Archive for the ‘Books’ Category

« Older Entries

Café Europa

Monday, November 19th, 2007

I came across a book titled Café Europa, Life after Communism by Slavenka Drakulić.  Born in 1949 in Croatia, Drakulić lived in Yugoslavia and describes life as the product of communism in a witty amusing journalist-like manner.  Who needs a book recommendation when the finals are just weeks away?!  But Café Europa makes for an interesting and easy read.  Here I will share with you two of the paragraphs that convinced this is a must read sometime:

 So what does Europe mean in Eastern European imagination?  It is certainly not a question of geography, for in those terms we are already in it and need make no effort to reach it.  It is something distant, something to be attained, to be deserved.  It is also something expensive and fine: good clothes, the certain look and smell of its people.  Europe is plentitude: food, cars, light, everything – a kind of festival of colors, diversity, opulence, beauty.  It offers choice: from shampoo to political parties.  It represents freedom of expression.  It is a promised land, a new Utopia, a lollipop.  And through television, that Europe is right there, in your apartment, often in colours much too bright to be real.Yet all this doesn’t get us very far in terms of definition; it simply explains the desire itself.  The negative approach is perhaps more useful: Europe is the opposite of what we have, and what we want to get rid of – it is the absence of communism, of fear and deprivation. … Today, the Afro-American population and its contribution to United States cannot be separated from America itself.  Perhaps there is something positive and valuable that the Eastern European nations have to contribute to the Europe of today.  Is it arts, multi-culturalism, diversity in general?  Is it the model of moral politician, represented by Vaclav Havel?  Or is it the most important human skill of all: the ability to just survive impossible conditions?  

 The book was written in early 1990s and somehow, Drakulić’ words do not totally translate in the year 2007 (at least for me).  I am curious, if one were to define Europe or Eastern Europe in one word, what would that be?  Let’s come up with a one word definition.  At this hour, my definition is Techno or maybe gulash. What do you think?

Posted in Books, Xenia | No Comments »

Thoughts on justice & lustrace

Thursday, October 11th, 2007

I’ll admit that prior to reading Rosenberg’s “The Haunted Land” I was definitely in favor of some form of Lustrace, as an aid to removing Communists from positions of power post 1989. However, after reading the accounts of people like Rudolf Zukal, I have no option but to oppose a blanket Lustrace in favor of individual procedings which take into account the conditions of any action which could be perceived as treasonous under the new government, but merely as survival under the previous Communist government. In Zukal’s case, to be rated the 265th enemy of socialism out of the entire population of Czechoslovakia, and still be a target of Lustrace is mind-boggling. Despite being an essentially useless spy and a victim of blackmail at the hands of the STB, Zukal would be declared a collaborator.

Examples like the one above, and others the Rosenberg discusses in “The Haunted Land” go on to reveal the double edged sword of Lustrace and some of the injustices inacted in the spirit of it. The releasing of 160,000 names in a 1992 issue of Red Cow, an incomplete and inaccurate list, released with the intent of damaging some innocents with the hope of hurting even more former communists being just one example.

Rosenberg points out that the majority of the nation at that time were communists, and that change had been attempted within the system. By that rationale, do all communist officials deserve to be labled as evil? Is it right that many of the people who advocated Lustrace were in their early 20’s and consequently were not placed in positions where they had to choose between going to prison or becoming a useless informer?

These issues are what make carrying out/bringing justice in post-communist times so difficult in Central Europe. The fact that they are not black and white issues, but individual cases, each with it’s own specific set of conditions and results.

Posted in Bryan, Rosenberg | No Comments »

Journal article and paper topic

Saturday, October 6th, 2007

The more I read into what Stokes and others say about the situation between Yugoslavia and Croatia, and Yugoslavia and Slovenia – the more I want to read and understand the guerrilla scenario the Yugoslavs invited upon themselves when acting against Slovenia. I chose my paper topic to be on the resistance of Slovenes and Croats to the Yugoslav republic with the effort to juxtapose the guerrilla war’s success and the two conventional armies bloody onslaught. An article from the New York Times reflects the confusion of the conflicts between the factions. This was a “Special to the NY Times” article headlined as, “An Army Beseiged: Yugoslav Troops Fight for Status Quo as All Sides Question Their Conduct,” and dates from July 1, 1991.

One item I found particularly interesting was the author, John Tagliabue’s analysis of the JNA’s shortcomings: ethnic conscription, victimization by political maneuvering, and the binds of not being able to respond faster (because the JNA would be condemned by the international community for its eagerness to engage in war). This was all at the time in with Serbian nationalist Milosevic was making headway trying to bring the Army under Serbia’s authority within the 8 member counsel.

Lastly, the other item that stuck out was the issue of the officer corps in the JNA and their support of one Yugoslav Republic. I’ve studied other countries and the history of their officer corps, and how they have often been a source or the source of change like Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt and others – whether or not anyone wants to admit it. The leadership in the case of the JNA desired to keep the country together in order to maintain their own income and higher-than-standard housing and subsistance. Though they and their subordinates desired not to be killed by the territorial defense forces of the Slovenes, they did however have alterer motives which were apparent even to a free-lancer trying to make a buck off the NY Times.

Posted in Croatia, Paper Topic, Slovenia, Stokes, Uncategorized, Vince, Yugoslavia | No Comments »

How can we decide

Thursday, September 27th, 2007

How can a person possibly make a decision to go against everything that they have ever learned?  Rosenberg seems to be asking us this when talking about Poland, and I really am not sure what to think.

I know that we discussed in class that the leaders should be blamed for things, but I don’t think that Jaruzelski could be rightfully punished.  He was making the best out of a terrible situation.  He was a true believer, a man who wanted the best for his people.  I have trouble faulting a person who was trying to save people from the wrath of Moscow.  On the other hand, I can completely agree with the need to hold someone accountable for the deaths of Polish citizens.  And I think that there needed to be a scapegoat.

In Kenny’s book, it is even mentioned that in Poland, the soldiers weren’t hated, that protesters would even stop throwing rocks when the soldiers showed up, they only hated the riot police, not the soldiers.  I don’t think that martial law was necessarily a bad thing.  I think, as Rosenberg set it up, that the Poles would have almost fought to the last man had the Soviets invaded, and so Jaruzelski really did save more people than were harmed.

This entire subject is gray area, and I really don’t know where to turn.  I am more confused on this subject than I have ever been in my entire scholastic experience.  I know it is just a basic question of right and wrong, but I just can’t apply black and white principles to an area of many shades of gray.

Posted in Rosenberg, Ryan | 1 Comment »

Post-Communist Justice, Jim

Tuesday, September 25th, 2007

I found one of the most interesting aspects of Rosenberg’s choice of countries was that most of the southern tier states are dismissed as lacking any justice, the new boss is the old boss just the ideology of the totalitarianism has changed, from Communist to nationalist. So, the book is a survey of the differing levels of injustice in comparison to the vast lack of it elsewhere in the region. Not very promising for progress, yet she wrote in 1995 and much has changed.

I like her quotation of Marx, “The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living”, this statement is such an artful and concise way of conveying the difficulties of the region.

A reference in the begining of the Czechoslovakia section refers to another transfer of authority and need for justice in the liberation of Cz from the Nazis by the Soviets, that “in 1946 the Communists’ promise that Party membership would be considered payment in full for Nazi collaboration.” This smooth transition seems a very reasonable way to get past grievances though the positive or negative results are unknown due to Stalin’s showtrials that followed. I liked her reference to the fine lines between concepts, most potent the one between “amnesty and amnesia”. I feel this is influential because amnesty seems the best way to heal and move forward, but for many simply letting go was not possible.

Posted in Czechoslovakia, Jim, Rosenberg | No Comments »

9/25/07 Class Blog

Tuesday, September 25th, 2007

What is justice in post-communist Eastern Europe?  Why does it matter?

Justice in post-communist Eastern Europe is mostly about punishing people who actively cooperated with the communist regime to make innocent citizens’ lives miserable and who took personal benefits throughout this process. Many of Eastern Europeans in post-communist era wanted to start the process of normalization and the way back into the European communities, both economically and politically, through dealing with their history to bring back justice in their societies. Eastern Europeans in former Soviet bloc wanted to punish people who allied themselves with the Communist regime for their own interests to make sure their past tragic history would not be repeated for their next generations and to encourage start of the new nation building by the people, vast majority population, who initially suffered by their past repressive regime.   

Posted in Rosenberg, Saeil | No Comments »

Justice after communism

Tuesday, September 25th, 2007

The idea of justice was relative – the nature of and those to whom it applied. Many individuals weren’t necessarily brought to justice so much as they were viewed as people doing what was necessary for self-preservation. During the early post-communist period, no one seemed to know what was going on – a political and martial vacuum. Leadership of the old communist regimes were not held to account for the crimes they had committed. From the old leadership and the old regime, those who were in power wanted to hold on to the power they had lost. So, in several instances they started or joined criminal syndicates and other less reputable organizations. Others who weren’t so lucky were tried at the Hague or are imprisoned. From the readings I got a sense that the network and information created by informers, whether criminal or not remained in the files, except for those communist hold-overs who had their own files removed so nothing would be uncovered. This matters for several reasons. Mentioned above, there was a lack of accountability, which often stemmed from the power vacuum. Individuals were brutalized by interrogators in East Germany and other Central European countries, and the individuals who did this are never brought to justice. What the lack of accountability and investigation does is it effects the lives of those who had these crimes committed against them. The fact that many of those who did these interrogations and other aggressive acts were never brought to justice is an important reason why we study this. The “justice” after the fall of communism wasn’t as extensive as the Nazi hunt by Mossad and the Nuremberg Trials. Many of these leaders are still alive, while others sit in prison. Ultimately they didn’t desire to destroy the system they had in place, they instead effectively eviscerated the old leaders (exile, prison, fleeing the country, etc). Many were left in charge from a middle to lower management perspective. Look at the dock workers in Danzig/Gdansk. Without those learned/experienced people to run the groups and government and infrastructure, the whole system would collapse: people would starve, etc.

Posted in Rosenberg, Vince | No Comments »

Justice?

Tuesday, September 25th, 2007

First of all, I would like to state that this book reminded me that justice, like democracy, comes with different definitions and different practices depending on the society, the situation and the beliefs of people.

In post-communist Europe, justice, by in large, was the attempt of the regimes to right past wrongs through democracy.   In post-communist Europe, the attempt to achieve justice seemed to me, for the most part, the exact opposite of my definition of justice.  However, for example, as the Czechoslovak government claimed, their attempts enforce justice was necessary to keep communists out of the government. Lustrace condemned people for appearing on a list, when the list itself was riddled with errors and false claims about “crimes” that one may or may not have committed.  It did NOT offer the people the assumption of innocence until proven guilty (the regime, claimed, that since there was no evidence to prove the list was wrong, it was right).  As I stated in my previous post, this concept of a “single truth” sounded slightly familiar – a “direct descendant” of communist ideology.

Posted in Colleen, Rosenberg | No Comments »

Post Communism Justice

Tuesday, September 25th, 2007

Who is to blame for all the acts of the soveit union?  It’s a hard question to answer.  If you look at the common soldier, just doing what he was told, can he really be held accountable for the acts he did?  If he didn’t do it, punishment could be severe, and someone else would have done it.  If you move higher up the chain, the same dilehma holds.  Ultimatly though you can’t hold just one person for crimes committed by an entire army/population.  Justice therefore looses it’s concret self, and begins to wiggle.

In my opinion, serving justice in Eastern Europe would involve not only finding the commanders/leaders/master minds of crimes commited, but also finding those who took active participation in them.  A soldier following orders is one thing, however a soldier following orders gladly, or going “beyond the call of duty” to commit crimes would need to be punished.  Having these members of communism involved in forming a new country would only lead to more of what already happened.

At the same time, one can not force people into an addmission of guilt.  As we saw in the clip from “The Lives of Others” such interrogations might lead an innocent man to a guiltly plea just to escape his current situation.  An independent tribunal/court should be set up and allow those in “grey” areas to present there case, and defend themselves.  Known leaders and admissions of guilt however, could be handled in a manor worthy of there crime.

Posted in James, Rosenberg | No Comments »

What is Justice in Post Communist Eastern Europe?

Tuesday, September 25th, 2007

After the fall of many of the regimes in Eastern Europe there was a general push to cut off the head of the old system without ruining the entire country.  Many of these countries like Czechoslovakia were worried that if they removed everyone the government would be devoid of experienced bureaucrats. The top leadership was forced out, but deputies who collaborated with the secret police could stay if they were willing to put up with being publicly outed on television.

Justice in Eastern Europe was neither black nor white, but a graying compromise to punish the public heads of communism without disabling the entire country. On top of that there was the vast number of “informers” who were coerced to cooperate. When Havel was elected President, he even said that every citizen was at least partly to blame because they cooperated with the government and thus legitimized it.

Posted in Books, JustinM, People | No Comments »

« Older Entries