Slovaks protest Chinese president's visit, June 18 2009

By the time I got to the national palace, there was quite a bit of tension, but nothing too out of the ordinary in a protest that gathers people of opposing sides of the issue. Quite a bit of pushing, a good amount of elbowing, some shoving, everyone there has to make their statement. I was amazed by the number of Chinese people there, though, because I have to say, there are not that many Asians in Bratislava. But it's not difficult to imagine that they had come from Austria (Vienna is an hour away), or the Czech Republic, or elsewhere in the country. I was also amazed by the number of people in suits, who seemed to be monitoring the overall situation. Thirty to forty Chinese men wearing dark suits and earplugs, roaming the crowd, evaluating in a second whether one individual was going to be a problem or not--in effect, sizing up everyone not wearing a red baseball cap and a name-tag with the flags of both nations. They were the ones running the show, advising the 'civilians' holding signs of support towards the Chinese president on how to block the sight of the protester's posters from the national palace. Worst of all, they made the Slovak police look barely necessary--in French, we'd call them "potiches", meaning: just there for decoration. The peak of their effectiveness came when it was time to direct the crowd away from the plaza, a line of black shirts pressuring a crowd of 70% red baseball caps and 30% sunburnt Slovaks towards a side street.

As it turns out, I had missed the brunt of the action, the most spectacular part. It was much worse than what I saw, much more 1984-esque. Here are a couple videos. Watch them, you don't need to know any Slovak to figure out what's going on. In my opinion, the Slovak activists got more than they bargained for, but that is exactly the type of experience that will make the next protest even better, in their favour. Already, this event isn't going unnoticed in the Slovak media online.





This one is a little slow, but at about 2:10 the action begins.

(Photo above is mine)

As promised!

This is the blurb I wrote for yesterday's one-hour oral examination. Best topic on Earth. Within 20 minutes, the two profs had veered off towards Soviet sugar subsidies and ethanol production. I passed, but if anyone wants to hear about Cuba's foreign policy, I left the oral exam a little unsatiated, because it's fascinating, a real case of the tail wagging the dog...


“Cuba will never be alone”


In 1959, Cuba rejected not only a brutal dictator, but also American influence, legalized by the Platt Amendment. The USSR rapidly replaced the US as preferred political and economical partner. Following the fall of the Soviet Union, Europe and Canada became Cuba's economic lifeline. From the mid-1990's until a few years ago, Cuba effectively depended on Europe's investors and creditors who were hoping for a regime change that would provide more business opportunities (as they saw occur in their Eastern European neighbors) despite the local denial of political and civil rights. As part of this lifeline, the tourist industry expanded rapidly and European tourists flocked to the newly developed hotel resorts; foreign investors also invested in nickel production on the island and the maintenance and reconstruction of its infrastructure. Cuba also increased its trade and credit line with China. This allowed Cuba to weather the joint hit of the US embargo and the disappearance of the Soviet support during the so-called “special period,” and through the past decade.
Now however, the Cuban strategy is changing, and we are witnessing a “latinamericanization” of Cuba's foreign policy. Increased trade and diplomatic exchanges with Venezuela, and more recently engagement with Brazil as well as diplomatic outreach in the region indicate that Cuba, tired of the EU’s political stance on human rights, is diversifying its economic and diplomatic ties to ensure Cuba's economic survival and support in the region. Indeed, Cuba is never alone, and this recent shift in foreign policy will probably allow the regime to endure, even through the hardships of the current financial crisis and regardless of what will happen to the US embargo.

Phoenix wake up!

OK people, this blog is my homepage, and it's been idle since Jen's last tragic story (I think it was a dare by another kid), so please let's do something to revive it. Post! I know your attention has been sucked up by Facebook, Twitter, Dig, and maybe even school or work, but come on! This is the original place, isn't it? We can't just abandon it! Come on, kids! Post ahead! If you guys want, I'll start by posting my Cuban-Venezuela paper--complete with graphs--, tomorrow I can add my anti-corruption program proposal for Ukraine, next week I can share my liberation theology in Haiti paper. If I have energy, I could write a report in prose about my oral exam on the 14th, so you too can experience how fun that was.

On another note, I'm currently cat-sitting a three-legged cuddly cat named Kerrigan, in an antique-filled apartment near Dupont Circle. Living it up, I tell you!

Big hugs galore.

It's "learning and labor" not "learning and thievery"

We are taking a break from our usually scheduled non-stop-studying-of-the-mitochondria to bring you this newsflash:

On Saturday night, someone broke into our car. They didn't seem to have taken anything, just browsed through (and rejected) our CDs and tossed our stash of Dunkin' Donuts napkins and Splenda around the car. "Weird," I thought. "Must have just been some drunk moron."

So, fast forward to today, when the glass people are coming to replace the window (side note: how awesome is it that my insurance not only is covering this, but also that the service includes THEM coming to ME?). The window that they broke was the little "vent" window in the back, not the actual roll-down window, just the little triangle next to it. It happened to be the window where I had my Oberlin Alumni window cling. I hadn't cleaned up the glass yet (we thought an insurance adjuster was coming out to look at it) and I was looking forward to seeing if the cling was salvageable, or if it was too shardy for future use. So, imagine my surprise as I cleaned up the glass both IN and OUT of the car and found...

NO WINDOW CLING.

And before you ask: no, John has not removed anything from the car; it was punched inward, and virtually all the glass was inside the car, on the seat; and no, I am confident it did not blow away...there was a Dorito's bag lying next to the car on Sunday when we first found the damage and it is still there.

Now, I am confident there are many explanations for what happened, but there's really only two that seem likely:

a) Someone smashed my window so they could steal my window cling all because they love Oberlin with the fire of a thousand suns (and didn't get the memo about being a hippie pacifist); or,

b) Someone smashed my window so they could steal my window cling all because they were rejected from Oberlin and had to go to [insert-name-of-crappy-and-less-awesome-school-with-fewer-co-ops-and-no-tater-tots] and hate Obies with the fire of a thousand suns.

What do you think? Crime of passion, or hate crime?

Also: Sarah Palin is scary.

One Year

Can you believe it has already been one year since Paul and I got married? Neither can I. And 11 years now since we first met each other. Geez. Anyway, even though I'm far away from him and you guys (I'm assuming the only people who read this blog are people who were at the wedding) I am filled with so so many happy memories from that day. I really couldn't ask for better friends and family!

Things Slovaks say

(Warning: this post makes my English sound outstanding).

"There are too many teepos in this article."

"Roman and Miro love tennis. They play as a duet."

"You see all the rivers and the lakes? Well, there is also undercover water."

"The castle [of Bratislava] was burnt by Napoleon, the bastard! In the fifties, under Communist times, they reconstructed it, but it's ugly, all conquered."

"M: So we go to this goose restaurant. They have all the delicious gooses.
C: Geese. When you have more than one goose, you call them geese.
M: What? No. That's too... No, no, no. Okay, how about this: So we go to this goose restaurant. They have all the delicious goose and her friends.
L: That's right. Geese is only for family."

Karadzic, Mladic and the EU

You probably heard of Bosnia on the news today. They finally "arrested" Karadzic in Serbia.
Hopefully, you have read the news and you are aware of who he is (roughly). And now, we can decipher all this. Bear with me...

First, it seems that Karadzic was "arrested" on a public bus in Belgrade. Now, all that talk about him being on the run for 13 years are nonsense. He wasn't on the run, the Serbian authorities let him be. Until recently.

The government formed a few weeks ago, a coalition of Democratic Party and pro-European parties who just barely won the elections in May, with the Socialists, Milosevic's former party (how ironic). In a nutshell, it seems that the Socialists finally realized that they couldn't have their cake and eat it too, or in this case, have Europe and their Bosnian Serb leaders too. So they let go of Karadzic, probably under some EU pressure, maybe with help of the Democratic Party.

Which is good, don't get me wrong. It's just late--about 10 years too late. And also not enough. Mladic is also "on the run", and a much bigger fish than Karadzic. Now that Milosevic is dead, Mladic is the one person who, in front of the ITCY, can prove that there was a direct link between Belgrade and the Bosnian Serbs, almost on a day-to-day basis, on military decisions. Karadzic apparently was a bit more independent from Belgrade, even daring to disagree from time to time. Given that Karadzic was riding a bus in Belgrade when he was arrested, there is reason to believe that Mladic is also protected by the Serb authorities, maybe even more so than Karadzic was.

The question is, what will happen now? Will the European Union loose its backbone and be satisfied with Karadzic, or will it continue to put pressure on Belgrade to deliver Mladic also? Personally, I'm hoping for the latter. Mladic has to be brought to justice, the victims and families of victims deserve it. Bosnia deserves it! And Serbia can then truly earn its European candidacy status.

PS. I went out last night at midnight to see the 'partying' in Sarajevo. I don't know how it looks on your tv screens, but I can tell you that it consisted of about 20 to 30 guys and as many carshonking their horns while driving in circles around the same block, waving Bosnian, Bosnian military and one Turkish flags. They were almost as many new photographers as Bosniaks celebrating, and maybe 20 people watching, including me. Then the rain came and I went to bed.