montagsdemo oder wir sind das volk

Though never claiming to be the moral successor to the Montagsdemonstrationen, those peaceful rallies that took place in the late eighties in the public square of the Nikolaikirche in Leipzig, spreading to other cities, protesting the ruling party in East Germany and instrumental in making imminent the reunification, the German press is drawing parallels to a movement began this Spring in Hamburg called Vigils for Peace (Mahnwachen für den Frieden).

The fact that these assemblies, propagated to cities all over Germany, also take place on Mondays, apparently makes the organisers an easy target and fuels the disdain of journalists, which in turn forms public-opinion or ignorance thereof. The Vigils were originally called together to discuss Russian overtures in the Crimea and enlighten people to other dangerous potential parallels, but the group soon expanded its focus, given that Germany seems at times a humble understudy in foreign affairs—a second to the US and EU (a role particularly convenient when one's economic relations are jeopardised). Also they shifted their focus, because we cycle faster and faster from one crisis to another and often new developments are suffered (publicised loudly) with a pretext of distraction—attention having become the most scarce commodity. Now the discussion includes integrity in reporting, Germany's relationship with the US and above all the monetary authority of reserve banks—especially the Fed—and how they influence governments nonpareil. Though barely mentioned during the escalation of tensions in Ukraine, now that the vigilantes might want to essay the bigger-picture, they are dismissed by the media as a band of conspiracy-theorists, and labeled with the muting attributes of being right-leaning and anti-Semitic. Though tolerated and ultimately effective, I wonder how the state-controlled press regarded the Montagsdemos.

zeugma or void-fraction

Stars and Stripes’ article reporting on the border that Turkey shares with the Levant is described with the same characteristic fright as many outlets are reserving for the situation at the US border with Mexico. Western officials are very concerned about this NATO march’s ability to secure a border designated as porous, as it has been used as a point of entry (and egress) for militants to join in arms the insurrection against the governments of Syria and Iraq. The border itself is described as a thousand kilometer expanse of rugged wilderness—with a few population centres straddling the shallow basin of the River Euphrates that marks the boundary. This area at the crossroads of several trade routes has held a pivotal position and hosted a variety of people throughout history, and one of those population centres is the ancient city of Gaziantep, which has over a million residents from all sorts of backgrounds and confessions and also hosts an outpost of the US military and a missile battery.

In antiquity, Gaziantep (Antep) was also the site at Zeugma (literally a yoke, as in a yoked ox) of the famed bridge of boats that spanned the river. Crossing here allows certain elements to enter the Mideast without detection, and according to some estimates, ten-thousand foreign volunteers have defected in this way. With an aside of humility, NATO leaders seem to be slowly recognising that sectarian strife is not a matter to be settled by Western meddling, though staunching the current of insurgents and materiel is important. That hint of humbleness becomes a bit more feigned in the next breath, with criticisms volleyed at the Turkish government for tolerating “jihadists” and generally provoking unrest in Syria. Tensions between Turkey and Syria presently stem from Turkey’s European aspirations, secular government and NATO-membership (which it once invoked against Syrian aggressions, threatening the bring the wrath of the whole organisation down on its neighbour) but the discord has older roots—significantly, Syrian rancor over the self-annexation of the Republic of Hatay (from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) coinciding with the outbreak of WWII. The former sanjak seceded from French occupied Syria, proclaimed independence and voted to accede to Turkey, because of a greater ethnic kinship to that country. That vignette is told with a similar parallel construction to another current event. The concern, which is slowly garnering more attention as the border region is surreptitiously fortified and drones are on the beat, is over the so-called “returnees,” the veterans (gazi) of these battles coming back via the same route to Europe. Regardless of success or failure in establishing a Caliphate, Western leaders fear that the violence will spread, coming home to roost. What do you think? Has NATO been too neglectful of this front and possible breach?

culture vulture

Although the destruction of the cultural hertitage of Afghanistan, like the unique Greco-Buddhist statues at Bamiyan was commissioned because they were deemed idolatrous, rather than being spared due to liquidity like museum treasures that can be pawned off to a string of private collectors, the West at that time failed to heed an important warning and bought wholesale into a contrived fable.
Such a revisionist history is taking place for a second time in just the span of a few years in Iraq, as ISIS is storming through the land. Already many places holy to the Shi'ites have been obliterated and again Iraq's curators are seeing their galleries occupied by minions awaiting orders whether the graven images ought to be smashed or offered to the highest-bidder. Either way, the loss is terrible to contemplate, but the greater objective, which was already achieved in making the West believe that Afghanistan or any selected population is monolithic and was always so, is to rewrite history and to eliminate any stray fact that does not fulfill this prophesy. No nation is completely frank about its past and history never goes without bias, but to become completely intolerant of the formative and ancient past is an open invitation for repetition.

advertising space

Via Fast Company, Take Part features the innovative work of a design firm in Slovakia that hopes of inspiring others to come up with creative ways of addressing homelessness. The architects have taken advantage of the typical East European electrified two-sided billboard—known as a hoarding to much of the rest of the world, to create a nook, a shelter for the country's vagrant population with amenities.
The design firm has gifted its basic plan to the world, certain that others could improve upon these ideas for dignified quarters and adapt them to local conditions. Urban-centres in Germany as have these suspended boxes but also on ground level, squat columns for posting bills, and it always occurred to me that such opportunities abound. Elsewhere, spikes like those designed to keep pigeons from perching have been installed in entryways to prevent people from taking up temporary residence and out of sight. The really clever—though possibly ethically-questionable, having the homeless sponsored by big businesses, like some race-car or potentially a corporate zoo—part is that the costs are calculated to pay for themselves from advertising revenue. I really like this idea and it seems to be a good way to create a real transition, a boot-strap from vagrancy. There are far worse ways to try to get a foot up.

duress or just like a boss

Spiegel's International Desk (auf Englisch) features an interview with the one of the Fugitive’s lawyers and another former agency contractor regarding the US intelligence apparatchik's unflagging pursuit of complete, omnipotent surveillance and Germany's relationship as a junior partner. The short but insightful piece equates that drive to a form of state-sanctioned religion, having one self-same loftier aim of population-control, foiled with another much more mundane and human of having the economic upper-hand and influence over government regulation in business and for emerging technologies. Of course I rationally understood these sort of goals, especially being able to poll the mood of mergers and acquisitions or trade agreements before they were put before national assemblies or eked out to a public, with or without any input into the proposal, and adjust language and sciency-sounding reviews accordingly.
I knew that the US government and its branches were basically indentured servants, in peonage, to its corporate masters. I held on to one or two naïve beliefs, however, until hearing how the agency had enjoyed an uneasy but privileged spot in its host-nation of Germany since the conclusion of WWII, and all checks and balances and feet-dragging were summarily dismissed in the wake of 9/11, when even despite public renunciation of the aggression, Germany became an unquestioning staging-ground. Privately—at least among politicians—the grief and guilt that Germany had to bear over having allowed the 9/11 hijackers to reside in their country was something graver than the other guilt and shame that Germany already carried and had no choice in this polite world other than to acquiesce. That—for me, instantly dispelled any room for some fretful but ultimately benevolent ideology or unbridled patriotism driving America's businesses' posture and insatiable hunger for control and dominance at any cost. The public face of it, the Department of Homeland Security, the National Security Agency (nor of no other country neither), are just costly work-horses and can visit no end of humiliation and intimidation upon individuals—costly as well in terms of political capital and good-will, but that price is dwarfed by what corporations, which know no allegiance nor shame, stand to gain and tithe the government for its services. This exercise is far from one in security, and despite pretensions and campaigns to the contrary, it is solely concerned with maintaining and increasing treasure and comfort for the few.

smarty pants

Kottke shares an addictive game that combines trivia with a familiar cartographic platform, called Smarty Pins. It's pretty fun and challenging and one is allowed to keep playing as long as one has a balance of kilometers left—when you put the marker down in the wrong spot, it deducts the difference in distance from one's round but one can always keep on playing and track one's achievements.