Re: on second thought...
Anton
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8334105.stm
Good article, but I have a question referring to this paragraph:
”Today, aged 70, Jens is still, as he was then, a respected scientist.
He is in a way still a dissident - like others in that people's movement
who wanted a slow and equal unification with the West, rather than the
route that was taken, with East Germany being swallowed up by the laws
and constitution of the Federal Republic.”
The question that comes to mind is: was a slow unification *really* a
realistic alternative? Had the "Ossies" really had the patience with a
gradual catch-up?
So suppose there had been a slow unification; the East German's living
standards wouldn't have been on par with the West side any time soon
anyway, don't you think East Germans sooner or later would had
questioned a slow unification and accused the Federal Republic for
"holding back" and keeping the "brakes on" and thus denying the
Easterners to catch up with the West side?
In my opinion that statement above by Mr Jens has a point, but it is
partially based on the luxury of hindsight.
--
Anton
Vladimir Makarenko
> Vladimir Makarenko wrote:
>
>> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8334105.stm
>
> Good article, but I have a question referring to this paragraph:
>
> ”Today, aged 70, Jens is still, as he was then, a respected scientist.
> He is in a way still a dissident - like others in that people's movement
> who wanted a slow and equal unification with the West, rather than the
> route that was taken, with East Germany being swallowed up by the laws
> and constitution of the Federal Republic.”
>
> The question that comes to mind is: was a slow unification *really* a
> realistic alternative? Had the "Ossies" really had the patience with a
> gradual catch-up?
It depends what you mean by "unification" - as it happened it was rather
subjugation: dictate of the cash rich WGermany to the poor with low
efficiency economy EGermany.
>
> So suppose there had been a slow unification; the East German's living
> standards wouldn't have been on par with the West side any time soon
> anyway, don't you think East Germans sooner or later would had
> questioned a slow unification and accused the Federal Republic for
> "holding back" and keeping the "brakes on" and thus denying the
> Easterners to catch up with the West side?
OK, there is no way to carry out a reform so that there were none of
those who would scream "it's a failure!" etc. That said the reform which
was implemented was economic scorched earth policy, very "Wall Street",
looking at a single indicator - economic. And its worst version - short
term, so they could submit fantastic report on the progress quarter by
quarter. All that led to total destruction of social fabric of the
country, turning it into a dump ground - I don't hear much reports on
skinhead gangs coming from WGermany, it is alway from the East. I am
quite sure that the same explosive stats are in areas of alcoholism,
drugs, crime, suicide, you call it.
As a matter of fact if a military commander would put civil population
in the area under his control through the same he would be accused of
war crimes, faced court marshal and firing squad half an hour later.
Schmuks from economy who do the same earn another annual bonus or tenure.
>
> In my opinion that statement above by Mr Jens has a point, but it is
> partially based on the luxury of hindsight.
>
Hm, no. If you put on welfare a half of labor force you know too well
what to expect. All of Europe been there done that in XX cent and had
more than enough experience. It is unleashed monetarism (and its totally
retarded version as reaganism) which was having upper hand in the time
in WGermany to blame. The fact is these morons couldn't do the same in
WGermany because of political balances there, EGermany on the other hand
was caught naked by the wolves, so they torn it apart.
VM.
Anton
> Anton wrote:
>> Vladimir Makarenko wrote:
>>
>>> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8334105.stm
>> Good article, but I have a question referring to this paragraph:
>> ”Today, aged 70, Jens is still, as he was then, a respected scientist.
>> He is in a way still a dissident - like others in that people's movement
>> who wanted a slow and equal unification with the West, rather than the
>> route that was taken, with East Germany being swallowed up by the laws
>> and constitution of the Federal Republic.”
>> The question that comes to mind is: was a slow unification *really* a
>> realistic alternative? Had the "Ossies" really had the patience with a
>> gradual catch-up?
> It depends what you mean by "unification" - as it happened it was rather
> subjugation: dictate of the cash rich WGermany to the poor with low
> efficiency economy EGermany.
"Unification" as it was referred to in the article you posted. The style
and the method of how it could be executed is a different thing. The end
result as far as any existing infrastructure goes had been the same
nonetheless. Any retooling from low efficiency and outdated tech level
to high efficiency = slashing of jobs. That is the reality.
>> So suppose there had been a slow unification; the East German's living
>> standards wouldn't have been on par with the West side any time soon
>> anyway, don't you think East Germans sooner or later would had
>> questioned a slow unification and accused the Federal Republic for
>> "holding back" and keeping the "brakes on" and thus denying the
>> Easterners to catch up with the West side?
> OK, there is no way to carry out a reform so that there were none of
> those who would scream "it's a failure!" etc.
Not only that. I watched part 2 (or 3) showed on YLE on the 1989 events.
Walesa was spot on that he himself would have wanted a slower
transition, but the ordinary Polish people were in a hurry to move to
the "shangri-la" of capitalism. Of course we all know that no paradise
was waiting for them instantly, but one can't blame the East European
peoples of wanting the same living standard as the West asap.
> That said the reform which
> was implemented was economic scorched earth policy, very "Wall Street",
> looking at a single indicator - economic.
In a market economy it is not possible to keep unproductive companies
for only social reasons. Well not for any long period of time anyway.
> And its worst version - short
> term, so they could submit fantastic report on the progress quarter by
> quarter. All that led to total destruction of social fabric of the
> country, turning it into a dump ground - I don't hear much reports on
> skinhead gangs coming from WGermany, it is alway from the East.
There has been skinhead gangs in the UK, Finland¹, Sweden and other
EEuropean countries like Poland as well. Crime and hooliganism is not
only existent in the former DDR, but it is quite present in all of the
former socialist block, and not totally extinct in West either.
¹) Skinheadism was quite rampant in Finland from 1991 and to the mid
90s. I once was stupid enough to make a joke of them at a bar and
thought that they did not hear my remarks a few tables further. As a
result I was kicked to the floor and could not raise my arm to shoulder
height for two months. This was -93 or -94 circa.
> I am
> quite sure that the same explosive stats are in areas of alcoholism,
> drugs, crime, suicide, you call it.
Probably East Germany is much more represented in these stats than West.
It can't all be blamed on merging east to west, though, but rather the
unfortunate circumstances in which the East needed painful retooling in
order to even survive. I personally don't see how a totally seamless,
painless transition could have taken place especially since pretty much
all of the former Socialist countries have struggled some more and some
less, but struggled they have nonetheless.
> As a matter of fact if a military commander would put civil population
> in the area under his control through the same he would be accused of
> war crimes, faced court marshal and firing squad half an hour later.
> Schmuks from economy who do the same earn another annual bonus or tenure.
You make it sound as if East Germany after being annexed to West Germany
was a Zimbabwe. Of course that is not the case.
>> In my opinion that statement above by Mr Jens has a point, but it is
>> partially based on the luxury of hindsight.
> Hm, no. If you put on welfare a half of labor force you know too well
> what to expect.
Those jobs were gone anyway. What probably had been benefits of a slower
transition would have been to wait for NEW businesses to emerge and
keeping a slower peace for dismantling the old, thus allowing at least
some of the people a possibility to move to new jobs before the old jobs
were lost. It is however unclear to what extent that had been
successful. It is easier to talk about jobs than creating jobs.
> All of Europe been there done that in XX cent and had
> more than enough experience.
I would call the circumstances quite unique. You have half a continent
that was almost totally isolated for half a century which had an
artificially constructed, inefficient economic model which lead to
underdevelopment, and the challenge was to make it equal of the other
half that was not.
In the XX cent everybody was in the same camp, or rather the same world,
and while almost everybody had economic and social problems there was
not a group of countries that had to adapt to a totally different
climate over night.
> It is unleashed monetarism (and its totally
> retarded version as reaganism) which was having upper hand in the time
> in WGermany to blame. The fact is these morons couldn't do the same in
> WGermany because of political balances there, EGermany on the other hand
> was caught naked by the wolves, so they torn it apart.
Sure they could have made the transition less violently, but what had
been the alternative? Any other alternative had meant keeping running
firms the DDR way. The inferior quality had meant either getting only
peanuts for the products (hence not many lining up to become owners and
workers getting shitty wages) and sell the goods to others in the former
East bloc who really would like Western quality, but for the time being
only can afford inferior East products, which either way had only been
temporary life support. Any shaping up of the East's companies to meet
the new quality and productivity requirements of developed markets had
meant slashing of jobs anyway.
--
Anton
Vladimir Makarenko
> Vladimir Makarenko kirjoitti:
>> Anton wrote:
>>> Vladimir Makarenko wrote:
>>>
>>>> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8334105.stm
>
>>> Good article, but I have a question referring to this paragraph:
>
>>> ”Today, aged 70, Jens is still, as he was then, a respected scientist.
>>> He is in a way still a dissident - like others in that people's movement
>>> who wanted a slow and equal unification with the West, rather than the
>>> route that was taken, with East Germany being swallowed up by the laws
>>> and constitution of the Federal Republic.”
>
>>> The question that comes to mind is: was a slow unification *really* a
>>> realistic alternative? Had the "Ossies" really had the patience with a
>>> gradual catch-up?
>
>> It depends what you mean by "unification" - as it happened it was rather
>> subjugation: dictate of the cash rich WGermany to the poor with low
>> efficiency economy EGermany.
>
> "Unification" as it was referred to in the article you posted. The style
> and the method of how it could be executed is a different thing.
This where I will never agree - style and methods is the whole point:
otherwise I can "unificate" anybody if I have enough guns or cash.
> The end
> result as far as any existing infrastructure goes had been the same
> nonetheless. Any retooling from low efficiency and outdated tech level
> to high efficiency = slashing of jobs. That is the reality.
Again I cannot agree: it is a heretic thinking but nobody so far proved
me that otherwise is wrong - keep the enterprise running and maybe at
loss but still functioning - how it is better than keep all the people
on welfare especially on European levels (in the US it is very tough -
thanks Obama team they at least try to do something about that). What
about third word markets - sell there dirt cheap and still keep people
at home with jobs. Maybe low paid, but not unemployed. Unemployment is a
breaking point for a human, mass unemployment is such for a society. I
still puzzled how Germans out of all people fell in this trap. They'd
have to know better. I guess arrogance and negligence of the greedy West
as usual to much superior culturally and non profitable East.
>
>>> So suppose there had been a slow unification; the East German's living
>>> standards wouldn't have been on par with the West side any time soon
>>> anyway, don't you think East Germans sooner or later would had
>>> questioned a slow unification and accused the Federal Republic for
>>> "holding back" and keeping the "brakes on" and thus denying the
>>> Easterners to catch up with the West side?
>
>> OK, there is no way to carry out a reform so that there were none of
>> those who would scream "it's a failure!" etc.
>
> Not only that. I watched part 2 (or 3) showed on YLE on the 1989 events.
> Walesa was spot on that he himself would have wanted a slower
> transition, but the ordinary Polish people were in a hurry to move to
> the "shangri-la" of capitalism. Of course we all know that no paradise
> was waiting for them instantly, but one can't blame the East European
> peoples of wanting the same living standard as the West asap.
That is the whole point - everybody in the East had no real clue how
West economy works (nor West knew how East economy doesn't work). The
idea was basically communist one - let's burn everything to the ground
and next morning A NEW BRAVE WORLD will knock on the door. It did all
right - as a pimp.
>
>> That said the reform which
>> was implemented was economic scorched earth policy, very "Wall Street",
>> looking at a single indicator - economic.
>
> In a market economy it is not possible to keep unproductive companies
> for only social reasons. Well not for any long period of time anyway.
Say it again? Hah?
Are we on the same page? Remember what has been done when the whole
industries went bust this/last year?
What was your magic word - "profitability"? At $23 TRLN of tax payers
money? My money?
>
>> And its worst version - short
>> term, so they could submit fantastic report on the progress quarter by
>> quarter. All that led to total destruction of social fabric of the
>> country, turning it into a dump ground - I don't hear much reports on
>> skinhead gangs coming from WGermany, it is alway from the East.
>
> There has been skinhead gangs in the UK, Finland¹, Sweden and other
> EEuropean countries like Poland as well. Crime and hooliganism is not
> only existent in the former DDR, but it is quite present in all of the
> former socialist block, and not totally extinct in West either.
>
> ¹) Skinheadism was quite rampant in Finland from 1991 and to the mid
> 90s.
I still cannot understand that except I think you took the eyes from the
ball: education should be ahead of military technologies.
Besides wasn't the period very bad times economically?
I still wonder how every state has an emergency food surplus but never
bothers about how to counter people going crazy without jobs.
I once was stupid enough to make a joke of them at a bar and
> thought that they did not hear my remarks a few tables further. As a
> result I was kicked to the floor and could not raise my arm to shoulder
> height for two months. This was -93 or -94 circa.
Hm,- count yourself lucky - in Russia they would kill you. This year
most loud political murder - of a lawyer (Markelov) and a investigative
journalist was done by Russian Nazis -arrests just made - for
effectively presenting in court victims (mostly penniless people from ex
Soviet Asia) of nazi/skinheads attacks. Bullets are still an argument in
Russia.
As to your hand - electrical stimulation and autotraining are helpful -
well I am pretty sure you already went through it, the one thing though
- depending on the degree of nerve damage, it is better not to ever stop
it: basically it is very simple - nervous system is an electric
circuitry, keep it running - stimulate if you want it to stay functional
especially after damage. E.g. play/work non physically intensive chores
by the hand - piano, writing, computer mouse. The trick is to do it a
few times everyday day even if only for a minute or two at once.
>
>> I am
>> quite sure that the same explosive stats are in areas of alcoholism,
>> drugs, crime, suicide, you call it.
>
> Probably East Germany is much more represented in these stats than West.
>
> It can't all be blamed on merging east to west, though, but rather the
> unfortunate circumstances in which the East needed painful retooling in
> order to even survive. I personally don't see how a totally seamless,
> painless transition could have taken place especially since pretty much
> all of the former Socialist countries have struggled some more and some
> less, but struggled they have nonetheless.
Well, I could have talked a lot about how such transition could have
been made if I didn't think that Soviets blew it in 1968 in
Czcehoslovakia: THIS was a real chance for turning around to socialism
with a Human Face. Well, Brezhnev face wasn't exactly human right?
Another fucking retard alcoholic bureaucrat.
>
>> As a matter of fact if a military commander would put civil population
>> in the area under his control through the same he would be accused of
>> war crimes, faced court marshal and firing squad half an hour later.
>> Schmuks from economy who do the same earn another annual bonus or tenure.
>
> You make it sound as if East Germany after being annexed to West Germany
> was a Zimbabwe. Of course that is not the case.
It was.
At least how I heard it from not so second hands.
Can't go further,sorry. Later.
VM.
Anton
> Anton wrote:
>> Vladimir Makarenko kirjoitti:
>>> Anton wrote:
>>>> Vladimir Makarenko wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8334105.stm
>>>> The question that comes to mind is: was a slow unification *really* a
>>>> realistic alternative? Had the "Ossies" really had the patience with a
>>>> gradual catch-up?
>>> It depends what you mean by "unification" - as it happened it was rather
>>> subjugation: dictate of the cash rich WGermany to the poor with low
>>> efficiency economy EGermany.
>> "Unification" as it was referred to in the article you posted. The style
>> and the method of how it could be executed is a different thing.
> This where I will never agree - style and methods is the whole point:
> otherwise I can "unificate" anybody if I have enough guns or cash.
Are you denying there is a difference in bringing together two German
states as to say Slovakia and Austria? Probably not. "Unification" in
that sense, Vladimir. As I recall there was a referendum held in DDR on
wether to merge the country to the Bundesrepublik or not, and the people
of East Germany themselves voted "yes".
>> The end
>> result as far as any existing infrastructure goes had been the same
>> nonetheless. Any retooling from low efficiency and outdated tech level
>> to high efficiency = slashing of jobs. That is the reality.
> Again I cannot agree: it is a heretic thinking but nobody so far proved
> me that otherwise is wrong - keep the enterprise running and maybe at
> loss but still functioning - how it is better than keep all the people
> on welfare especially on European levels (in the US it is very tough -
> thanks Obama team they at least try to do something about that). What
> about third word markets - sell there dirt cheap and still keep people
> at home with jobs. Maybe low paid, but not unemployed. Unemployment is a
> breaking point for a human, mass unemployment is such for a society.
"Low paid" = serfs? Are you trying to convince that the East Germans had
accepted to be serfs? Can you imagine a scenario where somebody tells
them: "Ok, these are your options: a) You can leave or b) you can stay
in your current neighbourhood and work, but you will get 1/4 of what the
same job pays in the West, and even then there is no guarantee: it all
depends wether the Sudanese will still by Wartburgs or if they buy used
Toyota's instead. So forget about the new house, the Wolksvagen - don't
even dream about the Audi."
This is what I was trying to say all along: for many East Germans they
had a dream to a more prosperous lifestyle. It is a little optimistic to
expect that that part of human nature would change: to have the patience
to live half a lifetime as a 2nd class citizen to achieve what you
expect to achieve in 2-5 years. I don't know about you, but from what
I've seen humans everybody would like to have the same opportunities to
prosper as anybody else. You can call it the "American Dream", or
whatever, but few are able to be content with significantly less than
what their neighbour has. People are impatient beings: they always want
something better, and not after waiting 20 years, but NOW.
Of course many ordinary people would be content to just have any job and
food on the table, but putting reforms on "low gear", still selling
Wartburgs to developing countries, would have meant that also the
opportunities to reach "something better" had been significantly reduced
for many as well. As opposed to selling the company to a Western
automobile company, slashing jobs, but employing more productive - and
better paid jobs for some others.
Don't put the devil's coat on me, but that is the cold realities of how
the world works. It is not always nice, hasn't been to me either, but
that's how it works.
Basically it came down to two options: 1) allow those who can leave for
something better in the West and keep the bulk of the population that
stayed as serfs in 2nd rate, unproductive, badly paid jobs, or 2)
shuffle the deck and accept that some who naturally have "good cards"
get sooner on par with the West side, and some less lucky live for
wellfare a while while the pieces fall in place and they are able to
bounce back. Well some "hybrid" of these, a compromise, could have been
reached, but sooner or later it had been impossible to keep on
assemblying those Trabbies.
> I
> still puzzled how Germans out of all people fell in this trap. They'd
> have to know better. I guess arrogance and negligence of the greedy West
> as usual to much superior culturally and non profitable East.
Had it been realistic to keep the "Ossies" as the
"Mexicans/Turks/Negroes" - 2nd class citizens - of the new Germany? In
my opinion working for almost free in sweat shops is bordering to
serfdom in modern times. Is that significantly better than getting the
boot, possibly becoming a student to get a new profession and as in many
cases - find a new job with a somewhat decent salary?
>>> OK, there is no way to carry out a reform so that there were none of
>>> those who would scream "it's a failure!" etc.
>> Not only that. I watched part 2 (or 3) showed on YLE on the 1989 events.
>> Walesa was spot on that he himself would have wanted a slower
>> transition, but the ordinary Polish people were in a hurry to move to
>> the "shangri-la" of capitalism. Of course we all know that no paradise
>> was waiting for them instantly, but one can't blame the East European
>> peoples of wanting the same living standard as the West asap.
> That is the whole point - everybody in the East had no real clue how
> West economy works (nor West knew how East economy doesn't work). The
> idea was basically communist one - let's burn everything to the ground
> and next morning A NEW BRAVE WORLD will knock on the door. It did all
> right - as a pimp.
Well, there was living proof of "a new brave world". That world existed
West of the Iron curtain. From a human perspective the criticism is
just, but all criticism is basically just venting unless you are
presenting an alternative to that something that you regard as a failure.
>>> That said the reform which
>>> was implemented was economic scorched earth policy, very "Wall Street",
>>> looking at a single indicator - economic.
>>
>> In a market economy it is not possible to keep unproductive companies
>> for only social reasons. Well not for any long period of time anyway.
> Say it again? Hah?
> Are we on the same page? Remember what has been done when the whole
> industries went bust this/last year?
Yes. I get the impression that at least those who preach the gospel of
unregulated capitalism would have wanted to avoid that. I personally
don't see these "aid packages" as something that can be used again and
again and again (depends on the patience of the creditors). I *hope* to
God that world leaders don't either.
> What was your magic word - "profitability"? At $23 TRLN of tax payers
> money? My money?
Since it is foreign capital you are the debtor. You will pay the
interest while your children make the bulk of the installments.
>> �) Skinheadism was quite rampant in Finland from 1991 and to the mid
>> 90s.
> I still cannot understand that except I think you took the eyes from the
> ball: education should be ahead of military technologies.
> Besides wasn't the period very bad times economically?
Yes. For us it meant bankruptcy of thousands of businesses, unemployment
up from 2% to almost 20% - and a sharp peak in suicide statistics. I was
one of the unemployed for a while.
> I still wonder how every state has an emergency food surplus but never
> bothers about how to counter people going crazy without jobs.
We have these education and employment programs. Rarely do they give any
instant results if there simply are not enough real jobs, but it is a
break from idleness. The wellfare provided by the society is enough to
keep the stomach full, but of course most humans want to feel useful and
provide for the family if you have one.
> I once was stupid enough to make a joke of them at a bar and
>> thought that they did not hear my remarks a few tables further. As a
>> result I was kicked to the floor and could not raise my arm to shoulder
>> height for two months. This was -93 or -94 circa.
> Hm,- count yourself lucky - in Russia they would kill you. This year
> most loud political murder - of a lawyer (Markelov) and a investigative
> journalist was done by Russian Nazis -arrests just made - for
> effectively presenting in court victims (mostly penniless people from ex
> Soviet Asia) of nazi/skinheads attacks. Bullets are still an argument in
> Russia.
Well, those are people doing some dangerous work REALLY dangerous people
don't like. I gave just a remark to some drunk punks in a bar. However
sometimes the consequences are far worse. I did in fact hear later that
this perpetrator had been involved in much more serious offenses. Good
thing it was a bar and not some dark back alley...
> As to your hand - electrical stimulation and autotraining are helpful -
> well I am pretty sure you already went through it, the one thing though
> - depending on the degree of nerve damage, it is better not to ever stop
> it: basically it is very simple - nervous system is an electric
> circuitry, keep it running - stimulate if you want it to stay functional
> especially after damage. E.g. play/work non physically intensive chores
> by the hand - piano, writing, computer mouse. The trick is to do it a
> few times everyday day even if only for a minute or two at once.
Thanks. I did some physical rehabilitative excersises.
>> It can't all be blamed on merging east to west, though, but rather the
>> unfortunate circumstances in which the East needed painful retooling in
>> order to even survive. I personally don't see how a totally seamless,
>> painless transition could have taken place especially since pretty much
>> all of the former Socialist countries have struggled some more and some
>> less, but struggled they have nonetheless.
> Well, I could have talked a lot about how such transition could have
> been made if I didn't think that Soviets blew it in 1968 in
> Czcehoslovakia: THIS was a real chance for turning around to socialism
> with a Human Face. Well, Brezhnev face wasn't exactly human right?
> Another fucking retard alcoholic bureaucrat.
Hmmm... sooner or later any socialist state, even one with a "human
face", would have had to allow other political parties if it wished to
keep the "human" in its face. Although, granted, this option had
probably lead to a more gradual transition towards a free society with
civil rights and private enterprise.
>>> As a matter of fact if a military commander would put civil population
>>> in the area under his control through the same he would be accused of
>>> war crimes, faced court marshal and firing squad half an hour later.
>>> Schmuks from economy who do the same earn another annual bonus or
>>> tenure.
>>
>> You make it sound as if East Germany after being annexed to West Germany
>> was a Zimbabwe. Of course that is not the case.
> It was.
> At least how I heard it from not so second hands.
I don't deny the fact that it was sort of a disaster for many. However
hardly not one in the magnitude of a Zimbabwe, which afterall had a
serious food and health crisis and total collapse of the economic
infrastructure.
--
Anton
Vladimir Makarenko
Well at least partly this (of at least some) article points in the
direction:
http://exiledonline.com/how-the-west-hijacked-the-berlin-wall-revolution/
Featured / November 9, 2009
How The West Hijacked The Berlin Wall Revolution
By Tim Mohr
One of the great ironies of the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago is
that the East German protest leaders who led the uprising did not want
unification with West Germany.
It�s important on this anniversary to distinguish between two entirely
different events: first, the fall of the Berlin Wall, on November 9,
1989; and then German unification, on October 3, 1990. Americans often
conflate the two into one process. But for Germans and those who were
there, it�s a much more complicated story. The fall of the Berlin Wall
became a poisoned memory for a certain set of Easterners, thanks to the
events that followed that event.
The movement to overthrow the totalitarian regime in East Germany and
tear down the wall was led by a relatively small number of activists and
rejectionists whose aim wasn�t unification, but rather an independent,
free, idealistic socialist East Germany. These people were very
different from the institutional opposition that had success elsewhere
in the East Bloc, which arose after Gorbachev eased Soviet pressure and
allowed a kind of top-down reform in places like Hungary and Poland. But
in East Germany, the government was too hardline and unwilling to
reform, so opposition arose from underground operators.
The groups that got the ball rolling for the mass street protests that
eventually convinced the ruling SED party to depose dictator Erich
Honecker, install the more moderate Egon Krenz, and liberalize travel
restrictions, largely operated from under the protective umbrella of the
Lutheran church, which enjoyed special status in East Germany. These
groups included human rights activists, environmental activists, peace
activists, and underground artists and musicians�in other words, they
were secular, but they still took refuge in the churches. Much of the
church leadership itself was also heavily involved in the opposition.
Most of these people, the ones who did the legwork to bring down the
wall, often paying a dear personal price, were too leftwing and
idealistic for those Americans who were looking for self-affirmation in
Germany�s revolution . They weren�t protesting for McDonald�s and
Western pop music (not even David Hasselhoff�s �Looking for Freedom�),
and they sure as hell weren�t inspired by Ronald Reagan. But our
inability to distinguish the fall of the Berlin Wall from Germany�s
unification means this awkward twist is lost in American coverage anyway.
Take Thomas Friedman writing about the fall of the wall a few weeks ago,
celebrates a Dunkin Donuts branch at the Brandenburg Gate, which served
as the backdrop for some of the most stirring images from November 9th:
�Normally, I am horrified by American fast food brands near iconic
sites, but in the case of this once open sore between East and West, I
find it something of a balm. The war over Europe is indeed over. People
power won. We can stand down�pass the doughnuts.�
Unfortunately for Friedman, the hamburgers-and-Hasselhoff set had fuck
all to do with the fall of the wall. They did, however, bring about
unification, much to the chagrin of the folks who facilitated the
breach. The people who brought down the wall at the risk of being
beaten, jailed, fired, sent off to military service, or expatriated lost
control of the process as soon as the stakes for participation dropped
to nil. At that point�and it was only days after the fall of the
wall�the chant in the streets of the GDR changed from �we are the
people� to �we are one people.�
It also turned out that many of the East German church leaders who had
harbored the hardcore rejectionists and activists did not share their
vision for post-wall East Germany, and quickly struck alliances with the
West German Christian Democrats, Helmut Kohl�s right-of-center
pro-unification party. Kohl�s party funded an Eastern sister party and
literally passed out bananas to woo Eastern voters.
In hindsight, it�s often seen as inevitable that the two Germanys would
reunite. But this, too, is a somewhat revisionist view. The territories
that made up East and West Germany had previously been properly united
for only a relatively brief period, from 1871 to 1945, from Kaiser
Wilhelm�s consolidation following the Franco-Prussian War until the
dissolution of Germany after World War II. (Nobody would advocate a
Germany based on the Holy Roman Empire, another period when the two
Germanys were under common rule-along with Switzerland, Austria, the
Czech Republic, Holland, Belgium, Slovenia, and parts of Poland, France,
and Italy.) The southern border of East Germany-with Bavaria-was also a
religious fault line, with the Oktoberfest state traditionally Catholic
and the GDR�s Thuringia mostly Protestant from a few years after the
Reformation. So again, on the face of it, there was no overriding
logical necessity for reunion.
Look at it this way: When Canada gained independence from Britain in
1931, nobody thought it inevitable that the US and Canada�nations that
share a 3000-mile border, virtually integrated economies, a common
language, and a common origin as British colonies�would unite.
Nevertheless, the 1990 election that determined East Germany�s path
forward was indeed won with promises of BMWs and bananas (which,
incidentally, isn�t the same as Dodges and doughnuts), as the
reactionary hamburgers-and-Hasselhoff voters carried the day. But this
is the ugly part of the story-the part where money buys elections, the
part where shrill sloganeering drowns out nuanced discussion, the part
where an abstract pleasant-sounding goal beats any platform detailing
the nuts and bolts of how to get there. In short, the election that led
to unification was rife with exactly the sorts of things we bemoan in
our own country, but with unimaginably high stakes: the continued
existence of the voters� country.
It is a great disservice to the brave East Germans who brought down the
wall to confuse its fall with unification and to see, for instance, the
proliferation of American fast food joints at the Brandenburg Gate as
somehow fitting tribute to the events of November 9. Doing so allows the
perpetuation of some of the biggest lies we�we, as in Americans�tell
ourselves. These lies-about the motivation of the people who brought
down the wall, about the inevitability of their embrace of the West,
about rock and roll and Coca Cola and fucking doughnuts-are so insidious
because they inform our ideas about freedom and the ostensible US role
in spreading it. Nothing could be more ignorant and ahistorical�except
perhaps crediting Reagan, which much of the rest of the US media was
busy doing this week.
Tim Mohr writes for the Daily Beast and the Huffington Post.
Anton
> Well at least partly this (of at least some) article points in the
> direction:
> http://exiledonline.com/how-the-west-hijacked-the-berlin-wall-revolution/
There are fragments of insight and knowledge there, but some of this
guys conclusions is just biased opinion to say the least. (Not much
different from a typical post to s.c.b). I'm not a PC type of person,
but a real journalist that needs to say "fucking" all the time is not
exactly installing credibility to the message nor the messenger...
These are much more quality articles:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/opinion/09zizek.html?_r=2
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6829416.ece
--
Anton