Anton Ashta
|
| Postuar mė 26-6-2002 nė 21:36 |
|
|
Politikanet dhe ideologet e te djathtes
Politikanet dhe ideologet e te djathtes
Ju pershendes,
ketu do te kisha deshire te diskutonim permbi politikanet e te djathtes .
une po ju sjell adresen e "gruas se hekurt"
www.margaretthatcher.com/
Anton
Edited by: anton1as at: 5/31/02 3:27:34 am
konservatore
Registered User
Posts: 3
(6/4/02 2:17:51 pm)
Reply | Edit | Del Re: Politikanet dhe ideologet e te djathtes
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Une po vendos nje faqe biografike mbi Helmut Kohl.
Mbi Margaret Thatcher do te deshiroja te diskutoja ne nje kohe me te vone. Po ia rezerovj vetes te drejten deri atehere.
www.cnn.com/resources/new.../kohl.html
alumni
Unregistered User
(6/7/02 2:21:55 am)
Reply | Edit | Del Uinston Churchill
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was born at Blenheim Palace on St Andrew's Day, 30 November 1874. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill, was a
younger son of the Duke of Marlborough. His mother, Jennie Jerome, was the daughter of an American business tycoon.
Winston's childhood was privileged but not particularly happy. Like many Victorian parents, Lord and Lady Randolph Churchill were distant
figures. Letters from his schooldays reveal a wilful and somewhat rebellious little boy.
"Very bad - is a cosntant trouble to everybody ..." (extract from Churchill's school report, April 1884)
In 1895 Churchill graduated from Sandhurst. He travelled to the United States and Cuba, saw action on the north west frontier of India in 1897, and
the following year joined Kitchener's expeditionary force to the Sudan and participated in the cavalry charge against the Dervishes at the battle
of Omdurman.
His adventures continued in 1899 when he sailed to South Africa as a correspondent of the Morning Post to cover the Boer War. He was captured
and spent his twenty-fifth birthday as a prisoner of war, before escaping and making his way across the enemy lines to Durban.
"I play for high stakes and given an audience there is no act too daring or too noble."
Churchill was first elected to parliament in 1900, shortly before the death of Queen Victoria. He took his seat in the House of Commons as a
Conservative member for Oldham. After four years he crossed the floor and joined the Liberals, rising swiftly through their ranks. As President of the
Board of Trade he helped to lay the foundations of the welfare state, while his brief tenure as Home Secretary is still remembered for the Tonypandy
Riot and the siege of Sidney Street.
"Politics is not a game. It is an earnest business."
In 1908 Churchill married Clementine Hozier, granddaughter of the 10th Earl of Airlie. They had five children, four of whom survived into adulthood.
The marriage was to prove a long and happy one, though there were quarrels. Their personal correspondence sheds much light on the private people
behind the public myth. From the first years of their marriage Winston and Clementine routinely ended their letters with drawings. He was her
'pug' or 'pig'. She was his 'cat'.
"It starts with a young man falling in love with a girl."
By the time war broke out in 1914 Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty and already a major national figure. As the conflict in Europe degenerated
into a stalemate he became convinced that the only way to end the war quickly was to mount a huge out-flanking attack on Turkey through the
Dardanelles. But his attempts to force the straits using only ships foundered, leading to the disastrous Gallipolli landings and costing Churchill his
job.
Rather than remain idle, Churchill sought active service on the Western Front. In January 1916 he was appointed as Lieutenant-Colonel
commanding the 6th Battalion Royal Scots Fusiliers.
"D**mn the Dardanelles. They'll be our grave." (Lord Fisher to Churchill April 1915)
Churchill successfully contested Dundee for the first time in May 1908. His ministerial responsibilities kept him away from his constituency. There
were also clear differences in lifestyle and background between Churchill and most of his constituents. By the time of the 1922 election, support for
the Labour party had grown and the local newspapers were hostile to Churchill.
Worse still, appendicitis kept him from active campaigning. Clementine spoke in her husband's place, but was spat upon for wearing
pearls. When the result was declared, Churchill was left, as he wryly observed, without a seat, without a party and without an appendix.
"Over 2000 persons escorted me, cheering and singing through the streets of Dundee."
Between 1922 and 1924 Churchill left the Liberal party and rejoined the Conservatives. Anyone could 'rat', he remarked, but it took a
certain ingenuity to 're-rat'. To his surprise he was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in Stanley Baldwin's government - a
position he held until the Tory defeat in 1929.
During the 1930s Churchill fell out with Baldwin over the question of giving India greater self-government and became more and more isolated
in politics. His dire warnings about the rise of Hitler and the dangers of the appeasement policy initially fell on deaf ears.
"In the destruction of Czechoslovakia the entire balance of Europe was deranged and the great and growing German army is free to turn in any
direction."
Churchill's role in the Second World War needs little introduction. His immediate contribution was to instil in the British people his own fiery
resolve and will to resist. Throughout the tense summer of 1940, when Britain stood alone, his speeches proved an inspiration.
Yet Churchill did more than just talk. He toured the country inspecting the bomb-damaged towns and cities. He also worked tirelessly on
diplomatic and military initiatives to regain the offensive. It was from Scapa Flow that he sailed in August 1941 for a crucial secret meeting with
President Roosevelt.
"I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this Gorvernement 'I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and
sweat."
As the threat of German invasion receded, the tide of war began to turn. Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union brought Churchill an unlikely ally
in the person of Joseph Stalin. The Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour transformed the war into a truly global conflict. It also precipitated the
United States into the war, and with the Americans came the promise of an ultimate Allied victory. By October 1942 Churchill clearly felt confident
enough to accept the Freedom of the City of Edinburgh.
Churchill worked tirelessly to keep the Grand Alliance alive, shuttling between capital cities and conferences. It is often forgotten that he
celebrated his 70th birthday during the war. While he tried hard to project a fit and active public image, the strain inevitably took a toll on his
health.
"We must all thank God that we have been allowed to play a part in making these days memorable in the history of our race."
Churchill did not allow his shock defeat in the 1945 General Election to silence him for very long. He remained a hugely important international
figure, and used his status to speak out about the new threats posed by the Cold War and the need for reconciliation in Western Europe. In October
1951 the Conservative Party achieved a narrow victory at the polls and Churchill became Prime Minister once again. Failing health forced him to resign
the premiership in April 1955, but he remained an MP until 1964.
Churchill died on 24 January 1965 - seventy years to the day after the death of his father. He received the first state funeral given to a commoner
since that of the Duke of Wellington.
"I'm ready to meet my Maker, whether my Maker is prepared for meeting me is another matter."
alumni
Unregistered User
(6/7/02 2:30:35 am)
Reply | Edit | Del Aldo Moro
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
www.uwgb.edu/galta/333/moro.htm
Aldo Moro
by Michelle Wehling
Aldo Moro was an influential figure in Italy both in his life and in his death. He was a law professor, an Italian Statesman, and leader of the
Christian Democratic Party who served as premier of Italy five times. In the following pages I will take a brief look at the life and the death of
Aldo Moro.
Aldo Moro was born September 23, 1916, in Maglie in the southeastern region of Puglia and was active in Italian politics until his death May 9, 1978.
He graduated from the University of Bari in 1940 and after graduating he also taught there. As a professor of law at Bari he published several books
dealing with legal issues and served as the president of the Federation of Italian University Catholics and the Movement of Catholic Graduates.
After World war II Aldo Moro was elected to the Constituent Assembly in 1946 and helped draft Italy's new constitution. He was elected to the
Chamber of Deputies in 1948 and was head of the Christian Democrats in the chamber between 1953-1955. After the collapse of the fascist regime in 1943
he helped organize the Christian Democratic Party in Puglia. He then held several cabinet posts including under secretary of foreign affairs, minister
of justice, and minister of public instruction.
He took the position of secretary of the Christian Democrats in 1959 at the time when a crisis threatened to split the party. As leader of the party
he favored a coalition with the Socialists and helped bring about the resignation of conservative Christian Democrat prime minister Fernando Tambroni
in July, 1960.
In 1963 he was invited to form his own government and he assembled a cabinet including some socialists. He resigned after being defeated on a budget
issue on June 26, 1964, but on July 22, 1964 he formed a new cabinet much like the old one and after Amoitore Fanfani's resignation in 1965 moro
temporarily became his own prime minister and renewed his pledge to Nato and the United Nations.
Italy's years of inflation and failing industrial growth prevented Moro from initiating many of the reforms he envisioned which angered the
Socialists who effected his defeat in January 1966. In February he formed a new government and after the general elections in 1968 he resigned as was
customary.
He became foreign minister from 1970-1972. In November of 1974 he became premier with a coalition government, but the government fell on January 7,
1976. Moro was again premier from February12 through April 30 and remained in office as head of a caretaker government until July 9, 1976.
In October 1976 he became president of the Christian Democrats and remained a powerful influence even though he held no public office. Although Moro
was opposed to a formal role for the Communists in the government he was instrumental in bringing about the arrangement in 1976 by which Communists
were given an unofficial voice in government and important parliamentary posts in return for agreeing not to vote against the Christian Democratic
party in Parliament. Later he was instrumental in overcoming the Christian Democratic resistance to continued cooperation with the Communists.
Moro was generally regarded as the next president of Italy, however, on March 16, 1978, Aldo Moro was kidnapped in Rome by Red Brigades terrorists
while on his way to a special session of Parliament. After officials repeatedly refused to release thirteen members of the Red Brigades on trial in
Turin, Moro was murdered in or near Rome on May 9, 1978.
As influential as Aldo Moro was in his lifetime , his death and the cover up that followed has also been influential. At this point I would like to
take a look at what has come to be known as the Moro Affair. I will begin with a chronology of the fifty four days from his kidnapping to his
execution. March 16, 1978, Aldo Moro president of the Christian Democratic Party, the ruling party in Italy, is kidnapped in Rome and his five
bodyguards are murdered. The Red Brigades then announce that Moro is in their hands. Parliament empowers Giulio Andreotti backed by a new majority, a
five party coalition, which includes the Communists for the first time in Italian history. The communists immediately adopt an intransigent position
against the communist Red Brigades and prevent negotiations. March 17, Andreotti meets with the party chiefs of the new majority and they agree on
stern measures against political terrorism. March 18, the Red Brigades issue their first message that Moro is being held prisoner and is to be tried
as a political prisoner and they release a photo of him. March 19, One of the cars used for the kidnapping is found. March 20, the states trial of Red
Brigades chief Renato Curcio, and fourteen others resumes in Turin after a series of delays imposed by the terrorist actions. March 21, the Andreotti
government increases police power extending the most massive manhunt throughout Italy . The press, which has been urged by the government to use
caution, debates the wisdom of self censorship. The U.S. house of representatives unanimously votes to support the Andreotti government. March 24 , in
Turin the Red Brigades attack Giovanni Picco, a Christian Democrat and former mayor of Turin. March 25, the second message is sent from the terrorists
stating that his interrogation is under way by a people's tribunal and a list of the charges against Moro is included. March 29, three
confidential letters written by Moro are delivered by the Red Brigades in an attempt to set up a two way secret hot line. The Red Brigades make
public, along with the message three, the letter Moro wrote to Interior Minister Cossiga in which Moro spoke of a prisoner exchange to be made by the
Vatican. March 30, Andreotti assumes a no negotiation stance and the press portray Moro as a man under tortured mind altering drugs. March 31, the
Vatican announces its availability as a mediator but backs down when this creates difficulties.
April 1, It is rumored that Nicola Rana, Moro's secretary, has received a letter. The next day his family is also said to have received a letter.
April 2, Pope Paul VI appealing publicly for Moro's life begins to develop a position independent of and in contrast to that of the Vatican.
April 3, the police carry out house to house searches and arrests among members of the extreme left, but within forty eight hours nearly all are
released. April 4, message four is delivered with a letter from Moro to the Christian Democratic party citing evidence that Moro's position on
prisoner exchanges predates his capture and cannot be considered as forced on him by the Red Brigades.
April 5, Il Giorno publishes a letter from Elenora Moro to the editor in the hope that the Red Brigades would show it to her husband. April 6, Moro
writes a letter to his family asking for a situation report. April 7, the family replies by writing another letter in the Il Giorno.
April 8, Moro writes back outlining his war plans. The message is intercepted by the police, but is kept secret both by the family and government.
April 10, message five arrives containing a handwritten note from Moro attacking his ex-interior minister. April 11, the Red Brigades assassinate a
Turin prison guard branded as torturer. April 12, it is said that Cossiga, Rana and family have received more letters. April 14, Jimmy Carter sends
Andreotti personal letter with full backing. April 15, message six proclaims Moro's guilt and the people's tribunal sentences him to death.
April 17, the U.S. State Department reaffirms complete support of Rome's stance. Amnesty International appeals to Red Brigades seeking to discuss
Moro's release. April 18, unathenticated message seven announces Moro's execution. April 19, the family disregards message seven in petition
to open negotiations signed by internationally renowned personalities and church figures. April 20, the Red Brigades assassinate the head of the Milan
prison guards. Verified message seven released with photo of Moro reading of his death. The Christian Democrats are given a forty eight hour ultimatum
to indicate willingness to negotiate prisoner exchange. April 21, Moro writes a letter urging the party to break their hard line stance. April 22, the
ultimatum expires at 3 p.m..
April 24, message eight containing a list of thirteen communist prisoners in exchange for Moro. April 25, Secretary General Waldheim goes over the
heads of the Italian Government and speaks to the Red Brigades by satellite television. April 26, Christian Democratic Rome leader is kneecapped. Il
Giorno publishes letter from family assuring Moro of support. April 27, FIAT executive kneecapped by Red Brigades. April 28, Andreotti reaffirms hard
line stance. April 29, Moro writes several letters to key persons in power in a final attempt to bring about a grass roots revolution of his party.
April 30, the family breaks with Christian Democratic leadership charging them with obstructing initiatives to release Moro.
May 1, the Socialists meet with Red Brigades convinced that their plan for one on one exchange will provide for Moro's release. May 2, the
Socialists meet with the Christian Democrats to gain support. May 3, Andreotti repudiates the one for one proposal. May 5, message nine arrives
announcing the executing sentence along with a letter to Moro's wife. April 6, the family joins the Socialists to bring all pressure to bear on
the Chief of State. May 7, Fanfani is forced to speak out publicly hoping to signal Red Brigades that new moves are on the way. May 8 , Fanfani
himself attempts to signal but holds back his main thrust for private talks with Andreotti the next morning. The family is reassured by Leone that he
will sign pardon, but he buckles under Andreotti. May 9, while Fanfani argues the case against a hard line stance, news arrives that Moro has been
found dead in a car in a street midway between the headquarters of the Christian Democrats and the Communists. May 10, autopsy proves that moro was
never drugged or mistreated. May 13, 1978 a funeral ceremony is held for Aldo Moro.
These events that I have just describe in the preceding paragraphs had a great impact on the politics and people of Italy. Moro's kidnapping and
execution brought fear to the people of Italy and the people of the world. Italy has had a long history of political instabilty and even today the
government of Italy is in a state of constant change. Aldo Moro was a great influence on the politics of Italy for several decades and his death
affects the politics of Italy even today. The investigation, or lack thereof, after his execution showed just how corrupt a government can become and
how much power just a few individuals can have. Moro affected the political seen in Italy by changing the laws and encouraging the cooperation of
several of the political parties to work together . His influence could also be seen evenduring his imprisonment because it was the first time that
the communists had been included in the government and the fact that the government had become made up of a five party coalition showed that his
encouragement of the political parties was effective, even if it was against him. Due to the suddeness of his death no one will ever know how much
more of an influence that Aldo Moro could have had had he become the next president of Italy.
References
Katz, Robert. (1980). Days of wrath the ordeal of Aldo Moro: the kidnapping the execution the aftermath. Doubleday & Comany, Inc. New York.
Sciascia, Leonardo. (1987). The Moro affair and the mystery of majororana. Carcanet Press Limited. New York.
alumni
Unregistered User
(6/7/02 2:44:56 am)
Reply | Edit | Del Konrad Adenauer
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
www.kas.de/stiftung/adena...ng-en.html
Konrad Adenauer
Konrad Adenauer was born on January 5, 1876, in Cologne. His father, Konrad sr., was a clerical civil servant, and his mother, née Helene
Scharfenberg, had also been brought up in a civil servant's family. Together with three siblings, two elder brothers and one younger sister,
Konrad Adenauer grew up in modest circumstances. At his grammar school, the Apostelgymnasium, he was thought a 'good, unspectacular, average
pupil'. After his graduation in 1894, he began work as a bank apprentice but abandoned his apprenticeship when he was awarded a grant by the City
of Cologne that enabled him to begin studying law at Freiburg University. Having spent two semesters at Munich, where he also attended classes in
national economics, he moved to Bonn, where he passed his first state examination with fair success in 1897. The second state examination he passed
with adequate marks in Berlin in 1901. Having spent his allotted time as a junior official at the office of the Public Prosecutor attached to the
Cologne Regional Court, he joined in 1902 a law firm in Cologne headed by councillor Hermann Kausen who was Chairman of the Centre party group in the
city council.
It was a foregone conclusion that Adenauer, a Catholic from the Rhineland, was predestined by both his origin and his upbringing to join the Centre
Party, the party of political Catholicism. His political career began after he married in 1904 Emma Weyer, the twenty-four-year-old daughter of a
respectable, prosperous Cologne family. By virtue of this marriage, he was brought into contact with the societal and political trendsetters among the
burghers of the Rhineland. In 1906, he applied successfully for the career city councillor post. Three years later, he was elected President of the
council, which automatically made him deputy of Max Wallraff, the then Lord Mayor, who was an uncle of Adenauer's wife. It was particularly
during the First World War that Konrad Adenauer's deftness and imagination stood him in good stead in organising the food supply of the City of
Cologne. His professional success, however, was overshadowed by fateful events in his personal life. In 1916, he lost his wife, who had borne him
three children. Adenauer himself was involved in a severe car crash in which he suffered facial injuries that held him captive for months in hospital
and later in a health resort. When Wallraff left for Berlin in 1917 to become Under-Secretary of State for Interior Affairs, he left the office of
Lord Mayor of Cologne vacant, and Adenauer was appointed his successor by the unanimous vote of all members of the City Council. This election made
him the youngest mayor in Prussia.
In the time of the Weimar Republic, Adenauer was one of the most influential political personages in Germany. He made his name by progressively
developing Cologne into a 'metropolis of the West'. During his term of office, Cologne University was founded in 1919, the city's
former fortifications were converted into a green belt, the traditional industrial exhibition was revived, port facilities on the Rhine river were
extended, another bridge across the Rhine was built, and industrial enterprises, the Ford Company among them, were induced to settle within the
municipality. In 'big politics', Adenauer became one of the key figures dominating the Rhineland question. To prevent the outright
annexation of the occupied area on the left bank, he advocated for a time the creation of a Rhenish Federal State so as to appease the French in their
need for safety. That he cooperated with the so-called Rhineland Movement gave him the reputation of being a 'separatist', particularly
during the Nazi period.
His influence spread beyond regional boundaries when he was made President of the Prussian State Council in 1921, an office which he held until 1933.
Repeatedly, he was mentioned in government circles as one of the candidates for the office of Chancellor in the periodic crises of the Weimar
Republic. In conjunction with his fundamental federalist, Christian, and social convictions, his republicanism made him an object of hate among the
adversaries of the Weimar 'system'. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, therefore, he was immediately replaced as Lord Mayor of Cologne
and banished from the city of his birth.
Adenauer lived through the years of war and National Socialist tyranny together with his family in the house on the Zennigsweg in Rhöndorf which
he had built after the financial claims he had against the municipality of Cologne had been settled out of court. His situation became somewhat
hazardous when, by the end of the war, he was held prisoner by the Gestapo for several months as an enemy of the regime after the assassination
attempt on Hitler had failed.
He was returned to the office of Lord Mayor of Cologne by the victorious Americans. Aged 69, Adenauer was then at the head of a list of personally
untainted politicians. With unbroken strength he faced up to the task of reviving a city that had been largely ruined. After a very few months, and
after a switch of control, he was dismissed from office by the British military government then in charge after he had criticised its occupation
policy. For the second time in his life, Adenauer found himself compelled to retire and expelled from Cologne. The ban on political activity, which
had been imposed at the same time, had barely been lifted when Adenauer, who by then was 70, focussed all his energies on his activities within the
CDU, which he had joined shortly after its foundation. A number of political concepts and programmatical ideas which he had developed after the First
World War and submitted to the test of his experiences during the rule of the Nazis laid the foundations for a 'lightning career' in his
party. As early as February 5, 1946, Adenauer was elected Chairman of the Rhineland CDU and - a scant month later - Chairman of the CDU of the British
Zone. By october, he had added the office of Chairman of the CDU party group in the North Rhine-Westphalian Parliament to his list of offices. His
rise as the charismatic Chancellor who was in office when the Federal Republic of Germany was founded and the respect he enjoyed as a statesman of the
Western World are closely related to the origins of the conflict between East and West and the beginnings of the Cold War.
He took his most important step on his way to the top of the nascent West German governmental system when he was elected President of the
Parliamentary Council created at the instruction of the three Western Allied Powers in 1948 to formulate the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of
Germany. It was in this position that he became the 'spokesman of the budding Federal Republic' (Heuss) in its contacts with both the Land
Minister Presidents and the military governors, which brought him increasing fame among the general public. At the age of 73, he was elected Federal
Chancellor by the CDU/CSU party group in the first German Federal Diet on September 15, 1949, an office which he was destined to hold for 14 years.
The governments he led prepared the ground for the successful construction of a new democracy. Some epoch-making decisions will remain connected to
the 'Adenauer era' forever. In foreign politics, these include the achievement of national sovereignty, the establishment of close ties with
the free West, the reconciliation of France, and the unification of Europe; in domestic policy, they include the integration of refugees and displaced
persons as well as the construction of social market economy, a novel economic order amalgamating the promotion of free competition with the
responsibility of social government. The 'economic miracle' of Germany could not have been brought about without secure social peace in the
country. Legislation establishing co-determination in the coal and steel industry, the system of employee property formation, the equalisation of
burdens, the creation of subsidised housing, child benefits, the agricultural Green Plan, and the dynamisation of pensions became the cornerstones of
the much-famed social network of the Federal Republic of Germany. For the first time, social policy in Germany acquired permanent and coherent
structural overtones.
At the general elections of 1957, the CDU/CSU headed by Adenauer won an absolute majority of 50.2% of the votes cast - an achievement that is probably
unique. When Adenauer's third period of office as Chancellor ended, however, uncertainties had become preponderant. The general picture of global
politics had changed after the United States had modified its priorities, and this, in turn, caused the Soviets to bring more pressure to bear on
Berlin (Berlin ultimatum; three-state theory). Domestic politics, in turn, succumbed to the struggle for the 'old man's' succession.
One historical feat at the time was the establishment of close political ties between Germany and France on the strength of the friendship between
Adenauer and de Gaulle, who had met for the first time in 1958. On the other hand, political relations between the two German entities reached an
all-time low. The construction of the Berlin Wall on August 13, 1961, just a few weeks before the fourth general elections, seemed to be cementing the
separation of Germany. Having been elected Chancellor once again by a coalition of CDU/CSU and FDP in 1961, Adenauer stepped down at the half-way mark
of the legislative period in conformance with a previous agreement.
Konrad Adenauer's attraction waned as the war generation was replaced by the children of the reconstruction period. In 1966, he resigned as
Federal Chairman of the CDU. For the last time, he achieved political success in 1963 when the Franco-German Treaty was signed, a treaty which not
only focussed on cooperation between the two neighbouring states but pointed the way to Europe, one of the overriding goals of Adenauer's policy.
When he died aged 91 on April 19, 1967, he received worldwide honours as a statesman who gave freedom, prosperity, and social security to the citizens
of the Federal Republic. Konrad Adenauer lies buried in Rhöndorf. A foundation has directed the conversion of his house into a museum and
research institution. His memoirs, the first volume of which appeared in 1965, and an edited version of his correspondence represent historical source
materials of the first order.
Hans-Otto Kleinmann
Reminiscences, 4 Vols., DVA, Stuttgart 1965-1968
Adenauer, Rhöndorf Edition, Correspondence 1945-1955, 4 Vols., Siedler, Berlin, 1983-1995; Conversations over Tea 1950-1963, 4 Vols., Siedler,
Berlin 1984-1992
Terence Prittie, Adenauer, Tom Stacey Ltd., London 1970
Joseph Rovan, Konrad Adenauer, Beauchesne Éditeur, Paris 1987
Hans-Peter Schwarz, Konrad Adenauer - A German Politician and Statesman in a Period of War, Revolution and Reconstruction, Vol. I, Berghan Books,
Oxford 1995; Vol. II, The Statesman 1952-1967, DVA, Stuttgart 1991
Rhöndorf Conversations, Publications of the Bundeskanzler-Adenauer-Haus Foundation, # 1-5, Belser, Stuttgart; # 6-15, Bouvier, Bonn 1978-1996
Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung e.V., 24.05.2000
Por sot, Shqypni, pa m´thuej si je?
|
|
|
Anton Ashta
|
| Postuar mė 26-6-2002 nė 21:38 |
|
|
Ataturk
www.cs.umd.edu/users/kand...aturk.html
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
.
The founder of the Turkish Republic and its first President, stands as a towering figure of the 20th Century. Among the great leaders of history, few
have achieved so much in so short period, transformed the life of a nation as decisively, and given such profound inspiration to the world at large.
Emerging as a military hero at the Dardanelles in 1915, he became the charismatic leader of the Turkish national liberation struggle in 1919. He
blazed across the world scene in the early 1920s as a triumphant commander who crushed the invaders of his country. Following a series of impressive
victories against all odds, he led his nation to full independence. He put an end to the antiquated Ottoman dynasty whose tale had lasted more than
six centuries - and created the Republic of Turkey in 1923, establishing a new government truly representative of the nation's will.
As President for 15 years, until his death in 1938, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk introduced a broad range of swift and sweeping reforms - in the
political, social, legal, economic, and cultural spheres - virtually unparalleled in any other country.
His achievements in Turkey are an enduring monument to Atatürk. Emerging nations admire him as a pioneer of national liberation. The world honors
his memory as a foremost peacemaker who upheld the principles of humanism and the vision of a united humanity. Tributes have been offered to him
through the decades by such world statesmen as lloyd George, Churchill, Roosevelt, Nehru, de Gaulle, Adenauer, Bourguiba, Nasser, Kennedy, and
countless others. A White House statement, issued on the occasion of "The Atatürk Centennial" in 1981, pays homage to him as "a
great leader in times of war and peace". It is fitting that there should be high praise for Atatürk, an extraordinary leader of modern
times, who said in 1933: "I look to the world with an open heart full of pure feelings and friendship".
"There are two Mustafa Kemals. One the flesh-and-blood Mustafa Kemal who now stands before you and who will pass away. the other is you, all of
you here who will go to the far corners of our land to spread the ideals which must be defended with your lives if necessary. I stand for the
nation's dreams, and my life's work is to make them come true."
Atatürk stands as one of the world's few historic figures who dedicated their lives totally to their nations.
He was born in 1881 (probably in the spring) in Salonica, then an Ottoman city, now in Greece. His father Ali Riza, a customs official turned lumber
merchant, died when Mustafa was still a boy. His mother Zubeyde, a devout and strong-willed woman, raised him and his sister. First enrolled in a
traditional religious school, he soon switched to a modern school. In 1893, he entered a military high school where his mathematics teacher gave him
the second name Kemal (meaning perfection) in recognition of young Mustafa's superior achievement. He was thereafter known as Mustafa Kemal.
In 1905, Mustafa Kemal graduated from the War Academy in Istanbul with the rank of Staff Captain. Posted in Damascus, he started with several
colleagues, a clandestine society called "Homeland and Freedom" to fight against the Sultan's despotism. In 1908 he helped the group of
officers who toppled the Sultan. Mustafa Kemal's career flourished as he won his heroism in the far corners of the Ottoman Empire, including
Albania and Tripoli. He also briefly served as a staff officer in Salonica and Istanbul and as a military attache in Sofia.
In 1915, when Dardanelles campaign was launched, Colonel Mustafa Kemal became a national hero by winning successive victories and finally repelling
the invaders. Promoted to general in 1916, at age 35, he liberated two major provinces in eastern Turkey that year. In the next two years, he served
as commander of several Ottoman armies in Palestine, Aleppo, and elsewhere, achieving another major victory by stopping the enemy advance at
Aleppo.
On May 19, 1919, Mustafa Kemal Pasha landed in the Black Sea port of Samsun to start the War of Independence. In defiance of the Sultan's
government, he rallied a liberation army in Anatolia and convened the Congress of Erzurum and Sivas which established the basis for the new national
effort under his leadership. On April 23, 1920, the Grand National Assembly was inaugurated. Mustafa Kemal Pasha was elected to its Presidency.
Fighting on many fronts, he led his forces to victory against rebels and invading armies. Following the Turkish triumph at the two major battles at
Inonu in Western Turkey, the Grand National Assembly conferred on Mustafa Kemal Pasha the title of Commander-in-Chief with the rank of Marshal. At the
end of August 1922, the Turkish armies won their ultimate victory. Within a few weeks, the Turkish mainland was completely liberated, the armistice
signed, and the rule of the Ottoman dynasty abolished.
In July 1923, the national government signed the Lausanne Treaty with Great Britain, France, Greece, Italy, and others. In mid-October, Ankara became
the capital of the new Turkish State. On October 29, the Republic was proclaimed and Mustafa Kemal Pasha was unanimously elected President of the
Republic.
Atatürk married Latife Usakligil in early 1923. The marriage ended in divorce in 1925.
The account of Atatürk's fifteen year Presidency is a saga of dramatic modernization. With indefatigable determination, he created a new
political and legal system, abolished the Caliphate and made both government and education secular, gave equal rights to women, changed the alphabet
and the attire, and advanced the arts and the sciences, agriculture and industry.
In 1934, when the surname law was adopted, the national parliament gave him the name "Atatürk" (Father of the Turks).
On November 10, 1938, following an illness of a few months, the national liberator and the Father of modern Turkey died. But his legacy to his people
and to the world endures.
National Liberator
"This nation has never lived without independence. We cannot and shall not live without it. Either independence or death."
Mustafa Kemal Pasha emerged as the national liberator of the Turks when the Ottoman Empire, carved up by the Western Powers, was in its death throes.
Already a legendary hero of the Dardanelles and other fronts, he became in 1919 the leader of the Turkish emancipation. With a small and ill-equipped
army, he repelled the invading enemy forces on the East, on the South, and on the West. He even had to contend with the Sultan's troops and local
bands of rebels before he could gain complete control of the Turkish homeland. By September 1922, he had received one of history's most difficult
triumphs against internal opposition and powerful external enemies.
The liberator ranks among the world's greatest strategists and holds the rare distinction of having maintained a perfect military record
consisting of only victories and no defeats.
As the national struggle ended, the heroic leader proclaimed:" Following the military triumph we accomplished by bayonets, weapons and blood, we
shall strive to win victories in such fields as culture, scholarship, science, and economics," adding that " the enduring benefits of
victories depend only on the existence of an army of education."
It is for his military victories and his cultural and socio-political reforms, which gave Turkey its new life, that the Turkish nation holds
Atatürk in gratitude and reverence.
Founder of the Republic
"Sovereignty belongs unconditionally to the people."
October 29, 1923 is a fateful date in Turkish history. On that date. Mustafa Kemal Pasha, the liberator of his country, proclaimed the Republic of
Turkey. The new homogeneous nation-state stood in sharp contrast to the multi-ethnic Ottoman Empire out of whose ashes it arose. The dynasty and
theocratic Ottoman system, with its Sultanate and Caliphate, thus came to and end. Atatürk's Turkey dedicated itself to the sovereignty of
the national will - to the creation of, in President's words, "the state of the people ".
The Republic swiftly moved to put an end to the so-called "Capitulations ", the special rights and previledges that the Ottomans had granted
to some European powers.
The New Turkey's ideology was, and remains, "Kemalism", later known as "Atatürkism". Its basic principles stress the
republican form of government representing the power of electorate, secular administration, nationalism, mixed economy with state participation in
many of the vital sectors, and modernization. Atatürkism introduced to Turkey the process of parliamentary and participatory democracy.
The first Moslem nation to become a Republic, Turkey has served since the early 1920s as a model for Moslem and non-Moslem nations in the emerging
world.
Legal Transformation
"We must liberate our concepts of justice, our laws and legal institutions from the bonds which hold a tight grip on us although they are
incompatible with the needs of our century."
Between 1926 and 1930, the Turkish Republic achieved a legal transformation which might have required decades in most other countries. Religious laws
were abolished, and a secular system of jurisprudence introduced. The concepts, the texts and contexts of the laws were made harmonious with the
progressive thrust of Atatürk's Turkey. " The nation", Atatürk said, " has placed its faith in the precept that all laws
should be inspired by actual needs here on earth as a basic fact of national life."
Among the far-reaching changes were the new Civil Code, Penal Code, and Business Law, based on the Swiss, Italian and German models respectively.
The new legal system made all citizens - men and women, rich and poor - equal before the law. It gave Turkey a firm foundation for a society of
justice and equal rights.
Social Reforms
"The major challenge facing us is to elevate our national life to the highest level of civilization and prosperity."
Atatürk's aim was to modernize Turkish life in order to give his nation a new sense of dignity, equality, and happiness. After more than
three centuries of high achievement, the Ottoman Empire had declined from the 17th to the early 20th Century: With Sultans presiding over a social and
economic system mired in backwardness, the Ottoman state had become hopelessly outmoded for the modern times. Atatürk resolved to lead his
country out of the crumbling past into a brave new future.
In his program of modernization, secular government and education played a major role. Making religious faith a matter of individual conscience, he
created a truly secular system in Turkey, where the vast Moslem majority and the small Christian and Jewish minorities are free to practice their
faith. As a result of Atatürk's reforms, Turkey -unlike scores of other countries- has fully secular institutions.
The leader of modern Turkey aspired to freedom and equality for all. When he proclaimed the Republic, he announced that " the new Turkish State
is a state of the people and a state by the people." Having established a populist and egalitarian system, he later observed: "We are a
nation without classes or special privilidges." He also stressed the paramount importance of the peasants, who had long been neglected in the
Ottoman times: " The true owner and master of Turkey is the peasant who is the real producer."
To give his nation a modern outlook, Atatürk introduced many reforms: European hats replaced the fez; women stopped wearing the veil; all
citizens took surnames; and the Islamic calendar gave way to the Western calendar. A vast transformation took place in the urban and rural life. It
can be said that few nations have ever experienced anything comparable to the social change in Atatürk's Turkey.
Economic Growth
"In order to raise our new Turkey to the level that she is worthy of, we must, under all circumstances, attach the highest importance to the
national economy."
When the Turkish Republic came into being in 1923, it lacked capital, industry, and know-how. Successive wars had decimated manpower, agricultural
production stood at a low level, and the huge foreign debts of the defunct Ottoman state confronted the new Republic.
President Atatürk swiftly moved to initiate a dynamic program of economic development. " Our nation," he stated, " has crushed the
enemy forces. But to achieve independence we must observe the following rule: National sovereignty should be supported by financial independence. The
only power that will propel us to this goal is the economy. No matter how mighty they are, political and military victories cannot endure unless they
are crowned by economic triumphs."
With determination and vigor, Atatürk's Turkey undertook agricultural expansion, industrial growth, and technological advancement. In
mining, transportation, manufacturing, banking, exports, social services, housing, communications, energy, mechanization, and other vital areas, many
strides were taken. Within the decade, the gross national product increased five-fold.
Turkey's economic development during Atatürk's Presidency was impressive in absolute figures and in comparison to other countries. The
synthesis that evolved at that time -state enterprises and private initiative active in both industrial and agricultural growth- serves as the basis
of the economic structure not only for Turkey but also in dozen countries.
The New Language
"The cornerstone of education is an easy system of reading and writing. The hey to this is the new Turkish alphabet based on the Latin
script."
The most difficult change in any society is probably a language reform. Most nations never attempt it; those who do, usually prefer a gradual
approach. Under Atatürk's Leadership, Turkey undertook the modern world's swiftest and most extensive language reform. In 1928, when he
decided that the Arabic script, which had been used by the Turks for a thousand years, should be replaced with the Latin alphabet. He asked the
experts: " How long would it take ?" Most of them replied: " At least five years." " We shall do it," Atatürk
said," within five months"
As the 1920s came to an end, Turkey had fully and functionally adopted, with its 29 letters (8 vowels and 21 consonants), has none of the complexities
of the Arabic script, which was ill-suited to the Turkish language. The language reform enabled children and adults to read and write within a few
months, and to study Western languages with greater effectiveness.
Thousands of words, and some grammatical devices, from the Arabic and Persian, held a tight grip over Ottoman Turkish. In the early 1930s,
Atatürk spearheaded the movement to eliminate these borrowings. To replace the loan words from foreign languages, large number of original words,
which had been in use in the earlier centuries, where revived, and provincial expressions and new coinages were introduced. The transformation met
with unparalleled success: In the 1920s, the written language consisted of more than 80 percent Arabic, Persian, and French words; by the early 1980s
the ratio had declined to a mere 10 percent.
Atatürk's language reform -encompassing the script, grammar and vocabulary- stands as one of the most far-reaching in history. It has
overhauled Turkish culture and education.
Women's Rights
"Everything we see in the world is the creative work of women."
With abiding faith in the vital importance of women in society, Atatürk launched many reforms to give Turkish women equal rights and
opportunities. The new Civil Code, adopted in 1926, abolished polygamy and recognized the equal rights of women in divorce, custody, and inheritance.
The entire educational system from the grade school to the university became coeducational. Atatürk greatly admired the support that the national
liberation struggle received from women and praised their many contributions: " In Turkish society, women have not lagged behind men in science,
scholarship, and culture. Perhaps they have even gone further ahead." He gave women the same opportunities as men, including full political
rights. In the mid-1930s, 18 women, among them a villager, were elected to the national parliament. Later, Turkey had the world's first women
supreme court justice.
In all walks of life, Atatürk's Turkey has produced tens of thousands of well-educated women who participate in national life as doctors,
lawyers, engineers, teachers, writers, administrators, executives, and creative artists.
Strides in Education
"The governments most creative and significant duty is education."
Atatürk regarded education as the force that would galvanize the nation into social and economic development. For this reason, he once said that,
after the War of Independence, he would have liked to serve as Minister of Education. As President of the Republic, he spared no effort to stimulate
and expand education at all levels and for all segments of the society.
Turkey initiated a most ambitious program of schooling children and adults. From grade school to graduate school, education was made free, secular,
and co-educational. Primary education was declared compulsory. The armed forces implemented an extensive program of literacy. Atatürk heralded
"The Army of Enlightenment". With pencil or chalk in hand, he personally instructed children and adults in schoolrooms, parks, and other
places. Literacy which had been less than 9 percent in 1923 rose to more than 33 percent by 1938.
Women's education was very close to Atatürk's hearth. In 1922, even before proclaiming the Republic, he vowed: " We shall
emphasize putting our women's secondary and higher education on an equal footing with men."
To give impetus to science and scholarship, Atatürk transformed the University of Istanbul (founded in the mid-15th century) into a modern
university in 1933. A few years later, the University of Ankara became into being. Today, Turkey has major universities all over the country. Except
for Europe and North America she has one of the world's highest ratios of university graduates to population.
Culture and the Arts
"We shall make the expansion and rise of Turkish culture in every era the mainstay of the Republic."
Among the prominent statesmen of the 20th Century few articulated the supreme importance of culture as did Atatürk who stated: " Culture is
the foundation of the Turkish Republic." His view of culture encompassed the nation's creative legacy as well as the best values of world
civilization. It stressed personal and universal humanism. " Culture," he said, " is a basic element in being a person worthy of
humanity," and described Turkey's ideological thrust as " a creation of patriotism blended with a lofty humanist ideal."
To creat the best synthesis, Atatürk underlined the need for the utilization of all the viable elements in the national heritage, including the
ancient indigenous cultures, and the arts and techniques of the entire world civilization, past and present. He gave impetus to the study of the
earlier civilizations of Anatolia - including Hittite, Phrygian, Lydian, and others. Pre-islamic culture of the Turks became the subject of extensive
research which proved that, long before their Seljuk and Ottoman Empires, the Turks had already created a civilization of their own. Atatürk also
stressed the folk arts of the countryside as the wellspring of Turkish creativity.
The visual and plastic arts (whose development had been arrested by some bigoted Ottoman officials who claimed that the depiction of the human form
was idolatry) flourished during Atatürk's Presidency. Many museums were opened. Architecture gained new vigor. Classical Western music,
opera and ballet as well as the theater took impressive strides. Several hundred "People's Houses" and the " People's
Rooms" all over Turkey gave local people and youngsters a wide variety of artistic activities, sports, and other cultural affairs. Book and
magazine publication enjoyed a boom. Film industry started to grow. In all walks of cultural life, Atatürk's inspiration created an
upsurge.
Atatürk's Turkey is living proof of this ideal - a country rich in its own national culture, open to the heritage of world civilization, and
at home in the endowments of the modern technological age.
Peace at Home, Peace in the World
"Mankind is a single body and each nation a part of that body. We must never say 'What does it matter to me if some part of the world is
ailing?' If there is such an illness, we must concern ourselves with it as though we were having that illness."
A military hero who had won victory after victory against many foreign invaders, Atatürk knew the value of peace and, during his Presidency, did
his utmost to secure and strengthen it throughout the world. Few of the giants of the modern times have spoken with Atatürk's eloquence on
the vital need to create a world order based on peace, on the dignity of all human beings, and on the constructive interdependence of all nations. He
stated, immediately after the Turkish War of Independence, that "peace is the most effective way for nations to attain prosperity and
happiness." Later as he concluded treaties of friendship and created regional ententes, he affirmed: " Turks are the friends of all
civilized nations." The new Turkey established cordial relations with all countries, including those powers which had tried a few years earlier
to wipe the Turks off the map. She did not pursue a policy of expansionism, and never engaged in any act contrary to peaceful co-existence.
Atatürk signed pacts with Greece, Rumania and Yugoslavia in the Balkans, and with Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan in the East. He maintained friendly
relations with the Soviet Union, the United States, England, Germany, Italy, France, and all other states. In the early 1930s, he and the Greek
Premier Venizelos initiated and signed a treaty of peace and cooperation.
alumni
Unregistered User
(6/7/02 3:17:10 am)
Reply | Edit | Del Xhorxh Oruell
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
search.biography.com/prin...pl?id=3011
Orwell, George
Novelist, essayist. Born Eric Arthur Blair, in 1903, in Bengal, India. His father, Richard Walmesley Blair, was a minor customs official in the opium
department of the Indian Civil Service. When Orwell was four years old, his family returned to England, where they settled at Henley, a village near
London. His father soon returned to India. When Orwell was eight years old, he was sent to a private preparatory school in Sussex. He later claimed
that his experiences there determined his views on the English class system. From there he went by scholarship to two private secondary schools:
Wellington for one term and Eton for four and a half years.
Orwell then joined the Indian Imperial Police, receiving his training in Burma, where he served from 1922 to 1927. While home on leave in England,
Orwell made the important decision not to return to Burma. His resignation from the Indian Imperial Police became effective on January 1, 1928. He had
wanted to become a writer since his adolescence, and he had come to believe that the Imperial Police was in this respect an unsuitable profession.
Later evidence also suggests that he had come to understand the imperialism that he was serving and had rejected it.
Establishment as a Writer
In the first six months after his decision, Orwell went on what he thought of as an expedition to the East End of London to become acquainted with the
poor people of England. As a base, he rented a room in Notting Hill. In the spring he rented a room in a working-class district of Paris. It seems
clear that his main objective was to establish himself as a writer, and the choice of Paris was characteristic of the period. Orwell wrote two novels,
both lost, during his stay in Paris, and he published a few articles in French and English. After stints as a kitchen porter and dishwasher and a bout
with pneumonia, he returned to England toward the end of 1929.
Orwell used his parents' home in Suffolk as a base, still attempting to establish himself as a writer. He earned his living by teaching and by
writing occasional articles, while he completed several versions of his first book, Down and Out in London and Paris. This novel recorded his
experiences in the East End and in Paris, and as he was earning his living as a teacher when it was scheduled for publication, he preferred to publish
it under a pseudonym. From a list of four possible names submitted to his publisher, he chose "George Orwell." The Orwell is a Suffolk
river.
First Novels
Orwell's Down and Out was issued in 1933. During the next three years he supported himself by teaching, reviewing, and clerking in a bookshop and
began spending longer periods away from his parents' Suffolk home. In 1934 he published Burmese Days. The plot of this novel concerns personal
intrigue among an isolated group of Europeans in an Eastern station. Two more novels followed: A Clergyman's Daughter (1935) and Keep the
Aspidistra Flying (1936).
In the spring of 1936 Orwell moved to Wallington, Hertfordshire, and several months later married Eileen O'Shaughnessy, a teacher and journalist.
His reputation up to this time, as writer and journalist, was based mainly on his accounts of poverty and hard times. His next book was a commission
in this direction. The Left Book Club authorized him to write an inquiry into the life of the poor and unemployed. The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) was
divided into two parts. The first was typical reporting, but the second part was an essay on class and socialism. It marked Orwell's birth as a
political writer, an identity that lasted for the rest of his life.
Political Commitments and Essays
In July 1936 the Spanish Civil War broke out. By the end of that autumn, Orwell was readying himself to go to Spain to gather material for articles
and perhaps to take part in the war. After his arrival in Barcelona, he joined the militia of the POUM (Partido Obrero de Unificacion Marxista) and
served with them in action in January 1937. Transferring to the British Independent Labour party contingent serving with the POUM militia, Orwell was
promoted first to corporal and then to lieutenant before being wounded in the middle of May. During his convalescence, the POUM was declared illegal,
and he fled into France in June. His experiences in Spain had made him into a revolutionary socialist.
After his return to England, Orwell began writing Homage to Catalonia (193 , which completed his disengagement from the orthodox left. He then wished
to return to India to write a book, but he became ill with tuberculosis. He entered a sanatorium where he remained until late in the summer of 1938.
Orwell spent the following winter in Morocco, where he wrote Coming Up for Air (1939). After he returned to England, Orwell authored several of his
best-known essays. These include the essays on Dickens and on boys' weeklies and "Inside the Whale."
After World War II began, Orwell believed that "now we are in this bloody war we have got to win it and I would like to lend a hand." The
army, however, rejected him as physically unfit, but later he served for a period in the home guard and as a fire watcher. The Orwells moved to London
in May 1940. In early 1941 he commenced writing "London Letters" for Partisan Review, and in August he joined the British Broadcasting
Corporation (BBC) as a producer in the Indian section. He remained in this position until 1943.
First Masterpiece The year 1943 was an important one in Orwell's life for several reasons. His mother died in March; he left the BBC to become
literary editor of the Tribune; and he began book reviewing on a more regular basis. But the most important event occurred late that year, when he
commenced the writing of Animal Farm. Orwell had completed this satire by February 1944, but several publishers rejected it on political grounds. It
finally appeared in August 1945. This fantasy relates what happens to animals who free themselves and then are again enslaved through violence and
fraud.
Toward the end of World War II, Orwell traveled to France, Germany, and Austria as a reporter. His wife died in March 1945. The next year he settled
on Jura off the coast of Scotland, with his youngest sister as his housekeeper.
Crowning Achievement
By now, Orwell's health was steadily deteriorating. Renewed tuberculosis early in 1947 did not prevent the composition of the first draft of his
masterpiece, Nineteen Eighty-four. The second draft was written in 1948 during several attacks of the disease. By the end of 1948 Orwell was seriously
ill. Nineteen Eighty-four (1949) is an elaborate satire on modern politics, prophesying a world perpetually laid waste by warring dictators.
Orwell entered a London hospital in September 1949 and the next month married Sonia Brownell. He died in London on January 21, 1950.
Orwell's singleness of purpose in pursuit of his material and the uncompromising honesty that defined him both as a man and as a writer made him
critical of intellectuals whose political viewpoints struck him as dilettante. Thus, though a writer of the left, he wrote the most savage criticism
of his generation against left-wing authors, and his strong stand against communism resulted from his experience of its methods gained as a fighter in
the Spanish Civil War.
pages.citenet.net/users/c...ol-09.html
Orwell and Patriotism.
by John Rossi. Contemporary Review, August 1992
COPYRIGHT Contemporary Review Company Ltd. (UK) 1992. GEORGE Orwell loved to shock his readers. One has only to look at the opening sentences of his
essays for examples of this. 'As the corpse went past the flies left the restaurant table in a cloud and rushed after it, but they came back a
few minutes later,' from Marrakech or 'In Moulmein, in Lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people--the only time in my life that I
have been important enough for this to happen to me' from Shooting an Elephant.
The purpose behind this literary device was, of course, to seize the reader's imagination and not just shock for shock's sake. But this
approach reflects another dimension of Orwell's craft -- his love of paradox mixed with a talent for turning the obvious inside out. Nowhere is
this more evident than in the service that Orwell rendered to the concept of patriotism. In the 1940s he almost single-handedly rescued the word from
the intellectual dust heap and special preserve of the far Right and made it respectable again. Sprinkled through his writings after 1939 beginning
with My Country Right or Left, inside the Whale, as well as in columns for The Partisan Review and Tribune Orwell liberated patriotism from its
suffocating association with reactionary Colonel Blimps. Orwell's ability to do this tells us much about the way one man can turn opinion around
and also much about the movements of ideas in a democratic society.
The concept of patriotism has a long and varied history. The Oxford English Dictionary traces its use as far back as the 16th century but its modern
meaning, ~excessive love of one's country combined with hatred of other nations and people' only surfaced in the mid-nineteenth century.
(Dr. Johnson's famous saying that 'Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel' is nearly always misunderstood because he was
attacking a group of his Whig opponents.) The First World War finished the word among respectable people because of the excessive claims made for
patriotism and the windy rhetoric that surrounded its use by politicians in all countries. Nurse Edith Cavell's final words before her execution
in 1915 could serve as an epitaph for it: 'patriotism is not enough'.
Western intellectuals in the 1920s and 30s heaped contempt on the very idea of love of country but they had a more difficult time finding a
replacement for it as a unifying force. For some nihilism or sexual freedom became an alternative; for a larger group Marxism in the Soviet Union
under Stalin was the answer. In their case Orwell said they had lost their patriotism and religious sense without losing the need for a god and a
fatherland. When Orwell began to develop his own idiosyncratic philosophy in the mid-1930s none of these answers satisfied him. The approach of
another war forced him to think seriously about where his real loyalties lay. Out of that emerged a powerful and fresh way of looking at
patriotism.
Orwell's political evolution took a decade. His initial political views were similar to those of old fashioned English radicals like William
Cobbett. He first embraced socialism because of his experiences among the unemployed workers while researching and writing The Road to Wigan Pier in
1936. This process was completed when he fought in the Spanish Civil War on the side of Catalan anarchists. But Orwell's socialism was always
cranky. He took much pleasure in ridiculing the excesses of socialist ideologues, that ~dreary tribe of high-minded women and sandalwearers and
bearded fruit-juice drinkers who came flocking toward the smell of "progress" like blue-bottles to a dead cat'.
In 1938-1939 Orwell talked like a pacifist--the next war would be another capitalist conflict which would have nothing to do with the rights of the
working class. But on the eve of the war he wrote in My Country Right or Left -- he had a dream in which he saw clearly that if England went to war he
would have to fight on her side. Orwell's acceptance of the war and its responsibilities, his defence of patriotism is the other side of Orwell
the Radical. Like Cobbett, Orwell was a quintessential Englishman: scratch Orwell and find the patriot.
It took about two years for Orwell fully to develop his particular defence of patriotism. He volunteered for military service only to be rejected for
health reasons. He wound up in the Home Guard, ~Dad's Army', that eccentric English amalgam of retired soldiers and civilians who wanted to
do their part. More importantly, he cast about for a justification for supporting an England whose social and political policies he despised against
Nazi Germany. While many of his socialist compatriots were desperately searching for a properly respectable stance, Orwell like Guy Crouchback in
Evelyn Waugh's brilliant World War II trilogy, The Sword of Honour, knew exactly what he would do. Not for him the flight to America like W. H.
Auden or Cecil Beaton. Orwell would stay and fight for an England revived by a genuine social and political revolution.
Orwell's embrace of patriotism was motivated by a number of factors: the war which he had been predicting for years had come as well as his
growing disgust at the behaviour of his Left wing contemporaries, that ~huge tribe of right left people' as he called them. During the 1930s he
had watched their journey from pacifism to fawning admirers of Communism. One-eyed pacifists he had called them, typical of countries protected by a
strong navy. Since he had not gone to Oxford or Cambridge and had not been embraced by the London literary set, Orwell avoided the growing belief in
these circles of the Soviet utopia. As a natural contrarian, Orwell's distrust of the Left's hero worship of dictators like Stalin deepened
after his personal experience in the Spanish Civil War where he saw Communism betray his view of the revolution.
Orwell became convinced that the Left in England worshipped power; an insight that would carry him eventually to his two masterpieces, Animal Farm and
1984. It was only after Russia became fully totalitarian, he noted acerbicly, that the British Left embraced it. That didn't surprise him.
English socialist intellectuals he argued were nothing less than a deracinated class cut off from the mass of the public. 'I notice,' he
wrote of them, 'they always say "under socialism". They look forward to being on top with all other underneath being told what is good
for them'.
Since down deep the intellectuals worshipped power Orwell believed they would never be able to motivate the masses and bring about a real revolution.
In a series of writings early in the war, culminating in his often overlooked gem, The Lion and the Unicorn in early 1941, Orwell sought in patriotism
to find a way to energize the war effort and, more importantly, to further the cause of revolution.
Orwell's insights into patriotism are among his most original contributions to English thought during the early stages of the war. They reveal
much about him personally, confirming among other things, Anthony Powell's shrewd observation, that Orwell was a revolutionary in love with the
past.
Orwell could never find a source of loyalty in Communism -- that was simply replacing one dying dogma, capitalism, with another false idol. Orwell
believed, however, that patriotism in its highest sense could be a source of inspiration and guidance for the people. In the modern world, patriotism
could serve as a bridge between the middle classes and the masses in a way that Communism or Christianity or any other ~ism' could not. In The
Lion and the Unicorn, Orwell called for a responsible patriotism that could be used as a positive force for change. Love of country threatened by a
great evil like Nazism could inspire even the comfortable middle classes to make political and economic changes that they otherwise would reject out
of hand. More significantly, the middle classes and the masses now found themselves in the struggle together and it was patriotism that showed, in one
of Orwell's most brilliant insights, that England was like a family, albeit a family with the wrong relatives in charge, but a family
nonetheless. The insularity of the English he believed had saved their patriotism from the kind of hatreds of others that characterized Europe. In
fact, he noted the English never took foreigners very seriously.
If socialism was to be transformed and bring about a real revolution during the war it must tap the patriotism of the people as its galvanizing force.
Given the general English dislike of foreigners, Orwell argued it would be a disaster to posit revolution on some vague international concept like
'democracy' or 'the United Nations'. This was typical of the thinking of the English intelligentsia, a crowd he described who
'take their Cookery from Paris and their opinions from Moscow'.
The patriotism of the middle and working classes which Orwell appealed to was largely an instinctive reaction among the English. It had about it a
sense of decency and fair play that distinguished it from the uglier forms of patriotism in the recent past. It was a throwback to the initial meaning
of the word, a love of the familiar in the form of your land and your people. The very failure of fascism or communism to take root in England Orwell
believed was a hopeful sign.
Orwell was not unaware of the dangers of romanticizing patriotism. He was careful to distinguish it from chauvinism or excessive nationalism. In a
passage from Notes on Nationalism written in May 1945 Orwell with typical precision differentiated patriotism from nationalism.
By patriotism I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to
force upon other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from
the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige.. ., for the nation or other unit in which he
has chosen to sink his own individuality.
Orwell never lost his faith in the rugged good sense of the English people and their simple patriotism. They, and not the upper classes or the
hopelessly degenerated intelligentsia, would save England. Even in his last grim and pessimistic work, 1984, one of few hopes for the future was the
~feel' for the lost past, a longing for an England that was somehow better, that Winston Smith discovers among the artifacts in the curiosity
shop and in the songs of the working class. This was no mere nostalgia; it was a residual patriotism that Orwell found ennobling, uplifting and a sign
of optimism for the future.
Por sot, Shqypni, pa m´thuej si je?
|
|
|
Anton Ashta
|
| Postuar mė 30-9-2002 nė 10:01 |
|
|
A mundet dikush ti perktheje?
Por sot, Shqypni, pa m´thuej si je?
|
|
|
Anton Ashta
|
| Postuar mė 8-10-2002 nė 09:46 |
|
|
http://www.winstonchurchill.org/
Por sot, Shqypni, pa m´thuej si je?
|
|
|
|
