This is an odd experience.
I've been very much sidetracked from this blog for a bit--I returned to school, was working on an article for Createquity, found myself directing and writing a show from start to finish in 19 days (we're on our second performance tonight, which is why I am starting to get breathing room back in my life), and otherwise have found myself busy.
A couple days ago, I started getting comments on this blog on my Kalpen Modi post from at least a month ago. This is not a very widely read blog, to say the least. But in the last twenty four hours, I've started getting posts on my blog--it feels overreactive to call them "attack posts" or flames because, honestly, the effort put into them is just... lacking. I could come up with better vitriol against myself, if I was trying. Maybe I will sometime, it sounds like fun.
The problem is, if you want to hurt your opponent, you have to understand them.
For instance: "Have you ever read Animal Farm?" Yes, I have. George Orwell is one of my favorite writers. I spent a semester in the Czech Republic studying totalitarianism, because totalitarian movements are an interest of mine--understanding how they work, why they go wrong, and how they relate to the masses.
Actually, this seems like a fruitful, complicated area of discussion: how can the grassroots coexist with the structure of a democracy without becoming organs of mass directedness. After all, democratic republicanism requires the coexistence as well as the friction between mass movements and directed government. Totalitarianism is also based on that relationship, but in different ways. It seems important to delve into that, so I'll try and look at that this weekend.
I wish that the poster had somehow highlighted that problem. Instead I get those just weak shots across my bow. For instance, I've never smoke marijuana, so "Puff puff pass" doesn't really get at me. It had the effect of reminding me how conservative I am in comparison with a lot of my peers--I recall watching the Howard Dean fervor and being like, "That isn't me. That's not my party."
The shots just feel lazy. If someone (almost all of the posts were from "anonymous" but one was from "andrew") wants to knock me down a peg, they need to put some back into it. Find out who I am, what I'm actually on about, find the cracks in my arguments, use my own weight to bring me down.
(I'm studying Aikido now and the approach of finding out how to redirect your opponent's energy to bring them down is a very useful one).
At any rate, at least I have the satisfaction of knowing that this weak, pointless vitriol comes from the fact that if you google "Kalpen Modi," I come up at the bottom of the first page of results. That's really the only thing I've learned from this experience.
Showing posts with label totalitarianism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label totalitarianism. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Charter 2008 and Solidarnost
In the two most mindboggling under-reported stories of December, apparently new opposition organizations have come together in both proto-dictatorial Russia and "communist" China.
The first, modeled on the Czech Republic's "Charter 77," is China's new "Charter 2008." Charter 77, for those who don't know, was a small group of marginalized, opposition intellectuals. They lacked widespread support--the Communist government's estimation was that there was a couple hundred intellectuals at the core, and maybe a few hundred more loosely involved individuals. They eschewed being a political party or union; they merely said they were interested in making sure that the Czechoslovak puppet government lived up to Basket III of the Helsinki accords, which the communists had made legally binding, and promised certain rights of self-determination and democratic rights.
Considering the power of the Chinese government and the lack of public organized outcry (with the exception of labor strikes that are increasing every year), it is not surprising that they are following the Czechoslovak model--pushing for reforms where possible without agitating the government, and dressed up in the legal and structural language of the existing government.
In China, the basis of this is Deng Xiaping (who succeeded Mao, and began the economic reforms that have created the unique and powerful Chinese economy of today), who outlined that within 50 years China should be democratic and capitalist--although it is clear that he didn't intend to transform China into the US. Rather, he was looking for a form of market communist that would be representative of the people. And this desire for both governance reforms and economic reforms (like glastnost and perestroika in Russia, but at a slower and more stable pace) might give room for Charter 2008 to exert a larger influence over time.
On the other hand, the second is modeled on Poland's "Solidarnosc" or Solidarity, the first non-communist labor union in a communist country. Using the political shield of the Polish Catholic Church (which did not exist in communist Czechoslovakia) and the government's reliance on the Gdansk shipyard, they attracted a mass movement of upwards of a million people, which were able to strong-arm the government at various points to accepting reform until, eventually, they became a part of government.
This model is the model that has been adopted in Putin's Russia, called "Solidarnost" there. Like in Poland, the goal appears to be to unite all of the opposition into one mass movement, to better coordinate their opposition to Putin. The question is whether Putin's Russia, which is moving away from representation, will be able to tolerate Solidarnost's existence, and if not whether he can effectively break them.
I don't believe totalitarian societies can remain totalitarian for very long. My hunch is that neither country is aiming for an entrenched, centralized, greedy totalitarianism like the ideological totalitarians (Communist Russia and the Warsaw Pact countries) or megalomaniacal totalitarians (Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong-Il, etc.). Rather, they see totalitarianism as a tool of stability. The difference is that China is moving, at an intolerably slow pace, towards more democracy, whereas Putin is "correcting" the error that was democracy.
Still, both of these groups may have long-term impact. Charter 77 was written off at the time, and few would believe that within their lifetime they would rule Czechoslovakia (and then the Czech Republic; the Civic Forum largely ran Slovakia after the divorce). My hunch is that history will play out differently in China, where a slowly strengthening opposition is eventually drawn into an increasingly more open China until they become simply another party in the system; but Putin's Russia is only as stable as the brute force that he wields and his ability to stay on top of public opinion.
The first, modeled on the Czech Republic's "Charter 77," is China's new "Charter 2008." Charter 77, for those who don't know, was a small group of marginalized, opposition intellectuals. They lacked widespread support--the Communist government's estimation was that there was a couple hundred intellectuals at the core, and maybe a few hundred more loosely involved individuals. They eschewed being a political party or union; they merely said they were interested in making sure that the Czechoslovak puppet government lived up to Basket III of the Helsinki accords, which the communists had made legally binding, and promised certain rights of self-determination and democratic rights.
Considering the power of the Chinese government and the lack of public organized outcry (with the exception of labor strikes that are increasing every year), it is not surprising that they are following the Czechoslovak model--pushing for reforms where possible without agitating the government, and dressed up in the legal and structural language of the existing government.
In China, the basis of this is Deng Xiaping (who succeeded Mao, and began the economic reforms that have created the unique and powerful Chinese economy of today), who outlined that within 50 years China should be democratic and capitalist--although it is clear that he didn't intend to transform China into the US. Rather, he was looking for a form of market communist that would be representative of the people. And this desire for both governance reforms and economic reforms (like glastnost and perestroika in Russia, but at a slower and more stable pace) might give room for Charter 2008 to exert a larger influence over time.
On the other hand, the second is modeled on Poland's "Solidarnosc" or Solidarity, the first non-communist labor union in a communist country. Using the political shield of the Polish Catholic Church (which did not exist in communist Czechoslovakia) and the government's reliance on the Gdansk shipyard, they attracted a mass movement of upwards of a million people, which were able to strong-arm the government at various points to accepting reform until, eventually, they became a part of government.
This model is the model that has been adopted in Putin's Russia, called "Solidarnost" there. Like in Poland, the goal appears to be to unite all of the opposition into one mass movement, to better coordinate their opposition to Putin. The question is whether Putin's Russia, which is moving away from representation, will be able to tolerate Solidarnost's existence, and if not whether he can effectively break them.
I don't believe totalitarian societies can remain totalitarian for very long. My hunch is that neither country is aiming for an entrenched, centralized, greedy totalitarianism like the ideological totalitarians (Communist Russia and the Warsaw Pact countries) or megalomaniacal totalitarians (Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong-Il, etc.). Rather, they see totalitarianism as a tool of stability. The difference is that China is moving, at an intolerably slow pace, towards more democracy, whereas Putin is "correcting" the error that was democracy.
Still, both of these groups may have long-term impact. Charter 77 was written off at the time, and few would believe that within their lifetime they would rule Czechoslovakia (and then the Czech Republic; the Civic Forum largely ran Slovakia after the divorce). My hunch is that history will play out differently in China, where a slowly strengthening opposition is eventually drawn into an increasingly more open China until they become simply another party in the system; but Putin's Russia is only as stable as the brute force that he wields and his ability to stay on top of public opinion.
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