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Jules et Jim of the revolutionary left? ... The Young Karl Marx Photograph: PR

Raoul Peck is the Haitian film-maker who has an Oscar nomination this year with his James Baldwin documentary I Am Not Your Negro. Now he comes to Berlin with this sinewy and intensely focused, uncompromisingly cerebral period drama, co-written with Pascal Bonitzer, about the birth of communism in the mid-19th century. It gives you a real sense of what radical politics was about: talk. There is talk, talk and more talk. It should be dull, but it isnt. Somehow the spectacle of fiercely angry people talking about ideas becomes absorbing and even gripping.

Despite the title, it is not exactly about the young Karl Marx, more about Marxs bromance with the young Friedrich Engels. Given the potent presence of his wife Jenny, they for a microsecond almost threaten to become the Jules et Jim of the Revolutionary left. Peck saves up his biggest joke, or coup de cinma, for the very end. After an austere movie featuring men in top hats and mutton chop whiskers, the closing credits explode in a boisterous and even euphoric montage of political events in the 20th century Che, the Berlin Wall, Ronnie and Maggie, Nelson Mandela, the Occupy movement to the accompaniment of Bob Dylan. No Stalin or Lenin or gulags or Erich Honecker in the montage, though.

Marx is played by August Diehl: ragged, fierce with indignation and poverty, addicted to cheap cigars, spoiling for an argument and a fight. Engels, played by Stefan Konarske, is the rich kid whose father is a mill owner, with a dandy-ish manner of dress and a romantic mien, like a young Werther who isnt sorrowful but excited about the forthcoming victory for the working class.

They meet cute. Marx glowers on being introduced; he remembers the young Friedrich from an earlier encounter, strutting and entitled, for all the world as if he had invented the class struggle. The chippy young bruiser clashes with the arrogant puppy. But the ice breaks: Engels admires the clarity of Marxs material thinking; Marx is a massive fan of Engelss groundbreaking study of the English working class. Together, they inhale the new thinking in the air, ideas for which Pierre Proudhon (seductively played by Olivier Gourmet) is partly responsible. Expelled by the French, Marx flees to London with Engels where they are invited to join the socialist fraternity League of the Just, and lend intellectual and methodological rigour to their evangelical movement. But the break with Proudhon emboldens them both, and in slightly entryist style, Engels finally declares to its stunned annual congress that the League of the Just is to be reconstituted as the Communist League.

This is a film which sticks to a credo that people arguing about theories and concepts while also periodically angrily rejecting the notion of mere abstraction is highly interesting. And Peck and Bonitzer pull off the considerable trick of making it interesting: aided by very good performances from Diehl and Konarske, although a real flaw is the films relative lack of interest in their partners: Jenny, played by Vicky Krieps, and millworker Mary Burns (Hannah Steele) with whom Engels is in love: it is a rather perfunctory relationship.

There is a tense moment when Marx and Engels chance across a wealthy mill owner who is a friend of Engelss plutocratic father: Marx coldly challenges him with his practice of exploiting child labour and says that the market force that demands this is not a law of nature, but a matter of manmade relations of production. The man replies sneeringly that this phrase sounds like Hebrew to him.

The action of the movie proceeds at a steady, intense rate: a pressure-cooker tempo, which despite the periodic shouting and yelling, does not vary much. But you can see Marx visibly ageing from his mid-20s to the brink of 30, exhausted by the birth of communism and the composition of his Communist Manifesto. It shouldnt work, but it does, due to the intelligence of the acting and the stamina and concentration of the writing and directing.

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The Young Karl Marx review intelligent communist bromance ... - The Guardian

The Left's Persecution of Real Refugees from Islam and Communism Breaking Israel News Amnesty International, which beats the Muslim refugee drum louder than anyone else, joined in the effort to cover up Communist genocide in Cambodia. Allegations made by refugees must be examined with care in view of their possible partiality, the ...

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The Left's Persecution of Real Refugees from Islam and Communism - Breaking Israel News

Featured Although the government has promised to repeal the controversial decree legalising corruption, there are several loopholes.

Protesters use phones and flashlights during a protest in Victoriei Square, in Bucharest, Romania. Credit: Inquam Photos/Adriana Neagoe/via Reuters

Romania recently saw the largest demonstrations on its streets since the fall of communism. On February 5, more than half a million people took part in protests across the country.

The marches came in response to an emergency decree passed by the recently elected PSD-ALDE government a coalition of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE). Among other things, this aimed to weaken anti-corruption legislation and offered potential amnesty for those convicted of corruption.

The decree was issued at 10pm on the evening of Tuesday, January 31 and did not have to face parliamentary scrutiny. Many saw it as a back-door attempt by the government to help its supporters, both within the party and in the media, who are currently either in jail or under investigation for corruption.

The amnesty for those with convictions was also seen as an attempt by PSD leader Liviu Dragnea to clear his own path to becoming prime minister a position from which he is currently excluded due to a conviction for electoral fraud. Dragnea is prime minister in all but name, such is his domination of the PSD. Sorin Grindeanu, the sitting prime minister, is entirely dependent on Dragneas patronage.

The Romanian government is simultaneously strong and weak. It commands a parliamentary majority, controls many institutions and has backers in the media. But it is continually vulnerable to anti-corruption efforts, which have seen many of its prominent members and supporters jailed. Both Dragnea and ALDE leader Clin Popescu-Triceanu are subject to investigations and court cases.

The emergency decree is part of a broader PSD campaign to unpick anti-corruption safeguards through legislative initiatives which will benefit its expansive patronage networks.

People vs government?

Protesters of all ages, social backgrounds and political leanings have come from across the country in response to this situation. Many are angry at the content of the proposed law as well as the surreptitious way in which it has been introduced. This is an unprecedented mobilisation of society but also reflects how Romania has changed over the past decade. Civil society is becoming increasingly vocal and active.

Protesters hold effigies with the faces of leader of Romanias leftist Social Democrat Party (PSD) Liviu Dragnea and other members of the party dressed as prisoners, during a demonstration in Bucharest. Credit: Reuters/Stoyan Nenov/File photo

The government meanwhile has shown no interest in backing down. Its public statements and actions have been conscious efforts to muddy the waters and confuse the public. Although it promised on Saturday February 4 to repeal the decree, this was more an attempt to confuse people and take them off the streets rather than a real concession. Closer inspection revealed that the repeal was not really a repeal at all. It contained clauses that had previously been declared unconstitutional so could be declared invalid at any moment meaning the initial decree would stand.

Whats more, Grindeanu suggested sending the controversial measures through parliament, which would easily approve them thanks to the PSDs majority. When his justice minister spoke out against this plan, Grindeanu threatened to sack him. Grindeanu has shifted the blame for the crisis over the decrees onto the justice ministry.

The governments supporters and media allies have been quick to attack the protesters as anti-democratic, even claiming they were being paid by US financier George Soros, fascists, or were out on the street as part of a coup dtat led by President Klaus Iohannis, who has called for a referendum on the reforms proposed in the decree and took part in the protests.

A test for Romanian democracy

The complex legal machinations and contradictory statements are part of a deliberate strategy to draw out the issue. The government seems to want to stall for as long as possible in the hope that the protesters will give up and go home.

The PSD has a lot resting on this matter. Dragneas career depends on him getting out of his own ongoing corruption case. A second conviction would see him sent to jail, perhaps ending his political career.

The PSD is also very heavily dependent on local barons and oligarchs for financial and organisational support. The price for that support is the government weakening anti-corruption legislation.

The PSD government of Victor Ponta fell in November 2015 in the face of the street protests that followed a fire in a Bucharest nightclub in which 64 people died. Although the government was of course not responsible for the fire, many Romanians felt it was responsible for the administrative culture that allowed permits to be granted in exchange for bribes with no regard for safety, and for a health service that could not cope with the aftermath of the accident.

Dragnea has positioned himself as a political hardman. He wants to face down the latest protests and show that his government and party not the people on the street are in charge. There is a fear that retreating now will embolden government opponents in the future.

Although, on the face of it, this is a simple issue of anti-corruption, it has wider implications for Romanian democracy. The government may continue its approach of legal obfuscation to try to slide its decree through or it may, for the time being, abandon this attempt to unpick anti-corruption measures. However, this will be only a short pause. For the demonstrators the question remains whether the protests can be sustained and be effective in getting the government to abandon its anti-anti-corruption strategy.

Dan Brett is an associate lecturer at The Open University.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Romania Protests: What Caused the Biggest Uprising Since the Fall of Communism? - The Wire

On 5 February over half a million Romanians took to the streets of cities and towns across the country to protest against attempts by the recently elected PSD-ALDE (Social Democratic Party Alliance of Liberals and Democrats) government to weaken anti-corruption legislation.

These were the largest protests in Romania since the revolution of 1989 that overthrew the Communist regime. What is more, the demonstrations were peaceful and represent a rare moment of society coming together. In a region where governments are becoming increasingly intolerant of dissent and society more deeply polarised, why have Romanians taken to the streets to demand the resignation of a government elected a little over a month ago?

Many Central and East European states have rich traditions of popular protests to draw upon. Romania does not. Romania did not have any great protests such as the Hungarian uprising of 1956 or the Czechoslovak Prague Spring. The repressive nature of Communist rule worked against the formation of civil society; there was no Romanian counterpart to the Polish Solidarity Movement. Communism collapsed in the face of mass protests but only following extreme violence.

The violence led to the revolution being "stolen" as second-tier Communists seized control in the confusion. Romania's new government showed its intolerance of dissent in 1990 when it brought miners to Bucharest to violently attack pro-democracy demonstrators, and the fear of government instigated violence against protesters has never been far from people's minds and made many reluctant to engage with direct protests.

Rediscovering Protest

Despite the inauspicious history of protest in Romania, civil activism and protests have increasingly become a feature of politics over the last decade. Civil activism has at its heart a younger generation of Romanians. It has its roots in the environmental movement and in particular the protests against the attempt by Gabriel Resources to engage in gold mining at the historic Rosia Montana site.

READ MORE: Who is Romanian President Klaus Iohannis and why is he backing huge anti-government protests?

Although it was accepted that in an area of high unemployment economic development was welcomed, the deal between the Romanian government and the Canadian mining company was not. There would be few economic benefits for locals and the potential environmental damage was too great for many people. The government was perceived as lining its pockets through this deal at the expense of the people and the environment. With the government so heavily invested in the deal, it was pointless to look to politicians to oppose the deal. The protests and opposition have helped to delay the project thus far.

One of the criticisms of Romanian intellectuals and civil activists is their unwillingness to engage with non-intellectuals. The Rosia Montana protests represented a first step connecting different groups. Many of the early activists learnt key skills and began to develop networks during the campaigns. These came to the fore again during anti-austerity protests in 2011.

For the first two days we were moving, marching, on the third we stayed where we were, on the fourth we went home again.

Social media has been critical. In a state with often poor infrastructure, where travel between major cities can take a day or several hours to reach surrounding towns from a given city, social media has enabled groups to connect together. Social media has gone some way to breaking the domination that the PSD and its supporters had over information. Although the media is free in Romania, the primary source of information for many was through television and this was to a considerable extent controlled by groups close to the PSD.

Alongside the expansion of social media, migration has played a key role in changing the dynamics of Romanian politics. Since 2007, many Romanians of all classes have gone to work abroad, which has helped to foster a diaspora community with a strong sense of awareness of itself and politics in Romania, and this has fed back home.

Romanian civil society is not a homogenous group either politically or in its approach to activism. As a result, there is often bitter infighting between different groups, which can weaken opposition. There are differences over what issues should be the primary focus as well as how to engage in opposition. It is perhaps easier to think of Romanian activism as a large umbrella under which very many groups shelter but who often come together during moments of political crisis.

Activism and street demonstrations are not born of choice but rather of necessity. During the 2014 presidential elections, the incumbent PSD led government attempted to suppress the vote from the large Romanian diaspora. Thus the call for those at home to go and vote to prevent the government stealing the election was key to mobilising support. Activists who had cut their teeth on the Rosia Montana protests were at the forefront of organising people.

The Colectiv nightclub fire of November 2015, which killed 64, brought people back onto the street. These protests brought down the PSD government of Victor Ponta, but in its place came a new technocratic government, which to the disappointment of many maintained the same policies as the Ponta government but with less authoritarian tendencies. The sense during the Colectiv protests was that Romania was on the eve of the revolution that had been stolen from them in 1989.

However, this quickly dissipated. As one protester lamented: "For the first two days we were moving, marching, on the third we stayed where we were, on the fourth we went home again." It was this sense of disillusionment that led many voters to stay at home in the December elections which saw the PSD return to power a year after Colectiv.

The attempts by the new PSD government to weaken anti-corruption legislation have brought people back onto the street. These protests have spread across the country and have drawn all sections of society.

Protest and activism is not just limited to those who oppose the PSD and its supporters. The Coalition for the Family, an organisation opposed to same-sex marriage with support from the Orthodox Church, was able to collect over three million signatures in favour of amending the constitution to ban same-sex marriage.

Limitations

Each moment of crisis over the last decade has led to more engagement with civic activism. Despite this, there has been little substantive change in Romanian politics. The same parties and politicians are elected and they continue to govern as they did before. While the protest movements have been high in intensity and mass mobilisation, they have rarely been long lasting, and it is likely that the current government believes that it can weather the storm and within a few days the protesters will either turn on one another or grow bored and return home.

Civil society thus far is very good at opposing but very bad at formulating an alternative. Its tendency towards infighting is a reflection of its diversity, which is its greatest strength and its greatest weakness as it prevents united action. Whether this is the moment when civil society finally effects meaningful change, or whether this is another false dawn remains to be seen.

Daniel Brett is an Associate Lecturer at the Open University. He studied at the University of London and has previously taught at Indiana University. His work focuses on democratisation and party politics in Eastern Europe.

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Romanians were denied a true revolution when Communism fell now is their chance for change - International Business Times UK

Romania recently saw the largest demonstrations on its streets since the fall of communism. On February 5, more than half a million people took part in protests across the country.

The marches came in response to an emergency decree passed by the recently elected PSD-ALDE government a coalition of the PSD (Social Democratic Party) and ALDE (the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats). Among other things, this aimed to weaken anti-corruption legislation and offered potential amnesty for those convicted of corruption.

The decree was issued at 10pm on the evening of Tuesday January 31 and did not have to face parliamentary scrutiny. Many saw it as a back-door attempt by the government to help its supporters, both within the party and in the media, who are currently either in jail or under investigation for corruption.

The amnesty for those with convictions was also seen as an attempt by PSD leader Liviu Dragnea to clear his own path to becoming prime minister a position from which he is currently excluded due to a conviction for electoral fraud. Dragnea is prime minister in all but name, such is his domination of the PSD. Sorin Grindeanu, the sitting prime minister, is entirely dependent on Dragneas patronage.

The Romanian government is simultaneously strong and weak. It commands a parliamentary majority, controls many institutions and has backers in the media. But it is continually vulnerable to anti-corruption efforts, which have seen many of its prominent members and supporters jailed. Both Dragnea and ALDE leader Clin Popescu-Triceanu are subject to investigations and court cases.

The emergency decree is part of a broader PSD campaign to unpick anti-corruption safeguards through legislative initiatives which will benefit its expansive patronage networks.

Protesters of all ages, social backgrounds and political leanings have come from across the country in response to this situation. Many are angry at the content of the proposed law as well as the surreptitious way in which it has been introduced. This is an unprecedented mobilisation of society but also reflects how Romania has changed over the past decade. Civil society is becoming increasingly vocal and active.

The government meanwhile has shown no interest in backing down. Its public statements and actions have been conscious efforts to muddy the waters and confuse the public. Although it promised on Saturday February 4 to repeal the decree, this was more an attempt to confuse people and take them off the streets rather than a real concession. Closer inspection revealed that the repeal was not really a repeal at all. It contained clauses that had previously been declared unconstitutional so could be declared invalid at any moment meaning the initial decree would stand.

Whats more, Grindeanu suggested sending the controversial measures through parliament, which would easily approve them thanks to the PSDs majority. When his justice minister spoke out against this plan, Grindeanu threatened to sack him. Grindeanu has shifted the blame for the crisis over the decrees onto the justice ministry.

The governments supporters and media allies have been quick to attack the protesters as anti-democratic, even claiming they were being paid by US financier George Soros, fascists, or were out on the street as part of a coup dtat led by President Klaus Iohannis, who has called for a referendum on the reforms proposed in the decree and took part in the protests.

The complex legal machinations and contradictory statements are part of a deliberate strategy to draw out the issue. The government seems to want to stall for as long as possible in the hope that the protesters will give up and go home.

The PSD has a lot resting on this matter. Dragneas career depends on him getting out of his own ongoing corruption case. A second conviction would see him sent to jail, perhaps ending his political career.

The PSD is also very heavily dependent on local barons and oligarchs for financial and organisational support. The price for that support is the government weakening anti-corruption legislation.

The PSD government of Victor Ponta fell in November 2015 in the face of the street protests that followed a fire in a Bucharest nightclub in which 64 people died. Although the government was of course not responsible for the fire, many Romanians felt it was responsible for the administrative culture that allowed permits to be granted in exchange for bribes with no regard for safety, and for a health service that could not cope with the aftermath of the accident.

Dragnea has positioned himself as a political hardman. He wants to face down the latest protests and show that his government and party not the people on the street are in charge. There is a fear that retreating now will embolden government opponents in the future.

Although, on the face of it, this is a simple issue of anti-corruption, it has wider implications for Romanian democracy. The government may continue its approach of legal obfuscation to try to slide its decree through or it may, for the time being, abandon this attempt to unpick anti-corruption measures. However, this will be only a short pause. For the demonstrators the question remains whether the protests can be sustained and be effective in getting the government to abandon its anti-anti-corruption strategy.

View original post here:
Romania protests: what caused the biggest uprising since the fall of communism? - The Conversation UK