Topic(s): GDR
Date Posted: 11.10.09

Winners and losers of 1989
Twenty years on Europe and the US have squandered their victory, Russia is mired in depression and China has new power

Joschka Fischer
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 7 November 2009 16.00 GMT
Article history
Those who witnessed that night 20 years ago in Berlin, or elsewhere in Germany, will never forget what happened – the night the Berlin wall came down.

History in the making is all too often tragic. Only rarely is it capable of irony. But 9 November 1989 was one of those rare moments when irony reigned, because East Germany's bureaucratic socialism died as it had lived – with a bureaucratic snafu.

The speaker of the Politburo, Günter Schabowski, had simply misunderstood that body's decision and, by releasing to the public incorrect information about the lifting of travel restrictions, triggered the fall of the wall. Groucho Marx could not have bettered Schabowski that night. It was Germany's happiest hour.

Twenty years later, many revolutionary consequences of that night lie behind us. The Soviet Union and its empire quietly disappeared, and with them the cold war international order. Germany was reunited; eastern Europe and the states on the Soviet periphery won their independence; South Africa's apartheid regime fell apart; numerous civil wars in Asia, Africa and Latin America ended; Israelis and Palestinians came closer to peace than at any time since; and a disintegrating Yugoslavia degenerated into war and ethnic cleansing. In Afghanistan, war continued under different circumstances, with serious ramifications for the region and, indeed, the world.

As the victorious heir to the collapsed cold-war order, the United States stood alone, undisputed, at the peak of its global power. But, within two decades – following the war in Iraq and financial and economic crisis – the US had squandered that special status.

Arrogance of power and blindness about reality were the two main causes for the decline of the sole remaining superpower. While most of the blame lies with George W Bush, numerous negative trends had preceded him. He merely took them to the extreme.

After 11 September 2001, the US had a second big chance to use its unique power to reorganise the world. After that terrible crime, countries – including those in the Arab world – were ready to embrace far-reaching steps. At that moment, peace between Palestinians and Israelis could have been achieved, and thus a new beginning made in the Middle East.

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Topic(s): GDR
Date Posted: 11.09.09

November 9, 2009
20 Years of Collapse
By SLAVOJ ZIZEK

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/opinion/09zizek.html

TODAY is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. During
this time of reflection, it is common to emphasize the miraculous
nature of the events that began that day: a dream seemed to come true,
the Communist regimes collapsed like a house of cards, and the world
suddenly changed in ways that had been inconceivable only a few months
earlier. Who in Poland could ever have imagined free elections with
Lech Walesa as president?

However, when the sublime mist of the velvet revolutions was dispelled
by the new democratic-capitalist reality, people reacted with an
unavoidable disappointment that manifested itself, in turn, as
nostalgia for the “good old” Communist times; as rightist, nationalist
populism; and as renewed, belated anti-Communist paranoia.

The first two reactions are easy to comprehend. The same rightists who
decades ago were shouting, “Better dead than red!” are now often heard
mumbling, “Better red than eating hamburgers.” But the Communist
nostalgia should not be taken too seriously: far from expressing an
actual wish to return to the gray Socialist reality, it is more a form
of mourning, of gently getting rid of the past. As for the rise of the
rightist populism, it is not an Eastern European specialty, but a
common feature of all countries caught in the vortex of globalization.

Much more interesting is the recent resurgence of anti-Communism from
Hungary to Slovenia. During the autumn of 2006, large protests against
the ruling Socialist Party paralyzed Hungary for weeks. Protesters
linked the country’s economic crisis to its rule by successors of the
Communist party. They denied the very legitimacy of the government,
although it came to power through democratic elections. When the
police went in to restore civil order, comparisons were drawn with the
Soviet Army crushing the 1956 anti-Communist rebellion.

This new anti-Communist scare even goes after symbols. In June 2008,
Lithuania passed a law prohibiting the public display of Communist
images like the hammer and sickle, as well as the playing of the
Soviet anthem. In April 2009, the Polish government proposed expanding
a ban on totalitarian propaganda to include Communist books, clothing
and other items: one could even be arrested for wearing a Che Guevara
T-shirt.

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Topic(s): Philosophy
Date Posted: 11.08.09 “First as Tragedy, Then As Farce”: Philosopher and Cultural Theorist Slavoj Žižek Speaks at Cooper Union http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2009/11/6/philosopher_and_cultural_theorist_slavoj_iek_speaks_at_cooper_union_in_new_york_city... [Continue Reading]

Topic(s): India
Date Posted: 11.03.09

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/11/03/18627654.php

Indian and international intellectuals issue Statement against Government of India's plan

by From A World to Win News Service
Tuesday Nov 3rd, 2009 3:47 AM
Indian and international intellectuals issue "Statement against Government of India's planned military offensive in adivasi-populated regions"

October 19, 2009. A World to Win News Service. The Indian government has announced that it is preparing a large-scale military offensive against areas in eastern and central India where adivasi (tribal) people and others have risen up under the leadership of the Communist Party of India (Maoist). Sanhati (http://www.sanhati.com), which describes itself as "a collective of activists/academics who have been working in solidarity with peoples' movements in India by providing information and analysis," drafted and circulated the following statement signed by many prominent Indian and international intellectuals demanding that the government offensive not take place. Dated October 12, the statement (and background note) reflects the views of that collective.
Background Note:

It has been widely reported in the press that the Indian government is planning an unprecedented military offensive against alleged Maoist rebels, using paramilitary and counter-insurgency forces, possibly the Indian Armed Forces and even the Indian Air Force. This military operation is going to be carried out in the forested and semi-forested rural areas of the states of Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Maharashtra, populated mainly by the tribal (indigenous) people of India. Reportedly, the offensive has been planned in consultation with U.S. counter-insurgency agencies.
Statement:

To Dr Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister, Government of India, South Block, Raisina Hill, New Delhi, India-110 011.

We are deeply concerned by the Indian government's plans for launching an unprecedented military offensive by army and paramilitary forces in the adivasi (indigenous people)-populated regions of Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Orissa and West Bengal states. The stated objective of the offensive is to "liberate" these areas from the influence of Maoist rebels. Such a military campaign will endanger the lives and livelihoods of millions of the poorest people living in those areas, resulting in massive displacement, destitution and human rights violation of ordinary citizens.

To hunt down the poorest of Indian citizens in the name of trying to curb the shadow of an insurgency is both counter-productive and vicious. The ongoing campaigns by paramilitary forces, buttressed by anti-rebel militias, organized and funded by government agencies, have already created a civil war like situation in some parts of Chhattisgarh and West Bengal, with hundreds killed and thousands displaced. The proposed armed offensive will not only aggravate the poverty, hunger, humiliation and insecurity of the adivasi people, but also spread it over a larger region.

Grinding poverty and abysmal living conditions that has been the lot of India's adivasi population has been complemented by increasing state violence since the neoliberal turn in the policy framework of the Indian state in the early 1990s. Whatever little access the poor had to forests, land, rivers, common pastures, village tanks and other common property resources has come under increasing attack by the Indian state in the guise of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and other "development" projects related to mining, industrial development, Information Technology parks, etc.

The geographical terrain, where the government's military offensive is planned to be carried out, is very rich in natural resources like minerals, forest wealth and water, and has been the target of large scale appropriation by several corporations. The desperate resistance of the local indigenous people against their displacement and dispossession has in many cases prevented the government-backed corporations from making inroads into these areas.

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