A Depression Switch? - New York Times

Finally, a satisfying biography of Franz Kafka

Robert Alter reviews ‘Kafka: The Decisive Years’ by Reiner Stach.

What’s the Matter With Kiev? By Scott MacMillan Sunday’s vote wasn’t a rejection of the orange revolution, it was proof of its success.

The pre-election media coverage was entirely useless, and the post-election stories weren’t so great either, so thank god for Scott, who’s written a great piece in Slate.

Something worthwhile on the new Guardian blog: A post by Daniel Davies.

Economic “protectionism” is back in the news with a vengeance, with France objecting to takeovers in the steel sector, Spain putting together national champion utilities and the USA crying blue murder over Dubai Ports World’s proposed acquisition of P&O. James Surowiecki had an article in the Saturday Guardian painstakingly setting out the conventional wisdom on this subject (ie that it’s very bad). Trouble is, this isn’t really what “protectionism” means.

Via Atrios.

Brian Ulrich writes a brief history of Ceuta.

What’s more, Ceuta has historically been a gateway to Europe rather than one to Africa. As noted above, the city was difficult to take, but even after it was taken, the mountains surrounding it meant that you couldn’t easily advance into the Moroccan interior. However, many invasions of the Iberian Peninsula and reinforcements of Muslim positions there were launched from its harbor. In fact, one could take this “gateway” pattern even up to the present, where desperate African economic migrants try to use it as a stepping-stone to continental Europe.

Via Coming Anarchy

Rawls briefly comments on capitalism and the EU.

Via CT.

More from ET: Jerome on French politicians reactions to the student demonstrations.

They have whole lot more chaff than fistful, but the wheat can be quite tasty and nutritious.

I wish I saw this great recap of the Prodi-Berlusoni debate earlier by European Tribune diarist ‘de Gondi’. But I found something better. This comment he made to the post deserves a larger audience.

I rarely meet someone who openly admits he/she sympathizes for Forza Italia. (For AN, yes.) Conversation doesn’t go too far because it bangs into “devotion” with a big starry-eyed “D.” The figure of Berlusconi is fundamental to the party. I don’t see it surviving him. It’s more a personal political entity with religious overtones. Either you believe or you don’t. Basically his electorate is reactionary, similar to followers of poujadisme or qualunquismo. The party appeals to primitive fears while idealizing the leader. Marketing is a strategic component of the party. Candidates and themes are created according to the logic of launching a product.

Many of the party’s functionaries or key figures come from the radical communist left. My impression is that he appeals to the “orphans of Stalin” type of personality.

Another component of his movement reflects party struggles in the eighties. At the time, Italy’s chronic state of being a limited democracy in the context of the Cold War gave enormous power to political parties and currents within the parties without any effective popular base. Italy was a partitocrazia in which citizens were at best clients when not subjects. This brought about diffused irresponsibility and massive corruption. (And Berlusconi was a major player at the time.) The power system became feudal in which the distinction between left and right, between Socialist and Democrat-Christian was purely nominal. With the collapse of the partitocrazia after the Cold War, three new forces coalesced: the modern left with the ex-communists as the major force, the minor democratic fascist party, MSI, which became AN, and the Lega Nord which represented a racist impulse for major territorial autonomy. There was a void where the old power structure had been. Forza Italia filled this void aggregating the minor conservative parties with the so-called Socialists into a winning coalition in 1994, only to fall apart within little more than a year.

At face value it seems strange that a political entity can house contrasting forces that range from the extreme rightwing to the mock-left Craxi orphans. If you look at it as a representation of Italian political collusion in the eighties manifested in the King’s body (le corps du Roi) it makes more sense. Rather than reverentially attend the good Lord on his chaisse percée, a good kick in the ass is called for.

I never thought the manner or timing of his death, while disappointing, would in the end make any difference.

Only a thousand turned uptp pay respect to Milosevic.

Whatever fears there were that Mr. Milosevic, in death, would provoke a nationalist outpouring did not come true today: There were flowers, candles and free lapel pins showing Mr. Milosevic’s face, but no huge numbers and, amid the white hair and canes, no unrest.

The coffin — not opened with a view of Mr. Milosevic’s body — was laid out in the Museum of the Revolution in the suburban Dodinye section of Belgrade, after much wrangling of how to handle Mr. Milosevic’s burial. Serbia’s leaders, negotiating for the nation to join the European Union and under much pressure to produce top war crimes suspects, had rejected a state funeral for Mr. Milosevic or his burial in the cemetery reserved for national heroes.

This part’s quite remarkabele (my emph.)

Also missing today were members of Mr. Milosevic’s family: A warrant for the arrest of his widow, Mirjana Markovic, who lives with her son in Russia, was temporarily withdrawn on Tuesday, and leaders of Communist Party here said today that they expected her to arrive in time for the funeral on Saturday.

Germany - Süddeutsche Zeitung. On March 15 the Ukrainian author
Yuri Andrukhovych was awarded the prize for European
Understanding at the opening ceremony of the Leipzig Book Fair.
In a sensational speech, he attacked EU Commissioner Günter
Verheugen who opposes Ukraine’s entry into the EU. The
newspaper publishes extracts of the speech: “European dialogue
has not taken place,” Andrukhovych notes bitterly, and makes an
appeal to EU countries: “It is crucially important for me that
you help this cursed country, in whose language I write and
address you in. And it wouldn’t be so terribly difficult for
you to help this country. It would simply be a matter of not
saying anything that will kill our hope.”

Hat tip: Eurotopics. Original article unfortunately in pay-per-view. Annoying and expensive pay-per-view at that.