As Europe commemorates the end of World War II, old wounds continue to fester, writes Gamal Nkrumah Reliving the frenzied past is often a real turn off. Seven decades ago, Asia was in tatters, wrecked by war and riddled with colonialism. Europe was a continent dragged from its smug burrow into a hellish nightmare. Today, Asia is a crouching tiger, while Europe is still decadently prosperous after all these years. Russia, on the other hand, retains its unsettling power to stir up the West's worst primaeval fears. What a week: some 50 world leaders representing mostly European countries converged in Moscow for commemorations marking the 60th anniversary of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany amid the tightest security measures ever put in place. Europe's World War II is considered to be the deadliest conflict in the history of mankind, and in which racist and nationalist hatred killed more civilians than in any previous conflict anywhere in the world. Least we forget, 40 million lives were lost in WWII before the guns fell silent in Europe on 8 May 1945. Nazi race hatred, race laws, and racially dominated education, demonised whole peoples. Jews, Slavs, the Romany, the mentally ill, homosexuals, were singled out for retribution. They were tortured, gassed and rendered homeless. As the war drew to an end, the horrendous scenes of misery and destitution came to light. Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz. British troops liberated Belsen. American troops liberated Dachau. Nations that had suffered under German occupation were tossed out of the frying pan and into the fire of Soviet totalitarianism. Millions of German civilians fled westward in a desperate bid to escape the onslaught of the invading Soviet troops, millions of German soldiers were taken into captivity and ethnic Germans in the Soviet Union persecuted. Civilians liberated from the concentration camps languished in displaced persons camps. Hunger stalked even the liberated nations. More than 1,000 Jews were murdered on Polish soil as they tried to return to their homeland. Europe was to change beyond recognition. The 1945 Yalta agreement between Britain, the Soviet Union and the US, paved the way for the post-war division of Europe. United States President George W Bush flew to the Netherlands on the first leg of his European tour. Bush then left for Russia on Sunday, for the chief commemorations of the end of WW II. From Russia, he flew to Georgia -- against a backdrop of rapidly deteriorating relations between Tbilisi and Moscow, another country which has boycotted the Moscow commemorations. The Soviet occupation of the Baltic states prompted an Estonian and Lithuanian boycott of the Moscow commemorations. The Baltic states, egged on by the US, insist on a fresh apology from Russia. While the end of WWII brought peace to eastern European countries, it also brought "occupation and communist oppression", Bush said. But the Russians adamantly defend the Soviet record. In an interview on German TV, Putin noted that the Soviet authorities had already issued a resolution in 1989 criticising the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact -- which bequeathed the previously independent Baltic states to the Soviet Union. Moscow, Putin argued, had no reason to apologise again. Speaking in the Latvian capital Riga, Bush praised the three Baltic nations -- now members of both the EU and NATO -- for keeping "a long vigil of suffering and hope" during almost 50 years of Soviet occupation. "We will not repeat the mistakes of other generations -- appeasing or excusing tyranny, and sacrificing freedom in the vain pursuit of stability," Bush thundered. The highlight of the Moscow spectacle was a parade by thousands of veterans in the city's Red Square. The fly-past by the Russian airforce was impressive, but surely the main purpose of the 9 May gathering was not to draw unwarranted attention to Russian military prowess. By and large the Moscow get-together was an event in which global heavyweights took centre stage. Like most such commemorative celebrations, we end up with rich feast for the eye without much food for thought. The commemorations celebrate the defiant human spirit as it endures in the least promising terrain. Following the end of the war, Easterners were lumbered with the soul- sapping totalitarian communism while the Westerners revelled in the thrills of capitalist consumerism. For western Europe in 1945, everybody began to prosper. But the happiness bug was confined to the West. It failed to permeate eastern Europe. Then came the turning point: the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. President Bush has branded the former Soviet domination of eastern Europe one of "the greatest wrongs of history". Speaking in Latvia, Bush reluctantly conceded to the US role in the division of Europe after the war. However, it's easy to let your emotions run away with you when you're the sole global superpower. The world is utterly at the mercy of Washington's macho politicians. Europe is clearly on the way to Shangri-La. Today, Eastern Europe is fast catching up with western Europe, as number of eastern European nations have registered the highest economic growth rates in the continent. What they should be talking about is whether Europe could ever have achieved anything without America. Has civilisation reached rock bottom? The Russians were brought down to earth by the resounding condemnation of Soviet era atrocities and enduring resentment of their former lackeys in eastern Europe. On Tuesday, Russia held a summit meeting with the EU, and the two parties signed four agreements designed to strengthen bilateral cooperation, much to the consternation of several eastern European states. And, as a reminder that the war was not confined to Europe, Chinese President Hu Jintao and Japanese Prime Minister Junchiro Koizumi flew to Moscow for the occasion. Bush received a warm welcome in Riga, the Latvian capital. The Baltic states regard themselves as the easternmost outpost of the West, much to Russia's chagrin. There are some 400,000 ethnic Russian non-citizens in Latvia, and some 140,000 in neighbouring Estonia. Many ethnic Russians, barred from being conferred automatic citizenship rights are now forced to endure a tortuously slow and undignified naturalisation process. Moscow complains that such discrimination amounts to an abuse of the rights of the Russian-speaking minorities in the Baltic states. Putin alleged that the Baltic complaints were being aired to mask a "discriminatory, reprehensible policy". In Germany itself, the commemoration of the end of WWII was marked by a 48-hour Festival of Democracy with speeches, music and much fanfare in the vicinity of Berlin's Brandenburg Gate. The German parliament also hosted a ceremony, and a special service at Berlin Cathedral was attended by the country's top politicians. However, thousands of skinheads are expected to come from across Germany and there are fears of clashes with counter-demonstrators or police. French President Jacques Chirac will attend a ceremony on the Champs-Elysees in Paris. French Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie began the commemorations on Saturday with a visit to the city of Reims, east of Paris, where Germany officially surrendered on 7 May 1945. Britain's Prince Charles will lay a wreath at the Cenotaph in London. British commemorations also included a concert in Trafalgar Square, London, featuring the popular wartime singer Vera Lynn. In a deliberate snub to his many critics Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski attended the ceremonies in Moscow. Many Poles deeply resent half a century of Soviet communism and hegemony. For his part, Kwasniewski and his governing former communists deliberately made a point of participating in the Moscow celebrations. Putin laid a wreath at a Moscow monument to the Soviet Union's 30 million war dead and praised the Soviet war effort. "The world has never known such heroism," Putin said. "Our people not only defended their homeland, they liberated 11 European countries." He has urged all nations to reconcile the events of the past, and called for democratic elections in Belarus, a state he called Europe's "last dictatorship" -- the US once again sets the rules of the political games of Europe. Yet of the three Baltic countries, only Latvia, which has the largest minority of ethnic Russians making roughly a third of the Latvian population, took part in the Moscow commemorations. The other two -- Lithuania and Estonia -- chose to boycott the Moscow event. The dynamics that set WWII in motion have not quite abated today: might inevitably makes right and jingoistic fervour animates political discussion in many an international forum.
