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cannedmoose
Warnings : 4
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Joined: 12 Aug 2005
Posts: 5357
Location: National Forest, England
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city
Site Admin
Joined: 15 Aug 2005
Posts: 3373
Location: Larnaca area
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| cannedmoose wrote: |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/4363534.stm
A really good piece about the bizarreness that is North Korea... if you've read Orwell's 1984, you'll see the parallels. |
quite frightening I'd say, but nowhere near "1984" imo.
btw, you know that saying: 1984 was already 1975, but noone realised.... |
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bg_turk
Deputy
Joined: 08 Oct 2005
Posts: 1316
Location: Bulgaria
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| I have experienced commuism and I wish it upon nobody, it is the worst thing that can every happen to a country. It is one big lie that everybody keeps telling and no one dares to question. |
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city
Site Admin
Joined: 15 Aug 2005
Posts: 3373
Location: Larnaca area
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| bg_turk wrote: |
| I have experienced commuism and I wish it upon nobody, it is the worst thing that can every happen to a country. It is one big lie that everybody keeps telling and no one dares to question. |
Well, I have spent the first 18 years of my life in communism/socialism (born and grown up in East Germany) and I would not say that this is the worst that can happen to a country or to someone. I don't know how your experiences in Bulgaria are, but mine and also a current bulgarian colleague ones, have not been that horrible.
I wrote communism/socialism in the sentence above because communism in the meaning of the word and how Marx/Engels (and a few other people) have defined it has never existed so far and will not do so in the foreseeable future for various reasons. |
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erolz
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Joined: 11 Aug 2005
Posts: 4195
Location: Kyrenia / Girne
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Communism imho is one of those terms that has become almost worthless because of it's range of meaningings to different people - meanings that are praticaly opposite.
I certainly think if we are to avoid destroying the world entriely we need a bit more 'comunalism' if not communism in some of it's meanings. |
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city
Site Admin
Joined: 15 Aug 2005
Posts: 3373
Location: Larnaca area
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| erolz wrote: |
Communism imho is one of those terms that has become almost worthless because of it's range of meaningings to different people - meanings that are praticaly opposite.
I certainly think if we are to avoid destroying the world entriely we need a bit more 'comunalism' if not communism in some of it's meanings. |
I agree with you, perfectly right!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communalism |
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thebrix
Mukhtar/is
Joined: 19 Aug 2005
Posts: 526
Location: London, United Kingdom
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| city wrote: |
| cannedmoose wrote: |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/4363534.stm
A really good piece about the bizarreness that is North Korea... if you've read Orwell's 1984, you'll see the parallels. |
quite frightening I'd say, but nowhere near "1984" imo.
btw, you know that saying: 1984 was already 1975, but noone realised.... |
On the contrary, probably the best book in print about North Korea - Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader - suggests it is 100 times worse than Nineteen Eighty-Four!
(The book is rambling, disjointed and repetitive, but many of the revelations in it are just incredible ...).
Happy Birthday, North Korea is a travelogue well worth reading, and there is an excellent Pyongyang Metro site. (The trains, in particular, look like those on the Glasgow subway!)
Alastair
Last edited by thebrix on Sun Oct 23, 2005 7:16 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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city
Site Admin
Joined: 15 Aug 2005
Posts: 3373
Location: Larnaca area
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| thebrix wrote: |
On the contrary, probably the best book in print about North Korea - Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader - suggests it is 100 times worse than Nineteen Eighty-Four!
(It is rambling, disjointed and repetitive, but many of the revelations in it are just incredible ...).
Alastair |
ok, that might apply to North Korea, but then you can't judge every country the same.
Its similar with most issues people debate about. One should avoid to generalize. |
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cannedmoose
Warnings : 4
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Joined: 12 Aug 2005
Posts: 5357
Location: National Forest, England
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| Good stuff Alastair, thanks for those links. I'm a North Korea junkie, I have to admit I find the regime and how it manages to hold onto power totally fascinating and horrifying at the same time. |
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city
Site Admin
Joined: 15 Aug 2005
Posts: 3373
Location: Larnaca area
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| cannedmoose wrote: |
| Good stuff Alastair, thanks for those links. I'm a North Korea junkie, I have to admit I find the regime and how it manages to hold onto power totally fascinating and horrifying at the same time. |
Moosey, you might be interested in that page then. We just had the annual Frankfurt Book Fair where Korea was especially featured as Guest of honour...
http://www.buchmesse.de/en/portal.php |
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bg_turk
Deputy
Joined: 08 Oct 2005
Posts: 1316
Location: Bulgaria
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| city wrote: |
Well, I have spent the first 18 years of my life in communism/socialism (born and grown up in East Germany) and I would not say that this is the worst that can happen to a country or to someone. I don't know how your experiences in Bulgaria are, but mine and also a current bulgarian colleague ones, have not been that horrible.
I wrote communism/socialism in the sentence above because communism in the meaning of the word and how Marx/Engels (and a few other people) have defined it has never existed so far and will not do so in the foreseeable future for various reasons. |
hi city,
my personal experience as that of most turks in bulgaria with communism was pretty bad. Basically the communist regime changed my name and bannad my language. Many of my relative left the country because of the repressive commnists.
Communism is an utopian idea that an idealist came up with, but human nature makes it impossible to realize and implement this dream. Communism concentrates to much power in the government, and as we know power corrupts, even the most diahard idealists cannot deal with it.
Communism in Bulgaria came to eradicate poverty, and to abolish the aristocratic ways of the rich. Or at least that was the pretext under whicch the red arm after invading the country imposed communism. But in fact the leader of the polytbyuro lived even better than the king. What kind of understanding for equality is this! Communism has failed, and its failure has been very painful for many of the eastern european countries, so I hope it will never come back. |
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city
Site Admin
Joined: 15 Aug 2005
Posts: 3373
Location: Larnaca area
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| bg_turk wrote: |
hi city,
my personal experience as that of most turks in bulgaria with communism was pretty bad. Basically the communist regime changed my name and bannad my language. Many of my relative left the country because of the repressive commnists. |
hi bg_turk, I know these things, I mentioned my bulgarian colleague...
| bg_turk wrote: |
| Communism is an utopian idea that an idealist came up with, but human nature makes it impossible to realize and implement this dream. |
Thats exactly what I think. Unfortunately what you say is the plain truth.
| bg_turk wrote: |
Communism concentrates to much power in the government, and as we know power corrupts, even the most diahard idealists cannot deal with it.
Communism in Bulgaria came to eradicate poverty, and to abolish the aristocratic ways of the rich. Or at least that was the pretext under whicch the red arm after invading the country imposed communism. But in fact the leader of the polytbyuro lived even better than the king. What kind of understanding for equality is this! Communism has failed, and its failure has been very painful for many of the eastern european countries, so I hope it will never come back. |
I agree with what you said. Its all true. All I wanted to point out was, that in my opinion there are worst things than communism. Thats all. I believe nearly everyone (of a certain age) who lives/has lived in eastern european countries knows very well how bad it can be. But again what I said in my reply to thebrix, one should not generalize.
I certainly do not want to return to that state, but I also refuse to say it was all bad. |
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brother
Warnings : 3
Site Admin
Joined: 15 Aug 2005
Posts: 8920
Location: London/Cyprus
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| Thanks city and bg_turk for some little insights of your personal thoughts and experience of a life i have never seen or experienced but there must of been some good sides to it as well, could you tell me some of these please. |
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bg_turk
Deputy
Joined: 08 Oct 2005
Posts: 1316
Location: Bulgaria
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| brother wrote: |
| Thanks city and bg_turk for some little insights of your personal thoughts and experience of a life i have never seen or experienced but there must of been some good sides to it as well, could you tell me some of these please. |
i experienced communism in my early childhood so i just vaguely remember what it was like. when i first went to school, the democratic reforms had just started, so forunately i did not have a chance to be a "pioneer", that's what the communists called the first graders.
some people like communism because the governemtn supposedly took care of everything. there was 100% employment, and everybody had a job, though the economy was absolutely inefficient. Healthcare was for free. Everything was really cheap and people generally had the money to afford anything, but the supply was very limitted naturally. The communist moto was "Give according to your ability, take according to your necessity!", and naturally there were too many that needed to take, but not enough that wanted to give.
Even if you had the money to buy something, you could not because there was no supply and nowhere to buy it from, unless you were willing to wait on very long queues for hours and hours I remember one year the state produced too many screws and they had no idea what to do with them, it was just such a waste. On the other hand sometimes there were very accute shortages of necessities, and it was usual in Bulgaria to have to wait on a queue just to buy bread every morning.
The other good (or bad thing depending on your perspective) thing about communism is that it weakened religion. So most of the bulgars and turks in BUlgaria are generally not very religious.
Despite all this for me personally communism is just absolutely evil. When you say communism I just think of extreme bulgarian nationalists, and remember my bulgarian kindergarten teacher, who used to discriminate against me because i was turkish and used to slap me if i spoke in turkish, even though she knew perfectly well that i spoke no bulgarian. My sister joined kindergarten just around that time and because we spoke turkish at home, she couldnt speak a word in bulgarian, and we couldnt speak to each other because of this eveil communist teacher.
I am just getting all these associations when somebody mentions communism, but of course communism doen't have to be necessarily nationalistic as it was in bulgaria.
The worst thing today is that the DPS, the predominantly turkish party, has entered the ruling coalition with the excommunists, those that changed our names. I just feel totally betrayed  |
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brother
Warnings : 3
Site Admin
Joined: 15 Aug 2005
Posts: 8920
Location: London/Cyprus
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| bg_turk wrote: |
| brother wrote: |
| Thanks city and bg_turk for some little insights of your personal thoughts and experience of a life i have never seen or experienced but there must of been some good sides to it as well, could you tell me some of these please. |
i experienced communism in my early childhood so i just vaguely remember what it was like. when i first went to school, the democratic reforms had just started, so forunately i did not have a chance to be a "pioneer", that's what the communists called the first graders.
some people like communism because the governemtn supposedly took care of everything. there was 100% employment, and everybody had a job, though the economy was absolutely inefficient. Healthcare was for free. Everything was really cheap and people generally had the money to afford anything, but the supply was very limitted naturally. The communist moto was "Give according to your ability, take according to your necessity!", and naturally there were too many that needed to take, but not enough that wanted to give.
Even if you had the money to buy something, you could not because there was no supply and nowhere to buy it from, unless you were willing to wait on very long queues for hours and hours I remember one year the state produced too many screws and they had no idea what to do with them, it was just such a waste. On the other hand sometimes there were very accute shortages of necessities, and it was usual in Bulgaria to have to wait on a queue just to buy bread every morning.
The other good (or bad thing depending on your perspective) thing about communism is that it weakened religion. So most of the bulgars and turks in BUlgaria are generally not very religious.
Despite all this for me personally communism is just absolutely evil. When you say communism I just think of extreme bulgarian nationalists, and remember my bulgarian kindergarten teacher, who used to discriminate against me because i was turkish and used to slap me if i spoke in turkish, even though she knew perfectly well that i spoke no bulgarian. My sister joined kindergarten just around that time and because we spoke turkish at home, she couldnt speak a word in bulgarian, and we couldnt speak to each other because of this eveil communist teacher.
I am just getting all these associations when somebody mentions communism, but of course communism doen't have to be necessarily nationalistic as it was in bulgaria. |
So if they could get the supply and demand right and racism was not an issue then would you say it was going in the right direction. |
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