According to a Radio Free Europe journalist, even today, many of Afghanistan’s small intellectual elite still speak Russian, a legacy of one of the few good things brought to Afghanistan by the Soviet invasion, the education of many Afghans in Soviet institutes of higher learning. What will our legacy be in Afghanistan 20 years into the future, I wonder?
In case anyone was under the impression that cultural vandalism, such as the blowing up of historical monuments that happen to stand in the way of someone’s ideology, is the monopoly of Islamic fanatics, think again. The other day, Georgia’s (the country’s, not the US state’s) democratically elected president ordered the destruction of a Soviet-era monument, ostensibly to make room for a new parliament building. Unfortunately for him (not that I care) and for two innocent spectators (that I do care about) the demolition was botched, and flying concrete killed these two people, a mother and her 8-year old daughter. As to the memorial… I may not have too many fond thoughts about the Soviet Union and the Red Army, but few things are less controversial than a memorial dedicated to a victory over fascism and the glory of what Russians call the Great Patriotic War… in which, incidentally, some 300,000 Georgians also happened to have lost their lives.
I’m done reading The Soviet-Afghan War by Grau and Gress (eds.) The final paragraph of the book, which was prepared just before the US invasion of Afghanistan, is prescient: “It is easy to dismiss the Soviet failure in Afghanistan, but it is not wise. Armies seldom get to choose the wars in which they fight and this type of difficult war is as likely a future conflict as a war involving high-technology systems in which the sides seldom get close enough to see each other. Russia continues to fight guerrilla wars. Other nations may also have to.”
Indeed.
Following a discussion with a friend of mine, I did some crude statistics today. Perusing Wikipedia, I ranked the world’s religions in terms of the effectiveness with which they were able to commit mass murder between 1914 and the present day. I did not count “legitimate” victims of war. My statistics are necessarily crude, as I probably didn’t include all incidents, and I just used the concept of a “predominant religion” instead of researching the actual religious breakdown of perpetrators and victims. The figures themselves may also be in dispute.
Having said that, I calculated some percentages (normalized by dividing the number killed by the square root of the product of the populations of the perpetrators’ and the victims’ predominant religion) and arrived at this bleak ranking of our recent history:
Buddhist-on-Buddhist: 10%
Christian-on-Jew: 3%
Christian-on-Christian: 0.9%
Muslim-on-indigenous: 0.5%
Muslim-on-Christian: 0.2%
Muslim-on-Muslim: 0.1%
Buddhist-on-Hindu: 0.01%
Hindu-on-Christian: 0.006%
Christian-on-Muslim: 0.0006%
Muslim claims about evil Christians are clearly bogus, at least insofar as recent history is concerned; Christians were far more busy killing each other and killing Jews, and Muslims were certainly more efficient when it came to killing Christians than the other way around (mostly thanks to the efforts of the Ottoman Empire).
But no, I do not conclude from this that religion is inherently evil. About two thirds of all the killings listed here were, in fact, committed by states that were nominally atheist. Reason may lead one to atheism, but atheism certainly doesn’t guarantee reason…
This is the sunniest, brightest Remembrance Day that I recall.
I don’t usually like national holidays and such. This, however, is an exception. The way it is celebrated, especially here in Canada, it’s not about glory, not about victory… it’s about the memory of those who died. As such, it is an inclusive celebration. You can take part regardless of your nationality; it doesn’t matter what uniform your father or grandfather might have been wearing, what is being remembered is that he served and suffered. (Fortunately, nobody from my immediate family fell or was wounded in war. My maternal grandfather served briefly in the Hungarian army in 1942 or thereabouts, as an engineer… fortunately, he returned to Hungary before the disastrous collapse of Hungary’s Second Army at the Don River. My great Uncle Bela served in WWI, on the Russian front I believe. He, too, survived.)
Sir Nicholas Winton celebrated his 100th birthday earlier this year. This British gentleman arranged the rescue of many hundreds of predominantly Jewish children from Czechoslovakia in 1939. In recognition of this event, a commemorative train ride was organized this year; what became known as the Winton Train, carrying many of the survivors and their descendants, arrived at Liverpool Street station in London earlier today, to be greeted there by Nicholas Winton himself, among others.
During the last leg of its trip across Europe, the Winton Train was pulled by 60163 Tornado, a brand new mainline steam locomotive, the first one built in the United Kingdom in nearly half a century.
Seventy years ago today, heroic soldiers of the Third German Empire defended their Fatherland by responding to an unprovoked attack the previous day by the criminal Polish regime on a peaceful radio station in Gleiwitz, Upper Silesia.
At least that was Hitler’s version. In truth, it was soldiers of the Abwehr and the SS, operating under a false flag, who staged the attack. The purpose was to give pretext to Germany’s invasion of Poland, the opening salvo of World War II.
Some two weeks later, the Soviet Union followed suit, in accordance with the secret appendix of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. What the Soviets didn’t seem to realize was that they remained the real target in Hitler’s master plan, Germany’s intended lebensraum: Poland was simply in the way. Even the Western Allies’ predictable response, a declaration of war on Germany, proved to serve Hitler’s interests: after the collapse of France, Hitler was ready to march against Russia with no threat of a second front opening up in the West.
Hitler really must have thought that he had an unbeatable hand… his plans only began to unravel in the winter of 1941-42, when the Soviets launched their first major counteroffensive. Which was made possible, indirectly, by Pearl Harbor… no, not America’s entry in the war, but the fact that the Soviet Union no longer had to fear a Japanese invasion.
Yet the war dragged on for several more years… and by the time it was over, some 50 million people were dead, much of Europe and parts of Asia were in ruins, and two Japanese cities went up in radioactive smoke.
Can it happen again? Sometimes I wonder…
I’ve been looking at the Web page of Hungary’s Museum of Electrical Technology. A fascinating site, pity it’s in Hungarian only.
The Museum has many permanent exhibitions, one of which is about the technology of electrical lighting. One of the pictures available online shows some period lighting fixtures.
Period street lighting fixtures
Fixtures like these were still seen on many Budapest streets when I was a child. I don’t know if it’s just me, but I find these lighting fixtures rather unfriendly in appearance, hostile even. It is almost as if their main purpose was not to provide comfort through light, but to intimidate.
Exactly 60 years ago, on August 29, 1949, the Soviet Union exploded their first nuclear bomb in the Semipalatinsk test field located in present-day Kazakhstan. The nuclear cold war began. Some forty years later, the cold war supposedly ended, but the vast nuclear arsenals are still there, ready to be deployed on a moment’s notice… so I am not sure what, if anything, has changed in the last 20 years other than the fact that the weapons systems are now older and less reliable… which is not exactly reassuring.
Amidst all the excitement, I almost forgot: Yesterday was the fiftieth anniversary of the unforgettable Kitchen Debate between Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev.
Forty years ago this morning, Apollo 11 was launched: Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were on their way to land at Mare Tranquilitatis, in the most significant journey in human history to this date.
The scary part is that this year also marks the 37th anniversary of the last trip to the Moon, indeed the last voyage by a human being beyond low Earth orbit.
I was only 6 when Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the Moon, and I had no doubt in my mind that by the time I turn 46, there would be people on the Moon, on Mars, possibly on select satellites of Jupiter and Saturn, perhaps even on their way to the stars.
Now that I am 46, I am doubtful that I will live long enough to see another human fly beyond low Earth orbit. This is not a pleasant thought. Perhaps I’ll be lucky enough to live another 40 years in good physical and mental health, and get a chance to be proven wrong.
Until then, I keep dwelling on the irony of the fact that nowadays, most of the documentaries you can find on manned deep space missions and exploration of the Moon are aired on the History Channel.
I hold in my hands a copy of the June 5, 1939 issue of Life magazine. It is very interesting.
The cover theme is “America’s future”. On the first page, a full page ad features a Chrysler Plymouth coupe for the princely sum of 645 US dollars, taxes and charges included, delivered in Detroit.
The magazine features an illustrated report about the rescue of submariners from the USS Squalus, an incident famous to this day, as this was the first time sailors were rescued successfully from a disabled submarine nearly 80 meters below the surface.
There is a pictorial report about America’s yesterday, nearly a century of photographs (counting back from 1939 that is!) documenting America’s past.
An elegant Westfield watch cost $9.95, a “sensational new miniature” 35mm camera from Eastman Kodak was advertised at $33.50, while an 8mm Cine-Kodak movie camera (“also makes movies in gorgeous full color on Kodachrome Film!” No mention of sound, mind you) was only $29.50.
There is a full-color, two-page “official map of the United States of America – 1939”, and a wonderful full page color photograph of the Hoover Dam. Then there is a “portrait of America” in maps, pictures, and words. A picture report shows numerous scenes from documentaries about urban life in America. The promise, it seems, is that thanks to the automobile and “smooth new parkways”, Americans will soon live in “towns too small for traffic jams” where children get “a chance to play in safety”. The “girl of tomorrow” wears wire eyelashes and walks about in elevator shoes with 4-inch thick soles.
Then there is “America in 1960”, straight from General Motors’ famed Futurama at the New York World Fair. Express highways with 14-lanes indeed… as if only 14 lanes would suffice in places like Toronto!
In “Headlines to the editors”, we read that “Einstein Believes He’s Found Solution to Gravitation Riddle”. (Not sure what this refers to… perhaps Einstein’s 1939 paper (Ann. of Math 40, 922) challenging the existence of black holes?) We read that “New Key is Found to Atomic Energy […] With Power to Release Largest Store Known on Earth”, and that “Endless Duel of Atoms Declared Source of Fuel in Furnace of Sun”. What the magazine isn’t talking about is that two months later, on August 2, 1939, Einstein would sign a letter that was drafted by Leo Szilard and addressed to President Roosevelt, about the possibility that atomic energy could be used to build a weapon. The rest, the Manhattan Project, that is, is of course history.
Finally, a back page ad suggests, “for smoking pleasure at its best, let up–light up a Camel!” Back in my smoking days, Camels were my favorite.
So what else happened on the week of June 5, 1939? Oh, of course. My Mom was born.
65 years ago today, Allied troops landed in Normandy. CNN described this as “turning the tide”. It didn’t. The tide was turned in the winter of 1941-1942 at Moscow, or later, at Stalingrad. That does not make the sacrifices of those who landed in Normandy on this day any less heroic, mind you, or their accomplishments any less important… not only did they liberate large chunks of Europe from Hitler’s Third Reich, they also ensured that these chunks of Europe would not fall under the boot of Stalin. Sadly, Hungary was not one of these chunks.
Beijing celebrates the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre with umbrellas.
This weirdness came about as plainclothes policemen were trying to interfere with foreign television crews by blocking cameras with open umbrellas:
Umbrellas in Beijing
Whatever reason they have for doing this, it is strikingly pointless. Thanks in part to the tireless efforts of Chinese police, there are no mass demonstrations on Tiananmen Square, no protests, no silent vigils. Journalists who went there would be coming back with boring shots of a square that looks just like it looks on any other day… were it not for the umbrellas.
So why the umbrellas? Why not just round up and haul away foreign journalists? Is this a regime with a (guilty) conscience? When that happened in Hungary, when members of Hungary’s communist Politburo began relabeling the “counterrevolution” of 1956 as a (popular) uprising, the end was not far down the line: within a couple of years, the country opened its borders to East Germans fleeing to the West, transformed itself into a multi-party democracy, and arguably began the chain reaction that led to the collapse of the Soviet empire.
I think we should officially declare June 4 from now on Umbrella Day. (Hey, if we can have a Towel Day…)
It has been 20 years ago this week that Chinese authorities cracked down on the Tiananmen Square protests, killing an unknown number of people.
Arguably, many (most?) Chinese are better off under a regime that produced unprecedented economic prosperity, while providing limited, but not insignificant, civil freedoms. Who knows what would have happened had the protesters succeeded. The record of Eastern Europe is spotty at best; some countries turned into fairly decent democracies, in others ethnic nationalism reared its ugly head, yet elsewhere one dictatorship was just replaced by another.
Yet it’s curious how shy the Chinese are about the events that took place 20 years ago. One can almost see parallels between this and how the events of 1956 were treated in communist Hungary in the 1970s and 1980s. First, it was the “counterrevolution”, that is, if they talked about it at all, which they preferred to avoid. Then, one party official had the courage to stand up and acknowledge that it was an “uprising”, even a “popular uprising”. These words, we now know, marked the beginning of the end for the monolithic one-party system: a dictatorship, no matter how benign or well-intentioned, cannot afford to have a conscience. Is the same thing happening in China?
64 years ago today, the Soviet Union was victorious against Nazi Germany in what they came to know as the Great Patriotic War. The Soviet Union may have ceased to exist almost two decades ago but you wouldn’t know that by looking at the military parade that took place on Red Square today:
Soviet-style parade
Perhaps this display should serve as a reminder that what really happened on May 9, 1945, was that the struggle between the world’s two worst totalitarian, militaristic tyrannies ended with the victory of one and the complete defeat of the other.
Revolting as the Nazi regime was, Soviet style communism was just as oppressive and murderous. Sure, for members of “inferior races”, as the Nazis called them, a Soviet victory was preferable because at the very least, Stalin did not institute a systematic program to eradicate entire ethnicities and turn their ashes into soap. (Arguably, he didn’t have to; whereas Hitler’s plans to deport Jews to Madagaskar had no basis in reality, Stalin had room in his vast empire to set up a “Jewish Autonomous District” some five thousand miles east of Moscow, where he planned to deport most of the Soviet Union’s Jewish population. The district curiously still exists in today’s Russia, although only about 1% of its population is actually Jewish.) But in terms of overall results, Stalin was just as “productive” as the Führer, murdering countless millions and ruining the lives of many more, governing an empire that was founded on fear and oppression.
An empire that, curiously, many Russians would like to see return, as this fine military display reminds us.
Here is a place where some serious mischief took place nearly half a century ago:
Craters in Nevada
Must be a nice place to visit. Or, if not that, then perhaps this fine Arizona museum next time I drive across the United States.