Azeri paper criticizes opposition’s calls for revolution in Iran
Zerkalo, Baku
24 May 06

The Azerbaijani newspaper Zerkalo has criticized the country’s
opposition for calling for a revolution in Iran. Commenting on the
latest protests by Iran’s ethnic Azeri community following the
publication of an insulting cartoon in the Iranian press, the
newspaper described the cartoon as a provocation that does not meet
the interests of Iran’s ruling elite and linked it to a recent
statement by the Iranian prince that he is ready to return to Iran and
head the country. The paper warned Azeris against supporting the
Iranian prince because, it said, he will “follow in his father’s
footsteps” and suppress the national movement. Zerkalo also said that
there is no guarantee that the United States will support Iranian
Azeris. The following is an excerpt from A. Rasidoglu’s report by the
Azerbaijani newspaper Zerkalo on 24 May headlined “Ayatollah or shah –
which is more beneficial to Azeris?” and subheaded “Rebellious Tabriz
is running the risk of falling victim to the political games of super
powers again”. Subheadings in the text have been inserted editorially:
Protest rallies against Persian chauvinism in Tabriz have ended in
bloody clashes. Teymur Eminbayli, secretary-general of the World
Azerbaijani Congress, has told the Mediaforum website that [the
police] opened fire at protesters in Tabriz.
Azeri protests and casualties
According to preliminary reports, 20 people were wounded and 250
arrested. There have been quite contradictory reports about the
killed protesters. One report says eight people were killed while
another one says that not a single person was killed.
Eminbayli said hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in
Tabriz in support of the student movement yesterday. The whole area
between the place called Saatqabagi and Bazar Meydani was full of
people.
According to Eminbayli, some members of the Islamic Revolutionary
Guards Corps and some officials of Azeri origin sided with the people
and refused to follow the order to open fire at their own people. But
this was not enough to prevent the bloodshed: the Tehran regime opened
fire at ethnic Azeris living in Iran.
The Iranian law-enforcement agencies used various sabotage methods
during the protest. For instance, several specially trained people
broke windows of shops and banks in order to put the blame on
demonstrators. Several police cars and bikes were set ablaze. An
Iranian flag was set ablaze during the protest. Towards the end of the
rally, the authorities used helicopters.
Eminbayli said the police fired at demonstrators from helicopters and
used tear gas. Reports say that the protests have not subsided in the
city of Zanjan yet and that rallies are continuing in other cities of
southern Azerbaijan.
[Passage omitted: reported details; a group of people attempted to
stage a protest outside the Iranian embassy in Baku; the Iranian
authorities have arrested the editor and cartoonist of Iran newspaper;
the Iranian culture minister has apologized to Azeris]
Provocation by state-run newspaper
A strange situation has emerged: a state-run newspaper resorts to such
a dirty provocation at the moment when it is necessary to mobilize the
whole society and enlist the support of Azeris – residents of
Tabriz. Tabriz is known as the inspirer of all revolutions in Iran,
including the so-called Islamic revolution of 1979.
Is it a coincidence? Unlikely. Does this kind of provocation meet the
interests of Iran’s ruling elite? Also unlikely.
Is it a coincidence that this article appeared after the son of
[Mohammad] Reza Shah said that he was ready to head Iran? The answer
is the same.
It is no secret to anyone that it was under the shah when Azeris were
publicly humiliated. At that time, no-one could even dream of speaking
in Azeri openly in Tehran. Apart from that, there was a very small
number of high-ranking officials of Azeri origin in the shah’s circle.
Today there are enough Azeris in the ruling elite. You do not have to
go too far for examples – it is enough to mention only one and the
most important one: the spiritual leader of the Islamic revolution,
Khamene’i, who is of Azeri origin.
So is a state-run newspaper calling its spiritual leader a cockroach?
This is either utter stupidity, which is hard to believe, or an open
provocation.
The second theory is more convincing and in fact, almost indisputable.
It is another matter that Azeris living in the Islamic Republic of
Iran are deprived of their right to education in Azeri. Azeris have
considered Iran to be their homeland since time immemorial, and Azeri
dynasties ruled Iran until the 1920s. After Reza Shah came to power,
Iran became a “Persian country”, and they started calling Azeris
“donkeys”. Such an attitude by Persian chauvinism brought about the
overthrow of the shah.
Everybody understands very well that in the current circumstances, the
Tehran regime can lose everything only after losing Azeri
support. Then who needed to publish such an article in a state-run
newspaper? We will come on to this later.
There is no doubt that Azeris living in Iran have problems that need
to be solved. Even the current Iranian constitution, specifically
Article 15, clearly says that every nation has the right to education
in its own language. But this is only on paper, in fact this
constitutional right has nothing to do with Azeris.
Evolution preferred to revolution
Some analysts suppose that such a development of the situation can
prompt Iranian Azeris to establish their own autonomy or federation,
or to proclaim their independence.
But southern Azerbaijan is actually divided into eastern and western
provinces. If a federation is proclaimed, Azeris might lose their
territories as a nation in the end. Therefore, as Lenin said, one
should take a different path. In this case, the evolutionary path is
more acceptable. Suffice it to remember that after WWII, southern
Azeris attempted to establish an independent state with the support of
the Soviet Union. This idea failed pretty soon. Then Azeri public
leaders reviewed their claims and started talking about autonomy
within Iran regardless of the fact that the official state authorities
took quite a tough approach to the settlement of the national issue.
What did this bring about? Tehran started controlling all its
territories.
After that, Persian chauvinism took the reins of power in the country,
and Azeri newspapers and radio stations were closed down and education
in Azeri was banned. This is what the political romanticism of
politicians from southern Azerbaijan brought about.
Moreover, according to various reports, there are about 12m Azeris
living in southern Azerbaijan at the moment, while the rest have moved
to other places. A total of 12m people are living in Tehran now and 8m
of them are Azeris.
Calls for war against Iran unrealistic
As for opposition politicians in Baku who call for a revolution in
Iran, they had better “keep their mouth shut”. Apparently, our
politicians are so excited about rainbow colours that they have
forgotten about their own bitter experience. Having failed to carry
out an “orange” revolution in Azerbaijan, our “political brains” have
decided to overthrow the “green” authorities – not in their own
country, but in Iran. Indeed, they are trying to enforce their own
illiterate rules in someone else’s monastery.
Moreover, it is foolish to call for war against Iran without retaking
the Armenian-occupied territories. We witnessed this in 1993 when
Azerbaijan was sandwiched between Turkey, Iran and Russia and fought a
war with Armenia in that situation.
There is another question – why did the Tehran regime and radical
Shi’is prefer to support not Shi’i Azerbaijan, but Christian Armenia?
This question, as it were, is completely clear. The point is that
Christian Armenia has never laid territorial claims to Iran.
Let us also remember that we destroyed the fences on the 700 km
Azerbaijani-Iranian border in the early 1990s, after which groups of
several thousand Azerbaijanis started crossing the border allegedly to
meet their relatives living in Iran. Iran’s response was very quick –
some local Azeris were executed for alleged “disturbances” and others
were put in prison, while the Soviet leadership issued an order to
kill hundreds of Azerbaijanis in Baku, saying that there was a threat
of an Islamic revolution.
Within the circle of his supporters, Iran’s hereditary prince started
supporting the idea of autonomy for Azeris in order to gain their
support and restore the monarchy. Let’s imagine for a second that the
monarchy has been restored and a revolution has taken place – the
bearded are replaced by those without beards – and the prince is on
the Iranian throne. This is a fairly attractive ideology for a single
Iran, but only for the time being. The prince will soon follow in his
father’s footsteps and remember “Turkic donkeys”.
Is it worth taking a risk for a Persian chauvinist who calls us
“donkeys” and lose absolutely everything – absolutely everything, not
only the regime of religious officials most of whom are Azeris.
Ethnic Azeri leader due in Baku soon
Incidentally, [the leader of the National Revival Movement of Southern
Azerbaijan] Mahmudali Cohraqanli will arrive in Baku soon to call on
Iranian Azeris to become a force that will make the situation of the
Tehran government at least a bit shakier. The NRMSA leader’s visit to
Baku causes a great interest especially against the background of
aggravating Iranian-US ties. He has spent almost a year in the USA
discussing the future status of southern Azerbaijan with various
officials. However, “Uncle Sam” has not promised him anything for the
time being. There is no guarantee that Washington will support
southern Azeris to the very end.
As for southern Azerbaijan, it is clear to everybody that the time is
not ripe yet for mass protests by Azeris.
Tehran has already made it clear that any attempt on Iran’s
territorial integrity will first of all affect the fate of Azeris.
Even if the USA decides to occupy Iran, not a single well-known leader
of southern Azeris will be left by that time in order to head the
people’s movement.
Do Baku politicians who are not capable of protecting their own basic
rights understand this? The question, as they say, is rhetoric.

Journal of Turkish Weekly
May 28 2006
On Turkey’s EU Bid and the Middle East
Since 9/11, international relations (IR) has become one of the
sexiest subjects to study, with university courses worldwide
massively oversubscribed and academic bookstores drowning in Dummies’
Guides to Unilateral Geostrategy. Damla Aras is indubitably one of
IR’s sexiest practitioners.
Currently completing her second PhD at King’s College in London, Aras
is at the forefront of a new generation of international relations
scholars, with particular expertise on the Middle East and southeast
Europe. She has been interviewed on Al Jazeera as well as appearing
on Turkish television stations NTV, Kanal A, TV8 and TRT and writing
for mass circulation daily Milliyet; Aras’s knowledge is so respected
that she has even briefed the Turkish parliament on the delicate
issue of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Yet, despite being a genuine star in the field of international
relations, in person Aras is engagingly modest in addition to being
seriously photogenic. When meeting up with her for this interview in
London’s Tower Hill, she wore the international uniform of the
student: blue jeans and a very cool sweatshirt. Aras was also
philosophical about conducting this interview in Starbucks, a
suitable venue for a discussion about some of the most pressing
global issues of our time: Turkey’s entry to the European Union; the
Middle East crisis; and all too briefly, this summer’s World Cup
finals.
Damla, let’s start with the big question that’s on everybody’s lips:
will Turkey eventually join the EU?
Well, I don’t think it’s totally up to Turkey. There are many
different aspects to the situation. First of all, there are criteria
that the European Union asks from all candidate countries which are
merely technical — those concerning human rights, economic
stability, etc. But there are also other issues that will make a
difference for Turkey’s membership, such as history and culture,
which have not been major concerns with other candidates, such as
those from Eastern Europe
With most of the Eastern European candidates, Western Europe has
historically had a relationship with at least some warmth, but Turkey
as the Ottoman Empire has always been “the Other” of Europe. In terms
of the situation at the moment, what Turkey needs to do in theory is
meet the technical criteria, but what the Germans or Austrians or
French really think about Turkey’s accession is another matter. It’s
not only about politics and economics; it’s a decision for the
peoples of European countries as well. Whether Turkey can overcome
all the historical prejudices against them remains to be seen.
That’s one issue. Then there is the matter of religion. Even though
Turkey is a secular state, over 90 percent of its people are Muslims.
Especially considering the recent history of the relationship between
Islam and the West, this is not a small thing. As you know, Samuel
Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” has become a big topic.
Obviously Turkey’s secular identity has come a long way, but Islam
still plays an important role in many people’s lives in Turkey. Even
the leadership of the current ruling party, the Justice and
Development Party, has a strong Muslim identity. Thus, how the West
perceives Turkey is very important.
If historically, culturally and religiously, Turkey has been defined
as “the Other” of the West, is it now possible to overcome this
perception and admit Turkey into the European Union?
The decision-makers in Europe may see Turkey’s accession as a good
opportunity to bridge the East-West gap, as Turkey gives a good
example of how two cultures can live together. On the other hand,
there are a lot of points of contention between Turkey and the EU.
For instance, Turkey’s approach to the Kurdish issue is very
different to that of the European Union. Of course, Turkey wants to
accommodate some EU demands to improve reconciliation between Turks
and Kurds. However, there are limits to this. It’s the same with the
Armenian issue. Recognition of the Armenian genocide in EU countries
such as France — something which is hotly disputed in Turkey — both
these issues will cause a lot of problems between Turkey and the
European Union.
Then of course, you have the role of the military, which has been an
important institution not just in modern Turkey, but historically in
the Ottoman Empire, as well. Obviously the military plays a much
greater role in Turkish society than is acceptable for a candidate
country. But whether the EU limitations on the role of the military
are feasible in the context of perceived internal and external
threats, e.g. the conflict with the Kurdish separatist group the PKK,
or threats stemming from Turkey’s geostrategic location is a big
question mark.
The Turkish military would be more willing to give up its rights if
the generals believed that after all the EU-inspired reforms, Turkey
would be given membership. However, they believe that the EU has
double standards towards Turkey and suspect that even after doing
everything the EU wants, Turkey may not be granted with accession and
they may have to deal with the chaos created by the EU demands such
as an independent Kurdish state comprising the south-eastern part of
Turkey.
Another important issue is Turkey’s relations with Greece and Greek
Cyprus, especially now the latter is now a full member of the
European Union. For Turkey to take the necessary steps to protect its
own interests in Cyprus, yet at the same time not collide with Greece
and the Greek Cypriot administration, is very difficult.
So these are the potential risk areas. Can they be overcome? Well, I
think it’s a very, very long process, and each step is a potential
risk to strain relations between Turkey and the European Union.
So to summarize, there are historical, cultural and religious aspects
to Turkey’s accession, and also there are institutions that are
perceived as vital in Turkish domestic politics that conflict with
some EU demands. The Armenian and Kurdish issues, Europe’s attitude
towards the PKK, and also Turkey’s foreign policy, especially the
problems with Greece and the Greek Cypriots: each of these will pop
up one by one, and the pressure coming from EU countries to lessen
the military’s influence over foreign policy decisions looks to be a
very hard pill to swallow.
Since 2002, the Turkish government has taken unprecedented steps
towards social liberalization. Restrictions on freedom of expression
have been lifted and broadcasts of Kurdish language programs by
private TV channels are no longer prohibited. However, the case of
Orhan Pamuk shows that the judiciary still apply fairly conservative
interpretations of concepts such as “national security.” Is this
likely to change?
Change in Turkey is a must and it is inevitable, but you need to
understand one thing: These interpretations have not come out of
nowhere. They have emerged out of the history and geography of
Turkey. If you look at what is going on currently in the Middle East,
you can understand why Turkey fears the possible emergence of a
Kurdish state and resents the Armenian claims on eastern Turkey.
You only have to look at the 1920 Treaty of Sevres, the treaty that
dismantled Turkey’s predecessor state, the Ottoman Empire, to see why
this is the case. According to this treaty, in the eastern part of
Anatolia, an Armenian state would be established and in southeast
Anatolia an independent Kurdish state was to be created. In Turkey,
there is something called “Sevres Paranoia,” but it’s difficult to
say how much is constructed threat perception and how much is based
on facts. Some part of this perceived threat may be called as
conspiracy theory, but there is also possibility that there may be
truth in it. If you look at the reshaping of the Middle East in 1900s
and the Western strategies in the region, it seems nothing is that
impossible. Especially if you look at what is going on in northern
Iraq, it’s the emergence of a free Kurdish state. Gradually we could
witness the creation of an internationally-recognized Kurdish state
in the north of what was Iraq.
In the 1990s, Jalal Talabani, a prominent Iraqi Kurdish leader who is
now president of Iraq, was making references to the Treaty of Sevres
and how the Kurds’ right to establish an independent country was
taken from them. Also, many people believe that the president of the
Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq, Masud Barzani, is
influential in the southeastern part of Turkey.
To some, this might be paranoia. But given the historical context of
division in 1919-1920, then it is inevitable that in the psyche of
the nation and of Turkish decision-makers, the perception of threat
is shaped with all these concepts and notions. And current affairs
seem to show similar phenomena influencing decision-making. If you
look at the state of the world then you can see examples of why
Turkish politicians might be cautious. A large number of countries
now recognize the Armenian genocide; it is clear that
internationally, Turkish Cypriot interests are not valued as much as
those of the Greek Cypriots. Therefore it is not surprising that
Turkish security policies are moulded by this perception that Turkish
interests are under threat.
Now, as to what happened to Orhan Pamuk, he’s not the only one. If
you look at Hrant Dink, the editor of Agos, an Armenian-language
newspaper in Turkey, criminal charges were also filed against him for
“denigrating the Turkish state.” This no doubt must change. These are
basic freedoms of people which in the West are commonly accepted and
used by everyone, whereas in Turkey this is not settled. But having
said that rather than just reactionarily blaming Turkey, one should
try and understand why this type of paranoia is emerging. Obviously
the European Union accession process will force Turkey to change, as
will the influence of globalization, which is inevitably affecting
attitudes towards basic freedoms in Turkey as well.
I think that every country must be evaluated within their own context
and circumstances. Just like human beings, the psychology of the
state must be understood and necessary steps must be taken
accordingly to obtain a constructive result.
Support for EU membership in Turkey has declined somewhat in recent
months, though still around 60 percent of people in Turkey support
accession. Why is this?
As I mentioned above, because most Turks believe at both
decision-making and ground levels that double-standards are being
applied by the EU towards their application for full membership. If
Turkey could meet European Union accession demands knowing that in
the end there will be membership of the EU, there would be no
problems. However, this is patently not the case. In the eye of the
Turk, the goalposts keep shifting — the more Turkey gives, the more
the EU asks. And at the end of this process, Turkey is not guaranteed
to be a member.
Don’t forget that in the first World War, the Ottoman Empire fought
against the French, the Italians and the British, but they also
fought against those same forces during the Turkish War of
Independence. So when Turks see the EU making controversial policy
demands, they don’t see it as a human rights or political issue, but
they have suspicions that these demands are part of an agenda with
its aim as the total destruction of the Turkish state. Turkish people
feel that in the worst case scenario, their country might be divided
and membership not obtained.
A lot of people perceive Turkey as an economically backward country.
However, since 2002, growth rates have been consistently impressive
— comparable to China’s, only from a much higher base.
There’s no doubt about it, especially lately, Turkey has been quite
successful economically, especially compared with past. The fight
with inflation has been especially notable. Economic policies have
generally been much more successful. However, in terms of
unemployment there is still a big problem, and the improvement in the
economy does not reflect in the pockets of the average person. The
numbers are impressive, but they don’t translate that well at ground
level. They have not made a lot of difference to most people. The
real success will be when all these achievements are felt by the
general population.
What can Turkey bring to the EU?
A huge market; a young population, especially compared to that of the
EU; a cheaper market not just in terms of wages but economic inputs
generally; a gateway to Central Asia and the Middle East. Turkey is a
place where everything from energy pipelines to peoples and cultures
meet. Turkey can help better relations between Europe and the Middle
East, and it can be a good channel between the European Union and
Central Asia.
How would you describe the new generation in Turkey? Are their
desires the same as young people everywhere, or do they have more
specific goals?
It’s like everywhere: young people want better jobs, education,
lives. Especially in big cities such as Istanbul and Ankara, the
aspirations of people are exactly the same as in the U.K. And really
cultural hegemony is everywhere, so whatever is trendy in the West —
from “Desperate Housewives” to MTV, from music to movies – everything
is the same in Turkey too.
Having said that, in my opinion, the climate in Turkey is more
socially conservative; people’s values are a mixture of Middle
Eastern and Western ones.
“The Clash of Civilizations” or “End of History”?
Both of them are American constructs. They do not reflect the ideas
of others. What Fukuyama and Huntington say may be valid for the
United States and its aspirations, not the rest of the world. These
theses should be considered as good brainstorming sessions, not as
universal rules. To take the “The Clash of Civilizations” or “The End
of History” as the Bible of international relations is rather
mistaken. Both are good for brain gymnastics, but that’s all.
Every civilization has their own value system and something to
contribute to the world. A country or one civilization declaring the
end of history or prophesizing that there will be a clash of
civilizations…the latter concept is really harmful. It has become a
motto which everyone uses as it has received global acclaim. Today,
China and India are rising powers. In international relations, every
empire has a start, a peak and an end. Whether it’s going to be
today, tomorrow or 100 years later doesn’t matter, all of them have
an end.
Let’s move on to current geostrategic questions. Turkey surprisingly
refused a lucrative U.S. offer of $30 billion for cooperation in
Iraq. Would the Turkish people support a military strike against
Iran, or are they in favor of a diplomatic solution?
Of course, Turkey would favor a diplomatic solution. Both Iran and
Iraq are Turkey’s neighbors, and starting from the late 1990s, there
has been a significant improvement in relations between Turkey and
these countries. They have mutual concerns, such as security,
prevention of the emergence of Kurdish states and so on, so I don’t
think that U.S. designs on the Middle East overlap with Turkey’s in
this case.
Most decision-makers in Turkey do not approve of Iran’s nuclear
program, unless it is used for civilian purposes. However they do not
perceive a direct threat coming from Iran either. And also a conflict
with Iran will further destabilize the Middle East. So, neither
decision-makers nor ordinary people agree on the U.S. designs on Iraq
or Iran.
In the very unlikely event of military action, there might be limited
use of air bases like Incirlik. During the Iraq war, Turkey refused
deployment of 62,000 U.S. troops in Turkey. However, during the early
stages of the operation, Incirlik airbase was still used by the
United States forces. There was a limited use, but not in the way
that the US wanted.
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has been very enthusiastic
about deepening economic and diplomatic relations to the Western
Balkans countries such as Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Is this
trend likely to continue?
Yes, of course. Turkey has always wanted to develop better relations
with surrounding countries, Iran, Iraq, Syria and with other
countries as well. Just like the Middle East, Turkey has a historic
bond with the Balkans. At every opportunity, such as the crises in
Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 1990s, Turkey actively
participated and played an important role in finding workable
solutions. So in the region, it is for the interests of no one to
clash, rather to improve bilateral relations in the interests of
everyone.
Finally, Turkey was knocked out by Switzerland and will not be at
this year’s World Cup finals. Who will you be supporting instead?
I have no idea! I don’t know anything about the World Cup. If it was
something like fashion or girlie stuff, maybe. But football? Yuck!

Source: OHMY News

Gwinnett Daily Post, GA
May 28 2006
What others are saying
05/27/2006
Turkey’s Muslim conflicts troubling
Last week’s murder of a prominent Turkish judge, ostensibly by an
Islamist aggrieved at his court’s ruling on the headscarf
controversy, throws a worrying spotlight on the growing rift between
the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with its roots in political
Islam, and the secular establishment, militant defenders of the
legacy of Kemal AtatJurk. This division is being magnified by the
stand-offishness – real or perceived – of the European Union towards
Turkey’s accession ambitions. That is a potentially poisonous
combination.
Turkey’s powerful military and Kemalist bureaucracy has always been
profoundly suspicious of Erdogan and his Justice and Development
party (AKP), built from the rubble of more overtly Islamist parties
and broadened into a Muslim democrat movement analogous to Christian
Democracy. While both sides engage with each other in a wary pas de
deux, each occasionally puts its foot in it.
The government’s attempt to criminalize adultery, and the state’s
attempt to prosecute Orhan Pamuk, the world-renowned novelist, for
denouncing the mass murder of Armenians in the late Ottoman empire,
are memorable examples of such blunders. But they were recognized as
such and withdrawn.
The Erdogan administration tried recently to impose an Islamic banker
– who eschews interest as usury – as head of the central bank, which
sets interest rates. But it reconsidered.
Meanwhile, Turkish perceptions of EU bad faith are encouraging
popular disillusion with Europe and proving a godsend to the
nationalist right and hardline Islamists. Ankara formally started
membership talks last autumn, a process always expected to last a
good decade. Its requirements, in minority, human and democratic
rights as well as adopting the EU rules, were always going to
guarantee a bumpy ride. But in the backwash of last year’s French and
Dutch rejection of the EU constitution, hostility to Turkish
membership has hardened. To Turks, alert to every slight, the EU
often seems to be conducting a moral inventory rather than a
negotiation.
Europe is not only the engine of reform but the glue of political
cohesion in Turkey. EU membership is a national project shared by the
people, business and the army, and embraced by the AKP as a shield
against the generals. The European perspective, in other words, is a
good part of the explanation of why this Muslim democracy and secular
republic works, despite its unresolved contradictions. (FT)

Los Angeles Times
May 28, 2006 Sunday
Home Edition
DESTINATION: UKRAINE;
A liberated Lion City is roaring;
Westerners have discovered Lviv, a place of fine dining, Baroque and
Rococo treasures and excellent prices.
by: Barry Zwick, Special to The Times
Lviv, Ukraine
SATURDAY along Prospekt Svobody — Freedom Street — and here come
the brides. Granddaughters of Kulaks, Cossacks and Tatars, they
promenade from the grand Hapsburg wedding cake of an opera house down
three canopied blocks of chestnut and walnut trees, past chess
players, balloon sellers and street artists. They finish at the
statue of Taras Shevchenko, Ukraine’s most beloved poet and patron
saint of the newly wed.
These are the best of times on the cobblestone streets of Ukraine’s
Lion City, named for 13th century Galician prince Lev Danylovich. In
November 2004, the Orange Revolution against Russian influence bore
fruit, and Ukraine was free at last.
Lviv, a Polish or Austrian city for much of its history, is filled
with Baroque pastel Polish-style town houses, gingerbread-trimmed
Austrian university halls, heroic Russian statues and distinctively
Ukrainian parks as densely wooded as the thick birch forests to the
city’s east.
Last summer, Ukraine dropped its visa requirements for Westerners,
including Americans, and tourists are visiting now. I came here in
September to explore the country where my mother was born.
During prime travel time, from April to September, there’s a
three-month wait list for the once-a-day 40-minute flight from Warsaw
to Lviv. The city’s elegant Grand Hotel, flying an American flag,
must be booked months ahead. As prices soar in other Eastern European
cities, Lviv’s $2 taxi fares, $12 five-course dinners with wine and
hotel rooms half the price of those in Budapest, Hungary, have become
a potent lure.
Lviv, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and home to more than half of
Ukraine’s architectural treasures, was spared the bombings of World
War II. It is the Ukrainian city most often compared to Prague, Czech
Republic.
In 1990, when Prague drew international attention, the city was ready
for backpackers, but not luxury travelers. Restaurants, for example,
were noted more for their Czech Budweiser than for their food.
There’s no such problem in Lviv. As I strolled down Prospekt
Shevchenka, a broad boulevard lined with turn-of-the-last-century
luxury apartments, I found a patisserie called Veronika under
candy-striped umbrellas.
Veronika’s 40-page English-language menu read like the
Escoffier-inspired Queen Mary cookbook: spinach-stuffed breast of
chicken Veronique in pistachio sauce, o7escalope de veauf7 Prince
Orloff with liver pate in cream sauce, o7tournedos de boeuff7
Rossini with pate de foie gras, a choice of black or red caviar. The
chicken was so good — my plate brimming with burgundy Black Sea
grapes — that I returned the following week and ordered it again.
Finding Ukrainian food in Lviv took more work. At Sim Porosyat (Seven
Piglets), a peasant-costumed three-piece band — violin, accordion
and xylophone — welcomed customers to a Ukrainian country inn. Water
streamed from an overturned earthen jar onto a pile of rocks,
waitresses wearing dirndls escorted diners to a whole-log balcony,
and a giant pig wearing a pearl necklace sat on a saddle, riding a
chicken.
As I studied the leather-wrapped menu bound like an Orthodox monk’s
holy book, the band played “If I Were a Rich Man” from “Fiddler on
the Roof.” (Sholem Aleichem, the Yiddish-language writer whose tales
were the basis for the musical, was born and raised in
Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky, Ukraine.)
The feast had begun long before I ordered. My waiter brought me a
glass of honeyed vodka and dishes of marinated mushrooms and dilled
onions. As I sipped a bright and fruity Crimean merlot, a steaming
platter of chicken Kiev arrived, accompanied with crisp potato
pancakes stuffed with veal in a hearty mushroom sauce.
Accessible landmarks
NEARLY all that a visitor would want to see in this city of 800,000
is an easy walk from the center. Rynok Square, just two blocks from
Prospekt Svobody in the heart of Old Town, has 44 Baroque and Rococo
landmarks — each with a documented history — built from the 16th to
19th centuries. Most are three stories high and three windows wide.
All belonged to wealthy merchants who tried to outdo one another.
Cluttered shops at street level stocked vodkas, antiques, samovars
and blown glass. I wandered amid statues, reliefs and intricate
carvings. Lions were everywhere, on staircases, balconies and
doorknobs.
The most visited mansion on the square is No. 6, the Italian
Courtyard, built by the Greek wine tycoon Constantine Kornyakt in
1580. The interior court of this neoclassical beauty is enclosed by
gracefully turned arches and sculptured columns and filled with
flowers, Greek statues and green shrubs. It’s a popular lunch and
snack stop.
The top of Town Hall’s neo-Renaissance tower, 213 feet high, is the
best place to view Lviv.
I followed three giggling teenage couples up the 289 steps. Halfway
up was a window and a fine view of Lviv, of red tile roofs amid the
treetops and a bit of ramshackle shabbiness as well. This is the
city’s bell tower, and on the hour we all were in for a surprise.
>From the observation deck, I saw a panorama of domes and churches, of
spires and statuary. Many of central Lviv’s 40 churches, built as
Russian Orthodox or Roman Catholic, are today Greek Catholic,
following the majority faith of Lviv.
Of Lviv’s many old synagogues — the city was one-quarter Jewish
before nearly all its 100,000 Jewish residents were murdered during
World War II — the ruins of only the Golden Rose Synagogue survive.
Just three blocks east of Prospekt Svobody is one of Lviv’s oldest
churches, the Armenian Cathedral, finished in 1360.
Its dark stone exterior looks forbidding, but in the church’s cool,
shaded courtyard, young people strum guitars and sing and eat lunches
of fat poppy seed-studded buns stuffed with sausages. The Russians
shuttered the church in 1953 and turned it into an icon storehouse.
After Ukraine became independent from Russia in 1991, the government
gave the building to the Armenian Apostolic Church.
The Armenian community, substantial during the 18th and 19th
centuries, numbers only 1,000 now. Many left when communism made
commerce impossible.
Many of the churches needed a coat of paint, but not the Church of
the Transfiguration, the largest one in Lviv. The Baroque church was
in beautiful condition — the golden iconostasis, the purple and blue
interior, the stunning light and the dazzling paintings of biblical
scenes. It was built by Roman Catholics in the 18th century, then
Soviet officials gave it to Lviv’s Greek Catholic majority in 1989.
Near the 17th century Gothic Boims Chapel one sunny afternoon, I
stopped for lunch with Slav Tsarynnyk, owner of Lviv Ecotours. The
restaurant, Amadeus, looked like a bit of Salzburg, Austria:
o7fin-de-sieclef7 oil paintings of crowds at cabarets, etched-glass
paneled windows, delicate linen curtains and a big clock with a
pendulum.
“Mozart’s son, Franz Xavier, was a music teacher in Lviv, when it was
Lemberg,” Tsarynnyk said. He ordered a typical Lvivian lunch —
vanilla ice cream with blackberries, raspberries, strawberry jam, a
mint leaf and lots of whipped cream.
Tsarynnyk was my guide for three of my eight days in Ukraine. I found
him on Lonely Planet’s online Thorn Tree forum and reserved his
services by e-mail from home. For my day tour of Lviv, he charged
$80, and for our later two-day excursion into the countryside, it was
$100 per day plus expenses.
In a country where English is not widely spoken, not even at customs,
a good guide — and Tsarynnyk was extraordinary, as well as good
company — can be indispensable. Most taxi drivers don’t speak
English, nor do they know our alphabet.
A night at the opera
THE highlight of my visit was a night at the opera, officially the
Ivan Franko Opera and Ballet Theatre. You’ll see Franko’s name in
places throughout the city, including on its university and one of
its bigger parks.
Franko, who lived from 1856 to 1916, was a poet beloved by Ukrainians
because he was a nationalist and was acceptable to the Soviets
because he was a socialist. In 1905, he wrote “Moses,” a poem
ostensibly about the last days of the leader of the ancient Hebrews
but actually about the emancipation of the Ukrainians.
Ukrainian composer Myroslav Skoryk set an opera called “Moses” to
Franko’s words; its premiere was in 2001, when Pope John Paul II came
here. The city’s distinguished opera company has performed it
periodically ever since at the spectacular opera house. I had a
ticket — front row center for $10.
Crowds gathered day and night in front of the Viennese
neo-Renaissance opera house, built by Austria in 1900. It’s heavy on
the gilt and marble. Among the fine touches: a majestic double
staircase, Corinthian columns, a hall of mirrors, huge oil paintings
on the walls and ceilings, statues of the Muses and, on top, large
bronze statues symbolizing glory, poetry and music. The season lasts
most of the year, and you’ll find few more ambitious schedules.
Typically, eight operas and eight ballets are presented each month,
most of them standards.
Inside, the crowd was giddy. Teenagers snapped digital photos of one
another. Young couples craned their necks to take in the details on
the ceilings. As the lights dimmed, we took our seats, comfortably
upholstered in burgundy velvet. It was a full house — all 1,002
seats were taken. Swells took their places in the boxes overhead and
whipped out binoculars. Most in the audience spoke Ukrainian, but I
heard French, German and Italian and, here and there, English.
The music was sweeping, stirring and heroic. Skoryk created a mood of
historic majesty not so much through melody as through chords, for a
1940s Hollywood epic sound. Costumes and sets were lavish, and dances
compelling. Moses sang of a somewhat unfamiliar Promised Land, of
“oak forests and green grass.”
Opera is an international comfort food for those of us who like it.
The rituals are universal: flowers for the soprano and shouts of
“Bravo!” In Lviv, though, the bass got the flowers. The applause, a
do-your-own thing elsewhere in the world, was in lock-step unison,
clap for clap. And the audience rose as one for the standing ovation.
At the opera, at the airport and on the teeming streets of Lviv, I
ran into Canadians and Americans who had emigrated from the city and
were back in town for weddings.
Traditionally, as the bride in a Lviv wedding leaves the church, she
hurls candies — symbolizing a life of sweetness — to the waiting
crowd. At the Dominican Church, Tsarynnyk and I caught a handful and
shared in the dream.
*
Open-door policy in Lviv
GETTING THERE:
>From LAX, Lufthansa has connecting flights (one change of plane) to
Lviv, Ukraine. United and American have connecting service with two
changes of planes. Restricted round-trip fares begin at $1,855 until
June 25, dropping to $1,765 until Sept. 5.
TELEPHONES:
To call the numbers below from the U.S., dial 011 (the international
dialing code), 380 (country code for Ukraine), then 322 (city code
for Lviv) and the local number.
WHERE TO STAY:
Grand Hotel, 13 Prospekt Svobody; 72-40-42,
Elegant rooms in a prime location facing the Shevchenko statue.
Doubles from $165, including breakfast buffet.
Hotel Dnister, 6 Mateiko St.; 97-43-17, New York
Sen. Hillary Clinton and Vaclav Havel, former president of the Czech
Republic, stayed here (separately). Much better service than the
Grand. Doubles from $82, including breakfast buffet.
Lion’s Castle, 7 Glinki St.; 97-15-63. Friendly boutique hotel,
15-minute walk to Old Town. Doubles from $91, with breakfast.
WHERE TO EAT:
Amadeus, 7 Katedralna St.; 97-80-22. Beside the Boims chapel, just
off Rynok Square. Wonderfully seasoned Austrian dishes with lots of
fresh vegetables. Dinner with wine from $11.
Veronika, 21 Prospekt Shevchenka; 97-81-28. Haute cuisine in a
festive indooroutdoor setting, friendly service offering good wine
advice: “Stick with Merlot.” Dinner with wine from $13.
Sim Porosyat (Seven Piglets), 9 Bandera St.; 97-55-58. An
over-the-top Ukrainian theme restaurant with musical entertainment.
Reservations a must. Dinner with wine from $14.
GUIDE:
Slav Tsarynnyk, 37 Tiutiunnykiv St., Lviv 79011, Ukraine; (067)
670-0840, lvivecotour.com. In a country where English is not widely
spoken, a good guide is indispensable.
TO LEARN MORE:
Ukrainian Embassy, 3350 M St. N.W., Washington, DC, 20007; (202)
333-0606, U.S. citizens can spend 90 days in
Ukraine without a visa.
— Barry Zwick

The Daily Telegraph (LONDON)
May 27, 2006 Saturday
Books:
Our staggering appetite for death
REVIEWS
A sobering, provocative and highly readable history argues that
ethnicity was the central, explosive factor in 20th-century conflicts
by DOMINIC SANDBROOK
In 1931, Albert Einstein wrote to the elderly Sigmund Freud inviting
him to join an intellectual association dedicated to enlisting
“religious groups in the fight against war”. This might seem a
laudable enterprise, but Freud was having none of it. Man, he said,
had an urge “to destroy and kill”, an “impulse to destruction” that
stemmed from the “death instinct” of every living being. “There is
no likelihood,” he explained, “of our being able to suppress
humanity’s aggressive tendencies… Why do we, you and I and many
others, protest so vehemently against war, instead of just accepting
it as another of life’s odious importunities? For it seems a natural
enough thing, biologically sound and practically unavoidable.”
Three-quarters of a century later, Freud’s words ring truer than
ever. For as Niall Ferguson’s sobering new book shows, if there were
ever any doubts about mankind’s capacity for sheer bestial savagery,
the 20th century put them to rest. Mere statistics – the millions
stigmatised as sub-human, driven from their homes, deprived of their
liberty, slaughtered by their neighbours – barely convey the horror
of the past 100 years. From the bloodshed of the Western Front to the
massacres of the Armenians, from Stalin’s camps to the rape of
Nanking, from the butchery of Bosnia to the charnel house of the
Congo, men of all creeds and colours exhibited a staggering appetite
for death and destruction.
Ferguson’s book, which concentrates on the half-century from 1904 to
1953, started life as a history of the Second World War and evolved
into a broader exploration of what he calls “history’s age of
hatred”. Instead of simply retelling the familiar tales of
international diplomacy and totalitarian wickedness, he tries to
explain precisely why the mask of civilisation slipped so frequently,
and with such murderous consequences, during the early 20th century.
In the hands of a less accomplished writer, this might be an
unbearably depressing read. But Ferguson more than justifies his
lofty reputation in a book that fizzes with revisionist insights and
invites the reader to think again about the clichés of the world
wars.
Put simply, Ferguson believes that the bloodshed of the 20th century
was attributable to a lethal combination of economic uncertainity,
imperial breakdown and ethnic tension. Instead of looking to class,
like so many historians trailing in Marx’s wake, he concentrates on
ethnicity as the central, explosive factor in 20th-century conflicts
from the Balkans to East Asia. This doesn’t mean that he downplays
economics: the book is stuffed full of tables and statistics of all
kinds. But time after time, he argues, unsettling economic changes –
which include growth and urbanisation as well as recession or
depression – have acted as “the trigger for the politicisation of
ethnic difference”.
Ferguson develops these themes through 50 years of pogroms,
conferences, invasions and tank battles, his narrative sweeping from
the killing fields of the Third Reich to the utter anarchy of
war-torn China. Much of this is well-known territory, but Ferguson’s
great skill as a historian is his ability to make the familiar seem
fresh. Iconoclastic judgments come thick and fast. The Great War was
a bolt from the blue rather than the product of long-nourished
rivalries; the laws of the Treaty of Versailles were to do with maps,
not economics; Japan was more the Asian equivalent of Britain than an
oriental version of Germany. The Second World War, he suggests, began
in China in 1937, not Poland in 1939. Britain should have attacked
Germany in 1938, in a “war of pre-emption”, rather than waiting an
extra year. The Axis powers were stronger in 1942 than we usually
think; the Nazis’ racist empire was a paradoxically multi-ethnic
entity; and by allying with Stalin, the Allies jumped into bed with
“the ultimate Nazi collaborator”.
Whether the reader agrees with this or not – and there are surely few
who will agree with everything the book says – it is wonderfully
bracing, provocative stuff. Ferguson’s reputation is partly based on
his keenness to push a point, often a little too far for squeamish
academic tastes. But he knows his stuff, as an enormous bibliography
makes clear, and even if his acknowledgements thank a disturbingly
large team of research assistants, the sheer verve of the writing
suggests that this is the real McCoy. Although this is a long and
intricately argued book, it is nevertheless highly readable, flowing
nicely from bond markets to battlefields, and it brims with wit and
personality.
But whatever its qualities, it is hard to put this book down with
anything other than an abiding sense of gloom. In a thoughtful
epilogue, Ferguson points out that men slaughtered one another with
just as much relish after 1945; the only difference is that they
generally did it in the Third World, far from the breakfast tables of
Europe and America. In Korea, Guatemala, Chile, Cambodia, Bosnia and
Sudan, women were raped, infants eviscerated, men butchered with
pitiless relish. In his final pages, Ferguson even hints that our new
century could be the bloodiest yet, thanks to the rise of China, the
sensational demographic growth of the developing world and the
persistence of ethnic rivalries. We may fantasise about the “end of
history”, about a new age of globalisation and democracy, but there
will always be another war.

Daily Mail (London)
May 27, 2006 Saturday
Century of genocide;
The 20th centurywas an era of unparalleled progress yet it was also
the most violent in history. What’s trulyworrying is that the causes
of that mass bloodshed are all too prevalent today
by NIALL FERGUSON
IT WAS the best of times; it was the worst of times. It was the
century when human beings got richer than previous generations could
possibly have imagined. It was the century when, on average, people
lived longer, too.
Breakthroughs in science and technology transformed the quality of
life on earth.
The average person became better fed, healthier and taller. A much
smaller proportion of the world’s population was chained to the
precarious drudgery of subsistence agriculture. People had roughly
treble the amount of leisure time.
Moreover, thanks to the remarkable spread of the democratic form of
government, people were also more free.
Yet – and this is surely one of the greatest of history’s paradoxes –
the 20th century was also by far the most violent era mankind has
experienced since the dawn of civilisation, far more violent in
relative as well as absolute terms than any other in history.
Significantly larger percentages of the world’s population were
killed in the two world wars that dominated the century than had been
killed in any previous conflict of comparable geopolitical magnitude.
By any measure, World War II was the greatest manmade catastrophe of
all time, killing something like 60 million people, nearly 3 per cent
of the world’s population in 1938.
Moreoever, the world wars were only two of many 20th century bouts of
lethal organised violence.
Death tolls quite probably passed the million mark in at least a
dozen other wars, as well as the campaigns of extermination waged
against ethnic or social minorities by the Turkish regime during
World War I, the Soviet regime from the 1920s until the 1950s and the
National Socialist regime in Germany between 1933 and 1945, to say
nothing of the tyrannies of Mao Zedong in China and Pol Pot in
Cambodia.
There was not a single year between 1900 and 1999 that did not see
large-scale organised violence in one part of the world or another.
Estimates for the century’s total body count attributable to violence
range from 167 million to 188 million – perhaps as many as one in
every 22 deaths.
So why were those 100 years the century of mass destruction as well
as the century of mass consumption?
Why did murder rates rise almost in step with living standards?
To resolve this great paradox, it is not enough just to say that
there were more people living closer together, or more destructive
weapons.
NO doubt it was easier to perpetrate mass murder by dropping high
explosives on crowded cities than it had once been to put dispersed
rural populations to the sword. But if those were sufficient
explanations, the end of the century would have been more violent
than the beginning and middle.
In the 1990s the world’s population for the first time exceeded six
billion, more than three times what it had been when World War I
broke out.
Moreover, weaponry was vastly more destructive. But there was
actually a marked decline in the amount of armed conflict in the
century’s last decade.
In any case, some of the worst violence of the century was
perpetrated in relatively thinly populated countries with the crudest
of weapons: rifles, axes, knives and machetes.
When I was a schoolboy, the textbooks offered a variety of
explanations for 20th century violence. Sometimes they blamed
economic crises, as if depressions and recessions could explain
political conflict.
Then there was the dreary old Marxist theory that the century was all
about class conflict – that revolutions were one of the main causes
of violence.
A third argument was that the 20th century’s problems were the
consequences of extreme versions of political ideologies, notably
communism and fascism, as well as earlier evil ‘isms’, notably
racism.
The trouble with all of these theories was that they could not tell
me the answer to two simple questions. Why did extreme violence
happen in some places – Poland and the Ukraine, for example – but not
in others, like Sweden and New Zealand?
And why did it happen at certain times – the early 1940s, especially
– but not at other times, like the early 1960s?
For the most striking thing about 20th century violence was how
localised it was in both space and time.
It really was tremendously bad luck to be born in Byelorussia or
Serbia in around 1904; your chances of dying a violent death were
probably 50:50. But if you had the luck to be born, as I was, in
Western Europe in the early Sixties, you were quite likely never to
hear a shot fired in anger.
The Depression was more or less a global phenomenon – but only a
minority of countries became warmongering dictatorships as a result
of it.
THERE were social inequalities more or less everywhere. But only in
some times did these give rise to bloody revolutions.
As for the ideologies which men used to justify violence in the 20th
century, all of these were the inventions of earlier periods.
Biological racism, the nastiest of all justifications for mass
murder, was a 19th century idea.
Why was it in Europe between 1939 and 1945 that this idea became the
basis for a systematic policy of genocide waged against the Jewish
people and other groups deemed by the Nazis to be ‘subhuman’?
Why did the Germans – who in the 1920s had been perhaps the best
educated people on the planet – commit the century’s most hateful
crime?
It is much too easy to pile all the blame on a few wicked dictators:
Hitler, Stalin and Mao in particular. But as Tolstoy long ago pointed
out in War And Peace, you have to explain not only why megalomaniacs
order men to invade Russia, but also why the men obey.
In short, we need some better way to explain why the 20th century, in
so many ways a time of unparalleled progress, was also a time when
millions of men (and it was mainly men) felt motivated to engage in
lethal organised violence against their fellow human beings – not
just in more or less equal battlefield struggles, but also in
horribly unequal massacres perpetrated against defenceless civilians.
And that explanation has to pinpoint both the location and the timing
of the bloodshed.
It turns out that for violence to explode into the million-plus
casualty range, three things need to coincide: ethnic disintegration,
economic volatility and empires in decline.
By ethnic disintegration, I mean breakdowns in the relations between
certain ethnic groups, specifically the breakdown of sometimes quite
faradvanced processes of assimilation in multiethnic societies. It
was no coincidence that the worst violence of the 20th century
happened in countries that were ethnically heterogeneous
as a result of complex patterns of migration and intermarriage.
Look at an ethno-linguistic map of Europe in around 1900 and you can
quickly identify the future killing fields of the century. In
particular, that triangle of territory between the Baltic, the
Balkans and the Black Sea stands out as a kind of patchwork of
different nationalities.
In the north there were Lithuanians, Latvians, Byelorussians and
Russians; in the middle, Czechs, Slovaks and Poles; in the south,
Italians, Slovenes, Magyars, Romanians and, in the Balkans, Slovenes,
Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks, Albanians, Greeks and Turks.
Scattered all over the region were German-speaking communities. And
language was only one of the ways the different ethnic groups could
be distinguished.
Some of those who spoke German dialects were Protestants, some
Catholics and some Jews.
The striking thing is that these different groups were not strictly
segregated. On the contrary, from 1900 onwards there was a remarkable
blurring of ethnic lines as traditional religious communities
weakened and the number of mixed marriages rose.
By the 1920s, in many Central and East European cities, one in every
two or three marriages involving a Jew was to a non-Jew.
So the question becomes: what made so many of these multiethnic
societies blow apart in the 1930s and 1940s?
Why did neighbours quite literally murder one another in so many
different places, when it had seemed that the processes of
integration and assimilation would actually dissolve the differences
between Germans and Jews, Poles and Ukrainians, Serbs and Croats?
HERE is where economic volatility comes in – by which I mean the
frequency and amplitude of changes in the rate of growth, prices,
interest rates and employment.
The world had never experienced so many economic ups and downs as it
did during the first half of the 20th century, from the boom years
that ended in 1914 and 1929 to the catastrophic Depression of the
Thirties.
The effect of these ups and downs was deeply divisive in the
multiethnic societies of Central and Eastern Europe.
For it seemed to many people that the fruits of the good times were
disproportionately accruing to certain ethnic minorities – not only
Jews, but also Armenians. And when the bad times came, there was
already some predisposition to target those minorities for compulsory
redistribution – and retribution.
The third, fatal ingredient was provided by declining empires.
The world of 1900 was a world of empires. More than 80 per cent of
the world’s population lived in one empire or another.
But the empires that ruled Central and Eastern Europe – the Ottoman,
Austro-Hungarian, Russian and German – were fragile entities, whose
rivalries ultimately blew Europe apart in World War I.
It was in the wake of this first wave of imperial crises that the
question of ethnic minorities became acute, for in the new nation
states created after 1918 – particularly in Czechoslovakia,
Yugoslavia and Poland – there were numerous minorities who felt
distinctly vulnerable to the newly empowered majorities.
The Germans, in particular, who had once been so dominant in the
Austro-Hungarian empire, found themselves living as second-class
citizens.
Their feelings of post-imperial insecurity were a lethal ingredient
in the distinctly Austrian cocktail that became National Socialism.
The decline and fall of empires was a recurrent leitmotif of the 20
century.
It was not only these Central and East European empires that
collapsed; the new empires that sprang up in the 1930s – the Soviet,
the Italian, the Japanese and the Nazi – also proved ephemeral.
World War II was ultimately just as fatal for the West European
overseas empires of Britain, France and the Netherlands, which fell
apart inexorably in the 1950s and 1960s.
And precisely this pattern of imperial disintegration is another
reason why the 20th century was so violent. For violence tends to
peak when empires decline.
It is not during their rise and zenith that empires generate the most
conflict, but when they dissolve – for it is at the moment of
dissolution that indigenous peoples have the strongest incentive to
engage in civil war, in the knowledge the post-imperial spoils of
independence will go to the victor.
The potential instability of assimilation and integration; the
combustible character of ethnically mixed societies; the chronic
volatility of economic life; the convulsions that marked the decline
of Western dominance – these were the true causes of what I have
called The War Of The World.
If I am right about what made the 20th century so violent – ethnic
disintegration, economic volatility and empires in decline then what
are the implications for this still new century we live in today?
I am afraid to say that they are profoundly alarming. For there is
one region of the world which already has all these ingredients in
abundance.
That region is the Middle East.
AS I write, the evidence mounts that Iraqi society is descending into
a potentially terrible civil war between Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds, a
war which could all too easily escalate beyond Iraq’s borders into a
major regional conflict.
As I write, the world economy seems to be teetering on the brink of a
new era of volatility, after what has been a remarkable period of
stability and prosperity. Nowhere is that volatility more acute than
in the Middle East, where $70a-barrel oil enriches a tiny elite while
a youthful populace frets in idleness and poverty.
And, as I write, there is every reason to think that the last great
empire of the Western world – that informal American empire which has
so dominated the world in our lifetimes, and which this country has
perhaps too loyally supported – is losing its grip on the foreign
territories it has recently sought to control: not only Iraq, but
also Afghanistan.
The danger is very real that conflict in the Middle East could
escalate in the years ahead to levels we have not seen in the region
since the Iran-Iraq war; perhaps to levels we have not seen in the
northern hemisphere since the 1940s.
Nor is it clear to me that our multi- ethnic societies in Western
Europe, which are being so rapidly transformed by Muslim immigration,
would remain untouched by such a conflagration.
Once again, I fear, what has seemed like the best of times – this
fledgling 21st century, with its high-speed connections and its hedge
funds – could turn very suddenly into the worst of times.
Niall Ferguson’s new book, The War Of The World: History’s Age of
Hatred, is published by Penguin on June 1.
GRAPHIC: THE NAZI DEATH CAMP AT BELSEN: JUST ONE HORROR IN A HUNDRED
YEARS OF HORRORS

The Economist
May 27, 2006
U.S. Edition
Inside the mad despot’s realm; Turkmenistan
ashgabat and mary
A rare visit to one of the world’s most secretive and repressive
countries
THERE is not much to laugh about on state television in Turkmenistan.
But viewers may be forgiven for feeling a little quiet satisfaction
at the spectacle, late last month, of Gurbanbibi Atajanova, the
former chief state prosecutor otherwise known as the iron lady,
tearfully begging not to be sent to prison after being accused of
possessing 25 houses, 36 cars and 2,000 head of cattle. Ms Atajanova
led the purges that, in recent years, systematically removed anyone
who tried to challenge, or simply to rein in, President Saparmurat
Niyazov, the self-styled Turkmenbashi, or “father of Turkmen”.
Not, of course, mentioned by state television was the fact that, on
the very same day, Mr Niyazov was himself under attack. A
London-based human-rights organisation, Global Witness, was accusing
him of siphoning off most of the country’s estimated $2 billion a
year in gas revenues and concealing them in offshore accounts. One of
these contains $4 billion, alleges one well-informed insider.
Such topics cannot be discussed in Turkmenistan. Any criticism or
dissent is defined as treason and is punishable by long prison terms,
confinement to psychiatric hospital or internal banishment, mostly to
arid salt flats by the Caspian Sea. Private conversations everywhere
are monitored by eavesdropping informers, as well as bugs and
phone-taps. E-mails are monitored (there is only one
service-provider) and internet access rare: a trawl of the capital
reveals not one functioning public outlet. Surveillance, already
tight, has been ratcheted up after a failed coup attempt in 2002.
Yet there is much that needs to be discussed. Ashgabat, the capital,
is a surreal showpiece of grandiose, neo-Stalinist buildings of
gleaming white marble, with giant portraits and gold statues of the
Turkmenbashi everywhere – including one, arms aloft, that constantly
revolves through 360 degrees, so that it always faces the sun. Behind
the glitz lies a grim reality; rutted tracks leading from four-lane
highways to windowless, one-room homes, including converted railway
containers, surrounded by debris and animals. Some of these are
inhabited by those whose homes – and entire neighbourhoods – were razed
to make way for “renovation” and offered no compensation. In one, a
middle-aged woman struggles to bring up her nephew (her sister, a
heroin addict like many in Turkmenistan, is too ill). But Olga has
lost her job under new laws because she is of Armenian and Ukrainian
descent.
Such are the priorities of a regime that squanders money on prestige
projects of dubious benefit, including an ice-rink, a huge
half-finished artificial lake, vast mosques, gold-domed palaces and
soon a new zoo, complete with penguins, in a country where the summer
temperature tops 50°C. At the same time, public health and
education – the only worthwhile legacies of the Soviet Union, from
which Turkmenistan became independent in 1991 – have been all but
dismantled.
This year’s outlook is even grimmer than last’s. In January, 100,000
people had their pensions cancelled, those of another 250,000 were
severely cut back, and sickness and maternity benefits were ended.
Unusually, the decrees led to protests, including demonstrations in
the port town of Turkmenbashi, while a Niyazov statue in the city of
Mary (once known as Merv) had its arm sawn off and a bucket of human
faeces thrown over it.
Then, in April, Mr Niyazov announced a further “reform” to the
already crippled health service, adding new charges that will make
its few remaining services yet more inaccessible. Most hospitals
outside the capital have closed and the remainder offer only
rudimentary care, lacking staff, equipment and medicines, condemning
thousands to death from common, treatable illnesses such as
tuberculosis.
Every Monday at 8am, Turkmenistan’s schoolchildren line up to recite
the oath of allegiance to the president, part of a
youth-indoctrination programme that is progressively replacing the
conventional curriculum. Its core is the two-volume Ruhnama, “The
Book of the Spirit”, a homespun collection of thoughts on Turkmen
history and culture that pupils are required to spend hours studying.
Visits to bookstores reveal shelves lined with nothing but the
president’s works. Meanwhile, mandatory education has been reduced
from ten years to nine and most rural kindergartens have closed, as
have all libraries outside the capital. Russian-language teaching has
been largely phased out, music and ballet schools closed and almost
all teachers of ethnic-minority origins sacked under rigorously
enforced “Turkmenisation” policies that demand racial purity,
traceable back three generations, for all workers in state
institutions, including hospitals.
Higher education is severely run down. The annual intake is now under
3,000, a tenth of the pre-independence figure, courses have been cut
to two years and standards are so poor they are unacceptable abroad.
Worse, the president has ordered that no foreign degrees will
henceforth be recognised. Anyone with a qualification gained abroad
is either being sacked or refused a job. One economist says that all
but two of her high-school class of 30 have emigrated because they
see no future at home. “You have students returning with degrees from
the world’s best universities – MBAs from Stanford, for instance – who
can’t get jobs,” she says. “We are the last educated generation,”
sighs another professor.
In rural areas, the problems are different. Cotton is the main crop,
but the past three harvests have been catastrophic because of a
requirement to sell at state-set prices so low that farmers are left
with annual incomes of around $100. Unemployment is estimated at over
70%, exacerbated by public-sector layoffs, and by laws restricting
job-seekers to their home towns. Such is the pressure to obtain work
that bribes are standard. Even the scarf-swathed army of women
sweeping Ashgabat’s streets with twig brooms have to pay officials,
Turkmen say.
Despite widespread unhappiness with the regime, most Turkmen do not
see a way out. Rebellion looks impossible, given the level of
repression and fear; and state benefits (free gas and electricity and
highly subsidised fuel, since plentiful gas and oil are
Turkmenistan’s only blessing) take some of the edge off discontent.
Besides, people are brainwashed by a relentless propaganda machine
orchestrated by four state-television channels, two radio stations
and several newspapers propounding the idea of a “golden age”. Exiled
opposition groups have little influence, and pressure from the
outside, given Turkmenistan’s large mineral reserves, is shamefully
muted.
There is, though, much speculation about the 66-year-old
Turkmenbashi’s health. He has had heart surgery, and has a team of
eight top-notch German doctors constantly on call. This raises other
problems, most obviously the lack of a mechanism for an orderly
transfer of power, coupled with the lack of any democratic tradition
in a conservative, tribal society. Pessimistic Turkmen fear that a
lost generation, uneducated beyond the Ruhnama, may fall prey to
Islamic radicalism – and create a nasty failed state that could
destabilise an already volatile region. A fine mess for a father to
leave to his children.
GRAPHIC: Facing the sun, presiding over ruin

The Economist
May 27, 2006
U.S. Edition
Secular worries; Turkey’s troubles
Clashes over Islam in Turkey
A spat with a general proves upsetting
“THERE is a price for each word uttered by people in responsible
positions,” said Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The Turkish prime minister was
talking about an unprecedented outburst by the chief of the general
staff, General Hilmi Ozkok, after last week’s shooting in a courtroom
in Ankara that killed one pro-secular judge and wounded four others.
The general had called the anti-government demonstrations that
followed “admirable”.
Alparslan Arslan, a 29-year-old lawyer who was the gunman, said he
had picked on the judges because they supported the ban on the
Islamic headscarf in public offices, schools and universities.
Members of the cabinet, including the foreign minister, Abdullah Gül,
and the justice minister, Cemil Cicek, were called “murderers” by
thousands of pro-secular Turks, who flocked to the city’s main mosque
for the judge’s funeral on May 18th. Mr Erdogan was pilloried for not
being there.
A day later President Ahmet Necdet Sezer marched with generals,
university rectors and some 20,000 protesters to Ataturk’s mausoleum.
It was the biggest pro-secular rally since the 1993 murder of a
columnist on a secular daily, Cumhuriyet. “Turkey is secular and will
remain secular,” shouted the marchers. But will it? That has been the
worry of millions of Westernised Turks ever since the mild Islamists
led by Mr Erdogan, came to power in 2002 with a big majority.
The secularists’ fears have been exploited by the army, whose powers
are being steadily eroded by a string of reforms made necessary for
Turkey to win its prized start of membership talks with the European
Union last October. Mr Erdogan’s supporters blamed agents of “the
deep state” of rogue security officials and bureaucrats for last
week’s attack. Their aim is said to be to torpedo the EU process,
weaken the government and bully Mr Erdogan into ditching his
ambitions to succeed Mr Sezer when he retires next year.
Mr Arslan’s bizarre web of connections suggest that he did not act
alone. His alleged accomplices include a former army captain, who was
dumped at an Istanbul hospital with self-inflicted knife wounds after
the killing, and sundry ultra-nationalists involved in extra-judicial
killings, extortion rackets and attacks against Christians and Kurds.
But even if the affair proves to be a conspiracy, Mr Erdogan still
needs to ask himself why so many Turks blamed the government.
One reason may be that, just like his pro-secular critics, Mr Erdogan
has been decidedly selective in his sense of democracy and justice.
He has loudly denounced court rulings against the headscarf. Yet,
when an Istanbul prosecutor pressed charges against the country’s
best-known author, Orhan Pamuk, for speaking about the mass killings
of Armenians by the Ottomans in 1915, Mr Erdogan did not utter a
squeak of reproach. His claims to defend the interests of all Turks,
not just religious ones, are beginning to ring hollow.
Yet those who are baying for the government’s blood should think
twice as well. For all his shortcomings, Mr Erdogan has brought
Turkey greater freedom and stability than any of his pro-secular
predecessors. His attempts to increase Islam’s visibility in public
life have remained just that. Although a recent poll suggests that Mr
Erdogan’s popularity rating has slipped from 35% to 28%, his party
still has twice as much support as the pro-secular Republican
People’s party. Indeed, the lack of a credible opposition remains one
of Turkey’s biggest weaknesses.
Should the judge’s murder prove to be an individual act of
retribution, “the implications are far more worrying than those of a
conspiracy,” says Murat Erdogan, at Ankara’s Hacettepe University.
“That could mean there will be further such incidents, whereas
conspiracies can be unveiled and brought under control.”

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
May 27, 2006 Saturday 02:49 PM EST
”Black boxes” from crashed Armenian plane brought to Paris
by Mikhail Timofeyev
Two flight data recorders from the Armenian Airbus-320 passenger
plane that crashed in the Black Sea of Sochi on May 3 were brought to
Paris on Saturday.
Specialists will examine and open the so-called “black boxes” to
retrieve memory microchips that record different flight data
parameters and conversations in the cockpit.
After that the recordings will be analysed in Moscow by experts from
Russia, Armenia, and France.
The CIS Interstate Aviation Committee said earlier it would take at
least 15 days to analyse the data in the recorders.
IAC head Tatyana Anodina said about 2,000 planes of the Airbus-320
type are operating around the world, and everybody wants to get full
and objective data about the accident as soon as possible.
According to Anodina, two black boxes from the crashed plane record
conversations in the cockpit and plane system data. “Unfortunately
the voice recorder was seriously damaged but the data recorder,
according to preliminary information, is in excellent condition.
Recordings will be analysed in Russia, using equipment from France
where the Airbus-320 airliner was designed,” she said.
There were three flight data recorders aboard the plane but no
signals from the third one have ever been registered, which suggests
that its radio beacon was knocked off during the crash.
Flight data recorders used on aircraft of the Airbus-320 type
withstand the depth of up to 6,000 meters for 30 days, experts from
the French air crash investigation bureau said.
Each flight recorder weighs 10 kilograms, including a seven-kilogram
armoured casing for the gadget. The casing can withstand water
pressure at a depth of 6,000 meters, the temperature of 1,100 degrees
Celsius, and the compression of 2.2 tonnes.
Of 113 people who were abroad the plane, 51 bodies have been found so
far.
The Airbus A-320 of the Armenian airline Armavia plunged into the
Black Sea as it was making a landing manoeuvre in the early hours of
May 3. The accident claimed the lives of 113 people.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
May 27, 2006 Saturday
Aliyev says no all possibilities for Karabakh settlement used yet
by Viktor Shulman
Azerbaijani President Ilkham Aliyev said not all possibilities for
resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict have been used yet.
“The latest visit of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmen to Azerbaijan,
a visit of senior diplomats and the talks they had inspire hope for a
peaceful settlement. These possibilities have not been used up yet,
and Azerbaijan is using them,” the president said on Friday evening
at an official reception on the occasion of Day of the Republic.
At the same time, he said Baku would never allow “Nagorno-Karabakh
to be separated form Azerbaijan.”
Aliyev believes that the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over
Nagorno-Karabakh is the main source of threat not only to his country
but also to the entire region where major energy and transport
projects are implemented.