Varieties of Colonization

Over the centuries, countries have founded colonies - this happens so regularly that it may be assumed to be an organic aspect of statehood. But there has been great variety in the colonization process. We may examine (a) the colonies of the Greeks in the Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea area around 700 B.C., (b) the expansions of Islam as colonialism, (c) early European colonial efforts, sometimes recounted under the heading 'the age of exploration,' and (d) later modern European colonialism.

By enumerating these four categories of colonization, we do not mean to assert that other categories do not exist. There are also other forms of expansion which are not colonial: Rome's expansions arguably integrated new territory to an extent which transcended the concept of 'colony' so that the added territory was integrated into the mother country. We also note that colonialism is an ideology which does not lie behind all colonization efforts.

Each of these phases had slightly different motives and methods. Even within the last category, the modern European nations had varying approaches to managing their colonies. Historian William Duiker writes that the economic goals of colonialism

could be realized in cooperation with local political elites, whose loyalty could be earned (or purchased) by economic rewards or by confirming them in their positions of authority and status in a new colonial setting. Sometimes, however, this policy, known as "indirect rule," was not feasible because local leaders refused to cooperate with their colonial masters or even actively resisted the foreign conquest. In such cases, the local elites were removed from power and replaced with a new set of officials recruited from the mother country.

European countries could manage their colonies either through a system of direct control or through a system of indirect control. Each of the two options had advantages and disadvantages.

The distinction between direct and indirect rule was not always clearly drawn, and many colonial powers vacillated between the two approaches, sometimes in the same colonial territory.

An example of indirect control is the British rule of Nigeria, India, and Burma. Local government officials were used; they held office, made decisions, and operated their bureaucracies. They collected taxes and used the revenue in accord with the native governmental traditions. There were even elections and other forms of limited self-rule, especially in strictly local matters. The goal of the British was to continue to develop leaders within the native people. Governmental institutions were patterned on European or English styles but had local rules. For example, the British allowed the Indians to continue many aspects of their caste system. In Africa,

most European governments settled down to govern their new territories with the least effort and expense possible. In many cases, they pursued a form of indirect rule reminiscent of the British approach to the princely states in the Indian peninsula. The British, with their tradition of decentralized government at home, were especially prone to adopt this approach.

By contrast, the French in Somaliland and Vietnam, and the Portuguese in Angola, used a method of direct control. Foreign officials - from France or Portugal - were brought in to rule. There was essentially no self-rule, and the goal was assimilation: to integrate the colony not only economically into the mother country, but to change its society as well. The government institutions, processes, and laws were based only on the home country's patterns, and not on any local or native traditions. France's preference for direct, instead of indirect, control

reflected the centralized system introduced in France by Napoleon. As in the British colonies, at the top of the pyramid was a French official, usually known as a governor-general, who was appointed from Paris and governed with the aid of a bureaucracy in the capital city. At the provincial level, French commissioners were assigned to deal with local administrators, but the latter were required to be conversant in French and could be transferred to a new position at the needs of the central government.

Comparing indirect control of colonies by the British with the direct control of colonies by the French and Portuguese, it might seem at first that the indirect method was more humane and kinder to the native populations. But, in fact, both methods had their advantages. Under the direct control of French colonies in Africa,

Africans were eligible to run for office and to serve in the French National Assembly, and a few were appointed to high positions in the colonial administration. Such policies reflected the absence of racist attitudes in French society as well as the French conviction of the superiority of Gallic culture and their revolutionary belief in the universality of human nature.

Contrasting to the goal of assimilation was a competing goal, seen in alternative forms of colonization, of association: "collaborating with local elites while leaving local traditions alone." Obviously, the British system of indirect control had its own set of benefits for the natives:

One advantage of such an administrative system was that it did not severely disrupt local customs and institutions.

It is important to note that this distinction between direct control and indirect control of colonies applies mainly - almost exclusively - to European colonization efforts from the late 1700's to the early 1900's. Other waves of colonization in history, from the Greeks in the eighth century B.C. to the Islamic conquests and invasions of the Middle Ages, used different forms of management for their colonies.

Japan Modernizes

Like China, Japan had for many centuries a political policy of isolationism. But from the early 1800's onward, Japan emerged into world trade, more so than China, and more willingly than China. Historian William Duiker writes:

In contrast to China, where a centralized political system was viewed as crucial to protect the vast country from foreign conquest or internal fractionalization, a decentralized political system reminiscent of the feudal system in medieval Europe held sway in Japan under the hegemony of a powerful military leader, or shogun, who ruled with varying degrees of effectiveness in the name of the hereditary emperor. This system lasted until the early seventeenth century, when a strong shogunate called the Tokugawa rose to power after a protracted civil war. The Tokugawa managed to revitalize the traditional system in a somewhat more centralized form that enabled it to survive for another 250 years.

The Tokugawa era, then, can be defined as stretching from 1603 to 1868, until Japan loosened its isolationism and entered into more regular international trade. Japan's first contact with the modern West was with Portuguese sailors in the mid 1500's; Japan at first became even more isolationist in response to these foreign contacts. In 1853, however, Japan negotiated a treaty with the United States, providing for expanded merchant contact. Not only was Japan changing its foreign policy; it was also changing internally. The Tokugawa rule came to an end, replaced by the Meiji government. Under Meiji rule, the empire worked to modernize itself: semi-democratic deliberative bodies were formed, all social classes were to have a voice in government, all social classes were to have a degree of economic freedom, laws were to be rationalized, and a deliberate examination of other nations was undertaken to find ways to improve Japanese industry and the Japanese economy. Okuma Shigenobu, who was prime minister in Japan when the Meiji era began, and for a number of years in the Meiji era, wrote:

By comparing the Japan of fifty years ago with the Japan of today, it will be seen that she has gained considerably in the extent of her territory, as well as in her population, which now numbers nearly fifty million. Her government has become constitutional not only in name, but in fact, and her national education has attained to a high degree of excellence. In commerce and industry, the emblems of peace, she has also made rapid strides, until her import and export trades together amounted in 1907 to the enormous sum of 926,000,000 yen. Her general progress, during the short space of half a century, has been so sudden and swift that it presents a rare spectacle in the history of the world. This leap forward is the result of the stimulus which the country received on coming into contact with the civilization of Europe and America.

In addition to realizing that Japan's contact with Europe and the U.S. was responsible for its transformation into a modern industrial power, as foreseen by the deliberate Meiji policy of examining systems in foreign nations, Prime Minister Okuma also was active in Japanese politics during the war between Japan and Russia. The outcome of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 altered the thinking of Western governments about East Asia - it raised concerns that Japan's expansionist ambitions and modern weaponry were a serious threat to European claims in the area. Russia's defeat in this was one of many factors which led to the fall of the Czarist government in 1917.

As Japan grew stronger, it established "spheres on influence" in eastern Asia, including the southern end of the Korean peninsula, the island of Taiwan (also called 'Formosa'), and the Chinese coastal city of Amoy (also called 'Xiamen'). This established Japan as a significant regional power, emergent from its isolationist phase. In fact, Japan's participation in World War II grew out of its effort to create an empire in the Pacific.

Recovering from its defeat in 1945 in World War II, aided by the United States, Japan recovered its industrial and economic power. Between the war's end and 1953, the United States gave Japan $2.44 billion dollars in reconstruction aid, even more money in the form of soldiers spending their wages in Japan as they were stationed there, and help in the form of expertise in the rebuilding process and in the form of actual construction as the American military built infrastructure. Japan once again took its place as a significant modern economy.

But Japan faces another problem. Given the carrying capacity of eastern Asia and the Pacific rim, Japan is significantly underpopulated. Despite serious worries in the 1960's and 1970's that there could be a overpopulation problem, the opposite is now true. Sustainable clean air and clean water can be provided for millions more than currently occupy the region, and responsible agriculture and renewable food sources can feed them. But despite this capacity, the population remains dangerously low, causing a number of economic, social, and political problems. Patrick Buchanan writes that Japan is

on the path to national suicide. Japan, its population peaking at 128 million in 2010, will lose 25 million people by 2050. A fifth of her population will disappear and one in six Japanese will be over 80. Japan's median age will rise from 45 to 55. And these projections assume a rise in the fertility of Japanese women that is nowhere in sight.

Japan - or any other nation - needs a large proportion of young people in its society. It is not sustainable to have a large elderly population with relatively few young workers.

In March 2010 came more grim news. Marketwatch reported the birth rate in Tokyo had fallen to 1.09 children per woman and if "current trends continued, Japan's population will fall to 95 million by 2050, from about 127 million now," a loss of 32 million people. At this rate, a fourth of the nation will vanish in four decades. "With as much as 40 percent of its population over 65 years of age," wrote Joel Kotkin," of Forbes, "no matter how innovative the workforce, Dai Nippon will simply be too old to compete."

If the population problems described above actually happen - if Japan is really going to lose a great percentage of its population, and if Japanese don't start having lots of children soon - the social, political, and economic problems caused will not only ruin Japan, but would be large enough to affect other nations: this degree of instability can cause wars. Further, the environmental impact would be disastrous: any hope for sustainable clean air and clean water is predicated upon a population which is growing steadily. The common notion that large populations are bad for the environment is simply wrong: the ideal population grows at a steady and slow pace. This allows for "green" planning, and provides the economic energy to put that planning into practice. The population crisis facing Japan would trigger a total abandonment of any "green" practices because of economic necessities.

Noting that births in Japan in 2008 were 40 percent below what they were in 1948, Nicholas Eberstadt writes, in Foreign Affairs, that "fertility, migration and mortality trends are propelling Japan into ... a degree of aging thus far contemplated only in science fiction."

The Japanese government has recognized the problem, and is attempting to deal with it. As in many other developed nations, cash bonuses and other incentives are offered to parents who have more children. It is not clear, however, that this will be enough to change the trend.

In December 2010, Agence France-Press, citing the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, reported: "On current trends, Japan's population of 127 million will by 2055 shrivel to 90 million." Recognizing the gravity of the demographic crisis, the Democratic Party of Japan, which was swept into power in 2009, planned $3,000 allowances per child and assistance with child care for families with grade-school children. The need seems desperate. In a 2010 Washington Post story on the decline in Japanese students attending U.S. universities, Blaine Harden wrote, "The number of children [in Japan] under the age of 15 has fallen for 28 consecutive years. The size of the nation's high school graduating class has shrunk by 35 percent in two decades."

It is clear that Japan's most pressing need is to have more children. The alternative is that Japan will simply cease to exist.

China in Recent Centuries

Chinese dynasties conceived of themselves as ruling with the “mandate of heaven” - a phrase which corresponds roughly to the absolute monarchies of France and Russia claiming a “divine right” to govern. The Ming dynasty held power from 1368 until 1644. Historian William Duiker writes:

In 1800, the Qing or Manchu dynasty (1644-1911) appeared to be at the height of its power. The Manchus, a seminomadic people whose original homeland was north of the Great Wall, had invaded China in the mid-seventeenth century and conquered the tottering Ming dynasty in 1644. Under the rule of two great emperors, Kangxi (1661-1722) and Qianlong (1736-1795), China had then experienced a long period of peace and prosperity. Its borders were secure, and its culture and intellectual achievements were the envy of the world. Its rulers, hidden behind the walls of the Forbidden City in Beijing, had every reason to describe their patrimony as the Central Kingdom, China’s historical name for itself. But a little over a century later, humiliated and harassed by the black ships and big guns of the Western powers, the Qing dynasty, the last in a series that had endured for more than two thousand years, collapsed in the dust.

The “mandate of heaven” seemed to be over. Many factors were at work during the last century of the Qing dynasty. Contact with other nations increased, despite the government’s longstanding official isolationist policies. Social tensions had long existed inside China, and they grew stronger in the years leading up to 1911.

When Western pressure on the Manchu Empire began to increase during the early nineteenth century, it served to exacerbate the existing strains in Chinese society. By 1800, the trade relationship that restricted Western merchants to a small commercial outlet at Canton was no longer acceptable to the British, who chafed at the growing trade imbalance resulting from a growing appetite for Chinese tea. Their solution was opium. A product more addictive than tea, opium was grown under company sponsorship in northeastern India and then shipped directly to the Chinese market. Soon demand for the product in South China became insatiable, despite an official prohibition on its use. Bullion now flowed out of the Chinese imperial treasury into the pockets of British merchants and officials.

Europeans, especially the English, wanted to correct the trade imbalance and wanted the Chinese to spend their bullion (gold and silver). The word ‘bullion’ refers to precious metals used in trade by weight, instead of in coin form. The most common example is gold bars. (This is different than ‘bouillon’ which is broth!) Creating a favorable balance of trade - making sure that you export as much or more than you import - is a historical factor which drives countries to invent new products, or seek new markets. Europeans wanted to trade with China, but China was not interested in most of the goods the Europeans had to offer. Despite both European and Chinese law against its use, the product that the Europeans had the most success in selling was opium.

When the Chinese attempted to prohibit the opium trade, the British declared war. The Opium War lasted three years (1839-1842) and graphically demonstrated the superiority of British firepower and military tactics to those of the Chinese.

Although the Qing / Manchu dynasty would last another 70 years or so, its decline in power was clear.

Even more ominous developments were taking place in the Chinese heartland, where European economic penetration led to the creation of so-called spheres of influence dominated by diverse foreign powers. Although the imperial court retained theoretical sovereignty throughout the country, in practice its political, economic, and administrative influence beyond the region of the capital was increasingly circumscribed.

Within China’s borders, areas were marked off, to be controlled by Russia, Japan, England, Germany, France, and Italy. It was clear that the imperial dynasty was no longer the actual authority in China. By 1911, the imperial government would fall, and although it was replaced by Sun Yat-sen’s nationalist democracy, instability would mark China from 1911 until 1949. Internal conflicts between nationalists and communists, and external conflicts with the attacking Japanese, prevented the solidification of a durable sociopolitical arrangement.

With the triumph of the communists in 1949, under the leadership of Mao Zedong (also spelled ‘Mao Tse-tung’), China was able to assert itself against foreign influences and once again chart its own course, even if that course was disastrous. China regained its sovereignty and autonomy, perhaps at the cost of human rights and individual freedoms. China’s new challenge would be to overcome the oppressor within (Mao and the communists) instead of the oppressors from outside (foreign economic powers).

Many observers speculated that overpopulation would be China’s next major challenge. Widespread food shortages after the 1949 revolution encouraged that view. But it has become clear that the near-famine conditions were due to mismanagement by communist officials, and surprisingly that, instead of overpopulation, underpopulation may be the next major challenge for China. The Washington Post reports:

More than 30 years after China’s one-child policy was introduced, creating two generations of notoriously chubby, spoiled only children affectionately nicknamed “little emperors,” a population crisis is looming in the country. The average birthrate has plummeted to 1.8 children per couple as compared with six when the policy went into effect, according to the U.N. Population Division, while the number of residents 60 and older is predicted to explode from 16.7 percent of the population in 2020 to 31.1 percent by 2050. That is far above the global average of about 20 percent.

The economic, social, and political disaster awaiting a country with such a low birthrate is as bad - or possibly worse - than the cruelties inflicted upon it by either domestic communists or foreign imperialists. Far from being overpopulated - the carrying capacity of Chinese territory with sustainable, renewable, and responsible land management would support a much larger population with food and with clean air and water - China faces a future of economic collapse and social chaos if it fails to have more children. An ideal birthrate is somewhere in excess of 2 children per couple. Patrick Buchanan writes:

Using UN projections of a Chinese population of 1.4 billion by 2050, this translates into 440 million people in China over the age of sixty, an immense burden of retired, elderly, and aging for the labor force to carry and the country to care for. Shanghai is already approaching that point, with more than 20 percent of its population over sixty, while the birthrate is below one child per couple, one of the lowest anywhere on earth. Due to Beijing’s one-couple, one-child policy, which has led to tens of millions of aborted baby girls, 12 to 15 percent of young Chinese men will be unable to find wives. As single males are responsible for most of society’s violence, the presence of tens of millions of young single Chinese men portends a time of trouble in the Middle Kingdom.

As the Chinese government begins to abandon its “one-child” policy, and even in some cases begins to encourage married couples to have more children, the question facing China now is whether or not it is too late, and whether China can rebuild its population. The Chinese can only survive by having many more children than they currently do. But will they do it? Some Chinese couples find the idea of having more than one child, even if that is necessary for the survival of the nation, financially challenging. The Washington Post writes:

Yang Jiawei, 27, and his wife, Liu Juanjuan, 26, said they would love to have two children and are legally allowed to do so. But like many Chinese, they have only the scant medical and life insurance provided by the government. Without a social safety net, they say, the choice would be irresponsible. “People in the West wrongly see the one-child policy as a rights issue,” said Yang, a construction engineer whose wife is seven months pregnant with the couple's first child. “Yes, we are being robbed of the chance to have more than one child. But the problem is not just some policy. It is money.”

Other Chinese couples have the financial ability to have more children, but simply don’t want to, having gotten used to the self-indulgent lifestyle of the “one-child" era. The Washington Post continues, interviewing Wang Weijia, a 31-year-old human resources administrator with an 8-month-old son:

Other couples cite psychological reasons for hesitating. Wang, the human resources administrator, said she wants an only child because she was one herself: “We were at the center of our families and used to everyone taking care of us. We are not used to taking care of and don’t really want to take care of others.” Chen Zijian, a 42-year-old who owns a translation company, put it more bluntly. For the dual-career, middle-class parents who are bringing the birthrate down, he said, it’s about being successful enough to be selfish. Today’s 20- and 30-somethings grew up seeing their parents struggle during the early days of China’s experiment with capitalism and don’t want that kind of life for themselves, he said. Even one child makes huge demands on parents’ time, he said. “A mother has to give up at least two years of her social life.” Then there are the space issues - “You have to remodel your apartment” - and the strategizing - “You have to have a résumé ready by the time the child is 9 months old for the best preschools.” Most of his friends are willing to deal with this once, Chen said, but not twice. “Ours is the first generation with higher living standards,” he said. “We do not want to make too many sacrifices.”

It is a clear law of economics that a nation needs a population growing at a slow but steady pace in order to have a sustainable standard of living. Will China be able to manage it?

India after Gandhi

Mohandas K. Gandhi is probably the most famous Indian in the world. Born in 1869, he studied law in London from 1888 to 1891. His exposure to English legal tradition and political philosophy stimulated his thinking about topics like trial by jury, writs of habeas corpus, and majority rule. Bringing these ideas back to India, as well as to South Africa, his goal to was ensure that people in other countries would follow the British path to civil liberties.

Ironically, as in many colonial cases, the logic by which the Indians would seek their freedom and independence from the British Empire would be the logic of the British culture - the colonies used England's intellectual heritage against it. The arguments would be drawn from the Magna Carta, the works of John Locke, and the English Bill of Rights of 1689.

One reason that Gandhi became so famous was his non-violent approach. Historian William Duiker writes:

In 1930, Mohandas Gandhi, the sixty-one-year-old leader of the nonviolent movement for Indian independence from British rule, began a march to the sea with seventy-eight followers. Their destination was Dandi, a coastal town some 240 miles away. The group covered about 12 miles a day. As they went on, Gandhi preached his doctrine of nonviolent resistance to British rule in every village he passed through: "Civil disobedience is the inherent right of a citizen. He dare not give it up without ceasing to be a man." By the time he reached Dandi, twenty-four days later, his small group had became an army of thousands. On arrival, Gandhi picked up a pinch of salt from the sand. All along the coast, thousands did likewise, openly breaking British laws that prohibited Indians from making their own salt. The British had long profited from their monopoly on the making and sale of salt, an item much in demand in a tropical country. By their simple acts of disobedience, Gandhi and the Indian people had taken a bold step on their long march to independence.

Gandhi would ultimately be successful, but India's independence would be problematic. Long-suppressed tensions inside Indian society, held in check by English rule, burst into the open. Conflicts between Hindus and Muslims emerged from hiding and remain until the present time. While Gandhi freed his country using nonviolent means, a few individuals in his country have used that freedom to engage in violence. Gandhi wrote that

Victory attained by violence is tantamount to defeat, for it is momentary.

In recent years, the violence between Hindus and Muslims has spilled over into attacks on other religious groups:

In September 2009, the London Times reported on the "worst anti-Christian violence" in India's history. In Orissa state, said local officials, "Hindu fanatics tried to poison water sources at relief camps holding at least 15,000 people displaced by mob violence." Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Christ were beaten as they took four orphans into an adoption center.

There is a sad irony in violence taking place in a nation which owes its freedom and independence to a nonviolent leader: both Mother Teresa and Gandhi won the Nobel Peace Prize - and those freed by Gandhi use violence on those who work for Mother Teresa's organization. The same logic - human dignity, human equality - motivated both Gandhi and Mother Teresa; yet mobs exploit Gandhi's freedom to assault Mother Teresa's workers.

This is not a comment critical of India; it is a comment about human nature. Similar stories can be told about many nations. It is a reminder that we need to be vigilant against our own inclinations and desires. Humans are prone to enjoy the fruits of virtues while violating those same virtues.

Greeks and Turks

The island of Cyprus has long been the object of desire - over the years and centuries, the English, the Greeks, the Ottoman Turks, and other powers have controlled, or attempted to control, the island. Its location places it perpetually in the midst of conflicting geopolitical ambitions. In 1960, it became independent, but its Turkish and Greek ethic residents did not blend harmoniously into one nation, and each group wanted to join the island diplomatically to its homeland. Conflicts between the two groups on the island tempted Turkey to send its army in 1964, but LBJ warned Turkey away from such action. Historian Barry Werth explains what happened in 1974:

In July, a Greek military junta had engineered a coup on the Mediterranean island, where ancient ethnic rivalries between Greeks and Turks had neared the breaking point for more than a decade. The junta installed as a president a former guerilla leader who called for enosis - unification with Greece. Kissinger, distracted by Watergate and with no good options, initially cabled both capitals that the United States rejected enosis, and he warned away the Soviets. Beyond that, the U.S. position, oddly aloof given the dangers to the Western alliance and international stability, supported the junta - until it was ousted eight days after the coup.

Providentially, the Watergate scandal was now moving into the past, and American was benefitting from the capable leadership of President Gerald Ford. Ford, in turn, correctly assessed Secretary of State Henry Kissinger as possessing the both the international understanding and the diplomatic skills needed to navigate the complex situation in Cyprus. On Wednesday, August 14,

during the early morning hours, Ford came face-to-face with his first foreign crisis. Kissinger woke him by telephone to say that Turkish forces had launched heavy air and ground attacks and appeared to be on their way toward seizing most of northern Cyprus. The Geneva peace talks had collapsed. Thousands of Greek Cypriot refugees were pouring southward after Turkish planes bombed Nicosia, the capital.

The Turks had already briefly invaded Cyprus in July of 1974; now, approximately a month later, they were doing it again. Within a few days, the Turkish forces took over a little less than half of the island. A ceasefire left the island split between Greeks and Turks. The other split nations in the world at that time (Korea, Germany, Vietnam) were directly the result of the Cold War. The dividing of Cyprus was primarily the result of longstanding tensions between Greeks and Turks, but indirect Cold War implications were present as well, demanding that Ford and Kissinger devise a thoughtful American response. To minimize loss of life, and avert a potentially larger conflict involving other nations in the region, Cyprus was left as a partially-divided territory with an ambiguous status: the Turkish region was not recognized as a legitimate government. It remains in essentially the same condition forty years later.

Berlin Feels the Pain

The city of Berlin is one of the cultural centers of central Europe, along with Prague and Vienna. Museums, concerts, and architecture make this city a goal for educated people from every nation. Naturally, they know how to have fun, too - there are nightclubs for dancing, and stadiums for soccer matches. But this exciting city has seen its difficult times. Historian William F. Buckley, Jr., writes:

Berliners suffered greatly from the defeat of Germany in World War I, though their city's buildings were not much damaged. And then came Adolf Hitler, and World War II.

When the Nazis took over Germany, they created more misery in twelve years than the nation would normally see in a century. Hitler damaged Germany in many ways:

The British air raids began in 1940; the American, in 1942. Potsdamerplatz was taken out early, reduced to rubble by a bombing raid in the 1941. The Reich buildings and older official buildings nearby, along Unter den Linden, were particular targets. But it was not the Allies who destroyed the original linden trees: that had been done before the war, on Hitler's orders, to facilitate the digging of a new U-Bahn (subway) tunnel. The area around the Kurfürstendamm also was hit hard. Block after block of apartment houses had their habitable areas reduced to basement and sometimes ground floor, which survivors of the air raids shared with rats. In April 1945, one and half million Soviet soldiers marched in from the east, determined to take revenge for the Battle of Stalingrad and the siege of Leningrad. By the time Hitler killed himself in his bunker, some fifty thousand Berliners had died and many times that number had fled; 39 percent of all buildings in the city had been destroyed, including more than a quarter of the housing stock.

As devastating as the destruction was, the rebuilding of the city was also amazing. These landmarks were all restored and rebuilt, and are worth studying as cultural and architectural pieces. Potsdamerplatz is a large square or plaza, surrounded by buildings, and featuring trees, fountains, and sculptures. Unter den Linden is a grand boulevard street through heart of the city lined on both sides with linden trees. The city's U-Bahn (subway) system is linked with elevated railroads, streetcars, and local commuter trains to form a masterful public transportation system. Kurfürstendamm is an elegant street defining an upscale shopping area.

Berlin was a major cultural center in the 1800's, and it is still one today - a fact which is astounding, given the horror inflicted on the city, and the destruction from which it rebuilt itself.

Romania's Path to Freedom

Each of the separate Warsaw Pact countries worked to find a path to liberty between 1988 and 1991. Most succeeded. In each of these different Eastern Bloc nations, the route was slightly different, reflecting the unique circumstances of each. William F. Buckley, Jr., writes about Romania:

Until the mid-Sixties, Romania had been, so to speak, an ordinary, well-behaved Soviet satellite. Under Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, Romania was totalitarian, but a state in which there was some room to maneuver. When Gheorghiu-Dej died and Nicolae Ceausecscu took over, he set about closing up that room. He strengthened the Securitate, the secret police. They were now the equivalent of the Gestapo, the Stasi, the KGB. He instituted his "systematization" program. Rural villages were destroyed, peasant families forcibly relocated. This anti-kulak-style program was to lead to grand new agricultural collectives, which, however, never materialized. Agricultural production dropped catastrophically. Much of what was produced was sold abroad to acquire the funds necessary to maintain the Securitate.

This application of Marxist principles was perhaps one of the most literal to be found anywhere. The relocation of farmers, collectivization of agriculture, and other steps taken are quite directly from Marx's Communist Manifesto and predictably had disastrous results.

Ceausescu also generated a massive personality cult. His picture was everywhere, printed on posters, woven into tapestries, painted on walls. In Bucharest nine thousand houses and sixteen historic churches were bulldozed in order to create the Boulevard of Socialist Victory - an eight-lane road sweeping up to the Palace of Parliament. Before World War II and the Communist takeover, Bucharest had been the most elegant city in the region. Now, British journalist Anthony Daniels remarked that Ceausescu seemed determined to turn the Paris of the Balkans into the Pyongyang of the Balkans.

Romania's rich cultural heritage was indeed partially destroyed. Architectural masterpieces from the 1600's and 1700's were wiped away to create Stalinist monstrosities in the official style of Socialist Realism. All of which was remembered in the deep collective consciousness of the people of Romania, who were in no position at the time to rebel. But they would watch and wait, and the opportunity would eventually arise.

Ceausescu was not prepared to go quietly ... when opposition started to emerge, Ceausescu moved quickly to cut it down. In March 1989, a group of retired Party and government published an open letter accusing him of human-rights violations and demanding an end to the systematization program. All six signatories were arrested. Efforts to communicate with them were blocked.

Although the communist regime was still in control, and able to quickly silence this dissent, the first cracks in the wall of their monolith had appeared.

Then, in December, protests broke out in Timisoara, a city in the Transylvanian region, near Romania's borders with Hungary and Yugoslavia. The protests were sparked by government harassment of the Reverend Laszlo Tokes, a Protestant minister who had been set upon and stabbed by a band of masked men, almost certainly members of the Securitate. On December 16 the protests evolved into a full-scale demonstration. Ceausescu reacted ... Army and Securitate forces, incuding tank and helicopter units, moved in and started firing. The death toll was estimated at an extraordinary four thousand. The United States, Britain, Poland, and even the Soviet Union issued protests. Ceausescu was not in Bucharest to receive them. He was in Iran, going ahead with a scheduled state visit.

By 1989, there was nothing new about such Stalinist indifference - it had been going on since at least 1924 (Lenin's death and the beginning of Stalin's rise), if not since 1917. But what was new was the cultural climate in which ordinary people began to believe that they did not have to accept such treatment.

On December 20, Ceausescu returned to Bucharest and blasted the "fascists" and "terrorists" who were stirring up dissent. The next day at noon he stood on the balcony of the Palace of Parliament to address his people. Television cameras captured the astonishment on his face when his people began to boo and jeer him. Securitate forces swung into action to disperse the crowd. The first casualties were two young men crushed beneath an armored car. Fighting continued through the night, with an estimated forty dead in Bucharest, and another thirty in Cluj, a small city in Transylvania. But as protests erupted in other parts of the country, reports came in that army units were refusing to help the Securitate forces suppress them.

At this point, things began to change very quickly. With an open split between the army and the state police, everyone but perhaps Ceausescu knew that the end was near.

On the morning of December 22, Radio Bucharest announced that Defense Minister Vasile Milea had committed suicide. Neither foreign diplomats in Bucharest nor the Romanian General Staff believed it: they suspected that Milea had been killed by Securitate officers in retaliation for the army's failure to support them.

As often happens in history, when a totalitarian absolutist regime clamps down with its brutal power in an attempt to quell the unrest, it actually merely makes the unrest worse.

That may have been the decisive event. When one hundred fifty thousand protesters gathered later that day in Bucharest's University Square, the army actively joined them in beating back the Securitate. The insurgents captured the Palace of Parliament, the Central Committee headquarters, and other government buildings. That evening the liberated Radio Bucharest announced the formation of the National Salvation Front, which would include Laszlo Tokes and General Stefan Gusa, chief of the General Staff.

Romania was beginning to breathe the fresh air of freedom. One can try to assign credit for this to Pastor Tokes or to General Gusa, but the majority of the credit must go the people themselves, who had been suffering and who saw a chance to topple the individual and the system which caused their suffering.

Soon after the announcement, Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu, who had fled Bucharest by helicopter that morning, were captured by armed insurgents and handed over to the military. On Christmas Day they were put on trial by a self-described "extraordinary military tribunal" and charged with committing genocide, abusing power, undermining the economy, and stealing government funds. For fear that the Securitate would come in with a last-minute rescue, the army did not disclose the site of the trial, and no outside observers were permitted. However, the proceedings were videotaped, and the entire trial was broadcast on Romanian television the following day. The day after that, we in America could see a short clip on our own television screens - an elderly couple huddled in their overcoats and looking bewildered and almost pitiable. Almost. One of Nicolae Ceausescu's replies to his interrogators reflected his posture: "I am the president of Romania and the commander in chief of the Romanian army. I am the president of this people. I will not speak with you provocateurs any more, and I will not speak with the organizers of the putsch."

Although unpleasant, it was a proper start for the new era in Romania's history to fully videotape and broadcast these proceedings. As painful as it was, this was the new type of openness which Romania needed in order to begin properly a new phase in its national saga.

As for Elena Ceausescu, she was no innocent bystander. She was a Politburo member and first deputy prime minister. A few months earlier, when it appeared that ill health might force her husband to step down, she started jockeying for position to succeed him. Now, at the trial, she occasionally piped up with remarks like "Such impudence! I am a member and the chairwoman of the Academy of Sciences. You cannot talk to me in such a way!"

The couple made it easy for the Romanians. Had they eloquently and humbly defended themselves, they might have gained a modicum of sympathy. They could have never retained any form of power, but they could perhaps have found slightly less harsh treatment. As it was, they only infuriated the people even more.

The trial was not a model of due process (although the Ceausescus were offered a defense counsel, whose services they indignantly refused). But there is no doubt that the couple had done the things they were accused of.

Romania knew it had suffered - and here one is justified in personifying the nation, unlike so many other historical narratives, because the understanding of this misery was ubiquitous in the land - but it could not punish the system. One cannot see to it that a system endures the logical consequences of its actions. One can only ensure that the individuals who operated the system face the consequences of their actions. The system itself cannot be punished, only cast aside. People can be punished.

They were sentenced to death by firing squad. Then there ensued macabre confusion. Accounts differ. Perhaps the officer in charge of the firing squad was apprehensive that the Securitate forces, still active, would storm in before the executioners could do their job. Perhaps he and the squad members were awestruck at having in their power the dictators who had oppressed them for so long. Whatever. The result was disorder. The soldiers didn't wait for the formal order to fire, starting to pull their triggers as soon as the Ceausescus stepped outside the building. No one knows how many bullets were fired, but photographs showed the bloody remains.

As with deaths of any brutal ruler, there is a bittersweet emotion - naturally, one is glad that oppressed nation has been freed, and yet it is sobering to realize that after the deaths of thousand of brave rebels, these two additional deaths were still necessary to bring liberty. Both words in the phrase "necessary evil" make themselves felt.

Warehouses broken open by the insurgents after the execution confirmed the widespread belief that, while most Romanians lived in destitution, Party leaders were copiously supplied with luxuries, including beef, chocolate, coffee, and oranges. As Elena Ceausescu was being led to the firing squad, she cried out, "I was like a mother to you!" Mother ate off gold dishes, the kids starved.

In an instant, all the Marxist sloganeering about a classless society, about a people's revolution, and about equality was shown to be a lie. The communist ideology had never been anything more than a facade to cover the dictator's ability to amass personal wealth at the expense of the people. Romania had suffered bitterly for decades so that the ruler and his wife might enjoy the finest luxuries.

Soon after taking power, Nicolae Ceausescu had outlawed Christmas. Now, against the grisly background of his and Elena's execution, with the fighting still continuing, Romanians celebrated the Feast of the Nativity for the first time in more than twenty years.

The great script of history is written to unfold with precise irony - nobody in Romania planned for the overthrow to coincide precisely with Christmas, and nobody in Romania could have manipulated events so exactly even if they had wanted to. Yet the nation received its freedom as its first Christmas present in more than two decades.