Trapped in a time-warp
by Premen Addy 29 Feb 08 (http://dailypioneer.com/indexn12.asp?main_variable=EDITS&file_name=edit3%2Etxt&counter_img=3)
It could be what the German philosopher Hegel chose to obfuscate as the "Cunning of Reason," or it may simply be history in cyclical mode: But there is an ill wind redolent of the summer of 1914 blowing through Europe. It was the simmering Balkan crisis and the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo by a militant Serbian nationalist that ignited World War I. Otto von Bismarck, the great German statesman of a previous age, had opined that the Balkans were not worth the bones of a Pomeranian grenadier, hence avoided embroilment in the region's incendiary rivalries.
The Chancellor was long dead when the impetuous Kaiser Wilhelm II mobilised his country's forces in support of his Austrian ally with fateful consequences for his continent and the world. All this was set against the canvas of a decomposing Ottoman Empire, stagnant expanses of the Austrian-Hungarian and the Russian imperial monarchies, each chronically incapable of addressing the discontents of their subjects. The great powers of the day drifted into a conflagration no one really desired.
The great powers now behave like denizens of a fish bowl. The scene outside is scarcely cause for reassurance. Balkan tranquillity was rudely disturbed with Nato's destruction of Yugoslavia in1899. Its ethnic conflicts could have been contained if the US and the EU had chosen to place their strength and authority behind a durable peace. Instead, there were historic scores to settle and historic aims to fulfil.
Croatians had been Germany's collaborators in World War II, while the Serbs were its implacable foes. True, the Germany of today has nothing in common with Adolf Hitler's Third Reich, but primordial instincts and memories often transcend and subsume liberal political theory. It was scarcely an accident that Germany was the first country to recognise breakaway Croatia, which Germany's partners in Europe were happy to follow. It proved to be a can of worms.
Yugoslavian developments were caught in the slipstream of the Soviet Union's collapse and the retreat of Soviet power from Eastern Europe.
Mr Mikhail Gorbachev was, in Mrs Margaret Thatcher's memorable words, "someone we can do business with". In more senses than one, as it proved. He was inundated with pious assurances from his Western interlocutors that once Germany was reunited, the eastern expansion of Nato would cease.
These promises were like piecrusts meant to be broken, and broken they assuredly were as Nato's authority gradually exceeded its original remit of April 1949, with its presence today looming increasingly large on Russian frontiers. The naïve Gorbachev had not thought it fit to demand written guarantees or a quid quo pro on the ground. For all his personal qualities, the imagination and generosity that drove him to end the Cold War, he is a near-forgotten figure among his own people and rarely acknowledged in the West for his pivotal role in bringing a dangerous era of superpower confrontation to a close.
Winston Churchill's Commons tribute to Joseph Stalin, his wartime ally, described him as a leader with no illusions. Arguably the greatest war leader of the 20th century, as the historian Geoffrey Roberts shows, he had presided over the transformation of Russia from a peasant society into global superpower, while his iron will, ruthlessness, high intelligence and strategic grasp played a central role in the USSR's demolition of Nazi Germany.
Small wonder that Mr Vladimir Putin should have assessed Stalin as the most outstanding of the Bolshevik leaders. It is inconceivable that Western leaders could have pulled off their three-card trick with him as they did so easily with Mr Gorbachev. The Stalin revival in Russia does not include the restoration of the Stalinist state and its totalitarian rigours. It is simply a tribute to a colossus who served his country well in the most challenging period of its modern history.
This is a circular route to my principal theme: The West's intervention in the Balkans, of which Kosovo's contrived Albanian-based independence is the latest manifestation. Weakening Serbia is reducing Russia: The goal may prove elusive, but not from any lack of effort. There was much headway in the disastrous Boris Yeltsin decade. Russia's wealth was looted with impunity by that country's oligarchs in tandem with their Western backers.
The economy collapsed as Moscow defaulted on its international debt. Chechen's Islamist insurgency received much sympathy in the West and, possibly, clandestine material help as well. The Beslan massacre of Russian children was greeted with ritual condemnation in much of the British Press, for example, but grim satisfaction could be detected between the lines. The unipolar world order was within America's reach.
The arrival of Mr Vladimir Putin ended Russia's 'Time of Trouble' as surely as Mr George W Bush's accession to the White House began America's. The war in Iraq is a quagmire; the struggle in Afghanistan looks bleak. Pakistan is a wilderness of political uncertainty and there is little comfort for Washington elsewhere. Joseph Stiglitz, America's Economics Nobel Laureate, in a book just published, calculates that his country stands to lose some $ 3 trillion by the time its present military adventures end. The political price at home and abroad could also be forbiddingly high.
Mr Putin has stabilised Russia, mended its broken economy, restored its self-confidence, recovered its abundant natural resources of oil and gas and is prepared to play the Great Game of pipelines in moves worthy of a chess grandmaster. The battle has been well and truly joined.
The cry in the West is that Mr Putin, popular though he is, has eroded democratic norms and the rule of law in his country, hardly a convincing complaint from those who in their time succoured venal dictators such as Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, the Indonesian Suharto, the Chilean Pinochet and any number of Pakistani military despots -- from Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan, through to Zia-ul Haq and now Gen Pervez Musharraf.
The Balkans are one trouble spot; in a globalised world each arc of crisis is linked to others. Terrorism and oil are now part of the seamless robe of international diplomacy. Times were when the US and the UK were blandly indifferent to India's pain in the vale of Kashmir and the flatlands beyond from Pakistan-sponsored ISI bombings and shootings. Then 9/11 struck New York and Washington, DC; the 7/7 attacks in London have together awakened Western establishments to the perils of cynicism and complacency.
As I write, Scotland Yard has broken a UK-based Pakistan terror ring, led by one Mohammed Hamid, which was given to training in the same Lake District immortalised by William Wordsworth. O tempora! O mores!
__._,_.___
*****************************************
Sign the Petition : Release the Arrested University Teachers Immediately : An Appeal to the Caretaker Government of Bangladesh
http://www.mukto-mona.com/human_rights/university_teachers_arrest.htm
*****************************************
Daily Star publishes an interview with Mukto-Mona
http://www.mukto-mona.com/news/daily_star/daily_star_MM.pdf
*****************************************
MM site is blocked in Islamic countries such as UAE. Members of those theocratic states, kindly use any proxy (such as http://proxy.org/) to access mukto-mona.
*****************************************
Mukto-Mona Celebrates 5th Anniversary
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/5_yrs_anniv/index.htm
*****************************************
Mukto-Mona Celebrates Earth Day:
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/Earth_day2006/index.htm
*****************************************
Kansat Uprising : A Special Page from Mukto-Mona
http://www.mukto-mona.com/human_rights/kansat2006/members/
*****************************************
MM Project : Grand assembly of local freedom fighters at Raumari
http://www.mukto-mona.com/project/Roumari/freedom_fighters_union300306.htm
*****************************************
German Bangla Radio Interviews Mukto-Mona Members:
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/Darwin_day/german_radio/
Mukto-Mona Celebrates Darwin Day:
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/Darwin_day/index.htm
*****************************************
Some FAQ's about Mukto-Mona:
http://www.mukto-mona.com/new_site/mukto-mona/faq_mm.htm
****************************************************
VISIT MUKTO-MONA WEB-SITE : http://www.mukto-mona.com/
****************************************************
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".
-Beatrice Hall [pseudonym: S.G. Tallentyre], 190
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe
__,_._,___