Politik Kills.

(I am fully aware the word politik isn´t English, but I am using a Manu Chao song as a title and that should explain a lot...)

Blame The Daily Mail of my today´s post and ponderings. They compared Arsenal´s defence to the Maginot line yesterday and that got me reading my illustrated book of world history. (The comparison isn´t all that bad, as much as I hate to admit it. You don´t remember your World War II history as well as I do? Don´t worry, Wikipedia is here to help.) Flipping through the book and reading the most interesting parts raised questions. Or, more precisely, could this happen now -kind of thoughts.

Germany was the first one I stumbled up, the RAF especially. I started to think, wether a group like this could be formed today and wether they would use as extreme actions as these Germans did back in the time of Cold War. They were terrorists, yes, but they also had a thing they believed in. I believe that Europe won´t see another group like this because the time of the bipolar world is over, as Europe is more integral than it has ever been. But could something like this stem from the actions of neo-nazis or the right wing extremists (the Right seems to be somewhat popular in Austria, which was a shocker for me)? They are not the same, I know that. But is there a group in Europe that feels that the police and other officials need to be opposed?

That pondering, of course, reminded me of the murder of Aldo Moro. I don´t think that there will be a terrorist group that would want to kidnapp and murder their own prime minister, but one can never know. I mean, what are the odds that somewhere in Europe is a faction so desperate that they´ll arrange this kind of full scale operation just to make their voices heard?

I understand the schools have limits and they cannot teach us all this, but I frankly believe I´m not the only one who is remotedly interested in these incidents. Also, I have been following the news of the soaring facism symphaties in Italy. i have understood they aren´t the 30s kind of symphaties, but more like the home, religion, Fatherland, foundation of the country kind of things. Still, they are a bit frightening. On the forefront have been some Italian footballers, declaring some basic ideas of facism might not be so bad after all. Hello, there are people trying to fight against racism and discrimination, trying to prove we are all equal. This doesn´t help their job very much, does it? (Oh, talking about racism, you might want to check out Kick It Out.)

One of the most interesting things of the European history in the 20th century must be the dictatorships in Portugal and Spain. The WWII was over, all the other dictators had seen their end, so how could Salazar and Franco still have the power? I am not all that familiar with the situation with Portugal, but know a fair bit of the Spanish one. I remember reading Franco offered the crown to the king who declined thus making Franco the head of state. And you know the rest, not happy times, but the authoritarian ruling as you might expect. The thing that astonishes me the most is the fact that he named Juan Carlos as his successor. Did he actually believe the king wouldn´t bring democracy to the country? One of the questions that just makes me love history...

Then there are a lot of these What Ifs. What if there still were two Germany´s? What if the Soviet Union had never fallen? History isn´t about guessing what might have happened, but come on, there must be times when you think that what if the world was still the same it was during the latter half of the 20th century. I can´t be the only one equivocating these questions?

And what do we really know about the countries in Asia? Kazakhstan, Azerdaizhan, Turkemnistan... those places. I can admit, I know nothing. They seem to be surrounded by some kind of mist of mystery. Not to mention North Korea that is one of the most bizarre countries in thw entire world. I would love to visit the country, just to see what it is like. If it is so strange I have always thought it is. Also, what is the situation in Belarus? The state hasn´t been in the news for ages, so I have no idea who´s in charge and how the people are living there.

The middle East is, to everyone who is interesting in history, a place that just brings up new questions. Can Israel and Palestine ever get their things sorted out? Do they even want to? What is the life in Iran like? To me, the islamic revolution there has been one of the oddest incidents, not to mention everything that has happened after it.

Oh, and have you noticed how all these organized groups seem to love names that have three parts and are easy to abbreviate. RAF, IRA, ETA... Man, has the 20th century European (and world) history been interesting or what? All of this can be summarized in one word: Switzerland. If the country hasn´t been neutral and thus the odd one, I don´t know what has. I could go on and on about this subject, but I don´t want this post to be a novel.

This is all for now, I´ll be back to post more when I have a new subject. Until that, take care.

IWFT