The Lebanese Shia are Not Ready for War

U.S.-Iran Negotiations Nixed While Israel Expands Its Campaign Against Tehran Proxies

A Weekly Political News Magazine

Brexit and Layoff Anguish

A Weekly Political News Magazine

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Issue 1763- August - 30/08/2019

Sudanese Raja Abdul Masih: Coptic Lawyer and Eleventh Member of the Sovereign Council

Issue 1763- August - 30/08/2019

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The Lebanese Shia Are not Ready for War www.majalla.com

Editorial Tensions between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon have been rising.

This week two Israeli drones exploded in Southern Lebanon, leading Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah to launch bold warnings against any future Israeli aggression, stating that the group would shoot down any Israeli drone flying in Lebanese airspace. Both parties are now at the brink of war, and if it’s anything like the one in 2006, then Lebanon will surely face devastating destruction. However, unlike in 2006, Lebanon will probably receive no reconstruction funds from the West or the Gulf since the line that separates the Lebanese government and Hezbollah has grown blurry. This week’s cover story by Hanin Ghaddar focuses on the possibility of an upcoming Hezbollah-Israeli war, and the fact that the group may not be prepared for such a challenge. The writer focuses on the group’s loss of manpower (due to its efforts in Syria) and its loss of funding which has resulted from sanctions on it and Iran. Ghaddar also explores how the Shia community in Lebanon has grown disappointed with the group as it has shifted its focus from resisting Israel to helping protect Iran’s regional interests.

Brexit has taken over headlines in Britain and across Europe, and now that a no-deal scenario seems inevitable many workers on both sides are at risk of getting laid off. One study by the University of Leuven in Belgium has estimated that 1.2 million job losses are likely to occur in the UK and across Europe if the former crashes out without a deal. Yasmine El-Geressi and Ali El Shamy write about this potential mass job termination, as they explore which countries will be hit the hardest, which industries are most at risk and how countries can recover from such a setback.

Boris Johnson dropped a major bombshell this week as he requested the Queen to suspend parliament when it returns from summer break, something she subsequently approved. This leaves parliament with only about a month (nine days in September and three weeks in October) to try to prevent the government from exiting the EU without a deal. Thus far, Johnson is determined to do everything in his power to get the UK out of Europe by any means necessary. Yasmine ElGeressi writes on this latest political landmark, as she explains the legality of Johnson’s seemingly undemocratic move and highlights the historical precedence of such an action. Furthermore, she lists what opposition MPs can do to curtail Johnson's decision as a motion of no-confidence seems to be the measure they will have to resort to.

We invite you to read these articles and more on our website eng. majalla.com. As always, we welcome and value our reader’s feedback and we invite you to take the opportunity to leave your comments on our website.

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A Weekly Political News Magazine

22 Parliament Prorogued

Issue 1763- August - 30/08/2019

Diplomacy Can’t Solve All of

34 Afghanistan’s Problems

24 Ireland’s Rocky Road to Unity

28 Tiananmen in Hong Kong

36 History Repeats Itself in Zimbabwe

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Long-term Use of E-cigarettes May Increase Risk of Emphysema, Study Shows 3

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Escape Venice’s Tourist Crush with

50 a Trip to Vicenza, Home of Great

Renaissance Architect Andrea Palladio

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Rohingya refugees attend a ceremony organized to remember the second anniversary of the Rohingya crisis on August 2019 ,25 in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. Myanmar's military crackdown on the ethnic Muslim minority forced over 700,000 to flee to Bangladesh from violence and torture. Some 200,000 Rohingya rallied in a Bangladesh refugee camp on August 25 to mark two years since they fled Myanmar. (Getty)

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Tourists ride camels at Mingsha Mountain and Crescent Lake scenic area August ,20 2019 in Dunhuang, Gansu Province of China. (Getty)

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eekly news Israeli border. Israel said the drones were unharmed.

The rare incident took place after President Michel Aoun said on Monday that Lebanon had a right to defend itself after two drones the Lebanese army said were Israeli crashed on Sunday in the Hezbollah-dominated southern suburbs of Beirut.

Israel has not claimed responsibility for the two drones that crashed. One of them exploded, causing some damage to Hezbollah’s media centre in the district, but nobody was hurt.

Israel Accuses Iran of Pushing Hezbollah Missile Plants in Lebanon

Johnson to Suspend Parliament before Brexit, Opposition Denounces ‘Coup’

Prime Minister Boris Johnson will suspend Britain’s parliament for more than a month before Brexit, enraging opponents and raising the stakes in the country’s most serious political crisis in decades.

Cheered on by U.S President Donald Trump, Johnson launched his boldest move yet to take the country out of the European Union by Oct. 31 with or without a divorce deal, by setting a new date for a state opening of parliament. The move, which had to be approved by Queen Elizabeth, limits the time opponents have to derail a disorderly Brexit, but also increases the chance that Johnson could face a vote of no-confidence in his government, and possibly an election. In a sign that Johnson’s move had marked

a significant escalation in the long-running dispute, a group of cross-party lawmakers sought a legal injunction and the speaker of parliament said the nation’s democratic process was at risk.

Two Israeli Drones Crash in Lebanon, Hezbollah Says Will Hit Back

Hezbollah said it would respond with a “surprise” strike against Israel after drones crashed in Lebanon at the weekend but it also said a new full-out war between the longtime adversaries remains unlikely.

Adding to the growing tension between Israel and Iran-backed groups in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, the Lebanese army on Wednesday opened fire at two Israeli drones breaching Lebanese airspace near the

Israel accused Iran on Thursday of stepping up efforts to provide the Hezbollah militia with precision-guided missile production facilities, a warning to Beirut that Israeli counter-strikes could escalate. “Dir balak,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in public remarks directed at Lebanon, using the Arabic for “watch out.” Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, an Israeli military spokesman, said that in recent months Iran had increased the pace of the project such that it was “faster in terms of buildings, facilities, locations, conversion and manufacturing facilities, and it means more people, operatives involved in doing so.” There was no immediate response from Tehran, Israel’s archfoe, whose nuclear program and regional activities have been a focus of redoubled US pressure under President Donald Trump — with knock-on tensions in the Gulf.

US to Keep 8,600 Troops in Afghanistan After Deal with Taliban

President Donald Trump said on Thursday that U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan were being reduced to 8,600 but that American forces would remain in the

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& Johnson to pay 572.1$ million to the state for its part in fueling an opioid epidemic by deceptively marketing addictive painkillers, a sum that was substantially less than investors had expected, driving up J&J’s shares. The state’s attorney general had filed the lawsuit, seeking 17$ billion to address the impact of the drug crisis on Oklahoma. It had been considered a bellwether for other litigation nationwide over the opioid epidemic. “The expectation was this was going to be a 1.5$ billion country even if Washington reaches an agreement with the Taliban to end the -18year war. Some 14,000 U.S. service members are currently in Afghanistan, among whom about 5,000 are dedicated to counterinsurgency operations. The Taliban said on Wednesday it was close to a “final agreement” with U.S. officials on a deal that would see U.S. forces withdraw from Afghanistan in exchange for a pledge that the country would not become a haven for other Islamist militant groups. Both U.S. and Taliban negotiators have reported progress in their talks in recent weeks, raising the prospect of an end to the conflict. Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. special representative for peace in Afghanistan, was due to travel from Doha to Kabul this week for a meeting with Afghan leaders.

Brazil would accept the G7 offer amid growing international concern. Personal relations between French President Emmanuel Macron and Bolsonaro, already strained by the crisis in the Amazon, deteriorated even further after Brazil’s leader mocked Macron’s wife on Facebook. Many of the fires sweeping through the Amazon are thought to have been started deliberately in Brazil, with environmentalists blaming speculators who burn vegetation to clear it in hopes of selling the land to farmers and ranchers. to 2$ billion fine,” said Jared Holz, healthcare strategist for Jefferies & Co. “572$ million is a much lower number than had been feared.” Opioids were involved in almost 400,000 overdose deaths from 1999 to 2017, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Since 2000, some 6,000 Oklahomans have died from opioid overdoses, according to the state’s lawyers.

G7 Offers Emergency Aid to Fight Amazon Forest Fires

Leaders of the Group of Seven wealthy nations on Monday offered 20$ million of emergency aid to help battle wildfires in the Amazon rainforest, a gesture Brazil slammed as colonialist. Despite record wildfires in the Amazon and President Jair Bolsonaro previously saying his government lacked the money to fight the blazes, it was not clear if

Johnson & Johnson Liable for 571$ million in Oklahoma Opioid Epidemic Trial

An Oklahoma judge on Monday ordered Johnson

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China Rotates New Batch of Troops into Hong Kong

China’s military has rotated a new batch of troops into Hong Kong describing the move as routine, state media said on Thursday, as protests against Beijing continue to rock the Asian financial hub. Asian and Western diplomats in Hong Kong watching the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) movements had been expecting a routine rotation about this time and will be looking closely for any sign of increased numbers or unusual activity. Xinhua showed pictures of armored personnel carriers and trucks carrying troops at the border, though it was unclear from the caption if they were passing into or out of Hong Kong. Hong Kong has been engulfed in angry and sometimes violent protests against the government for three months, sparked by a now-suspended extradition bill and concerns that Beijing was trying to bring the territory under greater mainland control.

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The Lebanese Shia Are not Ready for War Despite Hassan Nasrallah’s Fiery Rhetoric, Hezbollah’s Response will be Very Limited 10

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Convinced that Hezbollah has strong control over Lebanon's state institutions, Israel’s potential wider attack on Hezbollah might also target Lebanon's infrastructure, institutions and army, while the group is still expanding its facilities in Lebanon.

A Hezbollah fighter stands in front of anti-tank artillery at Juroud Arsal, the Syria-Lebanon border.

(Reuters)

by Hanin Ghaddar The possibility for a Hezbollah-Israel war has grown immensely after two Israeli drones exploded in Lebanon’s southern suburbs – Hezbollah’s stronghold – earlier this month. As tension builds up on both sides of the Lebanese-Israeli borders, Lebanese people, mainly the Shia community, anticipate Hezbollah’s next move with fear and concern.

Hezbollah’s official statements and media said that the first drone fell on a building housing the group’s media office in the Moawwad neighbourhood in Dahiyeh. The second drone exploded in the air and crashed in an empty plot nearby, shattering windows in surrounding buildings. According to Hezbollah’s initial investigation, the two drones were both armed with 5.5 kilos of C4 explosives.

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However, The Times reported that the attack targeted crates believed to contain machinery to mix of highgrade propellant for precision guided missiles, and that the strike on an Iranian position in Damascus has prevented an imminent armed drone attack on Israel being planned by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

Israel did not comment on the Lebanon’s drone incident, but it did take responsibility for striking an Iranian position south of the Syrian capital of Damascus, killing two Hezbollah militants and one Iranian planning to attack northern Israel with armed drones.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah promised a firm response to what he said was “the first clear, big, dangerous, breach of the rules of engagement drawn up in 2006” after the end of a devastating conflict between the two sides. “If we keep quiet on this violation, this will lay a dangerous path for Lebanon,” he said, adding that Hezbollah would attempt to down any Israeli drones that violate Lebanese airspace from now on.

WHAT’S AT STAKE? Convinced that Hezbollah has strong control over Lebanon's state institutions, Israel’s potential wider attack on Hezbollah might also target Lebanon's infrastructure, institutions and army, while the group is still expanding its facilities in Lebanon.

There is no doubt that Hezbollah’s build-up of precision weapons presents a serious threat to Israel.

If that threat is not dealt with via diplomatic means, the next war between Israel and Hezbollah may well be inevitable.

For Hezbollah, its priorities in the region have changed, and although the Syrian crisis has not yet

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been resolved, Hezbollah -- and Iran -- continue to achieve gains in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Hezbollah wouldn’t want to risk its regional achievements in a new war with Israel. Although Hezbollah has gained more power in the region, it has cost the party significant losses and sacrifices. Hezbollah has lost many of its high-ranking commanders and trained fighters. As such, they will certainly need time to redeploy and organize themselves before entering a new war.

In addition, Hezbollah knows that funding for reconstruction is not going to flow to Lebanon this time around as was the case post the July war of 2006.

Back then, Lebanon’s government was a majority March 14 government that had good relations with both the West and Saudi Arabia. The international community was very keen at helping Lebanon recover from the war. This time around, the line between the Lebanese government and Hezbollah is very blurry.

The international community will probably refrain from funding any reconstruction in Lebanon that is controlled by a Hezbollah-affiliated government.

Last but not least, right after the 2006 war, Iran sent Hezbollah more US Dollars that it needs, leading to rapid wealth and corruption within Hezbollah ranks. Today, Iran is suffering from a financial crisis because of the US sanctions, which is heavily reflected on Hezbollah’s financial system. Hezbollah is going through a serious financial crisis predicament that lead the party to fire many of its employees and fighters, and also put its social services on hold.

Hezbollah cannot afford to go into a war that it cannot fund.

There is no doubt that Hezbollah’s build-up of precision weapons presents a serious threat to Israel.

If that threat is not dealt with via diplomatic means, the next war between Israel and Hezbollah may well be inevitable.

Therefore, despite Hassan Nasrallah’s fiery rhetoric, Hezbollah’s response is going to be very limited and calculated.

While Israel might be more ready than Hezbollah for this war, Israeli officials also know that a possible war could be costly, given that Hezbollah’s military capabilities have increased and developed, including a few precision missiles that they have already acquired. Hezbollah’s arsenal is estimated to have grown from 33,000 rockets and missiles before 2006 to 150,000. These are more advanced weapons that would cause serious damage to Israel.

Given that Hezbollah now controls more ground in Syria, Israel might find itself fighting two or more fronts in the next war and involved in confrontation with all the Shiite militias in Syria, not just Hezbollah.

Under the command of Iran's Quds Force, Hezbollah

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A picture taken from the southern Lebanese village of Kfar Kila on December 2018 ,9, near the border with Israel shows United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) vehicles patrolling next to the concrete border wall separating the two countries. (Getty)

While Israel might be more ready than Hezbollah for this war, Israeli officials also know that a possible war could be costly, given that Hezbollah’s military capabilities have increased and developed.

Because of Hezbollah’s new regional role and financial crisis, many Shiites have been increasingly critical of the "party of God." The long war in Syria has taken a toll on the Shiite community in particular, which lost many of its young men -- with no "divine victory" in return. In addition, Hezbollah’s budget shifts have led to serious cuts in social services, a sacrifice that has left many poor families struggling.

Hezbollah is now seen as a sectarian militia fighting for Iran's regional agenda. While, some do not mind the sectarian power this new mission is bringing to the community, many Shia dislike the isolation of the community, and the financial and security risks that it faces.

is today leading tens of thousands of Shiite fighters from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen. Hassan Nasrallah had warned that during a future Israeli war against Lebanon would draw thousands of fighters from these militias.

THE SHIA COMMUNITY’S PERSPECTIVE ON WAR Hezbollah has been fighting in Syria since 2012, and has shifted its strategy from “resisting Israel” to “protecting Iran’s regional interests.” This shift has signaled another shift for many Lebanese Shia who on the one hand, are disappointed in Hezbollah’s abandonment of the “resistance,” but on the other hand, feel relieved that they do not have to suffer the consequences of another war.

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During the past thirteen years of relative peace – or mutual deterrence – between Israel and Lebanon, many Shia have started to think about the future, and have invested in their towns and villages in the south of Lebanon. The place is now booming with small businesses, restaurants and hotels, something that the south of Lebanon has not witnessed for decades.

This means that the Shia community has developed a business mentality, and this mentality is usually against war.

In any case, Hezbollah is doomed. If they respond and Israel decides to strike back with a wider attack, Hezbollah will have to face internal challenges within its constituency, financial challenges, and significant military losses. If they do not respond, Hezbollah’s credibility and respect – mainly Nasrallah’s – will be lost.

Even if the response will be limited, there’s no telling how this will escalate, and whether Israel will take this as an invitation to go after Hezbollah’s precision missile facilities, which are all over Lebanon. * Hanin Ghaddar is the Friedmann Visiting Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

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U.S.-Iran Negotiations Nixed While Israel Expands Its Campaign Against Tehran Proxies Both Trump and Zarif Declare that Bilateral Talks are Still Premature 14

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by Joseph Braude While President Trump delivered a rebuke to voices calling for immediate negotiations with Iran, labeling such moves premature, Iranian officials disavowed any intention of seeking talks with the U.S., indicating tensions are likely to persist for some time. Elsewhere in the region, Israeli forces have opened a new front against Iran’s regional assets by launching a series of attacks on Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias in Iraq.

IRANIAN OFFICIALS MOVE TO SAVE FACE AFTER TRUMP DISMISSED NEW TALKS On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump declared it was "too early" to meet with Tehran's top diplomat, who made a surprise weekend visit to the G7 summit.

"It's too soon to meet, I didn't want to," Trump told reporters at the summit. Trump insisted he had advance knowledge of Zarif’s travel plans — stating, “I knew he was coming” — and also that he tacitly blessed French President Macron’s plans to engage Zarif: "I knew everything he [Macron] was doing and I approved everything he was doing.”

Iranian President Rouhani was quick to respond, saying on a televised speech in Tehran on August 27 that "the step is to retreat from sanctions. You must retreat from all illegal, unjust and wrong sanctions against the nation of Iran." Rouhani further stressed that "without taking this step, the deadlock will not be unlocked.”

The air-plane which carried Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif stands on the tarmac at the airport of the French seaside resort of Biarritz, south-west France, during the G7 summit in Biarritz, on August 2019 ,25, on the second day of the annual summit.

(Getty)

For his part, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif sounded a dour note following his brief visit to the G7-.

He indicated that American-Iranian dialogue was effectively impossible at present, and even a full American return to the JCPOA would not enable bilateral talks: “I said in Biarritz that a meeting between the Iranian president and Trump is not imaginable until the U.S. returns to 1+5 and discharges [its commitments] under the JCPOA, and even then, there would be no bilateral talks.”

ISRAEL WIDENS CAMPAIGN AGAINST IRANIAN ASSETS Related developments elsewhere in the region reflect the intensification of Israel’s campaign to

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On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump declared it was "too early" to meet with Zarif, who made a surprise weekend visit to the G7 summit. contain Iranian paramilitary expansionist capacities.

Beginning on July 19, reports of airstrikes targeting Iranian-affiliated Iraqi Shi’ite militias began to appear. Since then, there have been three additional airstrikes on weapons depots allegedly involved in transferring weapons into Syria as well as military bases of militias aligned with the IRGC. No nation or organization has declared itself responsible for these acts. However, following the most recent flareup, two senior American officials, speaking to the New York Times, confirmed claims that Israel waged the strikes on munitions storehouses for Iranian-backed groups in Iraq. Kata’ib Hezbollah has also accused Israel of targeting the 45th Brigade of the Popular Mobilization Units on August 25th.

For his part, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has not claimed responsibility for the strikes, but hinted broadly that Israel is their author.

On August 24, Netanyahu tweeted, “In a major operational effort, we have thwarted an attack against Israel by the Iranian Quds Force & Shi'ite militias. I reiterate: Iran has no immunity anywhere. Our forces operate in every sector against the Iranian aggression. ‘If someone rises up to kill you, kill him first.’”

Several days earlier, Netanyahu also hinted that Israeli forces would soon widen their campaign against Iranian assets in the region. In an interview with Israel’s Channel 9 TV, Netanyahu declared, “Iran has no immunity, anywhere. The Iranians continue to threaten Israel with annihilation and are building military bases across the Middle East intended to carry out that goal. … we will act — and currently are acting — against them, wherever it is necessary.”

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Brexit and Layoff Anguish How Brexit Will Cause Job Losses in Both Britain and the EU 16

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The Bank of England, together with most economic forecasters, believes that a no-deal Brexit will leave Britain worse off.

It predicts that the pound would fall, pushing up the cost of imports with this feeding through to higher shop prices. prepares the country to leave the bloc without a deal on October 31. Even Somerset Capital Management, a firm co-founded by Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg, has warned that the UK›s departure from the EU could cause «considerable uncertainty».

Many companies have issued similar warnings.

A new FT-ICSA survey of confidence of listed businesses found that the majority of British boards expect the UK economy to deteriorate over the next 12 months and that two-thirds of FTSE 250 company secretaries expect the UK economy to decline, with almost 60 percent saying their companies would be damaged by any form of Brexit. A survey earlier this year of more than 2,000 firms by the employment agency ManpowerGroup, which the Bank of England and the government use as an early warning indicator, found that a growing number of companies were preparing to cut jobs across the country. The poll of nine different industry sectors found that companies in finance and business services, which account for nearly a fifth of British workers, were among those preparing to make redundancies.

A worker fits seats into a Seat Tarraco on a production line at German car manufacturing giant Volkswagen›s headquarters in Wolfsburg, northern Germany, on March ,1 2019. (Getty)

by Yasmine El-Geressi and Ali El Shamy Brexit uncertainty hangs like a cloud over Britain’s workforce and has brought us nightmarish new headlines from the business world on almost weekly bases. Britain’s decision to leave the bloc has weighed heavily on confidence in business boardrooms, with the threat of a no-deal exit from the EU looking increasingly likely as Prime Minister Boris Johnson

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Some of the country’s biggest businesses have already announced plans to cut job or beef up their European operations with many putting provisions in place as they await an outcome on negotiations ahead of the October 31 deadline. Airbus’ announcement this year that it is weighing up its future in the UK has sent shockwaves across the political spectrum. Chief executive Tom Enders warned in January that the firm which employs 14,000 people in Britain, warned in January that the firm could be forced to start shutting down UK plants and attacked the government for prevailing the state of chaos. Britain’s second-largest insurer announced in February it will move 7.8£bn

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worth of assets to Ireland as it prepares for Brexit.

The US lender is spending 400$m to move staff out of London, with Paris its preferred new European headquarters. Barclays bank moved 166$bn of its clients’ assets to the Irish capital, stating that it could not wait any longer to implement Brexit contingency plans. British Steel announced 400 job cuts in September 2018 blaming the weakening of the pound and the euro which has made the raw materials it uses – all traded in US dollars – more expensive.

In May 2019 the company said it risked going into administration, putting more than 4,000 jobs on the line. In June 2019, Ford announced that it will be closing one of its UK plants in Bridgend in 2020. This came on the back of Honda’s decision to bail out of the UK, leading to the loss of 3,500 jobs. BMW has previously warned that a no-deal scenario might force it to stop making the Mini at its Cowley plant near Oxford, putting more than 4,500 jobs and more than 100 years of car making at the site at risk. And earlier this month the boss of BMW urged Boris Johnson to respond to calls from business to find a compromise on Brexit. Japanese electronics’ manufacturer Panasonic announced that it will be moving its European HQ from the UK to The Netherlands, in a move designed to limit tax issues linked to Brexit. Sony is another Japanese tech company that has stated its intention to move its European headquarters from the UK to the Netherlands, in a bid to avoid disruptions caused

by Brexit.

Earlier last year, France’s finance minister Bruno Le Maire said that he expected Paris to overtake London as a financial business hub since many businesses are seeking to move out of London amid the uncertainty from Brexit.

NO-DEAL COULD DESTROY ‹MANY THOUSANDS› OF JOBS Despite years of negotiations, the prospect of a nodeal Brexit remains a real possibility after Boris Johnson this week proposed suspending the UK parliament for at least a month to curtail efforts by MPs to prevent a no-deal Brexit on October 31.

Chief no-deal planner Michael Gove has admitted the government is “working on the assumption” that will be the outcome. Business Secretary Greg Clark has warned that a no-deal Brexit will destroy thousands of jobs. “It’s evident that if you have the disruption that comes from a no-deal Brexit there will be people that will lose their jobs. It’s many thousands of jobs.

Everyone knows that.”

Asked about claims the UK could weather a no-deal exit on World Trade Organization terms, Clark said: “I think every person that considers the evidence that companies have given – whether it’s in the automotive sector, whether it’s in the food sector, whether it’s in aerospace, in industries up and down the country – you know if you become less efficient and your ability to trade is impeded, then of course losing your competitiveness means there will be jobs lost.”

Ireland’s Finance Minister says that the country faces

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French Finance and Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire delivers a speech during the opening of the French Employers› association (Medef) «Rencontre Des Entrepreneurs» summer meeting at the Longchamp horse racetrack in Paris, on August 2019 ,28. (Getty)

85,000 potential job losses and a sharp economic slowdown if the UK crashes out of the EU in October.

Paschal Donohoe said 50,000 to 55,000 jobs could be lost within two years of the UK leaving without a deal, with another 30,000 at risk in the medium term if there were no resolution to political chaos in Westminster over Britain’s departure from the bloc.

The Central Bank forecasts 100,000 fewer jobs over the next ten years as a result of a disorderly Brexit.

The Bank of England, together with most economic forecasters, believes that a no-deal Brexit will leave Britain worse off. It predicts that the pound would fall, pushing up the cost of imports with this feeding through to higher shop prices. It also sees house prices falling by %30, inflation spiraling to %6.5, the pound plummeting to near-parity with the dollar, 100,000 people emigrating and unemployment nearly doubling.

BREXIT IMPACT ON THE REST OF THE EU While the UK will feel the largest impact of no-deal, it would be fallacious to say that the rest of the EU-

27 won’t feel any aftershocks whatsoever. After all, up to this point, the EU has been the UK’s largest trading partner; in 2018 UK’s imports from the bloc accounted for 345£ billion, so if the UK were to crash out without a trade deal then many of the EU27- could face major losses from their gross domestic income.

While studies and reports have been conducted on the immediate impacts a no-deal would have on Britain and its economy, the possible outcomes on the wider EU economy have been largely glossed over. A recent academic study from the University of Leuven, Belgium, anticipates 525,000 UK job losses if the UK crashes out of the EU without a deal, meanwhile, 1.2 million jobs would be lost across the rest of the EU27-. Given this possible scenario, it should not come as a surprise that the EU and its member states have been trying to salvage a deal with the United Kingdom, particularly one that can stall Britain’s exit from the customs union until a more both parties negotiate another trade deal, rather than resorting to more cumbersome World Trade Organization (WTO) customs laws. A no-deal Brexit will be devastating, not just for British businesses and employees, but for business around the continent as a whole.

A view of Barclays Bank Headquarters in Canary Wharf: Barclays has announced plans to move 190bn (166£bn) of assets to Dublin because due to Brexit and is unable to wait for a Brexit contingency plan which involves 5,000 clients. (Getty)

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GERMAN AUTOMATION ON A COLLISION COURSE With the exception of Britain, Germany would be the worst affected country from a no-deal Brexit.

According to the Leuven University report, 290,000 German residents could potentially lose their jobs if Britain crashes out without a deal. The same study indicates, that a soft Brexit (which the authors assume would mean Britain remains in the customs union and EU single market), would only result in 70,000 job losses in Germany.

Germany is by far the UK’s largest trade partner in the EU, as the former exported 75 billion pounds worth of goods to the latter in 2016. Since the German economy is largely based on manufacturing, losing seamless trade with a large export market like Britain is a cause for concern in Berlin. A no-deal Brexit will also have bleak effects on Germany’s famed automobile industry since the UK serves as the largest export destination for German cars, in 2016 Germany exported 800,000 cars to Britain which essentially accounted for 20 percent of its global car exports. A study conducted by the Halle Institute for Economic Research indicated that there are 15,000 employees in the German car industry who directly or indirectly for exports to the UK, that roughly accounts for 0.9 percent of the industry’s workforce. As such,

A no-deal Brexit will also have bleak effects on Germany’s famed automobile industry since the UK serves as the largest export destination for German cars, in 2016 Germany exported 800,000 cars to Britain which essentially accounted for 20 percent of its global car exports.

a hard Brexit could result in almost one percent of employees to be made redundant. Trade between the UK and other EU countries would likely be based on World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, which means that the UK would have to pay 10 percent tariffs on German cars. Moreover, major automobile districts such as Wolfsburg (where Volkswagen headquarters is located) and Dingolfing (which has a large BMW plant), will face financial setbacks from a no-deal.

FRANCE SEES A SILVER LINING France would be the second-worst affected country in terms of total job losses, as 140,000 French residents are projected to be laid off in the event of a no-deal while only 35,000 people lose their jobs if a deal is put in place. Again if the free trade between the UK and EU member states stopped, then WTO rules would be applied after October 31. France is the UK’s fourth-biggest trade partner, and top Britain’s top imports from France include vehicles, car parts, planes, wine, and medicines.

Earlier last year, France’s finance minister Bruno Le Maire said that he expected Paris to overtake London as a major financial hub since many businesses are seeking to move out of London amid the uncertainty from Brexit. As such, he announced that several thousand jobs would likely be relocated to France. He did note that the shift would happen gradually rather than abruptly, and prospects of businesses moving did seem less likely when the prospect of a no-deal was more dubious early last year. However, as no-deal now appears to be certain, then Paris and Frankfurt, Germany might gain some of the lucrative businesses that are based in London.

SMALLER POPULATIONS TAKE BIGGER HIT Because of their large populations, Germany and France would face the most job losses. But, according to the Leuven University study, a no-deal Brexit would have a greater impact on smaller EU countries, as the job losses on their smaller workforces can potentially lead to worse economic outcomes for them. As such, EU member states like Ireland, Malta, the Netherlands, and Belgium would face greater GDP declines. In the event of a no-deal, Ireland would

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69,000 290,000 Germany

31,000 31,000 140,000

10,000 42,000 Belgium

UK

35,000 35,000 141,000

16,000 70,000

Republic of Ireland

Netherlands

140,000

11,000 50,000

19,000 73,000

527,000

Projected Job Losses Soft Brexit vs Hard Brexit

France

Spain

Italy Soft Brexit

Hard Brexit Source: University of Leuven

shed 50,330 jobs - more than %2.5 of its workforce and losing 9£bn of value from its economy, this would translate to a GDP loss of 5.74 percent. In contrast, under a soft Brexit job cuts across the Ireland would be significantly lower at around 11,000. Meanwhile, a hard Brexit would cause 1.2 percent of Malta’s workforce would lose their jobs (4.86 percent GDP loss) and 0.8 percent of Belgium’s workforce would face layoffs (2.35 percent GDP loss). Meanwhile, Germany and France would technically face more job losses, but in terms of their sizes, they would only face a GDP loss of just 1.76 percent and 1.25 percent, respectively.

It is evident, that a no-deal Brexit will have massive short

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term impacts on the economies of the UK and the EU27, however, if the EU reshuffles its budgeting policies and more businesses relocate to new headquarters, then the bloc would probably recover on the long term. It’s difficult to have the same optimism with the UK, as it stands Johnson has decided to shut down parliament mid-September just to make it difficult for opposition forces to prevent a no-deal. If no new deal is negotiated

by October 31, then the UK will be on worse terms with the bloc and it is unknown how both parties will go from there. But one thing is for certain, the UK will face the most traumas on the short term and quite possibly the long term.

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Parliament Prorogued How Can the UK avoid Crashing Out of the EU? Yasmine El-Geressi On August 28, the Queen approved Boris Johnson’s request to “prorogue,” or suspend, parliament just days after it returns from summer recess next week, leaving MPs with just the

time between 2 September to the 11, and from 14 October to 31 October, to legislate to prevent a no-deal Brexit. MPs and campaigners across the political spectrum have reacted with outrage over the prime minister’s prorogation plans. A cross-party group of MPs have vowed to try everything in

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their power to avert the PM’s plans.

Conservative MP and People’s Vote advocate Dominic Grieve called the move “an outrageous act”, and warned it could lead to a vote of no confidence in Johnson, saying: “This government will come down.”

And Anna Soubry, leader of the Independent Group for Change party, said in a tweet that it was “outrageous that Parliament will be shut down at a moment of crisis as we face crashing out of the EU with no deal & for which there is no mandate.

“Our democracy is under threat from a ruthless PM elected by less than 100K Con members.”

Anti-Brexit activists have been gathering in across the UK over the move, while more than 1.4million people and counting as of Thursday have signed a petition urging Johnson to do a U-turn.

But the prime minister defended the decision, saying it is “completely untrue” that suspending Parliament is undemocratic.

IS THERE A PRECEDENT FOR THIS?

Pro-Brexit demonstrators hold Union Jack flags as they protest outside the Houses of Parliament on November 2016 ,23 in London, England.

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According to the BBC, the last two times that parliamentary suspensions happened when it was not after a general election, they lasted for four days. At almost five weeks, Johnson’s prorogation of parliament will be the longest in more than 40 years. Theresa May’s former legislative advisor wrote in the Daily Telegraph that, in 1948, a special short parliamentary session of 10 days was introduced to speed up the passage of the 1949 Parliament Act. She says: “This is not to be done lightly, but there is historical precedent. In 1948 a new Parliament Bill to reduce the power of the Lords was being blocked by peers, but powers… which would allow the government to override the Lords could only be used if there had been a delay over three ‘sessions’. A special short session of 10 days was therefore arranged.”

Suspension also happened in 1628 under Charles 1, who ruled the country as an executive monarch before Oliver Cromwell did the same, and it also happened during the Great Reform Crisis in 1831 and under John Major in 1997.

IS A NO-DEAL THE ONLY DEAL? After months of threats and bluffs to cancel parliament so Johnson can force through no-deal, it looks like the plan is finally revealed. Everything that Johnson has done so far since becoming PM has been to one end – achieving Brexit on October 31 – “do or die.” Experts have been warning that the scenario would have major implications, because the UK's membership in the European Union touches on almost every aspect of the country's economy.

The government is not acting unconstitutionally. A large part of the power of the executive is its control of parliamentary time, including the ability to choose the timing of a Queen’s

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The government is not acting unconstitutionally. Johnson is using his legitimate power to make life more difficult for those who oppose its policy.

Speech. Johnson is using his legitimate power to make life more difficult for those who oppose its policy.

Although the new timetable leaves parliament a vanishingly small window to properly scrutinise the government or stop no-deal, MPs have not lost the ability to respond and they still have time to block the government. And in an extreme, nuclear option, that could force them to fall back on Plan B -- a vote of no-confidence in the government in late October. Shadow chancellor John McDonnell confirmed a no-confidence motion was “on the table” as an option. The problem is, for that to succeed, they need Conservative MPs to vote against their own party, which was always thought to be a tall order. And if no-one else can win a confidence vote in the House of Commons – and there’s no sign that anyone else could – legislation provides for the sitting PM to call a new election on the date of his choice.

Gina Miller, the activist who famously defeated Theresa May’s government in the courts in 2016 over the thenprime minister’s decision to trigger Article 50 without MPs’ consent, is back in the limelight in a bid to stop what she dubbed an “anti-democratic” move, has asked judges to hear her lawyers’ case before September 9 – the earliest date the Prime Minister could suspend sittings. The pro-EU campaigner said: “This is a brazen attempt, of truly historical magnitude, to prevent the executive being held accountable for its conduct before Parliament.”

Labour and opposition parties confirmed on Thursday they will go ahead with attempts to block a no-deal Brexit on October 31 using legislation. The plan was agreed earlier this week in an hour-long meeting between Jeremy Corbyn and the Lib Dems, SNP, Change UK, Plaid Cymru and Greens - a day before Johnson took his bombshell move.

But they now face a race against time to push complex laws through the House of Commons and Lords in just six or seven parliament sitting days before September 12 and the government could use clever mechanisms, including several set piece debates, to prevent anti No Deal MPs debating their own legislation. MPs will begin with an emergency debate on Tuesday, the first day back, followed by full-blown legislation in a bid to block no-deal.

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Ireland’s Rocky Road to Unity Can Demographic Shifts Undo a Hundred Years of Separation?

by Daniel Finn In the wake of the Brexit crisis, the idea of a united Ireland has returned to the political agenda. Politicians in both parts of a divided country believe that Irish unity is a credible prospect over the coming years, whether they find that prospect

welcome or deplorable. Sinn FĂŠin, the main nationalist party in Northern Ireland, has called for a post-Brexit referendum on Irish unity, stressing the risk of economic disruption for a region that voted against Brexit by a wide margin. Leading unionist politicians have also warned that a border poll may become unavoidable, although they still hope to carry the day

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In the Irish context, “Protestant” and “Catholic” are much like “Serb” and “Croat” in the Balkans: markers more of ethnonational allegiance than of religious belief. In general, members of the Catholic community identify with the Irish nation, their Protestant counterparts with the British.

THE LONG MARCH In the Irish context, “Protestant” and “Catholic” are much like “Serb” and “Croat” in the Balkans: markers more of ethnonational allegiance than of religious belief. In general, members of the Catholic community identify with the Irish nation, their Protestant counterparts with the British. With national identity so closely linked to communal heritage, the pace of change tends to be gradual, if not glacial. It has taken decades to reach the point where a future referendum in favor of Irish unity seems remotely plausible.

Protesters line a road holding placards near a new anti-Brexit mural, erected by Republican party Sinn Fein, in west Belfast, on December ,6 2017 to call for a special status for northern Ireland with respect to Brexit and no hard borders in Ireland.

(Getty)

in the event of a vote.

But if the idea of Northern Ireland joining up with its southern neighbor now seems plausible, that stems from a different factor altogether—long-term demographic change, without which a vote in favor of Irish unity would be impossible to imagine. In 1920, when Northern Ireland was first established, Protestants outnumbered Catholics by an overwhelming margin: 65 to 35 per cent. In the last census, conducted in 2011, the gap had narrowed to just three percentage points: 48 to 45 percent. The Catholic population also has youth on its side, with Catholics outnumbering Protestants among those below the age of 35.

Whatever the outcome of the Brexit process, it is reasonable to expect that sooner or later Northern Ireland will have a Catholic plurality, opening the door to reunification of the whole island.

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Northern Ireland was designed to be impervious to demands for constitutional change. Nearly a century ago, the British partitioned the island as part of a deal granting independence to a new Irish state. At the time, Ulster—the region that makes up the northern part of the island—was the only one of Ireland’s four provinces with a Protestant, unionist majority. As such, it was the only place where British rule could endure in an age of mass democratic politics. Still, the creators of Northern Ireland took no chances: Ulster traditionally had nine counties, but the unionist leaders decided to cast off three counties with large Catholic majorities, locking in a statelet with a seemingly insurmountable Protestant majority.

Those who sought a united Ireland never imagined that change might come from within. Instead, they tried to pressure the British government to act over the heads of Northern Ireland’s unionist majority. That pressure sometimes took the form of diplomatic lobbying, as when the Irish government launched an anti-partition campaign in the late 1940s that was greeted with crushing indifference by the rest of the world. It also took the form of guerrilla warfare, from the Irish Republican Army’s ineffectual Border Campaign of 62–1956 to the group’s much more lethal insurgency that began in 1971 and claimed the lives of more British soldiers than the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq put together.

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When the IRA began that insurgency, the demographic picture had barely changed since the moment of partition: in 1971, Catholics made up barely 37 per cent of the population. Their birth rate was higher than that of the Protestant majority, but Catholic emigration was also more substantial: between 1926 and 1981, Catholics were twice as likely to leave the country as Protestants, slowing down their community’s growth at home.

Emigration rates reflected the contrasting economic prospects that lay before the two communities. Many Catholics were unemployed or performed low-paid work; Protestants had the lion’s share of skilled manufacturing jobs and greater access to professional and managerial positions.

The conflict that came to be known as the Troubles dragged on for the better part of three decades, underpinned by two rival understandings of self-determination. For the British government and the unionist parties, the will of the Northern Irish majority was of paramount importance. Without their agreement, there could be no move toward Irish unity—a position that became known as the consent principle. For the IRA and its political wing, Sinn Féin, Northern Ireland itself was an illegitimate political entity— the product of sectarian gerrymandering—and its unionist majority should be trumped by the nationalist majority across the whole island. The IRA and Sinn Féin scornfully referred to the consent principle as the “unionist veto” and vowed to overturn it. Yet they were never strong enough to impose their idea of self-determination on the other political actors. The consent principle was firmly embedded in the Good Friday Agreement, the landmark treaty that ended the conflict in 1998.

The Good Friday Agreement included a clause mandating a referendum on Irish unity “if at any time it appears likely … that a majority of those voting would express a wish that Northern Ireland should cease to be part of the United Kingdom and form part of a united Ireland.” To some of the agreement’s

In the event of a no-deal Brexit, Northern Ireland will take a much bigger and more immediate hit than the rest of the United Kingdom, because of its reliance on crossborder trade with the south.

unionist critics, this was a dangerous concession. The Catholic population of the North had already begun to creep upward, from just over 41 percent in 1991 to almost 44 percent ten years later. Anti-agreement unionists mocked up a poster of the Titanic, famously launched from Belfast’s shipyards, with the slogan “they said it was safe too.” This was great semiotics but poor demography—or so it seemed. In the first post-Agreement election, unionist parties bested their nationalist rivals by ten percent. Five years later, the same picture emerged. The Catholic population might be growing, but the union with Britain still looked to be secure.

By 2011, the electoral gap had narrowed somewhat. But turnout had dropped precipitously, too, so mapping the results onto a hypothetical referendum on Irish unity was a dubious exercise.

After all, a once-in-a-generation vote on Northern Ireland’s constitutional status was bound to attract far more people to the polling stations than a regular election. Adding to the uncertainty was the substantial portion of votes cast for parties that defined themselves as neither nationalist nor unionist—almost ten percent in 2011.

Nor was it clear that Irish nationalists would decisively vote for reunification if given the chance. In a 2013 survey of Northern Irish voters, 65 percent said they would back the constitutional

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A Republicans holds an Irish Flag as he stands next to a line of police during clashes in the Oldpark area of north Belfast, northern Ireland, on August 2015 ,9, after police stopped an annual anti-internment parade.

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produce a Catholic majority, it still might not translate into a vote against partition.

Brexit has inverted this calculus once again. The terms of the impending separation from the European Union remain uncertain, but nothing since the June 2016 referendum has discouraged the belief that the end result will be messy and disruptive. In the event of a no-deal Brexit, Northern Ireland will take a much bigger and more immediate hit than the rest of the United Kingdom, because of its reliance on cross-border trade with the south. In a region that voted to remain in the EU by a solid majority (56 to 44 percent), that prospect is widely and bitterly resented.

Especially among soft nationalists and soft unionists—those who take a more pragmatic and transactional view of the union with Britain—the shock of a chaotic Brexit could push more voters to embrace Irish unity as a safer option than remaining tethered to the United Kingdom.

DISUNITED KINGDOM?

status quo in a referendum, against just 17 percent who would vote in favor of Irish unity (the rest either wouldn’t vote or didn’t know). Even among Catholics, the picture was far from clear: 38 percent said they would vote to remain part of the United Kingdom while 35 percent said they would support a united Ireland.

That surprising result owed a great deal to the recent economic crisis in the Republic of Ireland. The crash of 2008 hit the southern economy especially hard: its banking and construction sectors collapsed and GDP fell by 8.5 percent in just 12 months.

By the end of 2010, the Irish government was forced to rely on outside financial support from the troika of the European Union, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund.

There had always been pessimistic and optimistic versions of what reunification would mean for the island’s economic prospects. Skeptics pointed out that Northern Ireland relied on a large subsidy from London to cover its public expenditures, which would be a heavier burden for the much smaller Irish state to carry. Optimists argued that an all-Ireland economy would unlock growth potential that partition had stifled. But with the Republic of Ireland mired in such a deep recession, public opinion in Northern Ireland swung toward pessimism even among nationalists. If demographic change did in fact

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Polling on a united Ireland has fluctuated since the Brexit referendum, and there is certainly no guarantee that a plebiscite on the border would deliver the result that nationalist parties crave. One survey in September 2018 gave opponents of Irish unity an advantage of five percent over its supporters. Another, conducted in June 2019, had a much wider gap, with 45 percent opposed to reunification, 32 percent in favor, and 23 percent undecided. But the general trend has been toward greater support for an end to partition. After the 2017 Northern Ireland Assembly election and this year’s European poll, the region now has a well-consolidated non-unionist majority. (This is, to be clear, not the same as a nationalist majority, since it includes parties that remain agnostic on the issue.)

Even the staunchest of unionists acknowledge that Brexit has changed the overall dynamic. Peter Robinson, the former leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), recently warned that it might soon be necessary to defend the status quo: “Too many unionists take the longevity of the Union for granted.”

Robinson counseled his party not to waste its energy opposing reforms sought by nationalists that did not affect the region’s constitutional status. (The DUP’s opposition to a bill that would promote the Irish language, for instance, has become a matter of huge symbolic importance to Sinn Féin and its supporters.)

Above all, he urged unionist politicians to resurrect the powersharing arrangement with their nationalist counterparts that collapsed in early 2017.

Robinson’s advice was sensible, even if his party shows little sign of taking it to heart: demographic change has brought Northern Ireland to the point where a vote in favor of Irish unity seems possible. Politics will determine whether that possibility is realized.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

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Tiananmen in Hong Kong The Alarming Echoes of 1989

by Orville Schell At first, when demonstrators began spilling into city streets, citizens were surprised by their audacity and struck by their idealism, openness, and Êlan as they confronted the might of the Chinese Communist Party. The demonstrators’ demands were limited and answerable, their behavior civil, and their marches orderly. Yet as their numbers grew, they allowed themselves to entertain a heady sense of possibility—a hope that this time they might actually be heard. When they ran into police lines, instead of yielding they defiantly

but peacefully kept going. Government officials and party organs denounced them as unpatriotic fomenters of social turmoil, but they turned the insults into fuel for an expanding movement. Before long, they had occupied the heart of the city.

Weeks passed, and the demonstrators, worried about losing steam, changed tactics, reinventing themselves and winning over additional elements of society and thereby giving their movement new life. Party officials took great umbrage at the affront of hundreds of thousands of insubordinate youths defying them and paralyzing the city center, but because of

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certain important upcoming national occasions, they did not wish to crack down. Yet neither would they negotiate with the young troublemakers. And so the demonstrations continued to grow and become more chaotic.

Such are the outlines of the Tiananmen Square protests that unfolded over seven weeks in 1989—and also of the protests unfolding now in Hong Kong. Thirty years ago, the party’s indignant supreme leader, Deng Xiaoping, ultimately could no longer restrain himself: on June 4, he ordered in troops who massacred protesters. The alarming parallels between then and now make it hard not to worry that Hong Kong could come to a similarly savage conclusion.

THE LONG SHADOW

Protesters throw back tear gas at police in Kwai Fong district on August 2019 ,11 in Hong Kong, China.

(Getty)

In the spring of 1989, I reported in Tiananmen Square for The New York Review of Books. For anyone who was there, Tiananmen now casts a long shadow across the demonstrations in Hong Kong. Those demonstrations started in early June, in opposition to a bill that would have allowed those accused of committing crimes to be deported to the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Many in Hong Kong considered the law a flagrant violation of the “one country, two systems” agreement struck with the United Kingdom in 1997, which guaranteed the former British colony “a high degree of autonomy” and the ability to maintain its own legal system and courts for 50 years. But even after that bill was tabled, ten weeks of escalating protests have transformed the reputation of Hong Kong: once known as a trade entrepôt distinguished by unalloyed commercialism, it has become a poster child for mass political dissent.

In 1989, as the Tiananmen protests began, the Chinese Communist Party leadership was at first relatively quiescent.

But then, on April 26, after the Standing Committee met in Deng’s home, the People’s Daily ran a provocative frontpage editorial denouncing demonstrators as “an extremely small number of people with ulterior purposes” who had organized a “planned conspiracy” designed to “plunge the whole country into chaos” and “negate the leadership of the [Chinese Communist Party] and the socialist system.”

By impugning their motives and patriotism, the official editorial both enraged the protesters and closed the door to any reconciliation while their demands were still minimal.

The next day, a massive new march was launched from the university district to Tiananmen Square, right into the heart of Beijing, giving the movement a new burst of energy.

So it has gone in Hong Kong. When Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive, denounced the initially peaceful movement as a “riot”—possibly at Beijing’s command—her inflammatory rhetoric fueled the protest movement just as Deng’s editorial had. Consequently, on June 22, when she withdrew the extradition bill that had sparked the protests and apologized for her inept handling of the situation (“I now announce that the government has decided to suspend the legislative amendment exercise, restart our communication

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Thirty years ago, China’s leader, Deng Xiaoping, ultimately could no longer restrain himself: on June 4, he ordered in troops to massacre protesters. The alarming parallels between then and now make it hard not to worry that Hong Kong could come to a similarly savage conclusion. with all sectors of society, do more explanation work, and listen to different views of society”), it was too little too late.

By refusing to permanently “withdraw” the bill or to launch an open inquiry into police beatings of protesters, she did not even minimally meet the demands of demonstrators. Instead of relenting, they expanded both their actions and demands, calling on Lam to drop riot charges against protesters, introduce democratic reforms, and step down from office.

On June 17, they succeeded in bringing some two million supporters into the streets, more than a quarter of the city’s population, creating one of the largest public protests in human history. Then, adding insult to injury, they declared a “general strike.”

The students in Tiananmen Square had known that the party would hesitate to act militarily before May 1989 ,15, when Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev was due to arrive in Beijing for a historic summit meeting with Deng. So have the Hong Kong protesters taken comfort from the assumption that Beijing would be hesitant to crack down violently before October 1, when the PRC is scheduled to celebrate its 70th anniversary.

As the initial burst of enthusiasm waned, Hong Kong demonstrators took a leaf from the 1989 playbook, embracing new tactics to keep their movement going. In Tiananmen, demonstrators had launched a dramatic hunger strike; in Hong Kong, instead of trying to continue mass street demonstrations (which opened them to increasingly aggressive police suppression), protesters turned to a strategy of dispersed “flash mob” actions well suited to their leaderless movement. At first, they had focused on the downtown “Central” area of Hong Kong, coordinating their large marches electronically (using apps such as Telegram); now they emphasized their slogan “Be Like Water” and resorted to more Maoist guerrilla-like tactics, decentralizing their street actions and proselytizing via hundreds of so-called Lennon Walls spread out around the city where supporters could display their comments on multicolored Post-it Notes.

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On July 27, with the movement still growing, the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, which answers to China’s cabinet in Beijing, responded. It denounced “evil and criminal acts committed by radical elements” and warned that “should the chaos continue . . . entire Hong Kong will suffer.” The People’s Daily added that Hong Kong police “should not hesitate” or have any “psychological worries about taking necessary steps.” Protesters were reminded that by law Hong Kong authorities have the power to request military support from Beijing for “the maintenance of public order.” But far from intimidating protesters, such warnings served to fuel further protests—just as warnings had in Tiananmen Square.

“BLACK HANDS” In Beijing in 1989, an important turning point came in mid-May. What had been largely a movement of students, intellectuals, and professionals began to draw new societal elements—“ordinary people,” workers, and some so-called rabble, many from the provinces. With these new recruits came larger crowds, but also broader grievances, which could not be remedied with a single governmental concession.

When the Hong Kong protests began, they, too, were composed mostly of idealistic youths with specific demands centered around maintaining Hong Kong’s autonomy. But as they have grown and brought in a wider array of supporters, other issues—such as the housing crisis and dead-end career prospects for many youths—have entered into the movement, along with a new anger, at both police violence and the broader unresponsiveness of officials in Hong Kong and

Just as the Tiananmen protesters did in 1989, the Hong Kong movement has continued changing, seeking to reinvent and reinvigorate itself. With police resistance intensifying, it moved from city streets to symbolic public spaces such as Tsim Sha Tsui Train Station and then Hong Kong International Airport.

Beijing. A familiar vicious cycle has set in: condemnatory official statements have helped the protests attract wider support and also brought a propensity toward more extreme and violent tactics, which in turn have led to even harsher official reactions.

As police clashes have become more frequent in Hong Kong, new slogans have appeared: “Free Hong Kong, Democracy Now”; “Hong Kong Independence”; “Retake Hong Kong, Revolution of Our Times.” Beijing’s leadership, which considers maintaining national unity one of its most sacred charges, has taken these slogans hinting at independence as attacks on Chinese sovereignty. Such affronts have made it difficult for President Xi Jinping, like Deng before him, to consider even communicating with the protesters, much less making concessions to them. Instead, party officials have issued increasingly dark and militant statements. “I want to warn all the criminals to not wrongly judge the situation and take restraint for weakness. . . . A blow from the sword of law is waiting for them in the future,” one official declared earlier this month. The director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office charged that protesters evinced “the clear characteristics of a color revolution,” an ominous reference to popular uprisings in the former Soviet bloc that Beijing officials believe were fomented by the United States. Local officials kept insisting that the protests must end before an investigation into police violence could begin, removing any hope of a peaceful compromise.

Just as the Tiananmen protesters did in 1989, the Hong

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Tianamen Square occupied by students in Beijing, China on May 1989 ,22.

(Getty)

it was foreign manipulation rather than local democratic sentiment that has caused the protests.

TELL ME HOW THIS ENDS

Kong movement has continued changing, seeking to reinvent and reinvigorate itself. With police resistance intensifying, it moved from city streets to symbolic public spaces such as Tsim Sha Tsui Train Station and then Hong Kong International Airport, where massive crowds of demonstrators caused a serious disruption. As encounters with authorities turned more violent, on August 14, a reporter from a party-supported paper, the Global Times, was caught and roughed up by demonstrators, who mistook him for a security agent. Beijing officials accused the protesters of acting “like terrorists.”

As the Hong Kong movement has passed the seven-week mark set in Tiananmen Square and continued to gather momentum, some kind of intervention has come to seem ever more likely. On August 1, the People’s Liberation Army garrison in Hong Kong released a provocative video showing troops undertaking urban riot-control exercises. “We have the determination, confidence, and capability to safeguard China’s sovereignty, security, and development interests, and to safeguard Hong Kong’s long-term prosperity and stability,” a PLA spokesman warned. Video footage of troops mustering at a stadium just across the border in Shenzhen began circulating soon after, creating a sense hauntingly reminiscent of May 1989 ,20, when martial law was declared and word reached the protesters in Tiananmen Square that PLA troops were already bivouacking outside the city.

Then, party officials began charging—as they had during Tiananmen Square—that the unrest in Hong Kong was the work of “black hands” from the United States, suggesting

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As events in Hong Kong have escalated without any plausible scenario for resolution, they have gained a worrisome air of determinism. With the two sides sliding ineluctably toward greater polarization, it becomes ever more difficult to imagine making the requisite concessions without risking an unacceptable loss of face and sacrifice of core principles.

(Since the protest movement is essentially leaderless, it is not clear whom the authorities could negotiate with, even if they wanted to.) And as the movement continues and grows angrier, it becomes more likely to produce precisely the kinds of casus belli that would give Beijing a pretext for intervention. Indeed, as PRC propaganda outlets began warning on August 13, Beijing was seeing “sprouts of terrorism” that must be punished, “without leniency, without mercy.”

The Tiananmen Square demonstrations taught that powerful movements of dissent against the Chinese Communist Party are almost always destined to end in confrontation. Why? Because such challenges are intolerable to a Leninist one-party system that allows no notion of a dissent and whose leaders are perennially worried about displaying weakness. It was just such concerns that deprived Deng of the flexibility he needed—and that many other high officials wanted to exercise—to avoid the violent and humiliating finale that befell China in 1989. With the local government now seemingly paralyzed, unless the demonstrations somehow magically subside very soon on their own, there will come a time when someone somewhere will have to do something in Hong Kong. Xi Jinping has never hesitated to lash out when he feels “the Chinese Motherland” is being spurned, rebuked, or dishonored.

And when it comes to confronting protest movements fueled by democratic idealism, he has few tools to draw on other than outright repression.

“Any violent crackdown would be completely unacceptable,” said U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on August 10. “The world is watching.”

But the world was also watching on June 1989 ,4, over live satellite links when Chinese leaders killed and wounded untold hundreds, even thousands, of protesters in Tiananmen Square. China is, of course, a very different place today, and its leaders are painfully aware of the global costs of a Tiananmen-style military crackdown in Hong Kong. But given the absence of evident alternative approaches to the escalating confrontation, it is not easy to imagine how else it will end.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

Diplomacy Can’t Solve All of Afghanistan’s Problems But Neither Can U.S. Troops the bandstand. The blast killed 80 people and wounded nearly 200 more, mostly from the On the night of August 17, as over 1,000 guests Hazara ethnic group, followers of the Shiite sect danced at a wedding celebration in Dubai of Islam predominant in that neighborhood of City, a hall in Kabul named after the Afghan western Kabul. The groom and bride, who are elite’s favorite weekend getaway, a -23year- both Shiite, miraculously survived. “I will never old interloper detonated his suicide vest by see happiness in my life again,” the groom, a

by Barnett R. Rubin

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US soldiers part of NATO patrol during the final day of a month long anti-Taliban operation by the Afghan National Army (ANA) in various parts of eastern Nangarhar province, at an Afghan National Army base in Khogyani district on August ,30 2015. (Getty)

tailor named Mirwais Elmi, told Afghanistan’s TOLOnews.

This was the worst of the bloody events that have punctuated nine rounds of peace talks between U.S. and Taliban negotiators since July 2018. Ten days earlier, a Taliban suicide attack on a Kabul police station left 14 dead and 145 wounded. On the night of August 11, a joint U.S.-Afghan unit of the Khost Protection Force, a “counterterrorist” unit run by the CIA, captured and summarily executed 11 unarmed male civilians in the Zurmat district of Paktia Province, on Afghanistan’s eastern border with Pakistan. The victims were abducted at night while celebrating the holiday of Eid al-Adha and shot in the head at close range. On July 20 and 22, bombing raids by U.S. and Afghan Air Forces killed 12 civilians, including nomads and farmers in Badghis and Logar Provinces.

In what might have been a cruel parody of the origins of Afghanistan’s violence—but turned out to be an even crueler fact—ISIS based in Iraq and Syria issued a statement in Arabic (a language not spoken in Afghanistan) taking responsibility for the attack on the wedding and claiming it had been carried out by one “Abu Asim al-Pakistani,” whose very name seemed to mock the irrelevance of Afghanistan to its own people’s suffering. ISIS claimed that the wedding guests were “polytheists.” The government claimed that the victims in Zurmat were “Taliban.” The Taliban claimed the police station was a legitimate military target that civilians should stay away from.

The bombings and “counterterrorist” operations by both the U.S. and Afghan governments take place under the “relaxed” rules of engagement set by President Donald Trump and about which he boasted in 2017, “We are not nationbuilding again. We are killing terrorists.” For the first time since the beginning of the war, U.S. and Afghan government forces have caused more civilian casualties this year than have the Taliban, according to the United Nations. And so it is hardly surprising that Afghans are not overly optimistic about an impending peace agreement between the United States and the Taliban. It is even less surprising that stalwarts of the U.S. national security establishment such as retired General and former CIA Director David Petraeus

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For the first time since the beginning of the war, U.S. and Afghan government forces have caused more civilian casualties this year than have the Taliban, according to the United Nations. warn of the dangers of a “complete military exit from Afghanistan” and claim that “common sense dictates the U.S. must retain its own means to pressure extremist networks.”

After 18 years of “presence and pressure,” and as the U.S.-backed Afghan government continues to lose ground to the Taliban and ISIS massacres civilians in Kabul with impunity, the national security establishment’s version of “common sense” is to double down on failing policies.

When you are in a hole, you should make a longterm commitment to digging.

HOW TO LEAVE But Petraeus and his colleagues are right to warn of the dangers of a withdrawal that is too abrupt. Trump’s rush to make Afghanistan’s peace process conform to the U.S. electoral calendar risks squandering whatever leverage the United States still has. Afghans rightly fear that an agreement may fail to guarantee the gains that some of them have made as a result of the “nation-building” efforts denigrated by Trump.

But the impending withdrawal is a consequence of the situation on the ground in both Afghanistan and the United States, not the result of the peace effort. Trump’s impatience to withdraw both enables and threatens the prospect of peace.

Some of the most important issues at stake in the negotiations have been left ambiguous, perhaps deliberately. Among them is whether the completion of the U.S. troop withdrawal is contingent on the implementation of a political settlement between the Afghan government and the Taliban. The sequence and interdependence of the troop withdrawal, cease-fire, and political

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settlement have yet to be clarified.

Any agreement is guaranteed to fall short of aspirations—but not because of the failures of negotiators or Trump’s determination to leave Afghanistan (which is shared by nearly all his rival presidential aspirants). Eighteen years of U.S. military strategy have failed to produce stability or eliminate terrorism. There is no reason to believe that a longer time horizon will generate better results. That a U.S.-Taliban agreement may fail to deliver the very same outcomes that have eluded the U.S. military for nearly two decades is not an indictment of the negotiations but rather a reflection of the failure of previous military strategies.

The eventual U.S.-Taliban agreement resulting from nine rounds of negotiations in Doha could still present the best chance to achieve basic U.S. goals, reduce violence in Afghanistan, and make more effective counterterrorist measures possible.

The Taliban have agreed to negotiate with the Afghan government and other Afghan political forces over a cease-fire and a political settlement once the question of the U.S. troop withdrawal is settled. Norway is actively working to organize those negotiations, which are expected to start in Oslo in the coming weeks.

The outcome of the peace process is less certain than the foreordained failure of military solutions. Multiple “peace processes” over the

Eighteen years of U.S. military strategy have failed to produce stability or eliminate terrorism. There is no reason to believe that a longer time horizon will generate better results.

last 40 years of war in Afghanistan have led to reconfigurations of hostilities. Peace did not greet the end of the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan after the 1988 UN-sponsored Geneva Accords (and the subsequent demise of the Soviet Unionitself). The United States supported the mujahideen in their opposition to any negotiation with the Moscow-supported “Kabul regime,” and regional states, above all Pakistan, intensified proxy wars in Afghanistan to ward off perceived threats from geopolitical rivals.

A FRAGILE PEACE Such a scenario could repeat itself. Without both an internal political system that accommodates major power holders and a minimal international consensus on the political and security dispensation in Afghanistan, Afghan and international actors can easily return to destabilizing what remains the poorest country in Asia, where over half the population lives below

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A volunteer carries an injured boy to a hospital, following multiples of bomb blasts in Jalalabad on August 2019 ,19.

(Getty)

gains of the Islamic republic, including the expansion of rights and opportunities for women.

In recent discussions, Chinese, Russians, Iranians, and Pakistanis have all asserted that an Islamic emirate remains a redline for them.

Building such an international consensus in favor of the peace process has been one rare diplomatic success for the administration: the United States has issued joint statements supporting the process with China, Russia, Pakistan, and the European Union. All these actors, as well as Iran, will be invited to witness the announcement of any U.S.Taliban agreement and the subsequent opening of negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban in Oslo.

Success in these negotiations, coupled with the support of a broad international coalition, should strengthen and focus Kabul’s fight against the Islamic State Khorasan, the branch of the international jihadi group that has gained strength in the north and east of Afghanistan. A government in Kabul no longer distracted by the Taliban’s cross-border insurgency could become a more effective partner in international efforts to stamp out ISIS in the region.

an already very low poverty line and young men are vulnerable to recruitment by armed groups.

It is important to understand that for many in the region, a U.S. military and intelligence presence in Afghanistan represents a threat on a par with terrorism. Whatever the substance of the impending peace deal, Afghanistan will not become a stable base for American forces, since those who oppose their presence will continue to provoke conflict that weakens the state and provides entry points for terrorism.

Much also depends on how the Taliban reconcile with their enemies in the government in Kabul.

Will the Taliban retreat from a desire to reestablish their “Islamic Emirate” on the ruins of Afghanistan’s fragile Islamic republic? While the Afghan government and the diverse coalition that supports the current constitutional order seem prepared to accommodate some Taliban demands, a broad national and international consensus has emerged for preserving the social and political

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Stability and a modicum of peace in Afghanistan would also require international cooperation to connect the landlocked country to world markets in coordination with various ambitious international development initiatives, including China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the IndoIranian-Afghan development of the Iranian port of Chabahar and related land routes to Afghanistan and Central Asia, and several pipeline and energy transmission projects supported by the United States. The Trump administration’s policy of confrontation with many of the powers involved in these projects augurs poorly for the future of any Afghan peace agreement, but future administrations may change course. The odds of a positive outcome stemming from the negotiating table are not great, but they are better than the odds that the United States will succeed militarily after nearly two decades of failure.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

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History Repeats Itself in Zimbabwe New President, Same Old Problems

by Tendai Biti* In August 2008, I visited a hospital roughly 100 miles outside the Zimbabwean capital, Harare. Hundreds of patients lay in overcrowded wards and on makeshift

beds in hallways and in waiting areas. Outside, hospital employees scrambled to pitch tents in order to accommodate the sick and dying still streaming in from the countryside. Doctors stood by helplessly, unable to do anything without the necessary drugs and equipment.

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Corruption is both a cause and a consequence of Zimbabwe’s economic difficulties, and no reform program can succeed without tackling it.

Mugabe’s ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front (ZANU–PF), blamed external forces, but the crisis was entirely of its own making.

For more than a decade, ZANU–PF had raided public coffers in order to shore up political support. The party ran enormous budget deficits, which it partially plugged by printing money. Such was the habit the ruling party had formed back in 1997. That year, war veterans took to the streets to demand better compensation.

Mugabe offered the veterans hefty new allowances, even though the budget had not provided for these.

The announcement spurred a dramatic selloff in the Zimbabwean stock exchange and caused the currency to plunge more than 70 percent in a single day.

A man poses for a photograph with banknotes that the Zimbabwe Central bank launched due to economic crisis in 2016. RTGS Dollar has replaced this currency in February 2019.

(Getty)

Zimbabwe was in the throes of a hyperinflationary meltdown. Basic sanitary services had collapsed, unleashing a cholera epidemic that would eventually claim thousands of lives. Two years before, in 2006, President Robert Mugabe’s government had abandoned the Zimbabwean dollar in favor of a new quasi-currency called the “bearer check.” But prices continued to skyrocket and zeros quickly accumulated on the bearer checks. Soon, the Central Bank was printing hundred-thousand-trillion-dollar denominated notes that could barely buy a bottle of soda. Inflation would peak at 500 billion percent in December 2008, the second highest in recorded history after Hungary in 1956.

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So began an -11year decline, during which the economy lost 60 percent of its value. Mugabe’s government spent profligately. It intervened militarily in the Democratic Republic of Congo, at vast expense to the country (but to the profit of many in Mugabe’s inner circle). The economic slide naturally led to political agitation, with sporadic strikes spreading across the country. The country’s main trade union, together with its allies in civil society, formed a political party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Faced with the threat of an insurgent MDC, Mugabe embarked on a bloody and reckless land reform program. His government seized thousands of farms and turned them over to ZANU–PF loyalists, decimating Zimbabwe’s once vibrant agricultural sector and triggering the kind of economic collapse rarely seen outside of a war zone.

By 2008, government debt was unserviceable, social services had disintegrated, and life expectancy had plunged to 32 years for women and 34 years for men.

Not surprisingly, the economic crisis precipitated a political crisis. In the March 2008 general election, the MDC won more parliamentary seats than ZANUPF and Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC’s presidential candidate, delivered Mugabe a resounding defeat. The Southern African Development Community (SADC), a regional bloc that played a mediating role in the crisis, acknowledged that Tsvangirai had won, but

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claimed that he had not cleared the -50percent-plusone threshold for a first-round victory—this despite the fact that the Zimbabwean government refused to release the official results for another five weeks.

SADC decreed that a runoff election be held in June, but by then the government had unleashed a horrific wave of violence aimed at intimidating the opposition and its supporters ahead of the planned second round of voting. Security forces and ZANU–PF-linked militias, popularly known as the Green Bombers, killed hundreds of people and displaced thousands of others. As the secretary-general of the MDC at the time, I was arrested on treason charges and accused of having unlawfully declared Tsvangirai the winner.

Eventually, SADC forced Mugabe and Tsvangirai into talks that led to the formation of a unity government.

CLEANING UP MUGABE’S MESS When I became minister of finance in the unity government, it was my job to tame the hyperinflation and repair the wrecked economy. By the time I took office in February 2009, there was no escaping dollarization, which meant recognizing the U.S. dollar as legal tender in Zimbabwe. The market had already jettisoned the Zimbabwean dollar and its cousin the

In 2006, President Robert Mugabe’s government had abandoned the Zimbabwean dollar in favor of a new quasi-currency called the “bearer check.”

But prices continued to skyrocket and zeros quickly accumulated on the bearer checks.

Inflation would peak at 500 billion percent in December 2008, the second highest in recorded history after Hungary in 1956.

bearer check, both of which had become little more than instruments of arbitrage for politicians with privileged access to hard currency. There would be a long-term cost to dollarization, as we knew from other countries that had been forced to take this step. The experience of Panama, El Salvador, Peru, Argentina, and other Latin American countries showed how difficult it is to resurrect an abandoned currency. Those countries that have succeeded in doing so, such as Mexico, Pakistan, and Sierra Leone, have been forced to use the dollar as a peg. The truth is that currencies are only as strong as the public’s trust in them, and where a foreign currency has supplanted the local one, trust can never be salvaged.

Dollarization solved the immediate issue of hyperinflation, but I knew it wouldn’t be enough to restore macroeconomic stability. For that, Zimbabwe needed to slash its budget deficit and begin paying down its burgeoning public debt. Through a carefully managed process of cash budgeting, my team oversaw

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Zimbabwe leading opposition figures Tendai Biti of Zimbabwe›s main opposition Movement for Democratic Change arrives in handcuffs at the Harare Magistrates court August 2018 ,9.

(Getty)

far beyond the limits allowed by law. In addition, between 2013 and 2016, it issued over 7$ billion in treasury bills, despite being effectively broke. And so it was that by November 2017, when the military toppled Mugabe and installed former Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa in his place, Zimbabwe was once again on the brink of economic collapse.

LEARNING THE HARD WAY The 2018 general election offered a golden opportunity to reverse course. But instead of the free and fair election that Mnangagwa promised, Zimbabweans got one that international observers called “deeply flawed” and that was followed by a brutal crackdown on opposition politicians and their supporters. Facing threats to my life, I briefly sought refuge in Zambia, from where I was deported back home to face charges of “falsely and unlawfully” announcing the election results—this time, in favor of MDC leader Nelson Chamisa.

fiscal surpluses from 2009 until 2012, the last full year of the unity government. At the same time, we lifted cumbersome regulations, including price controls and a minimum-wage regime that had inhibited growth.

By December 2009, inflation had fallen to negative 7.7 percent, and for the first time in 12 years, Zimbabwe recorded a positive growth rate, in this case 7.5 percent. The average real growth rate during the unity government’s tenure was nine percent, peaking at 11.9 percent in 2011.

Regrettably, ZANU–PF seemed to forget the lessons of the unity government as soon as it regained power in 2013. After winning an election marred by intimidation and manipulation of the voter rolls, among other electoral swindles, Mugabe’s government reverted to its default setting and embarked on a reckless spending spree that swelled the budget deficit to 25 percent of GDP. To fill the gaping hole in the budget, the government borrowed some 4$ billion from the Central Bank over the next four years,

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Mnangagwa has tried to strike a more businessfriendly tone than his predecessor, but his government hasn’t charted a meaningfully different fiscal course.

Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube refused to cut the bloated government wage bill, even though it accounts for 95 percent of total expenditure and employs an estimated 200,000 “ghost workers” whose real job is to keep ZANU–PF in power. Instead, he has attempted to increase revenues by imposing regressive taxes on money transfers and increasing fuel levies. Even with these measures, Ncube anticipates a budget deficit of at least four percent of GDP for 2018.

Mnangagwa is also playing a dangerous game with Zimbabwe’s unwieldy currency regime. Back in 2016, following the binge budgets of the post-unity government years, the country began to experience severe shortages of hard cash. To ease the currency crunch, the government introduced a quasi-currency known as the bond note, which was pegged oneto-one to the U.S. dollar. Along with the real-time gross settlement dollar (RTGS dollar), another artificial currency that the government used to repay bondholders, the bond note immediately began to trade at a discount in the black market.

Soon after the election, Mnangagwa’s government tampered with the currency regime again, first requiring separate accounts for U.S. dollars and bond notes (despite maintaining an official oneto-one peg) and then merging the RTGS dollar and the bond note into a single electronic currency, also

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called the RTGS dollar. It then proceeded to partially liberalize the exchange rate, adopting a new peg of 2.5 to one for the new currency—although its value on the black market quickly fell below that. In June 2019, the government recognized the RTGS dollar as legal tender and rechristened it the new Zimbabwean dollar, while at the same time barring the use of the U.S. dollar. Today, the Zimbabwean dollar is worth around ten cents, and inflation is roaring back, having hit 175 percent officially in June and closer to 300 percent unofficially.

Although these quasi-currencies were ostensibly introduced to provide liquidity, their real value to ZANU–PF elites stems from the arbitrage opportunities they create. Paired with preferential access to hard currency, bond notes and RTGS dollars fuel the patronage system that has kept the party in power for nearly four decades. For the rest of Zimbabwe’s 16 million people, de-dollarization has made things much harder, slashing salaries once earned in U.S. dollars, spurring inflation, and slowing growth. For the second time in Zimbabwe’s post-independence history, most people have had their savings wiped out overnight.

Sadly, the International Monetary Fund has gone along with this strange brand of economics. In May, it issued a staff report that all but endorsed Harare’s attempt to de-dollarize. The report claimed that “significant economic reforms are underway,” even though the promised reforms have yet to materialize.

It also turned a blind eye to rising inflation, burgeoning shortages of basic goods, and huge currency distortions. It whitewashed Mnangagwa’s record and glossed over his extralegal path to power, noting that he “headed the transitional government following the resignation of former President Mugabe in November 2017,” despite the fact that he came to power through a military coup. Finally, it claimed that the 2018 elections “were viewed by international observers as mostly peaceful, free, and fair,” which was certainly not the view of the opposition supporters who were brutalized or the international observers who expressed grave reservations. In May 2019, the IMFapproved a staff-monitored program for Zimbabwe, which, if the government plays its cards right, could lay the groundwork for a program of debt relief or debt cancellation in the future.

For Zimbabwe, the indicators are stark. The economy is reeling. Underemployment and unemployment are widespread (roughly 95 percent of Zimbabweans work in the informal sector). State utilities have all but collapsed, and electric power cuts out frequently.

Lately, the blackouts have lasted for more than 18 hours a day, even as the country suffers shortages of fuel, water, food, and medicines. More than 40 percent of the population—some seven million people— survives on emergency aid from the international community.

POLITICS IS THE ANSWER Ten years ago, forming a unity government offered a political solution, albeit a temporary one, to the crisis of hyperinflation. A solution to today’s economic crisis must be similarly political. More precisely,

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Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa addresses a crowd in an area hit days earlier by Cyclone Idai, on March 2019 ,20 in Chipinge, Zimbabwe. (Getty)

the government can focus on cutting costs by reforming the public-sector wage bill and curtailing expenditures that are wasteful or corrupt. These cuts would help pay down the country’s 22$ billion public debt, half of which arose from overzealous borrowing from the Central Bank. Zimbabwe needs to pay back its creditors both within the country and outside it: the country is currently 2.6$ billion in arrears to international financial institutions such as the World Bank.

Corruption is both a cause and a consequence of Zimbabwe’s economic difficulties, and no reform program can succeed without tackling it. The ruling party and the military still dominate Zimbabwe’s economy, as do vested interests connected to both.

Profiteering and rent-seeking on virtually everything with a price tag, from commodity exports to petrol imports, define the country’s economic life. Foreign exchange, fuel, minerals (particularly diamonds, platinum, and chrome), and agriculture have all become citadels of arbitrage and loot. To begin to change all this, the government must liberalize the market and eliminate the need for import permits, which for years have been used to reward party loyalists. To attract foreign investment, Zimbabwe needs to show that it respects the rule of law, including by strengthening property rights and guaranteeing that profits can be repatriated outside Zimbabwe.

it must address the legitimacy deficit of the current administration, which stems from the military coup that brought it to power and the disputed election that kept it there.

A political deal must also provide a framework for the reforms needed to right the economy. Most urgently, it must offer a path away from the multiple quasicurrency regime and back to the U.S. dollar. The government must halt its compulsory appropriation of the U.S. dollar export proceeds, which constricts the supply of foreign currency and hurts Zimbabwe’s export economy, especially in the mining and agricultural sectors. Eventually, the country should transition to the South African rand, which is weaker than the U.S. dollar and would help make Zimbabwean exports more competitive.

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The current government cannot be trusted to undertake such a program. That is because ZANU– PF stands to lose from serious reforms, since they would inevitably eliminate the party’s traditional sources of finance, patronage, and control. A transitional government arrangement, akin to the unity government of 13–2009, has to lead the reform effort. To bring one about, the IMF and other major multilateral organizations should offer ZANU–PF incentives to come to the negotiating table—not reward it prematurely as the IMF did with the staffmonitored program. Zimbabwe needs help from its international partners, as well as from neighboring countries and regional blocs, to stave of total economic collapse. First, however, it needs to get its own politics right. * TENDAI BITI is Vice President of the Movement for Democratic Change in Zimbabwe and served as Finance Minister in the Government of National Unity from 2009 to 2013.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

A Weekly Political News Magazine

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Sudanese Raja Abdul Masih: Coptic Lawyer and Eleventh Member of the Sovereign Council www.majalla.com

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Long-term Use of E-cigarettes May Increase Risk of Emphysema, Study Shows Why Vaping Might Not be a Safer Alternative to Smoking

by Ashad Hajela

higher risk of emphysema.

Some may consider vaping safer than smoking traditional cigarettes, but new research from the University Of North Carolina School of Medicine suggests that using e-cigarettes long-term may lead to a

In the study, lung fluids were sampled from 41 people — smokers, vapers and non-smokers.

Researchers found that vapers, like smokers, had higher levels of protease enzymes — a trait that tends to cause emphysema.

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In the study, lung fluids were sampled from 41 people - smokers, vapers and nonsmokers. Researchers found that vapers, like smokers, had higher levels of protease enzymes — a trait that tends to cause emphysema. to the lung tissue, according to the American Lung Association.

The study, published this month, comes as the number of people hospitalized with lungrelated illnesses possibly connected to vaping continues to rise. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 153 possible cases of severe lung illness associated with e-cigarettes were reported from June 28 to Aug. 20 around the country, including in North Carolina.

Last week, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services reported three people were hospitalized with various lung disease symptoms. The three patients said they had used used e-cigarettes or vaping devices before they fell ill, The News & Observer reported.

In this photo illustration the owner of a shop that sells electronic cigarettes demonstrates how to use one on March 2012 ,1 in Berlin, Germany. (Getty)

“If they keep using these products for about 20 years, it is likely that they will get emphysema,” Robert Tarran, the professor who led the study, told The News & Observer.

Emphysema is a lung condition that causes a shortness of breath as a result of damage

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E-cigarettes come in many forms, but they all heat chemical “e-liquids” in detachable cartridges that contain nicotine and flavors so users can inhale vapors, or “vape.” Because of the health risks associated with cigarettes, e-cigarettes have emerged as an alternative form of nicotine consumption.

Tarran specializes in e-cigarette research and is a member of the Marisco Lung Institute at the UNC School of Medicine. He plans to continue his research and conduct studies on

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a wider group of about 100 people.

Other studies have shown vaping to be harmful. But many of the e-cigarette liquids that are researched may no longer be on the market by the time the results are available.

“It is such a fast field, and it takes a long time to study, so by the time we have our results, people may be consuming new e-liquids,” Tarran said.

E-liquids have varying but consistently high amounts of tobacco and varying “toxicity” as a result of different combinations of chemicals, according to a database of e-liquids.

On Thursday, people in downtown Raleigh milled about on Wilmington Street for smoke and vaping breaks. Craig Donnelly, who works as a quality engineer downtown, said he has been using e-cigarettes for three years.

He started using them as an experiment to see if he could get his friends to quit smoking cigarettes.

He said if people are educated about what they are vaping, there will not be as many health hazards. He gestured to his e-cigarette

E-liquids have varying but consistently high amounts of tobacco and varying “toxicity” as a result of different combinations of chemicals, according to a database of e-liquids.

and the e-liquid he was using.

“The majority of people don’t learn about what they are smoking,” he said. “I know who makes these and what they put in them.”

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Young woman smoking cigarette. (Getty)

But consumers may find it more difficult to identify the source of e-liquids. For example, Amazon sells empty packaging for brand names like Dank Vapes, Cali Plug and Dabwoods, which could lead consumers to

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believe they are buying a legitimate product when it has been modified.

Originally published in the News and Observer

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Sudanese Raja Abdul Masih: Coptic Lawyer and Eleventh Member of the Sovereign Council Majalla - London

2005 Interim National Constitution were not fully implemented, with Raja Nicola Abdul Masih was born some employers not giving Christians in the Masalma neighbourhood of their legal two hours› right to prayer Omdurman in Sudan in the 1950s. and schools not allowing Christian She is a member of Sudan’s Coptic children to be absent on Sunday for Christian minority which represents attendance at religious services. %4.5 of the population (1.4 million In July 2019, the July Political people).

She studied at Cairo Agreement and the Draft Constitutional University and graduated with a Law Declaration by the Forces of Freedom degree in 1980. After graduating and Change alliance (FFC) and the in 1982, Raja was appointed to the Transitional Military Council (TMC) Sudanese Ministry of Justice where were signed following half a year of she became a judge in 2005. Raja sustained civil disobedience and the 3 took part in international conferences, June Khartoum massacre. On August training programs and workshops 2019 ,20, Sudan›s ruling military on human rights and on enhancing council formally disbanded, and the country›s generals and opposition women’s access to justice.

She represented the Ministry of leaders formed a new -11member joint Justice in the Special Commission ruling body, which is made up of six for the Protection of the rights of civilians and five soldiers. Among the Non-Muslims in Khartoum, which civilians is Raja, who was appointed was created in 2007 and served as a as the council›s 11th member after an mouthpiece to defend the rights of agreement by the TMC and the FFC. Copts in Sudan. She stated that the She became the first Christian women Commission closed down in 2011 to be part of the Sudanese government against the wishes of the Christian since the country’s independence in community, after the secession of 1965.

South Sudan. In September 2012, The choice of Nicola, as a member Nicola said that religious rights of of the Sudanese Copt community, Christians in Sudan asserted under the was seen as a symbol of respect for

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diversity, in particular to Sudanese Christians. Some observers hope she can be a voice for the many ethnic and religious minorities who were persecuted under Bashir. Shortly after being sworn in as a member of the Sovereignty Council, she described her vision of the task of the council, stating, “We only asked the Sudanese people to be patient as we may all know that the destruction that happened during the past 30 years is huge and may not be addressed in only three years. But we will double our efforts and work together in the council to meet all the demands of the revolution.”

In an interview with VOA, Raja said that the process to rebuild the country will be long, but that the new government are determined. “We shall try to rebuild our country, we shall try to rebuild our economy, we shall begin to stop all the armed movements and work for peace and justice for all Sudanese on an equal basis regardless of race or religion or any political opinion or any affiliation,” she said.

“What happened in 30 years cannot be rebuilt in three years. But we shall try our best to do whatever we could.”

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Escape Venice’s Tourist Crush with a Trip to Vicenza, Home of Great Renaissance Architect Andrea Palladio What to Visit in the «City of Palladio»

by Blair Kamin If you want to break away from the crowds that make Venice a poster child for the term “overtourism” and you love architecture, there is one place you must go: nearby Vicenza, a showcase for the work of the renowned Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio.

Palladio, who lived from 1508 to 1580, drew inspiration from the architecture of ancient Greece and Rome,

transforming these models into masterpieces that influenced everything from English country houses to Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello.

The most famous of his works, the transcendent hilltop mansion called the Villa Rotonda, is a short taxi, bus or bike ride from Vicenza’s compact, largely car-free town center, where the main street bears Palladio’s name.

The town center itself is stocked with impressive Palladio buildings, including numerous town palaces, or palazzi, one of which houses an excellent and engaging museum

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Vicenza is a showcase for the work of the renowned Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio. Located about 40 miles (64 kilometers) west of Venice, with a population of about 112,000, Vicenza is an ideal day trip.

devoted entirely to the architect.

In the surrounding countryside are Palladio’s villas, where the architect combined opulent living quarters and working farm buildings into coherent complexes that married nature with culture, rusticity and urbanity.

Located about 40 miles (64 kilometers) west of Venice, with a population of about 112,000, Vicenza (pronounced vi-CHEN-zah) is an ideal day trip. I took a red, sleek-nosed Italo train from Venice’s Santa Lucia station. (Round-trip fare was just under 38 euros, or roughly 42$. The trip, one-

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way, took 39 minutes.)

Vicenza once was part of the far-flung Venetian empire, a status still signaled by a pair of towering classical columns that frame an entry to its main square. One is topped by the ubiquitous symbol of Venice, the winged lion.

But Palladio’s buildings gave Vicenza a distinct identity.

They were classical, weighty and vigorously three dimensional — and, thus, recognizably different from the delicate, highly decorated Gothic facades that line Venice’s canals.

Along Vicenza’s main square, for example, is an imposing public building, the Palladian Basilica, that the architect redesigned in the mid16-th century after a portion of the original Gothic exterior collapsed. Palladio, then just 38 years old and a relative unknown, wrapped the building in a two-level stack of exterior passageways, or loggias.

Their arched openings and white marble possess the sculptural power and depth of Roman architecture. And God is in the details.

Like an accordion, the rectangular openings on either side of each arch vary in width, an “elastic” solution that accommodates the original building’s uneven dimensions.

A good place to take it all in is a small adjacent plaza named for Palladio and adorned with a statue of the bearded architect as well as likenesses of architectural tools and bits of classical decoration.

The town center offers numerous other opportunities to see Palladio’s genius.

Assorted palazzi reveal the skill with which the architect manipulated the classical orders — Doric, Ionic and Corinthian — to make individual statements for each of his wealthy clients. Palladio also designed the dome of Vicenza’s cathedral and an elegant entryway on one of its sides.

Plaques at each site associated with the architect, written in English as well as Italian, enable visitors to take free, selfled tours. Guided tours are also available for a fee.

Among the must-sees in the town center are Palladio’s Teatro Olimpico (admission: 11 euros), which claims to be the world’s first indoor theater. It features a dazzling interior space whose curved seating tiers, frescoes, statuary

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and robust, classically inspired architecture evoke ancient Roman amphitheaters. The theater, still in use today, was completed after Palladio’s death.

Another mandatory stop is the Palladio Museum (8 euros), which occupies one of the architect’s town palaces, the Palazzo Barbaran da Porto. The museum expertly tells the story of Palladio’s life and work.

He was born in nearby Padua and worked as a stonecutter before moving to Vicenza in 1524. Many of his clients were noble families, enriched by a booming silk trade.

Seizing on the importance of disseminating knowledge

Among the must-sees in the town center are Palladio’s Teatro Olimpico ,which claims to be the world’s first indoor theater.

through the printed page, Palladio published his famous treatise, “The Four Books on Architecture,” in 1570.

According to the museum, it’s not known where, or from what causes, he died.

As visitors pass through the museum, they are treated to large-scale architectural models of Palladio’s buildings; projected images of smart (and smartly dressed) architectural historians discussing his work; and beautiful, high-ceilinged rooms, some adorned with frescoes.

Exhibits show how Palladio relied on form and proportions rather than lavish materials and elaborate decoration to create some of his majestic buildings. For example, he reintroduced a special plaster compound, called marmorino, that coated low-cost materials such as wood and brick to make them resemble stone. Through a clear case, we see triangular bricks, arranged like wedges of cheese, which reveal how Palladio built freestanding columns out of the inexpensive material rather than costly marble.

No visit is complete without a stop at the Villa Rotonda, which was commissioned in 1566 by former papal assistant Paolo Almerico and sits about a mile and a half southeast

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Villa La Rotonda is Renaissance villa just outside Vicenza, northern Italy, designed by Andrea Palladio. (Getty)

Vicenza is a cosmopolitan city, with a rich history and culture, and many museums, art galleries, piazzas, villas, churches and elegant Renaissance palazzi. The «city of Palladio» has been listed as an UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1994.

(Getty)

of Vicenza’s train station.

A dome inscribed in a cube with four identical projecting temple fronts, the landmark is the iconic Palladian villa and a symbol of the Renaissance — a work of geometric order that is the architectural equivalent of Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. The villa’s elaborate interior is only open to the public for tours on Wednesday and Saturday (exterior only: 5 euros; exterior and interior: 10 euros), but the exterior and its grounds alone justify a visit. (Private tours can also be arranged.)

The building itself is surprisingly austere — magnificent but not opulent; grand but not grandiose. The sculptures atop its temple fronts and on the sides of its porches are the chief decorative flourishes.

You approach from the bottom of a slope, able to see only one facade. Then, as you ascend the hill, the house can be viewed in the round — a perfect sculptural object, perfectly placed for the arcing sun to bring its surfaces to life.

On a hot summer day, insects chirp in the background while fields and hills unfurl in the distance. Benches allow for a peaceful spot to admire the building. Its porches

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provide elevated vantage points from which to view the countryside.

This is an ideal building for an idyllic site — a contemplative retreat from the bustle and business of the city.

It’s also a model whose influence would extend far into the future.

The 17th century English architect Inigo Jones, famous for his symmetrical, well-proportioned country houses, would follow its example, as would Thomas Jefferson, who built Monticello in 1772 and his “academical village” at the University of Virginia in the early 19th century.

You can see more of Palladio’s work back in Venice, where two of his great religious structures — the Church of the Redentore and the church for the monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore — occupy the spectacular waterfront.

The bell tower of the latter contains an elevator that leads you to an outdoor observation deck with stunning views of Venice and its watery environs.

It’s another way, besides a trip to Palladio’s Vicenza, to escape Venice’s thick crowds.

Originally published in the Chicago Tribune.

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ook Reviews

Life After Liberation The Long Shadow of Eastern Europe’s Communist Past

by Timothy Garton Ash Dancing Bears: True Stories of People Nostalgic for Life Under Tyranny. Witold Szablowski.

Penguin Books, 256 .2018pp.Welcome to the Wild East. First, there are Bulgarian Gypsies with dancing bears. Then there is a Polish village whose inhabitants dress up as Hobbits from The Lord of the Rings, along with Gandalf, played by a woman, and Gollum—in private life a farmer who receives European Union subsidies. There are hundreds of thousands of communist-era bunkers

in Albania, some of them now being demolished by men in search of rebar. Meanwhile, a Serbian remembers being “treated” by the former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic in Belgrade, where the notorious war criminal was in hiding, disguised in a ponytail and beard and pretending to be a faith healer: “At one point he told me that cosmic energy came to him via the hair and beard.” And to cap it all off, a Georgian woman dreams of Joseph Stalin visiting her at night: “He gazes at me, puffs on his pipe, and twirls his moustache. He smiles, and then heads for the door. Then I weep and cry for him

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to stay.”

Dancing Bears, the latest book by the Polish journalist Witold Szablowski, is never dull. This is Tom Wolfe meets Franz Kafka, or perhaps a Milan Kundera remake of Dances With Wolves. The excellent English version by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, a leading translator from Polish, perfectly captures Szablowski’s pithy, staccato prose.

Yet niggling questions remain. The subtitle of the American edition promises readers “true stories of people nostalgic for life under tyranny.” Szablowski’s account hardly bears out this diagnosis. As a collection of vivid, skillfully crafted reportage from the wilder corners of the post-communist world, Dancing Bears is a rattling good read. But in what sense, precisely, are these stories true, and what do they actually tell us about life in post-communist Europe?

Rest-day in a collective farm village. Chapayevsk, Ukraine, USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics).

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Dancing Bears, the latest book by the Polish journalist Witold Szablowski, is never dull. This is Tom Wolfe meets Franz Kafka, or perhaps a Milan Kundera remake of Dances With Wolves.

around the postcommunist world, from Cuba— assuming we can now call Cuba postcommunist—to Ukraine, Albania, Serbia, Kosovo, Estonia, Georgia, and that Polish Hobbit village. At the end of his tour, Szablowski takes an unexpected turn to Greece, EXOTIC EAST where he finds a young architecture student, Maria, protesting for an end to capitalism. The book closes Szablowski’s report is divided into two halves. with her prophecy: “We’re starting a landslide here The first is about the dancing bears once kept by that will engulf the entire world.”

Bulgarian Gypsies (now more politely called Roma). No wonder Szablowski’s previous reporting received After Bulgaria joined the European Union in 2007, the Polish Press Agency’s Ryszard Kapuscinski animal-rights activists persuaded the last remaining Award. Kapuscinski is the founding father and bear keepers to hand their animals over to a reserve, presiding deity of the contemporary Polish school the Dancing Bears Park, in Belitsa, in southwestern of reportage, of which Szablowski is now a leading Bulgaria. “The animals were taught how a free bear is practitioner. Take Dancing Bears in one hand and supposed to move about,” Szablowski writes. “How Kapuscinski’s 1992 book, The Soccer War, in the to hibernate. How to copulate. How to obtain food. other. There are the same short paragraphs, punchy The park at Belitsa became an unusual ‘freedom prose, surreal stories, and first-person narration; research lab.’” Yet “for every retired dancing bear, the same short, apparently disconnected chapters, the moment comes when freedom starts to cause it presented in a strictly nonlinear order; the same pain. What does it do then? It gets up on its hind legs devotion to showing, not telling. and starts to dance.”

But there is a problem with Kapuscinski. The maestro When Szablowski heard about this story, it occurred played fast and loose with the facts; he borrowed to him that the bears were in the same condition as the anecdotes and turned them into what looked like people of eastern Europe. “Ever since the transition his own reporting; he embroidered, fabricated, and from socialism to democracy began in Poland in fabulated. The scholar Abbas Milani, an authority 1989,” he writes, “our lives have been a kind of on the shah of Iran, once told Kapuscinski’s freedom research project—a never-ending course in biographer, Artur Domoslawski, that “you can open what freedom is, how to make use of it, and what sort [Kapuscinski’s] Shah of Shahs at any page, point of price is paid for it.” to a passage, and I will tell you what is wrong or The dancing bears therefore serve as an allegorical inaccurate.” A resident of Addis Ababa complained leitmotif in the book’s second half. The chapters in that Kapuscinski’s celebrated book about the Part 2 have the same titles—“Love,” “Freedom,” Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie is “like a tale from “Negotiations,” “Hibernation,” “Castration”—as those The Thousand and One Nights.” The biographer in Part 1, and each has an epigraph with a putatively showed the former Bolivian guerrilla Osvaldo Peredo apt quotation from the earlier description of the bears what Kapuscinski wrote about his family. “This and their keepers. But this time, Szablowski whizzes is fiction,” an indignant Peredo responded. “It may

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be colorfully written, but it’s entirely untrue. Well, almost entirely.”

Distinguished wordsmiths still defend Kapuscinski on the grounds that this was Literature, with a capital L, not mere reporting. But that’s not what it says on the label. When his work was translated into English, Kapuscinski was celebrated as a great reporter: someone who had seen, heard, endured, and accurately recorded everything he wrote about.

In these times of industrial-scale online disinformation, hyperpolarization, and general all-around “Trumpery,” such trespassing is more dangerous than ever. We writers of nonfiction need to guard the bright line between fact and fiction with every weapon at our disposal.

This is not to suggest that Szablowski willingly distorts facts or misleads his readers as Kapuscinski did. But he certainly operates within the loose conventions of the Kapuscinski school of reporting.

Leave aside, as enjoyable ludic ursology, several passages in which he tells us what individual bears “probably” thought and felt. (“Misho is not capable of getting his head around Dimitar’s death. Probably all he knows is that the man was there . . . and then suddenly that man was gone.”) But take those Albanian bunkers. “In a country slightly smaller than Maryland, inhabited by barely three million people,” readers are told, “the Communists built about 750,000 of them.” That would be roughly one bunker for every four inhabitants. Yet at the end of the same paragraph, Szablowski quotes his source as saying, “Someone once suggested that there are 750,000 of them, and now everyone keeps repeating that.” Why include this figure if it represents an unfounded and obviously ridiculous claim?

Another symptom of mild Kapuscinski-itis is the author’s self-dramatization as an intrepid reporter risking his neck on the reader’s behalf. When Szablowski makes a trip to the Estonian city of Narva, he excitedly reports warnings of “Mafiosi, hired assassins, polluted air, and exploding cars.”

He suggests he was “probably the first hitchhiker in independent Kosovo.” As someone who hitched several rides in Kosovo immediately after the 1999

NATO invasion, I beg to differ. However harmless these individual exaggerations may be, taken together, they contribute to a narrative in which everything becomes wilder, more extreme, and more exotic. The British writer John Ryle, in his analysis of Kapuscinski’s writings about Africa, called this style “tropical baroque.” One might also call it Orientalism.

There is a long tradition, stretching back to the Enlightenment, of western Europeans and North Americans orientalizing eastern Europe, as Voltaire did with Russia and Rousseau did with Poland. What is unusual about Szablowski is that he is orientalizing his own region. Dancing Bears is, so to speak, the self-orientalization of eastern Europe (perhaps better in German: die Selbstorientalisierung Osteuropas.)

Odder still, Szablowski is writing his account at a time when eastern Europe—or at least east-central Europe,

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Romani person with a dancing bear, 1970. (Getty)

from Poland to Bulgaria—has never been closer to the West. All of its states have some version of the political and economic system prevalent in the West, and most of them are members of the same political, economic, and security communities— the EU, NATO—as their western neighbors, something unprecedented in European history.

How nice, then, for Westerners to be reassured that they are, after all, still on a higher plane of civilization, reason, and Enlightenment, while eastern Europeans remain, under their L’Oréalsmoothed skin, the same old dancing bears.

WEEPING FOR TYRANNY? This brings us to the strange matter of the subtitle of the American edition: True Stories of People Nostalgic for Life Under Tyranny. Very few of the protagonists in Szablowski’s political reportage seem to fit this bill. A Ukrainian who works as a cleaning lady in Poland admires how EU membership has transformed the country: “You Poles are looking better. And you’re eating better too. These days every Biedronka supermarket sells olive oil.” And she concludes: “I pray for the EU

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to come to us too.” In the Polish Hobbit village, the author sits on a bench with Gollum (aka Zenon Pusz, a villager), drinking beer, smoking Marlboros, and “remembering the days when in the countryside you smoked filterless cigarettes and drank cheap wine known as ‘brainfuck.’”

Nostalgic for brainfuck, anyone?

Nor will readers find much evidence here that the Serbs—let alone the Bosnians—are nostalgic for Karadzic, even in his capacity as a faith healer, or that the Kosovar Albanians are pining for the days of domination by Serbia. Yes, some of the ethnic Russians the author meets in Estonia are indeed nostalgic for the Soviet Union, and Szablowski is rightly critical of the early years of Estonian policy toward the country’s Russian minority. But even among that minority, we encounter the figure of “Asya’s mom,” a presumably middle-aged or elderly Russian woman who passes her Estonian language exam on the seventh attempt, opening the door to Estonian citizenship.

One of Szablowski’s finest characters, and a testament to his empathetic reporter’s eye, is an old woman who hails from the provincial Polish town of Pabianice but now spends her life on the streets around the Victoria coach and railway stations in London. She goes by the name Lady Peron (peron means “railway platform” in Polish). Is she nostalgic for life under communism? Apparently not: “Suddenly the Lady falls silent, smiles, and takes me by the arm. ‘But tell me frankly, mister.

Many a healthy person hasn’t seen as much of the world as this cripple from Pabianice.’”

Only two people in the pages of Dancing Bears genuinely are nostalgic for tyranny: first, the widow of the Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha, and second, the Georgian woman who works at the Joseph Stalin Museum and is visited in her dreams by the mustache-twirling charmer Uncle Joe. Well, they would be nostalgic, wouldn’t they?

To be sure, some people in post-communist Europe will say that they miss some good things about the bad old days. They may, for example, mention a kind of rudimentary economic security—“we pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us,” as the old quip went—or say that their lives were once less stressful. Others may recall a sense of equality and solidarity among those below the small communist ruling class, the nomenklatura. There’s an interesting subject there, one for another, less

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colorful, but perhaps deeper, book.

THE ROOTS OF DISCONTENT Such a book might start by asking how it could happen that as we approach the 30th anniversary of the revolutions of 1989, leaders such as Viktor Orban in Hungary and Jaroslaw Kaczynski in Poland have achieved high levels of electoral support while systematically eroding the checks and balances of their countries’ still fragile liberal democracies. To what extent are these leaders part of a wider populist and antiliberal movement that includes such figures as Nigel Farage in the United Kingdom, and Matteo Salvini in Italy? And how much of their success is due to the specific circumstances of post-communist central and eastern Europe?

Did the absence of a major public reckoning with Hungary’s and Poland’s communist past open the door to a pseudo-revolutionary politics in which a turn to illiberalism is justified as the only way to end the legacy of communism? How significant is it that societies behind the Iron Curtain had relatively little experience of immigration, let alone western European–style multiculturalism, so that nativistic sentiment is now easily mobilized against potential newcomers—especially Muslim

There is a long tradition, stretching back to the Enlightenment, of western Europeans and North Americans orientalizing eastern Europe, as Voltaire did with Russia and Rousseau did with Poland. What is unusual about Szablowski is that he is orientalizing his own region.

ones? Or is the cause more a wounded national pride, a sense of humiliation, of being perceived only as poor copies of western European societies, and a desire for a new, heroic role as the true defenders of a more traditional, Christian Europe?

This narrative upends former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s famous comment dismissing disgruntled western European allies as “old Europe”: instead, populist leaders in Budapest and Warsaw claim they are defending the old Europe, while decadent, multicultural western Europe is the new.

How far are we simply witnessing an understandable human reaction against so much rapid change— liberalization, globalization, Europeanization, digitalization—all hitting at once? Or is it the atomization of consumer society, especially in the digital age, that is leading people back to the old familiar solidarities of Christian churches and ethnically defined national communities? A new saying is making the rounds in Warsaw: “Where do Poles meet? Answer: only at the gas station.”

For an author, it is always supremely irritating to be criticized on the grounds that you did not

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Young Activists Of The Free Democrats' Association ( Szdsz ) Holding A Banner In Kussuth Square In Front Of The Parliament Building During A Candle Lit Mass Rally Held In Commemoration Of The 1956 Revolution.

Budapest, Hungary.

October 1989 ,23.

(Getty)

write a different book—the one the reviewer would have liked to read. I raise the alternative here only because the American publisher gave Szablowski’s book that subtitle about nostalgia for tyranny, suggesting a thesis the book does not advance, let alone sustain. The original Polish edition had no subtitle, whereas a more recent Polish edition has a subtitle that translates roughly as Freedom Means New Challenges, New Smells, New Sounds, a New Great Adventure. Notice that there’s no mention of nostalgia for tyranny, a notion that most Polish readers would laugh out of court.

A skilled reporter such as Szablowski could potentially do a fascinating job of talking to the voters for Kaczynski’s Law and Justice party in his own country and unpacking the warp and woof of their discontents. I enjoyed this book, but I would love that to be his next one. The explanation of what is happening in eastern Europe today lies not in dancing bears but, perhaps, in stationary people who feel the world is dancing around them.

Ethnic Albanian Refugees Pack into a Bus As They Cross From The Morini Boarder In Albania Into Kosovo June 1999 ,17. (Getty)

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