Index on Censorship 5/1999 [antikvár]

EDITORIALUntidy new worldhe first real sign came in Poland in April, when Solidarity was allowed tocontest elections. Then, in May, Hungárián bordér troops pulled down the barbed-wire frontier with Austria. In June there was the brutality of Tiananmen Square in Beijing. In August Polish communism ended with the election of Tadeusz Mazowiecki. In October East Germans streamed to the West through the open Hungarian-Austrian bordér. On 9 November, bewildered guards let East Berliners through the Wall, and that night Ossies and Wessies began to tear down their 28-year-old monster. The year was 1989: it was the start of a huge wave of revolution, unforeseen and dramatic, that would eventually sweep away the entire Soviet Empire - so synonymous for us in the West with censorship.There were other milestones.1989 was alsó the year when the Russians left Afghanistan (p66), when Slobodan Milosevic made his historic speech insisting that Kosovo was part of Serbia and removing its autonomous status, when President Botha met Nelson Mandela in prison.So where are we, 10 years on? Index explores a world which, without the constraints imposed by the Cold War, has become less orderly, where nationalism, enlightened as well as authoritarian, is part of everyone's consciousness (pl 81), and has been the force behind many of the decade's wars (p92); where religious fanaticism is often in conflict with modernisation (p48); where the Internet has created new freedoms and spawned new attempts to suppress them (pl06); and where tough free markét policies and globalisation (pl 11) have more or less demolished the rights of workers and made the divisions between rich and poor ever larger. There s no sign of the peace dividend, and somé might argue that the right side (communism) lost the Cold War the wrong side (unfettered capitalism) won. Meanwhile the old liberal, secular consensus in India may be breaking down (p72), the Chinese Communist Party survives (p81), the USA has embraced a triumphalist ideology (p41) and, in somé countries (though not Ireland nor Israel), truth and reconciliation commissions have grappled painfully with their brutal histories.In 1989 people fought for freedom. What they got was democracy. And democracy, as Hans Magnus Enzensburger once remarked, is 'where the dirt comes out'. Is there hope of somé order out of the new chaos? The setting up of the International Criminal Court (pl 70), giving an international community the right to intervene in sovereign states in the name of humán rights, could, with luck, help shape the 21st century. At least the past decade could then pass gracefully intő history. ?