Intimations of mortality

Yesterday was a practical and aesthetic rather than an intellectual day. First an attempt to get some information about the role of the Embassy in the event of my decease here leading to an unpleasant telephone encounter with an arrogant young Romanian (Anca) in the consular section of the British Embassy. She informed me there was no need to come to the Embassy and that she was capable of giving me the relevant information over the phone. This she was not – when I wondered how the Embassy would know who to inform in Britain when they had no information about me, it was I who suggested that perhaps it would be a good idea if I registered with them. And she did not take kindly to a question about who the „authorities” were in London to whom the Embassy would pass the information about my death and what they would do with it. I remarked that she did not have a customer-friendly approach – to which she (typically for this sort) replied that she had come to work with a positive attitude (it was 09.15) and thought she did a good job! I duly made a complaint on the Embassy website (although it gave me no confirmation of the sort one normally gets!) and on the larger UK site – which did confirm receipt. My next task was to make an online registration – which did, however, not seem to fit my case of being resident in the country (It asked me when I would be arriving and leaving); was not designed to deal with the case of both Daniela and me deceasing at the same time (space for only one „next of kin”!); and was a global data-base rather than one of the Embassy here in Bucharest (presumably they are cpable of accessing it?).
Then on to the CEC Bank where we have one of our two local deposits. Although a joint account, it is D’s name which leads the account and we were worried that her relatives might be able to claim a higher right. This time, a very friendly and helpful (older) woman – who confirmed our anxiety. Rather than lose 250 eurpos in interest, we will return in mid-January when the investment matures and switch the account name. Then off on the search for a fotoiu cover – which led us through the string of art and antique shops and in the charming, restored Gabroven St in the old town. Most of the art shops had modern kitsch stuff – but there was one small place which I would deign with the name painting gallery with reasonably original modern stuff (including a painting of what looked very like Sirnea – but overpriced at 500 euros).
Then the 21 tram throu Mosilor street – with sadly decaying terraced merchant houses - to the Obor market. Apparently the street is so called (old man) because the annual celebration of dead people (Mosii de iarna in late October) linked to a huge fair which was held then at Obor (which is a Romanian word for fair (which, in Slav, is known by the wonderful word „Trg” – hence the towns of Targoveste in both Romania and Bulgaria)

what we have lost

As yesterday’s blog indicated, I have developed the habit, in my village redoubt, of keeping scrap vegetables for the cow. And, of course, the wood stoves and system allow me, in the colder seasons, to dispose of cardboard wrappings in the fire. Even some of the plastic bottles are used for the various tasks an older house requires – receptacles for varnish; paint; or simply tap water against the occasional interruption (in august) of supply. But Daniela reminds me that this is nothing compared with the level of ecology practised in villages in earlier years – with various types of refuse (even human faeces) being separated and recycled on the ground. I was reminded of the part of Fred Pearce’s powerful The Rivers run Dry http which reveals how the ancients stored rainwater in a variety of ways (and how even dew can help reclaim land from deserts)
Both Alaister McIntosh and William Blacker in their very different ways) remind us of how easily we lost our innocence and autonomy and slipped into the easy dependence on the convenience goods and fast travel - and the complacent acceptance of (indeed contribution to) the detruitus which goes with the modern world. The Romanians are particularly bad offenders in the way they strew the remnants of picnics around beauty spots. I still have vivid memories of my father coming home - and pausing to pick up any litter on the street near the house. That simple gesture of social responsibility (as well as his bee-keeping and my mother's autumn jam-making) gave far more powerful and sustainable lessons to me than all my father's sermons!
I have always refused to buy anything associated with Coca Cola - initially because of the way they hook kids on high sugar and contribute to obesity but latterly for the way their entry to the bottled water market destroyed good local products (using recyled glass bottles) with their plastic crap. I confess that I am an addict to carbonated water - of course I should drink tap water but this was not really an option in some of the places (like Baku) in which I have lived. I was therefore delighted to see recently the Paris mayor introducing carbonated wayter fountains where people can take their bottles for free topping up.
I had such mixed feelings as I sped smoothly up the (resurfaced) road which links Rasnov across the mountain to Predeal and the main Brasov-Bucharest highway. A few months ago its potholes made the journey an uncomfortable one – the resurfacing (which was still going on) will knock almost 10 minutes off the 15 or so kilometres (at the cost in all probability of a few extra lives a year). Is this really what progress is all about?
Of course life was tough then - but we were generally healthier!!
I noticed today that Paul Kingsworth whose inspiring One no and Many Yeses I have referred to several times recently has now given up hope for us all. He has a fascinating Dark mountain website which sets out a more pessimistic vision.
And a look back to my blog of a year ago!

rural development and progress

Eventually I got around to walking the track which takes me from the house up to the hill opposite where a building is being constructed right on the ridge (shown here) – an encroachment on the landscape which should never be allowed in a civilised country. And outside I discovered a placard with the insignias of the Romanian Government and the EU! It’s one of these dubious investment of bloody SAPARD (The "s"had fallen off so it was announced as APARD). Proudly it told anyone interested that it was being erected in the interests of „rural development”. What a farce - since it will, in the first instance, detract from village life. It will raid an already plenished water supply (in the summer); take money from the pockets of the villagers who offer bed and breakfast; and cause the further deterioration of an already abysmal, pot-holed road which connects the village to the main road.
Of course, some might argue that, in a village of such old people, the arrival of professionals will give the village more political weight than it currently seems to have in its need for basic services. Perhaps indeed it explains why the electricity company has been installing lighting on the track at the bottom of my garden which is used only by the cows! Or perhaps we have literary cows - our friend Florie - Viciu's cow certainly always identifies the blue bag in which I bring her my vegetable scraps and gallops to me. The new lamp now floodlights my front approach (good if you are worried about thieves) but bad if you want to gaze at the stars!

Four basic questions

The glorious weather of the last few weeks here in the mountains seems at last to be changing. And I shall be heading down to the plains tomorrow – slightly ashamed at not having the fortitude to share the rigours of winter with my old neighbours. But my better half calls – and, now that the car is equipped for the winter (I spent most of yesterday at the garage as they rectified a few faults the car had developed as a result of the 10,000 kilometre battering I gave it in the early summer) we may well head to Sofia soon. The paintings and friends beckon.
In my recent (and rather long) lament about political impotence, I mentioned Will Hutton (and his latest book Them and Us – Changing Britain – why we need a fair society) as one of the people who has the wide inter-disciplinary reading necessary for anyone to have anything useful to say to us about how we might edge societies away from the abyss we all seem to be heading toward. I’ve used the verb „edge” because the calls for revolution which come from the old leftists are unrealistic (if not self-indulgent) but mainly because, historically, significant change has rarely come from deliberate social interventions. It has come from a more chaotic process. More and more disciplines are applying chaos theory in recognition of this – even management which is less a discipline than a parasite! So the call these days is for paradigm shift to help us in the direction of the systemic change the world needs to make in its move away from neo-liberalism. And close readers of the blog may recollect that I suggested that any convincing argument for systemic reform need to tackle four questions -
• Why do we need major change in our systems?
• Who or what is the culprit?
• What programme might start a significant change process?
• What mechanisms (process or institutions) do we need to implement such programmes?

Most books in this field focus more on the first two questions – and are much lighter on the last two questions. The first two questions require pretty demanding analytical skills – of an interdisciplinary sort which, as I’ve argued, the very structure of universities actively discourages. Hence the limited choice of authors – perhaps the two best known being Immanual Wallerstein and Manuel Castells. Both offer complex systemic views and, given the nature of their study, the writing style is not very accessible. Susan Strange made a great contribution to our practical understanding of Casino Capitalism as she called it - until her very sad death a decade ago.
Sadly, two other well-known names with a much more accessible writing style – Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein – tend to focus a lot of their energy on rogue states such as the USA.
William Hutton’s The World We’re In (2002) was as powerful and accessible of the limitations of the anglo-saxon model as you will ever read – and, with his stakeholder concept, carried with it a more optimistic view of the possibilities of reform. David Korten’s various books also offer good analysis – although his focus on the American corporation does not easily carry to Europe (See William Davies' recent Reinventing the Firm for a recent attempt). You can read Korten’s review of a Soros book here. Archdruid offers a contrary view here - although I’m not quite sure what to make of this particular blog – archdruid indeed!!
Most commentary on the recent global financial crisis has identified banks as the culprit – and those governments who made the move in recent decades to free banks from the regulation to which they have been subject. Marxists such as David Harvey have reminded us that government and banking behaviour is simply a reflection of a deeper issue – of surplus capital.
Hutton’s latest book (which I had abandoned a few weeks ago for its rather abstract opening treatment of fairness but dragged from the bookshelf at 04.30 this morning) does gives fairly good treatment to the first 3 questions but does not really even begin to answer the final question. And this is particularly pertinent for Hutton since the stakeholder analysis he brought with his 1995 book The State we’re In chimed with the times; did persuade a lot of people; and seemed at one stage to have got the Prime Minister's ear and commitment. It did not happen, however, and Hutton surely owes us an explanation of why it did not happen. The Management of Change has developed in the past 2 decades into an intellectual discipline of its own - and Hutton might perhaps use some it in a future edition of the book to explore this question. He might find Change the World: How Ordinary People Can Achieve Extraordinary Results particularly stimulating (I certainly did)
I would also have wished him to give us some comment on other takes" on our global problems eg the work of David Korten (above); Bill McKibben's Deep Economy: Economics as if the World Mattered; Olin Wright's Envisioning Real Utopias (which instances the amazing Mondragon cooperatives); and David Harvey's The Enigma of Capital: And the Crises of Capitalism. Although he is very generous in his attributions of research work, Hutton is perhaps less so in his recognition of the work of others who are trying to answer what I’ve suggested are the four big questions. There are more and more people trying to understand the mess we are in - and how do get out of it - and more and more books each with its own underlying set of ideological assumption. Will Hutton is one of the few people able to help us make sense of it all.
Finally a site with superb photographs which capture many aspects of Bucharest and Romania.

Heritage again

It was the Paul Kingsnorth book which gave me the Keynes quotation which now stands this week in the Quotes which head the various links on the right-hand side of this site. And lo, a discussion thread a few days later gave me a link to a book most of which is being serialised online which echoes these principles in setting out a possible approach for the USA – see here. Please note that I originally put the wronk link - and this is now the correct link.
And, another heritage example from Srah in Romania.

How sad (and frustrating) to read HERE that Romanian Rail (CFR) has decided to close the railway stretch between Oravita and Anina (Banat) because it is 'unprofitable'... Not only is it one of the most spectacular mountain railroads in Europe and thus would be a great national loss, but there are villages which would be cut off without it, and increased unemployment would be added to these areas in the event of such a tragic, erroneous decision. The Oravita-Anina line is a national treasure with a proud place on the National List of Monuments - and yet even that doesn't seem to bear any weight when it comes to making money, as we have seen time and time again in Bucharest with the very frequent mutilation of patrimony and heritage.
Built in 1847-1863, it is the oldest railway on Roumanian territory and runs 33.4 km in 2 hours.... An exceptional technical achievement, it is one of the very steepest lines in all of Europe and with such stunning landscape that it is often compared to the Austrian line Semmering, on UNESCO's list of world heritage sites.
The Association for Roumanian Industrial Archeology / has appealed to CFR and other deciding foruns for the continual use of the Oravita-Anina railway... let's hope they are successful.
'Unprofitable'??? Doesn't the government realise the gold-mine this railway could be? Why, in a country of such natural beauty and tradition, is it so impossible to see the marketing possibilities?! It never ceases to amaze me how tourism is so very badly managed and commercialised. Here we have a railway line that provides transportation and trade to remote towns, offers jobs to those living in the villages envelopped in the most beautiful, awe-inspiring backdrops of stunning scenery. Not only the oldest railway in Roumania but also one of the steepest, it should be as much visited and admired at least as the Trans-Fagarasan in Transylvania. It provides jobs and symbolises a life-line to many Roumanians of this region in the Banat.
The ministries of Commerce, Tourism, Transport and Employment would be far better advised to work together and turn this superb line into a real honey-pot. If it is unprofitable then it is entirely the fault of these ministries who clearly lack vision, imagination and creativity (look no further that the plagerised logo for Roumania to advertise the absurd Carpathian Garden). Railways are fabulous tourist attractions, particularly if they are steam, slow, historical and running through marvellous landscapes such as the Oravita-Anina. Everyone loves them from children who adore watching the steam spiralling backwards and up, up and away, to train enthusiasts, trekkers who can't walk anymore and those who fancy a day out without having to drive, with history and awe-inspiring views thrown in. Hellooooooo?!!!! To close it would be a grave mistake, not only for patrimony, respect and heritage but also for what COULD be made of it. Elena Udrea has such a marvellous job. I would love to be the Roumanian minister of tourism! There is so much to optimise, so much to boast about and so very much to cherish. This stretch of railway line is just one of many...

Heritage and change - destroyers and builders

Yesterday I had my first set of winter tyres fitted on a car – not just because of my experience a few weeks back but because a law could be passed very shortly making it compulsory to have them at this time of year. And I didn’t want to be caught out with a mad scramble – and rising prices. Although I’ve had the car for 14 years, it;’s done only 120,000 kilometres since, for long periods (and particularly winters), I’ve been elsewhere on assignment and the car has just languished in the street (on one famous occasion for 2 years on a Brussels suburb street). This will be the first winter spent in Romania – which puts more pressure on to find a properly sized urban flat. But prices are still coming down. House prices on the outskirts of the capital have apparently halved – and flats in the city are forecast to drop another 20% over the winter. But I would still prefer Sofia – or Brasov – to Bucharest.
I’m glad to report that Maritsa has now returned home safely from hospital – no rest for her – I bumped into her in the farmyard in the light rain and got some cream from her for my experimental mushroom soup.

I haven’t had an opportunity to refer to another great post which Sarah in Romania made a few weeks back. She shares our concern about the utter disregard the Bucharest city authorities (and most citizens) show for their architectural heritage which has so many gem; and this post danced on the grave of someone who was apparently one of the worst offenders – Stefan Damian. Thank goodness we still have people prepared to call a spade a spade! One of the main purposes of my blog is to reflect on the experience of trying to improve government – whether from an administrative or political aspect. The first twenty years of my life, I focussed on the political – the „what”. The last 20 years the focus has been on the „how”- on reforming the machinery of government. I’m still interested in the latter but, as the masthead quotation from JR Saul indicates, I think the value of technocrats is overrated and the role of citizens and the maligned politicians has to be asserted. And one of the things wrong with a lot of the reform writing is that it is too abstract. Change is a question of individuals – and we need more of the naming and shaming approach such as this Sarah in Romania post. I used it myself for the first time a few weeks back when I picked out a State Secretary and analysed his (outdated) declaration of interest form which appeared on the Ministry website.
We also need to celebrate more those who are trying to make a positive mark on life – and, as I noted on my friend Ion’s obituary, while they are still alive. One of the reasons I enjoyed Paul Kingsnorth’s book on the protests against the iniquities inflicted on the world by multi-national corporations is that it focussed on the individuals in different parts of the world who are risking their lives and livelihoods to protest against the destruction being wrought by people running these organisations. Business has been using the journal „portrait” for a long time to glorify their class – and most management books are little else than hero creation and worship. Only women like Rosabeth Kantor (with her marvellously mocking ten-rules-for-stifling-innovation and Shoshana Zuboff, it seems, are capable of resisting this inclination of business writers! But you don’t find such positive write-up of reformers – presumably because media ownership is so neo-liberal. And the publications of the reform movement tend to concentrate on ideas.
For example, I’ve wanted for some time to say something about one of the people I admire most – a Slovak friend of mine who, as Director of a training centre run on cooperative lines in a village, has utterly transformed an old palace, building up not only the facilities it offers (and the labour force) but commissioning local artists to create glorious murals to remind us of the place’s historical heritage and holding vernissages with painters from central europe, the Balkans, Central Asia etc. Walk into his huge office and he is almost lost amongst the books and paintings which are piled up around his desk. And his house is like a (living) museum – from all the artefacts he has brought back from his vacations throughout the world. He is such a lovely, modest man and I always feel a taste of heaven when I visit him at the Mojmirovce Kastiel.
And, while we’re on the subject of heritage, you must view this video - Prince Charles promoting his Transylvanian Trust – if you can stomach the posh accent which I fiind so difficult to take as a Scot. I’ve always felt sorry for this guy – a bit of a mummy's boy inevitably but his heart in the right place.

Stefan Damian has suddenly kicked the galeata. Bucharest is a safer place, structurally speaking... I would like to say I'm sorry and offer my sympathies to his family as one should do after the death of anyone, but since I am grieving for the assassination of beautiful houses and the slowly dying history and heritage in both bricks and mortar (and also because I may be many things but a hypocrite isn't one of them), I shall elegantly refrain, if you will excuse me. The article below from Vreau Dreptate reports on the mafia-controlled mass destruction of Bucharest bursting with patrimony and memories, history and stunning beauty - for money speaks louder than respect, homage or tears. Stefan Damian – who died recently – was one of guys who destroyed a great deal of what Ceausescu didn't manage himself and with just as much energy and absence of regret. See HERE in an extract from Romania Te Iubesc, Bucuresti Orasul Fara Istorie on Pro TV. The pix above is of the beautiful villa destroyed on str. Visarion. May its soul and the laughter that once resounded within its walls rest in peace. May those that demolished it be haunted all their days...
And HERE is one more article for you - a list of victims one by one, houses, villas, bijoux of architecture and bygone years - a city mutiliated by the very institution which is supposed to protect it.
Stefan Damian will be missed, but not by any lover of beauty nor national pride. HERE is an article from last February on the heritage Roumania's answer to the Demolition Man has left behind him...

A Lament on the impotence of democratic politics

Craig Murray’s latest post looks at the latest 2 examples of the collusion between government and commercial interests (Vodaphone and BAE systems (the giant aerospace company); notes the lack of public interest; and draws the pessimistic conclusion that "Conventional politics appears to have become irretrievably part of the malaise rather than offering any hope for a cure. But political activity outwith the mainstream is stifled by a bought media”. It’s worth giving the larger quote -
Sadly the comments on Craig’s posting (219 comments at the last count!) failed spectacularly to address the issue – descending to the religious ravings which are becoming an all too familar part of such threads. My own contribution (at the tail-end) was a rather pathetic appeal for a bit more humility in such discussions.

Instead of asserting opinions, can people not perhaps in these discussions share more quietly and analytically some of the perspectives which are out there on the possibilities of political and social action? For example, I've just finished reading the inspiring 2003 book "One No and Many Yeses" by Paul Kingsnorth. At other levels there are the writings of David Korten and Olin Wright's recent "Envisioning Realistic Utopias". Political parties and corporations remain the last protected species - and we should focus our energies on exploring why this is so; why it is so rarely investigated - and how we change it

All this gets us into the same territory I was trying to map out recently when I posed the question about

what programme elements might actually help release and sustain people power in a way which will force the corruption of modern elites to make significant and lasting concessions?

But, coincidentally, one of my other favourite blogs has produced a review of David Harvey’s The Enigma of Capital which I recently referred to as possibly offering a more solid analysis of the problems we face. Harvey’s book is not an easy read - and this review sets the book’s main arguments in the wider conext of other leftist writers who have faced the fact that there is something systemic in the latest global crisis. At this point, be warned, the langauge gets a bit heavy! All this reminds me of Ralph Miliband (father of Ed) ’s Parliamentary Socialism ((1962)which argued the basic pointlessness of the social democratic approach (The other 1,000 page book which arrived recently is in fact Donald Sassoon’s One Hundred Years of Socialism!).

Strange how few books come from political or economic academics offering broad, critical analyis of current political and economic life. David Harvey is a geographer! And the best stuff on the role of pension funds (and how they might be changed) is by a Marxist intellectual not associated with academia – Robin Blackburn. Both Paul Kingsnorth and Bill McKibben – who write on alternative systems - are campaigning journalists. Will Hutton who casts a periodic eye over the philosophical infrastructure which underpins the Anglo-saxon economic system (Them and Us is his latest 400 page blockbuster) is also a journalist.

The only UK academic I know who has written blunt analyses about the nature of our political system is the political development scientist – Colin Leys – whose time in Africa has clearly given him an important perspective his British academic colleagues lack. Sociologists are the masturbators par excellence - altough Olin Wright is an honourable exception with his recent Envisioning Realistic Utopias from the USA. In America the only challenging stuff comes form speculators like Nassim Taleb and George Soros – although Nobel-winning Joseph Stiglitz is an enfant terrible of the Economics profession and of World Bank and IMF policies there; and Paul Hawkin made us all think a decade or so ago with his Natural Capitalism.

Of course all this reflects the economic structure of the knowledge industry – with rewards going to ever-increasing specialisation (and mystification) – and, more recently, the binding of university funding to industrial needs. When I was in academia in the 1970s, I was shocked at how actively hostile academics were to inter-disciplinary activity. And the only Marxists who have managed to make a career in acadamia have generally been historians – who posed no threat since they offered only analysis or, like Edward Thompson, action against nuclear weapons. I have a feeling that the first step in bringing any sense to our political systems is a powerful attack on how social sciences are structured in the modern university – using Stanislaw's Social Sciences as Sorcery (very sadly long out of print)as the starting point. Instead of ridiculing Macburger Degrees, we should be honouring them as the logical extension of the contemporary university system.
I wonder if French and German social scientists are any different. Jacques Attali (ex-Head of the EBRD) is a prolific writer – although his latest book Sept lecons de Vie – survivre aux crises has abolutely no bibliographical refereces so it is difficult to know his reading. And has anyone really bettered the dual analysis offered in Robert Michel’s 1911 Political Parties which gave us his Iron Law of Oligarchy and Schumpeter’s (1942) Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy – and its minimalist concept of democracy as competition between the elites? And does that differ significantly from the emergent Confucian Chinese model set out in Daniel Bells’s latest book??? I realise that these last few references are a bit cryptic and will return to the theme shortly.

What I suppose I am trying to say is that change requires (a) description of what's wrong (making the case for change); (b) explaining how we got to this point (an analytical model); (c) a programme which offers a relevant and acceptable way of dealing with the problems; and (d) mechanisms for implementing these programmes in a coherent way. We have a lot of writing in the first three categories - but I find that most authors think the task is finished when they produce at page 300 the outline of their programme. Craig's started his blog with a strong assertion -

British democracy has lost its meaning. The political and economic system has come to serve the interests of a tiny elite, vastly wealthier than the run of the population, operating through corporate control. The state itself exists to serve the interests of these corporations, guided by a political class largely devoid of ideological belief and preoccupied with building their own careers and securing their own finances.
A bloated state sector is abused and mikled by a new class of massively overpaid public sector managers in every area of public provision - university, school and hospital administration, all executive branches of local government, housing associations and other arms length bodies. All provide high six figure salaries to those at the top of a bloated bureaucratic establishment. The "left", insofar as it exists, represents only these state sector vested interests. These people decide where the cuts fall, and they will not fall where they should - on them. They will fall largely on the services ordinary people need.

The 2 sentences of his with which I began this long piece strike to the heart of the issue which must be addressed -

Conventional politics appears to have become irretrievably part of the malaise rather than offering any hope for a cure. But political activity outwith the mainstream is stifled by a bought media.

The question is how (if at all) do we break out of this impasse? Or do we rather build an explicitly imperfect world on the Michels and Schumpeterian insight?
So thank you, Craig Murray, for sparking off this rant - which I have dignified in the title with a more musical Celtic word - lament!