February 2018 bordercrossing academic diplomacy

Volume 1, Issue 15

History of DIPLOMACY ISSN 2561-3340

February 2018

Letter from the Editor My dear readers, Chief Publisher Eugène Matos De Lara

Chief Editor Maite Ibarretxe

Managing Director Jillian Fernandez

Academic Advisors Dr. h.c. Olaf baron van Boetzelaer Anton Lutter Dave van Ginhoven Jennifer Haire

Associate Publisher Amelia Baxter

Associate Editors Lina Liu Arta Tahiraj Haoran Yang Shiyu Andres Vilches

Marketing and Communications Strategist Kaylene Ponto

Designer Shirley Chou

Contact us By email: bordercrossing.info@ gmail.com (submissions)

In person: 19 rue le Gallois, Gatineau, Quebec, J8V 2H3 Canada

www.diplomatmagazine.nl

In this month edition, the articles of our beloved authors will guide us through the fascinating journey of the recent west and post-western world political history and the role that diplomacy has been playing in it. The articles will drive us from West- and Eastern Europe to the Sovietic period in Russia, going back in time to the France of Napoleon and the political consequences in the present of decisions taken then.

Professor Anis Bajrektarevic and Dr. Hadzidedic tell us about the growing differences between the Western cosmopolitan world and its Eastern sibling to some extend still trapped in the past. They lack a leadership model with clear direction. The communist legacy is still present in their heritage and the desired equality between Western and Eastern Europe hasn’t yet achieve its full balance. Southeast Europe and the Balkan area are still suffering from big instability, that if not solved, will have an impact in the whole of Europe. Following them, Bob Juchter van Bergen Quast, views on Napoleon and the Caribbean take us on et another ride through history. To end up with Eric Mann having a deep dive into the pros and cons of the Russian revolution and other similar political movements in Europe and US at the same moment in time.

In the “Track Two Diplomacy” article, Professor Peter Jones explains further the concept and approaches diplomacy with innovation practices. This diplomatic approach, more in line with today’s environment, facilitates groups suffering from an unjust political situation to come together, to connect and to share their views on new ways to find new solutions to their existing problems by thinking out of the box and orchestrating their relationships. Furthermore, Prof.

Dr.h.c. Olaf baron van Boetzelaer, drive us further into the topic in his “Civilistic Manifesto”. More then ever, the spirit of the times is reflected in the political thinking of the government. There is an increasing rise of individualism, materialism and criminalization in the current society. This make today’s political leaders having to follow their citizens thoughts to continue being their leaders.

The diversity of these dialogues and its rich style make the experience of reading them a great pleasure. You can go back in time and immerse yourself in those historical moments and picture the circumstances of those times. These privileged insights on the topics serve as reference and inspiration for future generations, who will benefit from these diplomacy lessons of the recent past to address today’s political endeavors. Will diplomacy continue to play the same key role from always to address nowadays challenges in the political arena? Will these diplomatic actions require from more innovation and orchestration in their style? A fascinating era is about to begin and BorderCrossing will accompany us in that journey.

Maite Ibarretxe, Editor 1

Contents The Post-Christian West and Post-Western World

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Anis H. Beirektarevice

Track Two Diplomacy Peter Jones

The Essence of “Civilistic Manifesto” Olaf baron van Boetzelaer

‘Schindler List’ for Southeast Europe Zlatko Hadžidedić

Long Story of Kurz: ‘Austria, You Will Be Macronised’

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Max Hess

Napoleon’s Legacy in the Caribbean Bob Juchter van Bergen Quast

Is Lenin Still In? Erin Mann

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The Post-Christian west and Post-Western World Refeudalisation of Europe- II Part Anis H. Bairektarevic While the Western world is increasingly post-Christian and cosmopolitan, its Eastern sibling is trapped in a post-ideological bubble: strikingly entrenched and enveloped in its neoreligionism. No wonder: Eastern European communities on all their levels are using failed models of leadership. Too many institutions are still mired in a narrative of past victimization, and too many have no any mechanism for producing new leaders to serve true national interests.

Anis H. Bajrektarevic is chairperson and professor in international law and global political studies, Vienna, Austria. He authored three books: FB – Geopolitics of Technology (published by the New York’s Addleton Academic Publishers); Geopolitics – Europe 100 years later (DB, Europe), and the just released Geopolitics – Energy – Technology by the German publisher LAP. No Asian century is his forthcoming book, scheduled for later this year.

Currently, percentage of Eastern Europeans obtaining the foreign diplomas – most notably those from the universities in Atlantic-Central Europe – that are afterwards admitted to the higher echelons of their national socio-economic, cultural and politico-military policy-making is higher than even in sub-Saharan Africa (e.g. in the LDC, situated around Chad or Victoria lakes or Horn of Africa). Their quantities and configurations reveal us that the ‘elites’ in Eastern and Russophone Europe are among the most unauthentic, least indigenous or less patriotically connected with its electorate – probably a cleavage larger than anywhere else in the world.

That explains in detail why over the last two decades, the policies and their protagonists in that region are so little responsive to a public opinion.

Any research, which is not a pre-paid or guided by remote control, is usually quickly denounced. E.g. debate about alarming de-industrialisation and brain-drain is simply a nogo. Any independent thinking must be condemned as a ‘radical nationalism’. As if the emancipative democracy should be a lame talk-shop, not a pursuit of happiness’ road-map.

Finally, East is sharply aged and depopulated –the worst of its kind ever– which in return will make any future prospect of a full and decisive generational interval simply impossible.

Is the Honduras-ization of Eastern Europe, in additional to refeudalization, now taking place? This term refers to an operationalization of XIX century Monroe Doctrine in Latin America, by which Washington ever since allowed its strategic neighborhood to choose their own domestic political and economic systems to an acceptable degree, while the US maintained its final (hemispheric) say over their external orientation. The so-called Brezhnev doctrine (of irreversibility of communist gains) postulated the Soviet (SuslovStalin) equivalent to Honduras-ization – Finlandization. Hence, it is safe to say that the Honduras-ization of Eastern Europe nowadays is full and complete.

Thus, if the post-WWII Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe was overt and brutal, this one is subtle but subversive and deeply corrosive?

The key (nonintentional) consequence of the post WWII Soviet occupation was that the Eastern European states –as a sort of their tacit, firm but low-tempered rebellion – preserved their sense of nationhood. However, they had essential means at disposal to do so: the right to work was highly illuminated in and protected by the national constitutions, so were other socio-economic rights such as the right to culture, language, arts and similar segments of collective nation’s memory. Today’s East, deprived and deceived, silently witnesses the progressive metastasis of its national tissue.

Terra nullius Eastern Europe, the (under-)world of dramatic aging which, is additionally demographically

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knocked down by the massive generational and brain drain. Passed the dismantling of the communist order, these emerging economies, countries in transition of the new Europe contain reactionary forces (often glorifying the wrong side of history), predatory ‘elites’ and masses of disillusioned (in a life without respect and dignity, humiliated and ridiculed in the triviality of their lasting decline).

Even if the new jobs are created or old kept, they are in fact smoke screens: Mostly a (foreign-loans financed) state-sponsored poverty programs where armies of the underemployed and misemployed cry out miserable wages in dead-end jobs. Cleronationalism and ethno-chauvinism is therapeutically offered as a replacement for a reasonable lifeprospect.

Former Slovakian cabinet minister laments in private: “Our ‘liberated East’ lives on foreign loans, or in the best case as the industrial suburbia of Western Europe, having these few ‘generously’ franchised factories like Renault, VW or Hugo Boss. Actually, those are just automotive assembly lines and tailor shops – something formally done only in the III World countries. Apart from the Russian Energia-Soyuz (space-program related) delivery system, what else do we have domestically created anywhere from Bratislava to Pacific? Is there any indigenous high-end technical product of past decades known? ... Our EU accession deals are worse than all Capitulation agreements combined that the Ottomans and Imperial China have ever signed in their history.”

His former Polish counterpart is even more forthcoming: “Unexperienced and naïve as it was in 1990s, Eastern Europe – in shock of sudden geopolitical change – foolishly embraced shock therapy in lieu of a badly needed economic program…

We failed to understand that this destabilizing doctrine was simply a continuation of the Milton Friedman’s experiment, which brought about one of the most notorious dictatorships, of Pinochet in Chile, and then discharged its plague elsewhere in Latin America, Middle East and Yeltsin’s obedient Russia. We missed to make a comparative analysis and spot that this doctrine always follows the same pattern in three stages: (i) the first impact of primary destruction; (ii) ‘economic’ shock measures; (iii) their brutal enforcement, along with an absence of any democratic debate… Implications are practically irreversible reengineering that stretches far beyond our macroeconomic fabrics. Consequences are sociopolitical, cultural, moral and demographic, therefore existential…”

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Ergo, euphemisms such as countries in transition or new Europe cannot hide a disconsolate fact that Eastern Europe has been treated for 25 years as defeated belligerent, as spoils of war which the West won in its war against communist Russia.

It concludes that (self-)fragmented, deindustrialized and re-feudalized, rapidly aged rarified and depopulated, (and de-Slavicized) Eastern Europe is probably the least influential region of the world – one of the very few underachievers. Obediently submissive and therefore, rigid in dynamic environment of the promising 21st century, Eastern Europeans are among last remaining passive downloaders and slow-receivers on the otherwise blossoming stage of the world’s creativity, politics and economy.

Persistent pauperization of the East is nothing else but a lasting victimization of core sectors of the continent. That, in return, inevitable leads to an accelerated (wealth, demographic and generational) redistribution and hence a refeudalization of the whole of Europe. Once the black hole is formed, no star in proximity will ever prevail.

Track Two Diplomacy Peter Jones

Peter Jones is an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa. He runs Track Two and Track 1.5 projects in the Middle East and Asia and studies the phenomenon of Track Two. Prior to joining the University, he spent 14 years in the Canadian Government, in both the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Prime Minister’s Department. He is the author of numerous studies on both Track Two and back-channel diplomacy, including, Track Two Diplomacy: In Theory and Practice, which was published by the Stanford University Press in 2015.

The term “Track Two Diplomacy” first appeared in the early 1980s, though it had been around much longer than that under different names. Many Track Two dialogues have been held over the years. Some have achieved fame, such as the “Oslo process” between Israel and Palestine, while others have deliberately remained quiet. At its most basic, Track Two is simply a method of bringing together people from different sides of a conflict, on an unofficial basis, to talk about the issues and try to develop new ideas. There is a wide variety of different types of Track Two. In practice, however, most Track Two dialogues tend to share certain characteristics: • They emphasize small, informal dialogues, which the literature refers to as “Problem Solving Workshops,” between people from the various sides of a conflict, which are often facilitated by an impartial actor, known as the “Third Party;” • Though the dialogues are unofficial, it is generally expected that the participants will be able to influence the development of thinking in their societies on the conflict; • They are not meant to be forums in which the participants debate the current positions of the sides, but rather are workshops where the participants are encouraged to step back from official positions in order to explore the underlying causes of the dispute in the hope of jointly developing alternate ideas; • They are ongoing processes, rather than “one-off” workshops; and • While usually not absolutely secret (though some Track Two dialogues are), the dialogues are conducted quietly and the “Chatham House Rule” is applied to create an atmosphere where “outside-the-box” thinking can flourish and participants are not afraid to propose and explore ideas that could not be entertained by an official process or one in which exchanges might be repeated publicly.

Such processes, if successful, can lead to a number of results. Amongst these are: • Changed perceptions of the conflict and the “other,” including a greater appreciation for the complexities, domestic politics and red-lines of the other side; • Opening new channels for communication between adversaries who had few other means of communicating; • The identification and development of new options for future negotiation; and • The development of networks of influential people who work to change views in their countries.

A key to successful Track Two is that the participants be able to transfer the ideas developed in such meetings into the official sphere. This is harder than it seems. Officials are instinctively wary of ideas coming from outside the bureaucracy, sometimes because Track Two can complicate their lives, and sometimes because they fear the loss of control over an issue.

Thus, Track Two often enlists as participants people who have connections to their governments (often retired senior officials). The objective is to have people at the table who have credibility in the official world and are familiar with how things are done there, but who have also the luxury of being able to think “outside the box.” When and if a Track Two process comes up with a new proposal or idea, such influential people have the credibility to gain the idea a hearing. But there is no guarantee of acceptance.

The reliance on such “influentials” carries with it potential problems, however. There are not many of them to go around and Track Two can be dominated by a small elite who are too similar in their thinking. This leads to the problem known in the Track Two world as the “Autonomy Dilemma.” This dilemma holds that, on the one hand, reliance on influential elites means that results can be more easily transferred to the official process, but “outside

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the box” thinking may be in short supply. On the other hand, gathering a really autonomous group which has few connections to government can lead to more independent thinking, but the ability of such processes to transfer their results is limited because the participants are not known or trusted by officials. There is no easy answer to the problem posed by the Autonomy Dilemma, other than for practitioners of Track Two to be aware of it when recruiting participants and running such dialogues and to constantly work to make sure that the discussions do not degenerate into an exchange of official positions.

It should be noted, however, that not all Track Two aims to transfer its results to governments and the autonomy dilemma does not always apply. Sometimes a Track Two dialogue will explicitly aim to transfer its results to the general public in hopes of stimulating change by creating pressure at the grass-roots level.

Ideas developed in Track Two often enjoy the most traction if they happen to come along at those rare moments when “the system” is looking for new approaches, sometimes known as “ripe” moments. More subtly, however, Track Two can work over time to quietly help create such “ripe” moments by demonstrating that new thinking is possible and developing cadres of credible people who advocate the consideration of new approaches.

Another critical issue is funding. Though the sums involved are comparatively small, support for airfares and other meeting costs is required. Traditionally, Track Two has been funded by major foundations and by some governments. This sometimes leads to concerns that undue influence is being exerted. The integrity of the Third Party depends on not accepting support if the funder demands conditions, and on being scrupulously open and honest about who is funding the exercise. It must be made clear to the funders by the Third Party that support will only be accepted if the process will be organised in ways which meet with the approval of the participants. Third Parties who act as agents of others quickly gain a reputation for untrustworthiness and are unable to continue. This is sometimes one of the most difficult things for critics of Track Two to grasp, but the process cannot work any other way.

The question of how close a Track Two should be to official diplomacy also causes confusion between genuine Track Two and so-called “back-channel diplomacy.” The two are often used as synonyms for each other, but they are different, and should be kept

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conceptually and practically separate. Backchannel diplomacy is essentially official talks between small, secretive groups in the governments concerned; the key is that those around the table are under instructions from a small group in their governments.

Track Two, as noted, features influential people, but they are not there on behalf of their governments or with any instructions and should never act as though they are. This difference, though subtle, is critical and leads to enormous confusion. Track Two projects are sometimes accused of being “secret negotiations” when they are not. Of course, Track Two can overlap with back-channel diplomacy when some of those present are, in fact, under instructions from centres within their governments, usually to informally probe the other side as whether a given course of action might be acceptable. This type of interaction is known as “Track 1.5.” It is comparatively rare, and care must be taken the make sure that the participants are all on the same page; to have one side thinking it is participating in a Track 1.5, while the other believes it is there under Track Two rules can cause confusion and frustration.

Also rare is the situation whereby a Track Two dialogue contributes to the resolution of a conflict in a direct fashion. While it would be gratifying if it were so, the reality is usually that the ideas generated by a Track Two dialogue work their way gradually into both the policy and public realms. By the time change happens, if it does, it can be difficult to claim that this or that specific Track Two dialogue was singularly responsible. More often, several Track Two dialogues, and other events, had the cumulative effect of stimulating new thinking about a hard issue and creating platforms for influential people to advocate new approaches to complex problems.

Track Two dialogues are thus not a panacea. If done sensitively and properly, however, Track Two dialogues, and Track 1.5 dialogues, can provide a forum within which new understandings can be developed about difficult problems, and bridges can be built across seemingly unbridgeable divides. In a world of intractable conflicts, these are important elements of achieving a more peaceful world.

The Essence of The “Civilistic Manifesto” The Value of Values: Principled as Opposed to Unprincipled Government

Olaf Baron Van Boetzelaer The spiritual and moral ethos of our age is distinguished by a number of well-defined characteristics, which in turn have been projected onto the style of government adopted by our leaders. In this modern era, the spirit of the times is very clearly reflected in the political thinking of the government, and also in political thinking about government. Most of our statesmen would agree with the nineteenth century British prime minister, who once said: “I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?”. What, then, are these spiritually-defining characteristics?

Prof. Dr. h.c. Olaf baron van Boetzelaer LLM, President of the Civilistic Appeal. A professional with long standing experience in analyzing a wide variety of political and economic international issues. He studied law at the University of Utrecht (The Netherlands). During his student days he was president of the Debating Club of the Utrecht Student Corps. Later he successfully complete d po st - university courses on i.e . International Affairs (Cling en dael Institute of Internation al Relations) and Intelligence and Interior Security (Dutch State Security). He became Head of the political and economic Analysis Department of the Dutch Foreign Intelligence Service (IDB). He was responsible of providing interpretation and extrapolation of intelligence reports and analyses on a variety of economic and political international topics to the ministries of Foreign Affairs, Economic Affairs, Defense, the Prime Minister’s Office and Foreign Intelligence Services. On the basis of his Civilistic Manifesto, about a better political - filosophical basis to govern the society, he founded the think tank ‘the Civilistic Appeal’, active in Belgium and The Netherlands and is currently Honorary Chairm an and internationaly secretary. He wrote many articles and six books about political and historic subjects and will be the co - author of a study book about international relations, t hat will come out in 2017. www.civilistischappel.eu

A. Individualism. This line of reasoning is dominated by egocentric considerations: “I think, I have the right, I want, so therefore ...” This “I” mentality does little or nothing to promote feelings and thoughts based on spiritual and emotional ties with others. This is certainly the case with regard to feelings based on common nationality: love of country, national spirit, “patriotism”. It is also becoming more and more the case with family ties, both in the narrower and the wider sense. We are all aware that in these modern times the position of the family -- as a coherent, caring basic unit of society, with a clear hierarchical structure -– is coming under ever increasing pressure from a whole range of external influences. Not least of external influences is the increasing predominance of the “I” mentality referred to, which is prevailing over solidarity, and more distant family relations have been eroded even more strongly. We are now far removed from the old bible concept of a 'clan spirit'. National awareness, previously known as patriotism, is also a mere shadow of what it once was. And whilst it cannot be denied that a number of these developments have helped to make our lives easier and more comfortable, we must not lose sight of the negative effect on social cohesion and social control. In our present day philosophy, individualism is running out of control and is threatening to lead to the atomization of society.

B.Secularization. Religious convictions have been strongly eroded, religious knowledge is becoming less and less widespread and the relevance of the Christian faith as a guideline for social and economic relationships has been largely undermined (except in overtly Christian circles). The number of practicing churchgoers, certainly in the Netherlands but also in other countries, has reached a historic low and is continuing to fall still further. Of course, faith or none-faith is each one’s personal decision and having a religion does not necessarily make someone a better person. Only, the ethical code inherent to religion has evaporated, for many together with the erosion of the faith, without other values and norms filling the void.

C. Criminalisation Regrettably, all categories of crime -- including the most terrible -- have increased considerably in recent years. As a result, there is not only a greater subjective feeling of insecurity within society, but there is also a greater objective chance that we will actually become the victims of crime.

D. Multi-culturalism. Concepts such as “our country”, “our people”, “our language”, “our history” - concepts in which we could and should be proud -– are now regarded as “politically incorrect” and are dismissed as old- fashioned and nationalistic. All cultures are regarded as equal, the (desirable) domination of Dutch culture within the Netherlands is viewed in a new and less favourable light, tolerance and multiform are considered to be the highest values. Of course there are a number of independent thinkers such as Frits Bolkestein, Paul Scheffer (of the Wiardi-Beckman Institute, in his essay “The Multi Cultural Drama”) and the late G.B.J. Hiltermann –- who have put and who continue to put the opposite point of view.

E. The growth of materialism and technocracy. Central in a many people’s thoughts and minds is the desire to secure financial end economic advantage, the idea of “having” rather than “being”. Everything -- or almost everything -–

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must be sacrificed to this sacred goal. Moreover, it is a goal where “the ends always justify the means”. And who better to implement this dubious philosophy than the faceless technocrats, unprincipled managers who think first and foremost in terms of money and the glamour of their organization?

F. Consensus culture. This culture –- which at first sight would appear to be incompatible with the individualism referred to above -- involves the perpetuation of meetings and discussions for as long as is necessary to reach a compromise agreement, in which all parties to a given problem can find some elements of satisfaction. This is the so called “win-win” situation. In these circumstances there is no undisputed leader, whose task is to hear the arguments of both sides and then take a final, balanced decision. On the contrary, the main task of the so-called modern leader is to create a broad platform of support for the general acceptance of any decisions reached by means of consensus. The negative aspect of this type of decision making process is that it is very difficult to take effective or radical action to solve even the most blatant abuses.

In this sense, consensus solutions are often false solutions, impotent political compromises, which attempt to mix fire with water. Moreover, in order to reach such meaningless compromises a great deal of time and energy is wasted. In addition, it is also quite common that certain parties to particular agreements seek to sabotage the measures agreed through the machinery of the central government, either by not carrying out the said measures or by carrying them out so flexibly, as to ensure a dilution of their intended effect. For example, the heavily criticized WAO (Work Incapacity Law) compromise of a few years ago did nothing to prevent the number of persons unfit for work rising towards the one million mark. Social organizations boycott the implementation law and offer shelter to asylum seekers, who have exhausted all official channels.

G. Crisis in education. “Critical” educators try to estrange their pupils from the values and basic tenets of our Western civilization, which partly have Christianity, partly “common sense” and partly the evolution of our opinions as their sources. Among other things are put into question: parental authority, respect for people who are older or who have specific responsibilities, the logical corollary that no society can do without a certain authority as well as the evidence that not the same value should be attached to everybody’s opinion. A disparaging attitude is demonstrated towards honesty, diligence, a sense of responsibility for the society and courtesy, without which no society is viable. No wonder crime statistics

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went up. Sometimes a destructive attitude is furthered towards our Western civilization, authority as such and a guilt-complex with respect to the historic role of the Western world.

H. Crisis of politics Political parties have the vocation of being transmission channels for the political aspirations of the people based upon a coherent “helicopter-view” of society. Nowadays, because of the loss of an ideological or anyway distinctive identity, they live up less and less to this vocation. The parties shed off their “ideological feathers” and state that the time of the “great narratives” is over. Besides that, the individualistic and hedonist spirit of the age (“Zeitgeist”) brings about that citizens have become more calculating in function of their perceived self-interest, they withdraw into “cocooning” and are less and less disposed to engage themselves politically inspired by a coherent over-all vision of society. This being the case, the political parties are increasingly being used as “career-vehicles” whereas the most treasured quality seems to be telegenic.

The Dutch Purple Cabinet (1994-2002, liberals with social democrats) very well reflects the spirit of this age, as outlined above. It unites free-thinking liberals and social democrats, who have both shed their ideological feathers, so that in this instance fire and water can combine. It is technocratic and pragmatic, rather than visionary. It stimulates further growth of individualism within society (now referred to as “self-determination”), by encouraging both husband and wife to become economically independent units through participation in the labour market. To an important degree, it has granted homosexual relationships legal equality with heterosexual relationships. It gives priority to (supposed) economic interest above and environmental and welfare matters (cf. the so called Betuwe line). By focusing on economic considerations and by working to rigid time tables, it has depersonalized health service. Since it is obliged to work on the basis of compromise agreements, it has not been able to stand the tide of illegal immigrants and asylum seekers. It has been equally unable to take firm and determined action against the criminal community and has failed to reduce both the large-scale trading of drugs within the Netherlands and the export of chemical stimulants abroad. It has great difficulty in criticizing bad behavior on the part of its citizens.

For example, if young Dutch holiday makers cause trouble on a large scale during their vacations in Southern Europe, not a single government minister will say a word against them.

As the Civilistic League (nowadays called Civilistic Appeal), we must in a certain sense articulate a political philosophy designed to challenge and change the prevailing spirit of the age. Amongst other things, this will involve promoting solidarity instead of the solitary, putting the needs of the environment before the wishes of the concrete-worshipping planners, placing human interest and care for others before mere money making, taken an iron hard-line with criminality, drugs and drink abuse, promoting the “small is beautiful” philosophy against the soulless anonymity of mega corporations.

This will not happen without a coherent social ideology, which can appeal in a real and relevant manner to the man and woman in the street.

Moreover, this ideology must not only be designed to appeal to religiously- inspired voters, but also to those who have a more open view on recent developments in society and who are currently more politically inclined towards liberalism and social democracy.

And what would be the main planks of this ethical and idealistic creed, which must stand against the unprincipled pragmatism of technocratic “management”?

I. There is an immutable and transcendent moral standard, which is independent of both time and place.

This standard must continue to be upheld and must be used to direct the social life of the community. Both principally and historically for the Civilistic League, this can only mean continuing to explicitly express and promote the social values and standard contained within the Gospel. Even for non-Christians, these values and standards should be regarded as the authoritative basis of our civilization.

II. Men and women not only have rights but also obligations as members of the civil communities in which they live: town, province, country, even the European Union. This means that the community can offer its members solidarity. But it means equally that the community can -- and must -– make its own demands of these same members. Consequently, it is the duty of a humane society to deal firmly with those who misuse their humanitarian privileges, even more so those who behave in a criminal manner.

III. Men and women also have rights and obligations as members of their own natural community; family.

Consequently, the government must on the one hand do everything it can to help families, while at the same time making these families and their more distant relatives aware of their obligations towards each other.

In a wider sense, it is also possible to argue that all our material, cultural and spiritual achievements/

possessions represent an inheritance passed down to us by our forebears and that we all have a duty to protect and further develop this inheritance. In this way a link is formed between past, present and future generations.

IV. Men and women also have rights as employed persons. In particular, they have the right to be rewarded for their labours, at a level in accordance with the qualitative character and importance of their work. Nevertheless, it is necessary and appropriate to carry out further social dialogue with regards to the relatives weighing of salaries. Why should a football-player earn millions, when geriatric nurses earn so little?

V. Religion, Christian values and spiritual values in general are of great relevance for mankind and for society, and should consequently be defended and promoted by the government. This implies that the actions and activities of the government will not be “valueless”, which of course, is also in keeping with its duty to maintain the transcendent moral code (see point I above).

VI. The trend towards individualism and the atomization of society must be reversed. Spiritless collectivism must be replaced by a concept of mutual solidarity, based on well-defined and naturally developing geographical communities (town, province, country, European Union), on the natural communities of family and relatives and on the work community formed by employers and employees.

Geographical and historical communities have a value in their own right and each member of such a community is subject to a series of rights and obligations. In this context, subsidiarity should be the guiding principle: this means that there should be as much downwards devolution of power to lower levels as possible, consistent with the effective organization and management of the stated objective.

Family is the cornerstone of society and ideally relationships within the community should take the family as their example.

In the working community, an organic structure must be devised, which will allow effective cooperation between management, labour and capital, so that polarization between these elements can be avoided. It is also time for reassessment and revision of the “corporate idea”, centered around the theme “unity in diversity”.

VII. Personalism: in line with the theses above-cited a person has the vocation to perfect himself and to fully develop his talents.

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VIII. Meritocracy – advancement based on merit – must be promoted. Key positions must be occupied by the most able people, the spiritual elite, which must follow its calling to serve the general good without respect of persons and without the expectation of earning vast amounts of money.

IX. The government must uphold the law and must implement in full all legally taken decisions, if necessary calling upon the support of the police and the judiciary system. The Dutch “culture of tolerance” must be brought to and end. The state government must take swift and effective action, if subsidiary government or executive organizations are seen to be sabotaging properly agreed decisions, as has in the past been the case with the implementation law regarding asylum policy and the WAO (Work Incapacity Law). The current explosion of crime, which is partly international in character, requires the introduction of a series of draconian counter-measures and sanctions and of course: international cooperation.

X. Saving the environment requires drastic,strong measures which should be enforced stringently.

Ecological durability must prevail over short-sighted acts motivated purely by financial profit.

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‘Schindler List’ for the Southeast Europe Pakistainization of the Final Solution for the Balkans?

Zlatko Hadžidedić

Zlatko Hadžidedić, PhD, is an expert in International Relations, Political Theory and Nationalism Studies.

Assistant Professor at the Sarajevo School of Science and Technology, at the Department of Political Science and International Relations. Also taught at the University of Sarajevo, at the Faculty of Political Science.

Obtained BA in Comparative Literature from the University of Sarajevo, at the Faculty of Philosophy (1988), MA in Society and Politics from the Central European University (1999), MPhil in Government from the London School of Economics and Political Science (2006), and PhD in Political Science from the University of Sarajevo, at the Faculty of Political Science (2009). Served as a Political Advisor to the Minister of Human Rights and Refugees of Bosnia-Herzegovina (2006-2010), the Minister of Civil Affairs of BosniaHerzegovina (2004-2006), and the Deputy Prime Minister of the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina (20022004). Also served as a diplomat at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of BosniaHerzegovina (1994-1998).

He is a prominent thinker, prolific author of numerous books, and indispensable political figure of the former Yugoslav socio-political space in 1990s, 2000s and 2010s. http://ewbbih.com/en/zlatkohadzidedic/

A few days ago, Observer published a column under the title Putin-Proofing the Balkans: A How-To Guide, written by John Schindler. In this article the author advocates some new geopolitical redesigns of the Balkans which are however far from being a novelty. As a matter of fact, these ideas represent a pale copy of the ideas recently published by Foreign Affairs in the article under the title Dysfunction in the Balkans, written by Timothy Less, a former British diplomat who served as the head of the British diplomatic office in Banja Luka, the capital of the Serb entity in Bosnia-Herzegovina, as well as the political secretary of the British Embassy in Macedonia. Less advocates a total redesign of the existing state boundaries in the Balkans: the imagined Greater Serbia should not only embrace the existing Serb entity in BosniaHerzegovina, but also the entire internationally recognized Republic of Montenegro; the Greater Croatia should embrace a future Croatian entity in Bosnia-Herzegovina; the Greater Albania should embrace both Kosovo and the western part of Macedonia. All these territorial redesigns, says Less and Schindler agrees, would eventually bring about a lasting peace and stability in the region.

Of course, it is easy to claim that both Schindler and Less are now only freelancers whose articles have nothing to do with their former employers' policies. However, the problem is that certain circles within the foreign policy establishment in both Great Britain and the United States, in their numerous initiatives from 1990s onwards, have repeatedly advocated the very same ideas that can be found in these two articles, such as the creation of the imagined monoethnic greater states – Greater Serbia, Greater Croatia and Greater Albania – as an alleged path towards lasting stability in the Balkans, with Bosnia's and Macedonia's disappearance as a collateral damage. So far, these ideas have always been spread below the surface of official policy, but they have never been abandoned, as the 'coincidence' of almost simultaneous appearance of Schindler's and Less's articles in the renowned mainstream magazines demonstrate.

Ostensibly, the ideas advocated by Schindler and Less are rooted in the plausible presupposition that, as long as the existing nationalist greater-state projects remain unaccomplished, the nationalist resentment will always generate ever-increasing instability.

However, the history has clearly demonstrated, both in the Balkans and other parts of the world, that such a presupposition is nothing but a simple fallacy. For, the very concept of completed ethnonational states is a concept that has always led towards perpetual instability wherever applied, because such ethnonational territories cannot be created without projection of extreme coercion and violence over particular 'inappropriate' populations, including the techniques which have become known as ethnic cleansing and genocide. The logic of 'solving national issues' through creation of ethnically cleansed greater states has always led towards permanent instability, never towards long-term stability. Let us only remember the consequences of the German ruling oligarchy's attempt to create such a state in the World War II. And let us only try to imagine what the world would be like if their geopolitical project was recognized and accepted in the name of 'stability', as now Schindler and Less propose in the case of some other geopolitical projects based on ethnic cleansing and genocide.

What is particularly interesting when it comes to 'solving national issues' in the Balkans is the flexibility (i.e. arbitrariness) of the proposed and realized 'solutions'. First, the winners in the World War I, among whom the British and American officials occupied the most prominent positions, advocated the creation of the common national state of the Southern Slavs at the Peace Conference in Versailles. Then, more than seventy years later, Lord Carrington, the longest serving member of the British foreign policy establishment, chaired another international

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conference in The Hague where he oversaw the partition of that very state in the name of 'solving national issues' between ethnonational states which constituted it. Together with the Portuguese diplomat, Jose Cutileiro, Lord Carrington then also introduced the first, pre-war plan for ethnic partition of BosniaHerzegovina (the Carrington-Cutileiro Plan), again in the name of 'solving national issues' between the ethnic groups living in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was eventually sealed, with some minor changes, at the international conference in Dayton. And now, here is yet another plan for fragmentation of the Balkan states, again in order to 'solve national issues'. What is needed in addition is yet another international conference to implement and verify such a plan, and thus turn the Balkans upside-down one more time.

Therefore, it comes as no surprise that such a conference on the Western Balkans has already been scheduled for 2018 in London.

Yet, how the proposed dismemberment of BosniaHerzegovina and Macedonia, as well as the absorption of Montenegro into Greater Serbia, can be made politically acceptable to the population of the Balkans and the entire international community?

What is required to accomplish such a task is a scenario that would make an alternative to dismemberment and absorption of sovereign states even less acceptable. It is not difficult to imagine that only a war, or a threat of war, would be such an alternative. However, its feasibility is limited by the fact that no state in the Balkans has the capacities and resources – military, financial, or demographic – to wage a full-scale war, and their leaders are too aware of this to even try to actually launch it. In such a context, the available option is to create an atmosphere that would simulate an immediate threat of war, by constantly raising nationalist tensions between, and within, the states in the region. Of course, such tensions do exist since 1990, but it would be necessary to accumulate them in a long-term campaign so as to create an illusion of imminence of regional war.

Significantly, following the appearance of Less's article, and simultaneously with the one of Schindler's, the tensions within Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia have begun to rise. This growth of tensions can hardly be disregarded as accidental, given the fact that the Balkan leaders can easily be played one against another whenever they receive signals, no matter whether fake or true, that a new geopolitical reshuffle of the region is being reconsidered by major global players. Since they are already wellaccustomed to raising inter-state and intra-state tensions as a means of their own political survival, it is

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very likely that they will be able to accumulate such tensions to such a level as to gradually generate a mirage of imminent regional war. Also, a part of the same campaign is the systematic spread of rumours, already performed all over Europe, that a war in the Balkans is inevitable and will certainly take place during 2017.

In the simulated atmosphere of inevitable war, a radical geopolitical reconfiguration of the entire Balkans, including dismemberment of the existing states proclaimed as dysfunctional and their eventual absorption into the imagined greater states, may well become politically acceptable. All that is needed is to juxtapose this 'peaceful' option and the fabricated projection of imminent war as the only available alternatives, and offer to implement the former at a particular international conference, such as the one scheduled for 2018 in London. What is required for implementation of the proposed geopolitical rearrangement of the Balkans is to spread the perception that the permanent rise of political conflicts in the region inevitably leads to a renewed armed conflict. In that context, all the proposed fallacies about usefulness of geopolitical redesigns in the Balkans may easily acquire a degree of legitimacy, so as to be finally implemented and verified at the 2018 London conference on the Western Balkans.

Of course, if that happens, it can only lead to further resentment and lasting instability in the region and Eastern Europe, and that can only lead to growing instability in the entire Europe. One can only wonder, is that a desired ultimate outcome for those who promote greater state projects in the Balkans as an alleged path towards its stability?

Long Story of Kruz: ‘Austria, You Will Be Macronised’ Max Hess

Max Hess is a senior political risk analyst with the Londonbased AEK international, specializing in Europe and Eurasia.

Forward “There is a claim constantly circulating the EU: ‘multiculturalism is dead in Europe’. Dead or maybe d(r)ead?... That much comes from a cluster of European nation-states that love to romanticize – in a grand metanarrative of dogmatic universalism – their appearance as of the coherent Union, as if they themselves lived a long, cordial and credible history of multiculturalism. Hence, this claim and its resonating debate is of course false. It is also cynical because it is purposely deceiving. No wonder, as the conglomerate of nation-states/EU has silently handed over one of its most important debates – that of European anti-fascistic identity, or otherness – to the wing-parties. This was repeatedly followed by the selective and contraproductive foreign policy actions of the Union in the MENA, Balkans and Ukraine.” – wrote prof.

Anis H. Bajrektarevic in his luminary and farsighted essay Denazification – urgently needed in Europe.

Last two parliamentary elections in Central Europe are indicative enough: Europe inevitably loses its grip over the grand narrative, fatherly eroding its place in history. Hereby a few lines about the latest of them.

Long story of Kurz: ‘Austria You will be Macronised’ Sebastian Kurz, 31, is likely to become Austria’s new Chancellor following the 15 October election. He would be the youngest-ever head of government in the European Union and to many of his supporters will be seen as a bold new face ready to lead Europe through and past the ongoing crises over migration, integration, fiscal authority, and identity that have dominated European politics, within and without the EU, in recent years. A new leader of Europe’s populist right is likely on the horizon, yet he has received little international attention compared with candidates such as Marine Le Pen or Nigel Farage who were always long shots.

Kurz’s Rise – Aus Iuridicum Rapidly rising through the youth wing of the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), Kurz was elected its head in 2009 and then promoted directly into the party’s upper echelon in 2011 when he was named to the newly-created post of state secretary for integration at age 24.

From the earliest days, Kurz embraced a populist right-wing worldview although he initially steadfastly avoided divisive rhetoric that could have derailed his rise. Kurz used his post as state secretary to publicize these ideas, while also astutely employing the leeway afforded by his youth to take positions deviating from the ÖVP platform.

In 2013 Kurz was elected to the national legislature, also winning the most direct ‘preference votes’ of any candidate and a third more than the ÖVP’s then-head Michael Spindelegger. The ÖVP received less overall votes than the Social Democrats (SPÖ) and again went into government as the junior coalition partner. Kurz was rewarded with the second-highest post of any ÖVP leader when he was named foreign minister.

Austrians see themselves both as core members of the ‘West’ but also as traditionalists and the inheritors of a unique culture. The historic heft of the former Austro Hungarian Empire, a separateness from Germans and Germany that was cemented by the divides caused by the Enlightenment and birth of Protestantism, and steady decades-long growth in income and living standards all have served to shape an image of Austria and Austrians as reasoned yet traditional, sober yet dandy, and reserved yet welcoming. It is precisely in this image that Kurz has tried to cast himself.

Even Kurz’s critics are quick to acknowledge that from the beginning of his career he had a remarkable ability to gauge the prevailing zeitgeist, all the while grounding himself in the core Austrian conservatism that the ÖVP represents. In contrast to populist politicians who have

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at best half-convicningly attempted to portray themselves as outsiders, Kurz embraces the fact he has had his sights set on a political career since his youth. Kurz recognized the quickest route to ‘authenticity’ was to never speak the word.

Kurz, the Foreign Minister As Foreign Minister, Kurz was able to play host and diplomat to Austria’s wide variety of partners. He also judiciously avoided controversy in mainstream international media. On issues where Kurz would perhaps have been more vocal, he accepted his role as a government minister and did not speak out overly loudly when he disagreed with his party’s leaders, while tweaking those of the SPÖ, the senior coalition partner, in a way that did not offend Austrian sensibilities.

Kurz’s four years in the foreign ministry saw a series of regional and political crises, attesting to his political skill. Three months after taking office, Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash was arrested on a visit to Vienna on the request of US authorities. The arrest came two days before Moscow’s controversial referendum in Crimea and struck at the core of domestic politics in Ukraine, where Firtash long played an outsize role. Yet Kurz did not shy from being thrust in the spotlight, in fact he appeared to be hungering for it, with the then-27-year old even offering to mediate Russia and Ukraine’s disputes over Crimea.

Kurz ultimately backed sanctions, sensing the prevailing winds in Europe. However, he was vocal in calling for European business’ interests to be considered even before Italian, Hungarian and Cypriot politicians subsequently took up such positions. The move played well domestically in Austria, where many criticize great power games, perhaps with a slight, albeit unstated view towards the rearview mirror given their fatal role in Austria’s own history. Austria’s Raiffeisen bank also derives most of its profits from Eastern Europe and is the largest foreign player in Russia’s banking market. Russian President Vladimir Putin also travelled to Vienna in June 2014, his first post-Crimea visit to a Western country, with Kurz vocally defending the invite and signing of a controversial pipeline deal at the same time EU and US officials were deliberating sanctions on Russia’s energy sector.

KKurz’s time as foreign minister also coincided with Europe’s migration crisis, which was nearly simultaneous with his push towards the spotlight when he backed the stance of Austria’s eastern and southeastern neighbors even while then-Chancellor Werner Faymann waffled on the issue. By February, 2016, Kurz was publicly embracing not only the

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positions of Warsaw, Budapest, and Ljubljana, but their rhetoric as well. In March 2016, Austria had closed its borders to most asylum seekers. By the end of May of that year, Faymann resigned. He was subsequently replaced by Christian Kern, the current head of the SPÖ.

Kurz took advantage of the weakness of the senior leadership within the SPÖ and his own ÖVP to push his personal agenda and reputation to the fore. Kurz has even sought to use the largely-symbolic rotating chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which Vienna holds for 2017, to promote his political agenda. Kurz was bold enough to broadcast this intention, declaring in an interview with Der Spiegel that he would use the post to push for the lifting of sanctions against Russia. He has also used the platform to again propose that he mediate a solution to the conflict in Donbas, even writing an English-language op-ed for Politico on the subject this September. Demonstrating Kurz’s eye for the future, however, a number of senior staff members have left Kurz’s Foreign Ministry since the start of the year, promoted as Austria’s new ambassadors to some of its leading partners. A further major reshuffle is expected after the election, a possible indication that Kurz will continue to cut a prominent figure on the international stage.

Kurz, the Candidate: Dressed to Impress A year after Faymann’s resignation, the Kern government collapsed, prompting the elections that will be held on 15 October. The interim period saw the contested and contentious 2016 presidential run-off election, in which the initial result was annulled and the far right Freedom Party’s (FPÖ) Norbert Hofer was narrowly defeated by independent candidate Alexander Van der Bellen. Kurz had refused to endorse either candidate. Yet it was the fact that the run-off featured neither a candidate of the SPÖ nor the ÖVP for the first time that appears to have most shaped Kurz’s current candidacy.

Van der Bellen, an alumnus of Austria’s relatively minor Green Party, was seen by many on the Austrian right as nearly as radical as Hofer. The Austrian presidency is also largely symbolic – although Hofer’s platform included steps that would have been unprecedented by the Austrian executive. As a result, there was little domestic political cost to Kurz remaining neutral.

The lack of an SPÖ or ÖVP candidate in the final round highlighted the shifts underway at the heart of Austrian politics, and the weakness of then-ÖVP leader Reinhold Mitterlehrner, who stepped back in May, enabling Kurz’s ascent.

Get Shorty - the Chancellor? the future EU Commission President?

Kurz is likely to become Austria’s most prominent Chancellor on the international stage in decades. His willingness to be outspoken and take on issues far afield from Austria steadily grew during his tenure in the foreign ministry. Beginning with his early proposal to mediate between Moscow and Kyiv towards the end of his term, he was sufficiently confident to publicly endorse incumbent Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski ahead of that country’s December 2016 election. well-spoken and has shown a knack for youth politics, of particularly importance in Austria where the voting age is 16.

On 8 May, France elected Emmanuel Macron as president in a vote that many hailed as a landmark victory for Europe’s centrist establishment. On 15 October, Austria is likely to elect Kurz as its next chancellor, in a vote that the populist right will hail as its own landmark victory.

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Napoleon’s Legacy in the Caribbean Bob Juchter van Bergen Quast

R.A.U. Juchter van Bergen Quast, LLM, FSS

Introduction Napoleon is widely seen as a military genius and perhaps the most illustrious leader in world history. Of the 60 battles, Napoleon only lost seven (even these were lost in the final phase).

The leading British historian Andrew Roberts, in his 926 pages biography Napoleon: A Life (2015), mentions the lost battles of Acre (1799), Aspern-Essling (1809), Leipzig (1813), La Rothière (1814), Laon (1814), Arcis-sur-Aube (1814), and Waterloo (1815). Often forgotten is the battle that Napoleon lost in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti). On 18 November 1803, the French army under the command of general Donatien-Marie-Joseph de Vimeur, vicomte de Rochambeau, and the rebel forces under Jean-Jacques Dessalines, a selfeducated slave with no formal military training, collided at the battle of Vertières. The outcome was that Napoleon was driven out of Saint-Domingue and Dessalines led his country to independence. This article discusses Napoleon’s legacy in the former colonies, which has a modern international dimension Saint-Domingue’s sugar Saint-Domingue was a French colony on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola from 1659 to 1804.

The French had established themselves on the western portion of the islands of Hispaniola and Tortuga by 1659. The Treaty of Rijswijk (1697) formally ceded the western third of Hispaniola from Spain to France. The French then renamed it to Saint-Domingue. During the 18th century, the colony became France’s most lucrative New World possession. It exported sugar, coffee, cacao, indigo, and cotton, generated by an enslaved labor force. Around 1780 the majority of France’s investments were made in Saint-Domingue. In the 18th century, Saint-Domingue grew to be the richest sugar colony in the Caribbean.

Revolution in France Conditions on sugar plantations were harsh. During the eight-month sugar harvest, slaves often worked continuously around the clock. Accidents caused by long hours and primitive machinery were horrible. In the big plantations, the slaves lived in barracks. Planters primarily wanted males for plantation work. There were few women as these were only needed for propagation.

Families did not exist. The result was a kind of rebelliousness among the slaves which manifested itself in various ways. Planters reported revolts, poisonings, suicides, and other obstructive behavior. These men, women and children did not have a life or history of their own.

In 1794, during the Terror period of the French Revolution, slavery in France’s colonies was abolished. However, this policy was not fully implemented. When unrest broke out in SaintDomingue, Napoleon wanted to renew France’ commitment to emancipation, mainly because of political reasons. Napoleon stated that slavery had not been formally abolished, since the abolition had not been realized. His politics aimed at the return of the former French colonists.

Napoleon believed they were better able to defend French interests against the British that the revolutionaries. Thus as First Consul, by a decree of May 20, 1802, Napoleon restored slavery and the slave trade in Martinique and other West Indian colonies. The law did not apply to Guadeloupe, Guyane or Saint-Domingue.

Napoleon’s war in Saint-Domingue Napoleon had an obvious personal relation with the colonies. In January 1796, Napoléon Bonaparte proposed to Marie Josèphe Rose Tascher de La Pagerie and they married on 9 March 1796. She adopted the name “Josephine” that Napoleon had chosen for her. Josephine was born in Les Trois-Îlets, Martinique. She was a member of a wealthy white planters family that owned a sugarcane plantation, called Trois-Îlets. Josephine was the eldest daughter of Joseph-Gaspard Tascher (1735–1790), knight, Seigneur de la Pagerie, lieutenant of Troupes

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de Marine, and his wife, Rose-Claire des Vergers de Sannois (1736–1807). The latter’s maternal grandfather, Anthony Brown, may have been Irish. It cannot have been a coincidence that slavery was specifically re-established in Martinique.

In 1791, the slaves and some free people of color in Saint-Domingue started a rebellion against French authority. In May 1791 the French revolutionary government granted citizenship to the wealthier mostly light-skinned free persons of color, the offspring of white French men and African women. SaintDomingue’s European population however disregarded the law. One of the slaves’ main leaders was François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture, also known as Toussaint L’Ouverture or Toussaint Bréda.

At first Toussaint allied with the Spaniards in Santo Domingo (the other half of the island of Hispaniola).

The rebels became reconciled to French rule following the abolition of slavery in the colony in 1793, prompting Toussaint to switch sides to France. For some time, the island was quiet under Napoleonic rule. On 1 July 1801 Toussaint promulgated a Constitution, officially establishing his authority as governor general “for life” over the entire island of Hispaniola. Article 3 of his constitution states: “There cannot exist slaves [in Saint-Domingue], servitude is therein forever abolished. All men are born, live and die free and French.”. During this time, Napoleon met with refugee planters. They urged the restoration of slavery in Saint-Domingue, claiming it was essential to their profits.

Jefferson supplied Toussaint with arms, munitions and food. He was seen as the first line of defense against the French. He had already foreseen that Toussaint would put up considerable resistance, and anticipated on Napoleon’s failure in the West-Indies. It would prove to be one of the most important strategic choices in the development of the current United States.

On 25 March 1802 Napoleon signed the Treaty of Amiens. It turned out not be be more than a truce. The Treaty gave both sides a pause to reorganize. In 18 May 1803 the war was formally resumed. During this peace Napoleon made reestablishing France’s control over its colonial possessions a priority. In December 1801 he sent Charles-Victor-Emmanuel Leclerc (17721802) to the colony. plantation laborers. By crushing a rebellion of the workers, he isolated himself and weakened his position. Leclerc landed at Cap-Français in February 1802 with warships and 40,000 soldiers. The French won several victories and after three months of heavy fighting regained control over the island. The

revolutionary generals led a fanatic guerrilla war against the French troops and in a number of occasions were very successful. However, Toussaint faced a major setback when some of his generals joined Leclerc. Toussaint’s mixed strategies of total war and negotiation confused his generals who one after the other capitulated to Leclerc, beginning with Christophe. Finally Toussaint and later Dessalines surrendered.

Toussaint was forced to negotiate a peace. In May 1802 he was invited by the French general Jean Baptiste Brunet for a negotiation. His safety was guaranteed. On Napoleon’s secret orders Toussaint was immediately arrested and put on ship to France.

He died in a prison cell in the French Alps of cold and hunger. It should be mentioned that Dessalines played a significant role in the arrest of Toussaint (Girard).

Dessalines obtained 4000 francs and gifts in wine and liquor for him, his spouse and the officers involved (Girard). When in October 1802 it became apparent that the French intended to re-establish slavery, because they had done so on Guadeloupe, Toussaint’s former military allies, including Jean Jacques Dessalines, Alexandre Pétion and Henri Christophe, switched sides again and fought against the French. In the meanwhile disease took its toll on the French soldiers. The revolution was revitalized when Leclerc died of yellow fever in november 1802.

The Haitian Revolution continued under the leadership of Dessalines, Pétion and Christophe.

After the death of Leclerc, Napoleon appointed the vicomte de Rochambeau (who fought with his father under George Washington in the American Revolutionary War) as Leclerc’s successor. His brutal racial warfare drove even more revolutionary leaders back to the rebel armies.

Saint-Domingue becomes independent The Battle of Vertières on 18 November 1803 was the final event that stood between slavery liberty in SaintDomingue. It involved forces made up of former enslaved people on the one hand, and Napoleon’s French expeditionary forces on the other hand.

Vertières is situated in the north-east, near the Sea. By the end of October 1803, the revolutionary forces fighting the expeditionary troops were already in control over most of the island.

The revolutionary troops attacked the remaining French soldiers at Vertières. After heavy fighting the battle ended when heavy rain with thunder and lightning drenched the battlefield. Under cover of the storm, Rochambeau pulled back from Vertières. At the surrender of Cap Francias. Rochambeau was

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forced to surrender to the English. He was to taken England as a prisoner on parole, where he remained interned for almost nine years.

Shortly after the battle, the first declaration of independence was read in Fort-Dauphin on 29 November 1803. It was signed by Dessalines, Christophe and Clerveaux. They all had been generals under Leclerc little more than a year earlier. The declaration did not mention the current name “Haiti”, but still spoke of “Saint-Domingue”. The second Act of Independence was read by Dessalines on the Place d’Armes of Gonaïves on 1 January 1804. The act marked the beginning of independence what from that moment on would be known as the republic of Haiti. It marked the beginning of the end of slavery in the colonies.

Haitian monarchs After the declaration of independence, Dessalines proclaimed himself Governor-General-for-life of Haiti.

Between February and April 1804 he orchestrated the massacre of the white Haitian minority; between 3,000 and 5,000 people. On 2 September 1804, Dessaline proclaimed himself emperor under the name Jacques I of Haiti. He was crowned on 8 October 1804 (two months before Napoleon) with his wife Marie-Claire Heureuse Félicité at the Church of Champ-de-Mars, Le Cap by Pere Corneille Brelle, later His Grace Monseigneur the Archbishop of Haiti, Duke de l’Anse, and Grand Almoner to King Henry I. Jaques I Promulgated the Constitution of Haiti on 20 May 1805 (Buyers: 2017).

Former revolutionary Henry Christophe succeeded Emperor Jacques I I as provisional Head of State after his death on 17 October 1806. He was installed as Lord President and Generalissimo of the Land and Sea Forces of the State of Haiti with the style of His Serene Highness on 17 February 1807. Christophe was proclaimed as King of Haiti and assumed the style of His Majesty on 26 March 1811. He was Crowned by His Grace Monseigneur Corneille Brelle, Duke de l’Anse, Grand Almoner to the King and Archbishop of Haiti, at the Church of Champ-de-Mars, Le Cap-Henry, on 2 June 1811. Christophe was Grand Master and Founder of the Royal and Military Order of Saint Henry on 20 April 1811. He married at Cap Français on 15 July 1793, H.M. Queen MarieLouise (b. at Bredou, Ouanaminthe on 8 May 1778; died at Pisa, Italy, on 14 March 1851, buried there at the Convent of the Capuchins). Christophe committed suicide at the Palace of Sans-Souci, Milot, on 8

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October 1820, having had issue, three sons and two daughters. He was succeeded by another revolutionary general, Alexandre Sabès Pétion, who had as well been one of Haiti’s founding fathers (Buyers: 2017).

In1849 the Napoleonic style was copied by Emperor Faustin I of Haiti who adopted the style of His Imperial Majesty. Faustin I was proclaimed emperor at the National Palace, Port-au-Prince, on 26 August 1849 and crowned at the renamed Imperial Palace on the same day. He was consecrated at the old Cathedral of Notre Dame de l’Assomption, Port-au-Prince, on 2 September 1849. The emperor promulgated a new Constitution on 20 September 1849 and was crowned at the Champ de Mars, Port-au-Prince, in the presence of the VicarGeneral Monsignor Cessens according to Episcopalian (Franc-Catholique) rites, on 18 April 1852. Faustin was styled Chief Sovereign, Grand Master and Founder of the Imperial and Military Order of St Faustin and the Imperial Civil Order of the Legion of Honour 21 September 1849, and of the united Orders of Saint Mary Magdalen and Saint Anne 31 March 1856, all in three classes. Grand Protector of the Franc-Masonic Order 1850-1859. Patron Collège Faustin 1848-1859. He was founder of the Imperial Academy of Arts in 1856 (Buyers: 2017). The current claimant of the headship of the house has initiated an educational project, based on the open learning system (www.imperialhaiti.fr).

Modern legacy Because Napoleon had failed to re-enslave SaintDomingue, he was missing the plantation revenues.

As war with England was inevitable and he could not raise enough assets, Napoleon abandoned his colonial policy. France’ immense territory of Louisiana was sold to the United States on 30 April 1803 by means of the Louisiana Purchase Treaty. The Louisiana Purchase from France more than doubled the size of the territorial area of the United States. It was the birth of what now is considered the most powerful nation in the world. As Livingston made clear in his famous statement: “We have lived long, but this is the noblest work of our whole lives…From this day the United States take their place among the powers of the first rank.”

In 1825, France demanded Haiti compensate France for its loss of slaves and its slave colony. It threatened with a new invasion. In 1838, France agreed to a reduced amount of 90 million francs to be paid over a period of 30 years. In 1893 the final part of the principal was paid. By 1947 Haiti paid the modern equivalent of USD 21 billion (including interest)

to France and American banks as “compensation” for being enslaved for centuries.

Slavery was ultimately abolished in all French colonies in 1848 by Victor Schœlcher, the famous French journalist and politician who was France’s greatest advocate of ending slavery. On 10 May 2001, the French Parliament adopted Law 2001-434, of which the first article reads: “The French Republic acknowledges that the Atlantic and Indian Ocean slave trade on the one hand and slavery on the other, perpetrated from the fifteenth century in the Americas, the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean and in Europe against African, Amerindian, Malagasy and Indian peoples constitute a crime against humanity.”

In 2004 during Haiti's bicentenary celebrations, the then Haitian President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, demanded compensation from France. In 2014 the 15-member Caribbean Community announced a 10point plan for seeking reparations from France and other slave-holding European nations on behalf of Haiti and other former colonies.

French administrations have acknowledged the historic wrong of slavery in Haiti and other former colonies but have avoided any real discussion over whether they would return the "independence debt". In 2010 however, after Haiti's devastating earthquake, the then French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, spoke about the "wounds of colonization" and during his administration, France cancelled all of Haiti's $77m debt.

In 2015, the then French President, Hollande acknowledged his country's historic role in the Atlantic slave trade as he helped inaugurate a $93m slavery memorial in Guadeloupe. It is interesting to follow the developments in this respect.

Literature Alaux, Gustave D., Maxime Raybaud, and John H. Parkhill. Soulouque and his empire. From the French of Gustave dAlaux. Richmond: J.W. Randolph, 1861.

Burnard, Trevor G., and John D. Garrigus. The plantation machine: Atlantic capitalism in French Saint-Domingue and British Jamaica. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016.

Burton Sellers, W.F. “Heroes of Haiti.” Windows on Haiti: Heroes of Haiti.

Accessed July 08, 2017. http://windowsonhaiti.com/windowsonhaiti/heroes.shtml.

Buyers, C. “Haiti – Royal Ark.” Accessed July 8, 2017. http://www.royalark.net/Haiti/haiti6.htm. Website by Christopher Buyers on the genealogies of the Royal and ruling houses of Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas.

Cases, Emmanuel-Auguste-Dieudonné Las. Memorial de Sainte Hélène.

Journal of the private life and conversations of the Emperor Napoleon at Saint Helena. Boston: Wells & Lilly, 1823.

Christophe, Henri, Thomas Clarkson, Earl Leslie Griggs, and Clifford H. Prator. Henry Christophe, a correspondence. New York: Greenwood Press, 1968.

Dwyer, Philip. Napoleon: the path to power, 1769 – 1799. London: Bloomsbury, 2008.

Dwyer, Philip G. Citizen emperor: Napoleon in power. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015.

Girard, Philippe R. Slaves who defeated napoleon: toussaint louverture and the haitian war of independence, 1801-1804. Tuscaloosa: Univ Of Alabama Press, 2014.

Klooster, Wim, and Gert Oostindie. Curaçao in the age of revolutions, 1795-1800. Leiden: Brill, 2014.

Klein, Herbert S. The Atlantic Slave Trade. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

“The Louverture Project.” Accessed July 08, 2017. http://thelouvertureproject.org. The Louverture Project (TLP) collects and promotes knowledge, analysis, and understanding of the Haitian revolution of 1791–1804.

Mentor, Gaétan. Dessalines: lesclave devenu empereur. Pétionville, Haïti: Impr. Le Natal, 2003.

Roberts, Andrew. Napoleon: a life. New York: Penguin, 2015.

Sloane, W. M. “Napoleons Plans for a Colonial System.” The American Historical Review 4, no. 3 (1899): 439.

Sortais, Georges. Important tableau par Louis David: “Le sacre de Napoléon”. S.l.: S.n., 1898.

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Is Lenin Still In? The100 Years After the October Revolution Series: Part 1

Eric Mann This month marks the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution of October 1917. As we in the United States try to imagine a revolutionary opposition to the U.S. imperialist system a great appreciation of the achievements of the Russian revolution and the Soviet Union is a critical part of our revolutionary future.

Eric Mann is a veteran of the Congress of Racial Equality, Students for a Democratic Society, and the United Auto Workers and the prolific author of sevral books. Early version of this text “The 100th Anniversary of the October Revolution: the Great Breakthrough in AntiImperialist Socialism” was posted for FastCapitalism.

The Russian revolution created the Soviet Union—the first “workers state” and the first successful revolution that survived the world imperialist counterrevolution. The Bolshevik Party (the first communist party) was part of a united front of parties that seized power from the reactionary feudal Tsar in the February revolution of 1917. Then in October 1917 the Bolsheviks overthrew the forces of capitalism and seized state power from the social democratic Kerensky government. The Russian revolution came to power as an anti-war movement against the forces in Russia that wanted to continue World War I—one of the greatest imperialist bloodbaths of all time in which more than 18 million “workers of the world” were sent to their deaths by the capitalist governments of Europe with strong support from their “socialist” parties.

The Bolshevik Party and Soviet State built its own military and police, defended themselves against external and internal capitalist attack, and survived in a hostile world for 72 years—a true miracle against all odds. From the perspective of the world’s exploited and oppressed people this was a profound achievement in human history and offered them an optimistic vision of their own future.

The day before the successful October revolution the entire world was ruled by the U.S. and European colonial and imperialist powers. But the day after the Russian Revolution the communists created a new political momentum and material balance of forces that captured the imagination of workers and anti-colonial movements all over the world. This was reflected in the Indian independence victory of 1947, the Chinese revolution of 1949, the Cuban revolution of 1959, African independence movements in Ghana, the Congo, Guinea Bissau, Kenya, and Tanzania, the Vietnamese revolution from 1945 until its victory in 1975, and the South African independence movement against apartheid culminating in the victory of 1994.

The Soviet Union was a great friend of Black people in the United States and the pro-Soviet Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) attracted some of the greatest Black political figures in U.S. history—Richard Wright, Claudia Jones, Harry Haywood, W.E.B. DuBois, Paul Robeson, William L. Patterson and tens of thousands of Black sharecroppers, domestic workers, auto and steelworkers as well. In 1951, in the midst of a ferocious U.S. war against communists all over the world, Black communists Patterson, DuBois, and Robeson produced the historic and still prescient We Charge Genocide: The Historic Petition to the United Nations for Relief of a Crime Against the Negro People by the United States. A reading of that document 66 years later reflects the painful, egregious, and endless war of the U.S. government against Black people and the Black nation today.

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Those of us in the United States who participated in the great revolutions of the Two Decades of the Sixties (1955-1975) were all pro-communist and with our own concerns and even criticisms, pro-Soviet. I was blessed to work as a field secretary with the Congress of Racial Equality and work closely with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. Later, I was an organizer with the Newark Community Union Project and Students for a Democratic Society and worked closely with the Black Panther Party.

At that time in history we had a sense of history. We saw the United States as what Dr. King called “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world” and saw the peoples and revolutions of the Third World and the socialist and communist nations as our allies in a world united front against our own government. We supported the Cuban revolution and appreciated Soviet support for Cuba and hated the U.S. government and the CIA for working to overthrow the Cuban revolution. We supported the Vietnamese revolution and thanked both the Soviets and Chinese for trying to stop our own government’s genocide against the people of Vietnam and contributing to the Vietnamese victory as we tried to stop U.S. genocide against Indigenous and Black people inside the U.S. borders as well.

Today, a new generation of organizers and those searching for revolutionary answers, especially those leading heroic struggles in Black, Latino, and Indigenous communities in the U.S. can advance their work by challenging the anti-communist lies of the system, studying the great revolutionary achievements of the Russian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Cuban, and African revolutions, and in particular on the 100th Anniversary of the Russian Revolution, study Soviet history from the perspective of its friends and delve into the great work of pro-communist Pan African leaders Harry Haywood, Paul Robeson and W.E.B. DuBois. Our only hope is to situate ourselves in the long continuum of revolutionary experiments with a sense of deep appreciation and the most profound opposition to the crimes of the U.S. government throughout its history that continue today I ask you to go on a journey with me to appreciate,

celebrate, analyze, and learn from the key achievements of the Russian Revolution and to see the errors and abuses of that and other revolutions in the larger frame of our own government’s role as the World Center of Counter-revolution that has worked to attack, infiltrate, suppress, sabotage, assassinate, invade, and if possible overthrow every successful revolutionary movement and revolution in the world State and Revolution The Russian revolution was the first revolution that seized state power, built its own military and police, beat back the capitalists, and was able to sustain its own revolutionary advances against the most reactionary and brutal attacks to overthrow it. It was a “workers state” that was born in the caldron of a world dominated by U.S. and European imperialism— a world capitalist system that was exercising a brutal world colonial dictatorship over the peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America and Black, Indigenous, and other colonial peoples inside its borders. The Russian revolution came out of the womb needing to defend its very existence from a world imperialist system that carried out counter-revolutionary infanticide as a central tenet of its strategy and existence.

Imagine that in August 1917, while V.I. Lenin was hiding in exile, he wrote State and Revolution, arguing that Russian communists had to understand that a revolution involved a forcible seizure of power.

Miraculously, only 2 months later the Bolsheviks did just that. Lenin argued that if capitalism ruled through armed force than the only revolutionary possibility was the armed overthrow of the capitalist state. “if the state is the product of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms, if it is a power standing above society and “alienating itself more and more from it”, it is clear that the liberation of the oppressed class is impossible not only without a violent revolution, but also without the destruction of the apparatus of state power which was created by the ruling class and which is the embodiment of this “alienation” State and revolution and the successful Russian revolution spoke to the direct experience of oppressed people all over the world–even if European socialists, their consciousness already clouded by the super-profits of empire, disagreed.

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* In 1492, there were more than 100 million Indigenous peoples in the Americas. They had built complex and advanced societies that had their own conflicts and wars among them but none based on barbarism and genocide—a unique byproduct of Christian European feudal capitalism. The invasion of the Spanish and Portuguese with horses, steel weapons, and even bacteria as weapons of war wiped out entire indigenous societies in decades and in a century reduced the Indigenous population by 90 percent. The Indigenous peoples fought back as warriors but could not defeat the armed states of Spain, Portugal, England, France, and later the United States. I point readers to An Indigenous People’s History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz. * In 1796 armed African slaves in Haiti led by Toussaint L’ Ouverture miraculously overthrew French rule in Haiti. This was met by the most vicious armed counterrevolution by the French in which L’Ouverture was captured and brought to France where he died in prison. The French imposed the most brutal reparations on the Haitians to pay them back for their loss of human property— reparations that they are collecting to this day as the U.S. dominates Haiti militarily and the people live under subjugation and poverty. See Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution by C.L.R. James * In 1863, after President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation more than 400,000 Black slaves fled the plantations and joined the Union army where many of them were armed and played the critical role in the defeat of the Confederacy. From 1865 to 1877, a broad united front of radical Republicans, anti-monopoly progressive capitalists, Black freed slaves becoming free peasants, workers, and professionals, and white workers, enforced by Northern troops—state power— imposed what W.E.B. DuBois also called “the dictatorship of the proletariat” over the defeated Southern planters and racists. By 1877 the Republicans, representing northern monopoly capital, agreed to turn the South back to the reactionary Slaveocracy and what followed was a true genocide and re-enslavement of 5 million Blacks. DuBois’ Black reconstruction in

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America is one of the greatest analyses of the challenges of Black revolutionary strategy and the inherent relationship between Black liberation and antiimperialism as well as the reactionary nature of white corporate capitalism itself. * In 1871, the French proletariat rose up in a great revolution, the Paris Commune. Karl Marx called that 30 day rebellion the first reflection of “the dictatorship of the proletariat” meaning that for once the working class armed itself to protect itself against the bourgeois or capitalist dictatorship. The Commune was met with brutal retaliation by the French monarchy and bourgeoisie–with more than 20,000 communards murdered in the counter-revolution.

So, since long before 1492 oppressed people have understood that unless there was an armed force to overthrow the armed forces of the oppressors there was no hope. Thus, when in October 1917 the Bolsheviks successfully seized state power, created their own armed forces, suppressed the armed forces of the occupying powers and reactionary forces in a bloody civil war, the Soviet Union’s successful seizure of maintenance of state power was seen all over the world as a great historical victory–the first time in modern history that the masses of oppressed people had successfully managed to not just overthrow the power of their oppressors but create military structure to protect and maintain a new society.

In that context, the Soviet victory raised the straetegic question of control of the army and police for every social movement in the world and was the first revolution that was not immediately overthrown by capitalist powers. This was one reason the United States and the European capitalist and colonial powers sought the overthrow of the Soviet Union from the day it came to power and oppressed people all over the world felt inspiration from its victory. Throughout this essay I will document the consistent, relentless, and ruthless efforts by the U.S. government to overthrow the Russian revolution until yes —from 1917 to 1989—and the anti-imperialist imperative of decent people in the U.S. to stand up to our government’s role as the World’s Center of Counterrevolution.

The Soviet Union successfully defended its revolution from a brutal world invasion of imperialist countries that included the British, U.S., and Canadians, Indian colonial recruits sent by England, Scots, and 70,000 Japanese troops. It also had to defeat a right-wing assault inside Russia, appropriately called “The Whites!” in a civil war instigated by the world imperialist powers. The Russian Revolution came to power in blood and war instigated against it by the

The Soviet Union was built on military force against military force. Let the record show that the United States, England, Japan, and every other capitalist state � tried to overthrow the Russian revolution and had they succeeded they would have re-established a bloody puppet government as they have all over the world. The October Revolution, led by workers, peasants, and a political party that had never governed and had been underground for a decade, took on the entire world capitalist system—and won!

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