Review of: Germany: memories of a nation

(16 Oct-25 January 2015)

Room 35, British Museum

An exhibition in Britain which attempts to illuminate the contribution made by the German nation to world culture is long overdue. Many Brits would be hard put to think of anything German beyond nazis, jackboots, humourlessness, lederhosen and beer gardens.

At its height, from the 16th century onwards, German culture and language came to dominate much of central Europe, from Basle (in Switzerland) in the west, to Prague (now the capital of the Czech Republic) and Koenigsberg (now Kaliningrad in Russia) in the East, as well as the outlying Hanseatic cities around the Baltic and North Sea, in Norway, Estonia, Latvia and Denmark. 

It could be argued that Germany, as a nation, has had, since classical times, more impact on European and even world culture than any other European nation. Its philosophers, scientists, writers, artists, and composers, as well as its bankers have profoundly influenced the way we live and think today. Germany, situated at the core of Europe has more common borders with other states than any other European nation; this has contributed to its problems as well as being an advantage.

This curators of this new exhibition, looking back over 600 years of history, have selected 200 German objects around which they have attempted to weave a cohesive cultural and historical fabric. It is, of course, over ambitious, and unavoidably reflects contemporary political perspectives as much as it offers genuine illumination. Minimal textual explanations don’t help either. While such modern approaches to museum exhibitions can provide genuine insights and offer illuminating connections, they can also create short circuits and undermine more profound understandings.

The curators of this exhibition readily admit that they have ignored the many philosophers and musicians Germany has produced, but they have also ignored medical pioneers, scientists and most writers. There is also much else that has been ignored and their reasons for selecting some objects and not others are obscure if not downright obtuse.

Historically transformative events like the Peasants’ War in the 16th century, the 19th century struggle for German unification and the 1848 revolution, as well as the student rebellion of 1968 are all ignored.

The exhibition was conceived as a response to the anniversary, in November, of the fall of the Wall, so that in itself perhaps indicates the political justification.

The visitor is met with a video of milling, euphoric crowds celebrating the fall of the Wall, together with a poster of that time with the slogan, ‘We are one people’ on a map of Germany.

The wall text tells us that ‘The citizens of East and West Germany had lived for decades under very different political systems, but they shared many deep memories, which they brought to the new state.’ It gives no intimation that West Germany imposed its own systems on the East and has denied the former citizens of the GDR the right to make their own contribution, never mind sharing in the creation of a new Germany. The text goes on to tell us that East German demands for more freedom and democracy in 1989 ‘shifted to an emphasis on speeding up reunification’. No mention of the fact that a genuine demand for more freedoms in the East was hijacked by West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl for his own electoral purposes and that it was he who demanded an acceleration up of the unification process before East Germans could fully develop their own concepts.

The exhibits take the visitor on a confusing and whirlwind tour. From two delightful portraits by Cranach, including his famous Luther portrait, together with a Holbein and three large, anodyne landscapes by Carl Carus alongside a mini Caspar David Friedrich. There is a Kaethe Kollwitz self-portrait and a woodcut of her memorial to the murdered communist Karl Liebknecht. This is in connection with a description of her birthplace Koenigsberg (today Kaliningrad, but we are dubiously informed by the caption that ‘it remains in Russia today’, not that it is now part of Russia as a result of the post-war settlement).

The Bauhaus movement is highlighted with a superb baby’s cradle which looks like a practical demonstration in geometry and is a magnificent work of art in itself: A v-shaped cot, its sides painted in bright red and yellow, is bound at each end by two black hoops of steel forming its rocking part. It’s like a three-dimensional Mondrian painting, and was designed by Peter Keler in 1922. There are also several small posters of Bauhaus design.

A Gutenberg bible symbolises German advances in printing and literacy and their connection with Luther’s 16th century Reformation movement that took Europe by storm. 

Surprisingly the exhibition does include one of the original Communist Manifestos and of Marx’s Capital, but they are somewhat incongruous here with no wider connections.

Goethe is given pride of place in the form of the famous Tischbein full-length portrait, but his contemporary Schiller who was arguably the better playwright, is not.

Brecht and the Berliner Ensemble are represented by a small model of the scenery for Mother Courage, but no mention of the fact that Brecht and his theatre were based in the GDR.

A tacky model of the Friedrichstrasse Underground and check point linking West and East Berlin is included, probably because it was rescued from the GDR’s Ministry of State Security and was ‘used for Stasi training to ensure that no East German escapes’. A wet suit which was, the caption says, used by an East German who tried to escape to the West symbolises ‘the many people who attempted to leave the impoverished communist state of East Germany’. (According to UN data, the GDR had one of the highest standards of living in Europe - something any unbiassed visitor could validate, even if it was much lower than its Marshall-Plan aided counterpart in the west. Most of those who left the GDR did so for reasons other than ‘fleeing poverty’)

Hans Barlach’s powerful bronze sculpture Floating Figure is a fitting commemoration of human resilience and hope, even in times of war. But again, no mention is made of the fact that he and his friend and contemporary, Kaethe Kollwitz were both celebrated in the GDR, their portraits on postage stamps, their works revered and monographs published. In the West they had both been largely ignored until after the Wall came down.

The nazi period is dealt with largely in terms of the holocaust and the extermination of the Jews, with no mention of the mass extermination of Slavs, gypsies, gays, the disabled, socialists, trade unionists and communists. Nor is the role played by big business in Hitler’s rise mentioned.

Historical processes and key events are given only superficial coverage. That the setting up of a the Federal Republic of Germany in the western sectors in 1949, soon followed by the introduction of a separate currency was in contravention of understandings laid down in the Potsdam Agreement is totally ignored. The setting up of the GDR and introduction of its own currency in response to the former is glossed over. The museum text says glibly that ‘two states were established - the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic’ , implying that the former preceded the latter, and with no further explanation.

An example of a German bank note from the the massive inflationary period during the twenties is shown in connection with the introduction of new post-war currencies in West and then East Germany. These, the caption tells us, ‘reflect the different perspectives on German history…East German notes feature revolutionary figures such as Karl Marx, while West German notes took their cue from the age of the artist Albrecht Duerer’. The fact that of the five GDR banknotes, two featured Goethe and Schiller is conveniently ignored as this would upset the convenient black and white political imagery.

The exhibition is receiving considerable hype here in Britain but clearly also in Germany if the press opening is anything to go by. There appeared to be more German journalists and ‘experts’ than British milling around - such a rare occasion is it for the British to be taking a serious look at German history and culture.

Although the actual exhibition is limited and in quite a small venue, there is a daily broadcast over six weeks by the Museum’s director, Neil MacGregor, of over 30 episodes dealing with the exhibition and where he goes into more detail. However, even here he replicates the jaundiced view of the GDR experience and sometimes historical details are either factually wrong or distorted. He has also written an accompanying book to be published on 6 November. The museum is also hosting a number of lectures by the usual suspects, film showings and public forums. 

Showing in the British Museum cinema as one of the events around the exhibition is the film The Murderers are Among US, the first post war film to deal with the nazi period. It was made by the DEFA film company and largely shot in the Soviet sector. Originally the film was to be titled Der Mann den ich töten werde (The Man I will kill) but the script and the title were changed because the Soviet authorities were afraid that viewers could interpret it as a call for vigilante justice and the killing of former nazis. 

Murderers Among Us was first shown on 15th October 1946 in the Soviet sector. It was shown on GDR television on November 1st, 1955 and in the Federal Republic only in November, 1971. That, too, is something you are unlikely to be told. Nor will the many anti-nazi films made by the GDR. be mentioned or shown.

While this exhibition has to be welcomed as an overdue gesture of recognition for German culture and as a contribution to a better understanding between our two peoples, it is also very disappointing because it doesn’t question simplistic shibboleths or the Federal Republic’s monopoly of the interpretation of more recent history.

END

Once again, back in the USA!
Buffalo NY Jan 2012
Every visit to the USA only seems to confirm my already prejudicial viewpoint. I promised myself that I would never fly long distances again, and certainly not to the USA. But Siski’s impending birth gave me little choice; she needed help in the immediate post-parturition phase, at least. Although the plane across ‘The Pond’ was not full, and I could bag a couple of seats to myself, the flight seemed interminably long and tedious.
Arriving at JFK in New York, I had to join the long queue through immigration and customs. The notices informed passengers that the officials who vetted them would be their first experience of the US, and they would be friendly and courteous. Well, the latter maybe, but with the former they must be expressing a sense of irony after all: the officials seem bored out of their minds and singularly lack any vestige of humour; try cracking a joke at your peril.
After an hour, I was through unscathed, but still faced a four-hour wait for my connection to Buffalo. Although this is the most prestigious US airport, it had the distinct feel of a rather outdated post war building; not exactly scruffy, but slightly shabby at the edges. The shops and cafes all seem to have been transported from one of those small town urban shopping malls, with the attractiveness of aged prostitutes. I forewent the culinary joys on offer and stilled my hunger with a stale roll I’d brought off the plane. There was nowhere I could sit and be out of earshot of the ubiquitous ceiling mounted TV screens or the regular announcements warning everyone not to take items from strangers into our luggage etc. Nevertheless, I tried to doze. The time approached for my flight, but we were then told that it had been delayed – oh the joys of flying! Eventually, I arrived at around 11.00pm local time, 3.00am home time.

Siski and Jose live on the outskirts of Buffalo. Not an unpleasant place, but like almost any other ‘middle class’ suburb in the USA: long streets of large, clapboard houses in ‘colonial style’, with largish gardens (actually just grassed areas) with no fences or hedges, and each house plonked alongside the next, as if on an open stage with no privacy from each other.
Although their little street is quiet, the nearby main street, with all the shops, is a six-lane highway with continual traffic and with no central reservation – a nightmare to cross. Apart from the odd jogger or dog-walker, you see no one out and about; only cars. No wonder there is so much obesity. Apart from the numerous pizza outlets and other fast food joints to cheaply satisfy your hunger, there are drive-in pharmacies and drive-in banks, so why bother getting out of your car at all?
They have so much land in the USA, that towns just spread out, which means not just acres of monotonous suburbia, but shopping streets that go on for ever as well. It’s impossible from Siski’s place to simply walk around the corner and do most of your shopping; the main street goes on for miles and miles.
The local supermarket is just that – super sized – like an enormous factory warehouse with so much choice that you are mesmerized by the superfluity. There are even British and German sections where you can buy specialist products. However, they sell beer but no wines or spirits. And even to buy a couple of bottles of beer you ‘may be asked to provide and ID’ to show you are an adult, but rather than be selective, everyone is challenged, so Jose and I, both with greying hair, are asked to show that we are over 18!
Walking past the bakery department in the store, I saw all the staff doing synchronised group exercises on the spot – felt for a moment I might be in North Korea.
As I’ve said previously the US is a land of incredible contradictions. The house on the corner near Siski’s has Ron Paul posters in their garden – he’s the right-wing libertarian Republican presidential hopeful. People might be right wing politically, but can be as friendly as apple pie on a personal level. One neighbour offered to lend Siski their car and offered to take Lili while Siski was in hospital; the couple across the road just popped in to ask if it would be Ok for them to cook a meal and bring it across tomorrow, so that Siski wouldn’t need to cook. That would be rare in Britain, I suspect. The same family has their own personal, petrol-driven snow blower to clear their small drive! Almost everyone greets you and even tried to strike up conversation – great if you want contact, but can be annoying when you just want your own peace and quiet.
Williamsville, the Buffalo suburb where Siski lives, prides itself on being ‘a village’ and relishes the connotation, displayed on every shop and sign, although it is really only a suburban corridor between Buffalo proper and elsewhere.
Lili loves her new little sister and spends long periods just gazing at her and holding her hand or stroking her. I have now become demoted to second-best friend. She trots off to bed obediently for her nap every midday even though she is not at all tired, and can spend half an hour or more ‘reading’ aloud to herself. Constanza sleeps most of the day and night and only seems to be discomfited if her nappy is full. You would hardly know she is here most of the time; she just sleeps quietly in her cot in the living room, oblivious of the daily noises around her.
Weather here now seems like in Britain – after heavy snowfall the other day and very cold temp., today is drizzly and very mild and the snow is melting rapidly. Despite rain, went for a short walk. Despite tis being built-up suburbia, only five minutes from Siski is a ‘creek’ i.e. small but fast-flowing river, and some rough woodland. This morning had lovely views of three large deer at the edge of the wood – they stood for a few moments just watching me – then excellent views of blue jays, cardinals, song sparrows and black-capped chickadees; also mourning doves, an American robin and excellent views of a lovely belted kingfisher. There were plenty of woodpeckers about: northern yellow-shafted flicker and hairy woodpeckers. Lots of grey squirrels, of course, and rabbits. So no shortage of wildlife, despite it being part of a big city.
Today the belted kingfisher was on a small pond in the park and flew back and forth with annoyance once we approached. We got excellent views. A number of American goldfinches with song sparrows and chickadees in the park. It’s trying to snow again and the temperature has dropped. Lili and I went for a short walk but couldn’t walk along the river because it is now in full flood after the melt and has flooded the path. Lili is good company and sings songs along the way and makes no complaints.
Yesterday afternoon Becky, Siski’s friend (her son used to go to the same nursery as Lili) popped in. She immediately offered to clear the snow from our driveway, while her daughter played with Lili. She then came inside for a drink and chatted, or should I say kept up a fast flow of chatter, almost a monologue. Why do so many US-Americans talk so much, and in such loud voices and at such a speed that you have a headache afterwards? Siski reckons they talk so much and so loud because they are mostly full of self confidence, engendered in school from an early age by being encouraged to talk to the class. Even Lili does it in nursery – every child has to bring something in each week and talk about it.
Then the neighbour popped in and brought us our evening meal, plus presents for Lili and the baby! They’d cooked us chicken pie with broccoli and brownies as a desert. It’s surprising what they spend on presents, too, 40-100 dollars is not excessive; very generous.
Friday 20 Jan. Had a good fall of snow once again yesterday evening. Today bright and sunny so Siski let Lili miss school and we both went tobogganing. We had the little park and slope all to ourselves and had great fun sledding up and down. Lili even ventured down by herself. Tomorrow I will have the dubious pleasure of accompanying Lili to a friend’s birthday party at ‘Rolly Polly’s.
Rolly Pollys turns out to be a great place for children, founded by an entrepreneurial couple (one a former teacher) who found that children didn’t know what to do when they had break-time at school and had become so sedentary, so they came up with this idea of making a business out of giving children exercise. It is a spacious children’s gym with bouncy castle, trampolines, pits full of foam rubber, ladders and swings etc, so the children spend an hour really expending physical energy, then have a piece of birthday cake and watch the birthday girl opening her presents before going home. The birthday cake looked like something out of a science fiction book – a large slab of dark, gooey cake covered in the most vile multi-coloured icing. The children all get given a bag to take home with a sugar lolly and bits and pieces! No wonder they all grow up to be obese. The birthday girl got given numerous presents – Barbie dolls, dressing up clothes and other assorted ‘cheap’ toys. She was totally overwhelmed by it all.
The bottle recycling point at the supermarket is called the ‘Beverage container redemption centre’. Sound like a place on a Biblical college campus!
Today, Sunday, we all drove out to the Iroqois wildlife reserve, but apart from a far-off view of a bald eagle and a few more Am. Goldfinches and Am tree sparrows, nothing to be seen or heard!
Lili is fascinated by the song that Siski maintains my mother sang to her and Gali at bath time (can’t imagine it!). It’s an amusing Cockney music hall song, called, ‘Your baby has gone down the plughole’ or as it is really sung (and Lili does a great imitation to the amusement of all): Yer baeby ‘as gorn daan the plug’ole!
Monday 23rd, the day before my return to London, and my toothe ache was getting worse, so decided to visit Siski’s dentist. It was about a mile away, the weather was dry and mild, so I walked not that I had much option, as Jose was at work and there is no public transport on this route). I didn’t see another walker all the way. The dentist was very friendly, wanted to know where I was from and then spoke about Dickens. He did three x rays and located a rotting wisdom tooth which he recommended extracting, so I decided to wait till I got home. He said he could email the x-rays to my dentist if they wished and then gave me a photo copy of the x ray and refused to take any payment!
On my way home, again no one else about, I heard a police siren and the cop car slid alongside me and the bullet-headed cop got out. I thought I was going to be questioned again simply because I was walking – an odd thing to do in this country – but he wanted to know if I’d been ringing on someone’s door bell. I said, ‘no’ but I did see two dubious-looking characters who were ringing a door bell, a block down the road. He replied that they weren’t there when he drove by. Not my problem, I thought, but didn’t say so, as his face had a distinctly unhumorous mien. He demanded my ID and where I lived, then to back in his car and drove off, without so much as a thank you. The contrast of the USA once again: generosity and friendliness vs. stony-faced officialdom.
At the check-in desk at the airport in Buffalo I asked if I could check my bags through to London. The lady said OK but could I tell her where London is!

Greenland
Lyttelton Theatre at the National
Plays until April 2011

A play about climate change doesn’t sound like a thrilling subject for the theatre. Theatre can deal easily with grand concepts, but not with abstract ones. Here four of Britain’s brightest young writers - Moira Buffini, Matt Charman, Penelope Skinner and Jack Thorne – have been given the task of bringing the clock-ticking issue of global warming home to us in a series of vignettes that are only related in terms of subject matter. A small ensemble of versatile actors plays all the various roles. They achieve this seamlessly and with real verve. This is not theatre in the traditional sense, more like Peter Brook’s anti-Vietnam war drama, ‘US’ - a kind of agit-prop. It raises many of the questions we all encounter, not least the head-in-the-sand behaviour of, ‘I don’t think it will affect me and the science is dubious anyway’. The issues of the sustainability of mass consumption with food being flown into our supermarkets from all over the world; the role played by the big oil and gas companies in frustrating climate control measures; which forms of active protest to adopt - all are explored through the intimate interaction of individuals. The play manages to avoid an over-earnestness and the writers inject plenty of humour to lighten the apocalyptic vision, symbolised by thunderous noise, frenetic strobe lighting and on-stage chaos. I particularly liked the advice given on where to buy a house to be safe from rising sea levels – choose one near Hinckley Point, as the government is bound to do all in its power to stop a nuclear power station being flooded, but not to save Brighton or Bournemouth! I also like the appearance of an incredibly realistic and very hungry polar bear that traumatises a camp of arctic researchers. It is a short, two-hour piece and, despite imaginative and effective direction by Bijan Sheibani and a strong commitment and persuasiveness by the actors, you feel it wouldn’t be able to hold your attention for much longer. It is, though, a very worthwhile dramatic polemic for young people and those still sitting on the fence. The National is to be congratulated on trying to address burning contemporary issues in this way, and judging by the packed auditorium of mainly young people, it is succeeding splendidly.
END

Looking For The Grave Of Garcia Lorca
release date: Oct 2010
Label: Vida
EGEA Distribution in association with Spitz Records.
Looking for the Grave of Garcia Lorca is the latest album by London-based singer-song-writer Joe Wilkes, and dedicated to the Spanish poet Garcia Lorca, killed by Franco’s fascists during the Civil War in 1936. Wilkes is a great admirer of his poetry and clearly his politics too.

Wilkes is an accomplished acoustic guitar player in the Bert Jansch mould and a gravelly-voiced troubadour. As you can hear from these songs, his politics are firmly Left, but he doesn’t use them as a vehicle for propaganda or political pamphlets. They are deeply personal and his politics only emerge, through the fissures, in the odd word or phrase.

It’s difficult to categorise Wilkes’s music – part blues, a dash of Dylan, part country/folk and, in its instrumental mix, has at times a chamber music or free jazz quality, but it all bears the unmistakable stamp of Joe Wilkes himself.

The title track - Looking for the Grave of Garcia Lorca – is hauntingly evocative: ‘you can’t hide the truth; it’ll come out in the rain’.

In Settling the Score the singer contemplates the legacy of Wat Tyler’s peasant revolt after visiting Blackheath and the song has the militant refrain: ‘What happened back then we’re going to see some more and next time we’ll settle the score’

Unlike many of his contemporaries, he sticks vehemently to acoustic instrumentation and aural under- rather than over-statement. When you read the amazing mix of instruments used on this album - organ, flute, oboe, cor Anglais, violin, viola, cello, harmonica, clarinet and sax as well as guitar – you image an almighty cacophony, but the players are all extremely competent and their interweaving so well mixed that it all comes together as a smooth texture, underlining and complementing the vocals. A cracking album.

Interview with Wu Ming
Wu Ming are at the moment undertaking a tour of Britain, to introduce audiences here to their unique story-telling technique and radical take on history. They agreed to talk to the Morning Star.

They have been characterised as a ‘mysterious guerrilla group of novelists’, but the two members sitting opposite me look far from mysterious and not at all warrior-like. Wu Ming 1 and Wu Ming 4 (they reject the celebrity cult built around novelists, preferring anonymity) dismiss the ‘mysterious’ tag, but don’t allow themselves to be photographed and emphasise that they dislike the idea of them and their work being mediated by others. They feel this would take away their right to have direct contact with their readers – something vitally important to them. Simply put: they want no limit placed on their public image.

What are their aims, other than to subvert the commercialised literary world, I ask. They reply, laconically, that their aim is simply to tell stories which they love doing. Yes, but your stories are not mainstream, I counter. ‘We write stories about conflict,’ they respond, ‘we look at the key turning points in history and focus on those. We are interested in modernity and how we arrived at the place in which we now find ourselves. So we are not concerned with ancient history but in the history that defines us today’.

‘We are attempting to draw a map of where our generation came from. We try to retell history from new perspectives, from uncanny angles. Thus in our novel ‘54’ we begin with a group of nightclub dancers obsessed with Cary Grant, but the novel examines the relationship between US and European politics. Our forthcoming novel, to be published in Britain shortly, is ‘Altai’ which looks at Europe’s relationship with Islam, based during the historical period of the huge clash between the Ottoman Empire and Christian Europe from the 13th century onwards, but written from the point of view of the Turks.’

How far are your novels fictional and how far fact-based, I ask.
Wu Ming 1 uses a vivid metaphor. ‘If you think of history as a big piece of Gruyère cheese, where the solid cheese is the history that has been documented, and the holes are the gaps in the narrative, then we squeeze our fictional elements into those holes; we try and illuminate those dark spots.’

Writing is usually a solitary and individual undertaking, so how does the Wu Ming collective work?
‘We have no fixed method,’ Wu Ming 1 tells me, ‘but a subject or period of history is suggested and, once agreed, we discuss it and then undertake an enormous amount of research so that we gain a great deal of knowledge about the subject matter we wish to examine. We begin with what we call ‘lumps’ of narrative matter and once we have enough we develop an outline fro the story. Each of us then writes a chapter which is circulated, altered, added to and changed. The first draft is very free and each of us adopts his chosen style in complete freedom, but a more homogenous style emerges as the drafts develop and evolve.’

Wu Ming describe the process as incredibly exhilarating and emancipatory. Rather than each being stuck in their own ivory tower, ‘like a prisoner in solitary confinement, we experience the joy of writing together’, they say. ‘Being on the road together, we are like kids again, enjoying the childish naivety of making up stories, but it is also hard work. There is a lot of fun, and we learn from each other, grow together. Each novel teaches us something new’.

So what’s the downside of working collectively? ‘The fact that we only get a quarter of the royalties we would get as an individual writer,’ they reply sardonically.

What is also unusual in their methods of working is that they actively promote the use of the internet to interact with their readers. They are not interested in appearing on TV talk shows or having their work mediated by others; they say the physical shared experience of interacting with their readers is vital for them. They attend more than a hundred such events each year. On their website, through their blogs and twitter they communicate with their readers and encourage the latter to get involved in the creative process. So what does that involve? ‘We get hundreds of emails each day, readers send us ideas or their own short stories and comments, even cartoons or pieces of music which they feel could complement or accompany our stories. We have also involved readers as narrators with mixed results, but now readers are doing things by themselves, ‘they say.

Wu Ming have certainly made a deep impact on the cosy world of modern literature with their unusual hybrid brand of popular novel cum historical epic. They offer a radically new perspective on history and on the art of story-telling itself. Once can only hope that British readers are as fascinated by their books as their Italian compatriots already are.

Do they really feel that their approach to novel writing can really have an impact on the commercially-dominated literary world, characterised by celebrity culture? ‘We don’t know,’ they reply, ‘but ethically we have a duty to counter the current trivialisation of everything. We feel like tightrope walkers, constantly trying to find a balance between popular fiction and more demanding literature, and it is very difficult to maintain that equilibrium.

Who is/are Wu Ming?
Wu Ming (‘anonymous’ in English) is a collective of four left wing radical Italian authors, based in Bologna. They grew out of the Luther Blisset Project (named after a black British footballer), which was, as they explain it, a ‘cultural guerrilla’ exercise. The collective’s first novel Q, was a historical spy novel set in the period of the Reformation, and became a best-seller. It is about the Radical Reformation, asking why Müntzer has inspired radicals for almost 500 years. Their third novel Manituana focuses on the US war of independence seen through the eyes of the Iroquois nation which was almost eradicated by the colonial and imperial struggles.

Wu Ming explain that their work is an attempt to demystify authorship, to subvert the cult of the celebrity author and a consumerist attitude to literature. They are also trying to bridge the gap between popular fiction and serious literature. ‘Our books,’ they say, ‘are readable on two levels: as complex political allegories, and as pulp fiction or adventure novels.’

Wu Ming encourages a ‘communitarian’ use of the internet and their official website: http://www.wumingfoundation.com/english/englishmenu.htm provides more information about them and their novels and gives links to their other sites. It enables the worlds of their novels to be enriched and expanded, offering background information and invitations for fans to make their own contributions.

Books by Wu Ming published in English so far are: Q, 54 and Manituana, all published by Verso.

END

Dias Lourenço –legendary leader of the anti-fascist struggle in Portugal

António Dias Lourenço the legendary Portuguese communist leader and editor the party’s paper, Avante!, died on 7 August in Lisbon at the age of 95.
He was born in the village of Vila Franca in 1915 and became a lathe operator, joining the party as a 17 year-old in 1932. Portugal was at the time suffering under the iron fist of fascist dictator Salazar – which would become the longest surviving fascist dictatorship in the World. Dias Lourenço was responsible for the illegal publication of the party paper Avante! from 1957 until 1962, under the dictatorship, and became its editor from the day of its first legal issue in 1974 until 1991.

He was imprisoned twice under Salazar in 1949 and in 1962 and spent 17 years in fascist prisons. He made a spectacular escape from the notorious prison fortress of Peniche in 1954. This damp and formidable medieval fortress, on the western coast, is lashed by the sea and from which it was believed impossible to escape. But Dias Lourenco managed to hide in the prison, before jumping off the high wall into the freezing Atlantic waters and swimming to safety. While in prison he was viciously tortured to reveal party secrets, but kept silent.

When I was filming in Portugal only a few months after the momentous 1974 April revolution, we made a portrait of Dias Lourenço for GDR television. We accompanied him to Peniche prison where he related his story. While filming in his old cell, now holding former fascist guards (in very liberal conditions I might add), he rushed out, feeling nauseous. We wondered what had happened and he told us that one of those guards was had been his torturer during his own incarceration.
He took an active part in the reorganisation of the party in 1940/41 in the area of the Baixo Ribatejo and was elected to the regional committee. From then on he led a life of clandestine political activity, responsible for party publications and their distribution. Together with the party’s general secretary, Alvaro Cuñhal and others, he was able to forge close links between the country’s progressive intellectuals and workers, thus building the party’s unique standing throughout the country and giving the anti-fascist struggle a broader base.
He was elected to the central committee in 1943 and remained until 1996. He was one of the chief organisers of the mass strikes of July and August in 1943 and in May of 1944. He also led the struggle for the eight-hour working day for agricultural workers.
António Dias Lourenço was elected a member of parliament after the revolution 1975-87. He also wrote several books about his experiences under fascism and in the party.
He was a man of incredible courage, passion and commitment. With an unassuming modesty and love for his country and its working people. He will be sorely missed by progressives in Portugal and internationally.
END

It is a total nonsense to demand that people move where jobs are. This destroys families, communities, local solidarity and friendships. In a rational world, jobs should move to where people are, not vice versa. This is what happened under socialism and should happen here. Of course, as society progresses, industries and jobs disappear or change but they should be replaced by other jobs. It is up to governments to regulate and organise such processes and to provide retraining where necessary. Moving people and families to where jobs are is disruptive, cruel and counter-productive, as people may have to move again and again as jobs vanish, particularly in recesssions. Economics needs to serve people not vice versa. We have been cajoled and brainwashed to accept that we are servants to economic forces. That attitude only serves the wealthy elite who are protected. Duncan Smith's post Tebbit demands must be resisted.
John Green

Product placement – why we should be worried
Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw is not only putting increasing pressure on the BBC to share its licence fee income with the private companies, but is now proposing to lift the ban on ‘product placement’, in line with most other EU nations. Bradshaw argues that a partial lifting of the ban might help commercial broadcasters survive the downturn in advertising revenue. They are sniffing succcess at last after their long campaign for the deregulation of advertising.
This is yet another example of new Labour ministers bowing to big business pressure. With the continuing economic crisis, commercial TV companies have found their advertising revenues plummeting and are desperate to get their hands on BBC licence fee money but also have their hands untied to turn programmes into wholly advertising exercises. Should we be worried? Yes, certainly. Blurring the line between editorial content and commercial messages sets a very dangerous precedent and is not in the interests of the public or programme-makers. It would also damage any remaining trust there is in the integrity of journalists, broadcasters and film-makers.
One only needs to look at the USA to see how product placement has warped programme-making and unduly influenced film-makers. There, big commercial advertisers are even involved in the early stages of programme development, script-writing and editing to ensure the best and most effective placement of their products. To argue that such placement would not affect artistic creativity and freedom is a nonsense. Any creative artist or broadcaster who wishes to challenge their proposals should beware. Product placement only helps the big global players, as they are the only ones who can afford the high advertising fees. So we would have product placement for the likes of MacDonald’s, Coca Cola and other junk food producers as well as the big drinks and drug manufacturers. The arguments about the need to protect children, and excluding children’s programmes is spurious, as most children also watch adult programmes. The repercussions on health – obesity, alcoholism particularly – would be enormous. Sleight-of-hand product placement is, in reality, blatant propaganda and to pretend, as the apologists do, that it would have no affect on artistic creativity or influence programme content, is cynical obfuscation.
The British Medical Association (BMA) warned that allowing alcohol, gambling and unhealthy foods to be advertised through product placement will fuel obesity and alcohol abuse: 'The BMA is deeply concerned about the decision to allow any form of product placement in relation to alcohol, gambling and foods high in fat, sugar or salt as this will reduce the protection of young people from harmful marketing influences and adversely impact on public health,' the BMA said in a submission to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) on the plan. Oppostion is also coming from public health experts, scientists, broadcasters and the general public, but this government isn’t listening.
The fact that most advertisers insist on their products being advertised only on ‘family-friendly’ programmes or those with big viewing ratings also has enormous potential repercussions. It would leave minority programming, the arts, serious documentaries or political film-making out in the cold, as few advertises would be prepared to have their products associated with them as it could prove too controversial. We have already seen this process happening in the mad race for top viewing figures, s the only criterion of success. This seems to be the only factor that broadcasting managers and governments respond to.
I’m no uncritical admirer of the BBC, but you only need to look at those countries with no genuine public broadcasting system to see how standards plummet, with viewers offered only non-stop garbage. One of the reasons why the BBC’s output is much admired worldwide is that you can watch or listen to programmes unadulterated by ad-breaks.
Surely we have to challenge the commercialisation of the last free corners of our society? We already live in one where profitability, commercial success and cash criteria have come to dominate public policy. It is time we fought back and insisted on central social values such as caring, solidarity and a public service ethos be reinstated at the centre of government policy. A principled opposition to the further deregulation of advertising and a deeper commercial penetration of the media have to be a part of that fight-back.
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Christian Lorenzen

Christian Lorenzen - confronting a legacy of official terror
In February last year, 18,000 Guatemalans, mostly survivors or relatives of victims of the state-sponsored terror of the 1970s and 1980s, gathered in Guatemala City, to commemorate the "Day of Dignity for the Victims of the Internal Armed Conflict." They heard President Alvaro Colom publicly accept the UN report that documented the terror. That report recorded that 200,000 people had been killed and 50,000 more ‘disappeared’ in that period. It defined the violence as genocide against the country's Maya majority, and it attributed 95% of the massacres and violations of human rights to Guatemala's armed forces. There are now hopeful signs that this genocide is being recognised by the Gutaemalan authorities, but sadly, killings are still taking place in this, the msot violent countries of Central America.

For the first time, a president has accepted the UN report and has honoured the victims of the conflict. Alvaro Colom, President of the Republic, said: “I ask for pardon." This marks a dramatic break from the past - a clear articulation of the government's responsibility for massive human rights violations, genocide, and ethnocide. It is also part of a broader programme promoted by Colom to recover Guatemala's historical memory and to begin offering symbolic and actual compensation to the victims of violence. The government has also opened the National Police Archives, announced plans to open the military archives, and promoted memorial events, conferences, and publications honouring victims. It has also overseen a controversial programme to compensate victims with funds and housing.
I have a personal interest in this process, as three close student friends were active in the struggle to overthrow the brutal oligarchy – all our now dead.
This is how ‘Porfiro, one of the local Maya jakalteco indigenous people, begs permission from the ‘Heart of heaven and earth’ to forgive us the injury we are about to inflict on the sacred soil and lights candles at the four cardinal points. Each of us expresses what we feel. Felipe speaks of the sacrifice and says that the comrades interred here gave their all for the goal of achieving a better form of society; Leonor explains to us that in the Mayan calendar today is symbolic for fire and death, and death represents the end of a cycle: the seed dies in order to give life to the plant. To find the remains of our comrades would allow us to close the endless circle of pain and uncertainty.

Around mid-morning, while we’re excavating, men from the nearby village of Pico de Oro arrive. They are understandably suspicious and wish to establish that we are in fact looking for the remains of relatives and not robbing the ancient site. They come armed with machetes and rifles and expressions of mistrust on their stony faces. After an intense conversation, we manage to assuage their fears.
At one end of the trench we dig, we come across carved stones, revealing that we are excavating in an area of an ancient Mayan settlement. By two o’clock we find the first fragments of bone wrapped in a plastic sheet. We soon recover a complete skull and then virtually the whole skeleton. Miguel, one of Christian’s close comrades, has no doubt the bones are Christian’s. We also find the remains of another comrade remembered only by his nom de guerre, Clemencio. This had been the burial place for comrades killed in action, among them, some of the first indigenous guerrilla fighters.”
That is a summary of the report I received recently via an old friend from the former GDR, from Christian’s son.
When I was studying at the national film school in the GDR in the late sixties my fellow students in the class were all from developing countries, a number from Latin America. They were learning how to make films, so that they could return to their homes to help document their peoples’ struggles for liberty and freedom from imperial domination.
One student who made a deep impression on me was a young Guatemalan comrade by the name of Christian Lorenzen. Unusual for Central Americans, he was over 6 ft tall, slim, handsome with dark curly hair and intense chestnut eyes. He was always exceedingly serious, very committed to his studies and not easily approachable. When I asked him about his unusual stature and name, he revealed that one of his great grandparents had come from Scandinavia.
I lost contact with Christian over the years and only this month did I learn the tragic reason why. Another friend and comrade was the renowned Guatemalan poet Rene Otto Castillo who was killed in action by the Guatemalan army, trained and armed by US and Israeli forces.
Christian, like Rene Otto, was one of those who were determined to dedicate his life to the liberation of his people and in those heady days of the late sixties, when the example of Che Guevara and the armed struggles then unfolding in Latin America and elsewhere were magnetic.
He left the GDR abruptly, directed by the Guatemalan party to undertake military training in the North Korea and Cuba in preparation for a guerrilla campaign in his native Guatemala.
In the early seventies Christian became one of the founders of the Guerrilla Army of the Poor (Ejército Guerrillero de los Pobres or EGP). But, for various reasons, he was not among the fisrt armed units to enter the country.
Eight years later, in early March 1980, only a few months after being elected to the command of the EGP, he joined his comrades in the field. Some weeks later when marching along an arduous mountain path in Chiapas, hindered by a dense tangle of vegetation Christian began suffering serious health problems – he was coughing blood and running a high fever. He thought he simply had an attack of malaria and was determined to keep going, but it was more serious than that. He died on that march; he was just 35 years old.
In 2002, his remains were taken to Guatemala City and, in the presence of his parents, family and former comrades, were given a dignified burial.
The Guatemalan Interdiocesan Recovery of Historical Memory organisation is also carrying out ongoing exhumations initiated in the era of the 1996 peace accords. The bones disinterred in massive, clandestine burial sites provided testimony to the nature of the violence in Guatemala. Although faded and deteriorated, victims' clothing retained the distinctive woven colours and patterns of those worn by Maya campesinos. Broken toys and babies' bones provided devastating, silent testimony that the targets of the military were not just armed guerrillas, but unarmed civilians - men, women, and children. The testimonies presented by victims gave voice to the silent dead, exhumed from mass graves.

President Colom, Guatemal’s new president, has now given an official apology on behalf of the Guatemalan government and armed forces. It is rumoured that the government intends to promote a public memorial and possibly even a historical museum as part of its programme of memory and compensation, in conformance with the recommendations of the long-rejected UN report.

However, the current situation of violence in Guatemala in which an average of 17 people are murdered daily and some 60,000 have been killed since the signing of the peace accords in 1996, makes a mockery of the government’s claim that "never again will we repeat this tragic, perverse, and bloody history." As Rosalina Tuyuc, founder of the National Association of Guatemalan Widows observed, "tragically the patrones of the violence of the past and the present are the same."

It can only be hoped that the ultimate sacrifice of young men like Christian Lorenzen and Rene Otto Castillo is not forgotten but continues to inspire future generations of revolutionaries who will come to share their noble aspirations. As the Nicaraguan poet, Giaconda Belli put it: ‘they were the carriers of our dreams’.


The period of the Cold War between the US and USSR, had an immense influence on Guatemala. From the 1950s through the 1990s, the US government directly supported Guatemala's right wing governments and its army with training, weapons, and money.
In 1954, Arévalo's freely elected Guatemalan successor, Jacobo Arbenz, was overthrown in a coup orchestrated by the CIA. In the 1954 coup, Colonel Armas was installed as president and ruled until assassinated by a member of his personal guard in 1957. Substantial evidence points to the role of the American United Fruit Company as instrumental in this coup, as the land reforms of Jacobo Arbenz were considered a threat to the company's extensive interests in Guatemala and it had direct ties to the White House and the CIA.
In the election that followed, General Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes assumed power. He authorized the training of 5,000 anti-Castro Cubans in Guatemala. He also provided airstrips in Guatemala for what later became the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba in 1961.
In 1966, Julio Montenegro was elected president of Guatemala under the banner ‘Democratic Opening’. Montenegro was the candidate of the Revolutionary Party, which was far from revolutionary. It was during this time that rightist paramilitary organizations, such as the ‘White Hand’ (Mano Blanca), and the Anti-communist Secret Army, (Ejército Secreto Anticomunista), were formed. These organizations were the forerunners of the infamous ‘Death Squads’. Military advisers from the US Army Special Forces (Green Berets) as well as Israeli specialists were sent to Guatemala to train troops and help transform its army into a modern counter-insurgency force, infamous for its ruthlessness and use of torture - it became the most sophisticated and ruthless in Central America. As a result of the Army's ‘scorched earth’ tactics, thousands were massacred and more than 45,000 people fled across the border into Mexico.

In 1982, The Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca or URNG) emerged as a united guerrilla umbrella organisation out of the four armed revolutionary groups active in Guatemala.
This unification came about in response to the successes of the Salvadoran guerrilla FMLN and the Nicaraguan FSLN (Sandinistas) in order to create a more effective opposition to the military dictatorship. In 1996 after the peace process following the cessation of armed struggle it became a legal political party.
Today Guatemala enjoys a fragile democracy, but the scars of the armed struggle, the systematic ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population and mass exodus of the seventies and eighties still reverberate.
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