Another Epiphany and a Note on a Friend

This is one of those blog posts that my mother loves.  But, she is right that I should be thankful for what I have and let go of my anger. It would only take a moment to lose something that really is important to me and such things happen to other people all the time. If my daughter died or I became crippled then I would have lost something important. Everything else really pales in comparison. 

One of the few advantages to being completely unknown and ignored is that you don't attract this kind of trouble. Actually I found out about this at the same time another smaller and more personal event caused me to have the epiphany. But, it does show that name recognition is not always a good thing. Walt claims that if the FSB ever does interrogate him that he is going to implicate me as the man who first told him to study the Northwest Caucasus. The funny thing is that it is true. I really was the first person who told him he should study the region back in 2000 since nobody else did. I had no idea that the Russian government would ever target him as a public enemy as a result. 

Trouble in the Ivory Coast

Most of the trouble in the Ivory Coast is over. But, today gunmen attacked the Azito thermal power plant in the capital of Abidjan. Ten of the men were captured by Ivorian security forces. At the same time about 60km east another group of armed men attacked a police station in Bonoua. It is believed the men are connected to ousted president Gbagbo.

Source: Reuters

Chinese Gold Miners in Ghana

Ghana is the second largest producer of gold in Africa after the RSA. The industry has thus attracted a lot of interest from China including a number of Chinese engaged in illegal gold mining. On Friday the police arrested over 90 Chinese near Kumasi for illegal mining. Allegedly a 16 year old Chinese male died during this police action. Last month Ghana deported 38 Chinese engaged in illegal gold mining. As the price of gold rises the problem of illegal mining by undocumented workers from China is likely to increase.

Source: Reuters and Associated Press

A Rather Complex Ethnic Map

For some reason I am on the supervisory committee of everybody here doing an honors thesis (Long Essay) or PhD on ethnic conflict in the north east of Ghana. I think it is because I have written about issues of ethnic repression in the USSR. But, there are not a lot of similarities between the USSR and north east Ghana. The area is extremely complex and there are land based ethnic disputes between Kokombas and Nanumbas, Mamprusi and Kusasi, and Gonja and Nawuri. Unlike other areas of Ghana no dominant power such as the Asante was able to assert hegemony and assimilate the surrounding smaller groups. So the area has a lot different ethnic groups in a small area. After the partition of German Togoland between the British and French following WWI the land conflicts intensified. The British removed all the "Kaiser Chiefs" and with them the lands attached to certain ethnic groups. Only ethnic groups that had chiefs before the Germans colonized Togoland were allowed to keep their lands under the British. Later events have put even further pressure on land in this region of Ghana. Trying to follow the history of the numerous ethnic conflicts over land in northern Ghana is not easy. I think I am going to have to go and read up on the existing secondary literature on the subject.

More on the ARA Libertad

On Thursday Ghanaian courts upheld the seizure of the ARA Libertad. NLM a subsidiary of Elliot Capital Management which lodged the complaint against Argentina is demanding 20 million dollars in exchange for the ship even though the ship is only worth 10 million dollars. The US based Elliot Capital Management is run by Paul Singer and owns 1.6 billion dollars of Argentine debt purchased on the secondary market between default and repudiation at a fraction of its worth. In some cases the bonds cost only 15 cents on the dollar.  Argentina is arguing that the naval vessel has sovereign immunity and can not be seized to pay off the debt owned by Elliot Capital Management.

Source:

MercoPress

Reader Survey

I am trying to carve out a few niche interests for this blog. One is Russian-Germans, particularly during the Soviet era and especially during WWII. I think I have more readers interested in this subject than any other, but I am not exactly sure. Another one is West Africa, obviously Ghana, but also neighboring and nearby countries such as Togo and Mali. I think a few people who read this blog are interested in my personal observations of Ghana, but I am not sure how much interest my more general posts on the region attract. Finally, I still have obvious interests in Central Asia, particularly Kyrgyzstan. So if you are one of the few people who reads this blog please give me some feed back on what you find interesting. Should I drop the news items about Togo and Mali and concentrate more on my exploration of Ghanaian cuisine? What should I keep and what should I drop?

More on Mali

On Friday the UN Security Council approved the use of military force in principle to assist the Malian army to reassert control over the north of Mali currently ruled by a Taliban like Islamic movement. It looks like the UN, EU, AU, and ECOWAS will meet in Bamako on 19 October 2012 to formulate plans to put together an African military force for this purpose. Despite being a strong supporter of intervention the French president has stated that there will be no French soldiers sent to Mali. Instead he says France will limit itself to outfitting and training forces from African countries involved in the operation.

Source: Associated Press

NKO Directive No. 35105s of 8 September 1941

Since I am writing a series of posts on Russian-Germans who fought against the Nazis I thought it might be helpful to reproduce the order that removed most of their ethnic kinsmen from Soviet military institutions.

Directive of the Peoples Commissariat of Defense USSR

No. 35105s from 8 September 1941

Expel from units, academies, military instruction establishments and institutions of the Red Army, both at the front, and in the rear, all military service personnel in the ranks and the commanding staff those of German nationality and send them to internal regions for assignment to construction battalions.

In those cases, when commanders and commissars jointly reckon it is necessary to leave military service personnel of German nationality in a unit, they are required to present a petition on the reasons motivating this decision to the NKO through the Military Councils of fronts, regions and sections of the army. 

Inform me about the execution of this directive no later than 15 September.

Peoples Commissar of Defense USSR J. Stalin

Source: A.A. German, T.S. Ilarionova, I.R. Pleve, Istoriia nemtsev rossii: Khrestomatiia, Moscow: MSNK-Press, 2005, doc. 8.2.3., p. 253. Translation from Russian into English by J. Otto Pohl.

Russian-Germans in anti-Nazi Partisan Units

This is the second post on my series on Russian-Germans who fought against the Nazis. While a number fought in the Red Army both before and after the orders to remove them from its ranks, others operated in the anti-Nazi underground. They resisted the Nazi occupation of the USSR by providing information to the Soviet government, engaging in sabotage and diversionary attacks, and engaging in anti-Nazi propaganda and agitation.

Ukraine was the focal point of Russian-German participation in the anti-Nazi underground. In the south west of Ukraine a significant number of Russian-Germans fought in anti-Nazi partisan units operating behind enemy lines. This was particularly true in the region around Odessa even though during 1937-1938 the Stalin regime had shot a full 18% of ethnic German men ages 20 to 59 in the region and 22.3% of ethnic German men ages 30-49 (Krieger, pp. 137-138). In fact a number of Russian-German partisans active in the anti-Nazi underground had relatives repressed in 1937-1938 by the Stalin regime. Vladimir Ottovich  (Antonovich) Mueller was active in the underground organization "Komsomol Patriots" which operated under the leadership of L.I. Katzapov from May 1942 to April 1944. His father Otto Rudolphovich Mueller had been the first secretary of the Karl Liebknecht German National Raion in Nikolaev Oblast Ukraine near Odessa until 1937 when he became one of the tens of thousands of ethnic Germans in Ukraine politically repressed during the "Great Terror." Vladimir Mueller was involved in a clash with the Gestapo on 28 March 1944 and died at age 20 a few days before the Red Army retook Odessa (Solodova, p. 36). Mueller was only one of a fairly large number of Russian-Germans to actively work in the anti-Nazi underground in occupied areas of the USSR.

The most famous group of Russian-German partisans in the Odessa area was led by N.A. Heft from September 1943 to April 1944. Another group in nearby Nikolaev Oblast  was led by V.A. Liagin. This second group included the ethnic Germans Adel Kelem, Emila Dukart, and Magdalena Dukart (Solodova, p. 34).  While Heft's group included V. Burzi and A. Berndt (German and Shulga, p. 31). Heft later led the group "Avantguard" behind German lines in Poland where he and Burzi died fighting against the Nazis in August 1944 (Solodova, p. 34 and German and Shulga, p. 31). The exploits of ethnic German saboteurs and intelligence agents working on behalf of the Soviet Union against the Nazis are quite impressive and have received almost no historical recognition in the West.

The heroism of Russian-Germans in anti-Nazi partisan units even received recognition from the Soviet government.  Moscow bestowed medals upon a number of Russian-German anti-Nazi partisan units. Aleksandr Hermann active in leading partisans in the region of Kalinin and Leningrad and Robert Klein noted for his exploits at the Dnepr in the fall of 1943 even received the award Hero of the Soviet Union (German and Shulga, p. 31). The ability of ethnic Germans to operate behind Nazi lines made them a valuable asset to the USSR and it is surprising that there were so many Russian-Germans who served in this capacity in light of the extremely brutal treatment of the group in general by the NKVD.

Of special note only because of his name is the doctor Andrei Adolphovich Pohl, a doctor who was an assistant at the surgical clinic at the Odessa Medical Institute.  He led a small group of medical workers in the anti-Nazi underground and joined a partisan detachment in Lenin Raion in April 1943 at age 37. This detachment operated in the village of Krivaya Balka from April 1942 to April 1944. Interestingly enough despite his very German surname and patronymic, Pohl's documents identified his nationality as Russian. (Solodova, p. 36). The changing of his nationality to avoid punishment at the hands of the Soviets was not unusual among Russian-Germans fighting against the Nazis. But, what is rather unusual is his failure to change his name which was a dead give away of his ethnic origins even if his nationality was listed as Russian.

 A number of Russian-Germans in the Red Army had changed their names as well as their nationality to avoid removal. These included Voledomar Karlovich Wentzel who changed his name to Vladimir Kirillovich Ventsov and was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union, Peter Lewen who changed his name to Levin, Buegehl who changed his name to Boichenko, and G. Richter who became Smirnov. In some cases like in the case of Richter Soviet military counter intelligence found out their real identities and sent them away to labor camps. In other cases such as Paul Schmidt who changed his name to Ali Akhmetov and his nationality to Azerbaijani they were allowed to return to their original German names (German and Shulga, pp. 30-31). The phenomenon of ethnic Germans passing for Russians or other nationalities by changing their names is still not well researched. The process by which they were able to forge documents and convince superior officers that they were not German or not to turn them in if they knew is still not well known.

The ethnic Germans from the USSR who fought against the Nazis as partisans such as Aleksandr Hermann, Robert Klein, and N.A. Heft played an important role in the defeat of Nazi Germany on the Eastern Front. These men and a few women have received very little attention because they are proof that the charges of treason against the entire Russian-German population are false. Despite the brutal treatment of their families, neighbors, and even themselves at the hands of the Stalin regime they bravely fought and sometimes died fighting against the Nazis in defense of their Soviet Homeland

Sources:

A. German and I. Shulga, "'Ne byvat' fashistkoi svin'e v nashem sovetskom ogorode': Sovetskie nemtsy na fronte i v tylu vraga," Rodina: Rossiiskii istoricheskii zhurnal, May 2010, pp. 28-31.

V. Krieger, Rein, Volga, Irtysh: Iz istorii nemtsev Tsentral'noi Azii, Almaty: Daik-Press, 2006.

V.V. Solodova, "Dokumental'nye istochniki ob uchastii ethnicheskikh nemtsev v organizovannom dvizhenii Soprotivleniia na vremenno okkupirovannoi territorii Odesskoi i Nikolaevskoi oblastei 1941-1944 gg." in A.A. German (ed.), Grazhdanskaia identichnost' i vnuternnii mir rossiiskikh nemtsev v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi Voiny i v istoricheskoi pamiati potomkov, Moscow: MSNK-Press, 2011, pp. 32-39.

Leftist Racism and the Image of Africa

I have noticed a disturbing trend on the Internet since I moved to Africa. It was probably always there, but I have become much more attuned to depictions of Africa in the last couple of years. There is the constant depiction of all of Africa as very poor and dysfunctional. This stereotype of an entire continent based upon its most unfortunate parts is bad enough. But, the stereotype is magnified into an essentialist and primordial argument that Africa can never be anything but, poor and dysfunctional. This is basically a racist argument. The argument, however, is almost always made by people who identify themselves as leftists or liberals and their stated reasoning is that colonialism permanently crippled Africa in such a way that its people can never develop on their own.

This argument ignores both the history of early independence when states like Ghana did develop significantly before the liberal LBJ helped throw Nkrumah out of power and more recent developments in Africa. The fact is that despite the wishes of white liberals and leftists in the US and UK that Africa always be poor so they can use it as an example to attack the current system of global capitalism there are parts of Africa that are developing quite rapidly now. A lot of white liberals and leftists who call themselves "anti-racists" only see the people of Africa as pawns in an ideological game rather than real people with fully human lives. These people have no experience with dealing with actual Africans and they are content to have lengthy Internet discussions about the issues of colonialism and development in Africa without any contributions from Africans or anybody actually familiar with Africa. Instead the stereotype of eternal poverty as a result of colonialism is branded upon Africa like the mark of Ham. Meanwhile the Europeans of today are completely forgiven for the original sin of colonialism by these same liberals and leftists leaving only Africans to suffer under the presumption that they can not be anything, but poor and undeveloped.

This presumption informs a lot of liberal policy from the sustained attacks of JFK and LBJ against Pan-African leaders like Nkrumah to the poverty pimps that staff a large number of NGOs today. The American and British left have a vested ideological interest in keeping Africa poor. But, obviously this is not in the interest of Africans. Colonialism did not permanently make Africans incapable of economic success. That they are perfectly capable of developing is something that was empirically evident even in the late 1950s and early 1960s. One obstacle to their development, however, has been the image of Africa projected by American and British liberals and leftists of being absolutely and forever hopeless and helpless as a result of colonialism. The policies that have followed from this image have not surprisingly done very little to facilitate real development in Africa.

The Situation in Mali

It looks like northern Mali is evolving into an entity similar to Afghanistan under the Taliban. Islamic extremists have imposed a very rigid interpretation of Sharia upon the area and are now moving to enforce it. The latest news is that they are now collecting the names of women with children born out of wedlock for punishment and recruiting child soldiers.

Source: Reuters

Yet more violence in Kyrgyzstan

Four policemen were wounded on Thursday in Osh after clashing with several hundred Ata-Jurt demonstrators demanding the release of three members of parliament currently being detained for their role in organizing an attempted forcible overthrow of the legally elected government. The popular base for Ata-Jurt appears to be among ethnic Kyrgyz in Osh and Jalal-Abad oblasts where there is a large Uzbek minority. These areas were the scene of ethnic violence between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in 1990 and again in 2010.

Source: UPI

Russian-Germans in the Red Army

I am going to try and make a series of posts on this subject. The justification for the deportations was the lie that somehow Soviet citizens of German heritage were all potential traitors solely by virtue of their ancestry. Many Soviet people still believe this lie today even though the empirical evidence shows that Russian-Germans were no less patriotic than other Soviet citizens. Those that managed to avoid removal from the Red Army continued to fight bravely  against the Nazis. Others participated in partisan movements against the Nazi occupation forces in Ukraine and elsewhere.

The charges of treason against each and every Russian-German are ridiculous when one considers that even after Stalin punished almost the entire population that a number of ethnic Germans continued to fight for the defense of the Soviet Union in the Red Army and in anti-Nazi partisan units. Before their removal from the ranks of the Red Army around 30,000 Russian-Germans were engaged in resisting the Nazi attack on the USSR. Even after the expulsion of most of these men from the military and their internment in labor camps as members of the labor army a number of Russian-Germans continued to fight against the Nazi occupation of the USSR. On 8 September 1941, the Stalin regime issued decree No. 350105s ordering the expulsion of all ethnic Germans from the Soviet Red Army and other military institutions. However, it took until the end of 1942 to verify the nationality of all soldiers in the Red Army so a number of ethnic Germans remained fighting against the Nazis during the fall of 1941 and even later. Some even managed to avoid expulsion completely and continued fighting against the Nazis in the ranks of the Red Army through the end of the war on 9 May 1945. Below is a partial list of some of these men. Note the names are transliterated from Russian so they may not correspond to the original German names. Those without ranks in front of them are enlisted men.

Defense of Moscow - Sgt. S. Wolibrus and D. Enederg.
Defense of Leningrad - Major N. Witte, Capt. I. Spiller, Lt. A. Kobmacher, Junior Lt. D. Schibelgut, Sgt. G. Kelbecher, F. Geto, I. Almaier, G. Speer, Ya. Gitlin.
The Battle of Stalingrad - B. Schtettefeld, N. Hiller, S. Wachsmann, D. Schtossberg, K. Reisbich.
The Battle of Kursk - Sgt. G. Gehlfer, M. Sussmann, K. Gregor, A. Bruch, S. Mer.
The Reconquest of Ukraine and Belorussia - A. Mauhl, M. Hustenmaier, V. Stegehl, G. Bachmann, V. Hermann, A. Bromwert, G. Hauch, A. Schmidt, Ya. Klinger.
The Reconquest of the Baltic States- Sen. Sgt. A. Ludwig, Junior Sgt. A. Salberg, A. Winter, G. Schneider.
The Conquest of Poland - B. Dieter, I. Wagner.
The Conquest of East Prussia - N. Beller and V. Kleintz.
The Conquest of Brandenburg - L. Becker.

Source: I.I. Shul'ga, 2011, "Massovye geroism rossiskikh nemtsev na fronte i v tylu protivnika kak proiavlenie patriotizma i grazhdanskoi identichstnosti", in A.A. German, Grazhdanskaia identichstnost' i vnuternii mir rossiskikh nemtsev v gody Velikoi Otchestvennoi Voiny i v istoricheskoi pamiati potomkov, Moscow: MSNK- Press, pp. 25-26.

More Violence in Togo

This story happened a week ago on last Friday, but I still think it is relevant since the use of violence by the Togolese security forces to disperse large anti-government demonstrations is a frequently recurring event. It is unfortunately an event that seems to get almost no coverage even within Africa. Outside of Africa just about nobody seems to care. On 5 October 2012 security forces in Togo used tear gas to disperse a couple of thousand of anti-government demonstrators in Lome. The actions of the security forces injured a number of protesters and some required hospitalization. It is very likely that the parliamentary elections scheduled for this month in Togo will be postponed.

Sources: AFP

The Blog as a Private Journal

It appears that the only people who read this blog are my parents and occasionally some guy in Hungary. Otherwise I might as well be keeping a private journal. The main advantage a blog has over a journal being that I can not lose it. But, the readership is not much greater. I have had this blog for over eight years now and the total number of people who have ever read it is probably not more than two dozen. Despite the claims that the Internet has great communicative powers it appears that my virtual graffiti on this particular wall has had far fewer serious readers than real graffiti in places like Los Angeles or New York. Oh well it is easier than writing e-mails to my mother and father and I don't even have an address for the guy in Hungary.

African Things

Yesterday I purchased a Ghanaian tunic which I wore to work today. I got a lot of compliments on it and encouragement to further Africanize my wardrobe. For lunch I had fufu with green soup and snails. I have never had African snails before. They are much bigger than the ones served in French or Italian restaurants in the US. They boil them so they have a texture and taste somewhat similar to tako, the Japanese octopus sashimi one finds at sushi bars.

Seventy Years since GKO Order No. 2383 ss

It has been 70 years since J. Stalin issued GKO Order 2383 ss "On the additional mobilization of Germans for the national economy of the USSR." This decree mobilized 70,780 Russian German men and 52,742 women into the labor army (A. German and A. Kurochkin, Nemtsy SSSR v trudovoi armii (1941-1955), Moscow: Gotika, 1998, p. 63). I have translated a copy of the decree below.

On the additional mobilization of Germans for the national economy of the USSR

GKO USSR No. 2383 ss

7 October 1942

In addition to resolution GOKO no. 1123 ss from 10 January 1942 and no. 1281 ss from 14 February 1942 the State Committee of Defense resolves:

1. To additionally mobilize in work columns for the whole time of the war all German men ages 15-16 and 51-55, capable of physical labor, that were resettled from central oblasts of the USSR and the Volga German Republic within the bounds of the Kazakh SSR and eastern oblasts of the RSFSR, and living in other oblasts, krais, and republics of the Soviet Union.

2. To simultaneously undertake the mobilization into work columns for the whole time of the war also German women aged 16 to 45.

Freed from mobilization are German women who are pregnant and have children under three years of age.

3. Those having children over three years of age are to give them over to other members of their family to be reared. In the absence of other members of the family, except those mobilized, the children are to be given over to close relatives or German kolkhozes for rearing.

To require workers deputies of local Soviets to take measures to accommodate the children of mobilized Germans remaining without parents.

4. The conduct of the mobilization of Germans is to be entrusted to the NKO and NKVD with the involvement of local organs of Soviet power.

The mobilization is to start immediately and finish within a month.

5. To require all mobilized Germans to appear at collection points with proper winter clothing, a supply of linen, bedding, a cup, a spoon, and a 10 days supply of food.

6. To establish criminal accountability for conscripted Germans who do not show up to the collection points for mobilization and willfully leave work or desert the work column - by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR from 26. XII - 1941. "On the accountability  of workers and employees in military industrial enterprises for willfully leaving these enterprises."

7. German men mobilized by order of this present resolution are to be transferred to work in enterprises of the trusts "Cheliabugol'" and "Karagandaugol'" in the Peoples Commissariat of Coal.

Mobilized German women are to be transferred to enterprises in the Peoples Commissariat of Oil.

8. To require the NKPS (Comrade Khulev) and the administration of military communications of the NKO (Comrade Kovalev) to supply transport for the mobilized Germans according to the orders of the NKO and NKVD.

9. To require the Peoples Commissariat of Oil USSR and Peoples Commissariat of Coal USSR to provide for the reception, distribution and rational use of the transferred work force of mobilized Germans.

Expenses in relationship to the mobilization and transport of the mobilized to places of designation are to be taken from calculated estimates of the Peoples Commissariat of Coal and Peoples Commissariat of Oil.

10. To require the Peoples Commissariat of Trade USSR (Comrade Liubimov) to supply food to the mobilized in transit.

11. NKVD USSR and NKO are to report to the State Committee of Defense about the results of the mobilization of the Germans and the number of Germans transferred to enterprises of the Peoples Commissariat of Coal and the Peoples Commissariat of Oil

Chairman of the State Committee of Defense

J. Stalin 

Source: V. Auman and V. Chebatreva (eds.), Istoriia rossiskhikh nemtsev v dokumentakh (1763-1992 gg.), Moscow: MIGP, 1993, pp. 172-173. Translated from Russian to English by J. Otto Pohl. 

A little insight into the "angry young black man"

When I was younger I used to wonder what the "angry young black man" was angry about.  Now that I have a little insight I no longer wonder why he is so angry, but rather why is he not a lot angrier. The wall of ignorance about Africa in the white world is so high, so deep, and so wide that there is no way to scale it. Rather people here have just learned to live with the lies, distortions, and racist stereotypes perpetrated about them abroad.

More Kyrgyz Demonstrations

Even though the three Ata-Zhurt members of the Kyrgyz Parliament arrested earlier this week were clearly attempting to violently overthrow the legally elected government of the Kyrgyz Republic they still have significant support. Yesterday in Jalal-Abad over 700 people demonstrated demanding the release of the three leaders of the attempted coup who are currently being held and investigated by the Kyrgyz authorities. They face between 12 and 20 years in prison each.

Source: RFE/RL and Reuters

Ghana has seized the Flagship of the Argentine Navy

The ARA Libertad is currently being held in the port of Tema east of Accra after being seized today. The ship is being held pursuant to an order by a Ghanaian judge. The ship is being held due to complaints by NLM Capital Limited, one of the creditors to the Argentine government before it defaulted on its debt. I don't know much about how such cases usually proceed so any comment would be greatly welcome.

Some Figures on Purchasing Power in Africa versus the former USSR

A number of countries in Africa have a much higher standard of living than some former Soviet republics now. The fact that many Soviet people refuse to believe this empirical fact does not make it less true. The higher standard of living in places like Namibia versus Moldova  is easy to see when we compare the relative purchasing power given in PPP statistics. An average person in Gaborone can purchase six to seven times what an average person in Bishkek or Dushanbe can.

Tadzhikistan $2,100
Kyrgyzstan $2,400
Nigeria $2,600
Ghana $3,100
Moldova $3,400
Namibia $7,300
Botswana $16,300

These particular figures are from the CIA World Factbook. But, figures from the IMF and World Bank are similar. Some countries in Africa are much better off than some former Soviet republics. This should not be controversial.

The Continuing Existence of Racism in a formerly "Raceless" Society

I do not understand why some Soviet people in places like the North Caucasus are incapable of understanding that there are parts of the former USSR that today are much poorer than some parts of Africa. Ghana today is much richer than Kyrgyzstan and health care is much better in Legon than it is in Bishkek. Yet many Soviet people still wrongly think places like Ghana are as poor or poorer than Afghanistan. Maybe such attitudes are the effect of watching Chunga Changa too many times?

Violence in Bishkek

The news has reported that a mob of about 1000 people organized by Ata Zhurt attempted to storm the gates of the White House in Bishkek yesterday in an imitation of the overthrow of the Bakiev regime in 2010. The police used teargas to repel the attack. The attempt to seize the White House failed and the police have arrested three members of Parliament involved in organizing the assault. Ata Zhurt is an extreme nationalist party that is demanding that the Kumtor gold mine which is currently run by the Canadian company Centerra be completely nationalized. Even though such a move would probably significantly reduce what little foreign investment Kyrgyzstan currently receives. Centerra stock has already dropped by 30% this year in part due to events in Kyrgyzstan. At present the Kyrgyz government owns 33% of the mine. The mine accounts for a full 12% of Kyrgyzstan's economy. I hope all my remaining friends and former students in Bishkek stay safe. Things appear to be calm and stable in the rest of the country. Although there is speculation that future demonstrations could take place in southern regions of the country. There are no reported or forecast problems for Talas Oblast, may the region continue to be peaceful Insha'Allah.

Source: Reuters

Speaking Ill of the Dead

If anybody in Europe expressed the same kind of apology towards Nazi atrocities that Hobsbawm did towards Stalin's crimes against humanity he would probably be thrown in prison like David Irving. He certainly would not be a respected professor at a British university. Yet Stalinist apologists like Hobsbawm, Sarte, Zizek, and others both living and dead have suffered no negative consequences what so ever. I do not understand this continuing double standard which is militantly advanced on a daily basis by left wing academics.

More on Racism with reference to the USSR and Israel

Despite all the claims about 'race' being a constructed category I don't think a lot of liberals and leftists really believe that it is constructed. They seem incapable of imagining 'race' constructed along lines that differ from what has existed in the US or Nazi Germany. Hence only White supremacy and Anti-semitism count as racial discrimination in their minds. Other racial constructions such as anti-Germanism in the USSR and East Central Europe or anti-Arabism in Israel don't strike them as racist because they do not conform to the above 'organic' patterns of racism with which they are familiar. The claim that the deportation of the Volga Germans can't be racist because Germans are an ethnicity, nationality or "socio-historical" group and not a race is in essence a denial that race is a constructed category. Likewise the claims that Israel can't be racist because Jews are allegedly not 'White' is a reinforcement of the idea of specific racial categories and relations as natural and organic rather than artificial and constructed. If Stalin's deportation of the Chechens can't be genocide because the Chechens are not a 'race' then it seems impossible to claim that there has ever been a case of genocide. After all Jews are a religious or ethno-national group not a 'race' and Armenians like Chechens are also an ethno-national group. The fact is that racial discrimination is a type of practice and the theory used to justify this differential treatment is rather unimportant. It does not matter if it is done on the basis of an essentialized culture believed to be alien or a false belief in biological inferiority.

Racism by any other name is still racism

It has occurred to me that the various national deportations in the USSR under Stalin as well as the earlier national operations during 1937-1938 were based upon the old Tsarist prejudices against these groups. Koreans were viewed as part of a Yellow Peril. Germans were looked at as privileged foreigners exploiting Russians and Ukrainians. To make matters worse popular prejudice portrayed them as refusing to assimilate and being connected to an enemy state. Chechens, Ingush, Karachais, Balkars, Kalmyks, and Crimean Tatars had the reputation of being bandits who had consistently resisted the legitimate rule of the Russian Empire and the USSR. These prejudices did not magically disappear under Soviet rule. But, an officially "anti-racist" state deliberately differentiating itself from places like Nazi Germany or the US during Jim Crow could not officially justify racist practices upon these prejudices.

Instead it was necessary to create a theoretical framework which differentiated "social-historical" groups from "racial-biological" groups even if the actual groups being categorized such as Koreans, Germans, Chechens, Kalmyks, Crimea Tatars, etc. were the exact same in both cases. In other words the actual basis for the deportations was the same old hatreds that Russians had always had for these groups, but it was necessary to substitute the terms natsional'nost for race and culture for blood for public relations purposes. This was no problem as the South Africans and Israelis later found out as well. Ethnicity can easily be a synonym for race and culture substitutes very well for biology. Francine Hirsch of course accepts the entirety of official Soviet discourse on "race" during this time at face value without noticing that the terms used to justify racist practices do not in fact render those practices non-racist. What I don't understand is why almost all academics in the US studying Soviet nationality policy have followed Hirsch's lead in swallowing the Soviet argument that they did not practice racial discrimination under Stalin. After all nobody accepted the similar argument made by the South African government regarding apartheid.

PPP

The Progressive Peoples Party is running Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom as a third party candidate against the ruling NDC and the opposition NPP. The PPP is a split of from the CPP (Convention Peoples Party) which was Kwame Nkrumah's political party. Since Nkrumah's overthrow in 1966 the CPP has been a very marginal force in Ghanaian politics. It became even more marginal when Nduom left to form the PPP and took many of the remaining Nkrumahists in the CPP with him. The PPP seems to have a fair degree of enthusiastic support from the small segment of Ghana's youth that is educated, idealistic, and politically active. In terms of total number of potential voters the party of course has no chance of winning the presidency. But, it could easily serve as a spoiler throwing the election to the anti-Nkrumahist NPP in a runoff election. The NPP has its roots in the Danquah and Busia opposition to Nkrumah back in the 1950s. Yet, politics make strange alliances so some people have speculated about the possibility of an NPP government giving some positions to people in the PPP if it should win in such an manner.

Can the PPP force a runoff in the upcoming election?

In the last couple of days I have been talking to former students about the upcoming Ghanaian elections to try and get a feel for what will happen in December. If a candidate does not get 51% of the vote in the first round then there is a runoff election. The two main players are the NDC (National Democratic Congress) and the NPP (New Patriotic Party), but the PPP (Progressive Peoples' Party) candidate  probably has enough support to prevent either party from getting 51% in the first round. That means the NPP probably has a better chance of unseating the NDC from the presidency than I previously thought.

Why are all the "Radical" professors in the US against BDS?

Why do all the "hip" and very highly paid "progressive" professors in the US oppose sanctions against Israeli apartheid when they would never have done so regarding South Africa? This is a serious question.  I noticed that other than the weak exception of Judith Butler that all the tenured "radical" professors  in the US with blogs like Claire Potter are militant opponents of BDS and openly spread lies against the PACBI. For instance she claims that it requires boycotts of individual Israeli scholars when it demands no such thing. Like the boycott against South Africa it only boycotts Israeli institutions. Why are these "radicals" so militant in  protecting Israel from the consequences of its policies of colonialism, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid?

It is Really Hot in Africa Today

It is only September and it has already gotten really hot. I don't want to think about what it is going to be like in December. Hopefully the rate of temperature increase will slow down next month.

New Website on Post-WWII Expulsion of Ethnic Germans from Central and Eastern Europe

I found a new website dealing with the mass expulsion of ethnic Germans from Central and Eastern Europe. It is called Ann's Films and is written by Ann Morrison who has made a series of documentary films on the subject based upon interviews with survivors. I have not seen any of the films yet. But, they definitely sound like the type of thing I would show in class.

Library Books

I checked out one of the newer books in the library today. It is the same age as me whereas most of the books on the shelf are about a decade older than me. Fifty years ago the library must have really been something.

Finally somebody agrees with me

I just noticed a 2012 MA dissertation at Universiteit Utrecht in the Netherlands by M.A.C. Sprangers. The dissertation is titled Difference and Power: Nationalities Policies, Racist Practices and Ethnic Cleansing in the Soviet Union, 1917-1953. Sprangers has just entered a very small and extremely marginalized group of scholars so he or she has their work cut out for them. But, regardless I welcome Sprangers with open arms into the tiny circle of scholars of the USSR who believe that Stalin actually did engage in racial discrimination. There are only a handful of us and we are spread out over a couple of different continents. Francine Hirsch completely dominates the field in the US. At any rate for everybody else I have reproduced the abstract of the dissertation from the library at the Universiteit Utrecht below.

This thesis primarily uses the work of historian George M. Fredrickson to argue that historians can and should speak of racism in the Soviet Union under Stalin. This is despite the fact that official Soviet discourse rejected the ideology of race, and the fact that most contemporary historians shy away from the terms 'race' and 'racism' in the writing on Soviet nationalities policies and Soviet ethnic cleansing. The thesis consists of - a summary of the historiographical discussion; - a conceptualization of what defines 'ethnicity', 'nationality', 'race' and 'racism' ; - a look at the official Soviet attitude towards (among others) the ideology of race and ideas of nationality, citizenship and the state socialist project; - Soviet nationalities policies in practice with regards to nationalities, focusing on the Stalinist period; it argues that nationalities were treated on cultural grounds as if they were (biological) races - a more detailed look on Soviet ethnic cleansing, and the racial elements that these entailed - and lastly, it considers scholarly reluctance on speaking of racism in the Soviet Union. 

If you do happen upon this Sprangers, I would love to read a copy of your dissertation. Send me an e-mail at j.ottopohl [the at sign] gmail [the dot] com. Maybe we can arrange for you to speak at one of the history department seminars here at the University of Ghana, Legon.

Thoughts on Nkrumah

As a general rule I think Nkrumah did more good for Ghana than any other leader. He may have been the most successful African leader of the 20th century. Only a few other African leaders had the charisma and vision of Nkrumah. These men include Mandela, Sankara, and Lumumba. But, in terms of laying the foundations of economic development none of these men can really be compared to Nkrumah. Mandela came to power in a country already heavily industrialized by African standards. In contrast both Sankara and Lumumba died violently before they really had a chance to accomplish anything near the scale that Nkrumah did. Even more so than Lumumba, Nkrumah as leader of Ghana from 1957 to 1966 sought to successfully champion Pan-African ideas. One important long term result of Nkrumah's rule is that there is a much stronger sense of unity among Ghanaians than exists in many African countries. Ghana has not suffered from civil war like Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, and Nigeria just to name those states in the West African region. In large part this has been a result of Nkrumah's successful construction of a Ghanaian national identity unifying all the ethnic groups in the country. This legacy alone is worth honoring.

Open Thread on Kwame Nkrumah

In honor of Founder's Day consider this an open thread on Nkrumah. Not that anybody will comment here, but just so that there is one thread on the man on the entire Internet on his birthday. I am not sure why the Internet is so Eurocentric, but I suspect that Nkrumah is especially unpopular with American liberals because JFK hated the man.

Tomorrow is Founder's Day

Tomorrow is a holiday here in Ghana in honor of Kwame Nkrumah's birthday. Nkrumah was the first president of Ghana and he built much of the infrastructure we still use today including Akosombo Dam and Tema Harbor. On 24 February 1966 elements of the Ghanaian military and police overthrew him in a coup supported by President Lyndon Johnson. Nkrumah spent most of the rest of his life in exile in Conakry, Guinea and died of stomach cancer in Bucharest, Romania in 1972.

National Service Personnel

The government has assigned our department six young men and women performing their national service to assist us this year. One young man has been specifically assigned to assist me. His help this morning allowed me to finish the footnotes for my "Black Eurasia" article instead of having to find paper so my students can take a mid-term exam this afternoon.

Note to self

I really should stop reading other blogs. It is quite apparent that everybody with a blog in Obrunistan is insane.

Finally we have running water again

This morning after I had already found somebody to help me lug water from across the street the water came back on.

Electricity is now back, but water is still off

The electricity returned today. But, we still have no running water. Also why does the Mountain Dew imported here from Nigeria not taste anything like Mountain Dew in the US?

Day Three without Water and Day one without Electricity

Today is day three running of no running water at home or at work. To make things even more difficult the electricity at both places went out this morning. I have no idea when we will get power again. If we are lucky it will come back on before tomorrow.

Day Two With No Running Water

We still have no running water. I suspect it may be over a week or so before we do. I am not looking forward to hauling buckets of water every morning for the next ten or so days. Running water and electricity are the two bourgeois luxuries I enjoy the most. Unfortunately, almost everywhere I have lived in the last decade they have been just that luxuries.

Good news outweighs Bad news

Today it took me almost an hour at the bank to accomplish what normally takes only five minutes. There was a very high ratio of customers to workers at the bank today. But, the good news is I have a lot more money than I thought I did.

We have no water again

I should know by now that when everything looks to be going well that something will come up. This time the water is out at the house again. I am not sure when it will return, usually it takes over a week, but I really don't like having to haul buckets of water from across the street. I just do not have the physical strength to do it quickly and easily.

Schadenfreude

I really shouldn't celebrate the fact that American academia is now eating itself alive much like Stalin purged the Communist Party and many leftist jerks are now finding themselves impoverished and unemployed. If I was a much better man I would take no joy in it. But, the fact that some of the same types of people that deliberately denied me even an interview in the US are now economically worse off than me does make me smile. I know this is a moral weakness and I am  trying to overcome it. Obviously I am not morally the strongest person on earth. The fact is, however, that these same people were all enthusiastic supporters of black listing people like me forever from being employed in the US as academics. Fortunately, I don't have a problem working in Africa. Whereas most leftist academics have a strong aversion to living and working in a majority non-white environment. So they would rather starve than move to Africa. In the old days we used to call such attitudes racism.

There is nothing more cowardly than people who post under pseudonyms or initials

I have long maintained that people that refuse to post under their own real and full names are cowards that are not worth reading. I realize my opinion on this like my opinion that the Stalinist national deportations were acts of racial discrimination and that the forced expulsion of the Sudeten Germans was morally wrong is not shared by anybody else on the Internet. But, people who use pseudonyms have no credibility on anything in their life. If you can not even own your own words then you do not have any right to speak.

Five Reasons why I work at an African not a US university

1. I am not a communist.
2. I am not a feminist.
3. I am not a Zionist.
4. I am not too cowardly to use my own name on the Internet.
5. I am not a liberal racist who believes that Black people can only succeed in institutions of higher learning  if academic standards are lowered for them.

Abstract for "Is there a Black Eurasia?"

Here is the abstract for the latest piece I am finishing up. The finished article will be part of a collected work being put together by the History Department of the University of Ghana at Legon.

"Is there a Black Eurasia?: Ghanaian and other Diasporic African Populations in the USSR in Comparative Perspective."

The population of African ancestry in the USSR exhibited certain diasporic characteristics despite its small population, fragmented settlement, and high levels of acculturation. It also differed considerably both in its legal status and cultural cohesion from other larger European and East Asian diasporas in the USSR such as the Germans, Jews, Poles, Finns, Greeks, and Koreans. Nonetheless it shared with these better researched diasporas the experience of being viewed by most of Soviet society as being alien to the territory of the Russian Empire and USSR. This chapter seeks to place the history of Soviet citizens of African descent into the larger history of how the Soviet government and society at large treated diasporic populations. In particular it compares people of African origins with Germans, Jews, Poles, Greeks, and Koreans. It is hoped that such a comparison can shed greater historical light upon the questions of diaspora and race in the USSR.

The Great Deception

I have not finished reading all of it yet, but The Great Deception: The Role of the CIA in the Overthrow of Nkrumah is actually a very interesting collection of documents from the LBJ Presidential Library dealing with his administration's policies towards Ghana and other African countries. The duplicated documents do point to the US government including President Johnson, US Ambassador Mahoney, and CIA Director McCone being involved in helping bring about the 24 February 1966 coup that toppled Nkrumah from power and established the National Liberation Council junta.

Today's Book Purchases

Today at the university book store I purchased two books compiled by the Socialist Forum of Ghana.

Fight Back: A Response to Anti-Nkrumah Provocations, (2006), 2009.

The Great Deception: The Role of the CIA in the Overthrow of Nkrumah, (2005), 2012.

Interestingly enough they both have advertisements for capitalist enterprises on their back covers. Fight Back has an advertisement for an insurance company, Star Assurance Co. Ltd. and The Great Deception has an advertisement for an Internet service provider,  UCOM. I have not seen an advertisement in a book in a long time. But, I do find it amusing that books published by capitalist for profit publishing houses manage to do without selling advertising while the Socialist Forum of Ghana makes it a regular practice. Advertising is one of the most offensive practices of capitalism and insurance companies are one of the most abusive forms of finance capital. But, I guess these things are okay with people calling themselves socialists now a days.

More on Tyranny in Togo

While Ghana is a vibrant democratic state which largely respects human rights, its eastern neighbor Togo is not. This article describes the deplorable situation in Togo's prisons. Most notable from a point of view of rule by law is the fact that 65% of the detainees have not been tried and half have not even been formally charged.

Note to US Democratic Party: Jerusalem is illegally occupied territory

I am not a Democrat in part because they do stupid stuff like this. Jerusalem has always been recognized by the US government and all other UN members except Israel as occupied territory. The UN Security Council of which the US is one of the five permanent members with veto power passed resolution 478 on 20 Aug 1980 declaring for the second time that year that the annexation was illegal.  This resolution not only declared the annexation of Jerusalem by Israel "null and void", but also called upon all foreign nations to withdraw any diplomatic missions established in the city. Establishing an embassy in Jerusalem would be a violation of international law and a radical change of long standing US policy.

hat tip: Marc b. at Mondoweiss

Taxi Thief Thwarted by University Security in Botanical Gardens

Fortunately we don't get a lot of crime here. But, yesterday there was an attempted auto theft on campus. A former economics student here, he graduated in 2007, stole a taxi belonging to one of the security guards. He was arrested in the university's botanical gardens while trying to escape with the vehicle. He evidently ran the car into a pile of sand.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Why is every meeting three hours long?

In the last two days I have been in two three hour meetings. Why do these things always last so long?

I am sure this is somewhere in the Murphy's Law book.

Last night, the day after I purchased a modem, the wireless from sociology started working again. It is an iron law of nature that a problem will fix itself only after you have successfully found an alternative solution with monetary and temporal sunk costs.

The Moon Brothers Rock

I just finished watching my complimentary copy of Under Jakob's Ladder. It was awesome and I am not just saying that because I was an historical consultant on the film. If you have a few extra dollars go buy a copy of the DVD. If you have a few more dollars and are feeling charitable get a copy for your church. Roberto Munoz, Mann Munoz, Jeff Stewart, Chrisopher Elliot, Sal Rendino, Peter Iasillo Jr., and everybody else involved in the film did a great job. It certainly deserved the two awards it won at the Manhattan Film Festival last year.

More on Butler, the Palestinians, and the double standards of leftist Zionist academics in the US

Looking around the Internet it does appear that Butler is quite unusual among American leftist Academics, particularly those obsessed with gender studies, in actually taking a stand against the ongoing Israeli dispossession of the Palestinian people. But, even her stand is full of caveats including some mealy mouthed denunciations of violence on both sides and an explicit repudiation of the Palestinian right of armed resistance. It should be noted that the right to armed resistance by occupied people was repeatedly endorsed by the UN in the wake of WWII and things like the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. No leftist professors in the US ever condemned the people of South Africa for their armed resistance against apartheid. Umkhonto we Sizwe was not a Gandhian pacifist organization. But, when it comes to politically incorrect people like the Palestinians, leftist American academics have all kinds of reasons why they should not be given the same rights as other people in the world.

Open Thread on the Upcoming Ghanaian Elections

Consider this an open thread on the upcoming elections in Ghana. I predict that the NDC (National Democratic Congress) will again win the presidential election and acting president John Mahama will be confirmed in the post. But, the NPP (New Patriotic Party) which is running Nana Akufo-Addo as their presidential candidate has a better shot at defeating Mahama than it did of winning against the late John Mills. Both the NDC and NPP candidates are University of Ghana alumni. But, Mahama did his degree in history so our department played a key role in his intellectual development.

A surprising BDS development

I noticed looking through recent posts on Mondoweiss that Judith Butler has come out in favor of BDS against Israel. This surprised me because my impression was that most self described "liberal" and "leftist" academics in the US including Michael Walzer, Alan Dershowitz, Claire Potter, and others have been strongly opposed to any sanctions against Israel. So Butler's break with the rest of her colleagues appears to be significant in that she appears to be one of the very few hip and trendy left wing US academics to take a public stand in favor of boycotting Israeli academic institutions. Does anybody have any information on this?

New MTN Modem

Due to the fact that my new office does not yet have an Ethernet socket and the wireless from sociology stopped working for us weeks ago I went to the mall today and purchased an MTN modem. It only cost 49 cedis, but the queue at the store was longer than any line I have ever seen at the hospital. Actually I had to wait in two lines. The first one to purchase the modem and the second one to register the Sim card with the government. Fortunately they moved fairly fast. It only took me about 45 minutes total. However, in retrospect I should have gone on a Thursday rather than a Saturday. Then there would have been less people registering Sim cards. But, the Internet connection works really well.

Ten White Dominated Countries more Racist than the US

1. Israel
2. Russia
3. Czech Republic
4. Serbia
5. Romania
6. UK
7. France
8. Italy
9. Spain
10. Australia

Observations on the Geopolitical Neighborhood

Togo is a sliver of tyranny sandwiched in between the two stable democratic states of Ghana and Benin. As such it is part of a shrinking area of authoritarianism in an increasingly democratic region of the world. Looking across their borders the Togolese can easily see there is another and better way to run things.

Interesting

Apparently the 24 crew members kidnapped by pirates off the coast of Togo from a Greek operated oil tanker are Russian citizens. Normally Russian tolerance for this sort of thing is pretty low. Ironically the ship was attacked while the US Secretary of the Navy was in Lome to discuss joint anti-piracy policies with the Togolese government.

Ghanaian Navy on Alert after Pirate Attack

The Ghanaian navy has been put on alert following the attack on a Greek oil tanker by pirates off the coast of Togo. The pirates took 24 crew members hostage. On the Togo mainland things still look unstable as President Faure Gnassingbe refuses to step down. Like Assad in Syria and Kim  Jong Il in North Korea, Gnassingbe inherited the post from his father Gnassingbe Eyadema who was dictator of Togo from 1967 until his death in 2005, a total of thirty eight years. May the people of Togo soon be free of this dictatorial dynasty.

Ghana's unstable neighbors

When I first arrived in Ghana its western neighbor Ivory Coast was involved in a civil war. Now there is civil unrest in its eastern neighbor Togo. Police have fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters. They have also engaged in the mass arrest of demonstrators. Women have called a sex strike and are planning a naked demonstration on Thursday. If all that was not enough pirates have also attacked a Greek ship off the coast of Togo.  I was planning on visiting Togo in a few months. Now I think Burkina Faso is the better option.

Open Thread on the Deportation of the Volga Germans 71 Years Ago

Seventy one years ago on 26 August 1941 the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Council of Peoples' Commissariats of the USSR ordered the deportation of the Volga Germans from their homeland to special settlement restrictions in Siberia and Kazakhstan. Two days later the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet issued Ukaz 21-160 accusing the Volga Germans of harboring "tens of thousands of saboteurs" loyal to Nazi Germany and again ordered their deportation. From 3 to 20 September 1941 the NKVD deported over 400,000 Volga Germans from the Volga German ASSR, Saratov Oblast, and Stalingrad Oblast to desolate eastern regions of the USSR. I have written about this massive crime extensively on this blog in the past, especially on the 70th and 65th anniversaries. I don't have much more to say about it right now. But, consider this an open thread on the deportations and how they are remembered.

Where did everybody go?

For some reason my site meter shows that my blog readership has declined radically in the last few weeks. I guess even the bots and spies have lost interest in coming here, I wonder why? At any rate I have no intention of going anywhere even if my blog readership drops down to only my mother.

Weather on the Equator

After weeks of being cloudy and rainy the sun has finally returned to Ghana. The heat has also returned. From now until March or so it will undoubtedly get hotter and hotter.

Internet Outage

The Internet has been out on most of campus since Friday. I finally found a place on campus where the Internet still works. I am starting to think, however, that it may be a very long time before it is available in my office again.

Balme Library Canteen

There is a new canteen in the library. It is very clean, fast, and cheap. I went there for lunch today and had jollof rice, chicken, and a salad for 4.50 cedis. The salad even had English style salad cream on it. It was quite good.

Good mail

I got a very nice letter from the Master of Commonwealth Hall today welcoming me as a fellow. I still haven't gotten my Vandal shirt yet, however.

First Day of Classes for the Semester

Tomorrow is the first day of classes of the new semester. I have had a few students ask me if I was going to show up to teach. Of course I am going to show up to lecture.The first day of class is the most important. Students that do not show up will be missing out on vital information that will appear on the final exam.

Article on Russian-Germans in Kazakhstan

This article is a few months old, but I just found it. It is on how the German ambassador to Kazakhstan was shocked to learn the truth about the full extent of Soviet mistreatment of Russian-Germans in the labor army in Karaganda (Karlag). The fact that the German ambassador was not fully aware of this history in 2011 is what really shocks me. It would be the equivalent of an Israeli ambassador to Poland in 2011 not knowing the full extent of what happened at Auschwitz. On the bright side the ambassador has now taken a keen interest in the history of Stalinist repression of ethnic Germans in Kazakhstan including their mobilization as slave laborers in the labor army. It is never too late to learn. But, the fact that it took so long for somebody in his position to learn the details of the labor army is evidence of just how strong the taboo on discussing these issues remains.

Trying to figure out my site meter

My site meter says I am getting a lot of hits from places I am pretty sure I don't know anybody.  Places like Outer Mongolia, France, Holland, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, and Russia. So I am pretty sure they are not real people. But, rather bots or spies. On the other hand I don't seem to be getting any hits at all from places where I do know lots of people like Ghana and Kyrgyzstan. What is up with that?

Russian Publishing Trends (2012)

Kyrgyzstan still remains within the Russian sphere of influence when it comes to media. I saw more than my fair share of really bad Russian sitcoms this summer. In particular most books available in Bishkek are imported from Russia. Scholarly books are rarely found in the book shops in Kyrgyzstan, but this summer I found a whole bunch of stuff from Aleksandr Dyukov's "Historical Memory" outfit on the book shelves. These books like the Nazi revisionists at the Institute of Historical Review look scholarly on the surface in that they have foot notes and other academic features. But, their work as a whole is obviously geared to supporting the current Russian effort to rewrite the history of WWII. Among other things the organization which is supported by the Russian government denies the Holodomor and claims that the Baltic deportations including those on 14 June 1941 targeted mainly Nazi collaborators. It overall seeks to justify the Soviet colonization of the Baltic States by portraying Latvians and Estonians as being primordially rabid anti-Slav racists dedicated to the extermination of Russians and Belorussians. You can go see their publications for yourself at their website.

Tomorrow is a Holiday

Tomorrow is a National Holiday here in Ghana. They will be burying the late President Mills. The funeral procession is forecast to be huge.

Last week of summer

Classes start next week and a number of students are filtering back on campus. A number of my 300 level students from last year have been asking which 400 level class I am teaching this semester so they can register for it. I am teaching Aspects of World History, 1914-1945. Cruising the Internet I continue to be amazed at the very stark contrasts between academic culture in Africa and the US. The profession seems to attract the absolute worst  people in the US. They are the same type of people that used to join the Cheka in Russia or the Red Guards in China. Thankfully there are no such people in the History Department here.

I am now a Vandal

Today I got a notice from the Registrar that I have been assigned as a Fellow to Commonwealth Hall since the first of February 2012. So now it is official, I am a Vandal. I hope I get my cool red Vandal shirt soon.

When did a B+ become the new F?

I have had a number of students complain I gave them bad grades. When I ask them what grade they got many of them say a B+. I have tried to explain to students that a C is average and that a B+ is a very good grade. But, they all think that they should get As and that anything less including an A- is a poor mark. Has anybody else ever encountered this problem?

New faculty in the department

This semester we are scheduled to have eight full time faculty teaching. Six of us are old timers including myself and two are new people. I met one of the new people today.

Is there still a Third World? Was there ever one?

The term Third World originally signified those states that were neither part of the Soviet led socialist bloc or the US led alliance of NATO and Japan. It was meant to categorize the political position of states such as Ghana, India, Indonesia, Egypt, and Yugoslavia that led the Nonaligned Movement. Later on this became quite fuzzy as Soviet allies such as Cuba and Vietnam joined the Nonaligned Movement. The term Third World itself came to mean any country with a lower level of economic development than the US or USSR regardless of its political orientation in the Cold War. Thus countries as radically different as Mexico, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Angola, Pakistan, and Indonesia all became classified as Third World.

From 1989 through 1991 the Second World collapsed and ceased to exist. Making the term Third World even more of an anachronism. Presumably the richer European states of the former Second World like the Czech Republic and Hungary became First World and the poorer Asian ones such as Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan became Third World. Although this reclassification hardly seems satisfactory. Is Russia really a First World country at the same level of development as Belgium? The tripartite division which was really only useful for a brief time as a political not an economic classification during the 1950s and 1960s appears to have outlived all of its usefulness. Yet, Third World still remains the favorite term by US commentators to describe the entire planet outside of Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan.

Colonialism and Post-Colonialism in the Soviet Union

To my mind a colony is an ethnically distinct territory ruled by a state dominated by a different ethnicity and economically exploited by that state against the will of the indigenous population of the politically subordinated entity. The classic examples of such territories are the former European ruled countries in Africa and Asia. The Gold Coast from 1874 to 1957 for instance meets all the criteria listed above for being a colony and nobody disputes its former colonial and present post-colonial status.

In regards to the USSR I think it is clear that some of the territories ruled by Moscow such as the Baltic States clearly constituted colonies in the classic sense described above. They were completely politically subordinated to a Russian dominated state, provided far more resources to that state than they received, and the indigenous Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians strongly resisted Soviet rule. In the case of Central Asia, Michael Voslensky's term semi-colonies appears more appropriate. There was complete political control over these republics by Moscow and very few Central Asians represented in the central apparatus of the Soviet state. So they meet the first part of my definition of colonies. But, they do not meet the next two criteria. The central Soviet government invested considerably more resources into Central Asia than they extracted, the exact opposite of its policy in the Baltic states. There was also very little opposition to Soviet rule by the indigenous Central Asian population. For the most part most Central Asians had favorable opinions about being citizens of the Soviet Union. This was due in large part to the economic benefits provided by the Soviet government to the inhabitants of Central Asia. I would categorize the USSR as a colonial empire that had both colonies such as Latvia and Estonia and semi-colonies such as Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

This brings up the question of whether the former Soviet states are post-colonial. Or as David Chioni Moore put it, "Is the Post- in Postcolonial the Post in Post-Soviet?." I would argue that the post is indeed the same, but that a semi-colony only conforms to the political and not the economic forms of a classic colony. In both cases the "post" is also the same as in post-polio in that there are long term negative consequences to both colonialism and Soviet rule that can be crippling.

Russian-German Heroes of the Soviet Union

Over 33,500 Russian-Germans, most of them from the Volga region, served in the Soviet military fighting against Nazi Germany during World War II. Almost all of them were removed from the ranks of the Soviet armed forces before the end of 1941 and mobilized into forced labor detachments during 1942. Despite this prohibition on military service a large number of Russian-Germans managed to earn prestigious medals and orders from the Soviet government for their role in defending the USSR against Nazi Germany. Ethnic Germans in the Red Army bravely fought against the Nazis during the first months of the war before their almost complete purge from the military. A total of eight Russian-Germans received the award Hero of the Soviet Union. I have listed their names below.

A. Bohrmann
W. Wentzel
S. Wolkenstein
A. Hermann
N. Gastello
I. Garwahrt
R. Klein
N. Okhmann

Sources:

A.A. German, 2011, "Rossiskie nemtsy v gody Velikoi Otechestsvennoi Voiny: Vklad v Pobedy", in A.A. German (ed.), Grazhdanskaia identichnost' i vnuternnii mir rossiskikh nemtsev v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi Voiny i v istoricheskoi pamiati potomkov, Moscow: MSNK-Press, p. 14, fn. 6.

I.I. Shulga, 2011, "Massovye geroism rossiskikh nemtsev na fronte i v tylu protivnika kak proiavlenie patriotizma i grazhdanskoi identichnosti", in A.A. German (ed), Grazhdanskia identichnost' i vnuternii mir rossiskikh nemtsev v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi Voiny i v istoricheskoi pamiati potomkov, Moscow: MSNK-Press, pp. 22-25.

A Funeral in Ghana

Today I went to my first Ghanaian funeral ever. The mother of one of my colleagues died while I was in Kyrgyzstan. There was a lot more music than in most US funerals.

New Office

They are remodeling the History Department. While I was away my office got converted into a temporary storage room. So now I have been moved upstairs to a smaller, but much more modern office.

Russian-Germans Buried at Chon Tash

At Chon Tash in Kyrgyzstan there is a mass grave of 137 people murdered by the Stalin regime in 1938. A disproportionate number of these victims were ethnic Germans. Despite making up less than one percent of the population of the Kyrgyz SSR at this time they constituted a full dozen, over eight percent, of the people shot by the NKVD and buried at Chon Tash. I have listed their names below.

Fedor Egorovich Bengard
Petr Yulisovich Bergmann
Wilhelm Davidovich Wall
Friedrich Gottfriedovich Deitz
Vladimir Augustovich Litzenmeyer
Egor Emelianovich Lofink
Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Luft
Konstantin Aleksandrovich Luft
Josef Ivanovich Meldenburger
Teodor Teodorovich Miller
Mikhail Eduardovich Richter
Heinrich Heinrichovich Janzen

Source: A. Shtraus and S. Pankrats. 1997. Svidetel'stva prestuplenii. Bishkek: Ilim.  pp. 103-104.

Humidity

While Kyrgyzstan is hotter than Ghana in early August it is not nearly as humid. I have found myself sweating a lot more today than I was a few days ago. I have been drinking lots of beverages to offset this including a green coconut and the spicy light soup that accompanied my fufu and goat.

Back in Ghana

I arrived back in Ghana last night after almost two months in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Despite being on the equator the temperature is a lot cooler here than in Kyrgyzstan.

New Publication on Soviet Apartheid Now in Print

My article, "Soviet Apartheid: Stalin's Ethnic Deportations, Special Settlement Restrictions, and the Labor Army: The Case of the Ethnic Germans in the USSR" is now in print in volume 13,  no. 2 (2012) of Human Rights Review, pp. 205-224.

Update on Ghana

The transition of power in Ghana to the sitting vice president appears to have gone smoothly. Ghana has established itself as a mature and stable democratic republic in recent years. Unlike the US endeavours to export democracy to places like Afghanistan and Iraq, Ghana has been remarkably successful in establishing a vibrant free market economy, stable democratic political system, and respect for human rights. It did all this on its own without any foreign intervention from the US.

Vefa Centre 2012

Yesterday I went to the Vefa Centre for the first time in two years. It has some new additions including a new coffee shop, a central fountain, and a sushi bar that were not there two years ago. Betastores Three which took over Ramstor as the anchor grocery store is now closed. But, there is a sign in Russian saying that a supermarket is coming to the vacated space soon.

News from Ghana

The current president of Ghana died Tuesday. I am still in Kyrgyzstan, but will return to Accra in August to teach. Consider this an open thread on how the death of Mills will affect the presidential elections in Ghana this year.

More on Yeti

I saw another billboard for Yeti on Moskovska today. Evidently it is an energy drink of some sort.

Yeti

Yesterday I saw a billboard on Chui advertising a beverage called Yeti. I have no idea what type of beverage it is. But, I like the name.

Thank God for small favors

The more I read about the sheer stupidity of academics in universities in the White English speaking world the happier I am to be working at the University Ghana. There are a few exceptions like SOAS. But, for the most part the people working at universities in the US, UK, and Australia as faculty are absolutely horrible people. Nowhere else can one find such egotistical, thin skinned, blowhards.  I am not sure what went wrong, but the domination of the industry in the above countries by complete jerks does appear to be a major problem.

Indians in Bishkek

I have noticed there are a lot more Indians in Bishkek now than there were even last year. It especially hit home when I went to pick up my visa extension at OVIR and noticed that my passport was the lone US one among a veritable sea of Indian passports. Despite their increased presence here there are still very few Indian restaurants in town.

Beverages

Kyrgyzstan has a number of beverages that are not available in Ghana. Most of these are sold at stands on the sidewalk similar to the traditional US lemonade stand. The most common stands are Shoro and Tan. They each sell a version of sour milk mixed with soda water and salt, iced tea with lemon flavor, and a grain based beverage. I generally either get the sour milk drink from Shoro or the iced tea from Tan. Other beverages one sometimes sees on the street are kvass and compot.

Happy Independence Day

To my family, friends, and any other readers I may have in the US, Happy Independence Day.

Television

In Ghana I don't watch much local television. I don't pay much attention to it here either. But, sometimes I notice programs playing in the background. Kyrgyzstan gets a variety of channels from neighboring countries such as Russia, Kazakhstan, and China in addition to local fare. The other day I noticed that a movie from China dubbed in Russian was playing on a station based in Kazakhstan. For some reason that struck me as funny.

Current Writing Project

Yesterday I had a pretty good idea for a journal article. I started writing it out and I have got 16 pages double spaced finished so far. I even managed to work some of the material I found in the archives here into the footnotes. The article is a comparison of African diasporic populations to other similar diasporic groups in the USSR such as the ethnic Germans, Koreans, Jews, Greeks, Finns, and other nationalities with ancestral origins in Europe and East Asia. There is not a whole lot written on Soviet citizens of African ancestry, but I think I have enough to write a solid comparative article. It certainly continues my development along a path of doing more comparative scholarship with regards to Africa.