Read more… or Read more right here… »

Well, there used to be a lot of Greeks in Burundi.

History: the Greeks had been in Alexandria since forever. So, when the British came to build the Suez Canal and politely detach Egypt from the decaying Ottoman Empire, the Greeks were there to ease into place as translators, merchants, vendors and general facilitators to the new colonial overlords. And in the late 19th century, some of them followed the expanding British Empire across East Africa, down the Nile to Sudan and around the Horn of Africa to Kenya.

Now the 19th century British, being British, were of two minds about these Greeks. They were useful, but they were… well… Greek. Not quite the thing, you know.

But the Belgians — who ran the Congo and, after World War One, Rwanda and Burundi as well — were different. They were lazier than the British, and more corrupt, but they were less arrogant and much more willing to allow a hard-working Greek to make an honest franc as a factor, tax farmer, or overseer.

So in Rwanda and Burundi, the Greeks became junior partners to the Belgian colonial masters. In the interwar years, hundreds of them came from all over the Greek diaspora to settle here, trading in coffee and ivory and palm oil, taking jobs in the civil service. By World War Two there were a couple of thousand of them, and they were raising a second generation. They had their own district of the town. They built the big church, right in the middle of Bujumbura, just a little bit smaller than the Catholic cathedral that housed the Belgian bishop. They had settled down in a distant, quiet corner of the world and built a prosperous community. Things looked good.

Then: the long slow colonial withdrawal. Independence. Ethnic tension. A young government playing with the economy, experimenting with socialism, import substitution, export controls. Europeans pushed out of power, not only in politics, but in trade and business. A civil war in the 1970s; economic collapse. Dictatorship. The economy contracted to subsistence agriculture, coffee and tea exports. Another civil war in the 1990s; another collapse.

By the early 21st century most of the Greeks were gone. The community had shrunk from a couple of thousand to perhaps a hundred. Those who remained were second and third generation, and some of them were very prominent in the country’s business community — they owned export businesses, farms, urban land — and they’d managed, one way or another, to come to terms with successive Burundian governments. There aren’t enough to keep the community going much longer; their children are mostly going away to school, and not coming back. Another twenty or thirty years, and they’ll probably be just a memory, a very small footnote to colonial history.

But meanwhile there’s the Greek consulate. And the big Orthodox church, where the few remaining faithful can gather every Sunday morning. It’s closed the other six and a half days a week, but is still kept very clean. (It reminded me of the German churches of Transylvania.)

And the Greek deli. It’s the pet project of a local Greek businessman. It serves the small expat community. It may not turn a profit; I wouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t care. While it lasts, it lasts.

So this evening, instead of fish and rice and the ubiquitous Amstel beer, I had crumbly bread and black olives and wine.

Stinygiasas, Greeks of Burundi.

« Hide it

Read more… or Read more right here… »

The backdrop for all this is the strange process that the Irish government agreed with the other 26 on how to move forward: an opinion poll to understand the reasons for the No vote — consultation with the representatives of the people in parliament deemed insufficient for this purpose — and then a decision by the end of the French presidency on resolution. It seems to have been assumed in official circles that “resolution” meant a 2nd referendum with enough of a wiggle factor in what was being voted on to make it not exactly like the rejected treaty, but this Financial Times account accurately notes the hostile political reaction when one minister floated this possibility.

On the other hand, Ireland gets regular reminders of the benefits of its current ability to play the full EU system to its benefit: note for instance the prospect of another batch of UK corporations switching their tax domicile to Ireland, and the plans of UK building society Nationwide to set up in Ireland so as to be able to borrow against mortgage-backed securities from the ECB. Whether all these conflicting instincts and incentives can be lined up behind a single package by the end of the year is a major doubt.

« Hide it

Read more… or Read more right here… »

Certain things are sort of clicking into place here. The biggest is why France has traditionally been so… um… engaged, with Francophone Africa. That never made much sense to me. I mean, France’s economic and strategic interests here are pretty minimal. But now I see it. If you’re French, it must be incredibly refreshing to be in a place where French is the language of learning and prestige, where everyone who matters speaks French, and where there’s no need to break out the English for clarification. If I were a French businessman, diplomat or military officer, this would make me really interested in these countries.

Another interesting point: they speak good French here. The accent can get funny sometimes, but it’s clear and precise and uses all those wiggly bits in the subjunctive.

Also… I’m not sure how to put this… educated Burundians have a whole host of tics that I associate, correctly or not, with Francophone Europeans. I met with a former minister today, who kept numbering his topics and writing them down on pads while stabbing the air with his pen. Remove the melanin, and he could have been an enarque sitting in a Directorate office in Brussels, explaining a new initiative on standardization.

English is creeping in. Like everywhere, it’s the language of crappy action movies and pop music and fun. And one day, it may do more than creep. Burundi is a little unusual in that everyone speaks the same native language, Kirundi. (As compared to, say, Senegal or Nigeria or Kenya, where there are two or three or four major local languages plus lots more little ones.) So, French isn’t needed as a common language to bind the peoples together. They could switch to teaching the kids English tomorrow; the only thing that’s keeping French in power is tradition and inertia. On the other hand, tradition and inertia are pretty powerful, so Burundi might stay Francophone for a long time to come.

« Hide it

Read more… or Read more right here… »

It’s kind of a crappy article. The scary-looking graphic omits several countries (Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania) because they don’t fit the pattern; Romania’s growth has been accelerating, while the other two have been constant. It ignores the non-EU part of Eastern Europe, which — excluding Russia, but including Ukraine — is most of it. And even just focusing on the EU members, it fails to note that of the region’s three largest economies (Poland,Czech Republic, and Romania), two seem to be doing just fine.

And when it talks about Poland? Check this out:

In the biggest economy, Poland, things look better. Growth in the first quarter of 2008 was a sprightly 6.1% on a year earlier. Many Poles who left to work in Britain and Ireland are coming home, tempted by higher wages. Unemployment, which was 20% in 2003, has all but vanished in most parts of the country. But growth is now likely to slow, particularly if interest rates keep rising: they were 4% in 2007 and are 6% now, with another rise likely. That will strengthen the zloty further; it has risen against the euro. That may be a reason why Poles are returning from Britain, but it hurts Polish exporters.

So we have a bunch of good news — fast growth, rising wages, pretty much zero unemployment — but rising interest rates are strengthening the zloty! Oh horrors.

I dunno. I’ll freely confess that I slept through a lot of my Macroeconomics of Development class, but I seem to recall that rising interest rates are fairly common in a rapidly growing middle-income economy. (When you have fast growth, rising wages and low unemployment, it’s either that or allow inflation. There are pretty good historical reasons for the Polish central bank to choose this instead of that.) As for the zloty, again, absent a peg a rising currency is almost de rigeur. I realize there’s not much room for analysis in a ~500 word article, but this is really underwhelming.

Also… take a look at the graph again. Even the worst performers are still projected to grow around 3%, and most are between 4% and 5%. Those are still growth rates that would make a Western European Finance Minister weep with joy. Of the EU-8, only two seem like plausible candidates for a crash or a recession in the next two years; the others are looking at, at worst, growth slowing to “merely fast”.

Eastern Europe has problems, no question. The region as a whole is running a huge current account deficit. Interest rates are rising. Corruption is a problem, especially in the two newest members. Public investment, especially in infrastructure, lags badly. At least one economy — Hungary — looks like it could suffer a serious crash in the next couple of years. And looming over all is the demographic crisis… not an issue at the moment, but set to start contracting labor pools and raising dependent-to-worker ratios in just a few more years.

But still: we’re talking about a region that hasn’t seen a contraction, a recession, or even a slowdown in seven years. Where growth rates of 5% or 6% have been common, even normal. Where income, productivity and wages have been rising steadily for most of a decade. In the long term, of course growth rates are going to drop. That’s inevitable. The interesting questions are how and when… and at a macro level, whether (say) Romania will stabilize at an income level 50% of the EU average, or 75%, or more.

But meanwhile, the 00’s are shaping up as Eastern Europe’s golden decade, when they closed a big chunk of the gap with the EU-15.

« Hide it

Read more… or Read more right here… »

The state of relations between the two peoples is such that, when a rumor arose that the Russians were using Armenian air bases to bomb them, it was immediately and widely believed by the Georgians. (It wasn’t true.)

At the same time, most Armenians have warm feelings towards Russia. Which warm feelings are not entirely requited — Russians don’t view Armenians with a lot of affection and respect — but that’s another story. Imperial Russia rescued them from the Turks, after all, and then the USSR allowed Armenia to industrialize and Armenians to rise almost to the top of the Soviet hierarchy.

There’s a widespread belief in Armenia that Russia tilts their way in the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute… probably not true, but there it is. More to the point, there are a couple of thousand Russian soldiers in Armenia; it doesn’t get a lot of publicity, but they’ve been there since the 1990s, quietly watching Armenia’s border with Turkey. Drive south from Yerevan, and you’ll see their bases, Russian flags and all.

And then of course, there’s Nagorno-Karabakh. The Armenians are grimly determined to hang on to NK. So they have a strong interest in seeing some post-Soviet boundary changes. If Russia claws off South Ossetia and Abkhazia, not just de facto but de jure, that’ll be a powerful precedent in Armenia’s favor.

All that said, Armenia’s position in the recent conflict has been… nuanced. You see, Armenia’s borders with Turkey and Azerbaijan are closed. They have a land border with Iran, but it’s short, and crossed by a single two-lane road that closes every winter. So, pretty much everything that goes in or out of Armenia — including the single rail line, the single highway, the single fiber-optic cable, and the microwave phone link — goes through Georgia. 90% of their imports come in through Georgia, and about 95% of their exports go out that way. The Georgian port of Poti is Armenia’s window on the world. Simply put, Armenia is a man trying to eat, drink and breathe through a fairly narrow hose. If the Georgians were to become sufficiently annoyed, they could devastate Armenia’s economy overnight.

So, while Armenian public opinion is firmly on Russia’s side, the Armenian government is playing it safe. They’re a friendly neutral to Russia, coolly correct to Georgia.

Over in the Balkans, a similar situation prevails in Serbia. Though for somewhat different reasons. The Serbs think of themselves as having a special relationship with Russia. This is partly for historical reasons, but mostly because the last two governments have banged the “Russia will come to our rescue!” drum really hard. Russia has backed Serbia firmly on Kosovo; the Russian veto is not the only thing keeping Kosovo from general international recognition and a seat in the UN, but it’s by far the most important.

So, Serbian public opinion is pretty pro-Russian… but the current Serbian government is a lot more circumspect. That’s because the current Serbian government is (I am simplifying here) pro-Western. In a Serbian context, that means they’re… not anti-Russian, but a lot less pro-Russian than the previous government or the current opposition.

One odd thing: logically, the Serbs should be supporting Georgia, since Abkhaz or Ossetian independence, never mind their annexation by Russia, would be a real threat to their legal and political position in Kosovo. If Russia seriously tries to convince the world that Abkhazia should be independent, it’s going to be noticeably harder to insist that Kosovo shouldn’t be. Looking down the road a few years, it’s not hard to imagine a grand bargain by which Russia sells out Kosovo in return for general recognition of its territorial claims in Georgia. A few thoughtful Serbs have pointed this out, but at the moment their voices are being drowned out by the chorus of “go team Slav”.

Russia has other friends on this issue: Mongolia, Belarus, some of the central Asian states. But that takes us out of Europe, and anyway this post is long enough. Key point: while most of Europe is viewing Russia’s actions askance, not every country is seeing things in the same light as Poland or Estonia.

« Hide it

Read more… or Read more right here… »

That didn’t work out so well. Bulgaria’s northern neighbor Romania jumped on Bulgaria’s back taking the opportunity to grab a couple of border provinces. In the south, the Turks counterattacked to recover some of their losses. Meanwhile the Greeks and Serbs rolled the Bulgarians back.

When the dust had settled, Bulgaria had lost some thousands of soldiers and almost all the territory that had been gained in the earlier war. They lost half of Thrace, southern Dobrudja, and almost all of Macedonia. If Balkan geography isn’t your strong point, let’s put it this way: they lost almost everything they had fought for, including stuff that really should have been theirs.

And they never got it back. Bulgaria joined the Central Powers in the First World War, hoping to make good the losses of the Second Balkan War; they were able to grab Macedonia and Dobrudja, but once the war ended they lost all that territory and more. Then in 1940 they joined the Germans again, and once more they got back Macedonia… only to lose it a third time, this time for good, in 1944. They did eventually get back a bit of Dobrudja, but the rest of the lost lands were gone for good.

Bulgaria today is about two thirds the size it would have been if they hadn’t tried that surprise attack in June 1913. Skopje and Adrianople would be Bulgarian, and Lake Ohrid, and much of the northern coastline of the Aegean. If you’re Bulgarian, you’ve probably spent some time in mournful reflection on this.

Of course, lots of countries have lost territory in wars. Germany, Hungary, Turkey and Russia all came out of the First World War a lot smaller than they had been. Then Germany lost more territory in the Second World War, as did Italy and Poland and Romania. In the 1990s, the Russians saw much of historical Russia carved off into Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic States. Just a few months ago, Kosovo declared independence from Serbia. But most of these were the result of long, protracted, conflicts — World Wars, the Cold War — or of large, long-scale demographic and social trends, like differential birthrates or economic decline. What makes the First Balkan War unusual is that it was the result of a single bad decision… a single stupid, unnecessary bad decision that ended up doing permanent harm to the nation.

So, here’s my take: Georgia has just had a Second Balkan War. They tried a surprise attack to resolve a dispute over land that should “rightfully” be theirs… and they lost. The Bulgarians were shocked when the Romanians betrayed them and the defeated Ottomans turned around and bit back; in retrospect, these things seem obvious, and historians have spent most of a century arguing over how the Bulgarian leadership could have been so goddamn stupid. The Georgians were shocked… oh, you get the idea.

Anyway, here’s the thing: the Second Balkan War poisoned Bulgaria’s history for two generations. It sucked them into two World Wars, caused the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives, destabilized the country and stunted its development. Interwar Bulgaria developed a remarkably evil terrorist organization devoted to regaining the lost territory — and, of course, killing anyone who wasn’t sufficiently dedicated to that cause.

I’m inclined to doubt that Georgia will go the same way; most obviously, it doesn’t look like there’s going to be another World War any time soon. But losses of national territory are hard for any nation to accept. Almost a decade after the 1999 war, Serbia’s politics are still being distorted by the tidal pull of Kosovo — and Serbia has the European Union on its border, pulling it hard in a different direction. Georgia has nothing to keep it from indulging in a protracted spasm of victimized nationalism. We can certainly hope they won’t go that route, but I’m not sure why they wouldn’t.

More informed opinions are, as always, welcome.

« Hide it