updated: March 1st, 2007

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Febr. 15, 2007

The web space being paid for, I might as well use this space as a writing pad (because a Schwob would never let anything waste, not even a couple of blank pixels). The idea is to tidy up my hard disk and to put some of the links and scraps I've collected in a logical order. Just like on the rest of my site, the topics will be Banat related and they will be inspired by books and articles I've read or am reading to understand the place we came from. Yes, it is not always easy to understand what has happened in that multinational society, messed up by anyone who had an interest in the region. Have we got the right to know at least some of the truth? I think so. Back there, during the many years we've spent in schools, the devil's pact used to be: "We give you an excellent education with one condition - don't ask about the history of the place. Pretend that you believe what your history teacher tells you in class and what the rest of them tell you in the media. Never believe what your parents tell you in private because they are irredentist liars... And by the way, there is no God" - they said. These were the premisses my generation was sent into life with. Today we are about 50 years old and, instead of having fun, we drudge through books, we exchange what we've found out... all because we want to understand... We also want to understand what makes us second class people of this world. (If you don't believe me, try it out yourself. Go to any place you chose and say out loud: "I'm from Eastern Europe" - then watch the subtle reactions). You think this is sick? Oh yes, and how sick it is! Whatever my musings will be about, they will never be about nations or regimes as a whole. Who would know better than us that there are good as well as bad people in every nation? Sounds like a commonplace but don't think this is always and everywhere admitted and taken for granted. Least of all in countries with shifting borders, like the one I come from... Shifting borders are as safe as shifting sands. I don't know to what my Stanitzel will grow to, so I'll try to group my entries under the links on the main page.

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