Friday, June 03, 2005
Thursday, June 02, 2005
Hitting the spot:
Fear and Rejection
By DAVID BROOKS
Forgive me for making a blunt and obvious point, but events in Western Europe are slowly discrediting large swaths of American liberalism.
Most of the policy ideas advocated by American liberals have already been enacted in Europe: generous welfare measures, ample labor protections, highly progressive tax rates, single-payer health care systems, zoning restrictions to limit big retailers, and cradle-to-grave middle-class subsidies supporting everything from child care to pension security. And yet far from thriving, continental Europe has endured a lost decade of relative decline.
Western Europeans seem to be suffering a crisis of confidence. Election results, whether in North Rhine-Westphalia or across France and the Netherlands, reveal electorates who have lost faith in their leaders, who are anxious about declining quality of life, who feel extraordinarily vulnerable to foreign competition - from the Chinese, the Americans, the Turks, even the Polish plumbers.
Anybody who has lived in Europe knows how delicious European life can be. But it is not the absolute standard of living that determines a people's morale, but the momentum. It is happier to live in a poor country that is moving forward - where expectations are high - than it is to live in an affluent country that is looking back.
Right now, Europeans seem to look to the future with more fear than hope. As Anatole Kaletsky noted in The Times of London, in continental Europe "unemployment has been stuck between 8 and 11 percent since 1991 and growth has reached 3 percent only once in those 14 years."
The Western European standard of living is about a third lower than the American standard of living, and it's sliding. European output per capita is less than that of 46 of the 50 American states and about on par with Arkansas. There is little prospect of robust growth returning any time soon.
Once it was plausible to argue that the European quality of life made up for the economic underperformance, but those arguments look more and more strained, in part because demographic trends make even the current conditions unsustainable. Europe's population is aging and shrinking. By 2040, the European median age will be around 50. Nearly a third of the population will be over 65. Public spending on retirees will have to grow by a third, sending Europe into a vicious spiral of higher taxes and less growth.
This is the context for the French "no" vote on the E.U. constitution. This is the psychology of stagnation that shaped voter perceptions. It wasn't mostly the constitution itself voters were rejecting. Polls reveal they were articulating a broader malaise. The highest "no" votes came from the most vulnerable, from workers and the industrial north. The "no" campaign united the fearful right, led by Jean-Marie Le Pen, with the fearful left, led by the Communists.
Influenced by anxiety about the future, every faction across the political spectrum found something to feel menaced by. For the Socialist left, it was the threat of economic liberalization. For parts of the right, it was the threat of Turkey. For populists, it was the condescension of the Brussels elite. For others, it was the prospect of a centralized European superstate. Many of these fears were mutually exclusive. The only commonality was fear itself, the desire to hang on to what they have in the face of change and tumult all around.
The core fact is that the European model is foundering under the fact that billions of people are willing to work harder than the Europeans are. Europeans clearly love their way of life, but don't know how to sustain it.
Over the last few decades, American liberals have lauded the German model or the Swedish model or the European model. But these models are not flexible enough for the modern world. They encourage people to cling fiercely to entitlements their nation cannot afford. And far from breeding a confident, progressive outlook, they breed a reactionary fear of the future that comes in left- and right-wing varieties - a defensiveness, a tendency to lash out ferociously at anybody who proposes fundamental reform or at any group, like immigrants, that alters the fabric of life.
This is the chief problem with the welfare state, which has nothing to do with the success or efficiency of any individual program. The liberal project of the postwar era has bred a stultifying conservatism, a fear of dynamic flexibility, a greater concern for guarding what exists than for creating what doesn't.
That's a truth that applies just as much on this side of the pond.
Fear and Rejection
By DAVID BROOKS
Forgive me for making a blunt and obvious point, but events in Western Europe are slowly discrediting large swaths of American liberalism.
Most of the policy ideas advocated by American liberals have already been enacted in Europe: generous welfare measures, ample labor protections, highly progressive tax rates, single-payer health care systems, zoning restrictions to limit big retailers, and cradle-to-grave middle-class subsidies supporting everything from child care to pension security. And yet far from thriving, continental Europe has endured a lost decade of relative decline.
Western Europeans seem to be suffering a crisis of confidence. Election results, whether in North Rhine-Westphalia or across France and the Netherlands, reveal electorates who have lost faith in their leaders, who are anxious about declining quality of life, who feel extraordinarily vulnerable to foreign competition - from the Chinese, the Americans, the Turks, even the Polish plumbers.
Anybody who has lived in Europe knows how delicious European life can be. But it is not the absolute standard of living that determines a people's morale, but the momentum. It is happier to live in a poor country that is moving forward - where expectations are high - than it is to live in an affluent country that is looking back.
Right now, Europeans seem to look to the future with more fear than hope. As Anatole Kaletsky noted in The Times of London, in continental Europe "unemployment has been stuck between 8 and 11 percent since 1991 and growth has reached 3 percent only once in those 14 years."
The Western European standard of living is about a third lower than the American standard of living, and it's sliding. European output per capita is less than that of 46 of the 50 American states and about on par with Arkansas. There is little prospect of robust growth returning any time soon.
Once it was plausible to argue that the European quality of life made up for the economic underperformance, but those arguments look more and more strained, in part because demographic trends make even the current conditions unsustainable. Europe's population is aging and shrinking. By 2040, the European median age will be around 50. Nearly a third of the population will be over 65. Public spending on retirees will have to grow by a third, sending Europe into a vicious spiral of higher taxes and less growth.
This is the context for the French "no" vote on the E.U. constitution. This is the psychology of stagnation that shaped voter perceptions. It wasn't mostly the constitution itself voters were rejecting. Polls reveal they were articulating a broader malaise. The highest "no" votes came from the most vulnerable, from workers and the industrial north. The "no" campaign united the fearful right, led by Jean-Marie Le Pen, with the fearful left, led by the Communists.
Influenced by anxiety about the future, every faction across the political spectrum found something to feel menaced by. For the Socialist left, it was the threat of economic liberalization. For parts of the right, it was the threat of Turkey. For populists, it was the condescension of the Brussels elite. For others, it was the prospect of a centralized European superstate. Many of these fears were mutually exclusive. The only commonality was fear itself, the desire to hang on to what they have in the face of change and tumult all around.
The core fact is that the European model is foundering under the fact that billions of people are willing to work harder than the Europeans are. Europeans clearly love their way of life, but don't know how to sustain it.
Over the last few decades, American liberals have lauded the German model or the Swedish model or the European model. But these models are not flexible enough for the modern world. They encourage people to cling fiercely to entitlements their nation cannot afford. And far from breeding a confident, progressive outlook, they breed a reactionary fear of the future that comes in left- and right-wing varieties - a defensiveness, a tendency to lash out ferociously at anybody who proposes fundamental reform or at any group, like immigrants, that alters the fabric of life.
This is the chief problem with the welfare state, which has nothing to do with the success or efficiency of any individual program. The liberal project of the postwar era has bred a stultifying conservatism, a fear of dynamic flexibility, a greater concern for guarding what exists than for creating what doesn't.
That's a truth that applies just as much on this side of the pond.
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Our Spoiled and Unhappy Global Elites: From hypocrisy to tedium.
Not long ago Pepsi Cola’s chief operating officer, Indra Nooyi, gave an address to the graduating class at Columbia Business School. In it, she metaphorically likened America to the middle finger on the global hand.
Denunciations and anger arose from her use of the silly metaphor (e.g., “This analogy of the five fingers as the five major continents leaves the long, middle finger for North America, and, in particular, the United States.…However, if used inappropriately — just like the U.S. itself — the middle finger can convey a negative message and get us in trouble. You know what I'm talking about… So remember, when you extend your arm to colleagues and peoples from other countries, make sure that you're giving a hand, not the finger.”)
Then came her employer’s obligatory explication that she really did not mean what she said. And soon her defenders claimed hypersensitive Americans could not take well-meaning admonishment. Pepsi is a $27 billion company. Those who run it, like Nooyi, make big money from its global sales and take-no-prisoners marketing approach. Pepsi is not known for worrying too much about putting indigenous soft-drink makers out of business. Here at home it does not often allow small businesses to offer both Coke and Pepsi in a spirit of consumer convenience and choice. Roughshod, no-holds-barred business gets such a company to the top — and allows multimillion-dollar salaries for its grandee hardball officers.
Former cricket-star-turned-Pakistani-politician Imran Khan in some ways jumpstarted the Newsweek-induced frenzy when in a May 6 press conference he demanded an apology for the alleged slight to the Koran. “This is what the U.S. is doing,” Khan boomed, “desecrating the Koran.” His mischaracterization, based on a lie, was then beamed across the Middle East — and, presto, Mr. Khan got the anti-American outburst he apparently wanted.Khan may have made his fortune and name in the British tabloids as a cricket star and international playboy of the London salons, a lifestyle that had strong affinities with the West rather than the madrassas. But now he is back in Pakistan crafting a political career and catering to the Islamists, even though religious extremism is antithetical to what allowed him to succeed and prosper abroad. Yet this same demagogue earlier urged Hindu extremists to remain calm during a recent cricket match between India and Pakistan. After all, religious extremism is valuable to beat up the West and the United States — but not to the point that such fervor might endanger playing a Western sport amid frenzied Hindus. Left unsaid is that there is no place for an Imran Khan in the world of the Taliban, where soccer stadiums were used to lynch moderate Muslims, not enrich pampered athletes.
Arundhati Roy, the Booker-prize-winning novelist, has developed a second career critiquing the United States, especially its promotion of the free markets and capitalism that she believes are the catalysts for righteous hatred against America.
Roy doesn’t quite get that the reason that the UK recognizes an Indian novelist like her, writing halfway across the globe — and that she is able to jet over to the United States for lucrative speaking engagements, and that her books are mass-produced and hawked aggressively over global Internet book marts — is precisely the system that this child of capitalism so vehemently detests.
Pakistan, well before 9/11, was the recipient of billions of dollars in U.S. aid, and, in response, its intelligence services created the Taliban that in turn helped al Qaeda pull off September 11. India is making billions from an American free-trade policy that encourages outsourcing business overseas, even if it means the loss of U.S. jobs. Neither country has much of a legitimate gripe against the United States, and surely has not objected that its elites are going to the West to be educated, to profit — and, in these above cases, apparently to master the easy anti-Western rhetoric.
But note the anti-American two-step. Immediately after her silly remarks, the corporate mogul Nooyi provided a recant. Neither Khan nor Roy has vowed to stay out of the U.K. or the U.S., where the Koran is supposedly not respected and where the homeless starve as a result of capitalism — a system that both created and enriched them all and which they apparently love to chide. The anti-Americanism that we frequently see and hear, then, is often a plaything of the international elite — a corporate grandee, a leisured athlete, or a refined novelist who flies in and out of the West, counts on its globalizing appendages for wealth, and then mocks those who make it all possible — but never to the point that their own actions would logically follow their rhetoric and thus cost them so dearly. We might expect that a chagrined Ms. Nooyi would resign from Pepsi since it is the glossy fingernail of the American middle finger that apparently so bothers her. We pray that Mr. Khan will stay among the mobs and rioters of the madrassas and mosques he stirred up. Perhaps novelist Roy can write in an indigenous Indian language, peddle her books at home, and thereby disinvest from this hegemonic system that drives her to fury.
Then there is the director of anti-American films from Denmark, Lars von Trier, who whined, “Mr. Bush is an a**hole. So much in Denmark is American. . . America fills about 60 per cent of my brain. So, in fact, I am American. But I can't go there to vote and I can't change anything, because I am from a small country. So that is why I make films about America.”
Memo to poor head-pounding Mr. von Trier: There is no compelling reason to have anything American in your country — except in the past to expel German invaders you either could not or would not keep out. Simply stop buying American. Don’t watch American movies. Admonish not us, but your own leaders to get out of NATO, pronto — the faster the better. Deny entry to all American troops — and tourists. Embrace the EU. It’s bigger and more populous than the U.S. Create an all-EU defense force. Go for it all!
Above all, be sure that your films are not marketed through any global organization that is either American-financed, directed, or substantiates a Westernized hegemony in the promulgation of intellectual property. Perhaps there are plenty of Danes who would see your films about Denmark at home — and that might cleanse your brain of what you hate, if make you a little less money.
There are easily identifiable constants in these sad examples. Rhetoric is always at odds with lifestyle: A novelist who tours and writes in English is the epitome of the Western liberal tradition that allows freedom of expression, promotes book sales through open markets, and enjoys unfettered peer review. Ms. Roy will always operate deeply embedded in the system she ridicules, and Western grandees will always pay her well for making them feel badly for a few hours. Islamists, Communists, and theocrats — in a Saudi Arabia, Iran, Cuba, or China — would not only not pay her, but might well issue a fatwa, jail time, or a death sentence for what they didn’t like to read or hear.
As a cricketer Khan made a fortune doing what most normal Westerners do not do. By some reports, corporate grandee Nooyi took in $5 million-plus a year — and lives a life that most Americans outside of Greenwich, Connecticut, and without her access to a globalized captain’s seat at PepsiCo could only dream of.
So it is not just the West per se that has enriched these megaphones, but the hard-driving, over-hyped culture of the West, as exemplified by marquee sports, highbrow publishers, and the Pepsi Corporation.
In other words, Khan, Roy, and Nooyi are, by their own volition, knee-deep in the supposed greed of the West in a way that most ordinary Americans surely are not. Maligned Americans on the tractor in Kansas or walking the beat in the Bronx have not a clue about the privileges that a Roy or Nooyi enjoy — and they are not whining, complaining, or biting the hand that feeds them far less well.
No, these ungracious operators all seem to gravitate to, profit from, and then spite the paradigm that created rich global business, media, publishing, and entertainment conglomerates — and themselves.
A second constant is illustrated by director von Traer’s remark: “America fills about 60 percent of my brain.” There is a sort of schizophrenia also common among the “other” who bumps up against the U.S. The extreme example of this syndrome can be seen in bin Laden and Mohammed Atta, who seemed mesmerized and yet repelled by their own thralldom to things Western.
In the case of von Trier, does he ever ask why the U.S. is so obtrusive in his gray matter, and why, for instance, Scandinavia is not — or for that matter a larger France or an even larger Russia? Instead in his movies and outbursts he retreats into the usual racist or exploitative mantra that serves a psychological need of reconciling what you want and enjoy and won’t give up with a feeling of unease and guilt about your own expanding appetite — or exploding brain.
A final suggestion for these unhappy and privileged few: To end your obsessions with the pathologies of America and the West, find a way to create your own alternative sports, literature, corporations, soft drinks, and filmmaking in the non-West.
It is not that we Americans are mad at what you say. It is just that you have all become so hypocritical, then predictable, and now boring — you are all so boring.
Not long ago Pepsi Cola’s chief operating officer, Indra Nooyi, gave an address to the graduating class at Columbia Business School. In it, she metaphorically likened America to the middle finger on the global hand.
Denunciations and anger arose from her use of the silly metaphor (e.g., “This analogy of the five fingers as the five major continents leaves the long, middle finger for North America, and, in particular, the United States.…However, if used inappropriately — just like the U.S. itself — the middle finger can convey a negative message and get us in trouble. You know what I'm talking about… So remember, when you extend your arm to colleagues and peoples from other countries, make sure that you're giving a hand, not the finger.”)
Then came her employer’s obligatory explication that she really did not mean what she said. And soon her defenders claimed hypersensitive Americans could not take well-meaning admonishment. Pepsi is a $27 billion company. Those who run it, like Nooyi, make big money from its global sales and take-no-prisoners marketing approach. Pepsi is not known for worrying too much about putting indigenous soft-drink makers out of business. Here at home it does not often allow small businesses to offer both Coke and Pepsi in a spirit of consumer convenience and choice. Roughshod, no-holds-barred business gets such a company to the top — and allows multimillion-dollar salaries for its grandee hardball officers.
Former cricket-star-turned-Pakistani-politician Imran Khan in some ways jumpstarted the Newsweek-induced frenzy when in a May 6 press conference he demanded an apology for the alleged slight to the Koran. “This is what the U.S. is doing,” Khan boomed, “desecrating the Koran.” His mischaracterization, based on a lie, was then beamed across the Middle East — and, presto, Mr. Khan got the anti-American outburst he apparently wanted.Khan may have made his fortune and name in the British tabloids as a cricket star and international playboy of the London salons, a lifestyle that had strong affinities with the West rather than the madrassas. But now he is back in Pakistan crafting a political career and catering to the Islamists, even though religious extremism is antithetical to what allowed him to succeed and prosper abroad. Yet this same demagogue earlier urged Hindu extremists to remain calm during a recent cricket match between India and Pakistan. After all, religious extremism is valuable to beat up the West and the United States — but not to the point that such fervor might endanger playing a Western sport amid frenzied Hindus. Left unsaid is that there is no place for an Imran Khan in the world of the Taliban, where soccer stadiums were used to lynch moderate Muslims, not enrich pampered athletes.
Arundhati Roy, the Booker-prize-winning novelist, has developed a second career critiquing the United States, especially its promotion of the free markets and capitalism that she believes are the catalysts for righteous hatred against America.
Roy doesn’t quite get that the reason that the UK recognizes an Indian novelist like her, writing halfway across the globe — and that she is able to jet over to the United States for lucrative speaking engagements, and that her books are mass-produced and hawked aggressively over global Internet book marts — is precisely the system that this child of capitalism so vehemently detests.
Pakistan, well before 9/11, was the recipient of billions of dollars in U.S. aid, and, in response, its intelligence services created the Taliban that in turn helped al Qaeda pull off September 11. India is making billions from an American free-trade policy that encourages outsourcing business overseas, even if it means the loss of U.S. jobs. Neither country has much of a legitimate gripe against the United States, and surely has not objected that its elites are going to the West to be educated, to profit — and, in these above cases, apparently to master the easy anti-Western rhetoric.
But note the anti-American two-step. Immediately after her silly remarks, the corporate mogul Nooyi provided a recant. Neither Khan nor Roy has vowed to stay out of the U.K. or the U.S., where the Koran is supposedly not respected and where the homeless starve as a result of capitalism — a system that both created and enriched them all and which they apparently love to chide. The anti-Americanism that we frequently see and hear, then, is often a plaything of the international elite — a corporate grandee, a leisured athlete, or a refined novelist who flies in and out of the West, counts on its globalizing appendages for wealth, and then mocks those who make it all possible — but never to the point that their own actions would logically follow their rhetoric and thus cost them so dearly. We might expect that a chagrined Ms. Nooyi would resign from Pepsi since it is the glossy fingernail of the American middle finger that apparently so bothers her. We pray that Mr. Khan will stay among the mobs and rioters of the madrassas and mosques he stirred up. Perhaps novelist Roy can write in an indigenous Indian language, peddle her books at home, and thereby disinvest from this hegemonic system that drives her to fury.
Then there is the director of anti-American films from Denmark, Lars von Trier, who whined, “Mr. Bush is an a**hole. So much in Denmark is American. . . America fills about 60 per cent of my brain. So, in fact, I am American. But I can't go there to vote and I can't change anything, because I am from a small country. So that is why I make films about America.”
Memo to poor head-pounding Mr. von Trier: There is no compelling reason to have anything American in your country — except in the past to expel German invaders you either could not or would not keep out. Simply stop buying American. Don’t watch American movies. Admonish not us, but your own leaders to get out of NATO, pronto — the faster the better. Deny entry to all American troops — and tourists. Embrace the EU. It’s bigger and more populous than the U.S. Create an all-EU defense force. Go for it all!
Above all, be sure that your films are not marketed through any global organization that is either American-financed, directed, or substantiates a Westernized hegemony in the promulgation of intellectual property. Perhaps there are plenty of Danes who would see your films about Denmark at home — and that might cleanse your brain of what you hate, if make you a little less money.
There are easily identifiable constants in these sad examples. Rhetoric is always at odds with lifestyle: A novelist who tours and writes in English is the epitome of the Western liberal tradition that allows freedom of expression, promotes book sales through open markets, and enjoys unfettered peer review. Ms. Roy will always operate deeply embedded in the system she ridicules, and Western grandees will always pay her well for making them feel badly for a few hours. Islamists, Communists, and theocrats — in a Saudi Arabia, Iran, Cuba, or China — would not only not pay her, but might well issue a fatwa, jail time, or a death sentence for what they didn’t like to read or hear.
As a cricketer Khan made a fortune doing what most normal Westerners do not do. By some reports, corporate grandee Nooyi took in $5 million-plus a year — and lives a life that most Americans outside of Greenwich, Connecticut, and without her access to a globalized captain’s seat at PepsiCo could only dream of.
So it is not just the West per se that has enriched these megaphones, but the hard-driving, over-hyped culture of the West, as exemplified by marquee sports, highbrow publishers, and the Pepsi Corporation.
In other words, Khan, Roy, and Nooyi are, by their own volition, knee-deep in the supposed greed of the West in a way that most ordinary Americans surely are not. Maligned Americans on the tractor in Kansas or walking the beat in the Bronx have not a clue about the privileges that a Roy or Nooyi enjoy — and they are not whining, complaining, or biting the hand that feeds them far less well.
No, these ungracious operators all seem to gravitate to, profit from, and then spite the paradigm that created rich global business, media, publishing, and entertainment conglomerates — and themselves.
A second constant is illustrated by director von Traer’s remark: “America fills about 60 percent of my brain.” There is a sort of schizophrenia also common among the “other” who bumps up against the U.S. The extreme example of this syndrome can be seen in bin Laden and Mohammed Atta, who seemed mesmerized and yet repelled by their own thralldom to things Western.
In the case of von Trier, does he ever ask why the U.S. is so obtrusive in his gray matter, and why, for instance, Scandinavia is not — or for that matter a larger France or an even larger Russia? Instead in his movies and outbursts he retreats into the usual racist or exploitative mantra that serves a psychological need of reconciling what you want and enjoy and won’t give up with a feeling of unease and guilt about your own expanding appetite — or exploding brain.
A final suggestion for these unhappy and privileged few: To end your obsessions with the pathologies of America and the West, find a way to create your own alternative sports, literature, corporations, soft drinks, and filmmaking in the non-West.
It is not that we Americans are mad at what you say. It is just that you have all become so hypocritical, then predictable, and now boring — you are all so boring.
Monday, May 30, 2005
Non è tempo di Fraternité, soprattutto a sinistra
Dopo il «no» francese alla Costituzione europea - From the Italian Daily Corriere della Sera
Non raccontiamoci storie. A quelli che come me sostengono il «sì», sconsiglio vivamente di sottovalutare il «no» francese: denuncia un movimento di respiro e ampiezza continentali. Apparentemente, la maggioranza del «no» è proteiforme, contraddittoria. Coagula angosce differenti, amalgama le insoddisfazioni e senza alcun imbarazzo intercetta i pregiudizi dell’estrema destra come dell’ultrasinistra. In realtà, questo amalgama confuso e combattivo è un segnale di forza.
Il «no» non si cura delle divisioni interne, ma unisce. Fa tabula rasa. Antiliberale, antiamericano, contrario all’immigrazione dal Sud e soprattutto dall’Est, in odio alla burocrazia cosmopolita di Bruxelles, dichiara guerra alla concorrenza polacca, ai predatori baltici, senza trascurare i futuri invasori turchi. Il «no» monta la guardia alle frontiere dell’antica Comunità. È così che il referendum ufficiale sulla Costituzione si è gradualmente trasformato in un referendum ufficioso - e retrospettivo - contro l’allargamento da 15 a 25. Non è più tempo di fraternité . Dato ancor più grave, le fobie che alimentano il «no» sono rinfocolate da quanti sostengono ufficialmente il «sì».
Non è stato Chirac, al tempo della querelle irachena, ad avere l’ardire di affermare che gli europei dell’Est avevano un solo diritto: «quello di tacere»? L’ossessivo obiettivo della diplomazia francese è creare una «potenza Europa» da contrapporre alla «superpotenza» americana. Questo non è il sogno di un’Europa europea, è piuttosto il sogno di un’Europa francese. Parigi-Berlino-Mosca, eccone la spina dorsale. Bruxelles o Varsavia non devono fare altro che adeguarsi. Saranno i capri espiatori dello scacco referendario.
Meglio Putin che Bush! Come rimproverare all’elettore francese di essere più coerente di de Villepin? A nessuno sfugge che nell’Europa a 25 la maggioranza rifiuta di giocarsi Washington per Mosca e Pechino. Allora al diavolo i 25! Optando per uno «chiracchismo» senza Chirac, i socialisti a favore del «no» - Fabius, Emmanuelli - non fanno che riproporre questa geopolitica a colpi di populismo. Agitano lo spettro del dumping e delle delocalizzazioni. Di fronte all’idraulico polacco che ci toglie il lavoro, all’Estonia che deruba le nostre fabbriche, scegliamo una «Yalta bis» e sbattiamo la porta sul muso delle giovani democrazie est-europee!
La libertà spaventa. In Francia «liberale» è diventato il peggiore insulto. La Costituzione? Un fardello liberale, secondo i sostenitori del «no», una barriera contro il liberalismo, per gli apostoli del «sì». Abbasso Spinoza, Kant, Adam Smith o Popper! Il liberale, ecco il nemico. Paghiamo decenni di menzogne e illusioni. La Francia vive in un’economia di mercato mondializzata ma parla socialista e nazionale. Non c’è da meravigliarsi che l’elettore segua la rotta indicatagli. Chirac ha recentemente dichiarato: «Il liberalismo è un’ideologia nociva come il comunismo e, come il comunismo, finirà contro un muro!». «Dall’alto», la Francia chiama alla Resistenza contro l’orco liberale. Il «popolo» prende il coraggio a due mani, decide di abbattere il mostro e sacrifica il «sì» delle élites sull’altare della loro incoerenza.
Mi viene replicato: il dieci per cento di disoccupati, l'undici per cento di poveri, ecco che cosa spiega la fioritura di pulsioni xenofobe e nichiliste. No! Lungi dall'essere economica e sociale, la crisi è essenzialmente mentale. Cadono i tabù. I freni che bloccano l'odio nei confronti dell'altro, dello straniero innanzitutto, si sono allentati. E' a sinistra che la tacca d'arresto morale è saltata. Nel corso di questa campagna elettorale ho sentito leader socialisti stigmatizzare lavoratori di altri Paesi europei come solo l'estrema destra sapeva fare. Ho visto Jean-Pierre Chevènement urlare contro gli «oligarchi di Bruxelles» rivendicando l'origine putiniana del suo linguaggio.
Le pulsioni estreme hanno acquisito una patina di rispettabilità maggioritaria per intercessione dei leader socialisti del no. Nel 1992, all'epoca di Maastricht, l'elettorato diviso della destra parlamentare rischiò di bocciare l'Europa. Questa volta è l'elettorato di sinistra che fa precipitare tutto: le cifre lo dimostrano. In Francia, il quaranta per cento dell'elettorato è antieuropeo e antidemocratico. Fabius porta il resto. Il tono e lo stile di due mesi di campagna rigorosamente ideologica, dominata dalle antinomie feticcio del XIX secolo, hanno ripreso dalle fraseologie rivoluzionarie il manicheismo desueto. Questa costituzione è «sociale» o «liberale»? Ecco l'interrogativo chiave del dibattito. Ci si è compiaciuti a contrapporre «la concorrenza libera e non falsata» da un lato e la «protezione sociale» dall'altro. Si è tradotto: o la giungla del mercato o lo statalismo protezionistico. D’un tratto, cinquant'anni di costruzione europea sono stati buttati nel dimenticatoio.
Mediamente, da mezzo secolo i democratici cristiani, alternandosi con i socialdemocratici, avevano programmato che l'efficienza economica e la preoccupazione sociale, lungi dall'escludersi, potevano coniugare libertà, prosperità e solidarietà. Una scommessa del genere ha condotto l'Europa occidentale fuori dalle proprie rovine, spingendola a diventare la seconda potenza economica mondiale, se non addirittura la prima in materia di benessere. Non è più così. Né in Germania né in Francia i partiti di sinistra si accollano le sfide di un'«economia sociale di mercato». Riesumando anatemi antidiluviani, il presidente della Spd, Franz Müntefering, tuona a Berlino contro le «cavallette» del Capitale internazionale che saccheggiano il lavoro produttivo, conta sulla vituperazione antiamericana e anticapitalista per evitare un disastro elettorale annunciato. Il dietro front di Schröder, ex «amico dei padroni», fa il paio con la virata a 180° di Fabius, l'opportunista e molto poco bolscevico primo ministro liberale d'un tempo.
Il successo del no francese e la deriva demagogica dei socialisti europei nascono da un declino morale e mentale comune. Un simile fallimento dell'intelligenza e della generosità non dovrebbe avere che conseguenze locali, caduta dei rosso verdi in Germania, e divertenti, messa in ridicolo del narcisismo franco-francese. Sfortunatamente, nessuna forza politica, a Berlino o a Parigi, ha riconosciuto che il maggiore evento di questi ultimi mesi è stata la Rivoluzione Arancione, ossia, scusate se è poco, l'emancipazione di cinquanta milioni di europei che si sono sollevati contro il dispotismo post-comunista. L'identità europea è questo soffio di libertà, più vivace che mai, fra Kiev e Tbilisi. La Francia, terra dei diritti dell'uomo, ormai freddolosa e impaurita si raggomitola, mentre popoli fieri si impadroniscono di parole di cui ha perso l'uso nonostante sovrastino i suoi seggi elettorali: Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité. (Traduzione di Maria Serena Natale e Monica Levy)
André Glucksmann
Dopo il «no» francese alla Costituzione europea - From the Italian Daily Corriere della Sera
Non raccontiamoci storie. A quelli che come me sostengono il «sì», sconsiglio vivamente di sottovalutare il «no» francese: denuncia un movimento di respiro e ampiezza continentali. Apparentemente, la maggioranza del «no» è proteiforme, contraddittoria. Coagula angosce differenti, amalgama le insoddisfazioni e senza alcun imbarazzo intercetta i pregiudizi dell’estrema destra come dell’ultrasinistra. In realtà, questo amalgama confuso e combattivo è un segnale di forza.
Il «no» non si cura delle divisioni interne, ma unisce. Fa tabula rasa. Antiliberale, antiamericano, contrario all’immigrazione dal Sud e soprattutto dall’Est, in odio alla burocrazia cosmopolita di Bruxelles, dichiara guerra alla concorrenza polacca, ai predatori baltici, senza trascurare i futuri invasori turchi. Il «no» monta la guardia alle frontiere dell’antica Comunità. È così che il referendum ufficiale sulla Costituzione si è gradualmente trasformato in un referendum ufficioso - e retrospettivo - contro l’allargamento da 15 a 25. Non è più tempo di fraternité . Dato ancor più grave, le fobie che alimentano il «no» sono rinfocolate da quanti sostengono ufficialmente il «sì».
Non è stato Chirac, al tempo della querelle irachena, ad avere l’ardire di affermare che gli europei dell’Est avevano un solo diritto: «quello di tacere»? L’ossessivo obiettivo della diplomazia francese è creare una «potenza Europa» da contrapporre alla «superpotenza» americana. Questo non è il sogno di un’Europa europea, è piuttosto il sogno di un’Europa francese. Parigi-Berlino-Mosca, eccone la spina dorsale. Bruxelles o Varsavia non devono fare altro che adeguarsi. Saranno i capri espiatori dello scacco referendario.
Meglio Putin che Bush! Come rimproverare all’elettore francese di essere più coerente di de Villepin? A nessuno sfugge che nell’Europa a 25 la maggioranza rifiuta di giocarsi Washington per Mosca e Pechino. Allora al diavolo i 25! Optando per uno «chiracchismo» senza Chirac, i socialisti a favore del «no» - Fabius, Emmanuelli - non fanno che riproporre questa geopolitica a colpi di populismo. Agitano lo spettro del dumping e delle delocalizzazioni. Di fronte all’idraulico polacco che ci toglie il lavoro, all’Estonia che deruba le nostre fabbriche, scegliamo una «Yalta bis» e sbattiamo la porta sul muso delle giovani democrazie est-europee!
La libertà spaventa. In Francia «liberale» è diventato il peggiore insulto. La Costituzione? Un fardello liberale, secondo i sostenitori del «no», una barriera contro il liberalismo, per gli apostoli del «sì». Abbasso Spinoza, Kant, Adam Smith o Popper! Il liberale, ecco il nemico. Paghiamo decenni di menzogne e illusioni. La Francia vive in un’economia di mercato mondializzata ma parla socialista e nazionale. Non c’è da meravigliarsi che l’elettore segua la rotta indicatagli. Chirac ha recentemente dichiarato: «Il liberalismo è un’ideologia nociva come il comunismo e, come il comunismo, finirà contro un muro!». «Dall’alto», la Francia chiama alla Resistenza contro l’orco liberale. Il «popolo» prende il coraggio a due mani, decide di abbattere il mostro e sacrifica il «sì» delle élites sull’altare della loro incoerenza.
Mi viene replicato: il dieci per cento di disoccupati, l'undici per cento di poveri, ecco che cosa spiega la fioritura di pulsioni xenofobe e nichiliste. No! Lungi dall'essere economica e sociale, la crisi è essenzialmente mentale. Cadono i tabù. I freni che bloccano l'odio nei confronti dell'altro, dello straniero innanzitutto, si sono allentati. E' a sinistra che la tacca d'arresto morale è saltata. Nel corso di questa campagna elettorale ho sentito leader socialisti stigmatizzare lavoratori di altri Paesi europei come solo l'estrema destra sapeva fare. Ho visto Jean-Pierre Chevènement urlare contro gli «oligarchi di Bruxelles» rivendicando l'origine putiniana del suo linguaggio.
Le pulsioni estreme hanno acquisito una patina di rispettabilità maggioritaria per intercessione dei leader socialisti del no. Nel 1992, all'epoca di Maastricht, l'elettorato diviso della destra parlamentare rischiò di bocciare l'Europa. Questa volta è l'elettorato di sinistra che fa precipitare tutto: le cifre lo dimostrano. In Francia, il quaranta per cento dell'elettorato è antieuropeo e antidemocratico. Fabius porta il resto. Il tono e lo stile di due mesi di campagna rigorosamente ideologica, dominata dalle antinomie feticcio del XIX secolo, hanno ripreso dalle fraseologie rivoluzionarie il manicheismo desueto. Questa costituzione è «sociale» o «liberale»? Ecco l'interrogativo chiave del dibattito. Ci si è compiaciuti a contrapporre «la concorrenza libera e non falsata» da un lato e la «protezione sociale» dall'altro. Si è tradotto: o la giungla del mercato o lo statalismo protezionistico. D’un tratto, cinquant'anni di costruzione europea sono stati buttati nel dimenticatoio.
Mediamente, da mezzo secolo i democratici cristiani, alternandosi con i socialdemocratici, avevano programmato che l'efficienza economica e la preoccupazione sociale, lungi dall'escludersi, potevano coniugare libertà, prosperità e solidarietà. Una scommessa del genere ha condotto l'Europa occidentale fuori dalle proprie rovine, spingendola a diventare la seconda potenza economica mondiale, se non addirittura la prima in materia di benessere. Non è più così. Né in Germania né in Francia i partiti di sinistra si accollano le sfide di un'«economia sociale di mercato». Riesumando anatemi antidiluviani, il presidente della Spd, Franz Müntefering, tuona a Berlino contro le «cavallette» del Capitale internazionale che saccheggiano il lavoro produttivo, conta sulla vituperazione antiamericana e anticapitalista per evitare un disastro elettorale annunciato. Il dietro front di Schröder, ex «amico dei padroni», fa il paio con la virata a 180° di Fabius, l'opportunista e molto poco bolscevico primo ministro liberale d'un tempo.
Il successo del no francese e la deriva demagogica dei socialisti europei nascono da un declino morale e mentale comune. Un simile fallimento dell'intelligenza e della generosità non dovrebbe avere che conseguenze locali, caduta dei rosso verdi in Germania, e divertenti, messa in ridicolo del narcisismo franco-francese. Sfortunatamente, nessuna forza politica, a Berlino o a Parigi, ha riconosciuto che il maggiore evento di questi ultimi mesi è stata la Rivoluzione Arancione, ossia, scusate se è poco, l'emancipazione di cinquanta milioni di europei che si sono sollevati contro il dispotismo post-comunista. L'identità europea è questo soffio di libertà, più vivace che mai, fra Kiev e Tbilisi. La Francia, terra dei diritti dell'uomo, ormai freddolosa e impaurita si raggomitola, mentre popoli fieri si impadroniscono di parole di cui ha perso l'uso nonostante sovrastino i suoi seggi elettorali: Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité. (Traduzione di Maria Serena Natale e Monica Levy)
André Glucksmann
