989 words
Note: Details on political parties, treaties, and charters are not outlined here, and the reader is encouraged to do their own quick search engine research as they read along.
It’s hard to define the era while you are in it. Whether it be the Post War Era, the Cold War Era, the Post Wall Era, the Post 9/11 Era, or whatever cluster (expletive) era we are in now, we can use some guidance. Timothy Garton Ash’s Homelands covers a lot of ground, which is reinforced by decades of first-hand personal experiences and primary sourced accounts for the European Union project becoming a reality. Given the year that we had in terms of the sheer number of elections on a global scale, if you are to read one non-fiction title to close out the year 2024, it is your civic duty to make Mr. Ash’s title your next read and to better understand the context in which we find ourselves today.
The book naturally centres on the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the decades of cascading consequences which arose as a result. What makes Mr. Ash’s book unique is that over the decades of his travels across Europe and the States, he kept all of his notebooks and records. Conversations, quotes and tales of trying to escape the fist of the Iron Curtain in East Germany would gain relevance years down the line after being cross-referenced. These details serve to highlight probably the most significant point of the book, which was surprisingly understated, and that is the effect of the memory engine.
Here, the term memory engine refers to how primary and or secondary experiences with war directly influence the population’s goals and actions at the voting booth or on the streets. The experiences from the Great Wars, which lived rent-free in the minds of the population and policy makers, resulted in the fall of the Berlin Wall, the formation of the EU, and the decade-long boom of liberal democracy.
With the current invasion of Ukraine by Russia, Mr. Ash points out how different the world was viewed decades ago when the Bush Sr. administration considered Russia as a potential ally against “global acts of aggression” and hoped that they would join NATO. Separate quotes from Putin himself from 2000 and 2002 contrast his views on NATO itself as a threat that changed in 2007 with the deployment of missile defence systems to Poland and the opening suggestions for Ukraine’s consideration for membership. This illustrates a point that Steve Coll made in his excellent book The Achilles Trap, where a lot of deaths and misery could have been avoided by simply communicating. Using the Iraq invasion under the falsely interpreted intelligence data of weapons of mass destruction (rather than the actual technical evidence, which is where the strengths of the Five Eyes partnership resides) being present as an example, we can extrapolate similar dangers when it comes to taking actions against other states which do not abide by the principles of the Charter of Paris and that of liberal democratic values and non-negotiables: free and fair elections, respect for the human person and the rule of law, and freedom of expression. This speaks to the current points of conflict with Russia, Iran, and, to some extent, China.
This book review is being written today, September 1st, 2024, for two reasons. First, the topic of the memory engine came up several times over dinner last night, and how many young adults who are entering the workforce have no memory of 9/11, and more surprisingly, they struggle to grasp its significance. This ties directly to yesterday’s election results in the east German regions of Thuringia, where the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) won with 33.5% and came in second behind the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) with 31.5% of the votes in Saxony. This is the first time that a far-right party has won a state poll in Germany in the post-war era – and this is especially troubling given the AfD’s past with ethno-nationalist and overt Nazi sidings. After reading Mr. Ash’s book, it quickly becomes apparent that when the deterioration of the memory engine for the eastern German region’s population is mixed with the unrealistic expectations that the incumbent liberal democratic parties to act as a panacea, it is not surprising to see such results taking place. Marry this with the global shift towards anti-immigration policies (even Canada is now getting on the bandwagon) and that on August 23rd, the beautiful town of Solingen was brutalized by a knife attack by an Afghan national who is suspected of being a member of Isis, and the results should have been more predictable. The political winds are shifting fast and strong, and without an understanding of history and the primary sources Mr. Ash uses in this book, having intelligent and informed discussions about where we are heading is not impossible.
The ultimate weakness of liberal democracies is that in times of sudden change, such as the era of the multi-crisis that we are experiencing (yes, that is still the best we got after the post-pandemic era), they are slow to act and are caught on the back heels. This can make alternatives which make big promises that prey on the very base of our nature appealing, such as the far-right movements abroad. The only downsides to Mr. Ash’s books come from his repeated and dated usage of shock therapy as an analogy. For those of you who read newspapers every day, the last few chapters will be retreading recent ground that you would be very familiar with, thus making the closing of the book a little more of a slog than it should be. Nevertheless, books such as Homelands deserve to be mindfully read and not passively experienced as an audiobook while doing your laundry or driving to work. Mr. Ash gives the reader multiple accounts and perspectives on how we got to where we are now and, more importantly, on how we should be steering the giant behemoth of a ship called civilization.
Time of writing: September 1st, 2024