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Remember those words of praise that I just wrote about Mlada Fronta DNES? Well, don’t forget them, because the praise is still valid, but here’s a little taste of why that paper frustrates many of us. One day, they publish an expose that truly improves the quality of life in the Czech Republic. The next day, they embarrass themselves through, yet again, stooping to the standards of the tabloid press. On Saturday, DNES ran a front-page interview with the new girlfriend of former Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek (leader of the Social Democrats). OK, she’s newsworthy, since Paroubek and his wife are now filing for divorce after 25+ years of marriage and Paroubek had made disparaging comments a few months ago about the highly visible affair and marital troubles of his rival, current Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek. But just take a look at the type of questions she had to face (my translation):
Question: Do you know what questions people are asking most often in connection with you?
Answer: What does she see in him?
Question: Exactly. How it is possible that such an attractive young woman is interested in a man who is not exactly the picture of male beauty?
There you have it.
Anyone who’s read my Czech media criticism over the years—mainly in the last couple Nations in Transit (NIT) reports—knows how I (as well as many others) have lamented the press’s turn toward sensationalism. Here’s what I wrote in this year’s report:
For the most part, Czech media display sufficient independence and practice a decent, if unremarkable, level of journalism. Press freedom has long been secure in the Czech Republic, and no major media are state owned. Media are generally free of political or economic bias, though allegations still surface of pressure from both business and political interests. Rarely do newspapers publish comprehensive analyses getting to the heart of policy issues. Instead they prefer shorter, sensational articles. Still, they do provide the population with an adequate overview of the main events and issues facing society.
Now I’m thinking I’m not being completely fair, at least to a frequent target of all of us media critics: Mlada fronta DNES, the country’s most read “serious” newspaper. Yes, the paper has lurched toward more tabloidish content in recent years—special supplements on reality programs, an over-fascination with celebrities small and large, and a willingness to cover gossip and rumors in a manner usually reserved for the so-called “bulvars”.
But DNES has also been doing a great job in recent months with its exposes into the behavior of public officials, doctors, police officers, and, the public in general. I say “exposes” because these aren’t really investigations in the true sense of that word, but they are certainly useful. In past weeks, a newspaper reporter pretended to have an acute stomach ailment and tested various hospitals’ responses to her plight. In many cases, the treatment she received was horrible, and the newspaper named names, listing the hospitals and quoting the doctors and nurses (they had been secretly recorded). The story prompted an enormous reaction from the public, a serious discussion about the behavior of medical professionals and the reasons for that behavior, and even some movement on the part of the offending hospitals.
More recently (on Monday this week), the paper tested the reaction of various police stations around the country after they received a call from a woman saying she was a victim of domestic violence and asking for advice. (Again the woman was, in fact, a reporter for the newspaper). The purpose of this expose was to test the knowledge of law enforcement officials about a new law, valid now for six months, that allows the police to prevent a perpetuator of domestic violence from returning to their domicile (until now, 479 people have been banned in this way). Again, the newspaper reprinted parts of the recorded conversations, rated the responses, and explained how the police should have acted, i.e. by providing contact information for specialists, etc.
On other occasions, the paper hired a private firm to measure the speeds of cars as they passed a school, one year after a much stricter traffic law came into practice. The article called attention, as similar articles had in the past, to the need for more frequent police controls.
Surely, some will complain that even these exposes show a sensationalist tendency, with flashy headlines that pick the most outrageous responses and paraphrase them (“Your husband is terrorizing you. Don’t call us police” was the latest one.) Snobs will lament that the paper isn’t spending its profit on conducting more “scientific” investigations that get to the root of the problem and make policy recommendations. OK, so DNES still isn’t the Guardian or Gazeta Wyborcza or a real “paper of record”. But I would argue that stories such as these generally do at least spark society-wide debate and make a real contribution toward improving the situation in the targeted areas.
So more on that panel I mentioned last week. Most of it was pretty self-evident, I have to say, and I was a bit disappointed that all these generals didn’t have anything particularly groundbreaking to tell all of us.
Those present on the panel were former generals Jiri Sedivy (Czech Republic), Jozsef Ronkovics (Hungary), and Stanislav Koziej (Poland). The analysts were Bank Boros, a Hungarian from Miskloc University, and Ivo Sampson, a Slovak from the Center of the Slovak Foreign Policy Association
Their advice for would-be military reformers amounted the following:
Decide, early on in the process of reforming, on the definition of your country’s national interests. This discussion should not take place behind closed donors, but publicly, with the goal of broad agreement over a central core of priorities. That didn’t really happen in Central Europe, so problems with political and social consensus have persisted, contributing to often stalled military reform.
Seek political consensus to ensure lasting and long-term reform. If not, as has been seen almost everywhere in Central Europe, when governments change, newcomers often scrap their predecessors’ grand plans. Reform must then essentially start all over again, with an enormous waste of money. After 1989, strong political will in all three countries existed to pressure the Soviet Union to remove its troops, but such consensus dissipated once that common goal was achieved. It has been difficult even since to get the major players in each country agree on defense priorities.
Install democratic and civilian control over the military as the best guarantee against human rights abuse. (Civilians did usually head the defense ministries in Central Europe pre-1989–although of course communist party appointees). Of course, democratically controlled militaries still make mistakes, but not as often as their counterparts under dictatorships and authoritarian governments.
Educate both soldiers and civilians in the latest trends and technology as quickly as possible, so they can not only buy into reform, but steer the transformation. If educational opportunities don’t exist at home, then people should be sent abroad. Key here is that civilians also get trained. In Central Europe, thousands of soldiers received an education abroad, but much less frequently did officials at the ministries get such chances. As a result, many mistakes were made because of the lack of experts among politicians and bureaucrats (often selected for political reasons even though they had limited or no knowledge of military or security affairs).
Be sure the proponents of military reform have a flexible master plan, but one that differentiates carefully between what must change immediately, what can wait, and what can stay the same. This type of planning took years to develop because it had been actively discouraged on a national level during two generations of the Warsaw Pact. Officials were used to fulfilling orders from Moscow instead of being proactive and creative. The lack of political consensus also complicated long-term planning since budgeting could often be done only on a yearly basis.
Don’t concentrate single-mindedly on technical issues and fancy upgrades. People are just as important, if not more so, and a multifaceted personnel strategy is absolutely critical. In Central Europe, this meant more than just removing the communist party’s influence and forbidding soldiers to be members of political parties. Both civilians and soldiers had to be motivated to participate in reform. In the Czech Republic, that meant looking for leaders between the ages of 40 and 50, old enough to have some experience, but not too linked with the past.
Be prepared for the painful side of reform. No matter the necessity of cuts in the armed forces, rising levels of unemployment can be very difficult to deal with. Societies may also experience blows to their prestige by seeing once mighty militaries slashed to much smaller numbers with a corresponding loss in their capabilities.
Honor your international commitments. NATO had a huge influence on reform, forcing changes that would have otherwise probably taken generations. Countries pledged to devote certain percentages of their GDPs to defense. Now, however, after NATO accession, the generals complained that politicians felt the pressure was off and had cut defense budgets. Overwhelmed with domestic issues, politicians have adopted a “freerider” attitude, believing NATO will protect them without the need to give much in return.
Viewed by career military men in this way, the political elite came out looking especially immature, parochial, and short-sighted. Probably, the politicians would argue that they did their best given the pressure from society to improve living standards rather than worry about national security and defense. And they would insist, they had attempted the find political consensus with their rivals, but it was just impossible. With excuses like those, however, it would be hard not to side with the generals.
Back from vacation, I’m participating in a conference called “Reforming Repressive State Apparatus: the Central European Experience.” Organized by People in Need, a top-notch Czech NGO that supports democratic change in many countries around the world, the program is aimed at highlighting the lessons learned in these parts for participants from places like Burma, Serbia, and Georgia. I’ll be writing more shortly, but in a session on reforming the armed forces, a lively debate broke out about Georgia’s NATO ambition. A young Hungarian political scientist on the panel spoke skeptically about Georgia’s recently published defense policy. Evidently, the plan outlined cuture capabilities to not only defend the country against Russia (hard to fathom how that would ever be possible) but also contribute significantly to NATO and other international organizations. He called the plan “science fiction” and said small countries (like Georgia and Hungary) shouldn’t dream of defending themselves against powers such as Russia.
To the ire of a Georgian government representative in the audience, the Hungarian also questioned the notion of Georgia as a “European” country (eliciting a not quite convincing response from the government rep. about Georgian’s “Europeanness” and membership in the Council of Europe). The Hungarian responded that, well, Israel plays in the qualifiers for the European Soccer Championship.
The debate about Europeanness seemed a bit silly, given Turkey’s membership in NATO. Much more important, in my opinion, were the questions over Georgia’s ability to act as a contributor to security and not only a consumer, as well as the necessity to solve the so-called frozen conflicts on its territory.
A Slovak security expert said that a condition of membership is that countries need to have full control over their lands and good relations with their neighbors. In response, the Georgian said that the NATO secretary general had explicitly said that the territory issue would NOT be an impediment to membership because otherwise that would mean effectively giving Russia a veto over Georgia’s entry (since everyone knows Russia has a huge role in keeping the frozen conflicts in deep freeze). As for Georgia’s contributions to international security, the guy from the government claimed that Georgia will soon have the third largest number of soldiers in Iraq after the the US and the UK. Pretty amazing if that’s true. I’ll have to check it out.
Is it only me or are there other people out there who believe the Polish authorities should have more important things to do than investigate Teletubbie Tinky Winky?
This from the BBC today:
A senior Polish official has ordered psychologists to investigate whether the popular BBC TV show Teletubbies promotes a homosexual lifestyle.
The spokesperson for children’s rights in Poland, Ewa Sowinska, singled out Tinky Winky, the purple character with a triangular aerial on his head.
“I noticed he was carrying a woman’s handbag,” she told a magazine. “At first, I didn’t realise he was a boy.”
EU officials have criticised Polish government policy towards homosexuals.
Ms Sowinska wants the psychologists to make a recommendation about whether the children’s show should be broadcast on public television.
In the face of criticism, Sowinska evidently said the Teletubbies weren’t damaging to the nation’s children, but the investigation continues.
This is all part of a cultural clash currently underway in Poland, with a conservative ruling coalition that has riled liberals at home and abroad. From a recent TOL article:
Like America’s famous red state-blue state divide, Poland’s cultural clash pits what sometimes appear to be two separate countries against each other. On one side of the barricades is liberal, urbane, and cosmopolitan Poland with its fashionable Warsaw boutiques, trendy cafes, and chatty secular media. On the other is a deeply traditional, conservative, rural – and sometimes xenophobic – nation, fearful of change and distrustful of outsiders.
So we’ll have to wait and see if that divide now leads to the banning of Tinky Winky. By the way, the late Jerry Falwell also targeted Tinky Winky, about eight years ago…
An article in today’s Czech daily, Mlada fronta DNES, focuses in on a case of a teacher who beat a student in a classroom in the small town of Jablunka. The problem for the teacher was that someone from the class filmed the incident with his mobile phone and posted it on YouTube (the clip has since been removed).
According to the article, dozens of clips from Czech schools can be found on YouTube, but most of them innocent.
Oh yeah, the teacher was only given a warning and continues to teach.
Also, in case you missed it, according to a post yesterday on the popular blog BoingBoing:
Today, the main opposition party in the Croatian parliament (SDP - Social Democratic Party) walked out of Parliament after Mr. Ivica Kirina (the Interior Minister) accused the SDP of publishing videos about him on YouTube.
Apparently, people have been posting montages of Mr. Kirina’s rather comedic public appearances. For more of the story and some of the clips, visit this Croatian blog.
Undoubtedly the plight of the Roma has improved over the past decade in crucial ways (better educational opportunities, fewer skinhead attacks, etc.), but greater tolerance among the general population seems only incremental, if that. For every time I read more sensitive coverage in the media, I also read articles that highlight the ethnicity of criminals (i.e. Roma) for no other reason than to play up stereotypes. Or I hear bad Roma jokes, even from “normal”, i.e. not skinhead-looking Czechs.
Yesterday on the way to work, I overheard a young kid, probably about 12-13, telling such a joke to a group of female teenagers (it looks like one of them was an older sister, traveling with her friends on a school trip, and had taken her younger brother along). I was on the other side of the aisle so it was hard to hear the joke and I couldn’t at all make out the punchline, but it went like this: “A German came to the Czech Republic to shoot game in the forest. Along the way, he met a local Czech that told him that he’d have to pay 5000 crowns to shoot a bear, but he’d be paid 2000 crowns for every gypsy he shot. So the German shot three gypsies and demanded his money. And the Czech told him:…” Sorry no punchline, but you get the point.
It seemed like his sister looked around to see if anyone was listening or not. Or maybe I was just being optimistic that she might have an inkling that this was not politically incorrect. In any case, she and her friends laughed and the kid moved on to other jokes.
At first glance it looks bizarre: Yesterday, Tajik President Imomali Rakhmon proposed fines to limit extravagant weddings and funerals in his country–the poorest of the countries of the former Soviet Union. If his proposal is accepted, guest lists for weddings would be limited to no more than 200 people and weddings could last no longer than a day. Wedding processions could include four cars maximum. As for funerals, only 100 guests would be allowed and they would be permitted to eat only one meal after the ceremony.
I can only imagine the first reaction from around the world: another wacky Central Asian leader acting like his country is his own personal fiefdom. How can you limit something so personal as a wedding or a funeral? What right does the president have to tell a bride or groom that they have to limit their guest list to only their closest 200 relatives and friends? But is it really so outlandish? Is the tradition driving families into ruin because peer pressure is forcing them to go into debt to feed 500 people for three days running? I’m no expert on this, but I’d be pretty curious to see the reaction on the fledgling Tajik blogosphere. For a personal experience of a Tajik wedding, see this post on neweurasia, a project to encourage blogging in Central Asia that TOL shares in.
Long in development, and slow on the uptake, this blog is finally live! For my first post, I’d like to focus on a topic that will be a common one around here: the slow-but-sure improvement in the quality of life in the new member states, especially in the country I’ve called home for most of the past 15 years, the Czech Republic. This is more than just an economic story, however; just as importantly, it represents the building, piece-by-piece, of a civil society that fills in the gaps left by the state. Don’t worry: I know the term “civil society” is thrown around left and right, for this or that purpose, leaving us all wondering what is really means. I’ll get specific below.
But first: I’ve heard people say that the story now taking place in Central Europe is essentially a business story and that media organizations such as TOL should be focusing their efforts on tracking economic development. Well, I don’t really agree. This is much more to it than that.
Sure there are signs everywhere that Czechs are living better than before: the crown is at near record highs versus the dollar and euro, and average salaries continue to rise. That explains, for instance, the headline in Tuesday’s Mlada fronta DNES: “Vacations for Czechs are the cheapest in history”. With more money–and strong money–in their pockets, Czechs are heading off in record numbers to places like Cuba and Thailand, exotic locales only for the richest of the rich in the years that followed the Velvet Revolution. And the average price of vacations are increasing–not because of price increases per se, but because Czechs are choosing more expensive hotels and more fancy destinations.
So that’s a business story and an interesting one at that. But more behind the scenes are the stories that indicate how a growing number of people, probably with more time and money on their hands, are looking around and thinking about how they can change existing tradition, apathy, and law to better their lives and those of their fellow citizens. In some ways, this is a matter of closing the gap with the “West”, of Czechs learning to demand the same rights as their counterparts in mature democracies, but they are already sometimes surpassing their more conservative neighbors (re: the new Czech law on same-sex partnerships).
Earlier this week, again in DNES, but buried inside the paper, was a short article about Czech women who tragically give birth to stillborn babies. Not surprisingly, even those with supportive partners and families have great difficulties dealing with their loss–especially when medical personnel fail in providing much empathy (one woman recalled being told by a nurse a few days later that she should have already gotten over it). Yet no support group of “victims” exists.
Now one woman has decided to change that. She has already received permission to serve as the Czech representative of the International Stillborn Society and plans to form a chapter in the Czech Republic. It’s a comparatively small segment of society (300 women per year go through the ordeal), but for those 300, such a support group would almost surely help them deal with the tragedy and improve their lives.
Multiply that experience by many times and you can see pretty perceptibly how such initiatives are contributing to a society that has started more and more to address issues ignored in the past over more supposedly “urgent” issues. Sometimes, it takes a shocking case of abuse (the papers have been full of stories about a young boy tied up by his mother in a closet, with politicians left and right now offering antidotes), but the real changes are occurring more behind the scenes, off the radar screen of the media…
I’m calling this blog “The Regional Wrap” because I’m intending to post about whatever interests me across the vast region TOL covers: Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and the former Soviet Union. Since I’ve lived in Prague for almost a dozen years, chances are you’ll find more here about the Czech Republic than other countries, but I’ll try not to be Czech-centric.
In addition to region-specific posts, I’ll be posting on several other topics that interest me a lot these days. One is blogging, particularly in relation to its potential role as an outlet for free speech and free expression in repressive societies. In part, these posts will reflect the progress we’re making on our own experiment in that area: a project to encourage blogging in Belarus and Central Asia.
Another theme that I plan to tackle is the role of public media in the “digital” world—how public media (like TOL) can take advantage of new, so-called citizen journalism tools such as blogging and podcasting to better serve their public role, especially by becoming more interactive and responsive. But no discussion about all that potential should take place without addressing the financial sustainability of adopting all this cool stuff. Of course this exploration will have an undercurrent of self-interest—or rather TOL-interest—since we are always on the lookout for cutting-edge tools that won’t only enrich our journalistic output but will also enhance our business model. Like other exclusively online, public affairs-oriented media, TOL is in search of the digital Holy Grail: a business model that will make TOL less dependent on grants while allowing us to continue to practice a type of journalism that often includes themes neglected by “commercial” media.
Last but not least, I’m also planning to fill a gaping hole in CEE coverage: more news of the odd and unusual. Believe me, this region has just as much in that area as other places in the world, but remains tragically undercovered in the weird department. These posts will be filed under the category: “Off the Deep End”.
