El teatro universitario dirigido por Enrique Singer empieza su temporada con varios estrenos muy importantes. El primero de ellos es La inauguración de Václav Havel en adaptación de David Psalmon, quien la dirige basado en la traducción de la checa Alena Pavelkovna. Sería interesante saber el sentido del original, dado que Psalmon afirma que un 80 por ciento de lo escenificado corresponde al dramaturgo, ya que se trata de un texto eminentemente político que desconocemos en nuestro idioma. Sabemos que Václav Havel, primero disidente del régimen soviético y luego presidente de la antigua Checoslovaquia y primer presidente de la actual República Checa, escribió esta obra –primera de una trilogía– en 1975, es decir después de la Primavera de Praga y la invasión soviética y antes de la caída del Muro de Berlín, por lo que es posible que su propuesta ideológica difiera de la del adaptador. Tampoco ignoramos que la visión de un director puede subvertir radicalmente la lectura de cualquier obra. Por eso hemos de atenernos al punto de vista de Psalmon y analizar su escenificación tal como la ha concebido.

I am a great Klaus fan but let me admit that this video - that became a hit in the Czech Republic after it attracted 4 million views in a few days and overshadowed the "Public Affairs"-driven government crisis - has made me laugh out loud.



There even exists a version for those who believe that the macroscopic phenomena are reversible.

The story says that during his official visit to Chile, Czech President Václav Klaus liked the pen. Clever like a fox, he acted as a typical Czech and "borrowed" the pen. He demonstrated what the "golden Czech hands" mean, completed the privatization - and people have added all typical funny stereotypes associated with Klaus, too. At 0:52, he used his fingers to signal a "victory". Hilarious.




Of course, the reality is less entertaining. A diplomatic pen with the state symbols is a standard gift for leaders and members of their delegations. Visitors to the Prague Castle whose visits have a business part always receive a Czech pen, for example. I received my pens during my recent visit to a top privatet university in Belgrade; and during my talk to Czech pharmacy students, funded by Czech Big Pharma company called Zentiva.

So one of such official Chilean peans has been given to President Klaus and he had to pretend how impressed he has been by the pen. In particular, he had to visually appreciate the symbols of the Chilean state on the pen - something that Klaus inherently probably doesn't care about - and express his friendship to the amigos with a similar flag (as pointed out by the Chilean president Sebastian Pinera) by various other gestures.

When one is unaware of the context and diplomatic traditions, all those things get interpreted totally differently and the result is very shocking or entertaining. The semi-satirical "168 hours" program on Czech public TV, hosted by Ms Nora Fridrichová, has made an excellent job although it wasn't too hard in this case.

This is not the first funny story about Dr Klaus and a pen. So far, Klaus has been a net donor of pens. In 2003, when he was elected the Czech president for the first time, the official pen with which he should have signed his oath and new job contract refused to work. The legend says that the defective pen has been seeded by his predecessor, Václav Havel. ;-)

However, Klaus was one move ahead of Havel. He picked his private pen from his pocket, signed the document, and became the second Czech president. :-)

I am a great Klaus fan but let me admit that this video - that became a hit in the Czech Republic after it attracted hundreds of thousands of views in one day and overshadowed the "Public Affairs"-driven government crisis - has made me laugh out loud.



The story says that during his official visit to Chile, Klaus liked the pen. Clever like a fox, he acted as a typical Czech and "borrowed" the pen. At 0:52, he used his fingers to signal a "victory". Hilarious.




Of course, the reality is less entertaining. A diplomatic pen with the state symbols is a standard gift for leaders and members of their delegations. So one of them has been given to President Klaus and he had to pretend how impressed he has been by the pen.

This is not the first funny story about Dr Klaus and a pen. So far, Klaus has been a net donor of pens. In 2003, when he was elected the Czech president for the first time, the official pen with which he should have signed his oath and new job contract refused to work. The legend says that the defective pen has been seeded by his predecessor, Václav Havel. ;-)

However, Klaus was one move ahead of Havel. He picked his private pen from his pocket, signed the document, and became the second Czech president. :-)

PRAGUE – The shattering earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan on March 11 have wrought devastating physical damage – aggravated by the threat of a nuclear disaster – across the country’s northeastern coastal areas, and have rekindled grave fears in the only country to have experienced fully the atom’s potential for horror. Thousands of people are missing, hundreds of thousands have been displaced, and millions are without water, food, or heating in near-freezing temperatures. The death toll is expected to exceed 15,000.

read more

Havel er overbevist om at Liu Xiaobos fredspris vil få betydning for demokratiutviklingen i Kina.

Aung San Suu Kyi's release does not yet mean a negotiated transition. And the west cannot help her on its own

If we want to help Aung San Suu Kyi and the cause of freedom in Burma, we must hope that India rediscovers the spirit of its better self. The world's largest democracy needs urgently to review its approach to one of the world's worst tyrannies, which squats like a toad on India's doorstep. Unless it does, it seems highly unlikely that the weak, divided domestic opposition forces inside Burma, and the combined powers of the west, can generate the leverage needed to help to success the non-violent, negotiated revolution that the liberated heroine has again evoked.

So long as Burma's generals can rely on China's strategic and commercial realpolitik, and on the trade and energy-hungry equivocation of Thailand and other Asean countries, the only external power that can change the balance of forces in and around Burma is India.

I hope I'm wrong. But a cool analysis suggests that the Burmese buck stops in New Delhi. Heavy-handed lectures to India from former colonial powers, or the US, are clearly out of place and may well be counter-productive. This is not a matter of asking India to snap into line with western policy. On the contrary, we in the west should be looking to the regional democratic giant to tell us how change can best be facilitated in the miserable dictatorship next door. That is how things should work in an increasingly post-western world. And who better to point the way, in support of one of the most magnificently non-violent liberation movements of our time, than the country of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru?

Fortunately, there are now a few important Indian voices raising the necessary questions about Indian policy more authoritatively than any western commentator can. In a recent column, Shashi Tharoor, a former Indian minister of state for external affairs and UN undersecretary general, recalled his country's course from perhaps excessive idealism to unprincipled soi-disant realism. Nehru was friends with Suu Kyi's father, Aung San, the leader of Burma's independence struggle. Aung San Suu Kyi herself lived and studied in New Delhi, and a long essay in her book Freedom from Fear is devoted to comparing Indian and Burmese intellectual life under colonial rule. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, India gave her and her National League for Democracy generous support.

But then India's regional rivals, China and Pakistan, began to cosy up to the Burmese regime and take advantage of its large reserves of gas, oil and other natural resources. When Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, travelled to Burma, the Indian foreign minister hastened to follow. "India turned 180 degrees," writes Tharoor. It placed its economic and geostrategic interests before its sympathies and values.

Particularly shocking was the Indian response – or rather non-response – to Burma's supremely Gandhian peaceful protests, led by Buddhist monks, in 2007. The Indian oil minister visited the country to sign oil and gas contracts at the height of the protests. When the too-quickly dubbed "saffron revolution" was brutally suppressed by the military regime, the Indian government contented itself with pathetic statements hoping that "all sides would resolve their issues peacefully".

Even more eloquent is the criticism by the great development economist and political thinker Amartya Sen. In an article composed before Aung San Suu Kyi's release, he recalls his early childhood spent in Mandalay (where his father was a visiting professor) before crying out: "I have to say that as a loyal Indian citizen, it breaks my heart to see the prime minister of my democratic country – and one of the most humane and sympathetic political leaders in the world – engaged in welcoming the butchers from Myanmar."

The problem arises, he suggests, "from a change in the political climate in India in which narrowly defined national interest – or what is taken to be national interest – gets much loyalty, and in which India's past propensity to lecture the world on global political morality is seen as a sad memory of Nehruvian naivety".

Like every other democracy, India has to strike a balance between its interests and its values; or, to be more accurate, between its values and long-term interests on the one hand (for India has a vital long-term interest in a prosperous, open Burma), and its short-term, narrowly conceived interests on the other.

India is, of course, far from the first democracy in history to have got the balance wrong. (Think of the US in Latin America, for example, not to mention Britain in India.) But got it wrong India has. I understand that at a meeting with diplomats last Sunday, Aung San Suu Kyi gently but clearly expressed to the Indian ambassador her hope that commercial interests would not distort the historic friendship between their two countries.

This is not to suggest that India should suddenly join the targeted sanctions policy long adopted by the west – nor, indeed, is it to prescribe any particular policy response. Like Aung San Suu Kyi herself, the friends of freedom in Burma, near and far, need to take a few weeks to work out what is really going on there. Once the initial excitement over her release has passed – and for me, it beats a royal engagement any day – we see clearly that the political context into which she re-emerges is light years away, not just from a Nelson Mandela moment in South Africa or a Václav Havel moment in Czechoslovakia, but even from an Andrei Sakharov moment in the Soviet Union.

Far from paving the way to a liberating election, this release follows an election that the military regime heavy-handedly manipulated and stole, pulling the rug from under those "third force" oppositionists who abandoned the National League for Democracy to try to work for change inside the system.

The reformist, pragmatic and frankly turncoat middle, so essential to a negotiated transition, has been squeezed at the very time when it would be most needed. Moreover, while one political prisoner has been released, more than 2,000 others remain incarcerated. She is the first to insist that no serious process of negotiation and reconciliation can be achieved while they are still locked up.

Even if they are released, the process will only be at the starting-line. The military dominance of every area of national life, the inter-penetration of military and business interests, the gross immiseration of the population, the patchwork of ethnic minorities, drug lords, corruption ... Burma is a challenge that would make a messiah blanch.

So we need to wait and see; and we need a dialogue, not just between the democratic forces inside Burma but also between them and their democratic neighbours – above all, India.

The question whether India can come up with a new Burma policy, worthy of its own traditions and values, as well as its legitimate interests, is a vital one for the future of Aung San Suu Kyi's beautiful, martyred land. It is also important for the shape of the post-western world. We talk all the time about China, but in India's policy towards its unhappy neighbour we shall glimpse the true face of Asia's other emerging great power.

Despite parallels with Nelson Mandela and South Africa, westerners have kept their distance

Democracy for Burma under a newly freed and charming grandmother, with no taste for personal revenge for years lost under house arrest – how rare and refreshing to find a cause that unites left and right across the globe in these deeply divided times.

We have got used to polarisation around the causes that define our epoch: the war on terror, Palestine, the western wars in Muslim countries, climate change, civil liberties. The significant political fault lines of yesteryear – anti-colonial struggles in Africa, Latin America's years of military repression, South Africa's tortured wait for majority rule – were similarly dramatically divisive. In Britain the great and the good were thin on the ground to support popular movements in these arenas, which all posed fundamental challenges to the power relations in the world.

The great Bishop Trevor Huddleston, for instance, leading Britain's Anti-Apartheid Movement, had a terrific fight during the Thatcher years to advance his moral vision of the wickedness of indifference to apartheid. Nelson Mandela's image took a long time to change to friend of big business interests and movie stars. As late as the 1980s, editors still had the habit of asking correspondents for "perhaps more balance" when reporting the outrages perpetrated by white rulers in South Africa, as in covering Palestine.

No one today would suggest a more benign view of the Burmese generals who have ruined their country, made it a byword for torture and forced labour, sent tens of thousands into exile, and still hold more than 2,000 political prisoners. From Desmond Tutu and Václav Havel, to Harvard Law School, Amnesty and Gordon Brown, condemnation of Burma's military government has been a constant and consistently ineffectual backdrop to Aung San Suu Kyi's imprisonment and the appalling circumstances endured by the country's persecuted students, monks, minorities and opposition members. Burma has always been an outsider's fashionable cause, regardless of what your political affiliation.

This may be partly because the Burmese struggle, taking place so far away in an unfamiliar land, is not one that westerners feel individually or nationally implicated in. Indeed, the main support for the regime over the years has come from China, now a convenient bogeyman for economic reasons.

This response is also influenced by how Burma is perceived internationally. No significant boats will be rocked on account of changes in that country. It has no strategic or geopolitical importance except to its regional business partners – again, that being China in particular.

It is also a reflection of how Aung San Suu Kyi herself is viewed. Unlike the world's former favourite ex-political prisoner, Nelson Mandela, she has no shadow side – Mandela was of course also leader of an underground army trained in the Soviet Union during the cold war. Gentle, attractive, passive under house arrest and thoughtfully circumspect now freed, she has almost come to symbolise the perfect captive.

With her immense bravery in the past, and her quiet determination now to open dialogue and to refrain from condemning her military jailers, she is a figure in striking contrast with today's political leaders we love to mock.

The parallels drawn at the weekend with Mandela's release were inevitable – but not because there is in Burma the slightest resemblance to the dramatic conditions that came together in South Africa at that time and the international support for a stable business climate, which brought the end of white rule there. The parallels are with the existence of an international hero who serves as a safely removed parental figure and embodies characteristics now so rare in public life: integrity, dignity, and hope for bringing change to a desperate society that most of the world has chosen to forget for so many decades.

Forty years ago, getting a rare visa to visit Burma, I saw a country that was already paralysed by the military takeover of 1962 and the imposed isolation which followed. I remember Burma's silence and what I wrongly took for peace among the mountains, rivers and pagodas. I remember the other-worldliness of the highly educated woman on the bus who gave me three tiny gemstones to thank me for the pleasure of speaking English, the city of Mandalay entirely populated by softly smiling monks, and the extraordinary impossibility of casual conversation with Burmese people. It was impenetrable, and the attraction of these contained people, embodied in Aung San Suu Kyi now, has captured the world's attention.

Change in this tortured society will take more than verbal support for democracy from the outside world, and the Burmese know it will be their own fight, far away from Aung San Suu Kyi's western well-wishers.

Those who resist tyranny and survive prison accrue immense moral authority – but it requires good judgment and low political cunning to use it successfully

It's always a good feeling when we turn on the TV news and see prisoners freed after being unjustly held. That's why Beethoven's Fidelio always cheers us up and why this weekend has been a cheering double helping. Even Gordon Brown has been uplifted.

In very different circumstances Rachel and Paul Chandler, unlucky British adventurers captured by Somali pirates, were finally released, while the house arrest imposed on Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese opposition leader, was also lifted.

Cue wonderful pictures on TV, hers more important than theirs, but uplifting news all the same, though the Chandlers' release was tinged by family sadness.

The couple will need time to recover. But they will be changed forever by their ordeal, as intrepid foreign correspondent Jon Swain, held by rebels in Ethiopia for three months in 1976, explains in today's Times. Intending to be free on the world's oceans in their retirement the couple will have learned instead "the complexities of what freedom actually means", writes Swain.

What does Aung San Suu Kyi's release mean for her and for Burma? That is trickier. Immense moral authority accrues to those who resist tyranny and survive prison to emerge in one piece and vanquish their jailers.

That was the special power of Nelson Mandela, released after 27 years on Robben Island in 1990. But it requires good judgment and low political cunning, as well as moral virtue, to retain even a degree of control over turbulent political forces in play.

Admirable Václav Havel, the Czech playwright, became a symbol of his country's oppression and was elected president ("Havel to the [Prague] Castle" was the cry), but he did not distinguish himself in office – and his country split, albeit peacefully.

Lech Wałęsa, hero of the Gdańsk shipyard revolt, was not a notably successful mainstream leader either, though he too saved his country from violence – always a priceless achievement.

That is part of Mandela's legacy too, though in his case it was buttressed by a rare grace and forgiveness, manifest in the donning of a Springboks shirt at the 1995 rugby world cup where the local team improbably beat the mighty All Blacks 15-12. It's all in the Clint Eastwood movie Invictus. Good stuff. Life sometimes lives up to the script.

What then of Aung San Suu Kyi? Within 24 hours of her release she had called for talks with the generals who have caged her for so long and who – unlike apartheid South Africa – show no sign of wanting to relinquish their grip. As today's Guardian leader highlights, over 2,000 political prisoners, less well known than the Nobel laureate, remain jailed.

Talking seems sensible, albeit fraught with peril. She must know that a false step towards compromise will alienate supporters in the National League for Democracy who place so much faith in "the Lady" – charismatic female leaders are a recurring part of the south Asian story – while a misjudgment in the opposite direction will see her caged again.

After all, it was the unsolicited visit by a foolish American – who swam to her home in 2009 – that caused her latest 18-month detention. He did it to "help" – a well-meant American impulse that causes so much trouble ...

In the same space of time critics of Aung San Suu Kyi have emerged – they always do – to accuse her of inflexibility and error, not least in boycotting the recent (and rigged) elections whereby the junta hopes to obtain a lessening of international sanctions.

Here's the tricky bit. As Ian Black reports, plenty of people think that sanctions – as so often – hurt ordinary Burmese more than they do the regime. "It's difficult to turn around a huge juggernaut, especially when something looks morally principled," says an expert from Chatham House.

Indeed. The west has kept up the pressure, but Burma – which the junta renamed Myanmar – has powerful neighbours in the region, especially China, which are themselves autocracies and value Burma's raw materials, especially China. Once the excitement of her release dies down caution will be the watchword – and everyone has plenty of other issues to worry about apart from the regime in Rangoon.

Whatever happens next, it's still a cheering moment. By coincidence, I have been reading the memoirs of the 19th century Russian aristo-writer-exile Alexander Herzen, the first two volumes known as Childhood, Youth and Exile. It's opening sentence – which I won't spoil – is one of the best in literature.

Herzen's experiences are relevant to this issue because they describe a corrupt and inefficient police state, locking up dissidents on a brutal scale. What a waste of their own time and energy; what a waste of talent. Herzen (1812-70) is a wonderful writer, his book brimming with anecdotes both funny, sad and savage, the officials and rebels who people its pages both heroes and villains.

I especially warm to those inside the system who try to reform or defy it, for instance the old soldier who refuses to serve on the rigged tribunal that exiles young Herzen to Siberia on trivial and illegal grounds because he knows it is rigged. My life and service is at your command, he risks telling the Tsar – but this is incompatible with my honour.

Herzen also reports that, on the road to and from Siberia, poor peasants would often leave out crusts for political prisoners, on the assumption that anyone who fell foul of the Tsar must be doing something right. As generalisations go it is not a bad one.

Václav Havel, the Czech playwright and politician, has launched a ferocious attack on the emptiness and 'atheism' of consumer society

Václav Havel made a perfectly extraordinary speech yesterday, condemning ours as "the first atheist civilisation", which "has lost its connection with the infinite and with eternity".

Havel is not often thought of as a defender of religion, and the Czech republic is by some measures the most completely dechristianised part of Europe. But he means by atheism the kind of insatiable proud greed which mashes both interior and exterior landscapes into something as homogenous as mechanically recovered chicken. It is a vision of the consumer society as hell:

"Our cities are being permitted without control to destroy the surrounding landscape with its nature, traditional pathways, avenues of trees, villages, mills and meandering streams, and build in their place some sort of gigantic agglomeration that renders life nondescript, disrupts the network of natural human communities, and under the banner of international uniformity it attacks all individuality, identity or heterogeneity. And on the occasions it tries to imitate something local or original, it looks altogether suspect, because it is obviously a purpose-built fake. There is emerging a new type of a previously described existential phenomenon: unbounded consumer collectivity engenders a new type of solitude."

This is a similar vision of the horror of modern life to that which animates Rowan Williams, with his talk of "the fantasy that you can organise the world to suit yourself".

Havel was speaking at a conference which focusses on architecture; but he sees exurban sprawl as the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual disgrace:

"not only a globally spreading short-sightedness, but also the swollen self-consciousness of this civilisation, whose basic attributes include the supercilious idea that we know everything and what we don't yet know we'll soon find out, because we know how to go about it. We are convinced that this supposed omniscience of ours which proclaims the staggering progress of science and technology and rational knowledge in general, permits us to serve anything that is demonstrably useful, or that is simply a source of measurable profit, anything that induces growth and more growth and still more growth, including the growth of agglomerations.

But with the cult of measurable profit, proven progress and visible usefulness there disappears respect for mystery and along with it humble reverence for everything we shall never measure and know, not to mention the vexed question of the infinite and eternal, which were until recently the most important horizons of our actions.

We have totally forgotten what all previous civilisations knew: that nothing is self-evident."

Naturally this won't convince anyone who finds self-evident the foundations of their own world view. And perhaps the most attractive and persuasive part of Havel's speech is that he knows this. He takes the recent economic crash as an example of the way in which an apparently rational and entirely controlled system suddenly showed that it was neither of these things.

"I regard the recent crisis as a very small and very inconspicuous call to humility. A small and inconspicuous challenge for us not to take everything automatically for granted. Strange things are happening and will happen. Not to bring oneself to admit it is the path to hell. Strangeness, unnaturalness, mystery, inconceivability have been shifted out the world of serious thought into the dubious closets of suspicious people. Until they are released and allowed to return to our minds things will not go well."

… After this crisis a thousand and one theorists will emerge to describe precisely how and why it happened and how to prevent it happening in future. But this will not be a sign that they have understood the message that the crisis sent us. The opposite, more likely: it will simply be a further emanation of that disproportionate self-assurance that I have been speaking of.

I fear very much that he is right. But in that case the lesson will be repeated, more and more painfully, until we learn it, or our children must.

Reports are beginning to come in from Berlin, and I will be posting more presently.

Below is the English text of the speech Geert Wilders gave today in Berlin, as posted at the PVV website.


Dear Friends,

I am very happy to be here in Berlin today. As you know, the invitation which my friend René Stadtkewitz extended to me, has cost him his membership of the CDU group in the Berlin Parliament. René, however, did not give in to the pressure. He did not betray his convictions. His dismissal prompted René to start a new political party. I wish him all the best. As you may have heard, the past weeks were extremely busy for me. Earlier this week we succeeded in forging a minority government of the Liberals and the Christian-Democrats which will be supported by my party. This is an historic event for the Netherlands. I am very proud of having helped to achieve this. At this very moment the Christian-Democrat Party conference is deciding whether or not to approves this coalition. If they do, we will be able to rebuild our country, preserve our national identity and offer our children a better future.

Despite my busy schedule at home, however, I insisted on coming to Berlin, because Germany, too, needs a political movement to defend German identity and to oppose the Islamization of Germany. Chancellor Angela Merkel says that the Islamization of Germany is inevitable. She conveys the message that citizens have to be prepared for more changes as a result of immigration. She wants the Germans to adapt to this situation. The Christian-Democrat leader said: “More than before mosques will be an integral part of our cities.”

My friends, we should not accept the unacceptable as inevitable without trying to turn the tide. It is our duty as politicians to preserve our nations for our children. I hope that René’s movement will be as successful as my own Partij voor de Vrijheid, as Oskar Freysinger’s Schweizerische Volkspartei in Switzerland, as Pia Kjaersgaard’s Dansk Folkeparti in Denmark, and similar movements elsewhere.

My good friend Pia recently spoke in Sweden at the invitation of the Sverigedemokraterna. She said: “I have not come to mingle in Swedish domestic politics because that is for the Swedish people to be concerned with. No, I have come because in spite of certain differences the Swedish debate in many ways reminds me of the Danish debate 10-15 years ago. And I have come to Sweden because it is also a concern to Denmark. We cannot sit with our hands in our lap and be silent witnesses to the political development in Sweden.”

The same applies for me as a Dutchman with respect to Germany. I am here because Germany matters to the Netherlands and the rest of the world, and because we cannot establish an International Freedom Alliance without a strong German partner.

Dear friends, tomorrow is the Day of German Unity. Tomorrow exactly twenty years ago, your great nation was reunified after the collapse of the totalitarian Communist ideology. The Day of German Unity is an important day for the whole of Europe. Germany is the largest democracy in Europe. Germany is Europe’s economic powerhouse. The wellbeing and prosperity of Germany is a benefit to all of us, because the wellbeing and prosperity of Germany is a prerequisite for the wellbeing and prosperity of Europe.

Today I am here, however, to warn you for looming disunity. Germany’s national identity, its democracy and economic prosperity, is being threatened by the political ideology of Islam. In 1848, Karl Marx began his Communist Manifesto with the famous words: “A specter is haunting Europe — the specter of communism.” Today, another specter is haunting Europe. It is the specter of Islam. This danger, too, is political. Islam is not merely a religion, as many people seem to think: Islam is mainly a political ideology.

This insight is not new.

I quote from the bestselling book and BBC television series The Triumph of the West which the renowned Oxford historian J.M. Roberts wrote in 1985: “Although we carelessly speak of Islam as a ‘religion’; that word carries many overtones of the special history of western Europe. The Muslim is primarily a member of a community, the follower of a certain way, an adherent to a system of law, rather than someone holding particular theological views.” The Flemish Professor Urbain Vermeulen, the former president of the European Union of Arabists and Islamicists, too, points out that “Islam is primarily a legal system, a law,” rather than a religion.

The American political scientist Mark Alexander writes that “One of our greatest mistakes is to think of Islam as just another one of the world’s great religions. We shouldn’t. Islam is politics or it is nothing at all, but, of course, it is politics with a spiritual dimension, … which will stop at nothing until the West is no more, until the West has … been well and truly Islamized.”

These are not just statements by opponents of Islam. Islamic scholars say the same thing. There cannot be any doubt about the nature of Islam to those who have read the Koran, the Sira and the Hadith. Abul Ala Maududi, the influential 20th century Pakistani Islamic thinker, wrote — I quote, emphasizing that these are not my words but those of a leading Islamic scholar — “Islam is not merely a religious creed [but] a revolutionary ideology and jihad refers to that revolutionary struggle … to destroy all states and governments anywhere on the face of the earth, which are opposed to the ideology and program of Islam.”

Ali Sina, an Iranian Islamic apostate who lives in Canada, points out that there is one golden rule that lies at the heart of every religion — that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. In Islam, this rule only applies to fellow believers, but not to Infidels. Ali Sina says “The reason I am against Islam is not because it is a religion, but because it is a political ideology of imperialism and domination in the guise of religion. Because Islam does not follow the Golden Rule, it attracts violent people.”

A dispassionate study of the beginnings of Islamic history reveals clearly that Muhammad’s objective was first to conquer his own people, the Arabs, and to unify them under his rule, and then to conquer and rule the world. That was the original cause; it was obviously political and was backed by military force. “I was ordered to fight all men until they say ‘There is no god but Allah,’” Muhammad said in his final address. He did so in accordance with the Koranic command in sura 8:39: “Fight them until there is no more dissension and the religion is entirely Allah’s.”

According to the mythology, Muhammad founded Islam in Mecca after the Angel Gabriel visited him for the first time in the year 610. The first twelve years of Islam, when Islam was religious rather than political, were not a success. In 622, Muhammad emigrated to Yathrib, a predominantly Jewish oasis, with his small band of 150 followers. There he established the first mosque in history, took over political power, gave Yathrib the name of Medina, which means the “City of the Prophet,” and began his career as a military and a political leader who conquered all of Arabia. Tellingly, the Islamic calendar starts with the hijra, the migration to Medina — the moment when Islam became a political movement.

After Muhammad’s death, based upon his words and deeds, Islam developed Sharia, an elaborate legal system which justified the repressive governance of the world by divine right — including rules for jihad and for the absolute control of believers and non-believers. Sharia is the law of Saudi Arabia and Iran, among other Islamic states. It is also central to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which in article 24 of its Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam, proclaims that “all rights and freedoms are subject to the Islamic Sharia.” The OIC is not a religious institution; it is a political body. It constitutes the largest voting block in the United Nations and writes reports on so-called “Islamophobia” in Western Countries which accuse us of human rights violations. To speak in biblical terms: They look for a speck in our eye, but deny the beam in their own.

Under Sharia law people in the conquered territories have no legal rights, not even the right to life and to own property, unless they convert to Islam.

Before I continue, and in order to avoid any misunderstandings, I want to emphasize that I am talking about Islam, not about Muslims. I always make a clear distinction between the people and the ideology, between Muslims and Islam. There are many moderate Muslims, but the political ideology of Islam is not moderate and has global ambitions. It aims to impose Islamic law or Sharia upon the whole world. The way to achieve this is through jihad. The good news is that millions of Muslims around the world — including many in Germany and the Netherlands — do not follow the directives of Sharia, let alone engage in jihad. The bad news, however, is that those who do are prepared to use all available means to achieve their ideological, revolutionary goal.

In 1954, in his essay Communism and Islam, Professor Bernard Lewis spoke of “the totalitarianism, of the Islamic political tradition.” Professor Lewis said that “The traditional Islamic division of the world into the House of Islam and the House of War, … has obvious parallels in the Communist view of world affairs. … The aggressive fanaticism of the believer is the same.”

The American political scientist Mark Alexander states that the nature of Islam differs very little — and only in detail rather than style — from despicable and totalitarian political ideologies such as National-Socialism and Communism. He lists the following characteristics for these three ideologies.

* They use political purges to “cleanse” society of what they considere undesirable;

* They tolerate only a single political party. Where Islam allows more parties, it insists that all parties be Islamic ones;

* They coerce the people along the road that it must follow;

* They obliterate the liberal distinction between areas of private judgment and of public control;

* They turn the educational system into an apparatus for the purpose of universal indoctrination;

* They lay down rules for art, for literature, for science and for religion;

* They subdue people who are given second class status;

* They induce a frame of mind akin to fanaticism. Adjustment takes place by struggle and dominance;

* They are abusive to their opponents and regard any concession on their own part as a temporary expedient and on a rival’s part as a sign of weakness;

* They regard politics as an expression of power;

* They are anti-Semitic.

There is one more striking parallel, but this is not a characteristic of the three political ideologies, but one of the West. It is the apparent inability of the West to see the danger. The prerequisite to understanding political danger, is a willingness to see the truth, even if it is unpleasant. Unfortunately, modern Western politicians seem to have lost this capacity. Our inability leads us to reject the logical and historical conclusions to be drawn from the facts, though we could, and should know better. What is wrong with modern Western man that we make the same mistake over and over again?

There is no better place to ponder this question than here in Berlin, the former capital of the evil empire of Nazi Germany and a city which was held captive by the so-called German “Democratic” Republic for over forty years.

When the citizens of Eastern Europe rejected Communism in 1989, they were inspired by dissidents such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Václav Havel, Vladimir Bukovsky, and others, who told them that people have a right, but also an obligation, to “live within the truth.” Freedom requires eternal vigilance; so it is with truth. Solzhenitsyn added, however, that “truth is seldom sweet; it is almost invariably bitter.” Let us face the bitter truth: We have lost our capacity to see the danger and understand the truth because we no longer value freedom.

Politicians from almost all establishment politicians today are facilitating Islamization. They are cheering for every new Islamic school, Islamic bank, Islamic court. They regard Islam as being equal to our own culture. Islam or freedom? It does not really matter to them. But it does matter to us. The entire establisment elite — universities, churches, trade unions, the media, politicians — are putting our hard-earned liberties at risk. They talk about equality, but amazingly fail to see how in Islam women have fewer rights than men and infidels have fewer rights than adherents of Islam.

Are we about to repeat the fatal mistake of the Weimar Republic? Are we succumbing to Islam because our commitment to freedom is already dead? No, it will not happen. We are not like Frau Merkel. We do not accept Islamization as inevitable. We have to keep freedom alive. And, to the extent that we have already lost it, we must reclaim it in our democratic elections. That is why we need political parties that defend freedom. To support such parties I have established the International Freedom Alliance.

As you know, I am standing trial in the Netherlands. On Monday, I have to go to court again and I will have to spend most of the coming month there. I have been brought to court because of my opinions on Islam and because I have voiced these opinions in speeches, articles and in my documentary film Fitna. I live under constant police protection because Islamic extremists want to assassinate me, and I am in court because the Dutch establishment — most of them non-Muslims — wants to silence me.

I have been dragged to court because in my country freedom can no longer be fully enjoyed. Unlike America, we do not have a First Amendment which guarantees people the freedom to express their opinions and foster public debate by doing so. Unlike America, in Europe the national state, and increasingly the European Union, prescribes how citizens — including democratically elected politicians such as myself — should think and what we are allowed to say.

One of the things we are no longer allowed to say is that our culture is superior to certain other cultures. This is seen as a discriminatory statement — a statement of hatred even. We are indoctrinated on a daily basis, in the schools and through the media, with the message that all cultures are equal and that, if one culture is worse than all the rest, it is our own. We are inundated with feelings of guilt and shame about our own identity and what we stand for. We are exhorted to respect everyone and everything, except ourselves. That is the message of the Left and the politically-correct ruling establishment. They want us to feel so ashamed about our own identity that we refuse to fight for it.

The detrimental obsession of our cultural and political elites with Western guilt reinforces the view which Islam has of us. The Koran says that non-Muslims are kuffar (the plural of kafir), which literally means “rejecters” or “ingrates.” Hence, infidels are “guilty.” Islam teaches that in our natural state we have all been born as believers. Islam teaches that if we are not believers today this is by our own or by our forefathers’ fault. Subsequently, we are always kafir — guilty — because either we or our fathers are apostates. And, hence, according to some, we deserve subjugation.

Our contemporary leftist intellectuals are blind to the dangers of Islam.

Former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky argues that after the fall of communism, the West failed to expose those who had collaborated with the Communists by advocating policies of détente, improved relations, relaxation of international tension, peaceful coexistence. He points out that the Cold War was “a war we never won. We never even fought it. … Most of the time the West engaged in a policy of appeasement toward the Soviet bloc — and appeasers don’t win wars.”

Islam is the Communism of today. But, because of our failure to come clean with Communism, we are unable to deal with it, trapped as we are in the old Communist habit of deceit and double-speak that used to haunt the countries in the East and that now haunts all of us. Because of this failure, the same leftist people who turned a blind eye to Communism then, turn a blind eye to Islam today. They are using exactly the same arguments in favor of détente, improved relations, and appeasement as before. They argue that our enemy is as peace-loving as we are, that if we meet him half-way he will do the same, that he only asks respect and that if we respect him he will respect us. We even hear a repetition of the old moral equivalence mantra. They used to say that Western “imperialism” was as bad as Soviet imperialism; they are now saying that Western “imperialism” is as bad as Islamic terrorism.

In my speech near Ground Zero in New York on September 11, I emphasized that we must stop the “Blame the West, Blame America”-game which Islamic spokesmen are playing with us. And we must stop playing this game ourselves. I have the same message for you. It is an insult to tell us that we are guilty and deserve what is happening to us. We do not deserve becoming strangers in our own land. We should not accept such insults. First of all, Western civilization is the freest and most prosperous on earth, which is why so many immigrants are moving here, instead of Westerners moving there. And secondly, there is no such thing as collective guilt. Free individuals are free moral agents who are responsible for their own deeds only.

I am very happy to be here in Berlin today to give this message which is extremely important, especially in Germany. Whatever happened in your country in the past, the present generation is not responsible for it. Whatever happened in the past, it is no excuse for punishing the Germans today. But it is also no excuse for you to refuse to fight for your own identity. Your only responsibility is to avoid the mistakes of the past. It is your duty to stand with those threatened by the ideology of Islam, such as the State of Israel and your Jewish compatriots. The Weimar Republic refused to fight for freedom and was overrun by a totalitarian ideology, with catastrophic consequences for Germany, the rest of Europe and the world. Do not fail to fight for your freedom today.

I am happy to be in your midst today because it seems that twenty years after German reunification, a new generation no longer feels guilty for being German. The current and very intense debate about Thilo Sarrazin’s recent book is an indication of the fact that Germany is coming to terms with itself.

I have not yet read Dr. Sarrazin’s book myself, but I understand that while the ruling politically-correct establishment is almost unanimously critical of his thesis and he lost his job, a large majority of Germans acknowledges that Dr. Sarrazin is addressing important and pressing issues. “Germany is abolishing itself,” warns Sarrazin, and he calls on the Germans to halt this process. The enormous impact of his book indicates that many Germans feel the same way. The people of Germany do not want Germany to be abolished, despite all the political indoctrination they have been subjected to. Germany is no longer ashamed to assert its national pride.

In these difficult times, where our national identity is under threat, we must stop feeling guilty about who we are. We are not “kafir,” we are not guilty. Like other peoples, Germans have the right to remain who they are. Germans must not become French, nor Dutch, nor Americans, nor Turks. They should remain Germans. When the Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan visited your country in 2008, he told the Turks living here that they had to remain Turks. He literally said that “assimilation is a crime against humanity.” Erdogan would have been right if he had been addressing the Turks in Turkey. However, Germany is the land of the Germans. Hence, the Germans have a right to demand that those who come to live in Germany assimilate; they have the right — no they have a duty to their children — to demand that newcomers respect the German identity of the German nation and Germany’s right to preserve its identity.

We must realize that Islam expands in two ways. Since it is not a religion, conversion is only a marginal phenomenon. Historically, Islam expanded either by military conquest or by using the weapon of hijra, immigration. Muhammad conquered Medina through immigration. Hijra is also what we are experiencing today. The Islamization of Europe continues all the time. But the West has no strategy for dealing with the Islamic ideology, because our elites say that we must adapt to them rather than the other way round.

There is a lesson which we can learn in this regard from America, the freest nation on earth. Americans are proud of their nation, its achievements and its flag. We, too, should be proud of our nation. The United States has always been a nation of immigrants. U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt was very clear about the duty of immigrants. Here is what he said: “We should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else … But this is predicated upon the man’s becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American. … There can be no divided allegiance here. … We have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”

It is not up to me to define what Germany’s national identity consists of. That is entirely up to you. I do know, however, that German culture, like that of neighboring countries, such as my own, is rooted in judeo-christian and humanist values. Every responsible politician has a political obligation to preserve these values against ideologies which threaten them. A Germany full of mosques and veiled women is no longer the Germany of Goethe, Schiller and Heine, Bach and Mendelssohn. It will be a loss to us all. It is important that you cherish and preserve your roots as a nation. Otherwise you will not be able to safeguard your identity; you will be abolished as a people, and you will lose your freedom. And the rest of Europe will lose its freedom with you.



My friends, when Ronald Reagan came to a divided Berlin 23 years ago he uttered the historic words “Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” President Reagan was not an appeaser, but a man who spoke the truth because he loved freedom. Today, we, too, must tear down a wall. It is not a wall of concrete, but of denial and ignorance about the real nature of Islam. The International Freedom Alliance aims to coordinate and stimulate these efforts.

Because we speak the truth, voters have given my party, the Partij voor de Vrijheid, and other parties, such as the Dansk Folkeparti and the Schweizerische Volkspartei, the power to influence the political decision process, whether that be in opposition or in government or by supporting a minority government — as we want to do in the Netherlands. President Reagan showed that by speaking the truth one can change the course of history. He showed that there is no need to despair. Never! Just do your duty. Be not afraid. Speak the truth. Defend Freedom. Together we can preserve freedom, together we must preserve freedom, and together, my friends, we will be able to preserve freedom.

Thank you.

Václav Havel, noted playwright and chief catalyst in Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution, completed on-location filming Saturday of the adaptation of his stage drama Leaving....

by Timothy Garton Ash

The poet Paul Celan said of his native Czernowitz that it was a place where people and books used to live. Tony Judt was a man for whom books lived, as well as people. His mind, like his apartment on Washington Square, was full of books—and they walked with him, arguing, to the very end.

Critical though he was of French intellectuals, he shared with them a conviction that ideas matter. Being English, he thought facts matter too. As a historian, one of his most distinctive achievements was to integrate the intellectual and political history of twentieth-century Europe—revealing the multiple, sometimes unintended interactions over time of ideas and realities, thoughts and deeds, books and people.

In Postwar, a history of postwar Europe conceived as the continent’s cold war division was crumbling, he performed another great integration. While the two halves of the divided continent were being sewn together politically and economically, in the years after 1989, he brought together their histories. His 1968, for example, was not only Paris, and not only Prague, but rather the whole complex of their simultaneities, contradictions, and malentendus. His was the first major history of contemporary Europe to analyze the stories of Eastern and Western Europe in equally rigorous, nuanced detail, but also as part of a single, larger whole.

As an essayist and political commentator, he continued the great tradition of the spectateur engagé, the politically engaged but independent and critical intellectual. A fine selection of his essays (most of them from these pages) was published as Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century. His commentaries and book reviews were often hard-hitting. Prominent writers carry the bruises to this day. I note that the word “polemical” keeps cropping up in the obituaries. He would not necessarily have minded that. In one of the last e-mails he sent me, discussing the topic of a lecture he had invited me to give, he wrote—that is, dictated from his wheelchair—”I don’t see any harm in going for the ad hominem in this case.” I can just hear him say it. But it is important to understand what his version of ad hominem was.

There are, broadly speaking, two kinds of polemical intellectuals. There are those for whom the taking of controversial positions is primarily a matter of personal peacock display, factional or clique positioning, hidden agendas, score-settling, or serial, knee-jerk revisionism. Then there are those who, while not without personal motivations and biases, are fundamentally concerned with seeking the truth. Tony Judt was of the latter kind.

Sharp and cutting his pen could be, but his work was always about seeking the truth as best we can, with all the search tools at our disposal—from the toothpick of Anglo-American empiricism to the searchlight of Gallic overstatement. Unlike the other kind of polemical intellectual, he was always in good faith. And he was always serious. Not drearily earnest—he enjoyed the acrobatics of intellectualism as others enjoy baseball—but morally serious. This was as true in private chat as in public discourse. In what he said and wrote, there was always that moral edge. He felt what he himself called, in a study of three French political intellectuals, the burden of responsibility.

Every stage of his biography contributed ingredients to a cosmopolitan mix. America was his last staging post, one of the longest and most enjoyable, but perhaps not the deepest influence. He delighted in the mega-Czernowitz that is New York. The New York Review and New York University, in particular, provided stages on which, and company in which, a talent already largely formed could flourish and expand. His personal discovery of Central and Eastern Europe, made while he was teaching at Oxford in the 1980s, was both passionate and formative. Before that, he was a West Europeanist, a specialist in the intellectual and political history of France, and especially of the French left. To this he devoted no fewer than five scholarly books, from the published version of his doctoral thesis on socialism in Provence to Past Imperfect, a carefully researched and acerbic reckoning with what he saw as the postwar failure of (most) French intellectuals.

Yet while he liked to contrast the political and moral responsibility of Central European intellectuals such as Václav Havel or Czesław Miłosz (the subject of one of his last short essays) with the irresponsibility of Jean-Paul Sartre or Maurice Merleau-Ponty (especially in relation to the horrors of Stalinism), the truth is that he found a great positive exemplar in France too—Raymond Aron—and the French influence on his way of thinking was profound. His conversational style, with its frequent use of paradoxes or near paradoxes of the form “this is at the same time X and Y,” sometimes felt like a translation from the French.

He taught at Oxford for eight years, appreciated its worldly engagement with politics, and contemplated coming back. A sabbatical year’s return to Cambridge, by contrast, left him with little appetite for more. Yet it was Cambridge that had made him—and specifically King’s College, where he studied as both an undergraduate and a graduate. He always retained something of the high seriousness of those chilly fens. A deep consciousness of his European Jewish inheritance led to his most passionate early commitment, in and for Israel; to perhaps his deepest disillusionment; and to his most controversial pronouncements in the last decade of his life.

Behind and before all this, there was a very English childhood spent in quiet southwestern suburbs of London such as Putney and Kingston, with their pubs, little shops, buses both red and green, and chuntering local trains. During his final illness, I was struck by how often he emphasized that he was, after all, English. Witness, for example, a remark he made at the beginning of his last public appearance, when he used the 2009 Remarque Lecture at NYU to deliver a heartfelt argument for a revived, rethought social democracy. Wrapped in a blanket on his large electric wheelchair, with a bi-pap breathing device strapped over his head, he observed that some colleagues had suggested he speak about his illness, in a suitably uplifting way. “But,” he said, “I’m English, and we don’t do ‘uplifting.’”

Under all those cosmopolitan layers, there was, I think, a solid foundation of English empiricism, English scepticism, and English liberalism (using the L-word in one of its true senses, not the perverted one now current in American politics). It was in Putney, after all, that in 1647, when the United States was still but a glimmer in God’s eye, the Leveller Colonel Thomas Rainsborough declared:

For really I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live as the greatest he; and therefore truly, sir, I think it’s clear, that every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government.

Tony Judt was a very public intellectual but a very private man. He had a rich, close family life. In the last months of his illness, his wife, Jennifer Homans, and their sons, Daniel and Nicholas, set up for him a screensaver slideshow on his desktop monitor. Besides happy moments from family holidays, it showed a lot of mountains (particularly the Alps) and railway stations—trains and mountains being two of his private passions.

Tony had a couple of characteristic gestures. There was a motion of the hand, as if cooling it down after touching a hot saucepan or shaking off water. This denoted that something was silly, toe-curling, inauthentic. And there was a sideways inclination of the head, accompanied by a quick, wry lifting of one end of the mouth and a twinkle in the eye. This had multiple applications, ranging from satire and self-deprecation to an attitude that might inadequately be verbalized as c’est la vie. As motor neuron disease (ALS) relentlessly immobilized him, he could no longer make these characteristic gestures; but somehow he still managed to convey them with his eyes.

Tony was a fighter, and he fought this illness with all his strength and will. Not for him the consolations of imagined eternity or Kübler-Rossish “acceptance.” We laughed at the great line that the English playwright John Mortimer reported coming from the mouth of his dying father: “I’m always angry when I’m dying.” He was a clear-sighted realist about what was happening to him, and what would or would not come after. Less than three weeks before he died, I said something to the effect that I knew he was going through hell. “Yes,” he said, with the eye equivalent of that no longer possible shake of the head, “but hell is a nontransferable experience.” So better to talk of other things: friends, bêtes noires, politics, books.

With the dedicated support of his family, devoted students, and professional carers, he found a way to go on doing what he did best—thinking, talking, and writing. In fact, the two years of his fatal illness were the occasion for a creative outpouring, with the Remarque Lecture on social democracy expanded into a short book (Ill Fares the Land); a set of memoir essays, composed in his head in those long periods of immobilized solitude, and then dictated (some have been published in these pages, the complete set will appear in book form as The Memory Chalet); and a book in which Tony talked through his planned intellectual history of the twentieth century, in conversation with Timothy Snyder. On e-mail—for once, an unmixed blessing—he could continue to “speak” in his old voice.

It is probably inevitable that his life and work will now be viewed, at least for some time, through the prism of his cruel illness—and the quite public way in which he described and fought it. But death should not be allowed to define life. These were, after all, only two years out of sixty-two. As a hardheaded, nonreligious, unsentimental realist, Tony would have greeted any formulaic sentimentalities about what “lives on” with that dismissive shake of the hand. But in some important sense, his intellectual Czernowitz is still alive; and his books will long be walking and talking among us.

Artistic Director Robert Lyons founded the Soho Think Tank in 1994 to produce, present, and program vibrant, envelope-pushing work at the Ohio Theatre in Soho. And for over 15 years the guy has done just what he set out to do, programming a consistently impressive roster of shows by some of the most innovative, independent theater-makers in town. As his reward, the Ohio Theatre is being evicted by its new money-grubbing tool of a landlord at the end of August. Saturday night will mark the final performance at the Ohio, when Lyons's own play, Nostradamus Predicts The Death Of Soho, will be followed by a late-night celebration and farewell to the Ohio's illustrious run. Last week we caught up with Lyons during rehearsals for a conversation about what the Ohio's closure means for Soho, and where his "Think Tank" is headed next. (Click through on the photos for some of the Ohio's best shows in recent years.)

Seems like this has been a long goodbye. A couple years ago, it seemed like the Ohio was closing, and then it didn't close, and now it seems like this time it's for real. Is it for real? How do we know we can trust you? There's no more rabbits to pull out of the hat on this one. This is the one. And I agree, it has been a long time. We kind of had the rug pulled out from under us two years ago, and we have just been scrambling to postpone. At first the attempt was not just to postpone, but to see if there really was a way to save the theater at that location. So the first thing was to buy some time—let's create a window of time to go out to the city and everybody else, and say, this is my situation, what can be done?

And I would say after about a year of that, it became pretty clear there wasn't a mechanism by which we were going to save the space. I would say the second year was really a matter of wanting to go out in some kind of controlled way. A lot of people wanted to do one more show at the theater. I really believe this last year has been one of the best seasons. It's been a great season, and we end with The Ice Factory, our signature festival. At least we go out on our own terms. So that's kind of the way it played out. That's what seems to be happening.

How long has it been open? I have documentation of the Ohio Theatre back to 1981.

How long have you been the artistic director? I've been there since '88.

And what was it before '81? It was actually a theater called the Open Space. So the space has been a theater even past that. But they closed the Open Space sometime in the late seventies, and then it reopened as the Ohio Theatre approximately in '81. I talked to the former landlord, who was also the founder of the Ohio Theatre, and he kind of is a very vague—he's 91 now—[laughing] so his memory of exactly how that sequence went down is a little vague.

Do you know what it was before it was a theater? I'm told it was a textile factory.

Okay. And why was it called the Ohio Theatre? Well, the former landlord—there's two, it's William Hahn and Charles Magistro—Charles is from Ohio, and I guess he was feeling homesick, or something.

And your play is called Nostradamus Predicts the Death of SoHo. Can you elaborate on that, because I thought SoHo died already?[Laughs] Well, the title doesn't really say that it's dying right now, just that it was predicted by Nostradamus. That title is somewhat of a strange thing. That title has been knocking around my head for about five or six years as the play I wanted to write, although it wasn't clear to me what the play was. And then about a year and a half ago, well, somewhere in this process near the beginning, I thought it would be a good time to write that play. But the way it came out is much more—the title is much more metaphorical than literal. Nostradamus doesn't appear in the play, nor is there an explicit subject of the history of SoHo and how it used to be this. It's functioning on more metaphorical level: the issues of living in New York, what do people do here, and how do we get by, and how do we live with post-9/11. So it's really more about living in New York than the history of this neighborhood, but it just kind of came out that way.

Yeah, because this is a movie we've seen before in other neighborhoods, with Tonic. The Zipper Factory comes to mind. The Culture Project.

Yeah. Obviously these are all very different entities, but it's part of a larger trend. Do you see new places rising up to balance out the loss? I wish I did, but I don't. You have to give a lot of credit to someone like Kristin Marting [HERE], who figured out how to buy her space, back when she did, I guess it was now ten years ago, maybe more. So people who figured that out, kudos to her. I have a lot of respect for Kevin Cunningham at 3LD (3-Legged Dog Art and Technology Center). But that is one of the new spaces that's come up in the last, I think it's four years. With a long term lease. I know he's got his own financial issues I think he's working through that in a very systematic and smart way. So I do think 3LD will be here for a while, but I'm not getting the sense that there's a lot of new spaces about to open up in Manhattan.

If you broaden this question, obviously things are happened further out in Queens, in Long Island City a little bit, and in Brooklyn, but even that's getting pushed further. We're now from Williamsburg to Bushwick, so that kind of frontier keeps being pushed further and further away from Manhattan. I saw something today about how many wealthy people live in New York, I don't know what the source was on this, it was something like 600 to 750 thousand people who are considered wealthy live in the city, and I think the pressure of that much wealth and the small piece of real estate is driving artists out. There's nothing new to that observation, I think we're all familiar with that.

What are the particulars of the Ohio ending? We had a very idiosyncratic situation. Previously we had landlords who wanted us. They founded the theater, they appreciated the arts, they're not real estate developers who bought the building. He's a retired architect, he loved the architecture of it. He bought it in the late seventies when it was pretty cheap. I think those kind of people—the kind of eccentric landlord who's not necessarily a real-estate developer and sees everything in terms of maximizing profit—I think those people are dying off. Though Charles [Magistro] hasn't died off, but they got older and eventually the financial pressure of the building became too much. But that generation of people who owned buildings in Manhattan, in that way... I just think there's less and less of that. Once the real estate developers come in, there's not very much negotiation about art and the importance of art. That level of talking about real estate, without the city coming in a serious way and providing some kind of buffer between those forces, I think this is where the city really needs to step up.

So this was a situation in which there was a new landlord, and he said we're going to have to raise the rent, and it was astronomically higher than you can pay? Exactly. I mean, even those last two years we survived there, it was double the rent we were paying before. Even that was a fraction of what he wants, and he expects to get, which is why we're leaving.

Did you try to get assistance from the city? In some ways, yeah. I definitely reached out to DCA (Department of Cultural Affairs) and the people you would think of. Certainly, we reached out to community boards and City Council. The problem is, there needs to be a mechanism by which the city can intervene in a situation like this. In this case it's private property, and once this guy bought it, it's his building. The city has to come up with a policy where they come up with the difference between what an arts organization can pay and what the market value of the space is. Listen, he'd love to have us here if we could pay that big amount.

How much is it that he wants ultimately? I don't know. It's probably like $45 to 50 thousand dollars a month.

There was a huge outcry when Tonic closed. There were sit-ins, people were arrested. Were you on some level disappointed there hasn't been as much of a willingness to protest this? I have somewhat mixed feelings about that. I don't feel disappointed, that's actually pretty clear. There's been tremendous support: emotional support from the community, people reaching out, and people asking how they can help. So in no way do I feel like that this event is going unmarked by the community. But, again, during that year when I was like, "What's going on, what are our options," at this point—and maybe this is what point in my life I am—organizing and leading a protest without a viable plan of action—you know, a goal that feels like, if we do this, we can achieve this—then it's really symbolic or it makes everyone feel better but it doesn't really change the outcome. For me, I wasn't really interested in that, working up a steam about it. I'd be happy to lead a charge if there's a crack to go through, but I don't just want to lead a charge into a brick wall. I feel like my time is better used figuring out post-Wooster Street than leading some kind of satisfying but ultimately ineffectual protest.

And you are continuing the SoHo Think Tank somewhere else? Well, yeah, we're going to 3-Legged Dog. We have a three year residency there, under the banner "Ohio Interrupted," and we'll be continuing some of our programming. He's got his two spaces over there, so we'll be doing some of our programming there. We'll be doing Ice Factory 2011 there. He's also offered us some office space there, so that's where we're moving in September.

And the Ohio Theatre on Wooster Street will become a Duane Reade, thus making Manhattan a little more like... Ohio. Uh, probably. I think he has more [laughs], I think it will go to the highest bidder, I'll say that. I don't think he cares that much what's there, as long as the tenant's rent is the maximum. But yeah, I always say it's going to be like The Sunglass Hut or something, I can just imagine that used space filled with sunglasses, or something ridiculous.

One last question. Looking back, what strikes you as your favorite or most memorable moments? There's a lot of them! But, probably, one of my favorite ones—it really comes to mind—was when we had the Václav Havel Festival around New York. We were one of the venues, and I directed one of the shows at the Ohio Theatre, Protest, and Havel came to see it. He really loved it, he hung out afterwards, we were hanging out in the lobby having a beer, and I just thought, "This is really quite an amazing moment." [Laughs] He was talking about the play he was working on, and asking me what I was writing, and I was just thinking, "Well this is just like a conversation I've had a hundred times with a hundred playwrights, but I'm actually having it with Václav Havel in the lobby of the Ohio Theatre." That was certainly a high point, I would say.

The former Czech Republic head of state is adding 'film director' to his already unusual CV

Seated on the traditional foldaway chair with his name on the back, a debutant director is at work on his first feature film. But he differs in two significant ways from most new directors. First, he is 73; second, he is a former head of state, first of Czechoslovakia, then of the Czech Republic. This is Václav Havel, playwright, polemicist and chief engineer of the velvet revolution that drove the communist rulers from Prague. Havel's CV has long been remarkably different from anyone else's, and now he is at work on a film version of his stage play Leaving, which depicts the dismal fate of the ruler of an unnamed country who has been driven from power. It's a further mark of his bravery that the play on which the film is based garnered some notably unenthusiastic reviews. When the Orange Tree theatre at Richmond, Surrey, staged it, Michael Billington in the Guardian found it "a bit of a baggy monster", while the New York Times called it aimless. Havel insists his sadly diminished hero, a figure invoking at times the dispossessed Lear, is not based on himself, and since he is now embarked on this fresh career one has to believe him. What his case suggests is that what blights the lives of those no longer in office may be less the loss of power than the loss of a sense of purpose. When the film is done, he plans to go back to his playwriting – if his health allows it, perhaps for a good while yet. Let us hope he lives to emulate George Bernard Shaw, who was still writing plays and getting them staged when past 90.

Recibe el XXII Premi Internacional Catalunya por su "corazón y coraje" en la defensa de los derechos humanos

BARCELONA, 1 (EUROPA PRESS)

El ex presidente de Estados Unidos y Premio Nobel de la Paz, Jimmy Carter, afirmó hoy que el 11 de setiembre de 1714 fue peor para Catalunya que los atentados del 11-S para Estados Unidos. "He sabido que el 11 de setiembre, una fecha espantosa para mi país el año 2001, fue aún peor para Catalunya en 1714", precisó.

En su discurso tras recibir el XXII Premi Internacional Catalunya por su defensa de la paz y los derechos humanos, Carter destacó que el pueblo norteamericano y el catalán "tienen una gran resistencia, y saben como recuperar las fuerzas y afrontar el futuro con coraje".

El presidente del jurado que otorga el galardón, Xavier Rubert de Ventós, explicó que el premio reconoce el "corazón y el coraje" del ex mandatario tanto en la defensa de los derechos humanos, como en el desarrollo de los pueblos más desfavorecidos, y consideró que Carter se caracterizó por su capacidad de anticiparse a los problemas, sobretodo de índole internacional.

Rubert de Ventós glosó los éxitos de Carter que le han hecho merecedor del premio, y entre ellos citó el proceso de paz que impulsó entre Israel y los países árabes, el retorno del Canal de Panamá, el establecimiento de relaciones diplomáticas con China, o el desarrollo del 'soft power', un modelo de relaciones internacionales "que busca más convencer que vencer", dijo.

El presidente de la Generalitat, José Montilla, que también intervino en el acto, elogió la figura de Carter, y vinculó la defensa de la democracia que propugna el ex mandatario con la sentencia del Tribunal Constitucional (TC) sobre el Estatut, aunque sin mencionarlo explícitamente. El presidente explicó que Catalunya tiene "una profunda vocación de autogobierno", y aseguró que gobernar es emprender acciones que pueden "cambiar el curso de la historia". El catalán es "un pueblo que se reconoce en el pacto y en el acuerdo", sentenció.

Montilla presentó a Carter como un referente a seguir, y valoró que como gobernante se enfrentó a grandes retos sin hacer cálculos electorales, y apostando siempre por "las causas más nobles".

ESTADOS UNIDOS COMO SUPERPOTENCIA

Carter centró parte de su discurso en valorar el papel de Estados Unidos como superpotencia, y consideró que su función en el mundo tendría que ser la de liderar el cumplimiento de los derechos humanos, la protección del medio ambiente, y la prevención del calentamiento global.

Dijo que en calidad de superpotencia, Estados Unidos debería ser un ejemplo en "relegar el combate militar a la categoría de último recurso", y pidió a su país que abandone las sanciones económicas como instrumento de política exterior.

Concluyó que el principal objetivo de la nación más poderosa del mundo, como calificó a Estados Unidos, tendría que ser el de "superar el reto más difícil del nuevo milenio: el abismo creciente entre ricos y pobres".

XXII PREMIO INTERNACIONAL CATALUNYA

El ex mandatario agradeció el premio porque consideró que se identifica con el fomento de la paz y los derechos humanos, los mismos valores que defiende su Fundación, y que ha supervisado más de 70 procesos electorales en todo el mundo para garantizar que se desarrollaran con plenas garantías democráticas.

En el acto de entrega, al que asistió su mujer, Rosalynn Smith, así como los ex presidentes de la Generalitat Jordi Pujol y Pascual Maragall se celebró en el Salón Sant Jordi del Palau de la Generalitat.

El Premio Internacional Catalunya está dotado con 100.000 euros, y en sus 22 años de historia ha premiado a personalidades de todo el mundo como el filósofo inglés Karl Popper, el político checo Václav Havel, el oceanógrafo francés Jacques Cousteau, y el físico paquistaní Abdus Salam, entre otros.

In a stunning public blow to the Putin regime, Václav Havel, former president of the Czech Republic, joined by host of prominent international human rights leaders including the former presidents of Germany and South Africa, writing for Project Syndicate, condemns the barbarism of the KGB state: The death of Eduard Chuvashov, a judge killed in cold [...]

The charity sculptures join the elephants, bears and cows in other cities worldwide

Stroll around almost any city these days, and you're likely to face down a lion. Or an elephant. Or a bear. Or even a giant cow. Life-size animal sculptures are pawing our streets unchecked, covered in polka dots or glitter-paint or union flag stripes – it's a psychedelic zoological invasion.

Bath is the latest city to unleash artist-decorated sculptures – 100 painted lions, sponsored by local businesses, go on display from today until September, to raise money for charity; these follow the 106 paint-daubed pigs that stormed Bath's streets in 2008. More than 250 elephants, customised by artists such as Marc Quinn and Jack Vettriano, are meanwhile bringing a splash of colour to central London. And the Buddy Bears, a collection of 2m-tall beasts raising their paws jauntily to the sky as if dancing to YMCA, have travelled from Berlin to 15 cities, including Tokyo, Pyongyang and Jerusalem – and are currently conveying their message of "peaceful co-existence" in Astana, Kazhakstan.

But by far the best-travelled animals are the many thousands of oversized cows that have, over the last decade, been popping up all over the world – from Chicago and New York to London, Brussels, Mexico City and Istanbul. Dubbed "the world's largest public art event", the Cow Parade is said to have raised more than £14m for charity by auctioning the bovine artworks – designed by such luminaries as David Lynch, Radiohead and former Czech president Václav Havel – to buyers such as Oprah Winfrey, Ringo Starr and Princess Firyal of Jordan. Animal husbandry never looked so sparkly.

However the election result is decided, political biographers will carry on contending to decide what's happened, and why

Whoever eventually wins the arm wrestling for Number 10, one thing, at least, is certain – political biographers will be firing up their laptops to carve out important chapters in the lives of the leaders of the three main parties. Whether the authors and their subjects will see eye-to-eye on the meaning and consequences of the last few weeks is highly unlikely. Almost by definition writers and politicians are control freaks, each claiming the right to define the narrative.

This is a point underlined by the publication today of a biography of Barack Obama by the New Yorker editor David Remnick. It's a doorstep of a book, making one quail at the thought of the rivers of ink that will be spilled when Obama has completed his presidency. Remnick has done an exhaustive job of interviewing the president's schoolfriends, teachers, adversaries, and allies, but he is aware that his subject remains elusive. Obama is a "shape-shifter", Remnick says; able to alter his message so that it reaches its target most effectively. Further, in his accounts of his family history Obama often overreaches "factually and poetically". He exaggerated the influence of the Kennedy clan on the educational programme that brought his father to the US. And in his autobiography he details a scaldingly embarrassing visit by his old man to his school in Hawaii – but the boy's teacher, Pal Eldredge, describes an agreeable occasion to Remnick, and a school friend, Constance Ramos, has written that Obama's anguished account of his schooldays amounts to a "betrayal".

Remnick himself says that Obama does not "pretend to a purely factual rendition. He appropriates some of the tools of fiction." This is a statement that will be seized on with glee by right-wing opponents who have sought to prove that Obama falsified his past, and even allege that he is not the author of Dreams From My Father. But in fact all Remnick is doing is highlighting the truth that no single account of any life can be definitive. In the prologue to his biography of Václav Havel, John Keane writes: "Gone are the days when it could be presumed that biography was about recording the facts, and literature was about experimental fiction". Keane admits that he deliberately shaped the facts of Havel's life to form the arc of tragedy.

The descent from the lives of Obama and Havel to an account of Jeffrey Archer is steep enough to cause damage to the sinuses, but Michael Crick's fine account of this notoriously inventive figure manages to cut through the phoniness to find the human being. "The crucial factors," writes Crick, "are an author's skill, diligence, and fair-mindedness". It's a testament to Crick's possession of these qualities that the reader emerges from the book understanding Archer a little more and condemning him just a little less.

Political biographies can be divided into three broad camps: admiring (Anthony Sampson on Nelson Mandela); disparaging (Simon Sebag-Montefiore on Stalin); and equitable (Remnick's treatment of Obama). Whether the three men now taking stock of the voters' verdict will receive the biographies they deserve remains to be seen.

Arcola, London

How do dramatists defy tyranny? One answer, in communist eastern Europe, was to write absurdist comedy. And, to the names of Czechoslovakia's Václav Havel and Poland's Sławomir Mro˙zek, one can now add Bulgaria's Stanislav Stratiev whose 1974 play is getting its belated British premiere in a sparky new version by Justin Butcher. It makes for a buoyant evening that displays the satiric strengths, as well as the occasional limitations, of the absurdist genre.

The play starts from a simple premise: an historic Roman bath is found under the floorboards of an archetypal "little man", Ivan Antonov. The discovery, however, brings the innocent Ivan nothing but trouble as his flat is invaded by a succession of predatory visitors. A careerist academic turns the apartment into an excavation site. And he is quickly followed by a dodgy entrepreneur, a state-sanctioned lifeguard, a greedy property developer and a party hack who dreams of creating a swimming pool for the local communist cell. Everyone seeks to exploit the treasure trove, while ignoring Ivan's basic human needs.

Stratiev pursues his central idea with farcical logic and, in the process, paints a vivid picture of life in the postwar eastern bloc. It's a world where stifling bureaucracy coexists with covert spivvery, as shown by the black-marketeer who wants to dismantle the bath and secretly ship it to Italy. Butcher's version also pays tribute to the populist traditions of commedia: there's a wonderful bad-taste moment when, learning that a silent visitor to the flat is actually deaf and doesn't speak, Ivan impatiently asks "why didn't you say so?" But the idea that the answer to Ivan's torment lies in true love is a touch sentimental and, as in early Ionesco, you feel that the crisis does not so much develop as get repeated with rococo variations.

Russell Bolam's production camouflages this through its phenomenal energy and Jean Chan's design skilfully shows the havoc created by the apartment's space invaders. Ifan Meredith's Ivan, first seen arguing with and then desperately kissing a taxi-ordering machine, also conveys the difficulty of leading a rational life in an irrational universe. And there is lively support from Bo Poraj as a manically egotistical academic, Jonathan Rhodes as a buccaneering dealer in stolen goods and Rhona Croker who invests Ivan's redemptive lover with a nice sense of erotic mischief. I'm not sure how closely the play relates, as Butcher suggests, to our own mad world. But Stratiev, who died in 2000, emerges as a fascinating writer who realised that comedy is ultimately the best weapon for subverting state power.

Until 15 May. Box office: 020-7503 1646.

Rating: 3/5

Friends, I’m writing you from the Norwegian capital -- no, not Minneapolis-St. Paul, but Oslo, all the way over here in Europe. The occasion is the Oslo Freedom Forum: a singular human-rights conference organized by the Human Rights Foundation, in New York. (They’re in the Empire State Building, in fact.) HRF is the project of Thor Halvorssen, a dynamo in the broad field of liberty. The name is Norwegian, but the man is Venezuelan: His paternal ancestry is Norwegian. HRF is designed to advocate freedom in the Americas. The Oslo Freedom Forum is a global conference -- a meeting concerned with human rights, democracy, and decency everywhere.

I will quote some official literature: “The Oslo Freedom Forum is committed to bringing together the world’s most effective human rights defenders to share their experience and expertise with an audience of global leaders.” The theme for this year is “From Tragedy to Triumph: The Heroism that Changed History & Ideas for Transforming Tomorrow.” The language is high-flown but the impulse and purpose are 100 percent genuine.

There are many guests, all of them interesting, all of them noteworthy, but I will name just a few -- for now. Lech Walesa of Poland. Garry Kasparov of Russia -- now known as a political and human-rights figure, but once the greatest chess player in the world. What a significant life. To continue: Ingrid Betancourt, the Colombian politician who was held hostage by the FARC, the terrorist army, for all those years (six and a half). Kang Chol-hwan, the North Korean defector who wrote the mind-blowing Aquariums of Pyongyang. Hernando de Soto, the Peruvian economist, and one of the great proponents of liberty in the world. Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York (and children’s-book author -- do you remember?). Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia.

Also, I see on the schedule that Yoani Sánchez is to appear -- she’s the Cuban blogger whom readers of this column know so well. Really, they will let her out of Cuba? She will be here in Oslo? I believe it, I guess -- but I will very much believe it when I see it. See her. And if the regime indeed allows her to travel, she has become safely famous -- all but untouchable (although, as readers know, she was beaten to a pulp on the street by state security last November).

Last year saw the first Oslo Freedom Forum. Among the speakers were Václav Havel, the Czech hero; Yelena Bonner, widow of the hero scientist-dissident Sakharov (and heroic herself); and Jung Chang, author of Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China. At that forum, Halvorssen made a pithy and memorable statement: “It’s pretty simple. We all should want freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom from torture, freedom to travel, due process, and freedom to keep what belongs to you.” Radical, huh?

I will have more to say about the conference in coming days. Want to hear a bit about Oslo in these present scribbles? The city is often called a “tidy” and “elegant” capital -- and so it is. It is not a big city, by any stretch: About 550,000 people live here -- same population as Tucson or Oklahoma City.

Way, way back, the city was called Oslo. Then, in the 1620s, it became Christiania, named after King Christian IV (a Danish monarch). (The Danes ruled Norway for almost four centuries: 1442 to 1814.) Starting in 1877, the name of the capital was spelled “Kristiania.” Go figure. And, in 1925, the capital became Oslo again.

Norway, like other countries on this continent, has a growing Muslim population. It is something like 8 percent in the country at large. In Oslo, it may be more like 25 percent. Norwegian Muslims lead largely separate lives; assimilation has been a problem, here as all over. In December 2008 and January 2009, Muslims rioted through the streets of Oslo. That was when Israel was carrying out its counterterror operation in Gaza. The rioting, which featured Molotov cocktails and rocks, was harrowing. Innocents were cowed and terrified. Shouts of “Kill the Jews!” rang out.

 

In May of that year -- 2009 -- something curious happened. Norwegian mosques receive many millions from the government, and Queen Sonja, wife of King Harald V, visited one of them. She did so wearing a headscarf. An imam there refused to shake her hand. In any case, this particular mosque has a worrisome inspiration, the Jamaat-e-Islami movement in Pakistan, which is murderous.

Norway has some problems to work out -- as do we all.

Quick, name some famous Norwegians -- I’ll help you along with a list. The writers Ibsen, Holberg, and Bjornson. (I’m not doing the slashes through vowels, if you don’t mind.) The composer Grieg. (Grieg wrote a Holberg Suite, you may remember.) The singer Flagstad, the pianist Andsnes. The painter Munch (think Scream). The explorer/athlete/scientist/writer/diplomat/humanitarian/all-around hero and stud Nansen. The actress Liv Ullmann. The figure skater Sonja Henie -- “Sonja Henie’s tutu!” the Car Talk guys exclaim -- and the marathoner Grete Waitz.

How about politicians? Well, there’s Quisling, sorry to say. And remember when Gro Harlem Brundtland bestrode the world like a colossus -- or at least a colossus-ette?

The main drag here in Oslo, Karl Johans gate, or Karl Johan’s Street, is a very, very attractive boulevard -- all the more so with smart blue banners saying “Oslo Freedom Forum.” This is Davos-esque. It also puts me in mind of sort of a human-rights Olympics (and I don’t mean to be flippant about so fraught a subject).

Standing outside the National Theater are statues of the big three: Ibsen, Holberg, and Bjornson. Elsewhere I see a statue of P. A. Munch, a historian who lived in the first half of the 19th century. He was the uncle of the painter. No, in his statue, he is not screaming, thank you.

And I was really pleased to see a statue of C. J. Hambro, a laudable figure of history. Born in 1885, he was a Conservative politician and member of the Nobel Peace Prize committee (which sits in Oslo and is composed of Norwegians, only). He was the one, on the terrible day in 1940, who organized the flight of the royal family, members of the government, members of the parliament, and so on. He got them out on a train about a half-hour before the Germans arrived. It was a white-knuckle thing. Hambro was up to the task.

Boy do the people here look Norwegian -- maybe they should, huh? At least as much as in Minnesota . . .

Whenever I come to Europe, I’m amazed, for the first day or two, at all the people who smoke -- just like in the America of old. It takes a while to get used to. Then, after those first two days or so, it seems normal. The de-mainstreaming of smoking in the United States was a remarkable development -- fast, too. To think that, not very long ago, there was smoking in movie theaters, on airplanes -- everywhere. It was a normal, fixed part of life. These days, smoking -- widespread smoking -- seems so . . . foreign.

I pass no judgment here, by the way -- just reporting an observation.

Care for another observation? I see girls -- I should probably say “young women” -- in mini-skirts. Really mini, as in 1969, or whenever it was. And, ladies and gentlemen, it is not especially warm now either: 40s, that kind of thing.

Not far from our hotel is a large sign reading “Thune” -- an historic manufacturing name in Norway. And that put me in mind of presidential politics: Will Senator Thune run in 2012? Why not? And, of course, he’s a Norwegian American -- a South Dakotan, the representative of a state not unfamiliar with Norwegians.

From the Mother Country, I salute you and thank you for joining me. See you soon for Part II.

---

Dreams from My Father was a notable contribution to African-American memoir long before it became a campaign sensation. In an exclusive extract from his biography of the American president, David Remnick explores the ultimate act of self-creation

With Dreams from My Father, Barack Obama was working in the oldest, and arguably the richest, genre of African-American writing: the memoir. This tradition begins with the first slave narratives. "Deprived of access to literacy, the tools of citizenship, denied the rights of selfhood by law, philosophy, and pseudo-science," wrote the literary scholar Henry Louis Gates, "and denied as well the possibility, even, of possessing a collective history as a people, black Americans published their individual histories in astonishing numbers, in a larger attempt to narrate the collective history of 'the race'."

As a young man, Obama searched for clues to his own identity by very purposefully reading his way through WEB Du Bois, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison and Malcolm X. He has also mentioned texts by Frederick Douglass, Marcus Garvey, Martin Delany and a range of novelists – in particular, Toni Morrison. In fact, reading as a way of becoming is a feature of African-American autobiography, as it is of so many outsider-memoirists of any ethnicity: Malcolm X, for one, provides an extended account of his self-education.

One way in which Obama joins this tradition is that usually, in European literature, a writer writes his or her novels, plays and poems, and then, towards the end, writes a memoir; it is more common among African-American writers to begin their writing lives by asserting themselves with an autobiography. While it is safe to assume that by the time Obama published he was thinking about public office, even he could not have envisioned that Dreams from My Father, just 13 years later, would provide a trove of material for voters, journalists, speechwriters and media consultants during a presidential campaign.

After his emergence as a national politician, it was difficult to read the book solely in the spirit in which it was written; it became a sourcebook of stories endlessly called on for use in politics. It is important precisely because it was written when Obama was young and unguarded. "Barack is who he says he is," Michelle Obama said. "There is no mystery there. His life is an open book. He wrote it and you can read it. And unlike any candidate he has really exposed himself, pre-political ambition, so it's a book that is kind of free from intent. It is the story of who he is."

Many journalists eager to write or film profiles of Obama when he became a candidate read Dreams from My Father and expressed dismay that he had not written his book according to the precise standards of scholarly or journalistic veracity. In fact, Obama signals his awareness of "the temptation to color events in ways favorable to the writer". He appropriates some of the tools of fiction. While the book is based on his journals and conversations with family members, "the dialogue is necessarily an approximation of what was actually said or relayed to me". Moreover, some of the characters are composites; the names (with the exception of family members or well-known people) are altered; and chronology, he admits, has been changed to help move the story along. What's exceptional about this is not that Obama allows himself these freedoms, but rather that he cops to them right away. Du Bois set a standard for forthrightness about the genre of memoir, writing: "Eager as I am to put down the truth, there are difficulties; memory fails especially in small details, so that it becomes finally but a theory of my life, with much forgotten and misconceived, with valuable testimony but often less than absolutely true, despite my intention to be frank and fair."

African-American autobiographies often follow a structure that the literary scholar Robert Stepto calls a "narrative of ascent". The narrator begins in a state of incarceration or severe deprivation. He breaks those bonds so that he may go out, discover himself and make his imprint on the world. In the case of many authors, including Douglass, Hughes and Malcolm X, part of that struggle for identity includes wrestling with the fact of a white parent or grandparent. The narrator begins to find his place in a community of African-Americans. He discovers his mission and sets out to fulfil it.

Obama's reading of black memoirists when he was still living in Hawaii was the "homework" of a young man trying "to reconcile the world as I'd found it with the terms of my birth". And yet, in all the books he reads, he keeps finding authors filled with a depressing self-contempt; they flee or withdraw to varying corners of the world and, to Obama, they are "all of them exhausted, bitter men, the devil at their heels".

The great exception, however, is Malcolm X. His is a narrative of mixed races, a missing father and self-invention. "His repeated acts of self-creation spoke to me," Obama writes. But he was disturbed by one line: "He spoke of a wish he'd once had, the wish that the white blood that ran through him, there by an act of violence, might somehow be expunged." Obama, who has been raised by a loving white mother and white grandparents, writes that even as a teenager, he knew that the presence of white family, white blood, could never become an abstraction: "If Malcolm's discovery toward the end of his life, that some whites might live beside him as brothers in Islam, seemed to offer some hope of eventual reconciliation, that hope appeared in a distant future, in a far-off land. In the meantime, I looked to see where the people would come from who were willing to work toward this future and populate this new world."

After he became president, Obama told me: "I find the sort of policy prescriptions, the analysis, the theology of Malcolm full of holes . . . I did even when I was young. I was never taken with some of his theorising. I think that what Malcolm X did, though, was to tap into a long-running tradition within the African-American community, which is that at certain moments it's important for African-Americans to assert their manhood, their worth. At times, they can overcompensate, and popular culture can take it into caricature – blaxploitation films being the classic example of it. But if you think about a time, in the early 1960s, when a black PhD might be a Pullman porter and have to spend much of his day obsequious and kow-towing to people, that affirmation that I am a man, I am worth something, was important."

In the original Simon & Schuster publishing contract, dated 28 November 1990, Dreams from My Father had been tentatively titled "Journeys in Black and White". As Obama writes, the book is a "boy's search for his father, and through that search a workable meaning for his life as a black American". Obama told me that he was quite conscious of the great tradition of African-American memoir and knew that he had a more modest story to tell. "I mean, at that point I'm 33 and what have I done?" he said. "The only justification for anybody wanting to read it was to be able to use my experiences as a lens to examine what's happened to issues of race in America, what's happened to issues of class in America, but also to give people a sense of how it's possible for a young person to pull strands of himself together into a coherent whole."

The most limited way to read the book is to comb it for its direct referents to reality. Some of the real people made news during the campaign when they protested at some aspect of their portrayals. Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, who was dying of cancer, read drafts of her son's book and, although she admired it, even she had quibbles. She told her friend Alice Dewey that she was really not quite so naive about race as her son made her out to be.

Obama's story contains many of the familiar features of African-American autobiography: a search for a missing parent; a search for a racial identity; a search for a community and a mission; a physical journey that echoes all his other searches. Obama, however, is in many ways more privileged than his literary predecessors. He is middle class. He has benefited from the passage of time and from many laws. He enters institutions of privilege often denied his precursors. And, as both a person and a storyteller, this poses a problem for him. The lawns and quadrangles of Columbia and Harvard Law School are not ordinarily the landscapes of epic struggle.

Moreover, Obama has grown up, sometimes to his frustration, after the civil rights movement. His is hardly a world free of racism, but it is one in which the popular culture around him is rich with African-American stars, from the musicians he watched on television as a child in Hawaii to the enormously influential figures of his adulthood. What's more, his white friends have listened to those records, watched those shows, idolised those same stars. Knowingly or not, they have come to accept Ellison's idea that what we understand to be American is, in countless visible and invisible ways, impossible without African-Americans.

Narratives of ascent, by their nature, must begin with deprivation, oppression and existential dread. Obama seems to sense this problem and, at the very start of his book, darkens his canvas as well as he can. He is 21 and living in New York. He places himself in "that unnamed, shifting border between East Harlem and the rest of Manhattan", knowing that the mere mention of Harlem, to some white non-New Yorkers, will resonate in a minor key. The block is "uninviting", "treeless", shadowy; the buzzer is broken; the sounds of gunfire echo in the night; a "black doberman the size of a wolf" prowls nearby. And, to flavour the menacing picture with a dash of class resentment, Obama reports that white people from the better neighbourhoods walk their dogs on his street "to let the animals shit on our curbs".

He heightens the facts of his spare and lonely life. His "kindred spirit" is a silent neighbour who lives alone, and eventually dies alone, a crumpled heap on the third-floor landing. A paragraph later we realise the literary effect for which Obama is striving: the death of the old man with his "untold history" foreshadows by a month the death of the Old Man, Obama's father, who, of course, is himself the great untold story that Obama will set out to explore and tell. As he is cooking his eggs "on a cold, dreary November morning", Obama gets the news on a scratchy line from Nairobi.

His book is a multicultural picaresque, a search both worldly and internal that will take him to Honolulu, Jakarta, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Nairobi and his ancestral village of Kogelo. Along the way he accumulates knowledge and peels back layer after layer of secrets until he becomes his mature, reconciled self. When Obama writes a new preface for the 2004 edition, he is the Democratic party nominee for US senator for Illinois, and he insists that "what was a more interior, intimate" quest has now "converged with a broader public debate, a debate in which I am professionally engaged, one that will shape our lives and the lives of our children for many years to come". His quest is not just his own; it becomes emblematic of a national political quest. Writers rarely insist so boldly on the importance of their own books.

At the end of each of the memoir's three long sections ("Origins", "Chicago" and "Kenya"), the narrator is in tears and experiences an epiphany: first, he weeps when he sees his father in a dream and resolves to search for him; then he cries in Jeremiah Wright's church when he sees that he has found both a community and a faith; and, finally, he collapses in tears at his father's grave, when he realises that after discovering so much about his father – his intelligence, his failures, his tragic end – he is reconciled to his family and his past.

It is not difficult to understand why politically sympathetic readers were prepared to make extravagant, extra-literary claims for Obama's book during his presidential campaign. They were reading him not as the civil rights lawyer and law professor he was when the book was published, but as a candidate who hoped to succeed George W Bush, a president who was insistently anti- intellectual, an executive who resisted introspection as a suspect indulgence.

Race is at the core of Obama's story and, like any good storyteller, he heightens whatever opportunity arises to get at his main theme. But his novelistic contrivances can sometimes feel strained. In Chapter 2, he recalls a day when he is nine years old and living with his family in Indonesia. He is sitting in the library of the American embassy, in Jakarta, where his mother teaches English, and finds a collection of Life magazines. He thumbs through the ads: "Goodyear Tires and Dodge Fever, Zenith TV ('Why not the best?') and Campbell's Soup ('Mm-mm good!')." Then he comes across a photograph of a black man who has used a chemical treatment to whiten his complexion. "There were thousands of people like him," he learns, "black men and women back in America who'd undergone the same treatment in response to advertisements that promised happiness as a white person." Reading this, Obama recalls, "I felt my face and neck get hot." The article is like an "ambush" on his sensibilities and innocence. "I imagine other black children, then and now, undergoing similar moments of revelation," he writes.

During the presidential campaign, a journalist from the Chicago Tribune searched for the article. No such article ran. Obama responded feebly, "It might have been an Ebony or it might have been . . . who knows what it was?" Archivists at Ebony could not find anything, either. It might have been that Obama was thinking of John Howard Griffin's book Black Like Me. Obviously, Obama was after an emotional truth here, and there certainly were articles published over time about black men and women who used whitening creams. The scene cannot help but echo that famous moment in Malcolm X's autobiography when he gets his first "self-defacing" conk, allowing a barber to take the kink out of his hair with a stinging lye-and-potato mixture called congolene.

Obama is not always easy on his mother. That is part of the drama of his book: his obvious love for a woman who is intelligent, idealistic, brave and engaged with the world but also, at times, maddeningly naive and frequently thousands of miles away. He is proud of her broadmindedness, her insistence that her family avoid behaving abroad like "ugly Americans". This clearly had an enormous influence on Obama, as a person and as a politician. And yet, early in the book, he is suspicious of his mother. He is the adolescent whose vanity resides in the way in which he "sees through" his parent. He could hardly bear her self-conscious admiration for black culture. When she brings him Mahalia Jackson records and recordings of the speeches of Martin Luther King, he rolls his eyes.

Poignantly, Obama "ceased to advertise" his mother's race "when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites". But, at the same time, he is well aware that he is no Richard Wright, who made the classic migration from Mississippi to the South Side; nor is he Malcolm Little, whose father, a Baptist minister and Garveyite organiser, was killed in Lansing. "We were in goddamned Hawaii," Obama writes. "We said what we pleased, ate where we pleased; we sat at the front of the proverbial bus. None of our white friends, guys like Jeff or Scott from the basketball team, treated us any differently than they treated each other. They loved us, and we loved them back. Shit, seemed like half of 'em wanted to be black themselves – or at least Doctor J."

Nevertheless, Obama is lost, almost completely without African-American adults around to help him figure himself out. For an adolescent black kid in an almost wholly white world, Hawaii was a vexed and confusing paradise. "As it was, I learnt to slip back and forth between my black and white worlds, understanding that each possessed its own language and customs and structures of meaning, convinced that with a bit of translation on my part the two worlds would eventually cohere."

He emphasises two aspects of his life at Occidental College in California, nearly to the exclusion of everything else: he rehearses different kinds of African-American voices and describes his increasing politicisation. The audiobook version of Dreams from My Father is arguably of greater interest than the print edition, and one of the reasons is that Obama, who admits that he has become a master of shifting his own voice and syntax to fit the situation, expertly mimics his black Occidental friends. He does not mock them; but there is a comic affection in those voices, a rich texture to the performance.

Obama is on the move in his book, but he moves not to escape the onerous bonds known to the early memoirists – the bonds of slavery, Jim Crow, prison or an oppressive home. He is on the move to satisfy an inner search, to answer the questions of his divided self. In Chicago, he enters a realm of political work where an essential part of his job coincides with his internal search: he essentially canvases the South Side. And, as he asks about the problems of one pastor, priest and community activist after another, he adds to his store of knowledge about the way people live. Every possible form of black politics and political thinking – liberal integrationism, black nationalism, Afrocentrism, apathy, activism, even the tendency to conspiracy thinking – is heard and, in the memoir, given voice.

Chicago was also a place where Obama was trying to divine how race figured into his life as a man. How does tribe, especially when tribe is so complicated and mixed, figure into the question of whom to love, whom to marry? Obama dates both black and white women, and he is not reluctant to make that experience, too, a part of his narrative. In New York, he tells us, he loved a white woman: "She had dark hair, and specks of green in her eyes. Her voice sounded like a wind chime." They dated for a year. At one point, she invites him to her family's country house. It is autumn. They go canoeing across an icy lake. The family knows the land, "the names of the earliest white settlers – their ancestors – and before that, the names of the Indians who'd once hunted the land." The house is a family inheritance, and so, it seems, is the country itself. The library is filled with the pictures of dignitaries whom the grandfather had known.

And Obama, who needs not remind us that his own inheritance is a more elusive thing, sees the gulf between him and this woman. "I realised that our two worlds . . . were as distant from each other as Kenya is from Germany," he writes. "And I knew that if we stayed together I'd eventually live in hers. After all, I'd been doing it most of my life. Between the two of us, I was the one who knew how to live as an outsider."

The connection is fraught. After leaving a theatre where they have seen a bitterly funny play about race, Obama's girlfriend is confused. She asks why black people are so "angry all the time". They argue. It is a familiar moment of romantic culture-clash; he is like one of Jhumpa Lahiri's young Bengali-Americans in the town house of his wealthy Wasp girlfriend. But Obama, as ever, refuses to describe their breakup as evidence of a hopeless gap. "Maybe even if she'd been black it still wouldn't have worked out," he writes. "I mean, there are several black ladies out there who've broken my heart just as good."

Obama ends the Chicago section by discovering Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ. As he sits in the pews early one Sunday morning, he hears in the music and in the minister's voice the convergence of "all the notes" of the many life stories he has been listening to for the past three years. Then, as in so many (far greater) memoirs, from Augustine to Malcolm X, he dramatises his spiritual shift, his own leap of faith. His tears this time are not tears of despair, as they were at the end of "Origins". They are tears of release, the joy of having gained something profound: the comfort of community, the immensity of faith.

Obama begins the section on his journey to Kenya, which he made in the summer of 1988, with a series of portentous gestures. He spends three weeks in Europe before going to Africa and he reports gloomy disappointment with Paris, London and Madrid. He is a "westerner not entirely at home in the west, an African on his way to a land full of strangers".

On his first day in Kenya, he experiences the shock of recognition: everyone looks like him! "Here the world was black, and so you were just you." But his naivety and his eagerness to be transformed recede as he starts listening to his storytelling relatives. Obama's sister Auma had spent time with him in the States. During that first encounter, she not only relayed the basic facts of their father's life in Nairobi – his work for an American oil company and various ministries; the political intrigues; his sad deterioration – but was prepared to separate myth from reality. The Old Man, she reports, was a miserable husband and a worse father. Drunk and raging, he would stagger into Auma's room late at night, wake her and rail at her about how he had been betrayed. The revelations are utterly at odds with Obama's long-held myth of his father's grandeur, a myth propagated by his well-meaning mother. "I felt as if my world had been turned on its head," he writes. And in that discovery there is a dawning sense of wisdom, even liberation: "The fantasy of my father had at least kept me from despair. Now he was dead, truly. He could no longer tell me how to live."

The story ends as traditional comedies do – with a wedding. When Michelle Robinson appears in the story, everything falls into place. Surrounded by his American and African family, by friends from organising and from law school, from Punahou, Occidental and Columbia, Obama and Michelle are married by Wright. "To a happy ending," Obama says as a toast and, in the African tradition, dribbles a little of his drink on the floor for the elders buried in the earth. Everything is reconciled. As befits the form of so many narratives of ascent, Obama has found himself and he has found a wife, a family, a community, a city, a faith and a cause. At the same time, he has avoided his father's mistakes and grown out of his own. His wedding unites black and white, America and Kenya. And, since nearly all of the millions of people who have read the book read it in the light of an even greater quest, the hero and his story are elevated to mythic levels.

The book first appeared in the summer of 1995 and was reviewed positively in the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Boston Globe, but it received scant publicity. Obama was interviewed in Los Angeles for the cable TV show Connie Martinson Talks Books. At the end, Martinson turned to him and said: "You know, I've never said this to anyone, but you would have a terrific career in politics." As part of a modest tour, Obama gave readings for small crowds at bookstores. The publisher, Times Books, shipped about 12,000 copies of Dreams from My Father and sold 9,000. For less than $10,000, Times Books licensed the paperback to Kodansha, a Japanese house which was specialising in multicultural books for a US audience.

Obama is hardly the first president to exhibit a literary bent before running for office. The most prolific of the literary presidents was Theodore Roosevelt, who wrote 38 books in all. Dreams from My Father ought not to be overvalued as a purely literary text; other writer-politicians such as Václav Havel and André Malraux wrote immensely greater and more mature work before holding office. But few American politicians of consequence before Obama have ventured to describe themselves personally with anything like the force and emotional openness of Dreams from My Father. It was not intended as a campaign biography, but it ended up acting as one. For a politician who was making the personal political and placing his own story and background at the centre of his candidacy, writing Dreams from My Father was the ultimate act of self-creation. Its stories are at the centre of Obama's thinking, his self-regard, his public rhetoric.

In the closing weeks of the 2008 presidential campaign, as it seemed more and more evident that only a miracle could rescue John McCain from defeat, a little-known conservative writer, magazine editor and former talk-radio host named Jack Cashill advanced a theory popular on various rightwing websites, including American Thinker and World Net Daily, that Obama was not the author of Dreams from My Father. This was a charge that, if ever proved true, or believed to be true by enough voters, could have been the end of the candidacy. Obama himself admitted that many people had got involved in his campaign "because they feel they know me through my books". This accusation of fraud possessed a diabolical potency for those who wished him ill. It suggested that the man poised to become the first African-American president, one celebrated for his language and his eloquence, could not possibly be such a good writer.

The true author of Obama's book, Cashill suggested, was likely Bill Ayers, best known as the co-founder of the Weather Underground and the "terrorist" referred to in speeches by Sarah Palin. Cashill wrote that he had carefully studied books by Ayers, who had written a memoir and books about education, and through a process that he called "deconstruction" this latter-day Derrida charged that these volumes contained too much in common to skirt suspicion. For instance, they were both obsessed with eyes: "Ayers is fixated with faces, especially eyes. He writes of 'sparkling' eyes, 'shining' eyes, 'laughing' eyes, 'twinkling' eyes, eyes 'like ice'. . . Obama is also fixated with faces, especially eyes. He also writes of 'sparkling' eyes, 'shining' eyes, 'laughing' eyes, 'twinkling' eyes . . . Obama also used the highly distinctive phrase 'like ice'." And so on.

Cashill's assertions might well have remained a mere twinkling in the web's farthest lunatic orbit had it not been for the fact that more powerful voices hoped to give his theory wider currency. A writer for the National Review's popular blog The Corner declared Cashill's scholarly readings "thorough, thoughtful and alarming". And Rush Limbaugh, during his nationwide radio broadcast on 10 October 2008, digressed from a mocking segment about Dreams from My Father to take up the Ayers-as-author theory: "There's no evidence that Obama has ever written anything prior to this except a poem, and the poem was as dumb as 'A River, Rock, and Tree' that Maya Angelou did at the Slickster's inauguration back in 1993 . . . We haven't seen anything he wrote at Harvard Law, or when he was at Columbia, or any tests that he's written. But if you read his books, if you listen to his audio reading of the book here, you don't hear this when Obama goes out and speaks. I would like for him to be given a test on his own book. You know how Charles Barkley once said he was misquoted in his own book? I would like for Obama to actually be given a test on his own book."

This may not have been Limbaugh's most racist insinuation of the campaign. His delighted airing of the song "Barack, the Magic Negro", sung to the tune of "Puff, the Magic Dragon", probably reached a wider audience, and his description of Obama as a "Halfrican American" was, perhaps, more immediately pernicious. Still, Cashill's and Limbaugh's libel about Obama's memoir – the denial of literacy, the denial of authorship – had a particularly ugly pedigree. Writing elevated a slave from non-being, from commodity, to human status. In Douglass's narrative, his master, Mr Auld, says, "Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world . . . If you teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him." And yet writers such as Douglass had to call on white men to authenticate their texts, the better to disprove the antebellum Jack Cashills and Rush Limbaughs ready to declare fraud. For the wary white readership, the abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips provided prefaces for Douglass's book.

A century and a half later, thinking a degree of racial progress had been achieved, Barack Obama and his publisher had not thought to collect such endorsements.

This is an edited extract from The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama by David Remnick, published by Picador on 7 May (£20).

De cand lumea si pamăntul, intelectualii in majoritatea lor au fost implicati in treburile societătilor in care au trait. De la scribul lui Hammurabi si pana la Baruh fiul lui Neria, scribul lui Ieremia ( Ier. 36:4 ), de la Niccolò Machiavelli si până la Albert Speer si in sfărsit de la Václav Havel până la Ion Iliescu, toti si-au servit cetatea, unii cu credintă si dragoste altii din interes, oportunism si dorintă de putere

In recent months Obama has reassured America's eastern European allies of Washington's commitment to their security

Standing in Prague's Hradcany Square a year ago, Barack Obama set an ambitious goal: a world without nuclear weapons. One year later, on 8 April, Obama and Russian president Dmitry Medvedev are expected back in Prague where they will sign a new nuclear arms treaty reducing the limit on strategic stockpiles to 1,550 warheads each.

Although the agreement does not cover tactical nuclear weapons, and includes a new counting regime that attributes only one weapon to each bomber regardless of the actual payload, the treaty is a significant landmark in Russian-American relations and an impressive accomplishment for both leaders.

In little more that one year, Obama and Medvedev managed to rebuild non-proliferation diplomacy damaged by mutual tensions. They also successfully moved away from the discourse of Munich, where Vladimir Putin's blunt speech at the February 2007 Munich security conference highlighted the dismal relations between the two powers, to Prague, where Obama's call for global co-operation was welcomed and reciprocated by Russian leadership.

Not so long ago, Prague's significance in nuclear diplomacy was far more practical than symbolic. In June 2007, just a few months after Putin's speech in Munich, George Bush touched down in the Czech capital to discuss his proposed ballistic missile defence system, which was to include an advanced radar station in Brdy, just 80km southwest of Prague.

Although the public was firmly against the plan, Czech leadership, which then included prime minister Mirek Topolánek and President Václav Klaus, was firmly in favour of the proposal in the hope of securing an American presence in the Czech Republic. This was also the case in neighbouring Poland, which had finally agreed to host a battery of American interceptor missiles after public opinion shifted abruptly following Russia's military incursion into Georgia in the summer of 2008.

When Obama cancelled the programme last autumn, choosing to focus on addressing the perceived Iranian missile threat by extending the sea-based Aegis missile defence system instead, many across the region reacted with a mild panic attack. This was because for Polish and Czech leaders, the missile shield was never about Iran but about installing the Americans within their borders as a hedge against a snarling Russia.

Even before Obama's cancellation of Bush's system, nerves were already frayed to the point that a number of political and diplomatic heavyweights, including Václav Havel and Lech Wałęsa, penned a public letter to the new US president imploring him not to forget about the region. The leaders noted that "Nato today seems weaker than when we joined," and that "Our hopes that relations with Russia would improve and that Moscow would finally fully accept our complete sovereignty and independence after joining Nato and the EU have not been fulfilled."

They also outlined the tensions felt across the region, accusing Russia of using "overt and covert means of economic warfare, ranging from energy blockades and politically motivated investments to bribery and media manipulation in order to advance its interests and to challenge the transatlantic orientation of central and eastern Europe".

With the situation in Georgia still unresolved and with the memory of Yalta still very much alive across the region, the Russian-American negotiations that followed Obama's call for nuclear disarmament were met with a mixture of curiosity and unease. For example, after the agreement had been reached, the leading story in Poland's largest daily newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, focused on whether the agreement would "hit" the Aegis missile shield which the Poles still hope to host on their soil, and whether Russia could unilaterally withdraw from the treaty in order to rearm.

In the midst of it all, Obama took a number of steps to show America's eastern European allies that American commitment to their security was never in question.

Last December Polish and US diplomats agreed on a status of forces agreement to govern the legal status of United States military personnel who will man a battery of Patriot air defence missiles that the Americans first promised during Bush's tenure. Better still, the Economist reported this January that Nato's military command would bypass the North Atlantic Council to formulate contingency plans for the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Finally it is not a coincidence that Prague has become the setting for Obama's public diplomacy, and that both American and Russian leaders will arrive in the Czech capital to sign their historic agreement. After 14 months in office, Obama has "reset" relations with Russia, successfully reduced some of the tensions in the region, and strengthened Nato guarantees for the alliance's most insecure members after the 2008 Georgia debacle.

Certainly, Obama could have benefited from the home-town media glare by inviting Medvedev to sign the treaty at the nuclear summit meeting in Washington later this month, but considering his successes in the region thus far, it is no surprise that he has chosen to come back to Prague. His accomplishments may not be enough to justify his Nobel peace prize, but for Obama, Medvedev and the region, Prague represents a very good start.

Inevitable y previsiblemente, el nuevo senador de Massachussets –el señor desplegable de revista de 41 años, sencillo conductor de camioneta y detractor de la política fiscal– ha decepcionado a su electorado, por desgracia. En una de las sesiones de la reciente Conferencia de Acción Política Conservadora (CPAC) reflexionaba sobre si Abraham Lincoln era «amigo o enemigo»de la política fiscal. No se puede decir que los enemigos de Lincoln definan las conferencias CPAC –y ciertamente no al Partido Republicano– pero la cepa libertaria creciente dentro de la agrupación conservadora (ver los resultados de la victoria de Ron Paul) en combinación con las posturas anti-RINO (acrónimo de Republicanos Sólo de Nombre) está complicando la vida cada vez más a los moderados como Scott Brown. El senador de Massachussets fue atacado por los socialconservadores por su posición sobre el aborto cuando apenas llevaba una semana en su nuevo trabajo.  Ahora se ha puesto en el punto de mira de los conservadores fiscales y los detractores de la política de gasto que, aunque estaban a favor de Brown por su lucha contra la reforma sanitaria y los paquetes de estímulo, ahora le llaman traidor por apoyar la votación simple sin debate parlamentario del paquete de empleo de 15.000 millones de dólares de los demócratas. Miles de seguidores conservadores subieron comentarios negativos a la página de Brown en Facebook, incluyendo el siempre popular «MENTISTE». Scott Brown dijo que aunque el proyecto de ley era imperfecto, devolvería al mercado laboral a los estadounidenses. También dijo que esperaba que su voto fuera un «gran paso hacia el restablecimiento del bipartidismo en Washington». Va a ser que no, Scottie. Los «verdaderos conservadores» quieren buscar la viga en tu ojo. Cero cooperación con los demócratas es al parecer el modus operandi predilecto entre el sector más puntero del Partido Republicano. Aunque hay detractores del Tea Party, independientes e, incluso, demócratas, pero, sobre todo, republicanos entre los contrarios a una política de gasto público.  Y aunque no hay dirección centralizada ni líder, algunos segmentos encuentran que la anulación o la  división son alternativas razonables a la política fracasada y el «atracón» de Gobierno. Estos verdaderos conservadores y cazadores de RINO suponen, por decirlo suavemente, un problema para cualquier candidato o titular que trate de ser bipartidista, que traducido significa «traición al país». La caza del RINO no es nueva. Pregunte a John McCain. O a John Avlon, autor del nuevo libro «Extremistas», que remonta la normalización de la caza hiperpartidista de herejes a la Administración de George W. Bush.Cita, por ejemplo, a Mónica Goodling, el enlace del Departamento de Justicia en la Casa Blanca que impuso un examen de social conservadurismo a los posibles empleados. La caza se intensificó durante la campaña presidencial de 2008, cuando ciertas personas a las que no hay que nombrar fueron «marginadas» por apóstatas por no comulgar con la lista John McCain-Sarah Palin.Avlon escribe: «La caza de herejes pretende ser una lucha de principios por la pureza ideológica, pero detrás de esa máscara hay un impulso más desagradable, un intento de intimidar e insistir en la conformidad; un recordatorio de lo que el disidente checo convertido en presidente Václav Havel escribió una vez: ''La ideología ofrece a los seres humanos la ilusión de la dignidad y los valores humanos al tiempo que facilita alejarse de ellos"».Lo que emerja de esta batalla de desgaste será interesante, pero las cosas pueden ponerse feas a medida que el movimiento Tea Party cobra fuerza y las viejas alianzas dan signos de debilitamiento. El otro día, Bill Kristol, de «The Weekly Standard», hizo un comentario en «Fox News Sunday», que puede ser un vaticinio de lo que está por venir: «Los detractores de la política fiscal son lo mejor que le ha pasado al Partido Republicano en los últimos tiempos».Hace menos de 10 años, el padre de Kristol, Irving, fundador del movimiento neoconservador, llegó a la conclusión de que los neoconservadores no se sumarían a los libertarios porque no tienen valores. ¿Y ahora?, ¿abandonan los neoconservadores el electorado republicano y siguen la nueva tendencia creada por los detractores de la política fiscal? En palabras de un miembro del colectivo Tea Party: «cómo van a encajar los neoconservadores del gobierno limitado nacional con la construcción de identidades nacionales de grandes gobiernos en el extranjero va a ser algo digno de verse».

Twenty years ago almost to the day, on February 21, 1990, the new president of then Czechoslovakia Václav Havel delivered a memorable address to the Joint Session of the U.S. Congress. It was an amazing time of change – the Soviet bloc was crumbling and the symbol of the East-West division, the Berlin Wall, fell [...]

The human rights activist Liu Xiaobo, imprisoned in China, deserves the 2010 Nobel peace prize

On Christmas Day last year, one of China's best-known human rights activists, the writer and university professor Liu Xiaobo, was condemned to 11 years in prison. Liu is one of the main drafters of Charter 08, a petition inspired by Czechoslovakia's Charter 77, calling on the Chinese government to adhere to its own laws and constitution, and demanding the open election of public officials, freedom of religion and expression, and the abolition of "subversion" laws.

For his bravery and clarity of thought about China's future, Liu deserves the 2010 Nobel peace prize. There are two reasons why we believe that Liu would be a worthy recipient of that prestigious award.

First and foremost, he stands in the tradition of Nobel peace prize laureates who have been recognised for their contribution to the struggle for human rights. Nobel laureates such as Martin Luther King, Lech Walesa, and Aung San Suu Kyi are but a few of the many examples that the Nobel committee has recognised in previous years.

We are convinced that the concepts that Liu and his colleagues put down on paper in December 2008 are both universal and timeless. These ideals – respect for human rights and human dignity, and the responsibility of citizens to ensure that their governments respect those rights – represent humanity's highest aspirations. Should the Nobel committee choose to recognize Liu's courage and sacrifice in articulating these ideals, it would not only draw global attention to the injustice of Liu's 11-year sentence. It would also help to amplify within China the universal and humanistic values for which Liu has spent so much of his life fighting.

The second reason why Liu deserves the Nobel peace prize resonates with Alfred Nobel's original intent for the award. In working to promote human rights, political reform, and democratization in China, Liu has made a significant contribution to the values of peace and fraternity among nations that Nobel had in mind when he created the award more than a century ago. Of course, democratisation does not automatically guarantee better behaviour on the world stage. But it does facilitate a full and rigorous public debate over key questions of a state's foreign and domestic policies. This active and searching conversation, the hallmark of a democratic polity, is the best hope for better decisions by governments, both at home and abroad.

Liu's committed advocacy on behalf of democracy in China is, above all, intended for the benefit of the Chinese people. But his courage and example may help to accelerate the dawn of the day when China's participation in international affairs is aided by the expertise and oversight of civil-society groups, an independent media, and an engaged citizenry able to express its views through the ballot box. It is primarily for these two reasons that we believe that Liu would be a worthy recipient of the 2010 Nobel peace prize. In conferring on Liu one of the world's highest honours, the committee would be signalling once again the importance of human rights and democracy on the one hand, and world peace and international solidarity on the other.

Liu's harsh prison sentence was meant as an exemplary measure, a stern warning to all other Chinese who might want to follow his path. We are convinced that there are moments when exemplary civic engagement, such as Liu's, requires an exemplary response. Awarding him the Nobel peace prize is precisely the response that his courage deserves.

Václav Havel is a former president of the Czech Republic; His Holiness the Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism; André Glucksmann is a philosopher; Vartan Gregorian is president of Carnegie Corporation of New York; Mike Moore is a former director of the World Trade Organisation; Karel Schwarzenberg is a former foreign minister of the Czech Republic; Desmond Tutu is a Nobel peace prize laureate; Grigory Yavlinsky is the former chairman of the Russian United Democratic party, Yabloko

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2010

An exhibition of oil paintings and drawings by poet Jiří Kuběna was opened in the Václav Havel Library in Prague Wednesday as the first in a cycle of events to recall the first community of artists with whom Václav Havel surrounded himself in the mid-1950s....Link!

Oppressed by their government and western business, China's dissidents are more isolated than the revolutionaries of 1989

Should anyone still doubt that history always repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, second time as farce, an incident that took place last Wednesday in Prague might very well change his or her mind.

On 6 January 1977, Václav Havel, then a leading Czech dissident as well as a playwright banned by the communist regime, was arrested along with Pavel Landovský and Ludvík Vaculík for writing a petition that called for the democratisation of the regime and publishing it in a samizdat version. Their arrest contributed to the cause – the Charter 77 manifesto reached the west apace and at some point was even more widely discussed abroad than in Czechoslovakia. Ultimately, 12 years after the dissident movement's emergence, the Velvet Revolution wiped out the oppressive regime and Havel was soon to become the country's president.

Thirty-three years later, history's ironic pen writes a rather peculiar postscript to the democratic outbreak of 1989. On 6 January 2010, Havel showed up with fellow communist-era dissidents at China's embassy in Prague with a new petition, this time calling for the liberation of Liu Xiaobo, a leading Chinese dissident. Sentenced to 11 years' imprisonment last December, Xiaobo was convicted on charges of subversion, which, in the language of the human-rights-allergic regime, stands for the crucial role that he had played in drawing up and distributing the Chinese version of the Czech manifesto, entitled Charter 08.

As the Velvet Revolution's veterans arrived at the embassy, a literally closed-door reception was awaiting them. Nobody, let alone the ambassador himself, bothered to take the open letter from Havel's hand, a rather unusual situation considering that he had been first Czechoslovakia's, and then the Czech Republic's president for almost 13 years. In the end, the protesters were forced to leave the petition in the embassy's letterbox. All of this on the 33rd anniversary of the Charter's emergence. Ignored by one communist regime as a dissident, as an ex-president, Havel would still be ignored by another.

Without a shred of doubt, this incident is part of a bigger picture. Beijing's gradually increasing contempt for Europe's human-rights discourse, already apparent during Akmal Shaikh's disgraceful trial, is becoming more pronounced as the west's economic leverage over China has been replaced by China's leverage over the west. What possible sanctions could the west, let alone the UK, launch in order to force respect of basic human rights on China? The Chinese regime has a very precise sense of balance, and it is no coincidence that Shaikh's execution took place now; he was the first European citizen to be put to death in China in more than half a century.

Were Václav Havel to be reborn as a Chinese dissident 20 years after 1989, his voice would certainly be crushed not only by China, but also by shabby smartphone manufacturers. It seems that nowadays, every single tech company expanding to the Chinese market would block the Charter 77 app in advance before anyone could download it. Beijing's grip on the internet will only tighten, and even though an oppressive government quashing the voice of dissent is no new phenomenon, western corporations' complicity in persecuting the dissidents surely is. And we are all getting used to it.

Hence, Liu Xiaobo's oppression in 2010 is more severe than that faced in 1989 by Václav Havel in Czechoslovakia, Lech Wałęsa in Poland or other dissidents from behind the Iron Curtain. Despite the internet, Twitter, Facebook, mobile phones and all that technology has to offer, modern dissidents are in no better situation than their predecessors were 33 years ago. On the contrary, the likes of Xiaobo seem to be more on their own than the 1989 revolutionaries were. Perhaps it is time to dust off the good old samizdat.

Václav Havel was elected the president of Czechoslovakia exactly 20 years ago, on December 29th, 1989. This event marked the final victory of the Velvet Revolution even though the first free parliamentary elections confirming the end of communism had to wait for additional six months.



I pledge my loyalty to the Czechoslovak [sic] Socialist [oops] Republic...

Havel was elected unanimously even though the bulk of the Federal Assembly was still composed out of the old communist deputies and he was arrested as recently as a few months before his election by the very same guys. ;-) Well, many of them have experienced some pressure from the Civic Forum.

His rise was very exciting. As a typical great man of another era, he doesn't quite understand the issues that are important in the world today - with his past health problems and torture, it's quite amazing that he's still alive and doing pretty well today - but he will surely remain a top symbol of the fight for freedom and democracy in the previously socialist Europe.

Vor 20 Jahren wurde Václav Havel gegen seinen Wunsch zum tschechoslowakischen Staatschef gewählt.

A little more than a year ago, Chinese intellectual Liu Xiaobo helped author and organize a petition known as Charter '08, which called for greater openness, rule of law, and free speech within the Chinese political system. The petition, which was unveiled on Dec. 10, 2008, eventually attracted some 2,000 signatures in China and the attention of global China watchers.

On Dec. 25, 2009, Liu was sentenced to  11 years in prison for "subversion." The sentence was handed down two days after Liu's 3-hour trial in Beijing. Liu had spent the previous year in detention. Although there is little hope of reprieve, his lawyers plan to appeal the decision on procedural grounds.

The Chinese government's wariness about public discussion of political reforms (i.e., apart from factional disputes within the CCP) is nothing new. But Beijing has in the past preferred to handle such matters as quietly as possible, muting voices it perceives as troublesome without bringing more attention from critics and western observers than necessary.

In general, among critics of the Chinese political system, such as rights lawyers and environmentalists, those with extensive contacts in the west have tended, in the past, to receive less extreme or less visible punishments. (For example, while obscure provincial anti-pollution protestors have been jailed or beaten, the well-known environmentalists Yu Xiaogang, who received the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2008, quietly had his passport taken away to limit his activities.)

Now some China watchers believe Beijing is becoming more brazen and confident in flouting international pressure. Hu John Kamm, founder of the Dui Hua Foundation, which advocates for human rights and the release of Chinese political prisoners, told the New York Times: “Many people see this trial as a tipping point ... The government seems to be getting tougher and more unyielding.”

Liu's case has certainly attracted extensive international attention in the past year. Last January, 300 prominent international writers, including Salman Rushdie, Umberto Eco, Margaret Atwood, and Ha Jin, penned a letter calling for his release. In March, Václav Havel awarded the Homo Homini prize to Liu in Praque (in his absence, fellow signatories of Charter ‘08 accepted the award).

In the end, Liu's sentence is the longest ever issued for the charge of "inciting subversion."

Meanwhile another case is attracting foreigners' attention -- and heated speculation as to whether this indicates another turning point of some kind in China. The Times of London and BBC are reporting that a British citizen held for allegedly smuggling heroin in China might face execution -- tomorrow. If he is executed, it will mark the first time a European national has been put to death in China in 50 years. 

I know you’ve heard a lot -- plenty -- about President Obama’s Nobel lecture, but let me just add a word. Conservative opinion on the speech is all over the map, which is interesting. To some conservatives, the speech came as a delightful surprise: The American president acknowledged American interests, and said those interests have to be defended; he also said that war is necessary from time to time, horrible as it is. Other conservatives said, “Isn’t that setting the bar awfully low? And wasn’t there much in Obama’s speech to object to?” I sympathize with the former camp, but find myself in the latter camp. (Does that sound a little Clintonian?)

Obama disparaged the Iraq War, of course. In this address, as in others, Afghanistan was the good and necessary war, and Iraq the bad and disgraceful one. Obama noted that Afghanistan involves a big coalition, including the Norwegians (his hosts). Well, the Iraq coalition was comparably big, and included the Norwegians.

Most offensive, I think, was Obama’s suggestion that, before his presidency, we had lowered ourselves to the standards of our enemies. He uttered the words “prison at Guantanamo Bay” as if that were something self-evidently base, indefensible, and immoral. Actually, that is an excellent facility, and we could hardly do better for the purposes. Are we? What’s more, Obama might want to consult his attorney general, Eric Holder: who, after visiting Guantanamo at the beginning of this administration, had high praise for the facility.

Let me draw notice, or further notice, to a few Obama sentences. Sounding like Oswald Spengler or something, the president said, “War, in one form or another, appeared with the first man. At the dawn of history, its morality was not questioned; it was simply a fact, like drought or disease.” How do we know that? How do we know that, at the dawn of history, the morality of war was not questioned?

Said Obama, “The world rallied around America after the 9/11 attacks, and continues to support our efforts in Afghanistan . . .” Yeah, that’s the line. In truth, the “world” rallied around America when it was down and bleeding; when it was up on its feet and fighting back -- that was something rather different. And this occurred well before the Iraq War was launched.

Obama said, “These extremists are not the first to kill in the name of God; the cruelties of the Crusades are amply recorded.” You see the typical Obama balancing act, right? Bring in the Christians, even if you have to reach back to the Middle Ages.

Finally, the line de résistance of his speech: “I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war.” Can I tell you what I especially love about that line? The word “definitive.” Of course, Obama might have some other, not-quite-definitive solution to that pesky problem of war!

Before leaving Obama and Oslo, I’d like to say something about his schedule -- because some Norwegians are upset that Obama did not stay to go through the full Nobel program (meals, concert, etc.). Everyone understands that the president has a lot to do. But, you know? If you win the Nobel prize, you might as well do the Full Monty -- go through the entire program. It’s just two days. And how many times are you going to win a Nobel? Moreover, America can function just fine when its politicians are away, even the top one. Agree?

News has come that Rep. Brian Baird, Democrat of Washington, is retiring. He is not going to try for reelection next year. And that is interpreted as more good news for the GOP, which is resurgent. I want to say a little something about Baird, who is a stand-up guy. I encountered him at a meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos. He was opposed to the Iraq War, when we went in. But he recognized that, once in, you had to win. And, when the surge was implemented, he saw that this was helping, greatly. He said so, to one and all. He further said that, if we set a deadline for withdrawal, that would only advantage the extremists, who would simply wait us out. His pronouncements ticked off his fellow Democrats. And, one night in his district, he stood before a very, very hostile crowd at a town-hall meeting -- stood for hours, defending his positions on Iraq, listening to others. If I remember rightly, he told me that a young woman came up to him afterward, to thank him. Turned out her father was fighting in Iraq.

Brian Baird? “I appreciate his service,” as the line goes.

The Cuban regime has been doing some arresting, one of its specialties. They have rearrested two of the bravest dissidents and democrats: Jorge Luis García Pérez, known as “Antúnez,” and his wife, Iris Aguilera. The two have spent their lives in and out of prison. They won’t give up, for some reason -- they are totally dedicated to the cause of their country’s freedom. Weird, don’t you think? And a stroke of good fortune for their countrymen.

They are black, by the way -- Antúnez and Iris. I mention this only because one of the great myths of the Cuban regime is that it has been a boon to black people. This is a useful line, to gull Free World liberals. Much of the leadership of Cuba’s democracy movement is black -- witness the prisoner Oscar Biscet, to whom President Bush gave the Medal of Freedom. (Dr. Biscet was not available to accept in person, strangely enough.)

The Cuban regime has also arrested an American: a man “working on contract for the U.S. Agency for International Development who was distributing cellphones and laptop computers to Cuban activists.” I have quoted the Washington Post, here. The article continues, “The contractor, who has not been identified, works for Bethesda-based Development Alternatives. The company said in a statement that it was awarded a government contract last year to help USAID ‘support the rule of law and human rights, political competition and consensus building’ in Cuba.”

A bit more from the article:

A senior Republican congressional aide said the American contractor was being held in a secure facility in Havana. “It is bizarre they’re just holding him and not letting us see him at all,” said the aide . . .

 

Cellphones and laptops are legal in Cuba, though they are new and coveted commodities in a country where the average worker’s wage is $15 a month. The Cuban government granted ordinary citizens the right to buy cellphones just last year; they are used mostly for texting, because a 15-minute phone conversation would eat up a day’s wages.

We might want to keep an eye on this case -- on the American prisoner, specifically, and on the general effort to aid ordinary Cubans. It is heartening to know that such an effort, even if it is a modest one, is taking place. (I have written before on all the Czechs do to help the Cubans -- the Czech-Cuban relationship is an interesting, and even a touching, one. It is sparked, to no small degree, by Václav Havel, who is not one to whistle past persecution.)

One more thing, before I leave this topic: The Post report notes that the charges against this American contractor “have not been made public. Under Cuban law, however, a Cuban citizen or a foreign visitor can be arrested for nearly anything under the claim of ‘dangerousness.’”

Oh, yes: dangerousness, to the Communist party and dictatorship. May those lovely Castroites experience yet more danger, from those who wish to live without boots on their necks.



On to something pleasanter? I agree. I hope you’ve seen, dear readers, that little Gibraltar is in the news. For what? Some tussle between England and Spain? No, the new Miss World is from Gibraltar: She is Kaiane Aldorino, and she beat out all the contestants from the bigger countries -- which is to say, all of them, right, pretty much? Or does San Marino have an entrant?

Maybe we should entertain a language question. A reader wants to know about golf -- and “golfing.” He says, “I was raised in a pretty serious golf family. From early on, I found the word ‘golfing’ to be odd, even irksome. Is it really a word at all? You never hear Tiger or Jack or Freddy say that they are ‘golfing.’ They ‘play golf.’ But you hear weekend warriors say ‘golfing’ all the time.”

Yes, this is a question I have considered -- that I considered some time ago. And I agree with the letter-writer. In my observation, serious golfers talk about “playing golf.” They’ll say, “I’m going to play golf this afternoon.” More casual types are apt to say, “I’m going golfing this afternoon” (on the order of, “I’m going bowling”). But is “golfing” a word, and can you say that you’re “golfing”? Why, sure.

One more language question? (Can’t get enough?) Another reader writes, “Which phrase is correct: to graduate high school or to graduate from high school?” Well, the latter is more correct, more standard, of course. But the former is wonderfully American, I find. Doesn’t grate me at all; makes me feel rather at home. And you know what is really, really correct, right? To be graduated from high school. Say that, however, and people will look at you funny.

Let me say something about familiar, or overly familiar, masterpieces. Over the weekend, I took a little girl to see The Nutcracker, performed by the New York City Ballet. That work has endured for a reason; it is popular -- immensely so -- for a reason. The Nutcracker is an ever-fresh masterpiece, in my opinion. If you are tired of it -- well . . .

I’ll quote Dr. Johnson: “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.” And if he is tired of The Nutcracker -- well, he might take a Christmas off, or ten Christmases. Then return to the work, with eager, receptive, blank-slatish ears. (Eyes too.) I often say, “If a work is hackneyed, it’s not its fault it’s hackneyed, is it?” And I will quote Lorin Maazel (the conductor), who told me in an interview last summer, “If you become jaded because of overexposure [to a piece of music], the problem is yours, not the composer’s.”

Which leads me to the following letter:

Jay,

 

Some years ago, we lived in Huntsville, Ala., which had a music series. The conductor was from Finland, and he had a thing for “transgressive” music. But, in Huntsville, he had to schedule music that people would pay to hear. [Same as all over, really.] So, for the final concert one season, he scheduled Pachelbel’s Canon. I love this piece, in part for its timelessness. The conductor also scheduled a piece of his own, an atonal screeching mess. We got that first, of course. And when the conductor introduced the Pachelbel, he described the piece a little, and then told us how stupid we were for liking it.

 

I almost dragged my wife out of there. I was ready to stand up and shout [something rude]. I didn’t, because then I would have missed the Canon . . .

Oh, the Pachelbel Canon will be played, listened to, and loved long, long after that Finn and his music are food for fishes, or whatever the expression is. Sometimes -- just sometimes -- the public is right. They are right about that canon, and about Tchaikovsky’s ballet, too.

Was in the opera house the other night, covering The Tales of Hoffmann (a new production -- Bartlett Sher, best known for Broadway). The part of the mechanical doll Olympia was taken by Kathleen Kim, a young Korean-American soprano. She is a very, very petite lady. When the Hoffmann (Joseph Calleja) knelt by the standing Olympia, they were almost the same height. And, in my notes, I jotted down a nickname for her: “Lil’ Kim.”

So please don’t say you never heard rap mixed with opera, in some fashion.

Several columns ago, I spoke of the statue of Lenin in Seattle. And a local wrote to say, “I know you won’t take the presence of that statue as evidence that we are broadminded and accepting, here in Seattle. Wear an NRA hat in the same neighborhood, and the people will show you the limits of their tolerance.”

No doubt, no doubt.

Fun with a bumper sticker? A reader wrote to tell me of a sticker he saw on the car of “a young gal in Beverly, Mass.” He said that the sticker marked her out as a spoiled brat. Could be, but I found the sticker charming -- see what you think:

Saw It

Wanted It

Had a Fit

Got It

A “safe-zone violation” -- an intrusion of partisan politics where it doesn’t belong? I hear of many instances, and haven’t related one in a while, so how about this?

Jay,

 

My cousin gleefully reported on her Facebook page that her child’s beginning band teacher gave the students a new mnemonic for learning the notes on the lines of the treble clef. The old: Every Good Boy Does Fine. The new? Even George Bush Deserves Friends.

Yes, and even beginning band teachers who transmit partisan political prejudices to the children under their care deserve tenure -- don’t they?

I hope this will make you smile a bit, as it did me:

Hi,

 

I have enjoyed your recent interest in the phrase “punkin’ chunkin’.” I have no idea about things that throw pumpkins, but my last name is Junkin, and my mom has called me her “little punkin chunkin” for my whole life. I’m starting to wonder why. I’m pretty sure it will come up at Christmas this year. I hope she has a good explanation as to why she likened me to chucking pumpkins, and not my sisters.

Punkin Chunkin Junkin -- a pretty nice handle.

Finally, a woman in Gilbert, Ariz., writes,

Did you see William Shatner and Sarah Palin on The Tonight Show? [No, but I like them both.] Wow! It was almost shocking to see two people having fun. It makes me realize how many serious, stern, or shrill people habitually appear on television. It was great to see two people tweak each other with real humor and a good-natured spirit. I said to myself, “That’s a moment in Jay Nordlinger’s America.”

Aw shucks, geewillikers, etc. In whatever America you happen to be -- or whatever other country you happen to be -- I wish you a great one.

 

 

---

I have used the term "Climate Velvet Revolution" in a newspaper article (EN) of mine that was printed at a few places.

The analogy is obvious. The Velvet Revolution - the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia - was started when students were beaten by the communist cops. The Climate Velvet Revolution began when it turned out that the key IPCC scientists who pumped the alarmist "consensus" to the reports - East Anglia's CRU climatologists plus a few of their friends - have been using hopelessly messy datasets, were "improving" the data, and were hurting everyone who obtained inconvenient results behind the scenes.

The timing

The Velvet Revolution began on Friday, November 17th, 1989, when the students were beaten. The Climate Velvet Revolution began 20 years and 3 days later, on Friday, November 20th, 2009, when the world really learned about the leaked documents (which were already posted on the previous day).

The general secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, Mr Milouš Jakeš, a comedian against his will who was also known as a self-described lonely fence post (from his most famous talk given in Greater Pilsen), resigned one week after the revolution began, on November 20th, 1989.

The obvious analogy should be a resignation of Phil Jones ;-) and my schedule dictates that it should have occurred on Friday, November 27th, 2009. But it only occurred today, on December 1st, 2009, i.e. 4 days later. Too bad. ;-) Moreover, they say that the resignation is just temporary, before an "independent investigation" is completed.

At any rate, I hope that the lag will be eliminated because many more interesting things should occur during this new Velvet Revolution.

In 1989, Václav Havel was unanimously elected the Czechoslovak president - even by the communist deputies who were equally unanimously keeping him in jail just a few months earlier. It was on December 29th, 1989. Add 20 years and 3 days to see that exactly on January 1st, 2010, a climate skeptic should be unanimously chosen the boss of the IPCC.

Now, potential candidates such as Lord Monckton disagree with this plan due to your humble correspondent. They want to abolish the IPCC instead. Well, I happen to think that the global mess - in the climate science and in the new "green industries" - that the IPCC has created can only be peacefully cured by an equally organized international organization that could still be called the IPCC although it will probably be closer to our NIPCC. ;-)

So I hope that Lord Monckton and other candidates will understand the reality and the importance of some continuity (and your humble correspondent could already have some intuition from similar revolutions), and one of them will accept Pachauri's job on January 1st, 2010. ;-)

20 years ago, the dominoes fell in Eastern Europe. Not long after the Wall fell in Berlin, a non-violent revolution got underway in Czechoslovakia. The Velvet Revolution took just a matter of ten days (November 17 – 27 1989). It was fast and bloodless, and it put on the world stage Václav Havel — the [...]

On October 11, 2009, at the invitation of Václav Havel, former president of the Czech Republic, Michael Novak delivered the following keynote address at Forum 2000, an annual conference held in Prague to map the globalization process and to note its positive results as well as the perils encountered by an increasingly interconnected world.

This year’s theme of Forum 2000 is “Democracy and Freedom in a Multipolar World” -- in short, “Democracy after 1989.”

That theme is too rich for a brief introduction. Surely, though, one of the dramatic differences between 1989 and 2009 is the new salience of nearly all world religions in matters of democracy. As Jürgen Habermas wrote after September 11, 2001, the notion that the world is secular, and becoming more so, is no longer tenable. In fact, after September 11, secularism seemed to Habermas like a small island, surrounded by a sea of turbulent religion.

Accordingly, I will make four points this evening on the bonds between religion and democracy. First, the great French social thinker Alexis de Tocqueville taught us that religion gives democracy two important tasks: to put in place foundational principles on which human rights are secure against every raging storm; and to teach “the habits of the heart” that allow democracy to work in practice -- habits of honesty, self-examination, self-mastery, and free association with others, and a sense of universal fraternity with all other women and men on earth. If men do not learn the habits of self-government in their private lives, how will they practice self-government in their public lives? To live democratically is to live a high moral art.

By itself, secularism tends toward individual, not general, moral standards. It begins with “tolerance,” and steadily slides toward relativism. Cultural decadence -- first among entertainment elites, and then among the multitudes of the uninformed young -- grows like fungus on the face of democracy. The silent artillery of time wears down the habits of the past. For this reason, democracy needs regular awakenings of conscience, often religious awakenings, just to survive as a morally beautiful and worthy enterprise -- a moral enterprise. Democracy is moral or not at all.

Religion teaches humble people that they are valuable and noble, beloved by their Creator, equal to every other man. It also teaches us that the personal lives of plumbers and carpenters -- and professors and playwrights -- and all women and men, are meaningful, morally dramatic, and made in the image of God -- as co-creators.

These are the first bonds between religion and democracy.

* * *

The second bond is the anti-totalitarian principle. Humans must not give to Caesar the things that are God’s, nor to God the things that are Caesar’s. Caesar is not God. Every state is limited. Many parts of human life do not belong to the state -- not conscience, not inquiry, not the creative arts, and not the sacred and inalienable duty of each individual to his Creator: to say yes or to say no.



In the same way, no religion dares to coerce from above all the decisions of Caesar. No religion can coerce the consciences of individuals to respond yes or no. Before God, all individuals are free to respond in conscience. In this, the state cannot interfere. Man’s inalienable responsibility before God is the foundation of his inalienable rights before the state.

* * *

Third, there is a worldwide misconception that there is only one kind of secular state -- the kind found in the European continent. The kind rooted in the ruthless irreligion of the French Revolution of 1789. The European continental secular state is virtually closed to public religion. It tries to imprison religion in the recesses of private life, outside of public sight.

Yet there is, in fact, another type of secular state. The other type may be called the Anglo-American type. Here citizens are recognized as both religious beings and political beings. The one cannot be surgically separated from the other.

Similarly, the institutions of man’s religious nature, and the institutions of his political nature -- the church and the state -- must be distinguished as Caesar and God are distinguished. Nonetheless, religion necessarily flows into political consciences, and political consciences generally root themselves in pre-political beliefs about human nature and destiny. The two interpenetrate each other. Communism was overthrown not by secular morality alone, but also by religious conscience from above.

Therefore, the state must not coerce religious consciences from above, and institutional religion must not coerce the work of Caesar from above. Fruitful accommodations must be worked out by trial and error.

* * *

Finally, the Western world has yet to hear all the new reflections on liberty, human rights, democracy, and the best relations between Caesar and God from the other great religions of the world: Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism (to name those with more than 500 million adherents each).

The careening adventures of freedom and religion in their long journey through history are not at an end. Much is yet to be learned.

-- Michael Novak’s latest book is No One Sees God. His website is www.michaelnovak.net.

 

---

Timothy Snyder

It can’t happen often that citizens of one country gather to honor someone who was the president of two other countries, all the while claiming him as their own. But so it was on November 18, 2009, twenty years after student protests in Prague that began the Velvet Revolution led by the playwright Václav Havel. Now the former president of both Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic had come to Bratislava, the Slovak capital, to talk with Slovak students about the events of 1989. Although these young people remember neither those events nor the dissolution of Czechoslovakia that followed three years later, they greeted him with standing ovations and sincere expressions of respect.

Havel had opposed the split of Czechoslovakia into Czech and Slovak republics, caring more for its multinational society than he did for the economic arguments made for a separate Czech state. It is hard to say that the end of Czechoslovakia was good for the Czechs or the Slovaks. Many believed the establishment of the Czech Republic would allow the Czechs to pursue economic reform and join Europe. But both the Czech Republic and Slovakia joined the European Union at the same time, in 2004; the Slovaks use the euro while the Czechs do not; and the current Czech president, Vaclav Klaus, opposes European integration. Meanwhile the Slovak government, led by former communists in a coalition with nationalists, cynically exploits nationalism. Would any of this be possible if Czechoslovakia had remained intact? Though the question is moot, the thought was hard to avoid. Slovak students understand Czech. Havel speaks Czech to his Slovak friends, and they speak Slovak to him. In this sense, Czechoslovakia has not disappeared.

Havel has been ill for more than a decade. In the embrace of a bodyguard helping him on with his overcoat, he seems small and frail. His voice sounds like dark honey. What he has to say about morality and politics is much the same as it was three decades ago, when Havel was the most articulate proponent of individual resistance to communist rule in eastern Europe. When asked why any young person would choose to take part in politics, Havel answered that each person has to take responsibility for the world, without taking the world as it is as a given. Havel’s ideas about freedom arise from a tradition many of us do not know, the phenomenology of Heidegger, Husserl, and Patočka. In order to be free at all, we must first exist authentically, and in order to exist authentically, we must take responsibility for a world that we can’t really control. “Something has to change inside of each of us,” he said, “and perhaps that is the hardest thing.”

Isn’t politics always tainted by ideology? Ideology, replied Havel, is not the same thing as an ideal. An ideology has an answer to everything, and a total vision of how the world should be. It is a magician’s bag of tricks, a cornucopia of things that you don’t want. Ideals, on the other hand, are multiple, and various, and sometimes even contradictory. That is at it must be. When asked about two of his own ideals, “love and truth,” he smiled. “Truth will prevail” was the motto of the early fifteenth-century Czech church reformer Jan Hus, and as Havel recalled, is the most familiar of Czech expressions of the ideal. He had added love, he said, because he could see no other response to the technocratic, consumerist anomie of communist Czechoslovakia in the 1970s. In the notes he made for himself while the students were asking questions, Havel wrote “love and truth” above “ideology,” and then began to draw flowers.

Cynicism and violence are easy, love and truth are difficult. In front of the national opera, the city of Bratislava had just unveiled a monument to the Velvet Revolution, or the Gentle Revolution as it is known in Slovakia. The Slovak movement against communism in 1989 was called The Public Against Violence. Its members had in mind the violence of the riot police who were beating students in Prague in November 1989, but also meant the daily violence of life under a communist regime. From a distance, the monument looks like a white heart on a pedestal, a material expression of sentimentality. Only from up close can it be seen that the giant heart is made from barbed wire and steel rods.

—Between Bratislava and Břeclav, November 19, 2009

Related links:

• Timothy Garton Ash on Havel and 1989
• István Deák on Slovak nationalism
• Timothy Snyder on Václav Klaus

Press Freedom gained ground this week from Washington to New York. Yesterday, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed the Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act, which would compel the State Department to broaden as well as deepen its reporting on press freedom conditions worldwide to congress. Today, a group including global luminaries Václav Havel and Desmond M. Tutu announced that a U.N. monitoring body found the West African government of Gambia responsible for the disappearance of a respected journalist there known as “Chief Manneh.”

Journalist Embrima Manneh vanished in 2006 after two plainclothes agents of Gambia’s National Intelligence Agency arrested him in his office in Banjul at the Daily Observer newspaper. Manneh was led away after he tried to republish a BBC report that was critical of Gambia’s President, Yahya Jammeh, on the eve of an African Union summit. The missing journalist was later spotted receiving medical treatment as a prisoner in a hospital, according to CPJ sources. Although President Jammeh and other Gambian officials have either denied knowledge of the case or simply failed to respond to queries about it.