Berlin Wall Juke Box - Pub Philosopher

Another installment in the occasional Friday Pub Juke Box series.

In my post on Monday I said that, on the whole, I believe that the collapse of the Eastern Bloc was a good thing. That's not to say that there weren't winners and losers though. I don't often agree with Seumas Milne but he makes some good points here. The experiment in bandit capitalism which followed the break up of the Soviet Union was a disaster. Replacing apparatchiks with oligarchs is not what Russian and east European dissidents died and went to prison for.

So today's juke box reflects the opposing views of 1989. The first is the optimistic "Winds of Change" from Germany's Scorpions, which became the unofficial anthem of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Inevitably, they were playing it on Monday evening in Berlin.

The second is the less well known and much more pessimistic Lurhstaap from Britain's New Model Army. Written in 1989, Lurhstaap warned that 'these changing winds can grow cold and hostile'. The lyrics might seem eerily prescient to those who feel they were robbed after 1989.

And in the shadows of the crowded square, a thousand paper deals go down
And hungry sharks from everywhere smell the blood and head for town

I like both tracks, which perhaps reflects the mixed feelings I had then and still have now. On the whole, I'm glad communism collapsed but we really missed an opportunity afterwards.

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Could India Collapse - Pub Philosopher

Photo from Pan African News Service

Yesterday, I had one of my regular meetings with my accountant. Originally from India, he is a very well read and well informed chap. We usually spend twenty minutes talking about business and the next forty discussing politics and world affairs.

After we had discussed the Chancellor's budget, about which he was unimpressed, we got onto the subject of the rise of India and how soon it will assume its place as an economic and military superpower. Far from being optimistic about the prospects for the country of his birth, he fears for its future stability and, in the worst case, its fragmentation into warring regions.

His rationale goes something like this.

Both Pakistan and Bangladesh are close to collapse. Climate change, leading to rising sea levels and the faster melting of snow in the Himalayas, leaves Bangladesh vulnerable to flooding. Millions of people could be displaced in a country which is already one of the most densely populated in the world. Where would they go? To India, of course. They speak the same language as their neighbours in West Bengal and there are already large Muslim populations in many Indian cities. The collapse of Bangladesh could see tens of millions of people migrating to India and there would be little the Indian government could do to stop it.

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