Blog, Eastern Europe, Uncategorized

Squat Paradise

It was an exhilarating time to be young in November 1989 and living in East Berlin. It was not only the physical Wall that fell on November 9. It was also the many invisible walls that closed off anyone who didn’t conform. All those who had been largely hidden from sight – punk rockers, dissidents,… Continue reading Squat Paradise

Blog, Eastern Europe, Uncategorized

Challenging Gentrification

Certainly 1989 was a watershed year for politicians, political scientists, and human rights activists in East-Central Europe. But the people that really must have felt the ground shake beneath their feet were: real estate developers. Just imagine all the amazing housing stock that suddenly became available in the heart of beautiful historic cities: medieval buildings,… Continue reading Challenging Gentrification

Blog, Eastern Europe, Uncategorized

Roma Politics

Between 1990 and today an entire class of Roma politicians has emerged. I recently stopped in on a training of local Roma elected officials in Romania, part of a group of several hundred scattered around the country. Roma parliamentarians from around the region recently met in Belgrade and signed an agreement to cooperate on enforcing… Continue reading Roma Politics

Blog, Eastern Europe, Uncategorized

Women against Nationalism

Militant nationalism is not an exclusively male enterprise. But a principal fuel that keeps the enterprise going is high-octane testosterone. You can find this renewable resource in many male-heavy places: the battlefield, the football stadium, the pulpits of politics. And when men gather in pubs to sing hymns to the gods of blood and soil,… Continue reading Women against Nationalism

Blog, Eastern Europe, Uncategorized

Playing Catch Up

Many people I’ve interviewed in East-Central Europe have talked about their initial expectations in 1989-90 that their countries would soon leap the development gap and join Europe proper. Within a few years, they thought they’d be living in the equivalent of Austria or Italy. When several years went by, and then several more, and they… Continue reading Playing Catch Up

Blog, Eastern Europe, Uncategorized

Curating the Curators

There is an art to curation. Curators must not only choose the works for an exhibition, which involves making aesthetic judgments about “good” and “bad” as well as what fits together according to the exhibition’s theme. Curators must also provide a context for understanding the art. They put texts on the wall that identify histories,… Continue reading Curating the Curators

Blog, Eastern Europe, Uncategorized

The Artist as Bullhorn

We quickly become inured to stimuli. We put on a shirt and immediately feel it against our skin. But then, unless we have a neurological disorder or something in the shirt causes a chemical reaction with our skin, we no longer feel the shirt. The same holds with other senses. We become accustomed to the… Continue reading The Artist as Bullhorn

Blog, Eastern Europe, Uncategorized

Voice to the Voiceless

The media in East-Central Europe used to be idea-centric. The unofficial samizdat publications focused on the cruelties and inanities of the regimes, unearthed nearly forgotten history, and often featured philosophic meditations on politics and morality. Even the government-run media tended to be rather high-minded in its emphasis on economic statistics, proletarian values, the activities of… Continue reading Voice to the Voiceless

Blog, Eastern Europe, Uncategorized

Representing the Movement

The Bulgarian election season is underway with voters set to go to the polls on May 12. Public opinion polls show that the two top vote-getters are likely to be the former ruling party, Citizens for a European Bulgaria (GERB), followed by the former Communists, the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP). GERB resigned in February during… Continue reading Representing the Movement

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Challenging the Movement

Last fall, I spent the night in the Bulgarian city of Yambol on my way from the Black Sea coast back to Plovdiv and Sofia. Although I drove around the city looking for my hotel and poked around a bit the following morning, I failed to see what is considered the most remarkable bedesten –… Continue reading Challenging the Movement

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Regretting the Region’s Right Turn

­ Some of the first oppositionists to Communism came from the left, such as the Socialist Revolutionaries in the Soviet Union after the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917. Later, in Eastern Europe, the first stirrings of dissent from below also came from the left – workers in East Germany, dissident Communists in Hungary, reform socialists… Continue reading Regretting the Region’s Right Turn

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Serbia’s Truth-O-Meter

Politicians have lied since the very beginning of politics. Ramses II fought to a stalemate against the Hittites then came back and announced to his fellow Egyptians that he’d thoroughly conquered the adversary in battle. PBS, oddly, dates the beginning of political falsehood more than a thousand years later to the Roman emperor Augustus, who… Continue reading Serbia’s Truth-O-Meter

Blog, Eastern Europe, Uncategorized

Inside the Movement

When I met Miroslav Durmov in 1990, he was a spokesperson for the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF), a political formation that focused on minority rights in Bulgaria, particularly those of ethnic Turks. We conversed in Russian, since he didn’t speak English. He wasn’t himself ethnic Turkish. But he had been concerned for some… Continue reading Inside the Movement

Blog, Eastern Europe, Uncategorized

Staying Critical

The colonial relationship was reasonably straightforward. The empire dictated terms to the colony, and the colonial administration carried out the orders. Sometimes colonial subjects revolted. Sometimes the imperial agents went “native” and adopted the culture and perspectives of the people they were supposed to be pushing around. But the power dynamic was for the most… Continue reading Staying Critical

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The Ideas Factory

In the middle of Sofia is a big space where the mausoleum of Georgi Dimitrov once stood. In 1990, the removal of Dimitrov’s preserved body, followed by its cremation and burial, was a symbolic rejection of the old regime. The mausoleum itself was taken down in 1999, though a majority of Bulgarians opposed the demolition.… Continue reading The Ideas Factory

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Life under Sanctions

Even at an intuitive level, sanctions never made much sense to me. If North Korea is such an isolated country, and isolation only reinforces the leadership’s paranoia, then adopting a policy of further isolating the country through sanctions seems counterproductive. If you want the people of Iran to rise up against their leaders, why give… Continue reading Life under Sanctions

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Losing My Illusions

Anyone engaged in social change has grappled with the essential question. Should I work within the system or outside the system? In the United States, the question is often expressed geographically: to operate “inside the Beltway” or “outside the Beltway.” The Beltway is, of course, the ring road that encircles Washington, DC. Some start off… Continue reading Losing My Illusions

Asia, Korea, Uncategorized, US Foreign Policy

The Paradoxes of the Pacific Pivot

The “Pacific pivot” of the United States is nothing new. At the same time, it doesn’t really exist. And yet, even though it doesn’t exist, this pivot is partly responsible for the escalation of tensions in and around the Korean peninsula. How can all three of these statements be simultaneously true? Such are the paradoxes… Continue reading The Paradoxes of the Pacific Pivot

Blog, Eastern Europe, Uncategorized

Defending the Underdogs

It looked and sounded like something out of the Deep South during the civil rights era in the United States. Angry protesters, men and women, were shouting racist slogans and trying to prevent a group of 50 young schoolchildren from entering an integrated preschool. Except that this wasn’t happening a half-century ago. It was happening… Continue reading Defending the Underdogs

Blog, Eastern Europe, Uncategorized

Courting Capital

I was struck by the banners in the airport in Belgrade. They hung in a series from the ceiling and highlighted different Serbian cities. Pirot was represented by a tire and the tagline “on the right track.” Loznica featured a pear surrounded by cherries and berries and the tagline “fruitful investment.” And Subotica displayed a… Continue reading Courting Capital

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The Regime Changer

After 1989, some of the dissidents of East-Central Europe went back to their original jobs as journalists or engineers or teachers. Others threw themselves into politics, as Vaclav Havel somewhat reluctantly did. And then there was the smallest category of them all: the dissidents who turned professional. There were, after all, still some tyrants to… Continue reading The Regime Changer

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Democracy Is Not Enough

It has not been easy for the countries of East-Central Europe to establish stable, functioning democracies. Strong-arm leaders – like Victor Orban in Hungary or, until recently, Vaclav Klaus in the Czech Republic – have persistent appeal. Corruption has claimed any number of political victims, from Adrian Nastase in Romania to Janez Jansa in Slovenia.… Continue reading Democracy Is Not Enough

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Croatia’s Unpopulist Party

The Party of Rights in Croatia traces its lineage back to Ante Starcevic, who is sometimes referred to as the father of Croatia. In 1861, when his country was still part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Starcevic co-founded the Party of Rights as a vehicle for creating an independent Croatia. The long “springtime of nations” was… Continue reading Croatia’s Unpopulist Party

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The World According to Ataka

Three items in Volen Siderov’s office reflect his current image. The religious icons on the wall speak to his embrace of traditional Bulgarian values and to the agreement his party concluded with the Bulgarian Orthodox Church in 2006. The antique sword hanging nearby stands in for his militancy. And the heavy boxing bag is part… Continue reading The World According to Ataka

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Religious Freedom in Bulgaria

The “case of the 13 imams” sounds almost mythic. But the current case the Bulgarian government is prosecuting against 13 imams from the area of Pazardzhik – west of Plovdiv on the way to Sofia – is very real. They stand accused of preaching radical Islam, with potential criminal sentences of up to five years.… Continue reading Religious Freedom in Bulgaria

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Speaking Openly in Serbia

The incidence of HIV/AIDS in Serbia is comparatively low: 0.1 percent of the population compared to 0.6 percent in the United States, 1 percent in Russia, and 25 percent in Swaziland. Nevertheless, those who live with the disease report that they are stigmatized, ostracized, and have difficulties gaining access to treatment. Some are fired from… Continue reading Speaking Openly in Serbia

Blog, Eastern Europe, Uncategorized

Two Cheers for Government

It’s not easy to find people in East-Central Europe who will put in a good word for government. First there are all the traditional complaints: government is slow, inefficient, corrupt. On top of that is the residual anti-communist belief that current state structures are only cosmetically altered versions of the old system. Then throw in… Continue reading Two Cheers for Government

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Finding a Normal Path in Serbia

Even today, the country in Europe with the largest population of internally displaced persons (IDP) is Serbia. More than a decade after the end of the wars in former Yugoslavia, more than 200,000 people remain in limbo in Serbia. Many ethnic Serbs fled – or were expelled from — Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo during those conflicts… Continue reading Finding a Normal Path in Serbia

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A Tale of Two Reforms

Slovenia and Bulgaria are, respectively, the best-case scenario and the cautionary example of “transition” states. Both have struggled to transform communist-era economic and political structures. Both are now members of the European Union and NATO. But their economic and political realities place them practically on different planets. Slovenia has a per capita GDP of $29,000… Continue reading A Tale of Two Reforms

Blog, Eastern Europe, Uncategorized

Restoring the Erased

It took two decades, but the Erased finally got their day in court. And the court ruled in their favor. On June 26, 2012, the European Court of Human Rights upheld a lower court ruling that Slovenia had violated the European Convention on Human Rights in its treatment of the roughly 25,000 people stripped of… Continue reading Restoring the Erased