REMEMBRANCE

As a historian / archaeologist and someone who has more than a passing interest in politics I have to find a happy medium between living in the past and living in the now. It is important that we remember what has been done (for good and for bad) and to use that knowledge to make intelligent sensible choices about our future. I am a big believer in ‘rememberance’, by that I mean we should never be selective when it comes to remembering history.

If you want to wallow in nostalgia about the ‘British Empire’ or the ‘Soviet Union’ that’s fine, but, while remembering the heroic and principled stand against fascism in 1940 then you should also chose not to forget about the Bengal famine (which killed six million) in the middle of the second world war or the million or so who starved to death in Ireland in the middle of the 19th century.

The remnants of Stalin's Artic Railway

For those who yearn for the strong man in Russian politics and days when the sound of ‘Soviet rockets made the world tremble’ don’t forget the millions who were murdered or imprisoned by Stalin and his cronies (not to mention the millions killed and imprisoned by the fascist regimes in Europe and Asia in the 1930’s and the 1940’s) and the repressive regimes that held sway across half of our continent until the early 1990’s.

The vast majority of the old brutal oppressive Communist dictatorships, save for Cuba and the People's Republic of China (PRC) have collapsed and been rightly cast into the dustbin of history. While both Cuba and the PRC have made real social achievements (particularly when it comes to health care and literacy) it is important to remember that these achievements have come at one hell of a price in broken Human lives and scattered bones.

In recent years the tide may well have finally turned against dictatorship, even though we may yet have some way to go before they are finally gone. Certainly the real courage shown by protesters against tyrannical (nominally Communist and other) regimes, particularly in the last 12 months has been impressive, it has however been matched by what can best be described as a failure of leadership on the part of the UN Security Council which appears tired, out of step and unfit for purpose.

ALEXEI NAVALNY RELEASED

Alexei Navalny (REUTERS)

Alexei Navalny, an anti-corruption blogger and a key figure in the rallies after Russia's disputed parliamentary elections, has been released from prison in Moscow. He served fifteen in custody for “obstructing police“ and was freed this morning in the early hours. Mr Navalny told journalists and reporters that "extraordinary efforts" would be made to continue the protest movement. Protesters have demanded a re-run of the flawed 4th December elections when Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's United Russia party won a narrow majority. Democracy activists have identified instances of ballot-stuffing and used social media to report them. In the days following the elections Alexi Navalny was detained (6th December) and Moscow (and other Russian towns and cities) saw the largest anti-government protests since the collapse of the Soviet Union. More mass protests against ballot-rigging are planned on Saturday in Moscow.

VACLAV HAVEL (1936 - 2011)

Vaclav Havel 1936 - 2011

News that Vaclav Havel, the Czech Republic's first president after the Velvet Revolution against communist rule, has died at the age of 75 will sadden many and bring back memories of the revolutions that swept Eastern Europe in the autumn of 1989. Havel a former dissident playwright, had suffered from prolonged ill-health, died this (Sunday) morning. Havel was born in 1936 to a wealthy family in Czechoslovakia and as a result was a marked man, considered by the Communist authorities as "too bourgeois", he was banned from going to University, so he studied at night school. He wrote, had his writing banned and his plays forced underground after the 1968 Prague Spring. He first came to international prominence as a dissident playwright in the 1970s through his involvement with the human rights manifesto Charter 77. In 1977, he co-authored the the Charter 77 movement for democratic change and faced along with other prominent dissidents near constant harassment. Havel was imprisoned and became Communist Czechoslovakia's most famous dissident and refused to compromise with the Communist authorities. Havel given the choice by the Communists, refused to leave the country preferring to stay and continue the struggle against Communist tyranny. Havel and the charter 77 dissidents were heavily involved in the successful velvet revolution in November 1989 which saw the effective peaceful demise of the Communist dictatorship. He was elected as Czechoslovakia's first post-communist president in December 1989. Havel successfully oversaw the difficult transition from authoritarian communism to democracy, and presided over the "velvet divorce" which saw the peaceful creation of the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993. Havel, left office in 2003 and continued writing. He died at his country home north-east of Prague.

TIME FOR A REAL RUSSIAN REVOLUTION?

The current wave of demonstrations and protests in Russia over what outside observers have said were seriously flawed elections are important, but, they may not yet be another Russian revolution, even though one is well overdue. The focus of the protests have been Vladimir Putin (current Prime Minister and previous two-term President) and his ruling United Russia party, who has stated his intention to run again for President of Russia in 2012.

United Russia, known to some Russians as ‘the Party of Thieves and Swindlers' (because of its fairly blatant involvement in corruption) suffered a significant and visible electoral setback in Russian elections a week ago. Embarrassingly for Putin his United Russia's visibly reduced vote was only made possible by widespread and well organised electoral fraud.

Unfortunately this time the traditional ballot stuffing procedure was actually filmed by opposition protesters and plastered across the internet for the world and ordinary Russians to see. What followed has been some of the largest Russia wide public protests since the demise of the Soviet Union. From one end of Russia to the other, large crowds have gathered openly and loudly demanding that the elections be re-run.

The protesters raised a number of common key issues:

• freedom for political prisoners;
• the annulment of the election results;
• the resignation of Vladimir Churov (who heads the election commission);
• the opening of an official investigation into vote fraud;
• the registration of opposition parties
• new democratic legislation on parties and elections;
• new democratic and open elections.

What we are witnessing may not be the end of the Russian oligarchy more likely it's the end of the beginning of the end of the oligarchy. A Russian spring may yet be some way off, that said it's probably worth a recap of how Russia got here. Russia has only recently emerged from 70 years of Soviet style Communist tyranny. For many Russians the nine years of relative democracy under Yeltsin were pretty grim difficult years.

The country's living standards plummeted collapsed, criminality on many levels openly flourished and the country's assets were looted (sorry privatised) and pillaged for quick profits and any social consequences of the privatisation process were simply ignored. Any remaining influence that the inheritor state of the USSR had abroad for good or bad was squandered. The West lectured the re-emergent Russia rather than helping the Russians to bed in democratic and legal processes and looked for rich pickings.

It was not wonder that for many Russian's the arrival of Vladimir Putin, in 1999, was a breath of fresh air and stability. While Putin's methods were far from gentle, the results were relatively spectacular, as order was re-established. Living standards (fed by a rise in world oil prices) rapidly shot up and Russia influence overseas mattered. The price was a mercenary driven fraudulent political system – which to many seemed a small price worth paying at the time.

Despite the fact that the system was inherently fragile Putin/Medvedev popularity peaked at around 80 per cent or more. The unfolding Ukrainian Orange revolution caused panic in the Kremlin and led to a significant spend of accumulated oil money to dampen down any social protest and discontent. Internationally Russia has consistently worked to thwart any potential international support for the “Arab Spring” and is working to block any effective UN Security Council action on Syria.

The question is has the wheel begun to come of Putin's wagon? And if so why? One reason why Putin's star may be fading is that much of the planet is in recession and the demand for oil and gas has fallen (which leads to a corresponding drop in revenues) and a drop in Russian economic growth. Putin is also facing a new younger generation of Russian politicians and ordinary Russians who have no nostalgia for a watered down Soviet pastiche. The new younger Russians are well educated and well-travelled who are desirous of the same material benefits and civic society as the rest of us Europeans.

And thanks to the internet (which is free in Russia – now that's a novel concept) they know exactly who other societies function and how well or how badly people live. We and the modern Russians are no longer living in the 1980’s, despite the lack of free press and any real degree of impartiality in the Russian state (or oligarch) controlled mass media, most Russians can simply go on-lien to see what state their country is in and as Lenin said ‘What needs to be done?’

Ironically it was a failure on the part of the coup plotters in the old Soviet Union to understand the impact of faxes (the then brand spanking new communications technology)during the coup attempt in August 1991 that brought about the downfall of the Soviet Union. Perhaps it will be internet and various internet applications that will bring down the oligarchs in Russia the dame way it has brought down the tyrants in the Middle East.

We may see the start of a belated attempt to close the open door that is the internet over the next few weeks and months in Russia. Certainly last week, Alexei Navalny, one of Russia’s best-known opposition figure and a crusading anti-corruption blogger, was somewhat cack-handedly and un-subtly locked up. In recent months democratic opponents of United Russia have been detained without trial in psychiatric hospitals in an unpleasant echo of the old Soviet Union.

Naturally Putin has put the blame for the protests on Western driven agitation – any old Soviet ploy. The Russians election period saw a significant increase in web based attacks on opposition websites and discussion forums. A veritable flood of pro-Putin and pro-regime tweets has taken place. If the Putin regime survives these current protests this is one problem won't go away and potentially a problem that cannot simply be bought off beyond the short term with a wedge of oil money from Russian government slush funds.

While the March presidential election is important it is very likely that Putin (who is still popular with many ordinary Russians) will win it. Russian authorities have played fast and loose with elections and electoral law in the past and opposition candidates may find themselves outside the electoral process next year. The Russians state, despite the economic downturn, has around $100 billion to dip into as pre-election sweeteners between now and polling day.

It is worth remembering that the Kremlin machine can play subtle and well as hard ball when it wants to or feels the need to. Russia is a powerful state and is flush with gas and lucrative energy contracts and is pretty willing to use control of its energy supplies against those states that won't toe the line. So what should we in the energy hungry / energy dependent West do about the situation in Russia? In recent years, Western governments repeatedly looked the other way when elections have been stolen or rigged in Russia or kept their silence.

Officially the Russian state has signed and committed itself to conventions committing itself to open political debate, fair elections and a free press. Russia, just like any other state should live up to those standards, and the West should be critical when Russia does not. What happens in Russia is important and Russia is an important European state and one of our neighbours. A Russian spring may well be around the corner and we may be seeing the first steps in the process that leads to Russia taking its rightful place among the other leading European democracies.

WHAT PRICE LIBERTY?

BBC Newsnight'S Sue Lloyd-Roberts was smuggled into Homs, which is the scene of some of Syria's strongest anti-government protests and most violent army crackdowns, to see what life is like for people there.



The Syrian city of Homs was one of the first cities to join the Syrian anti-government uprising when it began back in March. Thousands of city residents gathered in the main square to call for the lifting of the government's emergency laws and a genuine democracy.

Since that time the city has been effectively besieged by President Bashar al-Assad's armed forces and has been the scene of almost daily attacks. The unofficial title of the "Capital of the Syrian Revolution" has been earned at a heavy price without almost half of the killings of civilians since the uprising began, estimated to be at least 3,000, having taken place there.

TEN LONG YEARS

The BBC liberates Kabul in 2001

The rout of the Taliban and their flight from Kabul (and most of Afghanistan) following NATO's invasion of Afghanistan (back in 2001) and the relative ease of victory was it turned out somewhat deceptive. If someone had told us ten years ago that some of our service personnel (including some of my relatives) would be effectively commuting to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban insurgency many people might well have doubted their sanity.

Yet NATO's war in Afghanistan War will be 10 years old this Friday (7th October), a pro-US government sits in Kabul, Osama Bin Laden is (admittedly somewhat belatedly) dead (and won't be missed by most)and NATO plans to leave in 2014. Job done? Not quite, the rules of the game and the objectives have changed. Despite the best efforts of the US and NATO the war shows no sign of drawing to a satisfactory conclusion however that will finally be measured.

No wonder that there will be no official commemoration or recognition of this anniversary in the USA. NATO casualties continue to mount and victory whatever that is may be as elusive as ever. The elusive nature of success in Afghanistan is partially down to the ongoing Taliban insurgency and its support and sanctuary from Pakistan, not to mention the Afghan government's spectacular corruption and incompetence.

CIA statistics record that Afghanistan has the world's second-highest infant mortality rate with 149.2 of every 1,000 children die before they reach their first birthday. At five years of age some 26 percent of them are dead. For those Afghan children who make it through childhood, six of every 10 will grow up stunted, ending up short in stature and mentally challenged as a result of malnutrition during the early years of life. Over 70 percent of Afghans are illiterate and life expectancy stands at 45 years of age (Angola's is worse).

Few impartial observers doubt that after NATO departs the Taliban and their militant allies will stream back into Afghanistan from their sanctuaries in Pakistan. By 2014 if Afghanistan's standing army is not ready and the Afghan government is not ready to support it then some thirteen years of war, thousands of lives, and billions of dollars will have been squandered for nothing and the country will fall will some pretty grim consequences, even by Afghan standards, especially for Afghan women.

Let's be honest, the US and NATO took their eye of the ball by invading Iraq, serious efforts to build up a serious Afghan army did not really begin until 2009. Before the Taliban insurgency began NATO's intention was to create a small Afghan force to deal with internal disorder of a domestic variety rather than a full scale insurgency. The new Afghan army would also provide the Afghan people with a visible sign of unity after several decades of conflict and civil war.

NATO training mission began in earnest around two years ago, at that point the Afghan army's desertion rate stood at around 85 percent. There have been some significant improvements from January to June (2011), NATO figures, show that around 24,000 soldiers, some 14 percent of the 170,000-man force, deserted.

Despite this relative good news ongoing problems with literacy and competence remain. Aside from fighting the insurgents, now NATO has got into the education process and operates numerous elementary schools. NATO estimates that Afghan security forces will reach around fifty percent overall literacy rates by 2012.

Another significant problem to be faced in 2014 is the Afghan government, which by most estimates is probably the most corrupt on earth. At present the levels of corruption show few signs of abating. Doctors working in government hospitals have been noted to leave wounded Afghan soldiers to expire in their hospital beds if bribes are not paid. For ordinary Afghans the medical infrastructure in the country could be best described as fragile.

Vast amounts of aid are being poured in Afghanistan, yet the Afghan government does not have a transparent, workable budget, at least not in the normal sense. For 2001 the Afghan budget is nominally $14.3 billion dollars over 90% of which comes from foreign aid, much of it purloined on the way to its intended purposes.

Once Afghanistan (just like Iraq) is out of sight and out of mind will the money keep flowing in. Or will the West make the same mistake is made in the late 1980s and drop any interest in the country? The last time that happened the Afghan people were abandoned following their effective defeat of a faltering Soviet Union, they paid the butchers bill in spades. After the civil war the Taliban swept into power...appearing reasonable in comparison with the warlords (who are NATO allies this time around) and we are all painfully aware of what followed.

Wangari Muta Maathai

Wangari Muta Maathai (1940–2011)

Wangari Muta Maathai (1940–2011) has died, she was a Nobel Peace Laureate; environmentalist; scientist; parliamentarian; founder of the Green Belt Movement; advocate for social justice, human rights, and democracy; elder; and peacemaker.

She lived and worked in Nairobi, Kenya. In 1971 she received a Ph.D., the first woman in east and central Africa to do so. She became the first woman to chair a department at the University and the first to be appointed a professor.

Professor Maathai was active in a number of environmental and humanitarian organizations in Nairobi, including the National Council of Women of Kenya (NCWK). Through the NCWK, she spoke to rural women and learned from them about the deteriorating environmental and social conditions affecting poor, rural Kenyans (especially women).

The women told her that they lacked firewood for cooking and heating, that clean water was scarce, and nutritious food was limited. Professor Maathai suggested to them that planting trees might be an answer. The trees would provide wood for cooking, fodder for livestock, and material for fencing; they would protect watersheds and stabilize the soil, improving agriculture.

The Green Belt Movement (GBM), was formally established in 1977 and has since mobilized hundreds of thousands of women and men to plant more than 47 million trees, restoring degraded environments and improving the quality of life for people in poverty.

As GBM’s work expanded, Professor Maathai realized that behind poverty and environmental destruction were deeper issues of disempowerment, bad governance, and a loss of the values that had enabled communities to sustain their land and livelihoods, and what was best in their cultures.

The planting of trees became an entry-point for a larger social, economic, and environmental agenda.
Professor Maathai also co-founded the Nobel Women’s Initiative with five of her fellow women peace laureates to advocate for justice, equality, and peace worldwide.

KNOWING WHEN TO GO?

A potential visitor to the Hague War Crimes Tribunal and friend

There must come a moment in the 'politcal life' of 'a great leader' when they begin to lose the plot and any contact with real people (save for those telling you what you want to hear) becomes increasingly tenuous. Was it always about being the top dog, getting to the top of the greasy pole, getting to sit at the top table? Or was it always about lining ones pocket and siting pretty. Is the process gradual or seismic, or can said 'great leader' look back and pick the moment when any good being done was outweighed by the bad things being done.

Certainly of late we have seen 'great leaders' go from being favoured sons of the West to siting in a prison cell. For some dictators absolute power and endless overnight room service has been replaced with spending quality time with the slop bucket. And perhaps even more pleasingly having to keep a possible date in the Hague war crimes court in ones diary has become more prominent in a former great leaders diary than remembering peoples birthdays.

As a 'great leader' do you seek out 'Yes people' or is it something that happens around people who exercise power or run the shop? In the West (and in the UK) it has often been said that successful political leaders, regardless of their political hue, never quite know when to go.I have also heard it said that a political career always ends in failure. The long lingering departure of Tony Blair in 2006 / 2007 is a good case in point, a personal desire to clock up more time in office than Mrs Thatcher certainly overrode any political sense of reality, regardless of any electoral damage done to the Labour party.

Take Muammar Qaddafi, he overthrew the Libyan King Idris I (who was portrayed as puppet of the West (especially by Qaddafi after he took power), he was in power for 41 years, and until fairly recently was the longest-serving leader in both Africa and the Arab world. Having ceased power, in tail end of the Nasser era when the Arab great leader model was the height of fashion.

In the last 4 decades he has gone from handsome and charismatic young army officer to complete nutter and international pariah. Admittedly in this world being crazy and holding absolute power in a brutal dictatorship are not mutually exclusive, I mean who going to say no? The once smart uniforms have been replaced by (if I was being generous) a somewhat flamboyant dress-sense and gun-toting female bodyguards.

As bizarre as aspects of New Labour's policies were they have nothing on Gaddafi's political philosophy, as laid down in the Green Book. Gaddafi's green book which might be described if one was being particularly generous as a homemade alternative to both socialism and capitalism, with some aspects of Islam thrown in for good measure (the late Enver Hoxha (dictator of Communist Albania) would have been exceptionally envious).

Nominally Qaddafi created a political system known as the "Jamahiriya" or "state of the masses", in which power was supposedly held by thousands of "peoples' committees". In truth Qaddafi and his hangers on held and retained absolute power in a very centralised and authoritarian state and appear to have had few qualms when it came to hunting down their political opponents (and murdering them) at home or overseas.

There was a time when the West feted unpleasant brutal dictators because then were perceived as being anti communist or keeping the lid on a whole host of potential other problems. The Cold War has effectively been over since 1989, yet we in the West have carried on being nice to some pretty unscrupulous and brutal repressive regimes. After the Cold War was over various countries have been more than happy to sell arms to nasty repressive brutal regimes regardless of their human rights record e.g Saudi Arabia, Libya, Algeria, Indonesia, Egypt, etc.

I have absolutely no doubt if some of the dictators that have fallen in recent months had survived or had successfully fought of the challenge to their power then, then after a short interlude, they would be being quite happily wooed by governments and businesses from the West. I mean you can never have enough rubber bullets and ground attack aircraft can you? I suspect that Western leaders find it easier to deal with dictatorships than democracies. It's far easier to right of the Arab people as fundamentalists who are incapable to running their own democratic states, who need a firm authoritarian hand to rule them, etc.

If democracies successfully emerge across the Middle East, then things will be different, perhaps democratically elected Arab leader will remember just who exactly was no keen to support their oppressors. Not to mention exactly who was more than happy to tool them up with the rubber bullets, armoured land rovers, armoured cars, electric cattle prods and tear gas and all the other handy little things that dictatorships need to stay in power. On that thought, perhaps we will have to wait and see what emerges as the Arab spring moves through summer and into winter.

ANNIVERSARIES...

Yet another anniversary, this time the twentieth anniversary of the failed Soviet Coup attempt which brought about the final demise of the Soviet Union. At the time I watched most of it live on TV in my office in South London with my colleagues, the defining moment was, at least from where I was sat was the moment when Boris Yeltsin walked boldly out of the White House, and climbed up onto the tank, shook hands with the tank crew and turned to speak to the crowd and the world, declaiming to the assembled Moscow residents and representatives of the worlds media, saying:

Boris Yeltsin outside the White House

 "The clouds of terror and dictatorship are gathering over the whole country. They must not be allowed to bring eternal night." and “You can make a throne of bayonets, but you can't sit on it for long.”

Twenty years down the line, and with the benefit of hindsight it's pretty clear the botched coup merely speeded up the demise of the Soviet Union. With the people on the streets (the defiance was not just confined to Moscow for example 10,000 protesters flooded the square in provincial Sverdlovsk and there were no arrests) the forces of reaction stalled, blinked, drank and crumbled.

Soviet communism was finally exposed live on TV as the repressive force it was, it ended up discredited in the eyes of the Russian people and proved itself unequal to their hopes and aspirations. A one party tyranny based state that emerged from the chaos of the first world war, two revolutions and a bloody civil war some 74 years previously, quietly rolled over and died as Russia was reborn.



People and Tank in Moscow 

 Yeltsin and the democrats were helped by the fact that the Soviet Coup plotters might well have had Stalinist impulses, but they thankfully lacked both the competence and the cruelty of their predecessors. The fact that the generals and the soldiers on the ground lacked the will to bathe Moscow in blood, write it up in orwellian newspeak as a victory for soviet socialism. The KGB leaders on the ground (it emerged afterwards) point blank refused to storm the White House (in St Petersburg the KGB apparently supported the Russian democrats), they were unwilling to spill so much blood, and two Generals threatened to bomb the Kremlin in retaliation if the White House was stormed.

By the time Gorbachev came back to Moscow he was literally coming back to another country. Boris Yeltsin, was now running the show and the state, Russia was back. I remember the live defining theatrical moment, when Yeltsin forced the then Soviet leader to sign the all-powerful Soviet Communist Party out of existence. The reality was that after more than 70 years the Soviet Union was rapidly dissolving day by day and moment by moment, as the various republics declared their independence and their independence was recognised by Russia and the Western powers.

What followed was a high speed and shockingly chaotic transfer of the old institutions of Soviet state to the new Russian state. On the 8th December, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus renounced the (1922) treaty that had created the Russian dominated Soviet Union. On the 25th December (our Christmas Day), Gorbachev duly resigned in a tv broadcast and accepted the dissolution of the world's second superpower, the Russian flag was duly raised over the Kremlin and the party was well and truly over, but, one mother of a hangover was to follow.

Sadly the fledgling Russian democracy was in no condition to deliver on peoples hopes and aspirations, the democrats found themselves rapidly pushed out of the corridors of power and the era of the oligarchs began. The much trumpeted privatisations brought in millions for the privatisers (and some of the former state officials) but brought in a flood tide of chaos, corruption, poverty and misery to millions of ordinary Russians. All of this may go some way to explaining why there so much disillusionment and cynicism in modern Russia today.

The Russia that emerged was quite different from its new independent neighbours, and not just in scale, but in historical experience and character. The country had suffered waves of emigration (some voluntary, some not) with the departure of aristocracy, the business and educated and professional classes. Stalin's terror, the great patriotic war and the inertia of the late 1960's, the 1970's and the 1980's all left their mark in memory, attitude and expectation.

If we are being honest, some of this is our fault, certainly in the early 1990's there was a marked failure in the West, to accept that Russia, was not the old Soviet Union. The West never reached out to Russia either economically or politically. Russia by way of comparison with the largess that was handed our to the old Soviet-bloc countries waiting to join the EU, did rather badly. The Western leaders desire to create 'a new Europe' oddly enough did not stretch to include Russia.

Instead of support and help to build democratic intuitions all Russia got was an ill-thought out hurried crash course in free-market economics not to mention a degree of criticism over Russia's failure to meet Western democratic and judicial standards. It was consummate arrogance on the part of the West to think that the western European trans-atlantic model of 'free market' capitalism would work in Russia, one size does not (and did not) fit all. When the Russian democratic system belatedly began to throw up popular choices that the West did not like then help to tweak the election results in favour of Boris Yeltsin was duly forthcoming.

The combination of institutional corruption, selective intolerance of democratic opponents, extra judicial murder of journalists (and critics of the regime), suspicious deaths in custody and occasional bouts of hyper inflation (which eradicated ordinary peoples savings), border wars and terrorism have left modern Russia and different and a depressing pseudo democratic state. Throw in the activities of the pro Kremlin media moguls (who would make News International look like a bunch of cack handed woolly headed amateurs) buying up or closing down opposition news organisations and is it any wonder that democracy in Russia stalled.

Perhaps if the Soviet Union had lingered longer and gone through more of transition to representative democracy then things might have been different. Russia was half-way through its own revolution when the Soviet Union collapsed around it. Things were different in middle and eastern Europe where the Baltic peoples and the East and Central Europeans literally overthrew the old system and started things with a reasonably clean slate. Poor old Russia was left to muddle through and to attempt to sort out several things at once.

The welcome exposure of communist ideology as the empty shell it was helped to bring about the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, it's important to remember that the overthrow of communism and the dissolution of the Soviet Union were two different but intertwined processes. The events of 1990 and 1991 were as as much a clash between Russia and the Soviet Union, as visibly portrayed by the personal struggle between Yeltsin and Gorbachev, as they were any meaningful argument about any form of ideology.

In middle and eastern Europe the former Soviet client states were able to start anew, with new institutions and (in most countries) new people, Russia's revolution focused on a recovery and restoration of it's lost sovereignty. Russia has, amongst other things been over the last twenty years recovering its history, borders, statehood, and its historic mission. All this took place while Russia was also attempting to find its place in the new neighbourhood (near abroad) and the new world (far abroad).

With Russian statehood came a wave of re-branding and re-imaging as former Soviet institutions emerged as all Russian institutions. The old KGB for example was reborn and re-branded as the Federal Security Service (FSB), the same process took place in a host of other organisations. Yet old Soviet habits died hard and old Soviet mind sets lingered on, if not clawed back some of their previous prestige and power. Despite everything that has happened Russia has not turned into Upper Volta with nuclear weapons and no gunboats have appeared on the Volga as was predicted by some commentators in the 1990's.

Russia has not gone backwards, things are different both significantly and more subtly, modern Russia is not the former Soviet Union, we are all somewhere different. Any half baked partial restoration of the Soviet past will not work as every year that passes a new generation who have no memory of the CCCP comes through the school system. Putin, despite his faults and the work of the Kremlin spin doctors, is no Stalin, no Yeltsin, yet may be more of a Brezhnev. Personally he is one of the generation that crosses the great divide - the latter years of Soviet Union, the turbulent years of the economic and political transition from 1989 to 1992, and the free market chaos of the mid-1990s.



Prime Minister Putin

 Putin as president and prime minister may, when the dust settles and we look back in hindsight from another twenty years in the future, have provided Russia and the Russian people with some hard earned breathing space and settled things down, but at what cost? The last twenty years have been rough for the Russian people, who have lived through a lot since 1914, war, revolutions, Stalin's terror, the great patriotic war and the gulags, not to mention Kruschev, Brezhnev and the demise of the Soviet Union. There is also the loss of Soviet Empire to consider, a Russian acquaintance once told me that the British had sixty years to get the loss of their Empire (and some have not got over the loss), while the the Russians had a fortnight - ouch!

The West and the Europeans have clearly missed opportunities (some of which were loudly pointed out at the time) to help Russia. Russia should have been offered the hand of friendship, not to mention NATO membership and in my opinion some sort of most favoured nation trading status within the European Union. There should have been real support (financial and otherwise) for the transition of Russia's economy and institutions towards a fully fledged democracy. Had this been more forthcoming than not only might modern Russia have been different and more democratic but the European Union might well have been different as well.

As for Russia, the ball is firmly in their court, perhaps the children and grandchildren of the people who courageously stood up to the attempted coup in August 1991 will finally reap the full benefits of a fully democratic and free Russia rather than the fragile democracy that exists now. Some terribly grim things were done in the name of Soviet state Socialism, but, not everything the Soviet Union did (as least domestically) was bad. That said, a rose tinted nostalgia for the past won't butter bread or fill your petrol tank or keep a roof over your head.

And here in the West, as well as in Russia, there are those who have also not adjusted to our new common realities, the fall of the wall and the demise of the Soviet Union should have led to the loss of those tired old (and now pointless) labels of 'left' and 'right.' The new game is called globalisation, and people, communities and nations are mere commodities and as it's largely bereft of ideology - it's now about how we deal with the worst of its social and economic consequences.

REMEMBERING THE WALL

Last Saturday (13th August) was the 50th anniversary of the construction of the Berlin Wall,it passed, outside of Germany, largely unnoticed. Berlin City resident and German political leaders marked the vent with a memorial service and a minute of silence in honour of those who died trying to escape across the wall into the West. After the reunification of Germany, pretty understandably most of the 160-km (100-mile) Wall which encircled West Berlin (which survived as a free enclave deep in the heart of Communist East Germany) was rapidly knocked down in the euphoria of 1989. There were only a few remnants of the 3.6-metre-high Wall left when Germany reunited by the autumn of 1990.

Many tourists come to Berlin each year and search mostly in vain for traces of the Wall, save for the parts that the city authorities have re-erected and restored. New buildings have gone up on many parts of the former "death strip" and streets and tram lines have been reconnected making it hard to tell where the barrier once stood. The ceremony on Saturday was held at an 800-metre-long piece of the Wall complex on Bernauer Strasse that has been rebuilt, but, was once the scene of some dramatic escapes after the Wall was finished.

What price freedom?

People jumped from upper storey windows in buildings on the east side of the Wall to the street on the west. The windows were soon sealed off and the buildings were later demolished.The mind is certainly concentrated when you remember that the last person killed trying to escape to freedom was shot by border guards in June 1989, and the wall ceased to function in November of the same year. All in all there were around some 5,000 successful escapes to West Berlin, and no doubt many failed escape attempts. There is an on-going argument about how many people died trying to escape to freedom - according to the Center for Contemporary Historical Research (ZZF) in Potsdam there were 136 confirmed deaths.

I might be child of the 'Cold War' but have no nostalgia for it or the grim certainties of the Cold War era. I, not doubt like many others, am more than happy to have seen the demise of the Berlin Wall, East Germany and the Communist block and Soviet Union. The democratic revolutions and the changes that swept Middle and Eastern Europe in the late 1980's and the 1990's have made Europe a far better and freer place for most of us - but there is still room for improvement. It is however, important that we remember the wall and the grim years of totalitarian oppression in the East and also those who resisted the tyranny and paid the price with imprisonment, wrecked lives and cruel treatment at the hands of the Communist authorities.

MORE THAN A FAINT WHIFF OF HYPOCRACY

There is more than a faint whiff of hypocracy surrounding William Hague's somewhat belated condemnation of the brutal repression currently being undertaken in Libya, Bahrain and Yemen. If my memory serves me correctly UK PLC has been actively supporting, nurturing, arming up-skilling and re-tooling the forces of repression across the globe in a whole host of unsavoury regimes. Now that for want of a better phrase the various peoples of the Middle and Near East are trying to find their political and economic freedoms then the house of cards so ably supplied and abetted by Old Labour, Conservative, New Labour and Con Dem threatens to come crashing down around the Foreign Offices' ears.  If Hague's musings are somewhat embarrassing to listen to, then just imagine all the sweet nothings he would be whispering to Mubarak if he had survived.