Trite (and tritely wrong) comparisons are being drawn between what is happening in different Arab countries and the collpase of European communism. My thoughts: Egypt‘s Berlin Wall Moment? Back in 1990/91 first the Warsaw Pact then the Soviet Union keeled over and died. In the arc of decadent national socialist […]
The Egypt drama is producing floods of very shallow analysis waters. Seumas Milne in the Guardian can always be relied upon to give us the Left Dimwit view, complete with added Dave Spart adverbs: The manoeuvres at the top of the regime have transparently been choreographed in Washington … more […]
Here’s an interesting one for those of you interested in the former Yugoslavia space and communism in general. What about the massed archives of the former Yugoslav secret police (UDBA)? Part of the problem with the former Yugoslavia space is that there has been no popular movement in favour of […]
I remember a senior American diplomat arriving at the FCO in 1992 and describing just how busy he was helping get US food aid to a Russia left reeling after the abrupt collapse of communism. We genteel Brits were startled when he described himself as ‘drinkin’ from a pressure-hose’. The imagery! Still, […]
Attentive readers recall that a year ago I joined a group of former British Ambassadors in setting up ADRg Ambassadors, a new panel selling professional diplomatic consulting, training and mediation skills to support ‘corporate diplomacy’. Here is what I wrote at the time. Since then we have been busy ‘building the brand’ to […]
Last year I wrote about Timothy Snyder’s monumental Bloodlands, the history of the carnage wreaked across central Europe by the C20’s two twin collectivist totalitarianisms, Communism and Nazism. I warned against Left collectivist apologists for Stalin such as Slavoj Zizek: We dare not underestimate the danger which people like Zizek represent. […]
A sign on a run-down barn spotted on my morning dog-walk in deepest Oxfordshire: G R People throwing stones at telegraphs will be prosecuted
Egypt faces more or less spontaneous mass unrest aimed at toppling President Mubarak, who has been in power too long for anyone’s good. Great swathes of Egypt’s Internet access has been shut down. James Cowie is following: This is a completely different situation from the modest Internet manipulation that took place in […]
You non-Slavists out there must be wondering why so many Russian and Central/East European women tennis names end in -ova. Such as Maria Sharapova: Luckily there is a handy and quite extensive explanation on YouTube:
