Politics & Current Affairs

“To the Lake” by Kapka Kassabova: transported to another world

Fascinated by Kapka Kassabova’s “Borders”, an evocative portrayal of the little-known area of Thrace split between Bulgaria, where she lived as a child, Greece and Turkey, I was keen to read “To the Lake” which promised to be in a similar vein. The focus is in fact on two lakes, Ohrid and Prespa, connected by underground springs, which lie partly in the little-known republic renamed in 2019 as “Northern Macedonia”. The lake region is also shared with Albania, and in the case of Prespa with Greece as well. Centuries of conflict, migration and mingling mean that families of Macedonian origin, in whole or part, are to be found in all these countries, creating the kind of mixture after which a “salade macédoine” is named.

Ohrid is more of a tourist area, with atmospheric monasteries like St.Naum and former cave churches with ancient, too often desecrated murals, accessed by stone steps from the shore. Yet there is the persistent shadow of the national boundary which Macedonian boats cannot cross for fear of entering Albanian water. In the wilder Prespa area, the Greeks claim that the shadow is cast literally by the mountains, to darken the Albanian portion of the lake. Putting humans to shame, a large population of pelicans coexist amicably with the cormorants, who apparently share with them the fish they dive deep into the lake to catch.

Athough the name “Makedonia” probably comes from the word “tall” to describe the “Macedons” of antiquity, it is often claimed to mean “sorrow” and “strife”, from the Slavic word “maka”. Even local place names reflect this, like the “Mean Valley”, where soldiers suffered so badly scaling the slopes with heavy equipment in deep snow, overlooked by a peak called “Coffin”.

Convinced that what she calls “unprocessed trauma” has been passed down through generations of women on her mother’s Macedonian side of the family, Kapka Kassabova felt compelled to return to the lake region in order to understand the past, and break the pattern of depression, undiagnosed pain and fatigue, wanderlust and eternal longing “for something”.

If this sounds bleak, not to say neurotic, she finds healing in the end, waxing philosophical with lake water metaphors. “Every possibility is still at the source. All it asks of you is to stop struggling. Wade in..and free yourself of the burden you’ve been carrying for centuries…become anything….at one with the water…though what you are in the end is water, a spring that renews itself every second as it rushes in ecstasy to the lake.”

The author’s style is often poetic, although at times overintense. A “macédoine” of travelogue, history, geography, memories, anecdotes laced with humour and poignancy, legends and frequent encounters with the locals, or returning emigrants, all combine to create a vivid impression of a beautiful, remote, complex land. Admittedly, the detail tends to be so fragmented that the reader needs to consult Wikipedia and some good maps to gain a coherent sense of the overall chronology and geography. Yet the author succeeds in generating empathy for migrants, rage against regimes which needlessly impose pointless , cruel restrictions, a heightened awareness of cultures outside our own – and above all, the desire to visit the area.

“A coup in Turkey” by Jeremy Seal: Repeating history

Since the decaying Ottoman Empire’s collapse after the First World War, Turkey has been dominated by autocratic, ambitious leaders with differing visions apart from a common penchant for grand infrastructure projects, from Kemal Atatürk’s creation of a new capital in Ankara, to Erdoğan’s airports, high-speed railways, and Çamlıca Mosque, the largest in Turkey, complete with art gallery, library, and a conference hall.

Travel writer Jeremy Seal has drawn on a deep knowledge and love of the country to focus on the long-forgotten decade of the 1950s in which the rise and fall of Prime Minister Adnan Menderes – Adnan Bey – reveals a good deal about the tensions which have led Turkey from Atatürk’s dream of a modern, progressive secular republic to the current reality of Erdoğan’s nominal democracy with revived support for Islam, probably reflecting the wishes of the majority, but which has also suppressed free speech and slipped into corruption.

A charismatic, successful cotton farmer, Menderes risked helping to found a new Democrat Party in the aftermath of the Second World War. Attacking an authoritarian Republican Party which had been Atatürk’s legacy, he asserted, “governments that do their work well have no reason to fear freedom of the press”. Gaining power as Prime Minister, Menderes prioritised improving the lives of villagers subjected to secular education when what they really needed was clean water, electricity and more productive farms. Although he was loved for “restoring to right-thinking religious folk the things they wanted, like mosques”, to paraphrase Erdoğan, who has followed his example, perhaps from the same desire to increase political support, the practical reforms unfortunately misfired. Imported steel ploughs led to soil erosion, and unrealistic price guarantees for wheat crops bankrupted the Treasury.

Menderes compounded his errors: relying on popular support to the detriment of Turkey’s “influencers”, academics, journalists and military leaders; arguably wasting money on vanity projects such as mosques; laying himself open to charges of immorality through his many affairs in Istanbul, neglecting his loyal wife. Under pressure, he sadly went the way of too many other politicians in becoming authoritarian. The last straw was the granting of special powers to seize the property and order the imprisonment of those who resisted the work of a commission set up to investigate the “destructive and illegal” activities of the rival Republican Party.

Although Atatürk had theoretically banned the army from involvement in politics, it conducted the 1960 coup in which Menderes and many other Democrats were imprisoned on an island prior to a prolonged trial of questionable legality, leading to his rushed execution in a bungled “compromise” in which most of the other death sentences were commuted in the face of international condemnation. Before imprisonment broke his health, Menderes insisted that he had been democratically elected, and was supported by the “National Will”. Certainly, he retained widespread support, although some must have been turned against him by the distortion of facts, such as the creation of “false martyrs” – claimed to have been massacred” during protests against his regime , but in fact killed by “failures of the army’s own safety practices”.

The author contrasts this with the failed coup of 2016 in which the “National Will” of public pressure in the streets helped to foil the attempted military takeover of the news media.

This novel has been widely praised and contains interesting information which should be better known. So why was I disappointed? Frequent digressions and anecdotes are no doubt intended to flesh out an appreciation of Turkish society, but combined with the continual dodging back and forth in time, they create a disjointed, even confusing effect. Imagined conversations at dramatic points prove stilted and jarring. In his evident sympathy for Menderes, Jeremy Seal may have let him off too lightly. For instance, did he really “secretly stoke a demonstration in Istanbul in favour of Turkish claims on Cyprus, to the point of instructing local police and military units “not to intervene” and was he “behind the Salonica bomb” explosion? I would have liked less on the Gatwick air crash he survived, and the grim details of his last days, and more analytical overview of the fascinating period which brought Turkey from Atatürk to the present situation.

Why the Germans do it Better – Notes from a Grown-Up Country by John Kampfner: Wisdom after the Fall

Clearly driven by disappointed rage over the Brexit decision, subsequent bungling of negotiations for a trade deal and incompetent handling of the coronavirus, the author may have over-egged the pudding of German superiority, which his German acquaintances seem to disclaim or at least play down, mindful of the Nazi past which has made them continually self-questioning and reluctant to praise their country. They retain compound nouns for “coming to terms with history”, “culture of remembrance” and “collective guilt”: no longstanding national day ceremonies, no pageantry.

Kampfner sets his analysis in the context of key factors: the post war reconstruction through competent leader Erhard’s “Economic Miracle” with the Basic Law to develop political consciousness and strengthen democracy; the visionary, ambitious, inevitably costly Unification which has raised living standards and reduced pollution in the East, but not without ongoing tensions; the recent absorption of a million refugees with the pragmatic justification of easing an acute labour shortage, but at the cost of triggering the rise of the right-wing anti-immigration AfD.

The author attributes Germany’s relative success to the intelligent way decisions are made reflecting the emotional maturity and solidity of Angela Merkel. From the 1980s Germany diverged from US and UK which opted for more deregulation and a get-rich-quick, “look after number one” culture. Instead, Germans place less reliance on individual acquisitiveness as indicated by their more restrictive shopping hours and a greater tendency to save, even if interest rates low, rather than speculate.

German society is based more on “a sense of mutual obligation, shared endeavour and the belief that people need rules to keep themselves in check”. There is a high degree of consensus in underlying values – commitment to a free market economy involving organised and responsible capitalism with a legal requirement for worker representation on company boards rather than conflict in the work place, and investment in skills and productivity of workers. Wealth produced by the market is redistributed to achieve social justice and reduce inequalities between regions. Small and medium-sized family owned enterprises spread round the country play a major role in creating employment and wealth. They are typified by social awareness and active support for local communities.

If this sounds too good to be true, there are weaknesses and flaws. The Deutsche Bank investment in sub-prime mortgages, and VW’s manipulation of tests on emissions to make diesel cars appear less polluting are well known. Yet I was surprised to learn of: Germany’s slow adoption of digital innovation and Artificial Intelligence; lack of investment in infrastructure resulting in rundown school buildings, crumbling road bridges, unreliable internet and trains that do not run on time – ironical in view of Germanic concern with punctuality; an airport designed to serve the unified Berlin has been delayed for years by a plethora of faults. Austerity measures after the 2008 financial crash meant that the states were starved of cash for vital investment while the central government had run up an embarrassing surplus by 2018.

Despite the growing strength of the Green Party and the good intentions to develop wind and solar power and close nuclear power stations by 2021 and coal-fired plants by 2038, external political considerations like concerns over the reliability of a gas pipe-line from Russia and strong counter lobbying from state-subsidised east German lignite mines may well prevent this.

Although many facts will inevitably date quite quickly, this is an informative and thought-provoking read. It seems we have something to learn from a society in which compromise, cooperation and redistribution to achieve justice are accepted for ethical and practical reasons rather than regarded as naïve extremism. On the other hand, the Germans were rather hard on the Greeks…….

“Good Economics for Hard Times” by Abhijit V. Bannerjee & Esther Duflo: rambling too widely?

I had high expectations of what promised to be an accessible book on post-financial crisis economics by a couple of Nobel Prize winning academics.

Themed by a range of interesting topics like migration, trade, growth rates, climatic change, or artificial intelligence, although it is often hard to work out from the chapter headings what they are likely to be about, I was soon disappointed by what seems an overly superficial, disjointed, anecdotal approach, by turn tending to labour over stating the obvious, or failing to develop important ideas sufficiently. I understand an attempt to avoid putting general readers off with too many diagrams and tables, but used in moderation these can be more effective than wordy paragraphs.

Ideas too often seem presented in a rather one-sided way. For instance, the benefits of migration are cited, but not the complex problems it can create. I was surprised that the situation in Europe was not used as a major example of this.

At times, the tone appears a little patronising. The “better answers” in the title prove in short supply and in the main quite woolly.

A shorter, more carefully considered book expanding on any one chapter would have been more useful. But perhaps this book is not meant for mature readers already armed with a basic knowledge of economics who have also developed a good understanding of social and political issues. Ancillary to a rather dry basic economics course for students, this might be useful in stimulating questioning debate.

“Second-hand time” by Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich: “Cracking the mystery wrapped in an enigma”

Second-hand Time by [Alexievich, Svetlana]

This is an amalgam of largely unedited and at times remarkably frank, no-holds-barred interviews with individuals and fragments of conversations with groups living in the former Soviet Union after the collapse of communism in the early 1990s. The author’s personal experience of life in Belarus, and her obvious listening skills no doubt helped to draw people out.

Patterns emerge from the diverse accounts. Despite the violence, physical hardship and social oppression, those who lived under Stalin’s regime retain a nostalgia for the past which may at first seem surprising. It must be partly due to conditioning from an early age with the propaganda of patriotic songs:
“World capital, our capital/Like the Kremlin’s stars you glow/You’re the pride of the whole cosmos/Granite beauty our Moscow”.

Yet it also seems related to the past pride in being part of an empire, the sense of purpose in helping to build it through fighting on the winning side against Germany, working with one’s hands to develop it, sending Gargarin as the first man into space. There is also the lost “dream of equality and brotherhood”, and drive to “create Heaven on Earth” – the pining for community spirit and mutual support, overlooking the practice of informing on friends and neighbours. The “sovok” (Soviet man) remains appalled by the current lack of idealism, the preoccupation with obtaining consumer goods (“A Mercedes is no kind of dream”) and rewards for the crooks who control the new market system.

Then there are those born after Stalin’s death in 1953, who grew up reading forbidden books, and conducting endless debates in the kitchen about how life might be changed for the better, half-joking over the risk of a bugged light fitting. They were initially seduced by Gorbachev’s “Perestroika”, even daring on his behalf to brave the tanks on the streets in the abortive coup against him. This made their disillusion all the deeper when the unchained capitalism of the 1990s made them the victims of crooks and violent gangsters, creating large-scale unemployment for the first time, forcing even the skilled and educated to sell their possessions and work as cleaners or flog goods smuggled in from Europe, and reducing to destitution pensioners whose savings had become worthless.

I think the title “second-hand time” refers to the irony of how events have come round full circle in some ways: Russia is ruled in 2020 by an ex-KGB man who has made himself into a modern equivalent of an autocratic Tsar. There is even a “new cult of Stalin” with “everything Soviet back in style, but in the commercialised form of Soviet cafes, Soviet salami, Soviet-themed TV shows, even tourist trips to Stalin’s camps. Young people are reading Marx by choice.

The book also covers the horrors of civil war in areas like Armenia and Chechnya, where different ethnic groups who had previously intermingled came to blows once the iron hand of communist control was removed. The second-class treatment, racial and religious discrimination against migrants like the Tajik street cleaners of Moscow is another troubling aspect of recent change.

Does the lack of editing not only create a book of nearly 700 pages, too long for many people to find the time to read it, but also make for excessive repetition, or does the latter serve to reinforce important impressions? I am not sure what a reader with no prior knowledge would make of all this. Even with the useful chronology of political events from 1953, it is sometimes hard to keep track of exactly what people are referring to. Yet I kept coming across sharp observations and vivid insights which encouraged me to read on. I regret that the author did not do more to sift these out for the reader, although you may feel that the rambling, contradictory nature of the text adds to its power.

It sometimes seems as if the typical Russian man is addicted to vodka, continually beating his wife and children. Women are portrayed as neurotic, hysterical and superstitious, with a self-destructive urge to nurture inadequate men, particularly prisoners, down on their luck, who will inevitably repay their kindness with brutality in due course. Westerners, it seems, can never really understand the tortured, sentimental Russian soul…..But despite the frequent oppressive bleakness, this book encourages readers to form their own understanding of a complex situation of mingled brutal tragedy and poignant humanity. It proves a very powerful and informative aid to grasping the current nature of Russian society and how it has come about.