertaining if rather self-paroding old card, Taki.

What the Spectator thinks of Gordon Brown may not count for much outside the Westminster village of media/political junkies, but I reckon this ferocious column by d'Ancona about the government's repulsive behaviour over the recent EU Constitution, sorry, Treaty, represents quite a shift. Whatever respect that d'Ancona used to voice about Brown has disappeared. I have never read anything so sharp by d'Ancona before. The trouble is, that it has taken far too long for the truth to dawn on even supposedly cynical media commentators that Brown is not a man of honour or principle. The mistake is to think that because he is Scottish, dour, unable to do the Blairite Dianaesque rhetoric, that he is therefore somehow more "solid" or "honest" than the actor-manager that he replaced. The truth, alas, is quite different. Brown is just another machine politician.

(17)

Today is 17th November, the day when the Velvet Revolution began 18 years ago. Since then there have been years when I did not 'commemorate' the event and there were years when I did. A couple of weeks ago I was visiting Eastern Europe and despite the trickle of bandwidth available where I was staying, I found myself watching old clips from the communist era on YouTube. The most surreal was not the absurdity of their content, the ridiculous gravitas of the communist propaganda but the memory of this rubbish being taken seriously and accepted as the norm.

I have written about 17th November 1989 already and what it meant to me. This year I prefer to share some images, which as usual, speak a thousand words. To those, let me add music and words of Karel Kryl whose songs used to be a constant companion in the years before the revolution. I was old enough to understand his bitter humour and lyrical cynicism. There is nothing soft or simple about Kryl's songs, they are hard hitting, harsh and without hope.

When armies of Warsaw Pact occupied Czechoslovakia on August 21, 1968 to suppress the democratization movement of Prague Spring, Karel Kryl released album Bratříčku zavírej vrátka (Close the Gate, Little Brother), full of songs describing his disgust over the occupation, life under the communist rule, and rude inhumanity and stupidity of the regime. The album was released in early 1969 and was banned and removed from shelves shortly thereafter. This work became an icon of the anti-communist movement for years to come — when he returned from exile in 1989 during the Velvet Revolution, almost every little child in Czechoslovakia knew the lyrics of these songs by heart.

One of his most famous songs has been superimposed on video clips of the two historical events in Czechoslovakia - August 1968 and November 1989.

[Quick and dirty translation]
Little brother, don't sob, it is not a banshee
Don't be frightened, it is only soldiers,
Who arrived in sharp-edged metal caravans

It rains and it is getting dark
This night will not be short
The wolf has a yen for the lamb
Little brother, do close the gate!
Please close the gate!

(13)

In between getting depressed about the way things are going back in London, it is worth thinking about things that have improved in the last couple of decades. This city, with its beautiful Art Nouveau architecture (much of it designed by Mikhail Eisenstein, father of Sergei) was part of the Soviet Union a mere 20 years ago, with all the bleakness and tyranny that this implied. Today, it is modern and that is in the past, although still occasionally visible in the distance.

I can fly here from London for not much more than £50 return. Rather more importantly, Latvians are free to fly to London for not much more than £50 ($100 US) return, and free to live and work in the UK, and many other places.

The beer here is excellent, and the coffee not quite so excellent (a northern European thing in both cases, I think). One can sit outdoors in beer garden in the evening, listening to live music, drinking beer, and watching a TV news channel that the proprietors of the bar have provided for patrons. It is like being in many other places, other than that the languages and channels are different. Even in Germany one often seems to find oneself watching Sky News or CNN in English. Not so much here.

Here, despite the similarity of the stories, there is still some sense that there is a bear in the room. On the other hand, watching a Chelsea game with commentary in Russian seems perfectly right, somehow, so I suppose the invasion has gone both ways.

(Click for larger versions of the above photographs).

Correction: When I first posted this I wrote "Art Deco" when I meant "Art Nouveau". Also I misspelled Mikhail Eisenstein's name. Apologies. Must get more sleep.

(39)

The next time the Russian airforce tries to test the UK air defences (which seem to be working fine), perhaps the boys in grey-blue should paint a big sign on the side of the Typhoon fighters saying this: "The way to Harvey Nichols' jewellery department and Chelsea FC is that way, chaps".

Seriously, what the expletives deleted does Putin think he is trying to prove, exactly? It is not as if one of those "Bear" aircraft are state-of-the-art. Ironically, there has been a lot of criticism about the expense of the Eurofighter project - justifiably - but at least the RAF have a superb fighter. Let us hope they do not have to remind the Russians of what an outstanding force the RAF still is.

(30)

Evidence that East German borders guards had a clear 'license to kill' anyone who tried to cross the country borders. By the way, I just love how the BBC uses the communist term 'defectors'. So leaving a totalitarian, communist hell-hole counts as 'defection'? WTF?

But I digress.

Border guards in East Germany during the Cold War were given clear orders to shoot at attempted defectors, including children, a senior official says.

The seven-page document dated 1 October 1973, was found last week in an archive in the eastern city of Magdeburg, among the papers of an East German border guard.

I am sure it was not the only document in existence. At least there is some tangible evidence now. It reads:

Do not hesitate with the use of a firearm, including when the border breakouts involve women and children, which the traitors have already frequently taken advantage of.

This has not come as a surprise to me. What was a surprise is this has not been officially known, confirmed, understood before. It is as if the societies that went through (and were complicit in) the communist ordeal are reluctant to confront the full horrors, the corruption and destruction that were at their core for decades.

I whole heartedly agree with Marianne Birthler, director of the government office that now manages Stasi archives, when she says.

We have a long way to go in reckoning with the past.

Barely started, I would add.

On a related note this is my reaction to the movie The Lives of Others when I saw it not too long ago.

(8)

Three weeks ago it was a long weekend in the UK, and on Monday afternoon I therefore somehow found myself wandering fairly aimlessly around the centre of Szczecin in Poland. After contemplating for a little while that one of the major differences between communism in Poland and East Germany was that in Poland churches were rebuilt lovingly, whereas in East Germany they were dynamited for ideological reasons, and just thinking about how many ghosts there are in sites of ferocious battles between the Wehrmacht and the Red army, I found myself staring at these advertisements on a wall.

Not speaking Polish myself, I was entirely baffled by what this was saying or why, other than whatever it was having a certain amount of latent Anglophilia in it. Therefore I just took the photo and walked on.

Last night, while having a few beers in a pleasant London bar with a fellow Samizdatista, I took the opportunity of asking a Polish waitress what it meant. She looked at it for a moment, paused, and said "That is very weird...... They sell vintage clothing....weird", poured my beer into my glass, and walked off.

In truth that only enhanced the mystery. Further questions arise. What exactly does it say on the front of the bus? Do the proprieters of this business use mod fashion to express the essense of London's street fraternity culture? I need to know Perhaps the readership can help?.

(28)

In Poland a court has ruled that the governments attempts at de-communisation are unconstitutional.

The law required some 700,000 people, including school directors and board members of public companies, to submit statements declaring any contact they had had with the communist secret services.

The court rejected key aspects of the law including the requirement for journalists to submit declarations. [...] "A state based on the rule of law should not fulfill a craving for revenge instead of fulfilling justice," he said. "Screening must not be used for meting out punishment."

But surely justice cannot be served by allowing the communist era and above all, the role of the people who made it all possible, to vanish down the memory hole. If people did despicable things during the communist era, why should they escape punishment? I cannot imagine a German court being allowed to stop the process of de-nazification in German, so why tolerate something similar in Poland in the aftermath of communism?

Forgiveness can not come before repentance and a lot of people have yet to repent. I wonder if there are any senior judges who might have an embarrassing file on their communist era activities that they would rather not see the light of day? Just wondering.

(10)

I thought this is one of the cases where technology is nothing but good news...

German researchers said Wednesday that they were launching an attempt to reassemble millions of shredded East German secret police files using complicated computerized algorithms. The files were shredded as the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and it became clear that the East German regime was finished. Panicking officials of the Stasi secret police attempted to destroy the vast volumes of material they had kept on everyone from their own citizens to foreign leaders.

Some 16,250 sacks containing pieces of 45 million shredded documents were found and confiscated after the reunification of Germany in 1990. Reconstruction work began 12 years ago but 24 people have been able to reassemble the contents of only 323 sacks.

Using algorithms developed 15 years ago to help decipher barely legible lists of Nazi concentration camp victims, each individual strip of the shredded Stasi files will be scanned on both sides. The data then will be fed into the computer for interpretation using color recognition; texture analysis; shape and pattern recognition; machine and handwriting analysis and the recognition of forged official stamps

Until I read the final paragraph.

Putting the machine-shredded documents together requires analysis of the script on the surface of the fragments. The institute has already had success putting together similarly destroyed documents for Germany's tax authorities.

But then, it is never the technology that is at fault, but people and the uses they put it to...

No matter, I am very pleased to hear that there is some work somewhere being done on the past of former communist countries.

via Dropsafe

(20)

I am writing this in an airport bar in Prague, where I am having a beer before flying back to London after a weekend away. I will probably write most of the post on the flight home, but it probably will not get posted until I am back in London tomorrow( and this is indeed what has happened. MJ )

This is my second trip to Prague. I was first here in 1992. That trip also involved (amongst other places) Warsaw and Budapest. I had not been back to any of these places again until this year, when I have been back to both Warsaw and Prague. Both Poland and the Czech Republic are much easier places to visit than in 1992 in the sense that I do not need a visa to visit either country, there are lots of ATMs from which I can obtain money, there is less bureaucracy, there are western branded shops on the high street, there are Starbucks clones (although not yet Starbucks itself). In 1992 there were none of these things and travel was harder (I was also in my early 20s and a much less experienced traveller, so my perception may be distorted). However, although Poland and the Czech Republic are now both members of the European Union, the cities both lack the shining new Metro systems, motorways of poorer countries (Spain and Portugal, particularly) that have been dipping in the cohesion fund for longer. Infrastructure works in both places, but it is more spartan.

In 1992, Warsaw felt rather bleak and Prague felt to be a glorious gothic fairytale of a city that had been left behind by the world but which was perhaps catching up. (Budapest was the first city I had been to with a strong Ottoman character about it, and the dominance of the buildings on the high hills overlooking the Danube from the Buda side was and no doubt still is very striking). This year I rather liked Warsaw - it has the feel of a place where business is being done. Prague is still a glorious gothic fairytale of a city, there is lots of good music to listen to, the beer is very good and very inexpensive. The food options are much more diverse than they were 14 years ago. Since the invention of the euro gutted the Dutch money changing industry, the strip between the Charles Bridge and the Old Square in Prague seems to have taken over from that between Centraal Station and Dam Square in Amsterdam as the leading venue in Europe for dodgy money changers and slightly dubious pizza restaurants (the 'Museum of Medieval Torture Instruments' seems very old Amsterdam, too).

However, Prague seems to now be perhaps a little too obvious a destination for the more trendy sorts of tourist. People who are seen at the Netherlands Architecture Institute or the Oslo School of Design, and drink in bars with lots of black and chrome and 45 different kinds of vodka (and wear a fair amount of black, but probably only about the right amount to be in keeping with the chrome) tend not to be seen here. It seems more now to be a destination for Anglophone backpackers and American students from universities outside the Ivy League. It is a backpacker destination. It has not moved as far up the tourism food chain that I had hoped it might.

And, alas, I feel I am being a little unkind. I have, in truth had a bad experience today, which has to do with the way in which the tourist ecosystem in Prague has evolved to take advantage of the people who have visited.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I travel a lot. (I will eventually explain what I did in Denmark last weekend. Honest). I generally know what I am doing in a foreign city. I like to believe I am fairly defensive and steet smart, and as I am also a relatively large and scruffy male who at least thinks he does not look prosperous, I have seldom had anyone try to rob me, or otherwise hassle me.

In fact, the only time anyone previously tried to rob me was in Prague in 1992. I started the trip by myself, but by the time I was leaving Prague I found myself in the company of a girl from Brisbane in her early twenties and a slightly mad television journalist from Los Angeles. The three of us went to a railway station in the evening in order to catch the overnight train to Budapest. As we were about to get into the train, a group of loudly talking people crowded around and towards us. My wallet was foolishly in my back trousers pocket, but I was smart enough to respond by immediately putting my hand on it. I discovered that there was another hand on it, trying to pick my pocket. Once the thief realised I was on to him, he rapidly withdrew, but his friends did not. I should have yelled thief at that point, but I am shy and unassertive, so I did not. I few seconds later, I did hear a yell, as the American TV journalist realised that his bag had been unzipped and a hand was in it. He yelled loudly, and the thieves withdrew. Although they tried to rob us, looking back I am struck by what amateurs the pickpockets were in 1992. We were pretty naive too, but still they failed to rob us.

Since then, I have always put my valuables in my front pockets, and I do continue to look a little scruffy, which I have believed meant I was perhaps not an obvious target. Alas, though, this afternoon the thieves figured me out and robbed me anyway. This time they were good at it.

Compare what happened in 1992 with what happened this afternoon. I got on a train of the (non-extended since 1992) Prague Metro with the (different) girl from Brisbane in her early twenties with who I was travelling. (Go figure). She was ahead of me, and she walked into the centre of the carriage and sat down, I tried to follow, but there was a large burly central European man in front of me. I attempted to get past him, but he moved slightly when I did so that he was still in front of me. We came into contact. I couldn't get past, but he did it in such a way that it was hard to be sure that he was deliberately obstructing me. As I did so, another man came into contact with me from behind. I almost felt bad. Clearly I had stopped unexpectedly due to being unable to get past the first man and he had collided with me. There were two other large men on my sides. I felt almost embarassed, but I was trapped between them and could not join my friend further in the carriage.

Something felt wrong, but it was hard to pin down exactly what. I put my hands on my pockets. My wallet was still there. I looked carefully at my rucksack. It was still closed, and my laptop was still in it. The two really important things were still in my possession. My Blackberry and phone were still in my pockets. However, my left pocket felt oddly light. My attention was clearly on my possessions from this point. Something felt wrong, but I was left alone. The men got off at the next station. My friend and I got off at the station after. I told her that something had felt wrong on the train. She said that she had thought it odd that I had not sat down next to her. I had told her that I had been physically prevented from doing so, but I was really not sure what had happened.

I guess I was in denial about being robbed, so I could not think of anything missing. However, an hour later I tried to take out my camera to take a photograph and I realised I did not have it. So the pickpockets got my camera, presumably by managing to grab the wrist strap and pull it out (it was a Fuji Finepix Z1, a terrific little camera about the size of a cigarette packet which fits very easily into a pocket, but which is consequently also very easy to ease out of a pocket). The camera was worth about $400, and although I have travel insurance the excess is such that it is probably not worth my making a claim. None the less I went to the police and reported the crime, simply because I believe incidents like this should show up in the crime statistics. The police were sympathetic and helpful and recorded the crime as a crime. They even said they would check the CCTV in the train station, but they clearly didn't expect to be able to do anything about it. They said that it was very unlikely that they would catch the thief, but that if they did they might conceivably ask me to return to Prague to testify. I told them that I realised that this was very unlikely, but that I would be delighted to do so if it happened.

So my clear record of having not been robbed when travelling is gone. In truth, I suspect I am a more obvious target than was once the case. I wear more expensive clothes than I used to (although I sometimes wear them badly and wear them until they wear out). And I carry a lot of electronics with me, which leads to my pockets bulging a little at times.

And in truth I do not visit this kind of tourist destination much any more. There is crime in other places I have visited recently, but it is not of the 'professional thieves preying on tourists' type. So perhaps I was a little careless. Only a little, but still careless. And these thieves were very good at it. They knew exactly how and why to stand in order to physically confine me to a small portion of the train carriage without my realising it, and then they managed to rob me without my realising it. Whereas the thieves in 1992 were amateurs, these ones were good at it. In the last 14 years they have been able to learn their trade.

And let us be blunt. It is the fault of the local law enforcement agencies for allowing them to learn it. If you want to catch professional theives, it can be done by placing obvious targets on the trains and seeing what happens. Regular patrols mean thieves stay away. If thieves know there is a regular plain clothes police presence on the trains, robberies become less likely. And of course, when thieves are caught (as professional ones are from time to time) they need to be locked up for a very long time. Some of these things probably are done in Prague, but not enough. In tourist cities where the rule of law is poor, civil society is weak, and consequenty tne police are bad at their jobs (eg Rome) pickpockets are rampant, but in cities where the police are better and civil society and the rule of law is strong (Zurich, say) they are much less so.

Of course, things could have been much worse. I could have lost my wallet, which would have been a disaster given all the credit cards, money, and documents in it. I could have lost my laptop, which would have been much more expensive (although I do at least have backups of the data). I could have lost my passport, which would have made getting home a pain, and I would have then had to have gone through an annoying rigmarole with the Home Office in order to get my British residency properly recorded in the new one.

As it is, I can easily afford a replacement camera. I will order one over the internet and I will have it by the end of the week. I even have most of my photographs of Prague, as I remembered my card reader this week and some of my photographs had already been uploaded to my laptop. So in terms of affecting my life, the impact is minimal. I am even convincing myself quite reasonably that I had a good weekend. Most Czechs I met were friendly, and also perfectly honest. A hotel receptionist went to some trouble to make sure that we were paid a small refund that we were owed, even though we would likely have walked out without querying the bill.

But the fact remains that being the victim of a crime really sucks. I have made a lot of visits to foreign cities in my life. Pickpockets have to my knowledge only come after me twice in all that time. And both of them happened in the same city, that I have visited only twice in my life. And that does not speak well of the city in question.

(6)

I think that this building (the Alexander Nevsky Orthodox Cathedral in Tallinn) is every bit as assertively a statement that the Russians are in charge as is the Palace of Culture in Warsaw I wrote about earlier this year. It comes from a different Russian era (the Cathedral is a Czarist structure, completed in 1900), but I think the motives for building the two structures were not too different . Certainly the Cathedral is in every bit as prominent a location as the Palace of Culture - it is on the top of the Toompea hill in Tallin's Old Town, directly opposite Tallin castle (now the Estonian national parliament). Certainly, also, it is every but as architecturally out of character from the historical city, which in style is a typical Baltic Hanseatic League city, although the people of the city are clearly very proud of the medieval town hall

It is only six years since I was last in Tallinn, but the city certainly seems to have come a long way since then. At that point the Old Town was beautiful, but the rest of the city felt grimy when I left it. No longer. It's not a terribly large city (half a million?) and it is not as frenetic as some larger cities, but it has the air of a place becoming, well, comfortable. Modern office buildings going up. Suburban tracts of nice, large houses being built on the waterfront to the west of town. That kind of thing. There are lots of Soviet housing estates between the old centre and the nice suburbs, but in truth I have seen worse in London. And Paris. And Amsterdam. It is difficult to believe that this was part of the Soviet Union only fifteen years ago. But it was.

And it was certainly a nice touch to be able to talk to friends in Australia using a software product that was developed here. The computer markets of China are full of people attempting to sell you cheap Skype handsets. However, Tallinn gave us Skype itself. That is worth more.

(0)

Now that the protests are no longer anticipating the overthrow of the Lukashnko government in a display of 'people power', the mainstream media moves elsewhere. The narrative of the post-Soviet dictator in Belarus is an uncomfortable fit with the comforting delusions of the West. The latest project to promote civil society is the radio station funded by the EU, the USA and the Czech Republic, broadcasting out of Warsaw. It has a mixture of healthy cultural programming and news, broadcast over a number of media: AM, FM and the internet. However the name, European Radio for Belarus, can only have been dreamt up by the Commission. One suspects that any popularity will be achieved despite its title, not because of it. Its more ferocious counterparts, Radio Svoboda/Radio Free Europe, campaign more directly for democracy.

European Radio for Belarus, is despite its name, not a foreign station broadcasting into Belarus. Rather, it is a Belarusian station just temporarily coordinating its operations in Warsaw. There is also an office in Minsk and correspondents all over Belarus. Operating since February 2006, European Radio for Belarus is funded by the United States and Czech governments, and the European Commission.

We have been asked frequently by other journalists, that are you like Radio Svoboda, Radio Free Europe which said that when democracy comes, it closes the next day. And we say that it is not our goal. We are doing vice versa, we hope that when changes come, we can return there and work as a professional, attractive radio station with balanced information and education content which would be really recognisable by people in Belarus. I think this is the main difference of our project and other pro-democracy projects around Belarus.

Just to remember that this is another day in Belarus: Anatoly Lebedko, opposition leader of the Belarussian United Civil Party was detained whilst attending an unofficial protest on the seventh anniversary of former Interior Minister Yury Zakharenko's disappearance; and graffiti artist Artur Finkevich was imprisoned for two years hard labour, after writing "We want a change".

Lukashenko is the enemy of change, improvement and progress: all of these trends will end his reign, or force him to fundamentally adapt to new ways. Now that there are more windows on the world, the yearning for change amongst those who can only spectate becomes ever more desperate.

(9)

The Ukraine is not exactly famed for its high standards of probity and decency in the field of business, as this article suggests. It was certainly a bit of an eye-opener to see this failed, disgraced British cabinet minister, Stephen Byers, on the slate to opine at a conference all about the marvellous business opportunities out in that country. Great. The man who confiscated the assets of Railtrack shareholders - in retrospect a key point signalling the true intent of New Labour towards investors - is considered worthy to share his thoughts about encouraging enterprise in the Ukraine. Riiiight.

Perhaps in a fairer spirit, though, there may be a good case to make for economic opportunities in that country, and I could not help noticing that the organising firm of the conference goes by the moniker Adam Smith (no relation, it seems, to the Adam Smith Institute). It does strike me as mighty odd that a character like Byers should be prime billing at such an event, though. The citizens of that nation surely deserve better.

(5)

As expected, the electoral results from Belarus were a load of cobblers. Now the unexpected protests have started, with an estimated 5,000 brave protestors supporting the opposition candidate, Milinkevich, and declaring the elction null and void.

Thousands of protesters thronged the main square of the Belarusian capital on Sunday in defiance of a government ban, refusing to recognize a presidential vote that appeared all but certain to give the iron-fisted incumbent a third term.

The crowd hooted when a large video screen broadcast a live statement from the Central Election Commission chief, who announced results that showed President Alexander Lukashenko headed toward overwhelming victory in Sunday's vote.

The protesters chanted "Long Live Belarus!" and the name of the main opposition candidate, Alexander Milinkevich. Some waved a national flag that Lukashenko banned in favor of a Soviet-style replacement, while others waved European Union flags. Milinkevich arrived at Oktyabrskaya square later.

These are the results from the election thief:

The elections chief, Lidia Yermoshina, said Lukashenko had won 89 percent of the vote, according to returns from nearly one-fifth of polling districts. The results virtually guaranteed a third term for the authoritarian leader who has ruled the republic since 1994.

"Lukashenko cannot have won 80 percent!" he said, referring to exit polls conducted by two groups the opposition says are loyal to the government and released just hours after voting began that projected he would win more than 80 percent of the vote.

"Cannot! Cannot! Cannot!" the crowd chanted.

Let us remember that Lukashenko has no qualms about viewing all of these protestors as terrorists. Russia will stand idly by, with the satisfied smile of Reynaud, and the EU will wring its hands, a pity it isn't its own bloody neck!

However, I am quite pessimistic about the outcome. Lukashenko has the support of stagnation amongst the majority of the population. Only those whose future hopes have vanished under this regime will be in the square tonight.

Now we wait for Lukashenko's move...frostbite or tanks?

(43)

Whenever I write about something touching on my experience of communism, I get a few kind commenters encouraging me to share more of it. I rarely do so, as busy life takes over. Still, today I managed to post an article on my other blog, Media Influencer, that I felt was perhaps not coherent enough or too personal for Samizdata.net. For those interested, follow the bananas...

(10)

I am travelling in Slovakia and the Czech Republic at the moment and internet access is rather hard to find. This all too brief internet lifeline is a welcome fix to help alleviate my OWLS (On-line Withdrawal Lamentation Syndrome). Horror is a foreign keyboard.

But at least the locals in the deepest rural Moravia are helping me get over the internet withdrawal shakes by stuffing me full of splendid pastries, for which this part of the world is rightly famed.

Interesting glimpses of the recent communist past abound but are becoming less visible by the year.

Remember a time before the internet? Hard to believe, I know! My hosts used this to listen to broadcasts from the West.

I am with the original samizdat people from whom I took so much inspiration and the reason I came up with the name for this blog.

(82)

Today is the 16th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution or of the day when it all 'officially' started on Friday 17th November, 1989 at a demonstration in Prague. (There was one in Bratislava the day before but did not get initially much recognition.)

It was the death of a student, beaten by the Secret Police (or not so secret police), at the Prague demonstration that day that has pushed the students and actors across the country to articulate political demands, go on strike and start protesting in the streets daily. The theories behind this 'final straw' are many and varied - some argue the murdered 'student' was an agent provocateur who meant to start the ball rolling and enabled the powers-to-be orchestrate a peaceful, if not just, demise of the communist rule in Czechoslovakia. Time will tell the real story, I am here to remember mine.

At the time, 17th of November 1989 did not feel any special - there were some demonstrations before and usually were thinly spread around various anniversaries of dissident occassions. There was no indication that this is to be any different. With a flurry of activity from the dissidents, barely reported by the media and as usual, with more details broadcast by the heavily jammed Voice of America or Radio Free Europe.

I was then a teenager, with a twist - I knew that I had no control over my future and that I faced two choices only. In order to blend in, accept the evil around me in exchange for a semblance of a 'normal' life. Or follow in my parents' footsteps and forsake all that is considered good and rewarding in a healthy society, such as higher education, travel, even family and potentially freedom. I may have been very young but, alas, not young enough to be blind to the full horrors of such life. After all I had seen those around me living with similar decisions. As it happens, that choice was not real - having been part of the dissident movement, I was weighted, marked and tagged as the enemy of the state. I belonged to the dark forces undermining the society - a phrase so beloved of the communist media.

I remember the nervous elation of the 'now or never' moment, as we walked to the main square to meet thousands of others who felt the same. It was a powerful sensation to be surrounded by hundreds of thousands of people knowing that they are there for the same reason - an experience unprecedented in a fractured and diseased society under communism.

It was not until Monday, 27th of November, when the two-hour general strike took place, that we were sure that tanks will not be rolled out to face us. This was not without reason as on November 23rd the army declared its readiness. To do exactly what, we dared not speculate. At demonstrations between the two dates the list of those supporting the General strike was read out. There was a sense of profound relief when workers from a factory appeared on that list. We knew then that the communists had lost the propaganda war and a loud cheer reverberated across the square.

But the fight was not truly over until December 10th, when the first federal government since 1948 was appointed that did not have the Communist majority. We went to the streets once more, most of us looking for and looking forward to the sensation of true solidarity that had already started to fade. And the rest is history...

I find that my memories lack the nostalgia compulsory for any survivor of such social and political upheavals. My life has certainly changed beyond recognition as a result of the 1989 events, nevertheless I find it very hard to get dewy-eyed about my 'revolutionary credentials'. I do treasure the experience of seeing thousands upon thousands of individuals come together in a collective action that has changed the world around them. That was genuine no matter whether it was sparked off by manipulation or whether what followed in the aftermath was far less heroic.

(11)

This is a picture of front page of a benign 'cousin' of the infamous Pravda (or more like a foundling on the same porch). It is a local paper that covers the small area of the Old Town of Bratislava, thoroughly local, post-communist, and reflecting the concerns of the local populace. Did I mention that it was local? The headline reads:

Two Bratislava districts (equivalent of local councils) have raised average wage above 25,000 [crowns].

What struck me was the active tense of that sentence � as if the local government had any control over what wages people get paid. I am told that the current Prime Minister was going around the country on a bicycle during the election campaign promising to double wages for everyone or words to that effect. Nothing extra-ordinary for a politician but people were actually disappointed after election when the wages did not double. When challenged he pointed at the fact that the wages did go up but nobody was fooled because they knew damn well that the cost increased as well. This did not seem to occur to them when the guy was making the promises though.

There seems to be the perception that the government still somehow doles out the wages as well as fiddles the cost of everything. Well, they sort of do but not in a good way. I also note the difference between the West and the post-communist East � people in the former talk in terms of rising cost of living and price inflation, people here think of terms of size of salary. I think it reflects the difference in mentality � it is thinking of how much you have rather then how much you can do�

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The convincing win by the anti-leftist coalition in Poland's elections would seem to be one in the eye for the statist left.

However the perils of the left/right labels are on prominent display here: Civic Platform Party is clearly on the side of the angels in most ways, being pro-market, pro-privatisation and generally in favour of liberty and a smaller state (though sadly they seem to think the €uro is actually a good idea).

Yet the senior partner in the winning team, the Law and Justice Party are really old style paleo-conservative statists, comparable to various European Christian Democrat parties. Although the Law and Justice Party are perhaps a bit more reactionary and stasis oriented than most Christian Democrats (and as a result no great fans of free-markets), at least that right-stasis orientation gives them a healthy euro-scepticism.

It will be interesting to see how this coalition manages to square its various circles or even holds together at all.

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The Ukraine faces a choice between living in Vladamir Putin's shadow or living under the shadow of more locally sourced rascals. Yes, I wish the protestors well in their attempt to prevent Russia's pet poodle Viktor Yanukovych from stealing an election but in truth I do not know enough about the alternatives to Yanukovych to get any real enthusiasm for what is going on.

The fact that anti-government people have a tendency to 'disappear' in the Ukraine is cause enough to want to see the end of Yanukovych and his supporting but the notion that 'democracy' is possibly being subverted is not any real cause for excitement to me per se, given that any alternative to Yanukovych (and the pretty strange Leonid Kuchma) will no doubt use democratic processes to turn the Ukraine into just another highly regulated EU-satellite 'aid crack' addicted state.

So sure, good luck guys, just try to make sure you are not changing Moscow's iron handcuffs for locally made ones with a velvet lining imported from Brussels.

(7)

My recent posting on Slovakia contained a scoop and I missed it. The leader of the Slovak governing party's campaign for the European elections tomorrow is former ice hockey player Peter Stastny.

I knew the name (one of the few names in ice hockey I ever knew of), but failed to connect it to the poster boy of the Slovak Democratic Coalition.

From the comments to my last posting, my description of SKDU as conservative-libertarian is controversial. Considering that the new Libertarian Party candidate in the USA was selected because he campaigns on sticking to the Founding Fathers' intentions (nationalized Post Office and all), I stand by my description for now.

What is amusing is the contrast between the Slovak and the Austrian election: the posters in Austria oppose reform, the Slovaks put a celebrity on the poster and bring in massive tax reforms in the right direction. American show-biz versus Austrian corporatism. I know which I prefer.

[Thanks to Tim Evans at CNE for providing the tip-off about Peter Stasny.]

(10)

I recently gave a presentation in Bratislava, Slovakia, on the evils of 'competition policy' and the 'entry and exit costs' economic model, which is little more than an excuse for more business-killing government intervention.

My first trip there in 1991 had been as economic and political adviser to that country's Prime Minister when Slovakia was part of the Czech & Slovak Federal Republic (1989-1992). In those days, talking about a single tax band, a competitive advantage of Slovakia compared with Germany, why an independent Slovakia would actally reform better than under Prague tutelage and so forth was often like trying to explain Switzerland to a Pol Pot survivor.

The first photo that I took in 1991 was of the Iron Curtain seen from the Austrian side, a forest of trees leading up to the jagged line of a forest of rotting concrete.

This time on the way back I took a coach from Bratislava to Vienna airport. The following photos show the turnaround.

Slovakia�s ruling coalition: conservatives and libertarians
(photo taken at Bratislava bus station)



This Slovak election poster for the EU parliament
seems to get the message. (Sorry about the
quality but I snapped it out of a coach window
on a bend, outskirts of Bratislava)



Austrian Social Democrats know what they stand for:
No privatisation!
(dotted all over the Austrian countryside North of Vienna)

(21)

Over at the excellent libertarian group weblog, Cattalarchy, there is a fine and thoughtful collection of articles, which was published a few days ago, to mark the May Day parades of old socialists with a wide-ranging broadside against what communism has wrought. I urge folk to fire up some coffee and take time out to read them all.

With all that fine material in mind, I was stunned to read a screed in the latest edition of The Spectator by ultra-rightwinger Peter Hitchens. As well as saying some decidedly uncomplimentary things about former South African President and anti-apartheid campaigner Nelson Mandela, a topic to which I may return later, Hitchens also bemoans what he claims has been the lack of any real improvement of life in countries which have been released from communism.

Really? Have there been no improvements at all? I mean, for a start, surely a declared Christian like Hitchens should be glad that fellow believers are no longer persecuted as they were in the old days of Communism. The Gulag is no longer in operation. Members of the KGB no longer drag you off in the middle of the night. And yes, key parts of the economies of those nations are not just recovering, but offering some of the tastiest investment opportunities in the world today, as this article illustrates.

There is a priceless passage in which Hitchens even refers to the elderly generation in the former Eastern bloc who miss the good old days of guaranteed jobs, even if that era came with bread queues, bureaucracy and compulsory military service. That's the spirit! None of this messy and vulgar capitalist nonsense, with all that bothersome choice, and ugly advertising, noisy department stores and red light districts.

I honestly do not know what to make of folk like Hitchens and whether he has any coherent political philosophy at all apart from a desire to shock what he thinks is the received wisdom (not always a bad or dishonourable urge, mind). A few weeks back he wrote a superb article shredding the case for state identity cards, of the kind that any libertarian would be proud to write. Yet a few issues later we get a gloomy piece almost pining the days when half of Europe was run by the communist empire of the Soviets.

Weird.

(5)

One of the reasons for slightly less output on this august blog is that two of the editors and the inimitable Gabriel Syme were off meeting other sinister Illuminati in Prague for a fine Czech beer or six.

No prize for guessing where the Illuminati meet in Prague

Prague, like Bratislava, is known for its splendours...

Hot... steamed in fact

One of the upsides of the dire weather was that many of the usually crowded tourist attractions were almost deserted.

We meet one of the leading central European bloggers, Tomas Kohl (on the right)...

Tomas sinks some fine Czech Pilsner with Adriana and Gabriel Syme

Tomas told us the best place in Prague to see its famous chicks...

More Prague chicks

Prague is a city in which the splendours of Western Civilisation pretty much kick you in the teeth...

We found a design we really liked for the new Samizdata.net HQ's front door...

The locals know a thing or two about about what makes life great...

... and a thing or two about what makes life suck...

Which perhaps explains the Czech sense of humour...

(8)

There is an article in the Telegraph titled Slovakian troops sent in to stop gypsy riots that reports what is happening but makes no comment on what seems to me the key underlying reason it is happening:

Thousands of police backed by 2,000 soldiers in the ghetto towns of eastern Slovakia appeared to have temporarily ended attacks by mobs forcing their way into food shops. Near 100 per cent unemployment has brought thousands of Roma gypsies out on the streets

[...]

Demonstrators in one town gathered peacefully, shouting: "We want to eat." Others said their families were starving since the cuts [ in state unemployment benefits], meant to prepare the country for European Union entry, were implemented on Jan 1.

Tibor Tutak, 39, said: "We know stealing isn't a solution but I cannot let my children go hungry. What has happened so far is nothing compared with what will happen if the government doesn't do anything."

Roma leaders threatened further trouble unless the Bratislava government rescinded dramatic welfare reductions which have halved the incomes of many families. Unemployment among some gypsy communities is close to 100 per cent.

It is regrettable for anyone to go hungry but for 100% unemployment to prevail amongst significant sections of the gypsy community in Slovakia, that is not bad luck or economic vagaries, it is a lifestyle choice. What is more, what Tibor Tutak is actually saying is that he dislikes having to do the stealing himself, given that he and his community had gotten used to having the state do it for them. The fact is no one owes anyone else a living by right at their expense, particularly not if they decline to participate in the economy as anything other than parasites. The forceful official Slovak response seem entirely appropriate to me and I hope they do not even consider allowing themselves to be shook down for larger the 'welfare' payments.

No one is forced to live in a gypsy community in this day and age... yes, I know some people will bring up the infamous walls built Czech authorities after years of complains by local people. These were designed specifically to keep gypsies away from the rest of the community in a town near Ostrava a few years ago, but that was hardly an enforced ghetto in the traditional European sense of the word, as there were no laws compelling gypsies not to live elsewhere.

I also realise gypsy communities are on the receiving end of considerable prejudice and discrimination, though it needs to be said that not all of the reasons for the wider community's hostility towards them are baseless. The gypsies are a separate cultural group and are certainly entitled to live according to their ways... provided these ways are not based on theft, be it directly or via the state and therein lies the issue at the heart of what is happening now in the Slovak Republic. Let me give the last word to Czech blogger Tomas Kohl who writes what the Telegraph article conspicuously did not:

These people are not victims of reforms. They haven't been wronged by the government today, but when the State decided it's a good idea to subsidize people for not doing anything and punish them when they moved a finger, it's like giving away dope, making everyone addicted, then halving the supply.

Is there an easy way out? No. Yeah, I could say just abolish the idea of Caring Government, and it has certain utopian appeal I like, yet there is no political force there that would be capable of doing just that. Unless they send in an infantry regiment, the unrests can continue for a long time, until the underclass moves west, to countries where they still give lunches away for free.

(10)

For some years, I have preferred to take my holidays around the Baltic (herewith classified as Eastern Europe, because it is north east of the British Isles and the Finns come from the Urals anyway). Larking about in the Nordic and Baltic countries always includes a visit to the local museum concerning the Second World War and the Resistance. These museums often give a snapshot of the the way these countries view themselves, their place in the world and their history.

The most disappointing museum that I ever came across was in Helsinki, Finland. Their military museum, near the Lutheran Cathedral, included an exhibition covering the Finnish contribution to the Second World War which finished at the end of the Winter War. The wartime alliance with Germany from 1941, which one could view as a necessary defence against Stalinism on the grounds that my enemy's enemy is my friend was excised from their exhibition. This was the state of play in 2000 and I haven't been back to the museum since, so they may have extended the scope since but the omission at that time was rather surprising.

Sweden and Estonia did not appear to have any specialised museums on this subject. Sweden does not need one, due to its policy of neutrality, and Estonia had a room with inscribed pebbles and rusting armour that doubled as a centre for folklore. For me, Tallinn was more rewarding for curries and beautiful women than for museums. However, the City museum that I missed in Tallinn does cater for the history of the Estonian resistance against Nazi and Soviet oppression.

Denmark was objective and attempted to provide a social history of occupation rather than a celebration of resistance. It always astonished me, once I had gone to the museum, that Denmark held a unique democratic election under Nazi occupation in 1943. They smuggled their Jews to Sweden whilst attempting to maintain the norms of a liberal democratic state under military occupation. Denmark also had an active resistance movement and sited their museum in the gracious environs of the Churchillparken. I do not think they succeeded in protecting their country from Nazism but who are we to say that such an endeavour was not a moral response under these extreme circumstances.

The two countries that most impressed me were Latvia and Norway.

Latvia has faced its history without any qualms. There are museums on its military history and on the Gulag. Both are well worth visiting. For me, the devastation that was wreaked on Riga only became clear after visiting this museum with its exhibitions on how the city was fought over three times: first the Soviets, then the Nazis, then the Soviets again. More telling to me was the honesty with which the Latvians faced up to their own role in joining the SS and co-operating in the liquidation of the Jews. My family never faced anything like this because they were British and, therefore, this reflection is alien to me.

As for Norway, I have never seen Germans move around a museum so rapidly. If you wish to define a people that love freedom, look no further than Norway. The Resistance Museum starts by telling you how Britain is the last beacon of liberty in a barbarous continent. I was hooked. The Norwegian sacrifices during the Second World War are second to none. Their resistance, their merchant navy and their armed forces probably contributed more than the French. If any country should have been given a sector in Germany to occupy after 1945, it was Norway.

This is an anecdotal survey and I am sure there are errors and omissions. However, it provides a flavour of how countries exhibit their past and indicates that they are aware war and occupation have shaped their history. If you are ever in these countries, visit these museums.

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Having returned to the land of hope and glory after almost two weeks of hectic