Osama bin Laden is still at large.
The best work of art about September 11, 2001 is still John M. Ford’s poem, “110 Stories.”
Edward’s commentary, from 2004.
Author Archives: Doug Merrill
Renewing Roads in the Caucasus
Turkey and Armenia are tantalizingly close to opening diplomatic relations, and may re-open their border — which has been closed since 1993 — by the end of 2009.
The BBC says,
They are to hold six weeks of domestic consultations on the move [to have diplomatic relations] after which their parliaments will vote on it, their foreign ministries announced.
FIFA has helped, again according to the BBC:
Anticipation of a diplomatic breakthrough has been growing ahead of a planned visit by Armenian President Serge Sarkisian to Turkey on 14 October.
He is due to attend the return leg of a World Cup qualifying football match between the two countries.
Swissinfo is chuffed at the local angle:
Historical foes Armenia and Turkey took a step toward reconciliation on Monday by announcing they would launch final talks aimed at establishing diplomatic ties.
Both sides said in a joint statement, also signed by Switzerland as mediator, that they expected the talks to take six weeks and to end with an agreement setting up and developing diplomatic ties.
If both parliaments approve the protocols that emerge from these talks, the border would open two months later. I saw signs of this development earlier in the year, and wrote a bit more analysis when the two countries announced their framework for normalizing relations, back in the spring. The Armenian Ambassador to Georgia has apparently been a regular visitor to the Turkish Ambassador to Georgia, so these talks are proceeding along a number of tracks and are probably getting quite detailed.
I don’t think that Armenians have been able to visit Mr Ararat since before the Soviet period. (Anyone with more historical knowledge care to enlighten me?) That might change by the end of this year.
End of an Era
How Not to Meet European Standards
What happens on a Wednesday night if you’re one of the city’s most wired people, an avid Twitter and Facebook user, plugged in with non-governmental organizations, with a penchant for visiting like-minded folks in other European cities? In most cities and countries, not much remarkable: meeting friends, tweeting or sms’ing to coordinate, maybe romance arrives, maybe the night closes with parties or dancing or a good drink. But maybe if the city is Baku and the country is Azerbaijan and the person is Emin Milli, something else entirely happens.
Maybe while you’re in a cafe with friends two toughs come up to you in the cafe and start cursing you. Then before you can get in a word edgewise, they start to hit you and your friend Adnan Hadji-Zadeh. What happens when the police get involved? You go to the station to deal with the complaint. The toughs are let go. You are kept overnight and, by several accounts, beaten again, this time by the police. When the case — on charges of hooliganism — comes before a judge on Friday, you get two months of prison. The toughs? Long since let go. Apparently sitting in a cafe talking with friends constitutes hooliganism in today’s Azerbaijan.
(There’s a small chance that this will backfire for the government. Hadji-Zadeh has done PR work for BP, one of the largest investors in Azerbaijan. The country’s president is in London on Monday, and this case has gone up the ranks quickly enough that it will be raised with Aliyev in person. US, EU, German, OSCE and other international representatives are pressing the case in-country. French, UK and Austrian media are reporting. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is on the case. Reports and organizing efforts are also crossing social networking sites. Authoritarians don’t like looking foolish, and this case makes the authorities in Baku look very foolish indeed. Detentions for “hooliganism” are an old Soviet tactic; they have no place in a country that has ratified numerous European agreements on human rights and that aims for closer relations with the European community of nations.)
Two Tetris’ Worth
Over at another blog, I was asked what I thought about Obama’s visit to Moscow, how it was playing in Tbilisi and what it meant for Georgia. Here are my two tetris’ worth:
Saakashvili is pleased that the only explicit area of disagreement mentioned between the US and Russia was Georgia; Obama made time in his statement to reiterate that the US supports the territorial integrity of Georgia. Obama also said that his discussions of Georgia with Medvedev had been “frank,” the next best thing in diplo-speak to “full and frank,” which generally indicates thrown crockery.
On the other hand, Obama also clearly indicated where Georgia is on the US list of priorities in his administration: after nuclear disarmament, Afghanistan, non-proliferation in re Iran and North Korea. Much as I like Georgia, that’s a sensible set of priorities for the US. I hope that Georgian authorities will have read Obama’s signals the same way.
Interestingly, there are some signs of Abkhaz discontent. Russia has apparently been high-handed in setting up the details of guarding some of the self-declared external Abkhaz border, and is also presenting a different version of where the notional Russian-Abkhaz border lies. (Not surprising, all things considered.) Anyway, not everybody who’s anybody in Abkhazia likes that approach. And as I read through the history of the region, I find that Abkhazia in particular has made its way by cozying up to one side of regional power struggles and then shifting a bit when the embrace becomes too close, eventually changing partners. I don’t think that a new dance is about to begin, but complete subservience to Russia is not necessarily what all of the Abkhaz had in mind.
Gold and Iron, by Fritz Stern
“This is a book about Germans and Jews, about power and money. It is a book focused on Bismarck and Bleichröder, Junker and Jew, statesman and banker, collaborators for over thirty years. The setting is that of a Germany where two worlds clashed: the new world of capitalism and an earlier world with its ancient feudal ethos; gradually a new and broadened elite emerged, and Bismarck’s tie with Bleichröder epitomized that regrouping. It is the story of the founding of the new German Empire, in whose midst a Jewish minority rose to embattled prominence. It is a record of events and of the interests and sentiments that shaped these events; it is a record of events and of the interests and sentiments that shaped these events; it is a record largely told by contemporaries, in thousands of hitherto unused letters and documents. It is also the story of the fragility of that Empire and its ruler, of its hidden conflicts, and of the hypocrisy which allowed a glittering façade to cover the harsh and brutal facts below. The ambiguity of wealth — its threat to tradition and its promise of mobility — is part of this record, and so is the anguished ambiguity of Jewish success, so striking, so visible, so delusive. It is a study of a society in motion, and mobility was its essence and its trauma. …”
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The Glorious Fourth
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
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Uh-oh O2 Arena
Suddenly, an event manager in London is having a very bad night. Fifty sold-out shows to refund.
Just at this moment, the O2 Arena page reads, “Michael Jackson – THIS IS IT!” I bet it won’t for much longer.
Will Someone Please Check for Further Signs of the Apocalypse?
US defeats Spain in the Confederations Cup, 2-0.
Not Exactly a United Opposition
The Georgian opposition is generally described as a loose alliance, united mainly in their distaste for current president Mikhail Saakashvili and their somewhat greater distaste for Russian domination. In the latter they are in harmony with the vast majority of Georgians, while the former is not so clear. But they are divided on many more fronts, one reason why they, collectively, do not appear quite ready for prime time.
Here’s one theme, what role foreign embassies to Georgia should play in the confrontation between the opposition and the ruling party:
Nino Burjanadze, leader of Democratic Movement-United Georgia party, called on foreign diplomats accredited in Tbilisi to react and condemn “illegal actions†taken by the authorities… (Civil.ge, May 21)
Levan Gachechiladze, an opposition politician, called on the western diplomats to give up “indifferent stance†and make “concrete statements†about the crisis in Georgia, instead of only repeating “one word – ‘dialogue’.†(Civil.ge, May 29)
…Opposition leaders said foreign diplomats should not involve themselves in internal politics.
“This is considered as interference in domestic political processes, which they are not entitled to do,†said Salome Zurabishvili, Georgia’s former foreign minister and the leader of the Georgia’s Way Party, according to the Interfax news agency. (New York Times, June 15)
Maybe this is why Napoleon preferred to be opposed by coalitions?