I don't like politics....

Today I watched a classic movie, called 'Judgement at Nuremberg', a story loosely based on the Nuremberg trials of the high-ranking Nazi officials. The historical events during the several phases of the rise and fall of the Nazi era, as well as what was happening during the time the movie was made, make it difficult to approach such sensitive events in an unbiased way... However, I found the movie dealing with the matter from a very wide and pragmatic perspective and I recommend everyone to watch it. There were several fascinating angles, and one of them was the cliché question regarding the responsibility of that German people for the Nazi crimes. In the movie you find the common excuses of individuals when their society or nation commits collective crimes: 'we are not monsters', 'we didn't know', 'we are simple people, living simple lives', etc. And then comes the excellent "I Am Going to Tell Them the Truth" Confessional Speech of Burt Lancaster as the German judge, who instead of trying to escape, he took the responsibility...

The full monologue is here (and as audio here), and like in many other movies of the time it is a pure masterpiece. Maybe the most interesting part is the following: 

'My counsel would have you believe we were not aware of the concentration camps. Not aware? Where were we? Where were we when Hitler began shrieking his hate in Reichstag? Where were we when our neighbors were being dragged out in the middle of the night to Dachau?! Where were we when every village in Germany has a railroad terminal where cattle cars were filled with children being carried out to their extermination! Where were we when they cried out in the night to us. Were we deaf, dumb, blind?…. My counsel says we were not aware of the extermination of the millions. He would give you the excuse we were only aware of the extermination of the hundreds. Does that make us any the less guilty? Maybe we didn’t know the details. But if we didn’t know, it was because we didn’t want to know…'.

I have to admit that this post relates a lot to my recent experience of living in Germany, even though I will try to have a broader perspective. The last years we more and more listen to people saying that they ‘hate' or they are 'not interested' in politics. After the apparent failure of the communist/socialist movements to …solve all the problems of the world, people lost interest in politics. Especially nowadays when politicians from all parties are to the eyes of the people nothing than corrupt puppets serving the interests of an obscure, powerful minority, which makes people feel that their vote gives them no power to improve their lives and for that reason political thought appears a waste of time. But this is a great misconception, which only can result in an even worse situation…

It is widely accepted that apolitical people are easier to control, because they cannot interpret events. Somebody tells them that Stalin was a dictator worse than Hitler and they believe it. They tell them that US is the land of the free that everyone should imitate, they buy it also. Steve Jobs became the big thinker of the 20^th century, even though he just made a lot of money (and even less than Bill Gates)… Nowadays he is receives more credit than Camis, Neruda, Tsomski and so many other real thinkers. You can rewrite history easier when apolitical people read it…

A big misconception is that many people believe that their vote gives them practically no power, but this is completely wrong… The thing is that it gives them first of all responsibility… To acquire information, to process it and to form an opinion. Voting is not like choosing what to eat in the restaurant, it needs preparation and participation, otherwise this is when it get’s wasted… Examples of the voters’ power are many but we have very recent ones, from two ‘hot poles’ of Europe:

-         one year ago, Greek people were voting and they had the possibility to accept or deny the ‘help’, ‘austerity’, or whatever you want to call it program, which every day has been taking their lives more and more and defines their future. Among the possible results of their vote would be an exit of Greece from the Eurozone, which had possibilities to lead to contagion of the whole EU (as the economists were saying). It would have stopped also the ‘financial support approach’ which has been implemented to Ireland, Portugal, then Spain and who knows next. I am not saying that Greeks should vote against the austerity and the loans, but I just saying that this was definitely an exciting circumstance to vote…  But for the Greek people, elections were a ridiculous theater which they found …boring and useless, and almost half decided to go to the beach rather than vote! And it is clear that the ones who did were not really prepared and informed…

-         The same will happen to Germany in few months… The whole European political system has frozen, waiting for the outcome of the German elections which will define in a great extent the future of half a billion people. We are talking about a continent in which any big event can affect the whole world, where people are starting to die because of the economic crisis, that even the most conservative media are talking about a lost generation. Only one country can do something about that and this is Germany and many things are in stake in September’s elections... But German people find it pointless to spend time and think deeper about what they will vote!! They spend all their energy in their work, on which car to buy or on recycling, not eating meat and choosing the electricity company which doesn’t use nuclear power. And maybe after few decades when we will assess the breakup of EU, the possible decay of Europe, the social problems and the deaths, they will say again ‘we didn’t know’, or ‘we are just normal people’…

Conclusion… I agree that nowadays talking about politics is boring and miserable, since only 5% of the population does it and the rest are ‘normal people’. It leaves you with nothing but to complain about problems you don’t see any way to solve… But if the majority was interested in politics then discussing it would become the most exciting thing to do, like it always is in periods of unrest and change. People would meet to envision the future, to imagine their life as they want it to be, share their ideas with others and try to find common angles. That would definitely make thinking politics fascinating! And this is what the few rich and powerful and our inadequate leaders are trying to make us avoid and surprisingly they are succeeding for the moment. 

Let’s go to the beach...

I have been 24 hours in Recife and I’m already set. Even though the city has the reputation of being dangerous and it doesn’t match the Rio de Janeiro atmosphere, Brazil always has its magic, a special touch which makes it distinct from any other Latin American country. I spent one day at the beach and if I had a camera which me, I would have made more than 50 photos and I am not a big fun of photography…. They say that 1 picture is like 1000 words, but there must be life in the landscape to make it count for so many words, and this is exactly what we are talking about… Pure life!

We start with the Boa Viagem beach and the waves breaking on submerged reef, before arriving sweetly on the very gently sloping beach… And then you put different people doing whatever they really feel like. And that can be:

-          A bunch of guys fishing, while smoking and drinking any kinds of booze (or vise versa)…

-          kids playing anyway, anyhow, including bumping or throwing sand to people, which stoically keep talking to their friends, or lie on the beach..

-          people doing all kinds of sports, beach volley, foot volley, beach tennis, running, whatever… Also every now and then they fight and make noise about the score, or if the ball was in or out, using the entire range of the ‘special’ vocabulary in Portuguese…

-          Hundreds of others, sitting, laughing, drinking and smoking on the beach.

And the most important part, which deserves a section of its own…. The ‘commercial’ activities! The kings are the owners of the barracas, improvised ‘bars’, which consist of a trolley with ice containing the ‘raw material’ (drinks, coco, lime, glasses, straws, etc…) and some beach chairs and umbrellas. And then the small sellers which sell anything, and when I say anything… you name it! Shrimps, oysters, grilled fish, different soups, grilled cheese, dried nuts, drinks, ice-cream, bikinis, towels, all kinds of t-shirts, artisanal things, paintings, are some of them.

So surrounded by this surrealistic environment it is impossible to get bored, even if you just stepped your foot and you have nobody to talk to. You close your eyes for seconds or for a small nap and you think you woke up in the stage of the most absurd theatrical play. An Arabic bazaar in a tropical beach with all kinds of Brazilians all over the place…

A dog is running like crazy and all alone from one side of the 8 km Boa Viagem beach to the other…  The fishermen are looking and laughing…  We start to talk… After 1 hour and 3 beers I start moving again… The day is almost over and people are cleaning and there are piles of empty coconut fruits everywhere…  That reminds me that I should have my third coco for today…

I love Brazil!

Communism is dead... And now what?

After long time I am coming back to my blog to write about a topic with which I was never connected or involved: Communism! As the capitalism is falling apart and poverty is at the door of many of us living in the 'advanced and prospering' western world, I encounter with increasing frequency, articles, blogs, analyses et al. discrediting communism... The crimes of the totalitarian Stalin regime, the current pity state of most communist parties, the civil war in Greece, and other 'solid historical evidence' that capitalism prevails over communism...

I was never involved in any communist (and in general whatever political) group, and I am very open to any political and idealogical discussion from whatever side is falling, even if it is touching the extremes. So I have some knowledge and opinion about the communist theory and its implementation, two things that are completely different (at least for me).

So starting from that, my opinion is that it is historically unfair to evaluate Communism from the way it has been refracted through people, societies and historical circumstances. All that could have been completely different just on the grounds of pure random events that dominate our universe.
Communism has been a movement from the people for the people, it was an idea and a political theory. But politics are done by politicians and not analysts or philosophers. So don't blame the theory for the acts of politicians. Moreover, Communism was a universal movement to liberate people from nationalism, religion and of course from the oppression and control of the rich and powerful. For that reason it has been under a constant war from the establishment. Even when the people opted for Communism, in many cases they were not allowed to go their way and some examples are the Spanish civil war and even the preference to the Nazis than to communists in Germany. (I would dare to say that even now Hitler has more 'funs' than Marx or Lenin do)

Communism having been fought so hard, was not given the chance to evolve freely and become incorporated smoothly into society. Even if as an ideology, as an experiment it had the potential to make the world a better place; the experiment was never really carried out and it seems that we will never find out... On the other hand, we know that just by being the antagonist force, it made capitalism evolve and governments to chose more human-centred policies.

So, going back to the 'solid arguments' that discredit Communism as a theory... and leave us with no theory, I have to say that such arguments are not really arguments, or at least they are not deep and constructive...

Marx made a criticism to capitalism and gave solid arguments why it cannot work. Our poor cohabitants in this planet from Africa, Asia and Latin America can assure us that for over a century and now we start to experience it ourselves...

More modern analyses from left thinkers have discussed the flaws of more modern variants of capitalism, for example they have explained that capitalism may bring prosperity and technological progress; but these come with a price: we have depleted natural resources that our planet was building for years, let alone human resources... Capitalism needs people who do their duty at work every day, but it is clear that it doesn't produce as many humans with sense of duty and morals as it needs to be sustainable. all the different kinds of bubbles we've been experiencing can prove this...

There were some thinkers from the right that they were claiming that economies, if left free, they can balance. They have been proved wrong, unless if we consider a equilibrium the constant process of the rich getting richer and poor poorer. Capitalism, pro-market and right wing ideas had their bright chapters in history, but they failed to deliver peace and justice, and most important a perspective for a better world.

So under this background, discussing how bad are the Russian cars, or how many people (only?) Stalin killed, is pointless, naive and dangerous. Also it is unfair to all the devoted communists who were tortured, and gave everything for a cause, to just laugh above their graves and discredit all their efforts and sacrifices. Especially if you are not ancestor of a royal family, rich yuppies, Russian oligarchs, former feudarchs, international corporation board members, etc.

So maybe communism or socialism are finished and capitalism is the way to go... Maybe we should stop discussing how to give everybody the same opportunities, how to stop fighting like dogs for the same bone, how to distribute wealth, and even the 'crazy' possibility to live without money.
We could all stop thinking these things and just focus on our families and our work, but before doing that I would like to listen to some arguments explaining that we have better ideological foundations than communism and socialism with which we can fight for our rights....
I hope that it will be not that 'humans are animals that are bound to compete' because this doesn't sound very civilized, neither does 'humans will always solve their differences through fighting or war'.
I am longing to hear what will replace the fundamental principles found in communism or socialism in my effort as a human being to live in a more just world. What will cure my fear that me or my kids will not be the next ones to die on the street, or in a war that could have been avoided.
Please give me these arguments and I could go to sleep instead of thinking all these 6 in the morning. I could go out and work my ass off, with all my heart, to buy a better car, smart phone, clothes and TV...