Lea Ypi on Freedom with Allan Little Edinburgh book festival 2022

 

‘Coke can with a rose’ was a symbol of the west

She spoke of the special shops for tourists, and a marker of contact with the outside world.

BOOK Lea Ypi, “Free, Coming of Age at the End of History”

Lea is a lecturer at the London School of Economics. She decided to write her book from the perspective of her childhood and the naivety of seeing the world for the first time.

Albania was isolated and communist and accused other communist nations of betraying communism. It was viewed as the anti-imperialist lighthouse of the world, surrounded by powerful foes and on the right side of history. The College of Communism at the most eastern edge of Europe. 

They used special codes, with code words like “biography” and the mystery around “university”, and “stayed to study” – (was an informer). If accused of treason, executed. Her father was not allowed to study maths because he was a teacher. There was corruption and divisiveness – there were Marxists, Leninists and Scandinavians. The regime collapsed in1923.

 

Her mother, was bourgeoisie and spoke French and had an aristocracy identity. She grew up in Slovakia and lost her identity, in order to preserve her identity. The Ottoman empire last century. Her mother become an MP, father a teacher. Her grandparents met at the kings wedding. 

In 1919 the peoples drama when the independent nation state of Albania was declared. Things changed, with a communist republic. Mass emigration and shot at border if trying to escape. The market economy became a gangster capitalism and people became poorer and lost jobs. Parts of the economy became criminalized. Civil war erupted and an economic crisis. There was no financial sector, and fraudulent investments. Collapsed, and started looting and violence. Detested any foreign imposed system. 

Liberalism had won and right all along, great powers decide borders. The EU said to reform economy. In 1989 the Berlin wall came down, but there was also nostalgia for the east and maternity leave. 

The Ottoman empire had 3 different religions - Catholic, Greek orthodoxy and Muslim. There was Freedom of religion and Religions living peacefully and not an issue. Albania is a Nato country and close friends to US. The politicians promised citizen-led grassroots, privatization and shop therapy, 

 

Tyranny and coercion versus freedom and democracy. The idea of freedom has no blueprint – the abstract idea of freedom. Against ‘Empire” and inclusive democratic idea of sovereignty and afraid of forces outside that they can’t control. Civic engagement to regenerate they can’t control.  

**Albania is a country in SE Europe located on the Adriatic, Ionian and Mediterranean seas and land borders with Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia and Greece. Albania has been inhabited by Illyrians, Thracians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Venetians, and Ottomans. The Albanians established the autonomous Principality of Arbër in the 12th century. 

Albania formed between the 13th and 14th centuries. Ottoman conquest in 15^th c. Albania remained under Ottoman rule for five centuries. Between the 18th and 19th centuries, the Albanian Renaissance. 

After the defeat of the Ottomans in the Balkan wars, the Nation state of Albania declared independence in 1912. In the 20th century, the Kingdom of Albania was invaded by Italy, before becoming a protectorate of Nazi Germany. 

 

Enver Hoxha formed the Peoples republic of Albania after WWII modeled under the terms of Hoxhaism. 

The Revolutions of 1991 concluded the fall of communism and the establishment of the current Republic of Albania.

Albania is a unitary parliamentary constitutional republic and a developing country with an upper-middle income economy dominated by the service sector, followed by manufacturing.^[10] It went through a process of transition following the end of communism in 1990, from centralised planning to a market-based economy. Albania is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, UNESCO, NATO, WTO, COE, OSCE, and OIC. It has been a candidate for membership in the EU since 2014. 

 

Oliver Bullough on Dirty Russian money at Edinburgh book festival 2022

Oliver Bullough spoke on Dirty Russian money with Ian Rankin at Edinburgh book festival 2022, ad his new book Butler to the World.

In the 1990s journalist Bullough worked in Kurdistan and Russia – when there was huge hope in the east. Then he was in St Petersburg, two weeks before Putin, who has transformed Russia in his own image – with rigged elections, war – tycoons, tax dodgers and criminals.

 

Russia Oligarchs transformed London as supposed “philanthropists and wealth creators”,. So what went wrong? – the answer is to follow the money. There are Kleptocracy tours London to West London, Eton square, Belgravia.- who store their great wealth in offshore shell companies, 20 billion is hard to spend, and they migrate around the world…

 

*The Suez Crisis 1957

And the loss of empire. Before pound sterling was the dominant currency, after it was the dollar. Before during the empire. Britain had been an oligarchy and sold expertise to others. Afterwards the Dollar became the main currency for financing trade.  

 

A large part of the world is not accounted for – hard to hide wealth. 

 

*One Trillion in British and Scottish shell companies in Edinburgh Britain then had a special role protecting illegal wealth –defamation laws. Britain began to protect illicit, unexplained wealth. – they donate and are donors for universities. Here UK we don’t investigate financial crime and agencies are not funded. There are no rules…..less regulated skulduggery

The City of London has great loopholes, and is known as the London Laundromat. Foreigners break laws elsewhere, and their money is not safe in these territories. 

The Offshore market – was 4B in the 60s: 41B in 80s: and 3 trillion now

 Accounting money is like a “Sponge through a sieve– which splinters into thousands of tiny single cell organisms.” With massive online gambling, and Euro dollar

 

Countries became independent – Caymen islands, British Virgin islands, and were reinvented as shell companies, and worlds biggest tax havens. With secrecy and tax free. Private fund Ltd. Partnerships are less regulated. 

One trillion dollars has been stolen from Russia. There has been enormous crime done to victims all over the world. 

 

Roger Mullen SNP mp – worked to try to close loopholes. An Economic crime bill 2016 under Cameron didn’t go far enough. Also the Russian Report was delayed and redacted - about potential Russian interference in Brexit, and elections

 

Questions?  Have any countries resisted? – America quite good, New Zealand, Switzerland, Canada, 

Armies of lawyers write all the rules. Non Dom status and investor visas. Unexplained wealth. We can’t do anything unless everyone does something? Is this true? Can we not investigate anyone who doesn’t work but has huge unexplained wealth?

 

Good Grief! At Edinburgh international book festival 2022

 

OmarMusa OceanVuong MichaelPedersen ReubenKaye GemmaCairney

Good Grief! At Edinburgh international book festival 2022

 

At Edinburgh international book festival 2022, English broadcaster Gemma Cairney and Scots poet Michael Pedersen hosted a literary salon, a performance showcase celebrating grief in all its forms along with Vietnamese American poet Ocean Vuong, Australian comedian Reuben Kaye and Malaysian-Australian author and poet Omar Musa. 

Diana Gabaldon at Edinburgh book festival 2022

 

Diana Gabaldon in Edinburgh

 •    NEW BOOK – Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone

(we must tell the bees if something important is happening.) 

 About rebuilding the house on the ridge – with a third floor as a refuge.  She said this book is like a snake – she only knows where it is going a third of the way through. To  preserve what they love, and loop through the woods and time, always back to the Ridge. About “Loyalty”

 

She spoke of  keeping the Gaelic culture alive. 

For her first two books she was getting Gaelic from a dictionary. Ian Taylor got in touch with her and did translations. They were afraid Gaelic would be a dead language in ten years – “It would not be because we didn’t try.” She said, and Gabaldon was quite emotional over this. 

 

She has been in recent times one of the most significant people for Scotland’s soft power on the world stage.  She hopes there has been a Gaelic culture revival.

 (She would certainly enjoy Niteworks, who perform with beautiful Gaelic singers, I highly recommend.)

 

She is now writing book ten, and perhaps the last in this long running saga. While the first books were set in Scotland , the more recent seasons have been set in America, on the Mackenzie Ridge. In this way she has melded her own unusual roots – Mexican and English - with the important contributions  the Scots made in the early years of  European settlements in America before the wars of Independence. .

 

Her books are on the Number One best sellers list.

 As a child she read Disney comics and later thought, I could write better stories – so she wrote to the magazine editor. – Her first comic book was Scrooge McDuck.

G spoke of her writing process - ‘who is this character and what do they want.” The people are real for me she said. She enjoys the research process too and walking on battlefields, which are very spiritual. The research plus what appeals to me. 

 

After the fact storylines and shaping. She references her earlier books with delicate engineering, picking up the threads and little bits of the pattern.

 

130K book sales of her first edition. – and she has managed to stay ahead of the TV show. 

She is now writing on a prequel, of Brianna and Allan, Jamie’s parents and the Jacobites. 

 

She worked in research Arizona state university. 

Gabaldon studied Zoology, marine biology, and a PHD in behavioral ecology. Later she wrote

software reviews and technical articles for computer publications, as well as popular-science articles and Disney comics. She was a professor with an expertise in scientific computation at ASU for 12 years before leaving to write full-time.

 

And yes the Kilt inspiration!  

Season 6 Outlander