It’s not a civilisational sickness? Guardian opens Berlin Wall celebrations with eulogy to communist East Germany
If you thought there were some standards too low even for the Guardian newspaper group you might well have missed the latest eulogy to one of post-war Europe’s most cruel and repressive dictatorships. That’s right, as the civilised among us this week celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall — one of modern history’s most momentous and uplifting expressions of the human spirit’s yearning for freedom and dignity — the Guardian has pulled from its voluminous list of apologists for totalitarianism to grace us with a piece of fulsome praise for the workers paradise that was communist East Germany.
One would have thought that fresh from its attempted whitewash of the massacre at Fort Hood last week (see previous entry) and after the post-Gaza hate campaign against a state which (by complete coincidence we are asked to believe) happens to be populated by Jews, the moral and civilisation cess pit that is the Guardian no longer has the power to surprise us.
But we’re forgetting their sense of fun. All those bullet ridden bodies hanging off barbed wire a few metres from freedom in west Berlin. All those people tortured to death by the Stasi. A society in which cousin could not trust cousin, neighbour could not trust neighbour, fellow student could not trust fellow student because of a vast network of spies and informers. What a hoot. But let’s just let the Guardian speak for itself. Here are the words of Bruni de la Motte, a former lecturer at East Germany’s Potsdam University who now works as a negotiator for a British trade union.
After the one, single (and grudging) reference to the fact that “unification brought with it the freedom to travel” we are served up with the following appraisal of what the fall of the wall, democracy and German unification gave to the people:
“[It] brought social breakdown, widespread unemployment, blacklisting, a crass materialism and an “elbow society” as well as a demonisation of the country I lived in and helped shape. Despite the advantages, for many it was more a disaster than a celebratory event.”
“Demonisation”? “A disaster”? But there’s plenty more where that came from. While not offering a single word about East Germany’s appalling human rights record, the Stasi, or anything else along such lines we are sternly reminded of the “purging of academia, research and scientific establishments in a process of political vetting,” which the new society carried out in order to remove some of the dictatorship’s collaborators from position of influence.
Most of this garbage is motivated by the kinds of distortions that Guardian columnists peddled throughout the Cold War and in many cases have continued to do so. Veteran Guardian columnist and Chatham House board member Jonathan Steele, for example, wrote a book in 1977 called “Socialism with a German Face” in which East Germany was praised as a “social and economic system [which] is a presentable model of the kind of authoritarian welfare states which eastern European nations have now become”.
It must have been a painful day for Steele when it all fell apart. As de la Motte mournfully concludes:
“Since the demise of the GDR, many have come to recognise and regret that the genuine “social achievements” they enjoyed were dismantled: social and gender equality, full employment and lack of existential fears, as well as subsidised rents, public transport, culture and sports facilities. Unfortunately, the collapse of the GDR and “state socialism” came shortly before the collapse of the “free market” system in the west.”
So, there we have it. The liberal-democratic capitalist reform process, rather than the collapsing communist basket case which made a painful transition inevitable, is held responsible for all the country’s ills. And in the twilight zone between fantasy and reality that the writer inhabits, we are gently reminded that all may not be lost. It’s now capitalism’s turn for a velvet revolution! Who knows, maybe communism will get another chance?
This is the true face of the Guardian newspaper. Take the lesson and never forget it.
To read the piece, click here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/08/1989-berlin-wall
November 9th, 2009 at 11:03 am
LaMotte’s opus is only the last piece of a series of apologies for the ex-communist Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and lastly for the good old GDR. I expect some new articles on CIF about the positive moments of Caucescu’s Romania and the sunny side of Brezhnev’s Sovietunion upgraded with some Stalin era nostalgy.
But we can see the logical connection between the different aspects of the Guardian World View in this very popular comment (45 recommendations) on the Hungarian thread:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/06/1989-hungary-disillusionment
Chapaev
6 Nov 2009, 7:26PM
Hungary was a decent, proud country under the leadership of Janos Kadar from 1956-89 during which there was high economic and social development, good living standards, decent jobs, etc. It has since become a laughable banana republic that takes its marching orders from Washington, Brussels, and Tel-Aviv such as when it sends its soldiers to participate in the aggression against Iraq and Afghanistan, while its economy and people has suffered tremendously by liberal misrule.
Did you got the synthetized message?
November 9th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
As long as the far-left crowd in the media continues to make such outrageous claims, I see little threat. They become their own most hostile critics. It’s the more subtle, specious, and manipulative reporting that makes me nervous.
November 9th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
Apparently you can’t tell the difference between an editorial (which the paper stands behind) and an online comment piece which is part of a theme series (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/series/ 1989-year-of-revolutions), which it commissions to attract lots of comments and hence pageviews on its website.
Also, as you might surmise if you bother to think about it, the author lived in East Germany long enough to know all about the well-publicised downsides. She’s saying there’s more to it than that, and highlighting things not so well known. She has a book (http://www.arterypublications.co.uk/books/ stasi_hell_or_workers_paradise.html) which no doubt explains the complexity a lot better than a short comment piece.
November 10th, 2009 at 5:17 am
Anon
Also, as you might surmise if you bother to think about it, the author lived in East Germany long enough to know all about the well-publicised downsides.
Exactly this is the point. She knows enough about it, but most of the readers don’t. She is trying to exploit their ignorance and naivete by spreading lies and distortions about the system. Everybody I repeat everybody who lived there together with her knows that comparing the GDR with a Western capitalist country is something like comparing the Garden of Eden where the inmates sometimes can’t get their manna in time with hell where sometimes the there is no empty burners due to bad planning.
She’s saying there’s more to it than that, and highlighting things not so well known.
True, there is more to it than that… The trains left and arrived on time…
November 10th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
@peterthehungarian
Are you seriously saying most readers haven’t heard the downsides of East Germany? The average reader knows “Stasi” and “Trabant” - and little or nothing else. It’s like reducing the US to foreign invasions (Vietnam et al) and the Model T.
November 11th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
Anon,
If you have a STASI, Securitate, AVH etc. in your country, everything else is secondary, unimportant and don’t need to know.
Not to speak about the sad fact that if the readers of the Guardian ever heard of the Stasi they must have this knowledge from some other source. Or did you read anything negative about these murderous dictatures from Seumas Milne and his folk at the Guardian? Maybe they wrote someting only I missed it unfortunately?
November 12th, 2009 at 4:53 am
anon - “Apparently you can’t tell the difference between an editorial (which the paper stands behind) and an online comment piece ”
The Guardian publishes articles by request, and pays for them.
To the extent that we must grudgingly consider it a mainstream paper, it is the only place an article like this could have been printed. It attracts and harbors this sort of author, with articles ranging from the risible to the outright disgusting.