Showing posts from category: International Relations
Behind the Coronavirus Counts, How well do the Numbers Stack up?
Every day we are reminded of the global reach of the novel coronavirus crisis. We know it’s a pandemic because WHO and other health agencies publish data showing that 211 countries and territories have been affected by the disease. The international media coverage tends to focus largely on the unenviable “big five” chart-toppers who have been most affected – the US, Italy, Spain, France and the UK. A number of sites publish constantly updated lists of the growing toll of Covid-19 casualties, a sort of sombre “score card” listing all the countries who have recorded instances of the disease.
Confirmed Coronavirus Cases: Globally tracked, country-by-country – as @ 23-Apr-2020
Sources: WHO http://covid19.who.int/;
Country Total cases Total deaths Region
USA 850,000 47,700 Americas
Italy 188,000 25,500 Western Europe
Spain 208,500 21,750 Western Europe
France 160,000 21,500 Western Europe
UK 134,000 18,300 Western Europe
http://worldometers.info/
When we scroll through the world tables of where the pandemic has landed, it’s instructive to look at the comparative totals by continent – Europe has a bit over 1.28 million confirmed cases recorded, and the Americas, 995,510 (predominantly from the US), compare these to South-East Asia, a bit more than 38,572 and Africa, a mere 18,234 cases✺✺.
From a statistical standpoint we might wonder if the published data gives a true impression of the extent of of the pandemic? It needs to be kept in mind that the numbers we have are those that have been reported to the World Health Organisation. Population differences aside, it is clear that the low numbers in South-East Asia and Africa (examples: Cambodia 122 cases, zero fatalities✺✺, Myanmar 139 cases, five fatalities✺✺, Ghana 1,279 cases, 10 fatalities✺✺, Ethiopia 117 cases, three fatalities✺✺) mask the full impact of the catastrophe. They are a product of limited testing by countries in these regions … widespread poverty, surplus populations, lack of resources and infrastructure mitigate against the capacity to take corrective, safety monitoring measures.
Limited testing capacity and weak surveillance The small numbers of recorded cases and handful of reported deaths in Africa and S.E. Asia (the Caribbean is another such case in point) can engender a false security and justify a lack of action by such already economically and health-challenged countries, thus the risk of infections spreading is magnified. In the early phases of the outbreak some S.E. Asian states were slow to acknowledge the risks…even as late as mid-March, Myanmar’s government was still attributing it’s low number of cases to the superior “lifestyle and diet” of the locals. The fight against Covid-19 by Third World countries is further retarded by a failure to test widely and in the numbers necessitated by the crisis. It shouldn’t be overlooked that some of these countries have quite repressive regimes that don’t rank the goal of a universal healthcare system as their highest priority [‘Experts Doubt Low Coronavirus Counts of Some Southeast Asian Countries’, (Zsombor Peter), VOA, 29-Mar-2020, www.voanews.com].
For the bulk of African countries the story is similar. A by-product of their lack of development is that their health systems are fragile before the onset of coronavirus hits them. Awareness of the inability to cope with a full-blown health crisis, had led some leaders to advocate so-called “miracle cures” for the virus (eg, Madagascar’s president’s championing of untested traditional plant remedies). Nigeria (Africa’s largest nation by population) shows only 981 confirmed cases and 31 deaths✺✺ to date but is looking as vulnerable as anyone in Africa. Oil exports are the hub of Nigeria’s economy and the fall of the world’s crude oil price to a record low will hamstrung the country’s efforts to contain any future eruptions of the disease [‘Coronavirus: How drop in oil price affects Nigeria’s economy’, (Michael Eboh), Vanguard, 17-Mar-2020, www.vanguardngr.com]. The outbreak of pandemic hotspots in Nigeria could be devastating, especially in the north, given the country’s population of nearly 200 million people and it’s inadequate healthcare capacity⋉.
Too good to be …
Some countries have reported being lightly or relatively lightly touched by the onslaught of the coronavirus, these results have surprised outside observers. One such country that raises eyebrows in this respect is Russia. The republic has 146 million people and shares long borders with China⤱, yet it fesses up to having had only 68,622 cases✺✺ (well under half of that of the UK) and suffered only a comparatively low 615 deaths✺✺ from the epidemic (most of those since the start of April). If you cast aside the anomalies, on paper it’s an excellent result! But whether Soviet or post-Soviet, there’s always an air of suspicious doubt about Russian information. The Russian Bear has had form in the past with cover-ups…a prime example—the Soviet Union throwing a tarpaulin over the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the 1980s —indicative of a less than honest response to major disasters [‘The Very Low Number of Russia’s Reported COVID-19 Cases Raises Questions of a Cover-Up’, (Rick Moran), PJ Media, 22-Mar-2020, www.pjmedia.com].
Russia, if it so erred, is not “Robinson Crusoe” in deliberately underreporting the pandemic’s effect. China for nearly three months from the initial outbreak didn’t include asymptomatic patients in the official stats, and only rectified this oversight on April Fools Day [‘China acknowledges underreporting coronavirus cases in official count’, (Mark Moore), New York Post, 01-Apr-2001, www.nypost.com]. For six weeks after WHO declared a global health emergency Indonesia did not report a single Covid-19 case (unlike most of it’s S.E. Asian neighbours). Considering the republic’s population size (more than 270 million) and it’s close links with China, this aroused widespread suspicion of underreporting and criticism in a Harvard University study which seemed to belatedly jolt Indonesia into disclosure. The first notification by Djakarta of coronavirus cases occurred on 2nd March, and from then on Indonesia’s curve has been on an upward trajectory – currently 8,211 cases, 689 deaths✺✺ [‘Why are there no reported cases of coronavirus in Indonesia?’, (Randy Mulyanto & Febriana Firdaus), Aljazeera, 18-Feb-2020, www.aljazeera.com].
Doubting a hermetically-sealed “Hermit Kingdom” North-East Asia’s renegade, secretive state, North Korea, can be added to the list of countries purporting to be Covid-19–free. Pyongyang‘s official line has been met with disbelief from several external sources such as South Korea and Radio Free Europe which asserts that disclosures from within North Korean military circles confirm the occurrence of coronavirus cases in the border areas [‘What Is the Coronavirus Doing to North Korea’, (Nicholas Eberstadt), New York Times, 22-Apr-2020, www.nytimes.com]
Addendum: (Coronavirus as at 0130 hrs EAT time, 25-April-2020) USA 890,200 cases | 50,403 deaths Italy 189,973 cases | 25,549 deaths Spain 219,764 cases | 22,524 deaths France 158,183 cases | 21,856 deaths UK 143,464 cases | 19,506 deaths
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
✺✺ figures as at 0130 hrs EAT time, 25-Apr-2020
⋉ just over the last week the African continent experienced a sudden surge in infections, ‘Africa’s 43% jump in virus cases in 1 week worries experts’, (Gerard Zim Rae), ABC News, 23-Apr-2020, www.abcnews.go.com
⤱ although Russia did close its eastern border with China after the virus breakout
Hugo Boss, Gentlemen’s Outfitters to the German Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei
Hugo Boss … luxury watches, fragrances, men’s suits and fashion wear and accessories, Nazi uniforms. Wait! Run that last one past me again? Yes, it’s true. Hugo Boss AG＊, that doyen of international fashion houses with annual revenue exceeding €2.7 billion (2018) and over 1,100 stores worldwide, provided the German Nazi Party, with their uniforms during (and prior to) the Third Reich. Although you wouldn’t know so from a perusal of the Hugo Boss website which keeps a firm lid on the company’s unsavoury past❂.
The clothing company was started in Metzingen (southern Germany) in 1924 by the eponymous Hugo (Ferdinand) Boss…it commenced supplying the NSDAP (National-Socialist Workers Party) with their brown military uniforms, according to the company’s own claim, in 1924 (the year in which Hugo Boss was founded)∅. Initially Boss designed and provided the standard Nazi brown-shirted outfits including Stürmabteilung (SA) uniforms, Nazi workwear, and Hitler Youth uniforms. In the Depression Boss’s company was like many, many businesses severely hit and Boss was forced into bankruptcy in 1931. That year was momentous for another reason, HF Boss joined the Nazi Party, an event that was to turn his fortunes round dramatically. At the same time the failed businessman also joined the SS (Schutzstaffel) as a “sponsoring member”.
By appointment to the Führer Membership of the party meant more contracts for Hugo Boss as a favoured supplier of Hitler. Under the Nazi dictatorship Boss’ sales grew from 38,260 RM in 1932 to 3,300,000 RM in 1941 (Timm). Boss’ motives for joining have been attributed to “economic opportunism” and its clear that he saw the business advantages of tying his colours to the Nazi flagship, but there’s equal little doubt that his commitment to the Nazi cause was heartfelt (a photo of him with the Führer was said to to be one of the tailor’s most prized possessions)❊ [‘Hugo Boss’ Secret Nazi History’, (Fashion and War), M2M, (video, YouTube)].
🔻A Boss ad placed in the SS newspaper
Nazi fashionistas From 1937 on, the relationship acquired an exclusivity, Hugo Boss made clothing only for the Nazis, including the black uniforms worn by the elite Nazi force, the SS (Boss didn’t design the uniforms worn by Himmler’s SS Corps, two party members unconnected to the company designed them). Boss continued to heavily advertise his fashions in the SS newspaper, Das Schwarze Korps, and fashionably chic the uniforms were! One of the pillars of the Nazis’ ideology was the pseudo-scientific belief in Aryan superiority, this involved showing the world what the “new man” looks like. There was no finer exemplar of this than the Wehrmacht military man, and this is where Boss provided the finishing touches. The firm’s stylish, sharply cut uniforms conveyed the desired outer appearance, the SS corporate identity that Hitler and the Nazis wanted to project to the world (Fashion and War).
HB as slave-labour drivers From 1940 Boss used slave labour at it’s Metzingen textile factory, predominantly comprising women and later supplemented by the infusion of Polish and French POWs. The company (sans it’s founder), after decades of dodging accusations, finally came clean about it’s shameful Nazi collaboration, after being pressured into issuing a mea culpa in 1997 for the gross mistreatment of the workers. Later the corporation commissioned a book on it’s dark past association❏ [‘“Hitler’s Tailor” Hugo Boss apologises for using slave labour to make Nazi uniforms’, (Lauren Paxman), Daily Mail, 24-Sep-2011, www.dailymail.co.uk].
(Source: www.militaryuniforms.net/Pinterest)
A discounted form of justice After the war Boss was tried along with other German collaborators by a regional Denazification tribunal. The man known as “Hitler’s Tailor” claimed in his defence that he only joined the Nazi Party to save his firm. The court found Boss to have been a “beneficiary of the system” and fined him 100,000 RM, made him sever all connexions with his own firm and stripped him of the right to vote, join a political party or professional organisation. However, on appeal, the fine was reduced by 75%, the other restrictions were lightened and his culpability was downgraded to ‘follower’ of the regime. Before the findings could be ratified by the French Military Government and the punishments imposed, Boss died in 1948 (Timm).
(Photo: Hutton-Deutsh Collection/Corbis/Getty Images)
Endnote: Supping with the 卐 devil Hugo Boss AG was far from the only company to profitably cohabitate with Hitler and the NSDAP. The list of big corporations doing mutually advantageous business was extensive, both within Germany and outside – including Volkswagen, Bayer, Coca-Cola, Nestlé, Kodak, Ford, General Motors, IBM, Siemens, Chase National Bank and Associated Press [‘Companies with Ties to Nazi Germany’, (Debra Kelly), Grunge, (Upd.17-Dec-2019), www.grunge.com].
┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷┷
＊ Aktiengesellschaft (German limited company)
❂ either that or trying to conceal or gloss over the inconvenient truth of the corporation’s history, eg, “in the 1930s it produced uniforms for various(sic) parties around the time of the world war”, www.bangandstrike.com
∅ the firm’s advertising in the 1930s stated that it was a “supplier of National Socialist uniforms since 1924”, however research suggest that this overstates by four years the length of Boss’ association with Hitler and the Nazis [Elisabeth Timm, ‘Hugo Ferdinand Boss (1885-1948) und die Firma Hugo Boss: Eine Dokumentation’, (Metzingen Zwangsarbeit – Forced Labour), MA Thesis, 1999]
❊ it was a ‘reunion’ of the two humble German corporals from World War I
❏ author Roman Koester wrote: “it’s clear that (Boss) did not just join the party out of economic calculation…he was a convinced Nazi” (Hugo Boss, 1924-1945. A Clothing Factory During the Weimar Republic and Third Reich)
Hitler in Norway: Raw Materials for Matériel, Geopolitics, Ideology and Propaganda
Norway, Sweden and Denmark (www.geology.com)
At the onset of world war in 1939 the principal adversaries of Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler were clearly seen to be the United Kingdom and (initially at first) France. So, why did the Third Reich focus so much on Norway in the global conflict?
War strategy was part of the answer. German military planning ante bellum had pinpointed Norway’s geo-strategic importance. It was also aware of the danger of a blockade of Germany’s sea-lanes posed by the British Navy. By controlling Norway’s long (16,000 mi) coastline, Germany could control the North Sea, providing the optimal maritime attack route for an assault on Britain. It would also ease the passage of Germany’s warships and submarines into the Atlantic Ocean. As far back as 1929 German Vice-Admiral Wegener outlined in a book the advantages of seizing Norway in a future war to expedite German naval traffic [C N Trueman, “The Invasion Of Norway 1940”, www.historylearningsite.co.uk . The History Learning Site, 20 Apr 2015. 5 Feb 2020]. The Nazis believed that Norway’s strategic ports were the key to control of the Atlantic and to the overall success of Germany in the war (‘Nazi Megastructures’).
Norway’s proximity to Sweden was another factor in Germany’s focus on the Scandinavian country, arguably the main consideration in Hitler’s and the Nazis’ calculations. Buried in the north of Sweden —mainly at the Kiruna and Gällivare mines— were vast quantity of high-grade iron-ore. In 1939 Germany imported ten million tons of the mineral from Sweden, all but one million of it from these mines [‘The Nazi Invasion of Norway – Hitler Tests the West’, (Andrew Knighton), War History Online, 01-Oct-2018, www.warhistoryonline]. This raw material provided the steel for the German war machine – its armaments and equipment (weaponry, tanks) and aircraft.
Kiruna mine 🔼
As Sweden was (like Norway up to April 1940) a neutral country in war-time and was freely selling iron-ore to the Germans, why did Hitler need Norway? The problem was the port of Luleå on the Gulf of Bothnia in Sweden, from where the Nazis transported the precious loads of ore…in winter it would freeze over. To meet the exigencies of “total war” the Nazis needed to keep the production lines rolling, the war schedule couldn’t afford long delays in the delivery of the iron-ore. The solution lay in Norway – the northern port at Narvik by contrast didn’t freeze over and was accessible all year round. Logistically, the Germans could easily re-route the Swedish iron ore via the Norwegian coast (Trueman). What made this more pressing for the Germans was that Britain spurred on by Winston Churchill was planning to mount a expeditionary force to capture the Swedish iron-ore mines to deprive their enemies of it [Tony Griffiths, Scandinavia: At War with Trolls, (2004)].
In April 1940 Germany, concerned that Britain was trying to engineer Norway into the war, implemented Operation Weserübung, invading both Denmark and Norway at the same time. Neighbouring Denmark for Germany was a staging post and base for its Norway operations. Denmark capitulated virtually immediately but Norway, with some limited and not very effective help from the British, French and Polish, held out against the massively superior might of the Nazi Heer, Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe for over two months.
🔼 Quisling inspecting the Germanske SS Norge troops in Oslo
The Norwegian surrender came, inevitably, after the Allies withdrew their support. The German Wehrmacht stayed in occupation of the country for five years guarding the precious iron-ore route. Hitler, wanting to project a veneer of legitimacy, installed a pro-German Norwegian puppet regime under Vidkun Quisling, a fascist collaborator and leader of Norway’s Nasjonal Samling party✱. Quisling, evoking an ancient Viking concept, the hird✧, formed his own paramilitary organisation [Tony Griffiths, Scandinavia: At War with Trolls, (2004)], however real power lay with the Hitler-appointed Reichskommissar Josef Terboven.
Hitler had another, ideological motive for extending the scope of his Third Reich empire to Norway. The Nazi Führer was an ardent admirer of Viking and Norse culture. Nazi ideology rested on a belief in so-called “Aryan superiority” which elevated Nordic people such as the Norwegians. This ideology was reflected in SS recruitment posters circulated in Norway (and Denmark) during the German occupation…propaganda aimed at an historic appeal to Norwegian manhood, conflating of the Wehrmacht soldier spirit with the valour and exploits of Viking warrior culture [‘Vikings: Warriors of No Nation’, (Eleanor Barraclough, History Today, 68(4), April 2019, www.historytoday.com].
The Nazis’ program of Lebensborn –intended to create “racially pure” offspring was practiced in Norway, resulting in somewhere between ten and twelve thousand babies being born to Norwegian mothers and German fathers⊚ (‘Vikings: Warriors of No Nation’).
🔼 (L) Quisling, (2nd from L) Himmler, (3rd from L) Terboven
Hitler’s preoccupation with Norway, its natural resources and its supposed Aryan virtues, was to have critical and fateful repercussions for the “big picture” war strategy of the Third Reich. The Nazis fortified Norway more heavily than any other nation it occupied during the war, several hundred thousand German soldiers (regular army, Waffen and Schutzstaffel – SS) were stationed there – a ratio of one German soldier for every eight Norwegians! [‘German occupation of Norway’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org]. When the Allies launched their decisive D-Day operation in 1944, these unused, excess troops in non-combative Norway may very likely have been vital to the German efforts to stem the Allies’ major offensive at Normandy.
The Nazis used ancient Viking rune symbols on their uniforms and flags, like the SS’s sig rune insignia (above)
✱ adding a new word, ‘quisling’, to the lexicon. The charade was maintained with Hitler declaring that occupied Denmark and Norway were under the protection(sic) of the Nazi state, Hitler‘s Scandinavian Legacy, Ed. by John Gilmour & Jill Stephenson, (Introduction) (2013)
✧ in Old Norse, originally a retinue of informal armed companions, analogous with a housecarl, a household bodyguard
⊚ the most famous of which is Frida (Anni-Frid) of the Swedish pop group ABBA
The 1918 Spanish Flu: History’s Most Deadly Pandemic
The ongoing fight to contain the outbreak of COVID-19, the Coranavirus—now entering a new stage of transforming itself into a global epidemic—gives rise to recollection of another virus that swept the world just over one hundred years ago, the so-called Spanish Flu✺. For most of the rest of the 20th century, the Spanish Flu (sometimes known as La Grippe) was largely neglected by researchers and mainstream historians, and study confined to actuaries, specialist epidemiologists and virologists and medical historians [Laura Spinney, Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World, (2017)].
(Credit: CNN International)
Why did such a devastating pandemic fly under the radar for so long? The timing of the outbreak goes a good way to explain this. After having suffered four long years of a unique world war, people tended to treat the Spanish Flu as a footnote to the Great War conflagration. Moreover, the war, concentrated in Europe and the Middle East, had a limited geographical focus for people, contrasting with the pneumonic influenza outbreak which was truly global [The Spanish Flu Pandemic’, (L Spinney), History Today, 67(4), April 2017]. As catastrophic events go, the two stand in stark contrast. With today’s scientific and medical advances experts estimate that the Spanish Flu killed at least 50 million people worldwide, some estimates put it as high as 100 million [NP Johnson & J Mueller 2002;76: 105-115 (‘Updating the accounts: Global mortality of the 1918-1920 “Spanish” Flu pandemic’, Bull Hist Med)]. Estimates of World War I casualties—military and civilian–—sit somewhere in the range of 20 to 22 million deaths [‘WW1 Casualties’, (WW1 Facts), http://ww1facts.net]⌖. By the late 20th century and early 2000s outbreaks of new viruses like SARS, Asian Bird Flu, Swine Flu, etc, spurred mainstream historians◙ to look afresh at the great global influenza of 1918-20.
An abnormal spike in morbidity and mortality The Spanish Flu was truly global, like the Coronavirus its lethal reach touched every continent except Antartica, both are novel (new) respiratory illnesses. Similarities have been noted between the responses to the two outbreaks, eg, the issuing of instructions or recommendations by the authorities for the public to wear masks, avoid shaking hands (part of social distancing), good hygiene, quarantine, an alarmist overreaction by the media [‘Coronavirus response may draw from Spanish flu pandemic of 100 years ago’, ABC News, (Matt Bamford), 05-Mar-2020, www.amp.abc.net.au]. The great flu of 1918’s morbidity and mortality rates were frighteningly high and far-reaching…one in three people on earth were affected by it✪. Between 2.5 and 5% of the world’s population perished, including India a mind-boggling 17M-plus, Dutch East Indies 1.5M, US (up to) 675,000◍, Britain 250,000, France 400,000, Persia (Iran) (up to) 2.4M, Japan 390,000-plus, Ghana (at least) 100,000, Brazil 300,000, USSR (unknown, but conservatively, greater than 500,000)⊞.
While densely crowded communities were thought the biggest risk of mass infection, the Flu caused human devastation even in remote, isolated corners of the world, eg, in Oceania, Samoa bereft of immunity, lost 22% of its population in two months, the Fijian islands lost 14% in a 16-day period⌀. The kill rate was something around 2.5% cf. a ‘normal’ flu outbreak a rate of no more than 0.1% would be expected [‘The Spanish Flu Pandemic’, (Spinney, History Today ; ‘The Spanish Flu’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org/].
(Source: National Library of Australia)
If the Spanish Flu didn’t originate in Spain, where did it originate? No one knows for sure is the short answer…but there has been much speculation on the topic. At the time of the epidemic a popular notion was that the Flu started in China, but China experienced low rates of infection compared to other regions of the world. The explanation for this perhaps lay in that China was subjected to an initial, mild flu season which gave its citizens an acquired immunity to the disease when the more severe strain of the virus hit them.
🔺 Red Cross volunteers: caring for the sick during the Spanish Flu fell overwhelmingly on women (volunteers and professional nurses) who bore the brunt of the work at quarantine stations and camps, as well as exposing themselves to great personal risk
Influenza-ravaged Ft Riley soldiers in hospital camp 🔻 
The military, mobility and zoonosis Another theory attributes the Spanish Flu’s beginnings to the movements of the combatants in WWI. Virologist John Oxford favours the village of Étaples in France as the centre of the 1918 influenza infection. From a hospital camp here, 10,000 troops passed through every day…with their immune systems weakened by malnourishment and the stresses of battle and chemical attacks they were susceptible to the disease which was probably transmitted via a piggery and poultry on the same site. Once contracted, it’s dissemination was likely facilitated by mass transportation of troops by train.
Another view that has gained wide currency locates the Flu’s genesis in America’s Midwest. In recent times, historians led by Alfred W Crosby have supported the view that the epidemic started not in Europe but in a US Army base in Kansas in 1917 (America’s Forgotten Pandemic). According to adherents of this theory soldiers training at Fort Riley for combat in Europe contracted the H1N1 influenza virus which had mutated from pigs. The infected troops, they contend, then spread the virus via the war on the Western Front. Whether or not the virus started with WWI fighting men in France or in the US, it is undeniable that the soldiers moving around in trains and sailors in ships were agents of the Flu’s rapid dissemination [‘Spanish Flu’, History Today, (Upd. 05-Feb-2020), www.historytoday.com]. A recent, alternative origin view by molecular pathologist Jeffrey Taubenberger rejects the porcine transference explanation. Based on tests he did on exhumed victim tissue, Taubenberger contends that the epidemic was the result of bird-to-human transmission [‘Spanish flu: the killer that still stalks us, 100 years on’, (Mark Honigsbaum), The Guardian, 09-Sep-2018, www.theguardian.com].
(Image credit: Guia turístico)
Demographics: differential age groups The pattern of Coronavirus mortality points to the disease being most virulent and most fatal to elderly people (the seventies to the nineties age group). This accords with most flu season deaths, although unlike seasonal flu outbreaks Coronavirus contagion has (thus far) had minimal impact on children, in particular the under-fives (Honigsbaum). But the pattern of Spanish Flu was markedly different, the records show a targeting of young adults, eg, in the US 99% of fatalities in 1918-19 were people under 65, with nearly 50% in the 20 to 40 age bracket (‘Spanish Flu’, Wiki). Statistics from other countries on the 1918 outbreak conform to a similar trend.
🔺 Conveying the health message to the public (Source: www.shelflife.cooklib.org)
The Flu in a series of varyingly virulent waves The first wave of the Flu in early 1918 was relatively mild. This was followed by a second, killer wave in August. This mutated strain was especially virulent in three disparate places on the globe, Brest in France, Freetown in Sierra Leone and Boston in the US. There were myriad victims, some died (quickly) because they had not been exposed to the first, milder wave which prevented them from building up immunity to this more powerful strain [‘Four lessons the Spanish flu can teach us about coronavirus’ (Hannah Devlin), The Guardian, 04-Mar-2020, www.msn.com]. The second wave was a global pathogen sui generis. The bulk of the deaths occurred in a 13-week period (September to December). The lethality of the disease, and especially the speed with which it progressed, was the scariest part✧.
2nd wave curve in the US, 1918: note the different mortality peaks during Oct-Dec 1918 for St Louis (imposed a stringent lockdown) vs Philadelphia (much less restrictive approach)
(Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2007)
The symptoms of this murderously effective strain were unusual and extreme, eg, haemorrhaging from mucous membranes, bleeding from the eyes, ears and orifices, etc. The extreme severity of the symptoms were thought to be caused by cytokine storms (overreaction of the body’s immune system) (‘Spanish Flu’, Wiki) [‘Spanish Flu’, History, 12-Oct-2010, www.history.com]. The third and last strain of the Flu, in 1919, was markedly milder by comparison to the second, but still more intense than the first.
Many parallels exist between the 1918 flu outbreak and the present pandemic – of a positive nature, the widespread advocacy of wearing masks to limit the spread of disease and mandatory lockdowns. Plenty of negative parallels too – the disregarding of science and medical expertise on how to tackle the outbreak; countries engaging in playing the “blame game” against each other rather then co-operating on a united approach to the pandemic. There was especially, but not only in the US, a repetition by some of the denial at the national leadership level to square up to the pandemic and give it the complete seriousness it demanded.
✥ ⌯ ✥ ⌯ ✥
In 1919 in the middle of the flu crisis, Irish poet WB Yeats wrote in a poem the line for which he is perhaps best remembered: “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world…”
✥ ⌯ ✥ ⌯ ✥
Footnote: The health authorities’ inability to check the juggernaut of the 1918 virus was exacerbated by misdiagnosis – at it’s onset the Spanish Flu was widely believed to be a bacterium like the Black Death, not a virus. Misreading the symptoms, the influenza outbreak was variously and erroneously diagnosed as dengue, cholera or typhoid (Spinney, ‘History Today’; ‘Spanish Flu’, History).
(Photo: State Archives & Records, NSW)
PostScript: The upside of a global catastrophe The Spanish Flu in it’s vast human decimation rammed home lessons for post-WWI governments and health practitioners in its wake. Being helpless to prevent or halt the virus once in full swing, the vital need to develop vaccines to counter pandemics was subsequently understood. Advanced countries started to restructure their public health systems to try to cope (such as the United States’ NIH – National Institutes of Health, which emerged about 10 years after the Spanish Flu) [‘The great influenza The epic story of the deadliest plague in history‘ (JM Barry), Reviewed by Peter Palese, (JCI), www.ncbi.nim.nih.gov]. And of course the 1918 flu virus had other, indirect, outcomes…it led to universal healthcare, alternative medicine, intensive care facilities and a modern preoccupation with the benefits of healthy exercise under clean, clear skies (‘Pale Rider’).
⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴
✺ the name is a misnomer. The Spanish association came about thus: with the Great War still raging other combatant European nations such as France and Germany had imposed censorship restrictions on the reportage of the flu outbreak, whereas Spain being neutral in the war did not. When the Spanish press freely reported a serious eruption of the Flu, people outside the country unquestioningly assumed that the influenza came from Spain
⌖ to further break that down, more American troops died from the Spanish Flu than in combat during WWI (‘Pale Rider‘)
⊞ the numbers cited tend to be approximations given the paucity of adequate record-keeping at the time
◙ part of a new multidisciplinary approach to the subject including economists, sociologists and psychologists
◍ consequently life expectancy for Americans dropped by 12 years in 1918, and for the first time since Britain commenced recording data, the death-rate in 1919 exceeded the birth-rate (Honigsbaum)
✪ Pandemic: pan ⤑ all ║ demos ⤑ the people (not literally but fairly close)
⌀ although isolation did prove beneficial in some instances, such as in Australia where the virus didn’t arrive until 1919 and entry was closely monitored with a maritime quarantine program. As a result Australia’s death-rate of 2.7 per 1000 of population was one of the lowest recorded [‘Influenza pandemic’, National Museum of Australia, www.nma.gov.au]
✧ Philadelphia alone experienced 4,597 influenza deaths in a single week
Inter-war Shànghâi: A Cocktail of Espionage, Rapid Wealth Creation, Opulent Grandeur and Glamour—in a “United Nations“ of Competing Interests
Shànghâi by the late 1920s, and 1930s, was an exemplar of cosmopolitanism. The city’s pluralism, including a significant interracial element, made it stand out not just from the rest of a largely homogenous China, but from just about anywhere else on the globe. A key ingredient in Shànghâi‘s cosmopolitan character at this time was the trifurcation of the city. As a consequence of the city’s vicissitudes in the 19th century, Shànghâi, notwithstanding China’s retention of sovereignty over the city, was formally divided into three sections, two of which were foreign controlled.
French Concession
The smallest section was the French Concession (Fàguó zūjiè), in the puxi (west) part of the old city (roughly corresponding to the districts of Luwan and Xuhui in contemporary Shànghâi)—best known today as a prized residential location and the stylish centre of retail fashion in the city. The French, following suit from the British, extracted a concession from the territorial governors in 1849 and engaged in extra-territorial expansion over the ensuing decades. The French Concession had a consul-general appointed from Paris and maintained its own force of gendarmes.
(The SMC flag, with a motto which preached ‘togetherness’)
Shànghâi International Settlement
Originally both the British and the American Wàiguó rén (foreigners)—the Shanghailanders as they styled themselves—had their own separate concessions, but the two enclaves merged in 1863 to form the International Settlements. The international communities, in the main dominated by the British and to a lesser degree the Americans (but also comprising smaller communities of other nationalities, mainly Germans, Italians, Dutch and Danish) who had their own police and fire services. The British and American expats, when they felt that their highly lucrative interests were threatened (as was the case in the 1927 political crisis), did not hesitate to call in the British Army and the US Marines. Both the British/International and French jurisdictions relied heavily on local Chinese for the bulk of their forces [‘The Shanghai Settlements’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org].
Chinese Greater Shànghâi
The third and largest section was the area given over to the Chinese themselves and run by the Chinese Municipality of Greater Shànghâi. Basically, this area surrounded most of the foreign concession territory (especially to it’s south and west) and comprised the parts of Shànghâi that the British et al and the French were not interested in, having already had their pick of the prime locations for themselves, close to and along the Bund [‘The Shanghai International Settlements’, Wiki].
(Cartography: Bert Brouwenstijn, VU University, Amsterdam)
A fourth concession, the “Japanese concession”
In effect, the large and increasing numbers of Japanese living in Shànghâi by this time (including armed garrisons), had resulted in the creation of an unofficial ”Japanese Concession”. This de facto concession was located in the Hongkew (now Hóngkôu) district of Shànghâi (just north of the Whangpoo’s (Huangpu’s) confluence with the Soochew (now Suzhou) Creek). Ultimately, after the Pearl Harbour attack, the Japanese extended its hold over the rest of Shànghâi except the French Concession which Nazi Germany allowed it’s Vichy French ‘puppet’ allies to retain (until 1943 when the Vichy were forced to hand it over to Imperial Japan).
Shànghâi, the fabled metropolis
By the early 1930s Shànghâi had established itself as one of the most exceptional and distinctively dazzling societies on earth. It’s population had hit three million (making it the fifth largest city in the world[𝕒]), of which somewhere between 50,000 and 70,000 were foreigners. The Thirties also witnesses two huge influxes of refugees into the city—European, mainly German, Jews fleeing the murderous repression of the Third Reich and reactionary White Russians fleeing Bolshevik retribution in Stalin’s Soviet Union and republics. Both of these ’stateless’ exo-groups were the fortunate beneficiaries of Shànghâi’s status as an open door city…neither passports or visas were required to enter the city [‘Shanghai in the 1930s’, World History, http://world history.us].
🔺 Sassoon’s ‘Cathay’ , a Bund icon but a slightly(sic) over-the-top self-comparison (Source: P Hibberd, The Bund Shanghai: China Faces West (2007))
Economics and architecture: A modern city
The early ‘30s, the Great Depression may have been ravaging the world but Shanghai was prospering…Shànghâi’s flourishing affluence meant rapidly made fortunes and a privileged lifestyle – for some at least within Shànghâi society…most notably and obviously for the advantaged foreigners. Businessmen such as Victor Sassoon (financier and hotelier) and the Renwick brothers (Jardine Matheson), profited from cheap local labour, laying the foundation for their fabulous stores of wealth[𝕓]. Brits like Tony Renwick and Anglophile American Stirling Fessenden also controlled the Shànghâi Municipal Council ensuring that local public policy in the Internationals’ concession would be favourable to Anglo business interests [‘Shanghai Municipal Council’, (International Settlement 1863-1941), www.links4seo.com/].
A further, external factor which allowed Shànghâi to prosper was that, unlike the rest of China which was divided up between different regional warlords, the city was monopolised by the foreign merchant class (World History). The warlords (and Republic of China leader Chang Kai-shek) were not able to penetrate this localised power base.
The Bund‘s modernity
And the wealth realised was certainly of the conspicuous kind, one glance down the Bund (Wàitān), the riverfront promenade, confirmed that. It was replete with grand financial and trading houses, hotels and nightclubs, many in elegant Art Deco or Neo-Classical style [𝕔]. The Bund symbolised the city’s new wealth and modernity – and contained Shànghâi’s version of ”Wall Street”. Shànghâi, even at this time, had more skyscrapers than anywhere outside of the US (World History). In nearby Nanking Road (now Nanjing Rd), was the commercial heart of Shànghâi, housing the leading retail merchants of the city such as the Sincere Company Ltd and Wing On. Fashion in Shànghâi echoed the city architecture’s modernity, the latest in-vogue styles were all the rage for the Shanghainese [‘Shanghai History’, Lonely Planet, www.lonelyplanet.com].
Nightlife and recreational pursuits
Shànghâi’s business nouveau rich, when they weren’t celebrating or listening to jazz music at one of the Bund’s many nightclubs, Ciro’s, Casanova’s, the Paramount Dance Hall or at the Canidrome Ballroom in the French Concession (originally a greyhound racing track!), could often be found at the Shànghâi Jockey Club racecourse betting along with thousands of others, Chinese and foreigners, on “the strange little Mongolian ponies” especially imported for racing (World History).
Espionage in Shànghâi: something of a free-for-all
With so many different nationalities in Shànghâi at the same time, all with competing and vested interests, it is hardly surprising that the city was a hotbed of espionage especially as the Thirties drew on inexorably towards world war. Spies and counter-spies abounded…most of the main players were actively working on the ground (or under it) in Shànghâi at this juncture – the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), as well intelligence units from Russia, Japan, France, Germany and the US [Bernard Wassermann, Secret War in Shanghai: Treachery, Subversion and Collaboration in the Second World War (2017, 2nd Ed.)].
In the next blog piece I will turn my attention to the other, seamier side of the Shànghâi story of the interwar period – the city’s association, you might say preoccupation, with sin and crime, another face of Shànghâi’s decadence in the Twenties and the Thirties.
Footnote: Shànghâi, location, location … Foreign trading powers like the British had initially preferred the port of Canton[𝕕] to Shànghâi, but by the late 19th century the latter had become the big trading nations’ principal “treaty port” in the Far East. Shànghâi‘s geographical position was fundamental to its eventual prominence: it had become by this time “the central clearinghouse of waterborne trade between the entire Yangtse River system and the rest of the world”, accounting for 50% of China’s foreign trade. It’s port comprising 35 miles of wharves could accommodate >170 ships and 500 sea-going junks at a time (Wassermann).
Canidrome Ballroom🔺(“canine track”)
⟻⟼⟻⟼⟻⟼⟻⟼⟻⟼⟻⟼⟻⟼⟻⟼⟻⟼⟻⟼⟻⟼⟻⟼⟼⟻⟼⟻⟼⟼⟻⟼⟻⟼
[𝕒] behind London, New York, Paris and Berlin
[𝕓] the wealth of the Shanghai foreign elite had its genesis in the aftermath of the Opium Wars. The European and North American powers used the springboard of the “unequal treaties” to extend their existing privileges to their countries’ merchant classes. Within the designated enclaves foreigners could carry out their business in accord with their own laws, free from Chinese taxes and with the added bonus that the Chinese courts and bureaucracy couldn’t interfere with or impede their commercial activities (Wassermann).
[𝕔] the line-up on the Bund included the Jardine Matheson Building ( early opium traders), Sassoon House, (Standard) Chartered Bank, H & S Bank (now HSBC), Union Building, APC Club, the Shànghâi Club, the Cathay Hotel, Paramount Dance Hall and the French, US, German and British consulates
[𝕕] modern day Guangzhou
Republica Moldova, a Not Very Well Known European State in Post-Soviet Space: The Disadvantages of Being Geographically Contiguous with a Latent Russian Hot Spot
Geo-coordinates: 47°0’N 28°55’E. Area: 33,851 sq km. Pop: between 3.5 & 4 million (2018 est). Languages: Moldovan (Romanian), Russian; (minority languages) Gagauz, Bulgarian, Ukrainian. Capital: Chișinău (Rus: Kishinev)
Moldova is a small, basically flat, landlocked country situated on the Moldavian plateau, which forms a part of the Sub-Carpathian mountain system, bordered on its west by Romania and on its east by Ukraine. Most of Moldova’s territory lies between the area’s two main rivers, the Nistru and the Prut.
Moldova (or as it is formally titled, the Republic of Moldova) is one of Europe’s least known countries, it is just about the antithesis of turismo centro on the continent’s ratings board! Of the 44 sovereign countries in Europe recognised by the UN, it was the least visited country in 2016 (UN World Tourism Organisation). Historically, small and nondescript Moldova has tended to be a pawn shifted around from one competing imperial power to another over the centuries, valued only by the big power players for its geo-strategic importance in the region.
Moldavia, under the Soviet era ⇩
Pre-independence Moldova: a revolving door of designations and destinies In 1346 Moldova became the Romanian Principality of Moldavia which included the Duchy of Bukovina, eventually the territory was subsumed under the expanding imperial reach of the Ottomans. In 1812 the sultan ceded it to Russia and it became an outer-lying enclave of the tsar’s empire known as the Governorate of Bessarabia. Freed from Russian rule in 1917 as a consequence of the Bolshevik Revolution, it briefly became the Moldavian Democratic Republic before being united with the Kingdom of Romania (as a federated part of Greater Romania). In 1924 the entity’s status and name changed again, becoming the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic❅. In 1940, in the wash-up of the USSR/Nazi Germany’s Molotov/Ribbentrop Pact, Stalin consolidated the territory after a land grab of parts of Romania, forming the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. During the war Nazi Germany together with its Romanian ally captured Moldova and held it until the Red Army launched a successful counter-offensive in 1944. Once again in Russian (Soviet) hands, the USSR implemented a postwar process of Russification in the Moldavian ‘Republic’ (enforced socio-economic reforms, especially urbanisation and migration). The status quo persisted until 1991 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. After this seismic political transformation Moldova along with many other Soviet SSRs gained its independence from the Russian empire [The Times Guide to Eastern Europe, (Ed. by Keith Sword), 1991; ‘Moldova between Russia and the West: A Delicate Balance’, (Eugene Rumer), Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 23-May-2017, www.carnegieendowment.org].
Moldavia – the “Land of Aurochs” Since 1991 Republica Moldova’s path on the road to a viable and independent democracy has been obstructed by a myriad of challenges. From the start, like other former Soviet SSRs in Central Asia and the Caucasus, its long-term viability was hamstrung by the lack of a tradition of self-government and sovereignty. A major challenge has been trying to find political leaders not tainted by association with the Soviet era. The political inexperience also manifested itself in ongoing constitutional problems for the country. Economics is equally significant a hurdle for the still embryonic democracy…Moldova is a poor, agriculturally-based country, reliance on the former masters, the Russians, has come at a cost. The USSR’s legacy for the new country of a concentration of state and collective farms has made transitioning from a controlled to a free market economy a more rocky passage [‘Moldova’, (KA Hitchins, B Buckmaster, E Latham & F Nikolayevich Sukhopara), Encyclopaedic Britannia, www.britannia.com]. What pre-existing industry there was in Moldova, was concentrated in the Transdniestria corridor (see below).
Multiethnic identities and allegiances Roughly two-thirds of Moldova’s population is of Romanian descent with the remainder a mix of ethnicities…in the tiny eastern region of Transdniestria there is a block of predominantly Russian and Ukrainian speakers. Moldavia’s experience under the Soviets’ republics policy has included episodes of expulsions of native Moldovans, Gaguaz, Bulgarians and Jews, and the parachuting in of ethnic Russians and Ukrainians. One regional specialist has described it as “a product of ethnopolitical-administrative experimentation” (Rumer).
⇧ Old Orhei monastery, Moldova (Source: Calin Stan/Adobe Stock)
The challenge of stable government Since independence Moldova has managed to establish a reasonably acceptable level of political pluralism…awarded by Freedom House a rating of “partially free” (because of government corruption and deficiencies in the rule of law scoring 58 out of 100) [‘Freedom in the World 2019 – Moldova’, Freedom House, www.freedomhouse.org]. Power has tended to alternate between pro-Russian and pro-European leaders, comprising the (pro-Russian) socialist and communist parties, the centre-left Democratic Party and liberal reformists. At one point the country’s governance functioned for three years without an elected president. Regular changes of government and direction in Moldova reflects public disaffection with the inability of both sides of parliament to address the country’s problems (poor living standards, unemployment, high-level corruption especially involving a national banking scandal✪).
Transdniestria – the crux of conflict within the state (Image: www.joksankolikot.net) Transdniestria (officially Pridnestrovskaja Moldavskaja Respublika) Area: 4,163 sq km. Pop: 469,000 (2018 est) Languages: Russian, Moldovan, Ukrainian. Capital: Tiraspol
The highest profile issue undermining Moldova’s efforts to establish a stable, cohesive national entity has been the lingering problem of a separate Transdniestria. This narrow strip of land within the Moldovan state comprising significant percentages of Russians and Ukrainians□ broke away from Moldova soon after independence. A brief civil war ensued, Moldovan forces attempted to quash the Transdniestria revolt but was thwarted by the intervention of the Russian 14th Army. A cease-fire in 1992 brought the conflict to a halt and a security zone was established with a peace-keeping force (including Russian troops) in occupation. The Transdniestria enclave has continued to assert its putative sovereign independence, however neither Moldova or any other sovereign state including Russia has recognised its claims. Recently, there having been no resumption of the armed conflict, political onlookers have characterised the situation as a “frozen conflict”…some analysts in the West view it as “de facto settled”. Although the dispute remains unresolved, there is a perception that the combatants have learned over the intervening years “to peacefully co-exist” with one another (Rumer).
This is not to say that the Russian bear has relinquished its political ambitions or interest in the disputed territory, far from it! Transdniestria—and Moldova as a whole—remain geo-politically important to Russia vis-a-vis the Black Sea (more so after the aggressive Russian incursion into the Ukraine in 2014) and in its proximity to the Balkans. Russia supports a “special status” for Transdniestria (announced by then Russian PM Medvedev from Kiev). Meanwhile patterns of intent can be discerned, Moscow continues to maintain a presence in Transdniestria which it sees as a Russian outpost in that region. And there has been a clear effort to forge a new Soviet-Moldovan identity distinct from the Romanian one, eg, by the promotion of the Cyrillic alphabet in preference to the incumbent Latin script (Rumer).
A secondary separatist movement Transdniestria is not the only irredentist or ethnic breakaway movement that the government in Chișinău has had to contend with. From the late 1980s the Gagauz halki (people), a Turkic-speaking Christian minority in Russian Moldavia, experienced an upsurge in nationalist feeling. In 1990 the Gagauz, apparently concerned about the preservation of its own cultural identity within the new Moldovan state, unilaterally proclaimed itself an autonomous republic (Gaguazia, capital Comrat), followed one year later by a full declaration of independence. Intriguingly, despite this, the Gagauz are inclined to harbour a nostalgia for the old USSR [‘Moldova country profile’, BBC News, (15-Nov-2019), www.bbc.com]. The Moldovan republic has steadfastly refused to countenance independence for the Gagauz but in 1994 it did grant the region a form of autonomy (as a “national-territorial autonomous unit”) and it’s own governor (bașman) [‘Gaguazia’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org].
Gagauzia ⇧
Russia’s role and influence in Moldova Heavily overlaying Moldova’s attempts to establish good governance and national viability is the gravitational pull exerted on it by both Russia and Romania. Successive Chișinău administrations have—to varying degrees—striven to free themselves from too much reliance on Russia. The relatively undeveloped nation has nonetheless had to acknowledge the economic realities of it’s situation: making a clean break from Russian dependence is something extremely difficult to accomplish. Clearly, the plan of Moldovan reformers was to move closer to the orbit of the EU and this has progressively happened after the country satisfied the EU of its willingness to make democratic and economic reforms. The outcome? Today, the EU is Moldova’s major trading partner (worth US$3.5 bn in 2016), making great strides in turning the country’s international trade matrix around [‘The World Factbook: Moldova’, (Central Intelligence Agency), www.cia.gov]. Nonetheless, economic dependence on Russia—through a complicated set of existing conditions—remains crucial and seemingly unavoidable for the time being.
Remittances, energy and wine The abysmally low GDP per capital by European standards of Moldovans (US$5,237, 2017) forces large numbers of them into becoming guest workers overseas. Many of these go to Europe especially Italy, but Russia remains the main source of external employment. Remittances by these workers back to their families in Moldova amount to about US$1.2 bn each year (15% of the country’s GDP), the third highest in the world. By far the largest portion of Moldovan Gastarbeiter, about 500,000 guest workers, rely on Russia each year for their income (Rumer; ‘World Factbook’).
Access to energy for Moldova compounds its fragile interdependence. The country is in debt to Russia’s giant Gasprom corporation to the tune of US$6 bn for it’s supply of natural gas (ironically the greater part of this debt to Moscow was incurred by Transdniestria). This energy situation persists because Romania has been able to meet at this time only a small portion of Moldova’s gas needs (‘World Factbook’).
(Photo credit: AP)
Wine-making, on the surface of it, is Moldova’s one bright light. In 2014 the small southeastern European country was the world’s 20th largest producer of wine (mainly reds). Easily it is—together with remittances—Moldova’s most important export. Again however Russia is at the core of the matter. Up to 90% of Moldovan wine goes to Russia. Good for Moldova’s export earnings sure, but the downside of such over-dependence on Russia is fraught with hazards. This places Russia in the position of being able to inflict damage on the Moldovan economy, were it to harbour a whim to do so. And this is not a purely theoretical consideration: twice this century (most recently in 2013), the Russian Republic banned the import of wine from Moldova with predictable effects on the latter’s economy. Russia offered up a pretext, alleging that the Moldovan wine was contaminated with plastic, but it doesn’t require a lot of imagination to see a thinly-veiled warning of disapproval aimed at it’s small regional neighbour [‘Why Russian wine ban is putting pressure on Moldova’, (Tessa Dunlop), BBC News, 21-Nov-2013, www.bbcnews.com; ‘Moldova country profile’].
Closer ties with Romania? Linguistic homogeneity does bind Moldova closer to Romania but the Moldovans are in no hurry to formalise the nexus through unification with it’s western neighbour. Romania does provide something of a counter-pull for Moldova against the leverage exerted by Russia and a strong Moldovan-Bulgarian nationalist movement has been fostered (Rumer). However, only between seven and fifteen percent of Moldovans have indicated that they are in favour of union with Romania✜ [‘A union between Moldova and Romania: On the cards?’, (Michael Bird), EU Observer, 05-Mar-2015, www.euobserver.com]. Moldovans, it appears, despite the linguistic cord binding them to Romania, don’t tend to possess the sort of irredentist urges that Transdniestrians do for Russia.
The murmurings of unification advocacy have been confined to some sectors on the Romanian side. Even these mostly have tended to be tentative ones. One proposal calls for Romania to reunify with the former geographical entity of ‘Bessarabia’, which is highly problematic – such a union would include parts of present day Ukraine and would exclude Transdniestria! In 2015 a group of Romanian MPs under the banner “Friends of the Union” called for closer economic and cultural ties between the two homophonic countries. Bucharest has, since 2010, started to provided significant amounts of aid to Moldova (€100 M), including for education. For the most part though, Romania’s greatest value to ordinary Moldovan citizens lies in it being a gateway to the EU…since 1991 around half-a-million Moldovans have obtained Romanian passports which allows them entry to the wider Western Europe through the prevailing Schengen arrangements (Bird; Rumer).
PostScript: Sole remaining remnant of the Soviet Union? Transdniestria is the only political entity in Europe which still bears the “hammer and sickle” on it’s flag—and the only Eastern European entity which still calls it’s secret service the KGB! Tiraspol’s “House of Soviets” proudly honours the tradition of Lenin and Stalin with busts and pictures and the enclave’s various patriotic hommages to the Soviet past lead many outsiders to not take Transdniestria particularly seriously…”a fossilised piece of the former USSR” (Lonely Planet), “a collective hallucination” shaped like a “small worm squashed between two larger creatures” [‘Hopes Rise in Transnistria of a Russian Annexation’, (Alexander Smoltczyk), Spiegel International, 24-Apr-2014, www.spiegel.de/international/]. But dieheart Transdniestrian irredentists were encouraged by Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and cling to a (slim) hope that Russia will some day follow suit with Transdniestria, or at the very least, make it a non-contiguous exclave on the model of Kaliningrad (Smoltczyk).
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❅ an “autonomous republic” under the jurisdiction of Ukraine – an “artificial political creation” inspired by Moscow’s ideological rhetoric of “world revolution” [‘Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org]
✪ the failure of successive administrations to prosecute suspects of a US$1 bn bank embezzlement (‘Moldova country profile’). The scandal is known within the country as the “Great Moldovan Bank Robbery”
□ 34% and 26.7% respectively (2015 census)
✜ Romania presents a perception problem for some Moldovans for who, a less than favourable image of a backward country with a scruffy gypsy culture, persists (Bird)