" Vlady did not like such arguments. The blind worship of accomplished facts always led to passivity. Why should one come to terms with the present? Such an attitude would never have brought down the Wall. He refused to accept what existed simply because happenings elsewhere were much worse. History became an alibi. It was a cursed history whose womb was producing tiny new republics. Monstrous creations. How could they be otherwise, deformed as they were by decades of unnatural confinement?
Men, women and children were living and dying for these new states. In the past they had done the same for the big empires, but with this difference: in the old days they had fought reluctantly and cynically. It could have been any old job. Today they went to war with a sullen obstinacy, their heads and bodies distorted by an intolerant zeal. It would end badly. Of this Vlady was sure. "

― Tariq Ali , Fear of Mirrors