Something about the passage I've highlighted in today's IHE interview with Danny Postel just doesn't work.
In retrospect I’m self-critical about that. I now think people like Mary Kaldor (from Helsinki Citizens Assembly) and Joanne Landy (of the Campaign for Peace and Democracy) — among others on the Left — were spot on in simultaneously opposing U.S. militarism and supporting democratic dissidents and human rights activists in Eastern Europe. I retroactively stand with them and wish I had been with them at the time.
Maybe this is just a longwinded way of saying "I was wrong," but it seems to me that Postel is almost projecting himself backwards in history to be on the winning right side.
Some people, no matter what side they're on, think politics happens only through large monolithic institutional groups, and that all political challenges consist of deciding which large group to support. That makes them pretty damn likely to be wrong.
Don't be too sure dissidents of any kind are ever on the "winning side" even when things seem to be finally going their way. It's so rare, when the world does turn, for the high principles that motivate dissidence to survive a transition to power. If you want a right-friendly example, look at the left-leaning intellectuals who joined the Nicaraguan and Cuban dissident movements against right-wing dictators, then had to get out when their fellow dissidents won.
And don't miss the comment from the Soft Skull Press guy.
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at February 8, 2007 12:19 PMWoops -- I meant "winning" to be "right" when I posted it, but lost that in a different edit.
Posted by: Ben Brumfield at February 8, 2007 12:30 PMAh. Justice, that fugitive from the camp of victory, etc.
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at February 8, 2007 12:34 PMI've been reading the Wikipedia history of the downfall of Ceaucescu and its aftermath. It's difficult to sort out, but the depressing consensus seems to be that the winners of that revolution were definitely not the dissidents.
You know, I read the Soft Skull comment this morning without noticing the tag line. Soft Skull Press republished Michael Bellisiles's second edition of Arming America, and their press release was heavily plagiarized by an edit-warrior on Wikipedia at the time. I wonder what else they publish.
Incidentally, it's been interesting to follow online pundits covering the Duke Lacrosse case as they shift from attacking the arrogance and privilege of the athletes to attacking the arrogance and privilege of the faculty members who rushed to condemn the athletes. It's to spot an "I was wrong" regarding the transition.
Posted by: Ben Brumfield at February 8, 2007 12:39 PMAndrei Codrescu's The Hole In The Flag reaches a similar conclusion about Romania. He at least implies there was a sort of imitation velveteen revolution staged for public consumption after which the secret police went on running the place.
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at February 9, 2007 10:36 PMI didn't know he'd written anything about the subject -- was mainly familiar with his writing through his NPR segments.
Speaking of which, did you know that the original game of exquisite corpse is at the Ransom Center in Austin? Just a scrap of paper...
Posted by: Ben Brumfield at February 12, 2007 06:40 PM