collapse of empires

I am now literally marooned here in the Bucharest snow – such heavy snowfalls as have blocked the car exit although I have tried to clear the snow each day. As tends to happen in such situations, I have been losing myself in the past – first with Joseph Roth’s classic The Radeztky March written in 1930 and then with Robert Service’s Trotsky; a Life.

Roth’s book is the first of a trilogy and relates the stories of three generations of the Trotta family, professional Austro-Hungarian soldiers and career bureaucrats of Slovenian origin — from imperial zenith to First World War nadir. For saving him in battle, the Emperor awards Lt. Trotta the Order of Maria Theresa and ennobles him. Elevation to the nobility ultimately leads to the Trotta family’s ruination, paralleling the imperial collapse of Austria–Hungary (1867–1918).
Although he does not assume the airs of a social superior, everyone from the new baron’s old life perceives him as a changed person, as a nobleman. The perceptions and expectations of society eventually compel his reluctant integration in the aristocracy, a class with whom he is temperamentally uncomfortable. The disillusioned Baron Trotta opposes his son’s aspirations to a military career, insisting he prepare to become a government official, the second most respected career in the Austrian Empire; by custom, the German son was expected to obey. The son eventually becomes a district administrator in a Moravian town. As a father, the second Baron Trotta (still ignorant of why his war-hero father thwarted his military ambitions) sends his own son to become a cavalry officer; grandfather’s legend determines grandson’s life. The cavalry officer’s career of the third Baron Trotta comprises postings throughout the empire of Austria-Hungary and a dissipated life of wine, women, song, gambling, and dueling, off-duty pursuits characteristic of the military officer class in peace-time. In the progress of his career, Baron Trotta’s infantry unit suppresses a local uprising against the imperial government; awareness of the aftermath of his professional brutality begins his disillusionment with empire. I found this quotation from the last few pages of the book which covers the retreat from the borderland with Russia -

Most of these orders were to do with the evacuation of villages and town and the treatment of pro-Russian Ukrainians, clerics, and spies. Hasty court-martials in villages passed hasty sentences. Secret informers delivered unverifiable reports on peasants, Orthodox priests, teachers, photographers, officials. There was no time. The army had to retreat swiftly but also punish the traitors swiftly. And while ambulances, baggage columns, field artillery, dragoons, riflemen, and footsoldiers formed abrupt and helpless clusters on the sodden roads, while couriers galloped to and fro, while inhabitants of small towns fled westward in endless throngs, surrounded by white terror, laden with red-and-white featherbeds, grey sacks, brown furniture, and blue kerosene lamps, the shots of hasty executioners carrying out hasty sentences rang from the church squares of hamlets and villages, and the sombre rolls of drums accompanied the monotonous decisions of judges, and the wives of victims lay shrieking for mercy before the mud-caked boots of officers, and red and silver flames burst from huts and barns, stables and haystacks. The Austrian army’s war had begun with court-martials. For days on end genuine and supposed traitors hung from the trees on church squares to terrify the living.

Robert Service's Trotsky (2009) deals with the aftermath of the collapse of both the Austro Hungarian and Russian empires. It's a reasonable read - although the flurry of the revolutionary action did leave me a bit bewildered at time and I felt more space was needed (it's almost 600 pages). The picture painted of the man is not an attractive one - arrogance is the main feature stressed. The book has in fact attracted a fair amount of criticism -  both for factual errors and those of bias - on a professional historian site which one might normally expect to be positive; and also by more political critics here and here.

Managing knowledge

A colleague sent me recently some diagrams about knowledge management – which prompted some musings about a term which has never been an inviting one for me. When so much institutional knowledge has been lost by peremptory sackings and downsizings in the past decade and more, how can anyone take seriously an interest/discipline for the retention and management of knowledge? Or was KM indeed brought into being precisely because such losses of personnel were anticipated? And how does KM relate to the previously fashionable "organisational learning" – and the writers associated with that eg Peter Senge let alone the less celebrated Reg Revans and his "action learning"?
What precisely have we gained through use of the latest term? I could relate to the previous terms – but find "knowledge management” pretentious (in its reification of knowledge, implication that organisations can capture it) and offensive (in its apparent emphasis on systems rather than people). Perhaps it’s just me and my anarchistic leanings – I have never really properly belonged to an organisation although, when a senior politicians, I did organise a variety of forums which brought people together who did not normally rub shoulders with one another. And, as my website and blog demonstrate, I am very committed to sharing knowledge and experiences. I belong to that generation which does not see it as a private resource. But Knowledge Management, as I understand the subject, springs from the recognition that the skills and knowledge of an organisation’s staff are, potentially, the distinctive advantage it has these days which can pull in the profit. If only, that is, it can identify the winning formula and ensure it is applied appropriately elsewhere in the organisation. But all of this implies and requires trust – and this is the one thing which the management of modern organisations has succeeded in destroying.
Of course, many non-profit bodies, not least in the development field such as The World Bank, see themselves as knowledge hubs and have published useful stuff about how to collect, access and use appropriate lessons from practice. One recent (and rather simplistic example) example was from the World Bank Institute and, some years ago, the ODI did a very useful literature review.

But I still feel that the field itself deserves the sort of ridicule which , by serendipidity, another blogger heaped on management fads -

Until five years ago, I'd never heard of brand wheels. I'd chosen the relative penury of bookselling so that I would never have to sit in boardrooms, having serious conversations about things that didn't matter. It was an unspoken agreement. Then HMV bought the company I worked for and suddenly books were called 'product', knowledge became 'learnings' and the staff were called 'resource' (always singular, I noticed). The agreement had been broken. It was a horrible time.
One day I was invited to a regional meeting and an ambitious young manager revealed a diagram of a thing called a 'brand wheel'. It consisted of various segments that represented different aspects of running a bookshop. Things so painfully obvious that it seemed unnecessary to write them down.
There were lots of words like knowledge (not 'learnings', on this occasion), authority, communication, enthusiasm and development. There was a reductive quality about the brand wheel that smacked of totalitarianism (I'm sure that Stalin would have had one if he'd known about them): this is who we are, this is what we think and this is what we must do.

And my prejudices were reinforced when I glanced at the many volumes of text of the incredible project which has just tried to diagnose the state of the "knowledge sector" in Indonesia - and also by this 2002 article - The Nonsenseof knowledge management.

And, if you’re wondering why I’ve not said anything about the change of Romanian government which we have been experiencing this week, it’s simply because other people are saying it much better than me. See Sara’s blogposts since 6 February

The painting is a Josef Iser (1881-1958) - probably at the Hippidrome of his home town Ploiesti and one of whose paintings was available, at a private gallery I visited yesterday, for 15,000 euros. It's the Ana gallery which has a great collection of paintings -most however piled inaccessibly against the walls - and managed by a dour woman who follows you round and names the authors of each work you touch regardless of the interest you show. Very depressing. 

Money silences

A very important and revealing short piece on media freedom by Nick Cohen deserves a high profile -

The grand posture of writers in liberal democracies is that they are the moral equivalents of dissidents in repressive regimes. Loud-mouthed newspaper columnists claim to 'speak truth to power'. Novelists, artists, playwrights and comedians announce their willingness to transgress boundaries. Their publishers look for controversy like boozers look for brawls because they know that few marketing strategies beat the claim that a courageous iconoclast is challenging establishments and shattering taboos.
To maintain the illusion that they are part of some kind of radical underground, intellectuals must practise a deceit. They can never admit to their audience that fear of violent reprisals, ostracism or crippling financial penalties keeps them away from subjects that ought to concern them - and their fellow citizens.
Challenging writing about economic crises is rare. Diligent readers have every right to ask why so few financial writers warned them that the greatest crash since 1929 was on the way. As no less a personage than Her Majesty the Queen said to the academics at the London School of Economics, 'Did nobody notice?'
In Britain's case, any writer who had tried to research a book on the rapacious and authoritarian managers at the Royal Bank of Scotland or HBOS, for instance, or on the insanely reckless derivative swap and insurance markets in the London-based subsidiaries of Wall Street banks, would have run into the libel law. It is some barrier to overcome. The cost of a libel action in England and Wales is 140 times the European average. Contrary to common law and natural justice, the burden of proof is on the defendant. Even the few remaining wealthy newspapers, which have business models that have not yet been destroyed by the Internet, find it hard to afford a court case. For the publisher of a serious book, which would do well if it sold 50,000 copies, the idea of risking £1 million or more in a legal fight to defend it is close to unthinkable.

In 2006, the Danish tabloid Ekstra Bladet investigated the links between the Icelandic bank Kaupthing and tax havens. Kaupthing's managers did not like what they read, but failed to persuade the Danish press council that the paper had done anything wrong. The bank sued for libel in London instead. The newspaper pulled the articles and apologised because English lawyers ran up costs that were beyond its editor's worst nightmares - £1 million, and that was before a case had gone to court.
Kaupthing went for the paper in England not just because it wanted to kill the original story, but because it also wanted to deter others from spreading the idea that Iceland was not a safe place for investors. The English legal profession obliged. Newspapers' lawyers thought once, twice, one hundred times before authorising critical stories. A few months later Kaupthing collapsed - along with the other entrepreneurial, go-ahead Icelandic banks - and British depositors lost £3.5 billion. By allowing libel tourists to fly to London and use our repressive laws, the English legal profession had also stopped the British investors from learning of the danger in investing in the country's banks.

You no more hear writers and broadcasters admit that they are frightened of investigating investment banks than you hear them admit that they are frightened of challenging the founding myths of Islam. We cannot puncture our own myth that we are fearless seekers after truth, even though, if we honestly owned up to our limitations, we might force society to confront the fact that modern censorship does not conform to old models. It is a mistake to think of repression as repression by the state alone. In much of the world it still is, but in Britain, America and most of continental Europe the age of globalisation has done its work, and it is privatised rather than state forces that threaten freedom of speech.

Editors are no longer frightened of politicians but of Islamist violence, oligarchs and CEOs. They worry about libel and the ability of the wealthy to bend the ear of their proprietors or withdraw advertising. But they are not frightened about leaking the secrets or criticising the actions of elected governments. We need new ways of thinking about censorship. The first step is the most essential. Only when we have the courage to admit that we are afraid can we begin the task of extending our freedoms.

EC's Cohesion Funds (part V) A Tale of Sound and Fury?

There’s something to be said for ignoring a policy field for several years and then trying to catch up with it in one go – it makes you focus on the essentials and certainly saves a lot of time! So it’s been in the last few days as I have downloaded and skimmed a lot of material on the (rather incestuous) debate which has been taking place over the past 2-3 years about the EC Structural (or Cohesion) Funds whose programme for 2014-2020 will have to be decided this year.

As the Commission’s views eventually surfaced at the end of 2011, it seems, frankly, to be have been a case of "sound and fury…signifying…nothing”! When I read the leaflet which set out the Commission’s proposals of 6 October, they don’t seem to contain anything significantly new – more ex-ante evaluation; better monitoring; and a new category of "transitional regions”. And the much-discussed idea of more local flexibility seems to have died without trace. So perhaps the journalists I accused of neglect in an earlier post have been correct to leave the subject well alone. As we say, it "doesn't appear to amount to a row of beans!"
In 2010, a slide presentation caught the terms of the then current debate rather well. For those masochists who want to follow the details of the debate, an archived site allows you to access both the key papers and also the various components of the 2009 Barca report including its ten 10 commissioned studies and a summary of some hearings.

Despite a caustic comment recently about language, the papers from Strathclyde University’s European Policies Centre are the only clear updates you get on Structural Funds. The latest is appropriately subtitled "let the negotiations begin".
In November 2011 one of the leading members of the Centre produced a paper EC Cohesion Policy and Europe 2020 – between place-based and people-based prosperity which subjected the debate on the EC’s Cohesion Policy to the dreadful Discourse Analysis -

Ideas are increasingly recognized as playing an important causal role in policy development. Instead of seeing change as the product of strategic contestation among actors with clear and fixed interests, an ideational perspective emphasises the struggle for power among actors motivated by different ideas.

 The last half of the paper, however is actually interesting - it traces the history of cohesion policy and then explores the various policy positions about the nature and shape of the future programme (which now accounts for 40% of the EU budget). The paper suggests 2 central dimensions – focus and management – to construct a matrix. The focus can be geographical place or sector (eg transport, energy, IT, environment); the management central (EC led) or local (national) – which gives four options -
• Territorial contractualism (top-down); supported by two key players – the European Parliament and the European Commission’s Regional Policy Department (DG Regio)
• Territorial experimentalism (with more local flexibility); supported by the Committee of Regions
• Sectoral functionalism (top-down); supported by the other relevant Commission Directorates
• Sectoral coordination

Ideas in these arguments become tools which rationalise the interests of the various actors. As I thought about the process, I was suddenly reminded of one of the seminal texts in the literature of political science – Graham Allison’s The Essence of Decision (1971) - which applied three different explanatory models to the Cuban Crisis – the rational (what is in the interests of the government); the organisational process (organisations do what they are used to doing); and bureaucratic (court) politics ("various overlapping bargaining games among players arranged hierarchically in the national government”). This is a paper of his from 1968 which presents the basic proposition; and this a critique from 1992.

we don't live in a post industrial age

I’m reading Ha-Joon Chang’s 23 Things they don’t tell you about Capitalism at the moment – and am very impressed. An economist who writes simply and elegantly (shades of JK Galbraith) and makes you think (as distinct from fall asleep). Section nine – entitled We do not live in a post-industrial age - took me back to arguments with my father in the 1970s about the role of industry. The indifference (at least) of British social scientists – and the policy elites who took their arguments – to the decline of manfacturing industry is a phenomenon to which we have not yet done historical justice! Here’s some of what Chang has to say -

Part of the de-industrialisation myth is due to optical illusions – reflecting, for example, changes in statistical classification rather than changes in real activities. One such illusion is due to the outsourcing of some activities that used to be provided inhouse by manufacturing firms and thus captured as manufacturing output (e.g., catering, cleaning, technical supports). When they are outsourced, recorded service outputs increase without a real increase in service activities. Even though there is no reliable estimate of its magnitude, experts agree that outsourcing has been a significant source of de-industrialisation in the US and Britain, especially during the 1980s.
In addition to the outsourcing effect, the extent of manufacturing contraction is exaggerated by what is called the reclassification effect. A UK government report estimates that up to 10% of the fall in manufacturing employment between 1998 and 2006 in the UK may be accounted for by some manufacturing firms, seeing their service activities becoming predominant, applying to the government statistical agency to be re-classified as service firms, even when they are still engaged in some manufacturing activities.
A third factor in the myth is the relative price-effect. With the (inflation-adjusted) amount of money you paid to get a PC ten years ago, today you can probably buy three, if not four, computers of equal or even greater computing power (and certainly smaller sizes). As a result, you probably have two, rather than just one, computers. But, even with two computers, the portion of your income that you spend on computers has gone down quite a lot (for the sake of argument, I am assuming that your income, after adjusting for inflation, is the same). In contrast, you are probably getting the same number of haircuts as you did ten years ago (if you haven’t gone thin on the top, that is). The price of haircuts has probably gone up somewhat, so the proportion of your income that goes to your haircut is greater than it was 10 years ago.
The result is that it looks as if you are spending a greater (smaller) portion of your income on haircuts (computers) than before, but the reality is that you are actually consuming more computers than before, while your consumption of haircuts is the same.

 A very thorough review in Dissident Voice starts with an excellent summary of some of the main points Chang makes - all starting with a statement of "what they tell us", followed by  a demolition of the conventional wisdom -

* Government must never interfere with “the free market.” (Chang says WRONG: modern economies would collapse without numerous forms of government intervention. Smart capitalists know very well that “there is no such thing as a free market.”)
* Companies should always be run in the interests of their owners/shareholders (WRONG: shareholders often damage the long-term prospects of companies by over-emphasizing short-term profit.)
* Economic health requires the assumption that people think only about themselves (WRONG: the most successful firms and national economies understand how to harness peoples’ cooperative and altruistic sentiments and instincts.)
* Poor counties need to adopt “free market” (neoliberal) policies (especially “free trade”) to achieve sustained growth. (WRONG: developing countries experienced superior growth in the period of state-led Third World development [1945-1970] than in the period of neoliberal, market-oriented “reform.” This is richly consistent with how the world’s richest nations – the ones who preach neoliberalism to the rest of the world – rose to ascendancy in the past: “through a combination of protectionism, subsidies, and other [state- and not market-led) policies that today they advise developing countries not to adopt” [63].)
* The relatively free market, capitalist-friendly neoliberal United States enjoys the highest standard of living in the world. (WRONG: thanks to the nation’s remarkably high levels of inequality [itself a symptom of its extreme neoliberalism], millions of Americans do not enjoy the United States’ remarkable average living standard. That extreme inequality and the poverty it generates are the main factors behind comparatively poor health indicators and crime levels in the U.S. Higher immigration and poor working conditions explain are the main reasons that many services are purchased more cheaply in the U.S. At the same time, Americans work considerably longer hours than Europeans so that “per hours worked, their command over goods and service is smaller than that of several European countries [103].”)
* Making rich people richer makes the rest richer too since it is rich people who seek out marketing opportunities and then invest to create jobs (WRONG: pro-rich policies have failed to produce economic expansion in the last three decades. “Trickle down economics” doesn’t work. It can have no positive outcomes in the absence of polices that (contrary to neoliberal doctrine) that make the rich deliver higher investment and share the benefits with – and put spending power in the hands of – non-affluent people, who spend a higher portion of their income than do the rich).
* Government must give maximum freedom to big corporations for the good of the countries in which those companies reside (WRONG: it is often better for the national economy and even the individual company for government to impose reasonable restraints and obligations on those companies).
* Capital has no nationality in the age of multinational corporations and globalization and therefore it nationalistic government policies towards transnational capital is “at best ineffective and at worst counterproductive” (WRONG: “most transnational companies in fact remain national companies with international operations, rather than genuinely nation-less companies” and it is “very naïve to base economic policies on the myth that capital does not have any national roots anymore”)
* Governments lack the ability (including the required expertise and information) to make intelligent business choices and thereby “pick winners” through state-led industrial policy. (WRONG: governments can and do regularly choose winning firms and industries over and against “market signals” and in ways that can and do “improve national economic performance”).
* The only equality that is economically functional or advisable is equality of opportunity. Policies that seek to generate more equality of outcome are inherently inefficient and unjust (WRONG: the equality of opportunity that is required to broaden the spread of economic benefits does not really exist without at least some measures to enhance equality of outcome. Free public education is woefully insufficient to broaden opportunity when it is not accompanied by policies that put a basic decent minimum standard of material living for households on the bottom end of the scale).
* The big government welfare state damages economies by depriving the rich of the incentive to create wealth and making the poor lazy. It creates resistance to the change that modern economies require. (WRONG: by providing second and third chances and a safety net to the non-affluent, the welfare state encourages workers to be more open to change when comes to choosing their first jobs and letting go of their existing jobs).
* Efficient financial markets – capable of the rapid allocation and re-allocation of capital across time and place – are the source of economic health and expansion Recent financial disturbances aside, smart policy makers should do nothing to slow down and complicate the operation of the world’s high speed financial markets (WRONG: U.S. and western financial markets are actually too efficient. The currently over-developed financial sector is now so proficient and organized in the pursuit of short-term profits that it is a leading source of economic instability and is incapable of giving emergent enterprises and industries and complex national economies the patient nurturance they require to develop over time.)

The painting is the only abstract which graces my collection - by Stefan Pelmus, more of whose paintings can be seen here.

Classic Romanian painters

Still blocked in Bucharest with the snow and biting temperatures (minus 27 in Brasov last night) and, being the first Wednesday of the month, what better to do than take advantage of the free entry to galleries which this date always offers. So off to the great National Museum of Romanian Art – and straight up to the third floor (so as not to be tired out by the time the modern section is reached!) The large collection there starts with a generous number of the bright Theodor Aman (1831-1891) society paintings – ditto Nicolae Grigorescu (1838-1907) and Ion Andreescu (1850-1882) - and gives a new perspective on every visit.

I had previously praised a website which purports to show the Romanian cultural patrimony but now notice that none of the great paintings on display seem to be in the virtual collection.

Stefan Popescu (1872-1948), for example, is a great favourite of mine – particularly those which reflect his time in northern Africa. Sadly, however, I can find none of these on the site (which is, in any event organised in a very administrative, non-user friendly way) - or online generally. If you scroll down on this blogpost (on my links) about the Brasov Gallery you will get a certain sense of some of the classic Romanian painters.

The National Gallery always has interesting publications and, this time, I bought (for 7 euros) a very well-produced 122 page book on their modern school. At the Humanitas bookshop nearby, I bought, for 9 euros, the 150 page book on Theodor Aman – and also a great-looking source book on Balkan Cinema.

Romania's first jailing of a senior politician

One of Romania’s ex-Prime Ministers was sentenced yesterday to 2 years in jail – although, compared with the wider suspicions against him and all those who occupy such positions here, the issue on which he was sentenced smacks a bit of the Al Capone syndrome (done for taxation issues; this is Capone's mugshot) -

Romanian High Court of Justice magistrates gave former prime minister Adrian Nastase on Monday a 2-year sentence and stripped him of certain rights in a corruption case known locally as the "Quality Trophy" file. In this case, Nastase, who served as head of the Romanian government between 2000 and 2004 (see pic below), was charged of supporting his electoral campaign through funds collected in a "Quality Trophy" event organized by the a public institution. The sentence can be appealed. UPDATE Adrian Nastase said on Monday he would appeal the verdict and that he was sure "things will be corrected on appeal". He called the verdict a "political decision, a dirty decision" and referred to "rumors" that head judge Ionut Matei "had meetings with representatives of the National Anti-corruption Department", the body which launched the corruption investigation against him.

In fact, Nastase cut a fairly impressive figure when he was PM - open and intelligent - probably the least corrupt of the lot (apart from Trade Unionist lawyer and National Peasant Party Ciorba). He did attract some ridicule for his attribution some years back of his unexplained wealth to the inheritance from an old aunt. He is in fact the first high-level politician to go to jail - Severin, the MEP, still shamelessly draws his salary and expenses - despite his exposure a year ago for corrput practices and banishment from the socialist bloc.
Those who wish to know about current events in Romania are best to follow the Sarah in Romania blog which is on my links. And she had a good post recently on the protests here which continue even in the biting cold here (minus 22 last night) -

Romania's president incumbent, Traian Basescu, spoke on national television last week for the first time since protests began almost three weeks ago, in defense of his government's tough austerity measures. The measures suffered in Romania have been immensely strict. "Brutal and unthinkable in a West European country" was the verdict on the two years of austerity from Andreas Treichl, the president of Austria's Erste Group, the largest foreign investor in the Romanian banking sector.
• 2011 budget deficit 4.35% of GDP
• public sector pay cut by 25%
• VAT raised from 19% to 24% (only surpassed by Iceland, Hungary and Norway)

We have been very much aware of the harsh conditions inflicted on the Greeks due to their own government's wheelings and dealings for decades, but very little, if anything, was reported by the international press up until the protests on those suffered by the Romanian people. In his 35-minute address to the nation, Mr Basescu acknowledged "some citizens have lost faith" but said the measures had pulled the country out of a recession, the Associated Press reported. "I know what needs to be done. We are where we should be. Romania has come out of a recession," he said.
To say that 'some citizens have lost faith' is something of an understatement. If the press and the social networks are to be believed, a very large majority of the country has lost faith - and that can be seen in the thousands who have taken to the streets across the entire country over the last 13 days. Teodor Baconschi, the Foreign Minister, was fired after he called protesters "inept and violent slum dwellers," and compared them to the miners who took to the streets of Bucharest in the 1990s. Clearly, the government believed this would mollify the protesters, but they remain wholely unconvinced.
In the nationally televised speech delivered live from the presidential palace on the occasion of Cristian Diaconescu's swearing-in as the new Foreign Minister, Basescu said his government would continue to create more jobs and fight against corruption and tax evasion. If Romania is really going to fight corruption, surely those in power now will have to step down and certain members of the opposition (the majority, in fact) would be unable to take power. You know the saying - 'the fish rots from the head...' Of course, corruption is so deep-seated one is helpless in knowing where to begin, but those in power today are as guilty of it as anyone. As are some in the opposition. There is the quandry. They are both as bad as each other. Today, the US Ambassador to Romania, Mark H. Gitenstein, criticised the country's high-level corruption - not particularly helpful, since it's nothing particularly new...
Those calling for Traian Basescu's resignation continue to state that ANYONE would be better than him. Those hoping he stays say that this is truly not the case. And so far, there is nobody else.
On 24 january, about 2,000 teachers, nurses, retired army officers and trade unionist rallied outside the government's headquarters: "I want to regain my dignity, I want this dictatorship formed by president and prime minister to fall," said Otilia Dobrica, a kindergarten teacher and part-time secretary who earns around $420 a month.
"We can't take any more," nurse Adriana Vintila explained. "Four million Romanians have left to work abroad because they can no longer survive in their home country. I don't want to leave; it's the government that should go."
About 5,000 people rallied in Iasi, calling for early elections, whilst in Bucharest's Piata Victoriei, protesters shouted "Freedom, Early Elections!" during yesterday's anti-government rally. “When I was the captain of a ship I never failed to bring my ship to port and I won’t fail to bring Romania to safe harbour,” Traian Basescu said during his address. “The belief that the president no longer represents the people is false. The president’s obligation is to represent them continuously, as the president has been elected through direct vote.”
Romania has been transformed since the overthrow of the Communist dictatorship in 1989 and the sometimes violent instability that followed. The nouveau-riche jet-set of young Romanians fill trendy nightclubs and plush restaurants that have sprouted up in Bucharest, and shiny new SUVs cruise the capital’s boulevards. There are many who do not wish to lose what Romania has today - better, richer in comparison to the way things were. They say that Traian Basescu is not a dictator and that Romania is no longer a dictatorship - they lived in and survived one. They know. Today, they have an opposition in parliament and they can protest in the streets. That is proof that no dictatorship exists today.
And yet, those in favour of the opposition, or at least, those calling for the resignation of Traian Basescu, Emil Boc and the fall of the present government say the benefits of progress have been uneven: life is harsh in rural areas and in the capital. Seventy hospitals nationwide have been closed; education has taken a nose-dive; if one wants a decently-paid job then one must go abroad; pensions are insultingly low; salaries have been cut. Among the EU nations, only neighbouring Bulgaria is poorer. Laws are passed without going through parliament to suit those in power, eg. Rosia Montana. That is NOT democracy.
Traian Basescu's speech, said Crin Antonescu, leader of PNL, was a sign that he was out of touch with reality and that he should resign, whilst Victor Ponta, the leader of PSD, told Agerpres that the speech said nothing at all and had no link whatsoever to do with what was happening in Romania.
Indeed, Romania finds itself today at a deeply messy and complex impasse. To choose between rotten apples and rotten pears is impossible and, until someone better comes along, until a new party surfaces that is not filled with officers and informants of the securitate and yesterday's nomenclatura, I remain fearful for the future of the country of my heart.

And Sarah also has a very readable piece today about Romania’s great dramatist – Caragiale – who was, as I mentioned on the 30 January posting, born 160 years ago -

By the late 1870s, Caragiale began writing the plays which cemented his reputation as an important playwright in Romania. In both plays and prose, he showed an incredible sense of the Romanian language, customs, and mannerisms, especially in the common person, and successfully used them for comedy and satire. Caragiale was highly observant of the human condition, particularly our tendency towards mistakes. He used what he saw and heard in his stories which generally focused on social conflicts and political corruption. The plays, especially, were full of fast-moving action and farce, employing solid characters with witty dialogue who usually failed in their goals. In the 1980s, Caragiale's plays were banned until the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was executed in 1989

Thank you, Sarah, for these excellent posts!

World Social Forum

Every now and then I bemoan the lack of journals giving an adequate coverage of European life and policies. Any amount of stuff on Europe as a concept or European Union policies – but virtually nothing which gives us a comparative sense of national policies (in those fields still within the control of member states). Today I came across a French website - Books and Ideas - which does at least seem to offer, in the English language, some non-Anglo-Saxon perspectives.
And one of its contributions offered an answer to something which had been puzzling me since last summer when I wrote an article for a special issue of a Romanian journal which was devoted to the world a decade after 09/11. My piece was entitled "The Dog that didn’t Bark” and focussed on the general failure of radicals to capitalise on the global crisis – and, more specifically, the apparent failure of the World Social Forum which had been so active until 2005. The Forum is apparently right now holding another of its huge meetings - in Brazil (significant that I get the detail only from a German media source) - and Geoffrey Pleyers suggests two things in his article in BooksandIdeas - first that the Forum has been a victim of its own success (with many politicians now using their rhetoric); and, second, that the movement has now fragmented around three distinct trends -

1. A Focus on the Local Level
Rather then getting involved in a global movement and international forums, a wide “cultural trend” of the alter-globalization movement considers that social change may only occur by implementing participatory, convivial and sustainable values in daily practices, personal life and local spaces. In many Italian social centres, critical consumption and local movements have often taken the space previously occupied by the alter-globalization movement. Local “collective purchase groups” have grown and multiplied in Western Europe and North America. Most of them gather a dozen activists who organize collective purchases from local and often organic food producers. Their goal is to make quality food affordable, to bring an alternative to the “anonymous supermarket” and to promote local social relations. The movement for a “convivial degrowth” belongs to a similar tendency and aims to implement a lifestyle that is less of a strain on natural resources and reduces waste.


2. Citizens’ and Experts’ Advocacy Networks
Rather than massive assemblies and demonstrations, another component of the movement believes that concrete outcomes may be achieve through efficient single-issue networks able to develop coherent arguments and efficient advocacy. Issues like food sovereignty, Third World debt and financial transactions are considered both as specific targets and as an introduction to broader questions. Through the protection of water, activists raise for instance the issue of global public goods, oppose global corporations and promote the idea of “the long-term efficiency of the public sector” (“Water network assembly”, European Social Forum 2008). After several years of intense exchanges among citizens and experts focusing on the same issue, the quality of the arguments has considerably increased. In recent years, they have become the core of social forums’ dynamic. Although they get little media attention, these networks have proved efficient in many cases. During the fall of 2008, the European Water Network contributed to the decision by the City of Paris to re-municipalize its water distribution, which had been managed previously by private corporations. Debt cancellation arguments have been adopted by Ecuadorian political commissions, and some alter-globalization experts have joined national delegations in major international meetings, including the 2008 WTO negotiations in Geneva.

3. Supporting Progressive Regimes
A third component of the movement believes that a broad social change will occur through progressive public policies implemented by state leaders and institutions. Alter-globalization activists have struggled to strengthen state agency in social, environmental and economic matters. Now that state intervention has regained legitimacy, this more “political” component of the movement believes that time has come to join progressive political leaders’ efforts. It has notably been the case around President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela as well as President Evo Morales in Bolivia. New regional projects and institutions have been launched on this basis, like the “Bank of the South” that has adopted the main tasks of the IMF in the region. For historical reasons and their political cultures, Latin American and Indian activists are used to proximity with political parties and leaders.

And a German journal gives a frightening insight into the Greek situation -

The Greek economy is not productive enough to generate growth. Aside from olive oil, textiles and a few chemicals, there are hardly any Greek products suitable for export. On the contrary, Greece is dependent on food imports to feed its population.
"Greece has been living beyond its means for years," an unpublished study by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) concludes. "The consumption of goods has exceeded economic output by far."
Especially devastating is the assessment that the DIW experts make about the condition of an industry that is generally seen as a potential engine for growth: tourism. According to the DIW study, the Greek tourism industry concentrates on the summer months, with almost nothing happening throughout the rest of the year. There is almost no tourism in the cities, which translates into low overall capacity utilization and high costs for hotel operators. By contrast, capacity utilization in the hotel sector is much more uniform in other Mediterranean countries.
According to the study, a key cause of the problem is the relatively poor price/performance ratio. In Mediterranean tourism, Greece has to compete with non-euro countries like Croatia, Tunisia, Morocco, Bulgaria and Turkey, which can offer their services at significantly lower prices. The per-hour wage in the hospitality industry was recently measured at €11.39 in Greece, as compared with only €8.49 in Portugal, €4 in Turkey and as little as €1.55 in Bulgaria. The study arrives at grim conclusions, noting that the drastic austerity programs will not only remain ineffective, but will also stigmatize the country as "Europe's problem child" for a long time to come.

The painting is a....Turner, of course!