I'm currently reading a book on the fall of the Berlin wall. I would be fascinated to hear some European views on that subject.
KSa
Re: The Wall....
André in Zuid-Afrika wrote:
Another topic which I'm not sure where to post...
I'm currently reading a book on the fall of the Berlin wall. I would be fascinated to hear some European views on that subject.
With all due respect, people here in Poland are a little bit dissapointed when they hear that the collapse of communism in Europe coincided with the collapse of the wall because Poland had already had the Solidarity goverment for 1 year at that time.
I also remember voices that the re-unification of Western and Eastern Germany will not bring anything good for the world - thanks God they were mistaken.
BTW: I visited Berlin last month and had a meeting in a place located some 300 metres from where the wall was standing. However, I didn't see this place myself.
André in Zuid-Afrika
Re: The Wall....
KSa wrote:
André in Zuid-Afrika wrote:
Another topic which I'm not sure where to post...
I'm currently reading a book on the fall of the Berlin wall. I would be fascinated to hear some European views on that subject.
With all due respect, people here in Poland are a little bit dissapointed when they hear that the collapse of communism in Europe coincided with the collapse of the wall because Poland had already had the Solidarity goverment for 1 year at that time.
That's true. Without what had happened in Poland, the events in East Germany would not have been possible. That's where it all started, right? Please tell us more, Ksa, and remember that we are looking at it from a different perspective, so we really want to know more.
André in Zuid-Afrika
Also understand that I'm trying to understand what happened in your part of the world from a distance.
KSa
I don't want to say that it's only Poland's merit - no, it was collective effort of resistance movements in many countries. The resistance started far before 1989. We should not forget about 1956 in Hungary and to lesser extent in Poland, 1968 in Czechoslovakia, than 1980 and Solidarity movement in Poland. Unfortunately, general Jaruzelski and his military coup in 1981 made faster changes impossible and "froze" the transformation for further 8 years. I must admit that the early 80s is the time of my childhood and only the fact that I was a child did not make me see things as ominous and pesimistic as they were. A big crisis, enormous inflation, empty shelves in the shops, coupons for meat, sugar and petrol and total discouragement of the population. All major Solidarity members (including Wałęsa) were in prison, any attempts to oppose the system were suppressed very quickly. In 1983 the martial law was lifted but the situation was still uneasy. In 1984 public opinion was shaken with fear and despair when a famous Polish "Solidarity" priest Jerzy Popiełuszko was kidnapped, tortured and drowned in the Vistula river by secret police officers. The Catholic Church was considered as a major bastion of freedom and a hiding place for many Solidarity members and the murder of Popiełuszko was half a revenge and half a warning.
The situation started to change in 1985, after Gorbatschev had come to power in the Soviet Union. Anyway, for the next 3 years it was still far from normal. I remember when in 1988 our "opposition leader" among teachers, who taught us history, wanted to organize 70th anniversary of regaining independence on November 11th (this was prohibited during the communist time) he was almost fired - I still remember the furious face of the head of the school. Who thought that 10 months later Poland would have a Solidarity Prime Minister? Anyway, 1988 was the year of major breakthrough. Again major strikes in the Gansk dock, in the mines, steelworks... The communist knew that the system had ceased to be efficient long time ago and they were preparing to share power with the opposition.
When someone asks me when the capitalism started in Poland I always say, what many people even in my country don't know, that it had been in the end of 1988 when the (last) communist government had submitted a bill whichtotally lifted any bans in private sector. (I need to mention that private companies could exist in the communist Poland on a very very very limited scale - the act of 1988 was - ironically - the most liberal economic decision in the post-war history of Poland; even now setting up a private company is much more difficult than it was based on this 1988 regulations!!! )
Than the "Round Table" discussion started at the beginning of 1989. The communists decided to share power. They announced that the parliamentary elections in June 1989 would be "half-free" in the Lower Chamber, which meant maximum of 35% of votes for opposition and guaranteed 65% for the Communist Party members. For the Upper Chamber elections were totally free.
The results were interesting: the opposition got the maximum number (35%) of seats in the Lower House and 99% (!!!) of seats in the Upper House.
It was also decided that the president (this position had been established for the first time since 1939) would be a communist while the PM - from Solidarity. And it was so. Many people believed that this compromise would last for the next decades - no. The transformations in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, unrest in the republics of Soviet Union, made the communists hand over all power.
In 1990 the first fully free presidental elections and in 1991 parliamentary elections took place.
André in Zuid-Afrika
Wow. That was amazing to read, even more so because I also live in a country which went through major changes at the same time as yours.
greg in noord-frankrijk
Re: The Wall....
André in Zuid-Afrika wrote:
I'm currently reading a book on the fall of the Berlin wall. I would be fascinated to hear some European views on that subject.
Sadly enough, I can't remember what I was doing the day the Wall fell. But I remember all those East-Germans fleeing from DDR through Czechoslovakia to the Austrian border before the German-German border was opened. I also remember all those Trabants pouring into West Berlin.
I was very happy for Germany, Poland and all eastern countries but was very much concerned about the future of Soviet Union and its colossal weapon arsenal still pointing to the cities of Western Europe.
André in Zuid-Afrika
Pardon me for asking, because I really want to know.
Before the fall of the communist government in Poland, what was the general feeling towards the communist government? I know you are not a communist, how did you feel living under a communist government?
You don't have to answer if you prefer not to, but I'm really curious.
KSa
André in Zuid-Afrika wrote:
Wow. That was amazing to read, even more so because I also live in a country which went through major changes at the same time as yours.
Yes - we were observing what was happening at the same time in South Africa.
I think that at the time when "the wind of change" was blowing in Central & Eastern Europe as well as in South Africa, we were looking forward to future with great hopes. Now, when we are looking back, we see that not everything went as we hoped. Do you have a similar impression from your perspective?
KSa
KSa wrote:
1. 0% of unemployment - the salaries were very low but you needn't have worried about your future; there was the feeling of stabilization
To clarify this thing because one can draw improper conclusions:
This "stabilization" meant you needn't to have been bothered that you would die of hunger but you could not afford buying a good car, TV set, fashionable clothes, etc.
People were using cars for 10-12 or even 20 years! Few people owned colour TV, if so - it was usually Russian models which often exploded You could not afford having meat for dinner every day.
André in Zuid-Afrika
KSa wrote:
André in Zuid-Afrika wrote:
Wow. That was amazing to read, even more so because I also live in a country which went through major changes at the same time as yours.
Yes - we were observing what was happening at the same time in South Africa.
I think that at the time when "the wind of change" was blowing in Central & Eastern Europe as well as in South Africa, we were looking forward to future with great hopes. Now, when we are looking back, we see that not everything went as we hoped. Do you have a similar impression from your perspective?
Yes, sadly so. When I think back to what I believed my country would be by now, and where we really are now, it saddens me. And I'm close to losing all trust, and leaving... But I still have some hope, and I remain determined to make this country work. So I will give it another try, I just don't know how much longer I can still try.... To tell the truth. I don't know if I have a future in South Africa, I will probably leave within the next five years. I don'tn know where yet, probablly the Netherlands where I might feel at home. One of my best friends left for Australia a few days ago. And it made me think. I'm white, I'm no longer welcome in the country of my birth.
KSa
Hmmmmm... where is one of my messages I posted here? I even quoted myself but I don't see the original message...
KSa
André in Zuid-Afrika wrote:
Pardon me for asking, because I really want to know.
Before the fall of the communist government in Poland, what was the general feeling towards the communist government? I know you are not a communist, how did you feel living under a communist government?
You don't have to answer if you prefer not to, but I'm really curious.
Well, let's give another try (I posted the reply to Andre's question once but it mesteriously dissapeared...
Before the fall of the communism the general feeling towards the communist government was reflected by the results of the first free elections to the Senate (I wrote about it in my first message) - out of 100 seats the Solidarity members got 99 (!!!). The remaining one was taken not by a communist party member, but by a person who was neither a Solidarity member nor a communist
How did I feel?
Generally I felt good - but I was a child. Children always feel good But in 1989 I was totally opposed to the ruling party (I was 14 in 1989) and denied everything that was achieved during the communist era. Now my views have changed a litte. I'mstill an anticommunist but not an anti-socialist.
I'm able to appreciate certain aspects of communism, for example:
1. 0% of unemployment and the (limited) feeling of stabilization; you could not afford many basic goods but you needn't have worried that you would be starving
2. Higher level of education
3. Much lowe crime rate
KSa
KSa wrote:
KSa wrote:
1. 0% of unemployment - the salaries were very low but you needn't have worried about your future; there was the feeling of stabilization
To clarify this thing because one can draw improper conclusions:
This "stabilization" meant you needn't to have been bothered that you would die of hunger but you could not afford buying a good car, TV set, fashionable clothes, etc.
People were using cars for 10-12 or even 20 years! Few people owned colour TV, if so - it was usually Russian models which often exploded You could not afford having meat for dinner every day.
Now I understand - I edited my message instead of quoting it.
Tiorthan
When Hungaria opened their borders in to Austria in 1989. A massive wave of emmigration from the GDR, over Hungaria, was the immediate result. When counter-measures were taken people startet "to storm" the embassies of West Germany, especially in Praque.
At the time of the big change in Poland and Hungaria change had already begun in the GDR as well. But we were a bit afraid. Not about Russias possible reaction, as it would have been in the past, but about our own government. When the USSR changed to Glasnost and Perestroika our government did not go along even opposed to these changes. Some russian magazins were forbidden for example. And not all of the demonstrations had happened without violence.
I was a boy at that time but I can remember it well. I can remember my parents walking of to the demonstrations advising us kids not to open the door for anybody. And I know a lot of people telling a similar story.The day when I heard in the news that Erich Honecker had "resigned", it was that day that I felt like: We won! Because I somehow knew that my parents will come back every wednesday night. (They didn't go on mondays in our town :D)
For me the fall of the Berlin Wall was a sign to the world of what we had achieved.
But I think it was a bit more. East Germany had been a kind of a bridge head of socialism in Europe. It wasn't Poland, because Poland is too far away from the "border to imperialism" (or how they called the Berlin wall and the German-German border: Antifaschistischer Schutzwall) and it wasn't Hungaria which had not been a socialistic model country for a long time. And then there was West Berlin a lonely Island of the western world within the boundary of socialism. The Berlin wall somehow became a symbol for the cold war I believe.
KSa
Andre: I really appreciate your personal and frank reply.
Greg: I also remember that here in Poland people were really concerned about the future of the Soviet Union in terms of what would happen to nuclear weapon. If the situation had got out of control it might have been used by some irresponsible individuals. Fortunately it had not.
Sandman
André in Zuid-Afrika wrote:
Yes, sadly so. When I think back to what I believed my country would be by now, and where we really are now, it saddens me. And I'm close to losing all trust, and leaving... But I still have some hope, and I remain determined to make this country work. So I will give it another try, I just don't know how much longer I can still try.... To tell the truth. I don't know if I have a future in South Africa, I will probably leave within the next five years. I don'tn know where yet, probablly the Netherlands where I might feel at home. One of my best friends left for Australia a few days ago. And it made me think. I'm white, I'm no longer welcome in the country of my birth.
What exact things makes you think that you'll have to leave your country? Is life too unsafe there? It would be sad if every Afrikaner left the country because that would also mean the end of the Afrikaner culture and Die Taal. But I have no right to say that you should stay. You people know what is life there, I can only imagine the situation. I think the Afrikaners are a kind of border people. Their destiny has put them on the border between two civilisations and races. The Afrikaner nation is like the eighteenth century trekboers to the whole European civilisation.
I know there are projects to restorate Afrikanerism in South Africa, for example Orania and an other little town which name don't come into my mind. What do you think about those Afrikaner enclaves? Do people talk about them? Do people think they are places for retired racists or a key to survive?
I really hope that people living in South Africa could make the country work again. I hope that the present leaders of the country would realise that they need those emigrating people too. And that there is a place for Afrikaners too....
Uriel
I didn't realize you were younger than me, KSa! I have 3 years on you!
I may have mentioned this already, but my dad's second wife is originally Hungarian, and her father was in the failed uprising, which got him -- and the whole family -- blacklisted from jobs, schools, and any opportunity. I think he had been a lawyer, but they ended up living in poverty. After the suppression, her mother arranged for them to make a dangerous escape from Hungary across a lake, at night, where they could expect to be shot at, but her father refused to leave his country, and they all ended up staying and facing the consequences. She describes living in fear of the secret police who would come into her apartment building at night, knock on doors, and take away neighbors who would never be seen again. A very different life, indeed! When she was 18, she left Hungary for Germany and never looked back. She immersed herself in a new language and culture and family and severed all ties with her Hungarian identity. Sad.
I remember Lech Walesa and the Solidarity movement being a major headline in all the papers for years in the US when I was a child, although I of course had little interest in politics. But it was a big enough deal that it gripped the national consciousness here as well as in Europe -- probably because we were so invested in the Cold War, and here was a movement attacking the enemy from within -- plus we always dig that underdog stuff. I was almost done with high school when the Berlin Wall fell. I think by then we were not surprised -- so much else had been changing and crumbling. I was little saddened by the reunification of Germany, though -- I missed being able to find my birthplace on the map by looking for the East German border!
My German stepsiblings still sniff about East Germans being a drain on the economy, and secondclass citizens to boot -- I guess no one's ever happy.
Tiorthan
Uriel wrote:
My German stepsiblings still sniff about East Germans being a drain on the economy, and secondclass citizens to boot -- I guess no one's ever happy.
Haha, first tear down everything and then complain that is has to be rebuild? I don't expect that your stepsiblings got anything from it but they should complain to those few thousand who started right off demounting anyhting that had a value and sold it piece by piece.
André in Zuid-Afrika
Sandman wrote:
André in Zuid-Afrika wrote:
Yes, sadly so. When I think back to what I believed my country would be by now, and where we really are now, it saddens me. And I'm close to losing all trust, and leaving... But I still have some hope, and I remain determined to make this country work. So I will give it another try, I just don't know how much longer I can still try.... To tell the truth. I don't know if I have a future in South Africa, I will probably leave within the next five years. I don'tn know where yet, probablly the Netherlands where I might feel at home. One of my best friends left for Australia a few days ago. And it made me think. I'm white, I'm no longer welcome in the country of my birth.
What exact things makes you think that you'll have to leave your country? Is life too unsafe there? It would be sad if every Afrikaner left the country because that would also mean the end of the Afrikaner culture and Die Taal. But I have no right to say that you should stay. You people know what is life there, I can only imagine the situation. I think the Afrikaners are a kind of border people. Their destiny has put them on the border between two civilisations and races. The Afrikaner nation is like the eighteenth century trekboers to the whole European civilisation.
I know there are projects to restorate Afrikanerism in South Africa, for example Orania and an other little town which name don't come into my mind. What do you think about those Afrikaner enclaves? Do people talk about them? Do people think they are places for retired racists or a key to survive?
I really hope that people living in South Africa could make the country work again. I hope that the present leaders of the country would realise that they need those emigrating people too. And that there is a place for Afrikaners too....
Well, I was a bit more negative than usual when I wrote that post, but yes, it is something I'm considering, not for now, but quite possibly in a few years time.
The problems are mainly crime (and the govt's failure and apparent unwillingness to combat it), affirmative action which has effectively developed into a system of not only blatant racial discrimination, but also one which do not even benefit the majority of blacks, some dangerous remarks from certain govt representatives, and so on.
I've realised that, unless I leave the newspaper and start working for myself, I would never get another promotion in my life, simply because I'm white and male.
While Afrikaans is flourishing in many ways, there is an onslaught from the government against Afrikaans schools to force them to become double medium or parallel medium, and ultimately totally English.
Just a few remarks, I could go on and on. The fact is that the ANC government has once again institutionalised racism. National sports team, for example, have quotas, so X number of black players have to be included, whether they're good enough or not.
The irony is that many of these policies are in place to hide the fact that the ANC has completely failed as a government. While it's had some success (our current minister of finance is probably the best we've ever had), it has dismally failed in other important sectors (eg. health, education). In a normal democracy, the ruling party would've been thrashed in the next election. But the ANC simply plays the race card in every election, ensuring that most blacks keep on voting for it.
On the plus side, the new ANC leader has made some positive remarks about the Afrikaners. There are also strong signs that the ANC is imploding, which could lead to a real multi-party democracy and coalition government which would really include all sectors of the population.
Quote:
I know there are projects to restorate Afrikanerism in South Africa, for example Orania and an other little town which name don't come into my mind. What do you think about those Afrikaner enclaves? Do people talk about them? Do people think they are places for retired racists or a key to survive?
The other town you're referring to is Morgenzon. It only has a handful of residents. Orania used to be considered a racist enclave, but has substantially improved it's image. Yet it is still regarded as a rightwing town, and not really supported by the majority of Afrikaners. I don't foresee their dream of an independent Afrikaner state come true soon.
Loic
There is the recent news about violence against immigrants from neighbouring countries. Are xenophobic sentiments being stoked mischeviously by a ringleader or has the violence just erupted spontaneously?
Looking at South Africa's rugby XV and cricket XI, I always have to remind myself that the country is still a fundamentally black country. I think it is not a bad idea at all when talented but underachieving blacks are given opportunities to join the national squads but only as say, a substitute on the bench or the 12th man fetching the drinks until they have earned the right to be selected on merit. After all, the ethnic composition of the squad does not augur well for the future of the game if it is too skewed in favour of certain ethnic groups.
At least South Africa has not taken the catastrophic route of the Zimbabwe Cricket Union. Peter Chingoonka is a massive joke - not to mention a massive waste of space with that kind of girth he has.
André in Zuid-Afrika
I've made a few posts on the xenophobic attacks on the thread "Cry the Beloved Country" in the politics forum.
The attacks are the result of a boiling pot which just waited to boil over, with the government preferring to look the other way (as usual, when trouble arises).
I agree about the sports teams, and the interesting thing is that black cricketers and rugby players have now started to protest the quota system. They want to make the national team on merit, not on their skin colour.
KSa
André in Zuid-Afrika wrote:
I've made a few posts on the xenophobic attacks on the thread "Cry the Beloved Country" in the politics forum.
The attacks are the result of a boiling pot which just waited to boil over, with the government preferring to look the other way (as usual, when trouble arises).
I agree about the sports teams, and the interesting thing is that black cricketers and rugby players have now started to protest the quota system. They want to make the national team on merit, not on their skin colour.
Yes, this is quite ironic when the fight against one discrimination produces a different one.
It reminds me of the situation in Poland in the 50s when students of working class background were granted additional scores during universities' entrance exams only because their parents were the workers...
André in Zuid-Afrika
KSa wrote:
André in Zuid-Afrika wrote:
I've made a few posts on the xenophobic attacks on the thread "Cry the Beloved Country" in the politics forum.
The attacks are the result of a boiling pot which just waited to boil over, with the government preferring to look the other way (as usual, when trouble arises).
I agree about the sports teams, and the interesting thing is that black cricketers and rugby players have now started to protest the quota system. They want to make the national team on merit, not on their skin colour.
Yes, this is quite ironic when the fight against one discrimination produces a different one.
True....
Quote:
It reminds me of the situation in Poland in the 50s when students of working class background were granted additional scores during universities' entrance exams only because their parents were the workers...
Yes, the more things change, the more they remain the same... Except that in our case, it has nothing to do with working class, but strictly with colour, so a black guy from a rich family gets preference over a white guy from a poor family....
You could not afford having meat for dinner every day.
But I still have some hope, and I remain determined to make this country work. So I will give it another try, I just don't know how much longer I can still try.... 
To tell the truth. I don't know if I have a future in South Africa, I will probably leave within the next five years. I don'tn know where yet, probablly the Netherlands where I might feel at home. One of my best friends left for Australia a few days ago. And it made me think. I'm white, I'm no longer welcome in the country of my birth.
