The Bar at the End of the Regime

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With the arrival of the worldwide recession in , the country was hit exceptionally hard.

On paper, the recovery began two years later, with GDP growth back in the black by and further growth from then on reaching a high of 7. Unemployment actually increased from 16 percent to 17 percent during the last decade and roughly one-third of the population remains below the poverty line. Privatized health care, miserly pensions, and nonexistent employment protections meant that those who were hurting could find help only from friends, family, or the relatively small charity sector.

The revolt that came to engulf Armenia in was born from the ripples of the bloody consolidation of Republican Party rule in But his daring attempt to repeat history was met with overwhelming state force. When the dust settled, eight protesters and two police officers were dead, Ter-Petrosyan was under house arrest, and the Republican Party was unquestionably the only dominant political force in the country — having crushed or co-opted any formerly disloyal elites.

Yet this victory came at a cost. The fratricidal bloodshed and the ensuing financial crisis meant that the HHK came to rule through managed coercion mixed with societal apathy, while outside the halls of power a new extra-parliamentary opposition began to develop.

Led by middle-class youth and students disillusioned with the corruption and violence of formal politics, the new wave of social protest spurned traditional modes of organization. Activists distanced themselves from old political parties and permanent organizational bodies, choosing instead to create temporary structures and focus on single issues. The first successful civic initiative was small.

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Led by a group of young environmentalists in , it was organized around an occupation — a couple hundred strong at its peak — that successfully blocked the slated conversion of a major park in central Yerevan into a trade zone for shops. The following year an even bigger mobilization, organized by a coalition of groups, arose in response to the Yerevan municipality declaring a 50 percent increase in public transport fares.

And once again, the government backed down. The new organizational model had proved itself a viable method for creating change, and protests in Yerevan snowballed. In , a large protest was organized against the privatization of speed cameras. It was shortly followed by another in which ordinary workers, alongside government employees, successfully mobilized against the privatization of their pensions. This action, despite its violent means, was met with two weeks of sympathetic anti-government rallies by angry working-class youth. According to the Caucasus Resource Research Center , by public support for further protest against the government reached a high of 70 percent while trust in the government plummeted from 42 percent in to a paltry 16 percent in But even as this wave of popular power seemed to go from strength to strength, its limitations were also put into stark relief.

For every small and fragile victory, the ruling party managed to implement a dozen other unpopular policies and continue its stranglehold on Armenia. For lasting change, further and more radical steps had to be taken. High politics had to be re-embraced. Armenia was a tinderbox of discontent when, in late February of this year, the Republican Party announced, contrary to previous promises, that it would not exclude Serzh Sargsyan as a candidate for prime minister. In a move worthy of Vladimir Putin, Serzh Sargsyan managed to utilize the constitutional transformation of Armenia from a presidential to a parliamentary republic to keep his grip on power past initial term limits.

The response was immediate. A group of activists quickly set to work organizing a new civic initiative: Serzh Sargsyan had to step down. Rather than occupying a single location, the movement adopted a liquid quality, with a nimble ebb and flow. A location would be announced for a rally or a march, and after enough people had gathered, Nikol Pashinyan would deliver a speech calling for mass acts of nonviolent civil disobedience — usually blockades of roads and public buildings. At first these blockades were geographically limited, with only those who had attended a rally or march participating, fanning out through the city center and setting benches, garbage cans, and their own bodies in the path of traffic.

While the attempts to bar government buildings met with near universal failure — security forces were always nearby — the road blocks were another story. They had prepared for a siege, a frontal assault, a proverbial storming of the Bastille. Instead, they found themselves forced to play authoritarian whack-a-mole, furtively trying to find and dismantle dozens of tiny, shifting, yet effective roadblocks throughout the city center. As the protests continued to grow it became only more clear how out of their depth the authorities were in dealing with this protest.

Clashes between protesters and police legitimized its exercise of their monopoly on the means of force. But the leaders of the movement saw to it that this tool was denied as much as possible. And when the government attempted to use provocateurs, along with its control over TV and radio, to smear the protesters, it was drowned out by a thousand separate smartphone videos and live-streams showing what really happened at any point of contact between security forces and protesters.

In mere days, the successful civil disobedience that had once been limited to the center of Yerevan began to spread, first to the outer neighborhoods and then to all of Armenia, as ordinary citizens took it upon themselves to carry out civil disobedience actions. Truck drivers parked their rigs across bridges, blocking the way.

Brave individuals lay down between the open doors of metro cars and the platform, preventing trains from leaving the station. Groups of pedestrians staged interminable back-and-forth road crossings, blocking the road. And so, without a single worker in a strategic industry going on strike or the participation of a single trade union, the whole of Armenia had come to a standstill. On April 23, ten days after the protests had begun, the authorities attempted to decapitate the movement, arresting Nikol Pashinyan and other protest leaders. This move had the opposite of its intended effect.

By early afternoon, Nikol Pashinyan and his comrades were released. A couple hours later, facing total revolt, Serzh Sargsyan announced his resignation. The Republican Party tried to drag its feet, using its parliamentary majority to delay its own political downfall, but yet another general strike on the May 1 revealed that real power had moved from the national assembly to the streets.

On May 2, the assembly grudgingly announced that it would elect Pashinyan interim prime minister. A month and a half after the resignation of Serzh Sargsyan, the HHK is politically dead in all but name. An article about the restoration of a statue of Frederick the Great in Letschin, an obscure village by the German-Polish border appeared in the Washington Post, where Charlie Bartsch noticed that the bar-owner who'd started the brouhaha about the statue bore his surname. Charlie was an orphan and had never heard of anyone else named Bartsch, so he and two of his friends decided to visit that fall.

This is, among other things, the story of that visit, told by the American journalist who, with a cab-driving friend from Berlin, wound up in the middle of an extraordinary cross-cultural exchange and unveiled a story of life under Communism, personal bravery, and not a little bit of confusion. Part travel story, part reportage, and part memoir, The Bar at the End of the Regime captures a unique place and time as well as the cultural and social gap between the citizens of the former German Democratic Republic and the United States.

It's a warm human story with a lot of humor, and shows a side of German unification you won't find in the history books. Read more Read less. Kindle Cloud Reader Read instantly in your browser. Sponsored products related to this item What's this? Page 1 of 1 Start over Page 1 of 1. How did it feel to serve Nazi Germany, be incarcerated in an enemy land, only to be repatriated to the new East Germany? One memory gives him hope. Add fun, history, and jaw-dropping natural wonders to your southwestern road trip with this up-to-date guide that includes 25 scenic side trips!

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The Bar At The End Of The Regime

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Kindle Edition Verified Purchase. If you've heard Ed Ward on "Fresh Air with Terry Gross," you already know he has an easygoing, engaging style that makes you feel like you're sitting around the back tables at a bar hearing the latest yarn from your most interesting friend. Well, here's more from Ward, and it weaves together his own background as a journalist living in Europe with his unique perspective on a crystallized moment in Europe's history -- the moment just after the fall of the Berlin wall, a term Ward disavows for reasons you'll come to understand, and the cultural readjustments made between Westerners and those who had spent decades behind the Iron Curtain.

Now, see, I haven't made it sound so hot, because I'm not Ed Ward, and I don't have his way of making everything fascinating; this long-form essay is an easy, engaging, fun read, the kind of thing I would expect to find in Vanity Fair. The Bar at the End of the Regime makes it obvious that Ward's ability to shed light on culture extends well beyond the field of music history.

I had not considered what a long shadow the oppressive East German regime had left on the souls of those who suffered under it. Ward completely captures the closeness of the East German family as they welcome the first Americans they've ever met. US culture is a marvel to them, and their culture is a mystery to the Americans. Ward's description of the countryside and the lovely village have increased my desire to visit there. He and his German companion act as guides for a trio of open minded midwesterners who are taking a gamble on finding a familial connection on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

It made me want to hire Ward for my own tour. If I can't have that, I'll gladly read more reports from wherever Ward's travels take him. This new ebook is a must-read. Ed Ward can write about dishes drying and make it interesting. I've followed his writing for many years and this ebook shows yet another side of him.

This is a totally engrossing account of that edgy time when the two Germanys were still feeling each other out. Told from an American's point of view of a historic time he experienced, it has the usual small details that always elevate Ed's writing above so many of his contemporaries.

This book made for a most pleasurable evening for me as I'm sure it will for you. One person found this helpful. This was way too short and left me wanting more. I hope that this is a preview of forthcoming full length book by Ed Ward. I am interested in the stories of his years in Germany and his knowledge and understanding of history, his years as a traveler and travel writer and his keen appreciation of food--he's a gifted cook and food writer-- and culture gives him a fascinating perspective on most everything.