Aren't dead people so freakin' great?!

April 23^rd, 2007 – Boris Yeltsin, first and former president of the Russian republic (1991- 1999) has passed away at the age of 76. In our current age of media frenzies and competitions to see who can blow something out of proportion the fastest, the death of a well-known person spells out a party for all media. If all media is aimed at the distribution and sharing of knowledge, then overexposure is not necessarily a bad thing. What is definitely strange is the rehabilitation of a character after his death, no matter how controversial or despotic he or she may have been.

Without rehabilitating extremes such as Hitler in Germany or Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos in the Philippines, certain despots are still venerated such as Mussolini in cities in southern Italy or Mao Zedong in China.

To a lesser extent but just as strange is the rehabilitation of public figures that acted like irresponsible children. For example, Anna Nicole Smith was known for substance abuse, rollercoaster weight and plastic surgery and, of course, professional gold digging. Am I the only one that sees a problem with dedicating half of every news service to her life and her accomplishments for the two weeks after her death? I certainly hope not. Otherwise, I have grossly misplaced my faith in humanity.

I am not insinuating that Yeltsin’s life is not worth analysing but the media inevitably spins it to show a kind and competent administrator that really wasn’t. Boris was a drunk and a rather sloppy administrator that did participate in the downfall of the USSR…but 5 years after Gorbatchev had started the capitalist and independence processes in the union (perestroika). Furthermore, he presided over the endemic spread of gouvernmental corruption, the exponential increase in mafia involvement and the economic collapse of the country. In history, it is not good to generalise, but this is my blog and I will gladly do so. In the 1990s, Russia effectively passed from a former superpower that was feared, to a nation in need of charity and pity. Apart from this unfortunate realisation, Yeltsin’s greatest accomplishment was to die of natural causes rather than from a suspicious assassination by external, or more probably, internal rivals. He is said to have left office with an approval rating under 5%.

I am all for ‘respecting the dead’ but a bad man dies as he has lived; lying and wishful thinking does not change Yeltsin’s track record as a recorded figure of history during a crucial turning point in the XX^th century. Former first chairman of the USSR communist party Mikhail Gorbatchev said it best this week by saying "I offer my deepest condolences to the family of a man on whose shoulders rested many great deeds for the good of the country and serious mistakes—a tragic fate" (BBC news service).

(Pictured: Boris getting on down - Boris telling Gorbatchev what's what)

End.

The blog calms down.

I have not found any way of making the recent Virginia tech massacre an interesting link to a historical optic. Out of respect and because I think all media are milking this story until it will be an empty carcass, I am leaving my blog relatively empty this week. Have fun with the interminable analyses of ''Do video-games cause school violence? Could this have been prevented? Were middle-easterners involved in any way? Should we arm all students for their own protection? Should we ban negative thoughts?''. These questions and more are all part of a very fruitful media spinning that misses the simple point: it happened and the victims and families must deal with it, preferably without cameras being thrust into their faces.

To provide a very small historical tangent, the first recorded example of ''school violence'' is widely documented to have occurred on July 26th 1764 in Pennsylvania. The ''Enoch Brown school massacre'' involved the tomahawking and scalping of a schoolmaster and his twelve students by some Delaware Indians. Without condoning the action, they were retaliating for the genocide of their people and the invasion of their land. Nothing to do with our recent tragedy that was retaliation for causing teenage angst.

The most fitting end for our troubled shooter would be in good old Roman fashion, a Damnatio Memoriae. This process would remove this person from common memory and therefore from human existence. We will need to tell the media that this is preferrable to flooding his image and story on every possible medium known to man.

With respect.

(Pictured: Stalin's excercize of Damnatio Memoriae with a collegue that fell out of favour: Before and after)

End.

Greed is actually blue...and smells of cheese.

April 6th 2007 - Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, son of deceased ex-president François Mitterrand, as well as former advisor Jacques Attali and former interior minister Charles Pasqua were indicted for their involvement in funding $800 million worth of Eastern European arms to the government of Angola. The Angolan civil war 1976-2002 pitted their president Jose Eduardo Dos Santos against the rebel UNITA forces of the sub-Saharan country. This war resulted in the deaths of over 300,000 Angolans, no really, even though you have barely heard of the country before.

Assuming that the indicted Frenchmen are guilty (they all claim innocence) they actually funded and directly benefited from a civil war, from massive slaughter, from torture, from dictatorship and from despotism, values that are not very French nor very Western. More indirectly, The United States, Cuba, white South Africa and the Soviet Union also supported Dos Santos against his own people. Power and financial interests, be they real or potential, seem to be enough for nations and statesmen to give up morals, principles and ethics. Centuries ago, this trend of supporting the enemy of an enemy against all higher beliefs, was already visible, especially in France.

In the XVIth century, two powerful nemesis fought wars of epic proportions. In the Blue corner was French King François Ist, he notably sponsored exploration voyages to the New World and reformed French administration. In the other more Spanish corner Was Charles the Vth. By Heritage, Charles was king of Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Netherlands, Austria, Franche-Comté, Southern Italy, the Americas and by election, was Emperor of Germany. France was effectively surrounded and could not count on the only other western power left, their eternal enemy, England. By consequence, successive wars between Charles and François began in 1521; it was one of the first conflicts to pit Catholics against Catholics.

Two catholic kings would mean that the pope, or moral authority, would have to choose which camp to lend his and God’s approval to. Fortunately, the French kings had installed their own pope in Avignon so this last one chose France as the providential conqueror. The more traditional, Roman pope backed Charles Vth as the god chosen overlord. God must not have been paying attention because tow champions were killing each other in his name. Furthurmore, these alliances were in accordance with their religious principles and values. This made sense, but soon came a time where less conventional, and right out heretic, alliances were made out of necessity and greed.

In 1521 to completely surround France, Charles allied with Anglican King Henry the VIIIth (The polygamist beheader). Keeping in mind that this alliance with the heretic directly clashed with his Vatican ally, morals seem to have taken a backseat to ambitions of power. On the other hand, France was desperate for an ally and contacted the worst religious and moral enemy that the Christian world had ever faced at the time, the Muslims of the Ottoman Empire. Sultan Suleiman allied with François in 1542 when the war was still raging, despite several ceasefires. All other considerations left place for power and financial considerations, for example, many battles between the european megalomaniacs were fought for the city of Milan, one of the richest cities of the time. Its control reinforced cultural and economic authority over the other, non-allied territories. By the time of their deaths, François and Charles had accomplished little except for scores of dead soldiers and a dynastic war that continued through their sons.

Some would say that capitalism and the individualisation operated by our "technocentury" has reinforced our tendency to abandon our intangible morals for concrete power. I say that if this is true, we must stop pretending that we still hold dear to ethical considerations, whilst funding a faraway genocide...if, of course, Mitterrand's son is really guilty.

(Pictured: top: Charles V Vs. François I, bottom: Jean-Christophe Mitterrand Vs. Jose Eduardo Dos Santos)
End.

We have the evildoers, all 8 of them.

March 31^st, 2007 – The Spanish government has once again foiled a diabolical plan by Basque separatists. An elite ETA commando unit (8 people) was apprehended and their bomb-making equipment confiscated. These evildoers were said to have been directly responsible for 24 terrorist actions between 2004 and 2006.

The Basques are a distinct cultural race that inhabits the north-eastern part of Spain (Catalonia) as well as a small part in south-western France. The ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna or Basque Homeland and Freedom) is a vigilante organisation that was founded in 1952 as a student movement against the fascist oppression of Franco. In the 1980s and 1990s, they have claimed responsibility for many terrorist actions but have been quieter in the last few years. Furthermore, a ceasefire was even signed in 2006. Their leftist nationalism has been banned from Spanish parliamentary instances and therefore their interests are not observed or represented on a national level. One direct consequence of this ‘shunning’ is the general ignorance among the international community that these people even exists. Granted, we all have our own national, political, ideological, sexual, health and matching socks problems but a special attention could be paid to a conflict that has caused death and suspicion for decades now.

In parallel, it can be said that the Russian federation has had and still has similar problems within its borders, notably, with the Chechen “State”. Chechen separatists operated by means of terrorist attacks (lacking the means for a direct assault) which eventually targeted schools and public establishments to provoke popular outrage towards the Putin government. Unfortunately, these cowardly attacks on civilians have had the opposite effect. In the underground circuit, Vladimir Putin is called the “Butcher of Grozny” because he is responsible for eradicating the Chechen capital and decimating over 75% of their population in the past decade. The Chechen attacks on the Beslan school in 2004 caused the deaths of 186 children, it is only natural that Putin now looks like a hero that pioneered the war on terrorism.

The Basques have mostly learned how popular favour works so they usually stay away from massive public attacks and target governmental and military objectives. They also display strength through bombings of highways or deserted buildings but on the media front, the “milk the victim attitude” to gain support for all it is worth. The problem is, Aznar’s government until 2004 and Zapatero’s government since then, have treated the Basque question with targeted police action, due trials and fair sentences. Not even a Guatanamo camp! The ETA have thus a lot less support due to the sensible and ruthful response of its terrible oppressors.

One faction is cautious and the other strictly applies fair justice. This is another prime reason why this conflict has little media coverage. A policy of ‘laissez-faire’ will not work forever. Reaction can be unfair and hasty as we have seen in Iraq, Grozny and soon in Iran and Geneva. But perhaps a pre-emptive action could be taken? Iraq seems a bad example once again. Perhaps the Spanish government should simply give the Basques a separate state and let them fight over power amongst themselves for the next century. It IS what we have done in Africa and apart for a genocide or two, very little that they do to each other seems to affect us today. Apathy (or as the UN would have us call it “non-interference”) seems the best way to keep safe. To quote the great philosopher McCartney: “Live and let die”.

(Pictured: Grozny today, Mauléon, a Basque village, One of the two terror groups seem to have more to be victims about)

End.