Germany vs. Germany Espionage Histories

At the relatively recently new German Spy Museum in Berlin people passionate about Cold War spy stories can extensively listen to testimonies on the intensive intelligence war between the two Germanies. Both sides used parcimonously the available resources of the Reich and built up two systems aimed at each other´s destruction. It is an interesting perspective that leave the imaginative historian to think about what happened in this domain after the reunification of Germany.

Agentinnen aus Liebe. Warum Frauen für den Osten spionierten (Agents from love. Why women spied for the East) by German journalist Marianne Quoirin documents the cases of women working for the Bonn administration in relatively modest positions - secretaries particularly - that were convinced to spy for the Stasi - and implicitly for the KGB which was the allmightly force behind the East German secret services - following simple love traps. Ideology and a clear system of belief was rarely relevant - according to the accounts collected by the author; what mattered was the Romeo that trapped them for a long or shorter relationship.

The book consist of series of cases exposed in detail, revealing the details of the planning, the beginning of the relationships, and the further developments. Based mostly on information exposed during judicial proceedings of specific cases of espionage, it offers insights about the specific interests of the Soviet-manipulated intelligence services not only in the Federal Germany´s policies, but in the developments taking place within the Western Block in general. 

I personally find the title a bit misleading, as I am more than sure there were as well cases of men that fell for women agents - both from the East and the West. Love traps of any kind are part of the fishing system of any intelligence service, before, during and after the Cold War. 

I would have also expected to have, besides the details of the cases also some critical approaches and eventually a theoretical approach which includes political and historical background connecting the facts with the larger geopolitical picture of the time. Therefore, readers interested in the German episodes of the Cold War are recommended to include this book in their coverage of the topic but without having high expectations from the point of view of the theoretical and analytical depths. 

Rating: 3 stars

Book Review: Akbar Ganji The Road to Democracy in Iran

´Much of what needs to change in Iranian culture relates to the superstition, dogmatism, conformism, and prejudice that have permeatged our society, particularly in the Shia seminaries. Rejecting these aspects of the dominant religious culture in no way implies rejecting religion. Indeed, a considerable number of democratic reformist activities in Iran hold deep religious beliefs. But without reform of these aspects of religious culture in Iran, democratic change will fail´.

Akbar Ganji, the author of this quote, has an interesting intellectual story, but not unique for non-democratic regime stories. With a lower class background, he was member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and at times, bodyguard of the ayatollah Khomeini, followed by a career in diplomacy and as a journalist. After investigating the so-called Chain of Murders, targeting intellectuals killed the regime, among which Dariush and Parvaneh Farouhar, he spent six years in Evin prison. Following his release he turned into an active supporter of democratic change in Iran.

The Road to Democracy in Iran, a collection of essays published by Boston Review Book, with foreword by Joshua Cohen and Abbas Milani, outlines the main directions that will lead to democracy in Iran. The essays are based on general ideas - such as human rights and the open society as featured by Karl Popper, a familiar reference among Iranian intellectuals - and do not contain a detailed platform of step-by-step changes. However, it assigns to intellectuals the role of forerunners both in terms of spreading and explaining ideas and pushing forward the democratic change: ´Intellectuals must always strive to lessen other people´s pain, even though they suffer on this path. And they must live in a way that prepares them to tolerate and survive the pain of insult, exile, imprisonment, and even torture´. Indeed, they ´must live´ which also implies that in many situations the intellectuals can be as weak as those that do not enjoy this status. Resisting torture and blackmail is not unfortunately a matter of belief in your ideas and education, it has to do with a moral code that is not the priviledge of the very educated. Ganji related perhaps to his own experience in prison but realistically speaking, under the duress of lack of freedom and torture there is no guarantee of integrity.

A modern - post-ayatollah - Iran advocates for the separation between religion and politics, with the priviledges of the ruling class abolished - (...) it is our goal in Iran to revoke the privileges that rules have taken for tjhemselves and their relatives´; the usual outcome of populist dictatorships that start as a way to increase the access to power to the less privileges and ends up as an elite which separates from the same people it claimed to represent - and the ´gender apartheid´ eliminated. Talking about the peculiar situation of women rights in Iran, I often wonder why there is not a higher awareness and outrage in the Western media about that. The label of ´apartheid´ is so easily used when it comes to various political contexts, but for the case of a country where women are the victims of violence - with morality patrols openly attacking women whose dress code do not conform the rules set by the religious men - and their rights restricted - including of entering a stadium -  it seems that there is not enough to provoke the outrage. Among others, there is no international mechanism that can force Iran to respect women rights, as the Islamic Republic is not member of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. 

In a new, democratic Iran, religion is rather a source of solace for spiritual needs than the only solution for all problems, including political and economic. In any case, Akbar Ganji is supporting a ´modernist Islam´ that ´considers the rational mind a tool for finding the truth in the holy book and in hadith, but also for apprehending other sources of knowledge´. 

The Road to Democracy in Iran has the merit of setting the basis of the possible political and intellectual change in the country. It is though rather an intellectual manifesto than a clear program that settle the details of the change. Obviously, from the perspective of the elites and the everyday operation of the political - and religious - establishment, there are many more details that need to be considered which are clearly not the object of this book. 

From many respects, it is good and hopeful to read such books as it promises a post scriptum to the dictatorship of the mullahs. The clear terms and content of this afterwards is yet to be written, hopefully by people that believe in democratic change, hopefully among them many women. 

Rating: 4 stars