Succeeding in spite of the system - Part I

My latest paper paints a dark picture of the world of Technical Assistance in ex-communist countries where I have worked for the past 20 years. In fact there are some bright splashes (successes) – but, as the Morgan quote in yesterday’s post suggests, they have been despite rather than because of the rules of the game. And, before I explore the question of a better system for this work, I need perhaps to say something about the positive experiences I have had in my various projects – and how these came about.
Frankly, it took some time for me to adjust to the role of adviser or „expert” – and it was just as well that everyone was learning in the 1990s about how systems in these countries could best be transformed. I was better in the early years at analysis (setting out the reality of CzechoSlovak and Romanian local government in the early 1990s) and ad-hoc advice than at institution-building – which only really started in the mid 1990s with the work setting up 2 Regional Development Agencies in North-East Hungary where they seemed pretty capable without my input and where indeed one of my counterparts, reporting on the results of his study visit, memorably said „I learned that I have nothing to learn”! My first experience of leading a major project at a national level was in Uzbekistan between 1999 and 2002 – where they were more interested in techniques for career development and EU experience of local government than change per se. So it was a good opportunity for me to read up on these subjects - as is evident on this paper I gave them on EU experience of transfer of functions.

Azerbaijan 2003-2004 was, however, my first real consultancy – and success. I was supposed to work with the Presidential Office on the implementation of a Civil Service Law which the international community had saddled then with. They didn’t know what to do with it (Ministers appointed family and friends) – and the World Bank (and a previous Team Leader) had given up. Noone seemed very interested in challenging the kleptocracy. Painstakingly I set out the various steps needed to make a reality of the Law - building on a confidential document I had found about the need for change. The old President died - and his son took over. My office was in the Presidential Academy for Public Administration - next to the Presidential Office – and I decided to start working with some of it staff. Jointly with 2 of the staff we wrote the first books in the Azeri language on PAR, civil service reform and HRM - the spirit of which is captured here. And I started to do training sessions with public officials. None of this (books;training) was in the ToR. And slowly I got signals from the Presidential Office that I could and should go public with arguments for a more meritocratic systems of appointments – and this I did with interviews in newspapers and even an hour’s TV show. A few weeks after I had finished the project, a Presidential Decree established the Civil Service Agency along the lines my project had recommended – and the very day I arrived back in Baku in March 2005 to escape the Bishkek Revolution, the 40 year old lawyer I had worked with and was lunching with was called to the Presidential Office to be appointed Head (Minister) of the Agency! Six years on, it is going strong. A potential disaster was turned into a great success by doing things which were not in the project specification. In those days, there was no European Delegation - and my desk officer in Brussels was supportive!!
To be continued

Is there a better way?

At the beginning of the week I completed an updated version of the critique I have been making for some years about the EU’s Technical Assistance programmes in ex-communist countries. These have paid people like myself for the past 20 years to live in places like Baku, Beijing, Bishkek, Bucharest, Prague, Riga, Miskolc, Sofia and Tashkent; write reports; and organise training – all in the name of institutional development and better governance. Before I get to the sands of Varna in May, I need to sort out the basic question of whether there is in fact a better system for helping transition countries improve their public management than that currently on offer from the EU. But let’s cut to the chase with 3 basic questions –
• What is the EU system?
• What’s wrong with it?
• Is there a better way?

1. The elements of the system. The EU system of technical assistance to countries not yet members of the EU is based on principles of competition and project management. These govern the operation of two distinct programmes; one for private consultancies; the other (“twinning”) for state bodies. Don’t ask me how the split is made – I have never seen an EU paper which discusses this but I sense that twinning is more to do with the effective implementation of the legal norms of the European acquis than with institutional development per se.

1.1 Twinning with equivalent member state bodies. In principle “twinning” brings the promise of institutional rather than mere individual support – although, when the idea was first mooted in 1997 (when I was actually working in TAIEX), I for one was highly sceptical. My reservations were as follows –
• A good manager does not make a good adviser
• Public officials know only the system of one country
• A state body is highly unlikely to make its good people available – rather those it can afford to lose eg just about to retire

Basically a form is completed requesting twinning – which, after local assessment and approval, is circulated to EU member states whose bodies then make bids which are selected by the local European Delegations. A normal twinning will last 12-18 months – and will consist of a resident national adviser and study visits.

1.2 Consultants from private companies. National programmes are developed by countries – which set priorities for institutional development. Terms of Reference are developed by consultants and sent to a short list of 6-7 contractors which are selected by European delegations on the basis of “expressions of interest” they make and their suitability for the particular projects. Projects would typically consist of 2-3 foreign experts who would stay in the country for 18-24 months and have a budget for employing a mix of local and international experts; study visits and equipment. About 5 years ago, the life of the projects was supposed to be lengthened – but I have seen little sign of this.

2. What’s wrong with it?. It’s not easy to find assessments of either type of programme. I know of a couple of articles about the twinning experience - in 2002 and in 2007. I’ve written a fair amount about the private consultancy part of the business over the years – and suggested that the project design and procurement process is rather haphazard; that projects are too inflexible (arriving 2 years after need was first articulated); projects too short; and too many beneficiaries not sufficiently interested in change. The need for what the jargon calls “local ownership” has been recognised by donors in recent years – but it remains a meaningless slogan if the locals don’t have the experience to know what’s available; how to select priorities and to separate good from bad practice. In fact the critique of Technical Assistance goes back a long way – and was usefully summarised in 2002 by Peter Morgan in one of the few historical treatments of the subject. This was part of a major UNDP initiative entitled Reforming Technical Cooperation which was critical of the weak contribution of technical assistance to capacity development. Morgan's paper backs up my hostility to the logframe -

An organisational device of the North American construction industry – the project – was adopted to organise most TA. From the beginning, this process stunted IDO capacities for creative experimentation, for process facilitation, and for incremental discovery

3. Is there a better way? I have not really thought too much about the options - since I don’t sense that many people share my concerns and are actively seeking for alternatives. In my approach to training, I have suggested “balance” as a key principle. And perhaps this is also the key here.
Para 7 of my paper sets out some options which I will look at in more detail in my next post.
Right now I'm in Ploiesti - on my way to the mountains.

British reform

We tend to assume that the EU’s older member states have settled constitutional and organisational arrangements – but nothing stays still for a moment in the UK. On 15 December last, the UK Parliament’s Public Administration Select Committee apparently launched a new inquiry on Good Governance and Civil Service Reform. Its remit is straightforward –

As part of the inquiry the Committee is looking to devise a framework, or set of principles, within which the Civil Service can be effectively scrutinised and measured. The Committee will examine the following issues:
• What is meant by the Prime Minister’s term “post-bureaucratic age” and what its implications for good governance are.
• How the Civil Service may need to adapt and reform.
• How such reform can be sustained and realised.

The first written evidence can be read as a pdf file at the top of the list here.The paper by Chris Hood and Martin Lodge is, as always, worth reading – and their verbal evidence is also available there.
I discovered this material thanks to a fantastic site which gives the detailed technical lowdown on all matters relating to the new constitutional (or intergovernmental) relationships which now form government in the UK. This also put me on to the evidence currently being considered about a possible new settlement for Scotland Another interesting-looking new blog on the new developments in the UK's political and legal arrangements is from the independent Constitution Unit.

never-ending

Despite technical difficulties with the NISPAcee site, I seem to have managed – thanks to the ever-helpful Jan Andruch - to meet the deadline for the delivery of my paper on the way public admin academics seem to walk around the issue of how political and consultancy systems pervert administrative reform in countries in this neighbourhood and east. Typically, when I had a version which seemed at least coherent, I came across new papers which at least need referencing - if not nudging me to a new coherence!
First I come across an important SIGMA paper whose provocative title „Can Civil Service Reforms last? suggests it shares the critical spirit of my new draft.
I had managed to work into the paper at least a reference to a good overview of the huge amount of Technical Assistance which Romania has received to improve its policy-making process – and the utter lack of its impact. I had not, however, been able to find anything about one of the favourite EC mechanisms to help develop the capacity of state bodies here in central Europe – twinning. Now I have found two – first an excellent paper on the Romanian experience of Twinning in judicial reformand a 2002 paper by Papdimitriou.
My paper (as always) takes aim at the EC – which has been tying itself in knots in recent years with all the rethinking and reorgansiation of its external aid on which it spends so many thousands of millions of our euros. One of the few people who seems able not only to make sense of all this but to contribute in a clear and original way is Simon Maxwell whose blog I have just added to this site’s links. One of his most recent posts gives a fascinating perspective on the challenge of the EU’s new External Service. And if, like me, you need to know who the hell is doing what in the new structure – have a look here
The painting is by a contemporary Romanian Eugen Raportoru - to whom I have just been introduced on Romania TVR Cultura - as a result of which I have discovered a great Romanian art blogger (see links)

elephants in european administrative space

I’ve uploaded to the website the paper I want to present to the Varna Conference in May of NISPAcee - the body which has, for the past 20 years, done a valiant job of encouraging the development of studies and training in public administration in the countries of central and eastern Europe (CECE). The original title was The Elephant in the Room because I wanted to focus on consultants whose activities are ignored in the writing on reform in the area - but then realised that, as part of my criticism was the way their models abstracted from political realities, I needed to bring the politicians in as well. And, in order to mock the dreadful EU jargon, I substituted „administrative space” for „room”. But, since discovering changes which the EC has been making to the TA system, its now called Reforming the reformers an dhas a very different content. And a few days ago, I read with some interest but some frustration a post about a new culture of learning – and it reminded me of some distinctions I had made in a paper I wrote for the Bulgarian project in 2008. I excerpted the section – and it’s available here.

problems of democratic transition and consolidation

Most of the world (with the obvious exception of Chinese rulers) celebrates the achievement of Egyptian „people power” – but how little analysis about the prospects which lie ahead. One of the exceptions is a piece by an Egyptian activist which goes beyond the superficial reporting of the Western media; warns about the military; and gives a rare insight into what workers have been doing. Read the full article (and the good discussion thread) here.

Central and Eastern Europe countries seem to offer the most recent examples of (differential) experiences of the fall of dictatorships. I have referred several times to the Romanian experience which Tom Gallagher has described most clearly in his Theft of a nation – Romania since the fall of communism
Romania is patently the worst of the recent accession countries. It got rid of a dictator - but the same personnel and system persisted for almost a decade. It has a constitutional and electoral system which splits power between a Presidency and 2 parliamentary bodies and makes coherent action extraordinarily difficult for the coalition governments which have become the basic feature of its governments. And the culture of every man for himself makes it almost impossible to work consensually and in the public good. For a good example of the lawlessness which passes for government here in Romania see the post of 12 Feb on this site.

But I don’t think the central European countries offer much useful experience to the Egyptians and Tunisians. For a start they did not have the decades of military rule which Egypt has experienced – indeed the military in most of these countries has been and remains a joke (despite their salaries and pensions). Turkey and the south American dictators of the end of the last century are the better parallel. And, despite being in the EU Neighbourhood programme of technical assistance, neither Egypt or Tunisia have any prospect of European accession – which was the basic incentive for (formal) institutional changes for the central European countries. Almost two decades ago, when I started this latest phase of my life, working in central Europe, I read thirstily the literature which was pouring out then on the mechanics of transition – how countries which had been under dictatorships could make the transition to democracies (see section 3 of this annotated bibliography on my website.
The best was one which drew on the Spanish and south American experience and was produced in 1996 by Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan - Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation – S Europe, S America and post-communist Europe. It’s a remarkable and definitive book – which initially establishes the basic classifications to conduct the assessments on the extent to which the transformations are consolidated and then analyses each country and region in considerable detail and profundity. They suggest a four-part classification for non-democratic regimes
• Authoritarian
• Totalitarian
• Post-totalitarian
• sultanistic

A "consolidated" democracy is one which combines behavioural (elite), attitudinal (public) and constitutional elements. Five conditions are suggested –
• Free and lively civil society
• Relatively autonomous and valued political society
• Rule of law to ensure legal guarantees for citizens' freedoms and independent associational life
• Usable state bureaucracy
• Institutionalised economic society

Each of these interacts with the others - and affects the outcome of transition. They also bring in five other important, but less major, variables - (a) the leadership basis of the prior regime, (b) who controls the transition, (c) international influences, (c) political economy of legitimacy and coercion (relationship between citizen perceptions of economic efficacy and of regime legitimacy) and (e) constitution-making environments. This study is the culmination of a lifetime's study of the transformation process; is written elegantly and with very detailed references for follow-up study. A summarising article they wrote at the same time can be found here.
A different type of book from Elster J, Offe C Preuss U was their Institutional Design in Post-Communist Societies - Rebuilding the Ship at Sea (1998) which focussed on Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria.

Those activists want us to trust Mubarak’s generals with the transition to democracy–the same junta that has provided the backbone of his dictatorship over the past 30 years. And while I believe the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, who receive $1.3 billion annually from the US, will eventually engineer the transition to a “civilian” government, I have no doubt it will be a government that will guarantee the continuation of a system that will never touch the army’s privileges, keep the armed forces as the institution that will have the final say in politics (like for example Turkey), guarantee Egypt will continue to follow the US foreign policy whether it’s the undesired peace with Apartheid State of Israel, safe passage for the US navy in the Suez Canal, the continuation of the Gaza siege and exports of natural gas to Israel at subsidized rates. The “civilian” government is not about cabinet members who do not wear military uniforms. A civilian government means a government that fully represents the Egyptian people’s demands and desires without any intervention from the brass. And I see this hard to be accomplished or allowed by the junta.
The military has been the ruling institution in this country since 1952. Its leaders are part of the establishment. And while the young officers and soldiers are our allies, we cannot for one second lend our trust and confidence to the generals. Moreover, those army leaders need to be investigated. I want to know more about their involvement in the business sector.

who knows of reforms of kleptocratic regimes?

Three things account for my silence of the last three days – a particularly foul bout of the flu; a powerful novel 1,000 page book The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell which recounts, from old age, the activities of a senior 30 year old SS bureaucrat throughout the harrowing years of the war; and my attempt to draft a paper for the May Conference of the Network of Schools of Public Administration in centraland eastern europe (NISPAcee). I’ve got a fair amount of text and have reached the critical stage of drafting a first Executive Summary of the key points I seem to be arguing –

The Schools which form NISPAcee train officials from state administration in both EU member countries and in those which neighbour the EU - but their courses have little or no impact in shaping the perspectives and behaviour of public officials particularly at a senior level where the agenda is set by politics with both a large and small „p”.

More seriously, the content of their teaching is conducted at a high level of rationality – and takes little account of the political context of the work of the public service (particularly appointments and promotion) in CEEC nor of the questionable basis of many of the new models of pubic management they have adopted with such enthusiasm.

The same is true of the intervention tools used by the (large) consultancy industry funded by the EU which fail to account of the highly charged political environment of most CEEC countries – and which therefore make little impact.

The design and delivery of technical assistance of administrative reform is, in any case, fatally split between anonymous individual consultants and EU officials (on the one hand) who design the programmes and Terms of Reference according to unknown assumptions about drivers of change – and the actual consultants who have to manage the projects exactly as designed – regardless of their relevance to the situation they confront on the ground several years later.

As long as accession was the name of the game, this perhaps didn’t matter too much since the „beneficiaries” of Technical Assistance in accession countries had little choice than to comply with external advice.

It is a completely different matter with, for example, Neighbourhood countries – where the language of „local ownership” has to be taken more seriously.

The rhetoric about and programmes for anti-corruption cloak the reality that a systemically corrupt New Class has arisen in many CEEC countries – which makes a mockery of administrative reform and improved public services. The global financial crisis was just the last nail in the coffin.

It is insufficiently recognised that the language of „beneficiaries” and „experts” contradicts utterly the dynamics of a normal client-consultant relationship.

Despite the many evaluations of EU programmes of Technical Assistance which have been carried out, I am not aware of any real (as distinct from formalistic) assessments of the impact of (and lessons from) the large amounts of money spent on the various blocks of work in such fields as functional review, rule of law, civil service reform etc

I know of no examples of the successful transformation of kleptocratic regimes into operational democracies – nor of the possible drivers of such a transformation.

Another heroic example from China – a blind activist released from prison but surrounded in his house day and night by more than 20 state louts is able to smuggle out an eloquent video of his experience which you can see here. He and his wife are beaten senseless for this gesture.
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purple heather

The last post mentioned the book on „wabi sabi” which I’m reading. One of its elements is the appreciation as art objects of ordinary, natural things and of artefacts constructed from nature such as wood, stone and terra cotta. Those brought up on the seaboard of the Atlantic Ocean (as I was) generally come to love the smooth polished pebbles and dramatically carved rocks you find everywhere on the West Coast of Scotland – pounded into shape by the powerful Ocean. I even put one of the photographs I had taken of a rock as an illustration for the front cover of my last book – In Transit – notes on good governance. And one of my most precious collections is a set of Uzbek terra cotta figurines showing various basic occuptations such as a barbour, ceramic maker, beggar etc
I was very pleasantly surprised to find, on my last day in Sofia, pots of purple (unfortunately more red than violet) heather – a well-known Scottish plant which gives our mountains their lovely, special hue in late summer - a plant which is apparently quite rife also in Bulgaria!

com-panion-ship - sharing bread

I can’t leave Sofia without my thanks to my great hosts and friends. But it’s invidious to mention them now since I wouldn’t know who to put first - the Bulgarian alphabetical listings use the first „given” name - not the family name. Just as they shake their head to indicate agreement. Very contrary! Suffice to say that, apart from the company, paintings and laughs, I had (and gave) great food – I haven’t mentioned Jovo’s great artist spread on Sunday afternoon in his studio – salads and pickled vegetables with pastrami and home-made Raki (from muscat grape) then slow-cooked beef with home-made brown bread and the special Brestovitza red wine prepared privately and sold only to friends by one of the vinoculture experts there. Jovo and Yassen are my first artist friends (apart from Bogdan in Ploiesti) and I have learned so much about Bulgarian painting from them. I was reminded, during the meal, of the spirit in which I was given a meal in a converted church in Jersey City by a Monsignor I had met at a Ditchley Park weekend devoted to urban renewal in the mid 1980s. He was the leader of a community cooperative which now owned much of the real estate of this poor neighbourhood - and the meal he and his Board members offered me (before I caught the plane back to the UK after my 6 week's Fellowship in the USA) celebrated the features of "companionship"- literally "breaking bread with (pane -con)".....It seems to share the qualities of "wabi sabi" – the japanese art of impermanence - which I am reading about at the moment in a delightful book by Andrew Juniper. It explains about the tea-drinking ceremony - whcih I have always appreciated since my days in Uzbekistan
Jovo’s studio is in a special apartment on the outskirts (a huge town in its own rights which had sprouted in the last decade) within sight of his flat – and he has a very distinctive style with elongated nudes with heads bowed which have a touch of Matisse. As we were about to leave, a friend and well-known cartoonist (Ilian Savkov) dropped in – and gave me some more names for my list. He draws daily cartoons for the Daily Standard.
I knew I would not have an easy departure on Tuesday morning - since the car wouldn't start on Sunday - despite a bit of exercise I had given it on Satruday. Once again Ivo came to the rescue - helping to push start it and taking me to a friend who had a cable sorted out in a jiff and for only 10 euros. Thanks Ivo!

Back to the serious stuff

I’ve been indulging myself during the past 2 weeks – both in my activities here in Sofia and the blogposts which have followed them. Time to get serious! I reproduced yesterday an example of a great blogpost – from one of the BBC correspondents. It was an extended brainstorm and produced high-level responses – unlike newspaper threads. I have another good example today – from the archdruid report – which raises the issue of systems thinking.
I’ve been trying to get my head around the implications of systems thinking for some time – I flagged the issue up here … and here. I can understand very well the implications for government policy-making – namely that it should have more respect for the natural order (Lovelock’s Gaia thesis is the logical extreme of that); and more reliance on community-level decision-making. Reliance on market mechanisms too - provided, however, that the basic preconditions of a market are present, namely free entry, free flow of information, multiple suppliers and proper costing of external costs. The word „market” is, in our times, has almost religious value – and is attached (by big business) to processes and operations which are utterly oligopolistic and which have nothing to do with the market. It is not so much socialism as big business which is the enemy of the market. I digress….but, methinks, it’s an important digression.
The implications for organisations of the systems approach is something which I have more difficulty with – even although there is a 500 page book which will spell out this for you which you can access at the bottom of the September 3 post.

I have in the next week to tryo to draft a paper which I have been putting off – for the next NISPAcee Conference (for institutes of public admin in east and central europe) which is being held this year in Varna, just down the road from here. I sent them this outline some months back -

I have spent 40 years of my life on various endeavours concerned to make public service systems more responsive to citizens.
The first 20 years was in Scotland – as an academic and political leader in municipal and regional government to which I helped introduce community development principles and practice. But, at the same time, I supported the various efforts at establishing a corporate management capacity – to ensure that the political leaders had some analysis at hand to allow them to deal with the power of the various specialised professions which dominated service delivery in those days. One of the important principles to me then was that of the pincer movement – achieving change from a combination of challenges from above and below.
These were the years when it was possible to believe that politics was an honourable profession and that (local) government could deliver results for its citizens.

My last 20 years has been spent living and working in central europe and central asia as a consultant to national state bodies in their various decentralisation and civil service reform efforts.
This period has coincided with a global enthusiasm for (and, much more recently, a certain reaction against) all things concerned with the private sector. The political system in most countries got too close to that sector – and is now, perhaps fatally, burned.
And the reform effort - which was initially driven by committed individuals - has become sanitised and castrated by technocrats and the project management from which earlier reform efforts might have benefited.
All of which has made it difficult for those working in transition countries to offer the expected models of good practice. Throughout the 40 years, I have tried to follow the relevant literature on improving government – and to share what lessons my own experience seemed to suggest with those interested. For example, at the 2006 NISPAcee Conference, I offered one of the critical papers on Technical Assistance which led to the establishment the following year of the working group on PA Reform. Its most important section was - Those of us who have got involved in these programmes of advising governments in these countries confront a real moral challenge. We are daring to advise these countries construct effective organisations; we are employed by organisations supposed to have the expertise in how to put systems together to ensure that appropriate intervention strategies emerge to deal with the organisational and social problems of these countries; we are supposed to have the knowledge and skills to help develop appropriate knowledge and skills in others! But how many of us can give positive answers to the following 5 questions? -
• Do the organisations which pay us practice what they and we preach on the ground about good organisational principles?
• Does the knowledge and experience we have as individual consultants actually help us identify and implement interventions which fit the context in which we are working?
• Do we have the skills to make that happen?
• What are the bodies which employ consultants doing to explore such questions – and to deal with the deficiencies which I dare to suggest would be revealed?
• Do any of us have a clue about how to turn kleptocratic regimes into systems that recognise the meaning of public service?
At Varna, I would like to take the gloves off – and suggest some unpalatable lessons from the last few decades – for both training institutes and the EC. But, above all, for us as individuals!

The graphic is another Tudor Banus - "sens de la vie"

How technology enrages - a great post on the current unrest

Good old BBC! Paul Mason of BBC had yesterday one of the best posts I have ever read on a blog. It put down some random thoughts he had about the possible causes of the unrest which has broken out in the Meditarranean Arab world. For those wanting to assess the European reactions to the unrest, Gavin Hewitt's BBC blog also had a great overview. And another article (from the Economist stable) draws some useful parallels from the 1989 revolutions in my part of the world.
Knowing how lazy my readers are, I reproduce the Mason post in its entirety below -

We've had revolution in Tunisia, Egypt's Mubarak is teetering; in Yemen, Jordan and Syria suddenly protests have appeared. In Ireland young techno-savvy professionals are agitating for a "Second Republic"; in France the youth from banlieues battled police on the streets to defend the retirement rights of 60-year olds; in Greece striking and rioting have become a national pastime. And in Britain we've had riots and student occupations that changed the political mood.
What's going on? What's the wider social dynamic?
My editors yesterday asked me put some bullet points down for a discussion on the programme that then didn't happen but I am throwing them into the mix here, on the basis of various conversations with academics who study this and also the participants themselves. At the heart of it all are young people, obviously; students; westernised; secularised. They use social media - as the mainstream media has now woken up to - but this obsession with reporting "they use twitter" is missing the point of what they use it for.
In so far as there are common threads to be found in these different situation, here's 20 things I have spotted:

1. At the heart if it all is a new sociological type: the graduate with no future
2. ...with access to social media, such as Facebook, Twitter and eg Yfrog so they can express themselves in a variety of situations ranging from parliamentary democracy to tyrrany.
3. Therefore truth moves faster than lies, and propaganda becomes flammable.
4. They are not prone to traditional and endemic ideologies: Labourism, Islamism, Fianna Fail Catholicism etc... in fact hermetic ideologies of all forms are rejected.
5. Women very numerous as the backbone of movements. After twenty years of modernised labour markets and higher-education access the "archetypal" protest leader, organizer, facilitator, spokesperson now is an educated young woman.
6. Horizontalism has become endemic because technology makes it easy: it kills vertical hierarchies spontaneously, whereas before - and the quintessential experience of the 20th century - was the killing of dissent within movements, the channeling of movements and their bureaucratisaton.
7. Memes: "A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena. Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes, in that they self-replicate, mutate and respond to selective pressures." (Wikipedia) - so what happens is that ideas arise, are very quickly "market tested" and either take off, bubble under, insinuate themselves or if they are deemed no good they disappear. Ideas self-replicate like genes. Prior to the internet this theory (see Richard Dawkins, 1976) seemed an over-statement but you can now clearly trace the evolution of memes.
8. They all seem to know each other: not only is the network more powerful than the hierarchy - but the ad-hoc network has become easier to form. So if you "follow" somebody from the UCL occupation on Twitter, as I have done, you can easily run into a radical blogger from Egypt, or a lecturer in peaceful resistance in California who mainly does work on Burma so then there are the Burmese tweets to follow. During the early 20th century people would ride hanging on the undersides of train carriages across borders just to make links like these.
9. The specifics of economic failure: the rise of mass access to university-level education is a given. Maybe soon even 50% in higher education will be not enough. In most of the world this is being funded by personal indebtedess - so people are making a rational judgement to go into debt so they will be better paid later. However the prospect of ten years of fiscal retrenchment in some countries means they now know they will be poorer than their parents. And the effect has been like throwing a light switch; the prosperity story is replaced with the doom story, even if for individuals reality will be more complex, and not as bad as they expect.
10.This evaporation of a promise is compounded in the more repressive societies and emerging markets because - even where you get rapid economic growth - it cannot absorb the demographic bulge of young people fast enough to deliver rising living standards for enough of them.
11.To amplify: I can't find the quote but one of the historians of the French Revolution of 1789 wrote that it was not the product of poor people but of poor lawyers. You can have political/economic setups that disappoint the poor for generations - but if lawyers, teachers and doctors are sitting in their garrets freezing and starving you get revolution. Now, in their garrets, they have a laptop and broadband connection.
12.The weakness of organised labour means there's a changed relationship between the radicalized middle class, the poor and the organised workforce. The world looks more like 19th century Paris - heavy predomination of the "progressive" intelligentsia, intermixing with the slum-dwellers at numerous social interfaces (cabarets in the 19C, raves now); huge social fear of the excluded poor but also many rags to riches stories celebrated in the media (Fifty Cent etc); meanwhile the solidaristic culture and respectability of organized labour is still there but, as in Egypt, they find themselves a "stage army" to be marched on and off the scene of history.
13.This leads to a loss of fear among the young radicals of any movement: they can pick and choose; there is no confrontation they can't retreat from. They can "have a day off" from protesting, occupying: whereas twith he old working-class based movements, their place in the ranks of battle was determined and they couldn't retreat once things started. You couldn't "have a day off" from the miners' strike if you lived in a pit village.
14.In addition to a day off, you can "mix and match": I have met people who do community organizing one day, and the next are on a flotilla to Gaza; then they pop up working for a think tank on sustainable energy; then they're writing a book about something completely different. I was astonished to find people I had interviewed inside the UCL occupation blogging from Tahrir Square this week.
15. People just know more than they used to. Dictatorships rely not just on the suppression of news but on the suppression of narratives and truth. More or less everything you need to know to make sense of the world is available as freely downloadable content on the internet: and it's not pre-digested for you by your teachers, parents, priests, imams. For example there are huge numbers of facts available to me now about the subjects I studied at university that were not known when I was there in the 1980s. Then whole academic terms would be spent disputing basic facts, or trying to research them. Now that is still true but the plane of reasoning can be more complex because people have an instant reference source for the undisputed premises of arguments. It's as if physics has been replaced by quantum physics, but in every discipline.
16.There is no Cold War, and the War on Terror is not as effective as the Cold War was in solidifying elites against change. Egypt is proving to be a worked example of this: though it is highly likely things will spiral out of control, post Mubarak - as in all the colour revolutons - the dire warnings of the US right that this will lead to Islamism are a "meme" that has not taken off. In fact you could make an interesting study of how the meme starts, blossoms and fades away over the space of 12 days. To be clear: I am not saying they are wrong - only that the fear of an Islamist takeover in Egypt has not been strong enough to swing the US presidency or the media behind Mubarak.
17. It is - with international pressure and some powerful NGOs - possible to bring down a repressive government without having to spend years in the jungle as a guerilla, or years in the urban underground: instead the oppositional youth - both in the west in repressive regimes like Tunisia/Egypt, and above all in China - live in a virtual undergrowth online and through digital comms networks. The internet is not key here - it is for example the things people swap by text message, the music they swap with each other etc: the hidden meanings in graffiti, street art etc which those in authority fail to spot.
18. People have a better understanding of power. The activists have read their Chomsky and their Hardt-Negri, but the ideas therein have become mimetic: young people believe the issues are no longer class and economics but simply power: they are clever to the point of expertise in knowing how to mess up hierarchies and see the various "revolutions" in their own lives as part of an "exodus" from oppression, not - as previous generations did - as a "diversion into the personal". While Foucault could tell Gilles Deleuze: "We had to wait until the nineteenth century before we began to understand the nature of exploitation, and to this day, we have yet to fully comprehend the nature of power",- that's probably changed.
19. As the algebraic sum of all these factors it feels like the protest "meme" that is sweeping the world - if that premise is indeed true - is profoundly less radical on economics than the one that swept the world in the 1910s and 1920s; they don't seek a total overturn: they seek a moderation of excesses. However on politics the common theme is the dissolution of centralized power and the demand for "autonomy" and personal freedom in addition to formal democracy and an end to corrupt, family based power-elites.
20. Technology has - in many ways, from the contraceptive pill to the iPod, the blog and the CCTV camera - expanded the space and power of the individual.
Some complications....

a) all of the above are generalisations: and have to be read as such.

b) are these methods replicable by their opponents? Clearly up to a point they are. So the assumption in the global progressive movement that their values are aligned with that of the networked world may be wrong. Also we have yet to see what happens to all this social networking if a state ever seriously pulls the plug on the technology: switches the mobile network off, censors the internet, cyber-attacks the protesters.

c) China is the laboratory here, where the Internet Police are paid to go online and foment pro-government "memes" to counteract the oppositional ones. The Egyptian leftist blogger Arabawy.org says on his website that : "in a dictatorship, independent journalism by default becomes a form of activism, and the spread of information is essentially an act of agitation." But independent journalism is suppressed in many parts of the world.

d) what happens to this new, fluffy global zeitgeist when it runs up against the old-style hierarchical dictatorship in a death match, where the latter has about 300 Abrams tanks? We may be about to find out.

e) - and this one is troubling for mainstream politics: are we creating a complete disconnect between the values and language of the state and those of the educated young? Egypt is a classic example - if you hear the NDP officials there is a time-warped aspect to their language compared to that of young doctors and lawyers on the Square. But there are also examples in the UK: much of the political discourse - on both sides of the House of Commons - is treated by many young people as a barely intelligible "noise" - and this goes wider than just the protesters.
(For example: I'm finding it common among non-politicos these days that whenever you mention the "Big Society" there's a shrug and a suppressed laugh - yet if you move into the warren of thinktanks around Westminster, it's treated deadly seriously. Dissing the Big Society has quickly become a "meme" that crosses political tribal boundaries under the Coalition, yet most professional politicians are deaf to "memes" as the youth are to the contents of Hansard.)

That's it - as I say, these are just my thoughts on it all and not researched other than through experience: there are probably whole PhD theses about some of this so feel free to hit the comments.
Likewise if you think it is all balderdash, and if you are over 40 you may, vent your analog-era spleen here

In praise of Sofia

One of my readers was shocked that I was contemplating „leaving Romania” – if only for an 18 month project in Serbia or Bulgaria. As long as I have my house in that beautiful stretch of the Carpathians, it will be difficult to leave the country – although it does stretch my patience a lot. And work in neighbouring countries (Turkey is also still a desirable possibility – although not technically a neighbour) is not inconsistent with continued access to Romania. But Sofia and Brussels are, for me, the ideal cities – and Sofia has a special charm.. Yesterday was an example. I decided to head out and buy the large book on the graphic artist I had discovered by accident – Boris Angeloushev (1902-1966). I learn that his evocation of the black and white graphics of the early 20th century German artist Kathe Kollwitz arises from the fact that he was trained in Berlin Art Academy in the early 1920 at precisely the period she was most active in the struggle for socialism there. Since I first discovered her in Berlin in the 1980s I have been a great fan – and recall also the serendipidy of my encounter with the marvellous 80 year-old Tina von Schullenberg in Duisberg (I think) who was being honoured at a special exhibition of her graphics – which included the skecthes she had done in the 1930s of Nottingham miners. She was gracious enough to gift me with a set to give to the Scottish mining community and also a couple of books (with sketches) she wrote about her time with the Nottingham miners and about her life. And what a life! She was the brother of one of the Generals who took part in the failed July 1944 assassination attempt on Hitler.
At a tram stop I come across another of these open stalls and pick up a collection of reproductions of Russian painters - not far away I pick up 5 great Fondazione Amadeus CDs of baroque music - for less than a euro each. No questions!!
Then a meeting with Blago, my young landlord, who is about to acquire a flat he thinks will interest me for my idea of a base here for the next 12 months (if the Serbia project does not come off) – and he is right. The ground floor of a delightful old house within minutes of Vitosha street and all my galleries. The timing fits – since it will be the end of the month before all the paperwork and slight adjustments are needed and that is the point at which I expect to hear the results of the Serbia project. I also look at a flat he will have for sale nearby which is in its original state and which they will restructure togive a living room of 50 sq metres. It would be a good investement. Then off to see what the guy who sold me sketches (on an old magazine and scraps of paper) purporting to be from the pen of the great Ilia Beshkov has to offer. Beshkov (see example above) worked in the first half of the 20th Century. My bearded gallerist/artist Alexander Aleandriev (at Tsar Assen 38) has a tiny space in which there is room for a chair in which you sit while he pulls things (like rabbits out of a hat) that might interest you from plastic bags and piles of papers, magazines, drawings, aquarelles and oils (some his). This time he had prepared for me a superb large 1958 book with Beshkov sketches and cartoons on glorious paper and a 1965 autobiography full also of the sketches. I snapped them up – along with a 1907 catalogue of another cartoonist I had not heard of – Alexander Boshinov - and got a 1941 newspaper with a couple of Beshkov sketches thrown in as a bonus. "Super dumping prices" he says in his only English! We communicate in Russian - and he is indeed a veritable Russian figure with his beard, flow of words and bohemian work environment.
Then off for my appointment with another gallerist – who is also sitting amidst huge piles of unframed paintings some of which he had prepared for me. I sift through a couple of hundred – and emerge with seven paintings (including a Mateev and a dramatic painting by one Ivan Getsov (1910-1991)of a scene from the war of independence) for just over 1,000 euros in total.
I just have time to take them home and change – and it’s off to a very pleasant dinner with Sylvie and Vlad, from whom I rented my flat in Sofia 3 years ago. A simple salad with a very quaffable Pomorie raki starts the meal in her beautifully spacious flat; followed by a superb delicacy she calls Tsarograd aubergine which has pieces of garlic, Bulgarian white cheese and herbs on a grilled opened-out aubergine base. Tsarograd is - as I learned from the early Mario Zhekov paintings - the old name for Istanbul. Vlad is heading out for a night on the tiles - so I get his garlic aubergine too! The piece-de-resistance is, however, the neck pork stuffed/marinated with three types of cheese!! I want a second helping but know when to call time! Thank you Sylvie!

The point of this long diary entry is simply to say that I don’t have such an active social life in other places. That’s why Sofia scores.

labour of love

I made a comment recently about how Sofia could market itself as an art city – and now find myself working on an idea to produce a small book (in English) about „modern” Bulgarian painters which would give the European visitor a sense of what is available in the many municipal and private galleries in the country – but particularly in Sofia. I’ve spent many pleasant hours during this visit with Yassan of the Konos Gallery and his friend who sold me the Emilia Radushava which headed my post of 30 January. Both are painters themselves and - over cheese, bread and wine – have presented me with examples of painters and extended my knowledge of this great painting tradition. I’m defining „modern” to cover the last 100 years – from the superb little 1911 oil by Alexander Mutafov I was offered for 1,000 euros to the younger contemporary painters examples of which can be seen here.
As a result of these chats and my visits to galleries, I now have a list of more than 100 painters – available on my website with some argument about why the book is necessary. I was able to buy in 2008 a nice little booklet which listed all antique dealers in the whole of Bulgaria but later editions are no longer available. The Sofia City Gallery has a few residual copies of a marvellous large book which is a black and white catalogue of all the Bulgarian paintings in their possession – but the little shop which sells it is closed!
This will not pretend to be a comprehensive guide to the painters who have been active in Bulgaria in the past 100 years. Its purpose is rather
• to convey one man’s passion for viewing and collecting Bulgarian painters of this period
• to encourage visitors to Bulgaria to visit both the private and municipal art galleries - and
• to make their own discoveries.

A printer did a tentative costing yesterday – and was able to tell me I could have 500 copies of a very attractive 100 page book for about 3,000 euros – about a quarter I suspect of what it would cost in the UK. I went looking yesterday for what Yassen told me was the best overview (in Bulgarian) of the period (by Dimitar Avramov). My inquiries at the large second-hand bookshop in the underground passage in front of the University threw up only a large 1982 book purporting to be about modern Bulgarian painting – which , however, had no Mario Zhekovs and only 2 Nikola Tanevs. A revealing historical remnant of socialist selectivity! But not, for me, worth the 100 euros they were asking. Neither the bookshop next door nor the cubicle on the left as you enter the School of Fine Arts could offer me a general book on the period although the shop had a great book with what seemed to be the entire works of Boris Anzelyushev – a graphic artist who lived between 1902 and 1966 and seemed influenced by Kathe Kollwitz. The Fine Arts shop had nice booklets on specific artists I didn’t know – such as Marko Monev from Russe.
And, while we’re on the subject of marketing cities, there is an interesting essay on this subject in the current issue of Eurozine.
The painting is one of my Denjo Chokanoffs

case study in sustainability

The EU project I spoke about yesterday was supposed (in the jargon) to „develop the capacity of the Institute of Public Administration to design and manage training to assist the implementation of the EU Acquis”. I have to confess that I struggled to see the logic of the project as it had been designed. The Institute consisted of about 20 administrative staff – the trainers they used were a mix of civil servants and academics. We had to appoint 6 regional coordinators who would select, train and manage appropriate trainers. The Institute did not have the budget for additional staff (even for their existing staff) so the 6 coordinators would be temporary appointments - responsible to the project - and not, therefore, help develop the Institute’s capacity. More seriously, most of the topics of the acquis (food safety; consumer protection; environment) are technical and specialised and do not obviously relate to the core mission of an Institute of Public Management. The project was also supposed to help the Institute set up training centres in 6 Regions – but, again, had no budget for this. Finally, for reasons too complicated to explain here, our project staff (7 key experts!) were not able to develop close working relations with the relevant Institute staff – and little or no „technical transfer” (and therefore capacity development) took place. Sure, we delivered on the tangible outputs – the training manuals; the E-learning platform; the training of trainers; more than 500 local officials trained; and the formal, signed documents for 6 regional centres – but there was absolutely no sustainability. And how could there be from a 12 month project – which, for various political reasons, was actually 6 months? My frustration showed in the Executive summary of the final Discussion paper I left behind-

• The Bulgaria state system is suffering from “training fatigue”. Too many workshops have been held – and many without sufficient preparation or follow-up. Workshops with these features are not worth holding.
• There seems little to show from the tens of millions of euros spent by projects here in the last decade on training of public servants. Training materials, standards and systems are hard to find.
• Training is too ad-hoc – and not properly related to the performance of the individual (through the development and use of core competences) or of the organisation (through, for example, strategic management)
• Laws do not implement themselves. They require political and managerial commitment and resources.
• Such commitment and resources are in limited supply. Organisations (state bodies) perform only when they are given clear (and limited) goals – and the commensurate resources and support. This requires the skills of strategic management. Helping senior management acquire these skills is – or should be - the core mission of the Institute of Public Administration.
• A serious effort needs to be undertaken to establish a network of training suppliers (or community of learners) which can, for example, share experience and materials - and help develop standards.
• It is not enough, however, to operate on the supply side. Standards will rise and training make a contribution to administrative capacity only if there is a stronger demand for more relevant training which makes a measurable impact on individual and organisational performance.
• In the first instance, this will require Human Resource Directors to be more demanding of training managers – to insist on better designed courses and materials; on proper evaluation of courses and trainers; and on the use of better trainers. A subject specialist is not a trainer. We hope this book (and the project’s paper on assessment tools) will help give some benchmarks.
• It is critical that any training intervention is based on “learning outcomes” developed in a proper dialogue between the 4 separate groups involved in any training system (funder; training managers, trainers and learners)
• senior management of state bodies should look closely at the impact of new legislation on systems, procedures, tasks and skills. Too many people seem to think that better implementation and compliance will be achieved simply by telling local officials what that new legislation says.
• Workshops have costs – both direct (trainers and materials) and indirect (staff time). There are a range of other tools available to help staff understand new legal obligations. These are outlined and briefly assessed in section 9 of the final discussion paper
• Workshops should not really be used if the purpose is simply knowledge transfer. The very term “workshop” indicates that exercises should replace lectures – to ensure that the participant is challenged in his/her thinking. Suitable exercises force the participant to examine their own (all too often hidden) assumptions and create an environment in which presentations about legal and policy frameworks become more alive and meaningful. This type of workshop aims at extending self-awareness and is generally the approach used to develop managerial skills and to create champions of change.

It was interesting to talk with the new Head of the Institute - who was our official counterpart on day to day matters. After our departure, the Institute was transferred from the "Ministry of State Admin and Admin Reform" to the Ministry of Education where it languished until it was tranferred to the Council of Ministers from which it had departed some 5 years before! Four upheavals in the course of 5 years! And during these last 2 years it has had to dispense with about 20% of its staff and operate for a significant period of time with no budget!! But shortly it will face the headache of having to manage a 10 million euro project - the 5th or 6th "capacity-building"intervention it's had in the last decade.
The painting (Les Aveugles - blind leading the blind) is one by the Walloon, Anto Carte, whose school of paintings I wrote about some weeks back

Revisiting the scene of the crime

The biting cold continues – just as well I have friends who know the good Rakis (or are prepared to share their home elixir) and that there are so many red wines whose acquaintance I still have to make here. As I write, I’m tasting a Chateau Rossenovo from the „southern black sea region” (Pomorie??) which I took from the sparse shelves of my old wine merchant in his little basement store on Bvd General Totleben (did they make that up? The German name means ”deathlife”!) just before it hits Bvd General Skobelev (Did these two generals have a feud – over a woman perhaps??)
It’s not as good as the Brestovitza reds to which he introduced me some 3 years ago.
Although I spent a couple of hours today with the trainers, most of my time in the last 2 days has been with paintings, drawings and artists. Even last night’s meal with close friends was at the Architects' Association - one of Sofia’s best restaurants (for me).
I still haven’t made up my mind about the Dionesev seascape at Valmar (a bit gaudy). But I was deeply impressed with a dark blue young Stoian Vassilev seascape – and a powerful Petar Boiadjiev cliffscape.

The nice thing about revisiting the scene of your crimes (previous projects) is the possibilities of building some continuity. As the trainers were working on their exercises, I had the time to look again at the Discussion paper I left behind here 2 years ago and was interested to see again some of the points I made in that final document. The project aim was to help Bulgaria implement new EU requirements in fields such as food safety, environment, consumer protection by working with the Institute of Public Administration to design and deliver training programmes (including some distance learning) for local officials charged with the implementation of the new systems, prodecures and obligations. I was not, frankly, very familiar with what is called the EU Acquis Commuanitaire (the huge volume of legal obligations on EU member states) and found quite fascinating the huge academic literature which has developed on "the transposition and adoption of EU norms"(as the jargon puts it). As a "political scientist" (I don't like the term) rather than a lawyer, it is not surprising that I have become pretty critical of the emphasis placed on legislation. For me, legislation is perhaps necessary but never sufficient to achieve the changes being sought. As I put it in the conclusion to the Final Discussion Paper Learning from Experience - some reflections on the role of training in developing administrative capacity-

• laws are enacted in order to achieve specific social purposes
• they are one tool amongst many to achieve such purposes
• although EU law is dominant in many fields –particularly those relating to the single market – considerable scope is left to member states for complementary national legislation and structures of implementation
• this is particularly true of enforcement systems (in the general rather than legal sense)
• the transposition of EU laws in new member states outruns the capacity of institutions, budgets and societies to apply them in the manner intended
• derogations which were negotiated at the accession stage recognise this – but perhaps not fully
• governments in new member states are, however, hesitant about admitting too openly that they have to – and actually do - prioritise areas for improvements consistent with the EU acquis and good practice. Setting priorities is currently one in an ad-hoc and implicit manner
• transparency requires that this process of setting priorities is done more explicitly and openly – and reflected in the action plans
• such a process requires a realistic set of monitoring instruments
• effective training is linked to realistic action plans

Of course, I was just indulging myself since I was just a foreigner parachuted in for a year and why should anyone (let alone senior) listen to me? In fact I did have some conversations with one of the Deputy Ministers (of the Ministry for Administrative Reform) and the Final Conference did give an opportunity for an exchange about such things with one of Bulgaria's prominent jurists who understood perfectly what I was driving at and gave as good as he got!
I'll say more about the project tomorrow
The painting is a Petar Boiadjiev - the one I bought yesterday is much much better!

paintings and books - what else?

An early and cold trip across Sofia to Central Forum Hotel - first by tram to the centre, then by foot to catch a 5 tram down Makedonia Bvd. A coffee warms me as I explain to Violetta what I want to say in my few introductory remarks to the 6 finance officials who will be spending the next three days learning how to present material and to engage their fellow officials in the 20 odd courses they will be leading this and next year. The aim is to help the Bulgarian municipalities make better use of the EU Structural Funds. Basically I just want to elaborate on the nice saying by Ernst Schumacher which is one of opening quotes on this blogsite („Four sorts of worthwhile learning”). That done, I listen with interest as each of the 6 (women!) explain what they want to get out of their three days. Job done, I wrap up against the bitter cold and catch the tram up to the centre – with the aim of visiting the nice little art shop in the National Gallery building. On the way I pop into the Booktrading shop and emerge with Umberto Eco’s Turning the clock back – hot wars and media populism and a lovely Taschen edition about the Belgian painter James Ensor. This is another nice feature for nomads – visiting new bookshops with different collections. Of course, the second-hand bookshops are the best for sheer serendipidy. Last week I found in the boxes of a pavement bouquiniste a couple of books about Russian painters – a 1966 Moscow edition with aquarelles and drawings of the Tretyakov Art Gallery; and a superb 1971 Leningrad edition with full page colour pictures of paintings by Levitan. And a Moscow edition of Aldous Huxley’s Crome Yellow thrown in for free!
Zhechka joins me for a coffe and takes me to her office – but another small gallery catches my attention. Lily (the name of both the owner and the gallery) is a friend of Vihra at Astry Gallery and has 2 Mitko Kostadinovs at very reasonable prices which I quickly snap up. And I’m not done yet – I had spotted another gallery at the top end of the Vladimir Zaimov Park not far from my flat. It turns out to focus on handicapped painters and I buy a Nadejda Beleva sea-cliff view and a nicely executed painting of a couple of boats bobbing in the sea (slightly cliched I know but the water is well done and I do miss my Ocean!). Then to the shops to pick up some food and wine for the meal my friends have opted to take at my place rather than in a restaurant – the ultimate compliment!
I’ve enjoyed these last few months of leisure – not particularly interested in getting new projects. But some project possibilities are now beginning to swirl around. A friend and I are waiting for word of a Serbian project – that would be 18 months and me not in a Team Leader role. I don’t like the paperwork it now entails. And I’ve also been asked to go forward in a bid for a framework project – which are short (eg 60 day) assignments which are contracted very quickly – in Macedonia. A group of us are also talking about going for major project here in Bulgaria. Now that would really interest me!
The painting is a nice exaple of a Russi Ganchev - one of whose landsacpes I bought this week.

nomads

I see that my ratings („hits”) have gone down recently. I do realise my posts are too long – and too personal! Of little interest to most people. But – as I’ve said several times – the daily discipline is useful for me – even the travelogue stuff. So, if you’re a quick skimmer, please persevere….
I remain a nomad – and find that a change of location does bring new ways of seeing things – to steal the phrase the writer/artist John Berger used all of 35 years ago – even if I don’t venture far out of the flat or house I happen to be in (I counted recently the number of flats and houses I’ve lived in (excluding holiday places) and gave up when I reached 30). I soon create my own space – this flat was both metaphorically and physically cold when I arrived a week ago – but now is so cosey (hugelich as the Danes say) with my bright red old kilim; 8 modern (as distinct from contemporary!) Bulgarian paintings; smells of spices; a music system and special lighting.
Sunday morning was reflection and composition time for the blog – then coffee with Ivo at „Tobacco” (back of National Gallery). I’ve never smoked – except in the last 2 decades one Sumatra cigar each quarter year – but I hate the politically-correct banning of cigarette smoking. Another reason for liking Bulgaria. Ivo took me out to the upcoming Mladost area on the airport part of the ring-road to show me a cheap flat in a panel block which has admittedly better air than downtown Sofia – and which will by the end of the year have a very fast metro connection to the centre. But it it is still too much like the Wild West for my tastes – and the flat itself didn’t have the room dimensions I like and also needed a lot of work
Ivo and his colleague Ivan then quickly sorted out the problem I had with my 14-year old Cielo – whose rear brakes first seized up in the cold mid-week and whose battery quickly followed. I was prepared for a major hassle – but the 2 of them took only half an hour (with Ivo’s BMW off-road) to get the old dear back running. Ivo and I had major conflict with one another in the early months of our work together 3 years ago – but he is now one of my few really trustworthy friends. Verily, you have to go through fire to know your real friends! The same happened in Kyrgyzstan where I had a real outburst against a couple of individuals (one the Minister himself) who were, I felt, just a bit too overbearing. After that we became great friends!
I've come across one of the very few other blogs in English from Romania - and this posting tries to explain why the guy chose to live and work in the country - despite the many frustrations.

Preachers of unreason

What a dangerous stage The United States has reached when its main broadcaster on Fox TV is conducting an ideological campaign of hatred against a 78 year-old woman (for something she wrote in 1966) allowing death threats against her to appear on its official website. This is not just a reflection of the violent ant-liberal mood in the States – since Fox TV is one of the main engines of this hatred.
A very thoughtful blog reminds us how anti-liberalism poisoned the politics of Weimar Germany and paved the way for Nazism. The post summarises something else written in the 1960s – The Politics of Cultural Despair - which looked closely at the ideas of three writers whose critique of modernity in the late 19th century, the author (Fritz Stern) argued, prepared the mental ground for the acceptance of Nazism.

The central focus of this cultural criticism was the fact of modernity - liberalism, secularism, Manchesterism, consumptionism, and individualism. These were conservative critics; they favored an earlier time that was more traditional, moral, hierarchical, and religious. They preferred villages and towns to cities; they preferred cultivated thinkers to merchants and professionals, and they feared the rise of the proletariat.
By liberalism they meant to encompass several ideas: individualism, self-interest, parliamentary government, and glorification of commerce and the market. And their criticisms were unswerving: they hoped to turn back all of the liberal democratic and industrial transformations that modern Europe was undergoing.
The movement did embody a paradox: its followers sought to destroy the despised present in order to recapture an idealized past in an imaginary future. They were disinherited conservatives, who had nothing to conserve, because the spiritual values of the past had largely been buried and the material remnants of conservative power did not interest them. They sought a breakthrough to the past, and they longed for a new community in which old ideas and institutions would once again command universal allegiance.
The conservative revolutionaries denounced every aspect of the capitalistic society and its putative materialism. They railed against the spiritual emptiness of life in an urban, commercial civilization, and lamented the decline of intellect and virtue in a mass society. They attacked the press as corrupt, the political parties as the agents of national dissension, and the new rulers as ineffectual mediocrities. The bleaker their picture of the present, the more attractive seemed the past, and they indulged in nostalgic recollections of the uncorrupted life of earlier rural communities, when men were peasants and kings true rulers.

America's First Amendment is a sacred thing - but, in allowing hatred to continue spew from Fox TV and the airways when its citizens are looking for scapegoats for their troubles, is storing up trouble for American society. Anyway, the woman gives as good as she gets - see hereFritz Stern, the author, is a marvellous historian born in Breslau/Wroclaw in 1926 who escaped to America in 1938 and wrote a powerful autobiography essay which I read a few years back with great pleasure and benefit - Five Germanies I have known. He is a highly engaging character - as you can see both from his book and this video of him introducing it
Watching the video reminded me of the great interviews Clive James has on his website – and I liked his short piece attacking the rebranding which Britain’s privatised railway companies carried out you can see half-way through (3 mins 50 secs to be precise) this video interview about George Orwell.

Le Flaneur

Back into the tiny gallery on San Stefano St (at what I think is the north-east corner of Doctor’s Sq at the University area) to have another look at the large Tomev coastscape painting.
Then into the marvellous Alexander Nevsky church and am shocked to see the deterioration in the Nouveaux Arts paintings – many of which have large patches of white (dampness?) spreading downwards.
I stroll to the City Gallery to try to buy another copy of their large catalogue which has a (black and white) reproduction of every painting they have in stock. Only to find that they have some sort of problem with their little shop and they can’t sell its books! All that seems to be missing is a key – and the authority and/or the goodwill for the 2 people lounging at the reception! It reminds me of the situation in Bucharest where – despite the cutbacks – there are apparently many small heritage buildings and facilities with surplus staff.

I have a nice wander around a (quiet) centre – wondering once again why the young Sofians profess to disliking the place. To me it’s a painter’s paradise – not just the friendly little galleries but also the charm of the urban landscape with a mixture of old houses and 4 storey blocks – the space between always revealing a nice perspective. And almost no high rises – as if the supremely ugly 20 story M-tel block on Hristov Botev opposite the majestic beauty of the Ministry of Agriculture building is there to serve as a warning to modernists. The 2 towers of the Ministry building are unique for me. Sadly, however, there is a huge hole in the ground on the corner with Macedonskiya Bvd.
I look again at the painting of Varna port in the gallery at the top of Tsar Samuel(it’s a contemporary - by Lubomir Arnaudov – for 220 euros)
A visit to the small music shop at the end of Solunska St (beside the Methodist church) confirms my fears about the consequences of the change in ownership – a year ago it had in the basement one of the best collections of classical music I had ever seen and now that is gone and the choice much restricted. I need music when I’m working or reading – and forgot to bring some with me. I manage to fiind a nice collection of Bassoon concerts and an historical recording of Richard Strauss and Belle Bartok.
The Assen Vasilev gallery is just across the road and, although its stuff is more superficial, I pop in – after all I have bought a couple of things there. And, indeed, I recognise a Mitko Dimitrov painting and indeed pick out one of his without realising its his – a rather stormy slightly surrealist one with a country church at the top of a hill and a view down a valley to a distant village. Has a nice symbolic touch for me – and only 125 euros. Not quite sure…...My collection is now at the stage I have to be careful about having too many landscapes with houses; I need more seascapes and, above all, paintings with people! And one picture catches my eye – with lots of people in a square, It’s by 74 year old Ivan Manoilev – but a bit pricey for me.
14.00 sees me at Konos Gallery for my meeting with Yassen and his other gallery friend who are bringing some more paintings in for me to look at. This time I’ve brought a wine – I tried to fiind a Brestovitza but could only manage a Telish. Nothing can be better than a bottle of wine, cheese, bread, friends and paintings! I’m introduced this time to Todor Kodjamanov (born the early part of the 20th century) whose 1940s quiet river scene with some beached canoes has a lovely soft pastel colouring. He’s sought after – but I can get this large painting for just under 1000 euros. And there are 2 seascapes for me to inspect – a large Petar Boiadjiev and smaller more dramatic Boris Stefchev which I quickly go for. The Russe Ganchev they have for me is not very exciting – he’s on my list because I liked the exhibition of his work I saw 3 years ago at the National Gallery but have not really taken to the 10 or so I have seen so far for sale. The tiny 1911 Alexander Mutafov river scene still entices – but is, of course, pricey. Clutching my Stefchev, I say goodbye with another session fixed for Monday afternoon – when, hopefully, they will have an Emilia Radusheva for me which has something in common with the one I already have (see top).
Amazingly I stumble across two more antique shops on the way home – one in a tiny basement next to the Assen Vasilev gallery. As I emerge, my attention is drawn to a river scene which is hanging outside (!) and it’s mine for 100 euros!
So ends a very pleasant Saturday flanant (wandering).
Today’s Observer has a touching article by a young Egyptian woman about the developments there and in some other countries of the Arab world

State hypocrisy

The upheavals in Tunisia, Egypt and even Yemen have shown the limits of both „authoritarianism” and of „democracy”. Those who rule without even the veneer of passive popular support are doomed to become currupt, inefficient and unjust; to repress the protest this creates – thereby creating a vicious circle of repression and protest. However, the arab world world is supposed to be fatalistic and immune from aspirations of democracy. So says a large (American inspired?) literature. And watching American statespeople cope with these protests is a real education about the reality of democracy in the USA. Two years ago, the world was full of hope when Barack Obama was sworn in as American President; but he has neither the will nor the capacity to change his country’s consistent support for dictators who give America what it needs – whether that is repression of alternative ways of governing or access to the petrol America needs.
And a year ago Hilary Clinton delivered a paen of praise to the internet – and its contribution to freedom and democracy. But her strong reaction to Wilileaks showed how empty and self-serving were her words. State interests conquer all.

People like Chomsky and Arundhati Roy have been exposing these hypocrisies for many years. The Guardian carries today a good interview with Roy - whose work, I have to confess, is not well known to me. A quick search threw up a strong 2002 piece on the damage Enron was doing in Indiaand a much more recent (and longer) article on the time she spent with Indian Maoist rebels in the field.
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll know that I am interested in labels and Roy readily admits, in the Guardian interview, that she sees her writing as an important tool in the struggle for dignity and respect for ordinary people. In that sense she is a "writer", „activist” and „visionary” – although that latter term sits uneasily with activism. Someone (William Murtha) had a nice idea recently – to ask (200) people to put their vision into 100 words and also to list the five books which had inspired them. The result was – 100 words; 200 visionaries share their hope for the future I said it was a nice idea - not necessarily a good book! The invitations seem to have been restricted to "new age" Northern americans - and the contributors don't say why the books have inspired them. It was Scott London’s blog which put me on to this - at least in that posting he does give a nice little summary of what his 5 books meant to him.

Nice bit of serendipity yesterday - the 22 tram outside takes me to the old (outdoor) market in the down-at-heel area just past the mosque and Jewish synagogue. My main interest was the Araab shops - for spices for the flat. I had intended to have another look at a (modern) painting of Varna port which is a good buy at 225 euros but decided to check again on the Valmar Gallery (at 55 Stamboloyski Bvd where it crosses Hristo Botev Bvd) which seemd to have disappeared last time I tried to go in the summer. Lo and behold it was still there - and open - although its windows were covered in shrouds and it looked closed and derelict. To enter it is to enter an Aladdin's Cave. I showed Valery my list - and he spent the next 90 minutes hours pulling paintings from the piles. What a contrast with the reception you get when you go to the Viktoria Gallery (and auctioneers) - where you are met with a deadpan look!! Not satisfied with showing me examples of those I had on my list, he introduced me to the works of more than 15 painters whose work was sufficiently attractive to me to have me scribbling their names down. By the end, I had almost 10 paintings put to one side for consideration - having regrettfully passed on a 15,000 euros Nikola Tanev painting and a 4,000 euros painting by one Ianko Marinov (born 1902). But I did get a Dobre Dobrev (which I have been looking for for some time - an example is above) - and another Alexandra Mechkuevska to add to my collection.

Money, money, money

Good old BBC! They’ve saved me the airfare to Davos! At least two BBC journalists are there and blogging on their interesting conversations – Robert Peston (see links sidebar) and Stephanie Flanders. And I don’t even pay the BBC licence fee!

I was trying to check my statement about Bulgaria being one of a handful of net contributors to the EU budget – and came across this useful post about the consultation on the future of cohesion funds - from a blogsite - EU Law - I should add to my links.
The project here in Bulgaria in which I have a marginal involvement is the closest I have come to Structural Funds. I generally stay away from anything to do with European integration – since it smacks of „The man in Whitehall (Brussels) knows best!” I always prefer to work with governments which have a free agenda; and are actively choosing to engage in reform - not passively „complying” with EU requirements for membership.

Eastern Approaches has a good blog about the Hungarian government's clash with the EU on its media restrictions
And Transition Online have started a series giving some rare detail on the sources of finance of political parties in central europe – here’s one useful paper on the close links between commerce and Romanian political parties.
I suspect the figures are considerable underestimates – the benefits of political favour in Romania (and Bulgaria) are so great that I doubt whether a 40,000 euros contribution is going to get you very much!
The lyrics of Money, money, money are here.