I remember back in the early 1990s when every menial job, every floorsweeper and cashier in the supermarkets was taken by a Czech. Then gradually, those jobs started to be taken by Slovaks, and, more recently, Ukrainians and other Russian speakers from the former Soviet Union. In our local Hypernova supermarket, it no longer became a surprise to hear an accent from the cashier, but almost an expectation.

Today, it also seems that Vietnamese or other Asians are running every fruit-and-vegetable shop in Prague (though of course exceptions remain). In our local town, on the outskirts of the capital, one shop, previously run by Czechs, is now operated by Vietnamese and stays open well into the evening, pleasing us locals; a former bakery has become another fruit-and-vegetable shop, though they also sell a lot of other things. The same is true in the center near TOL’s office. There have long been Vietnamese in Prague–generations by now that originally came over to study or work through friendship agreements between the old communist regimes–but they ran different kinds of businesses. These were either fast-food Chinese-food joints or market stands (often along the borders) selling cheap (and often counterfeit) goods. But now they appear to be branching out into more “legitimate” businesses. I was also surprised to hear recently that a group of Vietnamese businessmen run one of the country’s biggest sporting goods chains.

Along similar lines, last week Mlada fronta DNES, the popular Czech daily, ran a story on the historic first player “of dark skin” to play for the Czech national soccer team. Theodor Gebreselassie, who plays for the second-league Jihlava team, was selected to play for the under-21 national team. Both in the Czech Republic to an Ethiopian father (and apparently a Czech mother–the article doesn’t say), Gebreselassie assumes his teammates will treat him “like everyone else”. “So far, I haven’t had big problems with racial prejudice on the field. Sometimes, however, fans yell at me, but I don’t pay any attention.” (By the way, an African-American with a Czech passport has played for the Czech national team).

I’ve noted earlier that one of the big stories for me in the Czech Republic and the rest of the Central Europe is the growing standard of living or, better put, the quality of life in all its many facets. Part of that is this growing multiculturalism and a recognition that other nationalities can play a vital role in society. Unfortunately that tolerance often doesn’t count for the Roma community…

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An Azerbaijani journalist has gone on a hunger strike to protest his prison sentence and stitched up his mouth to strengthen his demand, a media freedom activist said Monday.

Faramaz Allahverdiyev, a reporter from the opposition Nota Bene newspaper, sewed up his mouth when he went on a hunger strike last week, said Emin Huseynov, who heads the Institute for Freedom and Security of Reporters.

Journalists and editors in Azerbaijan recently have come under increasing pressure. In recent months the extent of the media repression has drawn the attention of the OSCE’s Representative on the Media, Miklos Haraszti, who felt compelled to issue two statements on the subject within a week period in May, the first on the Azerbaijani government’s jailing of journalists, the second on the broader harassment of journalists and news organizations in that country.

Meanwhile, journalists on the ground in Azerbaijan express their surprise at the relentlessness of the press crackdown. Some have observed that the intense pressure that began in advance of the last major elections in 2005 has not ended. It now looks as though this more circumscribed media environment may be settling in as a very unwelcome standard.

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An article appearing in Pravda under the title of “US editors try to undermine stable US-Russian partnership” offers the view from Moscow.

The most intrigruing aspect of this curious dispute has been the author’s invoking of “censorship” against the editors at Foreign Affairs.

It may well be that in today’s Russia, where alternative views and voices are so unwelcome, officials have become profoundly unaccustomed to being challenged on anything, certainly policy and politics. Therefore, when German Chancellor Angela Merkel challenged President Putin in Samara in May or when the British authorities challenge the official Russian take on a major transnational crime on British territory, the response from the Kremlin is one of seeming disbelief at the temerity of being questioned.

Meanwhile, independent-minded journalists and editors and civil society groups in the Russian Federation must live within an ever-more censorious regime and ever-smaller boundaries within which to operate.

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Croatia: Citizen journalists to play a big role in cross-platform “New Medium” project

Europapress Holding has plans to launch “the New Medium,” a revolutionary news project that will integrate a daily newspaper, a web portal, television shows, and mobile communications.

The New Medium will rely heavily on submissions from readers for content, particularly in the “Wiki tabloid” section. “Our project will be completely different from the rest of the press because we will not be as interested in the event itself—instead, the event will merely be the beginning of the story that our readers will create,” explained Petar Pavic, who heads the project.

Professional journalists will select and edit the user-generated submissions. Rather than using traditional newspaper divisions to section the content, the New Medium will display and print the most interesting headlines and topics.

Source: Slobodna Dalmacija through BBC Monitoring

That sounds real nice about events no longer being crucial, but only the starting point of stories that readers will craft. But what does it really mean? That some really mundane event will suddenly become interesting to normal readers because of insights and opinion offered up by other readers?

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Q: Why do you think will Kloop be successful in Kyrgyzstan? What makes it different from other blog platforms such as LJ and Wordpress.com?

A: There is a very important financial reason: we are located on a local server. That means that for many Internet users in Kyrgyzstan it is much cheaper to have a blog on Kloop rather than on a foreign platform. Besides that, our bloggers don’t need to pay for better skins (as it is on LJ).

We are preparing more things for the future. That will be mostly connected with advertising. When our text ad service is ready (hopefully, that will happen before September), every blogger will be able to join our website advertising system and get some profit from it.

Some of us have struggled to convince people to switch over from LJ to technically better platforms such as WordPress (why would they when their communities are so ingrained on LJ and guarantee readers?). So even though Internet pricing schemes differ from country to country, it was interesting to see how Kloop was trying to answer this question with its potential audience–evidently with some success so far.

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Croatia: Citizen journalists to play a big role in cross-platform “New Medium” project

Europapress Holding has plans to launch “the New Medium,” a revolutionary news project that will integrate a daily newspaper, a web portal, television shows, and mobile communications.

The New Medium will rely heavily on submissions from readers for content, particularly in the “Wiki tabloid” section. “Our project will be completely different from the rest of the press because we will not be as interested in the event itself—instead, the event will merely be the beginning of the story that our readers will create,” explained Petar Pavic, who heads the project.

Professional journalists will select and edit the user-generated submissions. Rather than using traditional newspaper divisions to section the content, the New Medium will display and print the most interesting headlines and topics.

Source: Slobodna Dalmacija through BBC Monitoring

That sounds real nice about events no longer being crucial, but only the starting point of stories that readers will craft. But what does it really mean? That some really mundane event will suddenly become interesting to normal readers because of insights and opinion offered up by other readers?

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The history guide contains a laudatory review of President Vladimir Putin’s years in power. “We see that practically every significant deed is connected with the name and activity of President V.V. Putin,” declares its last chapter. The social studies guide is marked by intense hostility to the United States.

The article notes that while officials have suggested that the nationalist-oriented course guides are not mandatory, some are dubious.

One Russian teacher observed:

“The scariest thing, and the fact that makes me really sad, is that these manuals and any new textbooks will be seen not as a recommendation or a choice for teachers, but as an order.”

The author of the “Sovereign Democracy” chapter in the history guide said as much when he responded on his blog to criticism from teachers that parts of the book were little more than crude Kremlin propaganda.

“You will teach children in line with the books you are given and in the way Russia needs,” wrote Pavel Danilin, a 30-year-old editor at the Effective Policy Foundation, a consulting firm that works for the Kremlin and is headed by Kremlin loyalist Gleb Pavlovsky. “To let some Russophobe [expletive], or just an amoral type, teach Russian history is impossible. It is necessary to clear the filth and if it doesn’t work then clear it by force.”

Russia’s (hobbled) education sector has gotten far too little attention in the overall context of recent Russian development. Fair-minded Russians and the outside world would be well advised to pay more attention soon.

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Fukuyama and McFaul observe that:

…democracy promotion never implied the “imposition” of either liberalism or democracy on a society that did not want it. By definition this is impossible: democracy requires popular consensus, and works only if the vast majority of a society’s citizens believe that it is legitimate. Democracy promotion is intended only to help reveal public preferences in the society itself. Dictatorships often resort to violence, coercion, or fraud to prevent those preferences from carrying political weight; democracy promoters simply try to level the playing field by eliminating the authoritarians’ unfair advantages.

There’s much more to it. The entire 15-page paper contains many analytical nuggets well worth reading.

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Liberty Island

Radio Liberty, once a crude propaganda tool designed to pierce the Iron Curtain, has remade itself into as a respected news outlet. But with the Kremlin blocking it in most regions of Russia, and possible budget cuts at home, Liberty is fighting to be heard.

Rock and Role Play

Young fans of Croatian rock star Marko Perkovic attend his concerts sporting symbols from Croatia’s fascist past. They say it’s not about fascism, but national pride. Sdrjan Dvornik of the Croatian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights says Croatian youth don’t know their country’s history because it’s not covered in schools.

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The story started like this:

Something remarkable, even inspiring, has happened in Eastern Europe. But it happened in Moldova, one of the most forgotten slivers of the former Soviet Union, so hardly anyone noticed.

Dorin Chirtoaca, a 28-year-old human rights activist, has moved into the mayor’s office in the capital Chisinau – flush off a surprising, some would say shocking, victory over his Communist Party rival. In a country mostly known for being the poorest country in Europe, the source of thousands of women trafficked into prostitution, and the frozen conflict of Transdniester, Chirtoaca’s election in June was big news. It should also be big news for the rest of Europe.

And continued like this:

A few days after his victory, Chirtoaca agreed to come and speak to a group of mostly young journalists attending a training course to learn more about the European Union. With no bodyguards or handlers in sight, the unassuming Chirtoaca strolled in and quietly thanked those present for their support. The excitement of the younger people was palpable, even giddy, and they peppered Chirtoaca with questions about his next moves and if he would run for president. (His answer: let’s first get city hall under control.)

In question after question, Chirtoaca’s answers sounded genuine rather than packaged for the consumption of the few foreign guests in the room. “Don’t be soft on us,” Chirtoaca said, a subtle reference to local journalists’ sycophantic tendencies. “I want the media to be hard on city hall. We have no time to get it wrong – if we don’t, the Communists will take advantage of our mistakes.”

Now we had a discussion in the editorial office if this wasn’t all a bit too gushy, if we shouldn’t “balance” all the good PR for the new mayor with at least some recognition that the Communists have a pro-EU agenda and that the economy had improved over the past years.

In the end, we decided to leave the story as is since the contrast with the current political elite really seemed that stark. Perhaps I got caught up in all the excitement of a group of young, liberal supporters, some of them actually members of Chirtoaca’s party. Right before I was to leave for the airport, one young man, probably around 18 or 19, rushed up to me and pressed a small slip of paper into my hand that reiterated–just in case I had missed it–Chirtoaca’s name, his age, his party, the party’s website, and that he’s the youngest mayor in Europe (or at least of a capital city). The enthusiasm was inspiring, especially when all you usually hear from these parts is so depressing (just Google Moldova on Google News and see what you get).

I guess we’ll see how it goes. We’re planning a full profile after six months to see the progress that Chirtoaca makes.

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