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Jan Nmec in 1967 (via Wikipedia)

Perhaps better translated simply as The Party and the Guests, since the word report does not really exist in the Czech title, O slavnosti a hostech, Jan Nmecs 1966 film, A Report on the Party and the Guests, is an allegorical work with truly Kafkaesque elements, leading the Czech Communist government to ban the work. It was released in 1968 during the brief Czech period of freedom, but was again banned forever in 1973. It was released on DVD by Criterion three years ago, and I watched it yesterday in memorium of Nmecs recent death.

On the sly, so to speak, the film asks its viewers how to believe. But only one guest attending the titular party, performed by Czech film director Evald Schorm whose own works had already been banned actually seems to know the answer to that, thus becoming the only party attendee to leave the affair behind, an act for which is he horribly punished.

The film begins with a group of seven apparently bourgeois city-dwellers celebrating a day the country, much like the characters in Jean Renoirs Partie de campagne. After picnicking, they spot a group of what appear to be wedding-goers and whistle for them stop presumably to congratulate them, but these party celebrants just as quickly disappear.

The three women decide to bathe in a nearby stream, but as they return, a group of thuggish-looking young men surrounds the men and women, ordering them to separate by sex. One of the thugs draws a circle in the dirt, insisting that they must remain within it. The groups head, Rudolf (Jan Klusk) sets up a desk in front of picnickers and interrogates them in the manner of Ks interrogators in The Trial. When one of the picnic-goers breaks their rules by crossing over the designated circle, he is grabbed by the henchmen.

A sudden explosion stops these abuses, as a man, looking a bit like Lenin, appears and scolds Rudolf his adopted son, so he reports and the other men for their behavior, explaining that it was all an elaborate joke. Being the father of the bride from the wedding party, he invites everyone to a party nearby, at which he is also celebrating his birthday.

Confused and a little taken aback, the four men and three women follow the host (Ivan Vyskoil) and discover in a nearby river cove, beautifully set tables piled high with food and wine; inexplicably even place cards with their names upon them appear beside the plates. Several conversations of little consequence follow: toasts, empty platitudes, etc. And gradually we realize just how empty-headed the picnickers really are, awed so easily by the bounty of the food and party presents.

After the meal, the host asks each of the guests whether are happy, and one by one they admit they have been won over, despite the confusing situation that is, all but one, who has silently departed, fed up with the meaningless gibberish and imposed behavior.

Quickly, the host commands his henchmen to fetch his mastiff and guns, and they move into the woods to track down the missing guest who has refused to be happy with the situation. The other original picnic-goers quietly remain behind, sipping their wine without seeming to comprehend the consequences of their passivity.

Although Nmec himself argued that the work was not a political statement as much as a kind of allegorical fable about the society at large, it is hard not to read A Report on the Party as an actual report, as in its English title, on the behavior of the Communist Party or any totalitarian regime wherein original thinking and disagreement are outlawed, and wherein a pretense of happiness is paramount.

Long seen as the enfant terrible of Czech cinema, Nmec constantly found himself in trouble with Czech government authorities, and was almost arrested for making this film. Almost all of his Czech films were banned, and when he finally moved to Paris, other European cities, and later to the United States, where he lived for 11 years, he found himself unable to work as a filmmaker under the Hollywood studio stipulations. He returned to the Czech Republic when the Communist government fell, but resented his countrys admiration so late in his life, returning metals awarded him by then Czech president Vaclav Havel.

Nemec died on March 18thof 2016 in Prague at the age of 79. If there was ever a profound artist whose work was nearly censored out of existence, it is Jan Nmec. A Report on the Party is not only a testament to his genius, but has now again become a highly relevant film.

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Invitation to the Party: Jan Nemec's 1966 Satire of Czech Communism - Hyperallergic

In one word - volatility. The market will keep see-sawing from optimism to pessimism with each executive order that is signed.

While the markets reacted positively to Trump post his election win and even after he was formally sworn in, the executive order on immigrants and refugees has vitiated the outlook.

Unfortunately, this is only the beginning and there is more to come, which can make the markets even more jittery.

While markets have blissfully for now ignored the insidious effect of President Trump ordering CEOs to bend to his saying, it will not be long before market forces take over and have their say in the feasibility of several of these decisions.

The viability of auto companies relocating their manufacturing from Mexico to the USA will ultimately be determined by markets and the cost will be paid by US consumers.

If this armtwisting is not regressive enough from an economic standpoint, it raises the more profound question of where is capitalism headed over the next decade. How will a de-globalised world economy look like and will it be pretty or ugly?

Is government intervention in independent companies the new norm? If so, is this not communism? For now, the popular opinion in the USA and in the UK and Europe is clearly with such populist policies.

Further, a full-blown trade war is increasingly becoming a probability and it can have a far worse effect on markets than the current executive order on refugees.

If this is not bad enough, the possibility of increased military tension with China can lead to a markets meltdown.

On the positives, the loosening of regulations and revamping of the tax code, especially allowing companies to bring back cash hoarded overseas, has the potential to significantly enhance US growth.

So, in conclusion, this will not be a ride for the faint-hearted.

On the domestic front, while we will continue to be periodically buffeted by global headwinds, our economy is on firm ground and the implementation of GST, transformation to a cashless economy and improving fundamentals augur well for the economy and by extension the equity market.

Retail investors should continue to invest through SIPs and have a long-term outlook.

(The author is CEO at Sundaram Mutual Fund. Views are personal)

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Trump actions have communist undertone, won't be long before market forces take over - Economic Times

Bucharest (AFP) - Hundreds of thousands of people hit the streets across Romania to protest against the government's decriminalising of a string of corruption offences, the largest demonstrations since the fall of communism in 1989.

Between 200,000 and 300,000 protesters, according to media estimates, braved sub-zero temperatures to demonstrate, with some shouting "Thieves!" and "Resign!" a day after the government passed an emergency decree.

In the capital Bucharest some demonstrators hurled bottles, firecrackers and stones at security forces, who responded by firing tear gas. A few police and protesters were lightly injured.

For the second straight night crowds also hit the streets in other cities across the country -- including in Timisoara, cradle of the 1989 revolution.

Over a matter of days that uprising nearly 30 years ago forced dictator Nicolae Ceausescu from power, ending with he and his wife being summarily executed on December 25, 1989.

In the emergency decree issued late Tuesday, the government decriminalised certain corruption offences and made abuse of power punishable by jail only if it results in a monetary loss of more than 44,000 euros ($47,500).

Romania's left-wing government under the Social Democrats (PSD) has only been in office a few weeks after bouncing back in elections on December 11, barely a year since mass protests forced them from office.

The government had remained silent since Tuesday evening, but on Wednesday Justice Minister Florin Iordache wrote on his Facebook page that there was "nothing secret, illegal or immoral" about the emergency decree.

Bucharest said it is putting legislation in line with the constitution.

But critics say the main beneficiary will be PSD leader Liviu Dragnea, currently on trial for alleged abuse of power, as well as other left-wing politicians.

Dragnea, 54, is already barred from office because of a two-year suspended jail sentence for voter fraud handed down last year. His abuse-of-power trial, which began on Tuesday, concerns 24,000 euros.

Another initiative, which Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu will submit to parliament, will see around 2,500 people serving sentences of less than five years for non-violent crimes released from prison.

The government said that this will reduce overcrowding in jails but critics say that, again, the main beneficiaries will be the many officials and politicians ensnared in a major anti-corruption drive of recent years.

- 'Scandalous' -

The anti-corruption push saw Romania make history in 2015 when then-prime minister Victor Ponta went on trial over alleged tax evasion and money laundering, charges he denies.

Only last week the European Commission commended the efforts of ex-communist Romania, which joined the European Union together with neighbouring Bulgaria in 2007 as the bloc's two poorest members.

But this week's latest move set off alarm bells in Brussels, with European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker and his deputy Frans Timmermans issuing a joint statement expressing "deep concern" on Wednesday.

"The fight against corruption needs to be advanced, not undone," they said. "The Commission warns against backtracking and will look thoroughly at the emergency ordinance... in this light."

Centre-right President Klaus Iohannis, elected in 2014 on an anti-graft platform and a sharp critic of Dragnea, on Wednesday called the decree "scandalous" and moved to invoke the constitutional court.

Both decrees were published earlier this month, sparking protests last Sunday that drew 40,000 people including 20,000 in the capital, and more than 15,000 a week earlier.

The laws have been heavily criticised by several Romanian officials and institutions, including the attorney general, the anti-corruption chief prosecutor and the president of the high court.

"I am outraged. The PSD won the elections but that doesn't mean they can sneakily change the penal code in the middle of the night," said protester Gabriela State, 46.

On Wednesday some 20,000 demonstrators gathered in the western city of Cluj, an AFP correspondent said, while there were 15,000 in Timisoara and 10,000 in Sibiu in central Romania.

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Romania anti-govt protests biggest since communism fell - Yahoo News

Tibetans were once fabled warriors. Their empire, at the summit of its power in the eighth century, extended to northern India, western China and central Asia. The Arabs, making inroads into central Asia, were in awe of them. And China, according to an inscription commissioned to memorialise Tibets conquest of the Tang Chinese capital of Changan in 763, shivered with fear at their mention. But the Tibet annexed by Mao Zedong in the 20th century bore no trace of its imperial past.

When the Peoples Liberation Army struck in 1950, Tibet, having metamorphosed over a millennium into a reclusive hagiarchy, possessed neither the vocabulary to parley with the communists nor the strength to resist them. Its response to this worldly threat was to retreat into ritual. A 15-year-old boy called Tenzin Gyatso, identified some years before as the 14th Dalai Lama, was hastily confirmed as Tibets supreme ruler. His delegation to Beijing the following year signed away Tibets sovereignty without consulting him. What ensued was a protracted act of gratuitous savagery. Mao called it liberation. Monasteries were razed, monks executed, thousands of nonviolent protesters massacred, and many thousands more detained, starved, tortured, uprooted and carted away to communes to toil in conditions so severe that some resorted to cannibalism in order to survive. In 1959, the Dalai Lama, facing imminent capture, escaped to India.

At no point in their history, the influential Tibetan author Tragya, who publishes under the pen name Shokdung (wake-up call), writes in The Division of Heaven and Earth, were Tibetans made to endure such sustained misery. Swiftly banned by the Chinese Communist party when it was first published in Tibet in 2008, the book is now available for the first time in English. It is a haunting indictment of Chinas colonial project in Tibet, and if the charges contained in it are so bruising for Beijing, it is because the person making them was not long ago regarded by the CCP as a fellow traveller. Shokdung attained notoriety in the 1990s for his attacks on Tibets religious tumour of ignorance. Beijing immediately sought to co-opt him.

The uprising of 2008, when thousands of Tibetans streamed into the streets demanding an end to Chinese occupation and the return of the Dalai Lama, upended Shokdungs world. China expelled journalists from Tibet and set its military loose on the protesters. It was a bloodbath. Witnessing the crackdown with increasing self-revulsion from his office in a state-run publishing house, Shokdung arrived at the conclusion that what Tibetans lacked was not the will but a political philosophy suited to their conditions. Here, he advances Gandhi as the model for Tibetan resistance.

Shokdung makes a powerful case. But can Gandhi really save Tibet? George Orwell once disappointed pacifists by saying that Gandhian tactics of nonviolent non-cooperation would not have worked against the Soviet Union. The same is true of China. As Shokdung himself concedes, The British rulers of India had some degree of moral conscience. Gandhi had tea with George V. The Dalai Lama had to flee Mao in heavy disguise.

Tibet today enjoys virtually no meaningful external support. The liberal assumption that the West was more likely to influence China by making concessions to its rulers has proved to be a self-wounding fantasy. Far from moulding Chinas behaviour, it is the West that has incrementally surrendered to Beijing. Today, western authors self-censor for the tawdry privilege of being published in China; Hollywood modifies its films to placate the CCP, and governments that never tire of puffing their chests at the Middle Easts tinpot tyrannies abase themselves before Beijing.

China, emboldened by the display of deference, continues remorselessly to disfigure the hypnotically beautiful plateau. In official documents, Tibet, a source of prized minerals and hydrocarbons, is classified as Water Tower Number One. More than 140 Tibetans have immolated their own bodies in protest at Chinas plunder of their natural resources. No government has the moral courage to mourn them.

Shokdung recognises the isolated position of Tibetans. His Gandhian prescription, whether it succeeds or not, has the merit of being self-reliant. Shokdung has been jailed for defying the CCP. His family continues to be harassed. Meanwhile, copies of his book circulate underground in Tibet. Tibets overlords are evidently terrified. If Shokdung, an intellectual moulded by Chinas ideological schools, can turn so abruptly hostile, what hope does Beijing have of controlling others?

This remarkable book, written to fortify the Tibetan spirit against the assaults of colonialism, has already performed an important service by exposing the fragility of Chinas hold on the Tibetan mind.

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Will non-violent resistance ever work against communism? - Spectator.co.uk

Romanias prime minister has refused to repeal decrees that critics say will free corrupt officials from jail early and shield others from conviction, despite international condemnation and the biggest popular protests since the fall of communism.

We took a decision in the government and we are going to press ahead, Sorin Grindeanu said after a meeting of his ruling leftwing Social Democrats (PSD). The party leader, Liviu Dragnea, blamed an ongoing campaign of lies and disinformation for opposition to the decrees.

The PSD won elections [in December] with a huge vote. The governments power is legitimate, Dragnea said, labelling the centre-right president, Klaus Iohannis, the moral author of last nights violence.

Iohannis has threatened to take the ordinance to the constitutional court, the last legal resort to stop the emergency decrees passing into law. He said on Thursday he was impressed by the protests, adding that Romanians had clearly what they want: the rule of law.

The European commission vice-president, Frans Timmermans, urged the government to urgently reconsider, saying that Romanias EU funding could be at risk.

In a separate statement, the US, Germany, Canada, Finland, the Netherlands and France said the government had undermined progress on rule of law and the fight against corruption over the past 10 years.

Clashes broke out in Bucharest after hundreds of thousands demonstrated across Romania in a second night of protests. Bottles and firecrackers were hurled at police in the capital, who responded with teargas. Twenty people were arrested and eight injured, authorities said.

In the largest demonstrations since the fall of communist dictator Nicolae Ceauescu in 1989, up to 300,000 people braved subzero temperatures to participate in protests across 50 towns and cities, including 150,000 in the capital. There were shouts of Thieves and calls for politicians to be locked up.

On Tuesday night the government passed an emergency ordinance that would, among other things, decriminalise cases of official misconduct in which the financial damage is less than 200,000 lei (38,000). The decree is due to take effect in a little over a week.

The government says the order and another draft bill on jail pardons are needed to ease prison overcrowding and bring the criminal code into line with recent constitutional court rulings.

But many worry the changes will reverse an anti-corruption push in Romania that saw the then prime minister Victor Ponta go on trial in 2015 over alleged tax evasion and money laundering charges he denies. Prosecutors are currently investigating 2,150 cases of alleged abuse of power.

On Wednesday opposition parties filed a no-confidence motion against the government, which is led by the PSD and has only been in office a few weeks. The PSD bounced back in elections on 11 December, barely a year since mass protests forced it from office.

Dragnea is currently on trial for alleged abuse of power and is already barred from office because of a two-year suspended jail sentence for electoral fraud handed down last year. He denies any wrongdoing in relation to the latest charges.

Business minister Florin Jianu announced his resignation on Thursday, saying he disagreed with the governments stance, while PSDs deputy chair, Mihai Chirica, called on the government to scrap the decree and send it to parliament for debate.

Jianu said on Facebook: I dont want to have to tell my child that I was a coward and I agreed to something that I dont believe in ... This is what my conscience tells me to do.

The British embassy in Bucharest said it would be concerned if the decree were to shrink the scope of corruption offences and was concerned by the very limited nature of consultations with all relevant stakeholders.

Justice minister Florin Iordache, who has come under fire for publishing the decrees, will temporarily hand his duties over to a subordinate in the ministry, spokeswoman Carmen Lita said. She said it was because he had a heavy workload preparing this years budget.

The protests on Tuesday and Wednesday follow a demonstration last Sunday that drew 40,000 people, including 20,000 in the capital, and another a week earlier involving more than 15,000. More protests are expected later on Thursday.

The size of the protests and the range of protesters is hugely significant and shows the depth and breadth of anger, said Dan Brett, an associate professor at the Open University. However, [those] who [might] benefit from the law have no interest in backing down. They are working on the assumption that as with most protests they will soon fizzle out and so can be ignored.

Link:
Romanian PM to 'press ahead' with corruption decrees as protests grow - The Guardian