Author Archives: Doug Merrill

About Doug Merrill

Freelance journalist based in Tbilisi, following stints in Atlanta, Budapest, Munich, Warsaw and Washington. Worked for a German think tank, discovered it was incompatible with repaying US student loans. Spent two years in financial markets. Bicycled from Vilnius to Tallinn. Climbed highest mountains in two Alpine countries (the easy ones, though). American center-left, with strong yellow dog tendencies. Arrived in the Caucasus two weeks before its latest war.

Change in Germany

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John Kornblum, former US Ambassador in Berlin, knows a thing or two about Germany from his forty years’ acquaintance with the country.

In a nation traumatized by violent upheavals, voters seem to demand an emotional insurance policy before accepting change. This insurance must promise that new methods will not undermine the social and economic stability, which is so important to their special postwar sense of self.

New ideas must be sold as not really changing anything. Change must be seen as a method of strengthening stability, not as a new way of doing things. German politicians have become adept at making new ideas sound like old ones. In the words of Konrad Adenauer: ?No experiments.?

A current example of this phenomenon is the tone of political and economic writing in Germany. With a few notable exceptions, authors focus on the inevitability of collapse. Germany?s economy is destined to decline, the Chinese will rule the world, and America is finished as a great power.

There are few grand visions for a new future. Instead, readers are warned that if they do not move quickly, their comfortable world will collapse around them. Motivation is negative rather than positive.

However strange this discussion may sound to outsiders, it seems to be serving an important purpose within Germany. Belief in the old stability is wearing away. As 2004 comes to an end, the most important question is not whether there is going to be change, but how it will come and which direction it will take.

The whole essay is here. I think the part about undertaking significant change while maintaining the whole time that nothing is changing is particularly accurate.

When I was doing more transatlantic bridge-building, I used a sports metaphor.
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Reckless Predictions, Pt. 2

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EU vote boosts Ukraine membership hopes

by George Parker in Brussels, Raphael Minder in Strasbourg and Tom Warner in Kiev

Financial Times, 13 January 2005

Ukraine’s long-term hopes of joining the European Union were boosted on Thursday when the European parliament voted overwhelmingly to open the door to possible membership. …

Although the parliament’s vote was non-binding, it was a surprisingly strong endorsement of Ukraine’s membership aspirations by the EU’s directly-elected assembly and the clearest sign yet to Kiev that the EU’s door is open.

Deputies voted by 467 votes to 19 in favour of resolution calling for Ukraine to be given “a clear European perspective, possibly leading to EU membership”.

Reckless predictions, looking better and better.

Words and Deeds

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Has it escaped notice that the brunt of the tsunami catastrophe has fallen on the world’s most populous Muslim country? One that has an active branch of al Qaeda?

This is an ideal time for Western governments — especially European ones — to do well by doing good. Conspicuous aid to suffering Muslims can only be to Europe’s benefit in the struggle against Islamic radicalism.

As spokesman in Indonesia for UNICEF said, “It needs to be almost a military campaign. … There need to be airports set up. What we’re looking at is re-establishing a social infrastructure.”

Right now, there’s a vacuum, something abhorred by both nature and politics. If the West does not fill it, bin Laden’s allies will. Sure, that’s a cynical thought among so much suffering, but here’s hoping that someone on Solana’s staff, or in one of the national chancelleries can summon the necessary cynicism to do well while doing good.

Halfway There

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This spring, the German newspaper whose web site isn?t quite as bad as another?s began publishing a series of 50 Great Novels from the Twentieth Century. It?s an admirable project in many ways — not least a cover price of EUR 4.90 per hardback. Thirty-seven books have been published so far, and I?ve now read about half of the whole list. Which is as good a point as any for taking stock.

I haven?t quite read 25 of the 50, but let?s face it, with Deutschstunde (German Hour, Siegfried Lenz, no. 28) clocking in at nearly 800 pages, and hefty volumes such as Jorge Semprun?s What a Beautiful Sunday! (Was f?r einen sch?nen Sonntag, no. 17) and Juan C. Onetti?s The Short Life (Das kurze Leben, no. 11), it?s going to be quite a while before I manage all of them.
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Understanding Turkey and the US

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… through the lens of daily newspapers. Shamelessly stolen in its entirety from Turkish Torque, whose sharp commentary deserves a huge audience. (Not that we can provide one, but that does not make the Torquester any less deserving.)

Who reads what?

1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country. (Yeni Safak?)
2. The New York Times is read by people who think they run the country. (H?rriyet & Milliyet?)
3. The Washington Post is read by people who think they ought to run the country. (Milli Gazete, Radikal & D.B. Terc?man?)
4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don’t understand the Washington Post.
5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn’t mind running the country, if they could spare the time.
6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country. (Cumhuriyet?)
7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren’t too sure who’s running the country. (Fanatik & Pas Fotomac?)
8. The New York Post is read by people who don’t care who’s running the country, as long as they do something scandalous.
9. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren’t sure there is a country, or that anyone is running it.
10. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country.

(Sinancigim, tesekk?rler.)

Orange in Berlin (II)

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The Friedrich Ebert Foundation, the Center for Applied Policy Research (CAP) and the German-Ukrainian Forum hosted a day-long seminar on the Ukrainian election on December 6 at the Ebert Fondation?s home in Berlin.

Speakers included the leader of the OSCE election observation mission, the director of the school of political analysis at the National University in Kiev, members of the European and German Parliaments, and an expert from Ukraine?s Center for Peace, Conversion and Foreign Policy.

The background papers for the conference are now online at the CAP’s web site here. There is also a brief conference report (in German) on the same web site here. If a longer report becomes available, we will let you know.,

Europe’s Hour Has Arrived

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The European Union has assumed responsibility for the peacekeeiping mission in Bosnia.

A new force called EUFOR that numbers about 7,000 troops will enforce the Dayton peace agreement that ended the bloody Bosnian war in 1995.

The change from NATO to EU on Thursday begins nearly nine years after NATO deployed 60,000 forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in what was the alliance’s first peacekeeping operation.

Good luck. And here’s hoping that Mladic and Karadzic are brought to justice.

Not Everybody Likes Orange

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Or the idea that while Russia can bring hundreds of millions of goodies for Kuchma and Yanukovych, the European Union, Poland and other countries to the west have things to offer too.

One publication from Ukraine sees the conference we mentioned as evidence that Germany has been plotting a coup in Kiev. (The URL in the article takes me to a binary stream that I didn’t trust; maybe someone else can enlighten us on what temnik.com.ua is all about.) It doesn’t look like the authors — who considered the fall of Milosevic a coup, too — have discovered Fistful yet.

Anyway, below the fold is a taste of how the other side thinks. (Thanks to the Ukraine List for the translation.)
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