When I first started blogging, I struck up a fairly cordial on-line relationship with Iain Murray of “The Edge of England’s Sword”:http://ism.politicos.ws/MT/ despite a pretty wide gulf in our politics. I’m afraid I’ve not read much I’ve liked by Iain in quite a long time (especially on global warming). So it was a pleasant surprise to find that Iain has “a column on the Spanish elections”:http://www.techcentralstation.com/031704F.html published in that bastion of lunacy TechCentralStation. Despite working with a Rumsfeldian New/Old Europe framework the column is a very useful corrective to some of the foaming at the mouth which we’ve endured from US-based commentators and bloggers over the past few days (see Matthew Turner “for some of the worst examples”:http://mattysblog.blogspot.com/2004_03_01_mattysblog_archive.html#107947336635790262 ). Credit where credit is due.
From the category archives:
European Politics
It’s St Patrick’s Day, and I’m thinking about terrorism. So here is a poem from “James Simmons”:http://www.pgil-eirdata.org/html/pgil_datasets/authors/s/Simmons,J/life.htm.
From the Irish
Familiar things, you might brush against or tread
Most terrible was our hero in battle blows:
hands without fingers, shorn heads and toes
were scattered. That day there flew and fell
from astonished victims eyebrow, bone and entrail,
like stars in the sky, like snowflakes, like nuts in May,
like a meadow of daisies, like butts from an ashtray.
upon in the daily round, were glistening red
with the slaughter the hero caused, though he had gone.
By proxy his bomb exploded, his valour shone.
If there were a British general election tomorrow I’d probably vote Labour, as I nearly always have done. I’d think about Iraq, the “war on terror”, Northern Ireland, the EU constitution, asylum seekers, taxes, prisons, higher education policy, Tony Blair, poverty, the environment, local government and a whole host of things. And I’d probably still vote Labour. If there were a terrorist attack which killed 200 of my compatriots, and the government, suspecting Al-Quaida, chose nevertheless to spin a story that the Real IRA were to blame, I might, just might, change my mind. But I’d still probably vote Labour. I certainly wouldn’t take kindly to commentators from other countries — themselves basically ignorant of my country’s politics and history — telling me that my task, in casting my vote, is to “send a message” to Osama bin Laden or anyone else. I’d be upset if such pundits told me that voting other than they way they recommended amounted to “dishonouring the dead”:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/03/16/do1602.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/03/16/ixportal.html . And if a Spanish person, encountering such a commentator were to punch them on the nose, I’m not saying they’d be right, but I’d understand.
The unexpected defeat of the Spanish Popular Party government has been attributed in part to the belief that by joining the US in the war in Iraq, Aznar raised Spain’s profile as a target for Al Qaeda ( which now seems most likely to have set the bomb)[1]. The same claim is being debated in Australia.
While there’s probably an element of truth in this, it misses the main point. Australia, Britain and other US allies were wrong to participate in the war in Iraq, not because it made us more prominent participants in the war on terrorism but because the Iraq war was irrelevant, and in important respects actively harmful, to the struggle against terrorism, represented most prominently by Al Qaeda.
fn1. This isn’t the only way in which the handling of the Madrid atrocity affected the outcome. The government’s rush to the judgement (seen as politically more favorable) that ETA was responsible was criticised by many, and contrasted with the refusal of the Socialist leadership to score political points.
It’s now almost certain that I was wrong when I suggested a couple of days ago that Al Qaeda was unlikely to be responsible for the horrible bombings in Madrid. This is worrying, not only because of what it means directly, but also because it may spur a very unpleasant cross-European backlash against immigrants. Even if US perceptions of rampant anti-Semitism in Europe are overblown, support for the far right is growing in many European countries on the back of anti-immigrant – and often, specifically anti-Muslim – sentiments. It’s not only the far right either; ‘mainstream’ European conservatives too are muttering dire imprecations about the enemy within. Witness, for example, Niall Ferguson “channeling Oswald Spengler”:http://www.aei.org/news/newsID.20045,filter.foreign/news_detail.asp two weeks ago, in his sub-Huntingtonian ruminations about European cultural decadence and the minarets being raised amid the dreaming spires of Oxford.
Europe’s relationship with its non-European immigrants is an open sore, and it has been for decades. My worry is that the bombings are going to give succor to the far right, and make anti-immigrant arguments more respectable in mainstream political debate. We’re also likely to see more policy measures that purport to combat terrorism, but are really aimed at making life tougher for illegal immigrants. Europe already has a bad record on many civil liberties; I fear that it’s going to get substantially worse over the next couple of years. Even if the left wins today in Spain, as seems likely, there may be a pronounced general shift towards the nastier aspects of right-populism over the longer term.
The first answer is; no one can be sure until the evidence is in. The second one; no one can be told until the votes are in.
There’s a lot of confusion about the perpetrators of the Madrid terrorist bombings, with a letter, purportedly from Al-Qaeda, claiming responsibility, and leaders associated with ETA disclaiming it. There’s evidence pointing both ways and, of course, it’s possible that more than one group was involved. Meanwhile, another letter, also purportedly from Al Qaeda, disclaimed responsibility for the even bloodier atrocity in Karbala last week.
I don’t think it’s necessary to come to a conclusive finding as to who set up which bombs. All groups and individuals that embrace terrorism as a method share the guilt of, and responsibility for, these crimes. Both in practical and symbolic terms, terrorist acts by one group provide assistance and support to all those who follow in their footsteps. The observation of apparent links between groups that seemingly have nothing in common in political terms (the IRA and FARC, for example[1]) illustrates the point.
This point isn’t only applicable to terrorists. For example, governments that engage in, or endorse, torture in any context share in the guilt of criminals like Saddam, whether or not they were directly complicit in particular crimes.
Whether or not the official leaders of ETA and its political counterpart were directly involved in this attack, they deserve condemnation for it unless they are willing to repudiate terrorism and abandon those who would continue it.
fn1. Both the IRA and FARC have issued partial and mutually contradictory denials of the accusation that IRA members provided explosives training to FARC. But denials of particular accusations are beside the point unless they are accompanied by a renunciation of terrorism.
As more news filters through, it looks as though the Madrid train-bombings are going to be one of the worst terrorist atrocities in modern European history, if not the worst. More than twice as many people have been killed as in the Bologna train station bomb; there are nearly an order of magnitude more casualties than there were in the Birmingham pub bombing. If ETA is responsible (as it almost certainly is, “Glenn Reynolds'”:http://www.instapundit.com/archives/014568.php speculations to the contrary), it’s a move born out of desperation. Paddy Woodworth, who knows as much about the Basque country as any English speaker, suggests that ETA have been in trouble for a while. Their political wing’s support among voters was cut in half when ETA went back to terrorism, and many of their established leaders are in jail, so that the current active leadership is young, radical and politically inexperienced. It’s hard to imagine how they could have more effectively discredited a cause that was hardly very creditable to begin with.
Update: This may turn out not to have been an ETA attack after all, in which case my arguments above would be quite beside the point – there’s some evidence pointing to Islamic terrorists. I should also note that Glenn Reynolds, in fairness to him, is now sounding considerably more equivocal about the likely perpetrators.
Like Chris and Daniel, I’ve been nonplussed at the nastiness of much rightwing US commentary on Europeans. If we’re not a clatter of cowardly Saddam fancying invertebrates, we’re a sinister cabal of jackbooted anti-Semites. While France’s behaviour over Iraq was unimpressive, and there are quite real problems of anti-Semitism, many of Europe’s critics have a rather transparent agenda. They seek to imply that any European criticism of the war or of Israel is automatically suspect, by virtue of its source. It’s the mirror image of Adbusters’ “insinuations”:http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/52/articles/jewish.html about rightwing Jews’ support for Israel, and not very much more intellectually respectable.
_Mirabile dictu_ a right wing pundit devotes a column today in the Washington Post to praising Europe. You might expect that I’d be pleased. Not on your life.
No one much has noticed, but what will probably turn out to be the biggest geopolitical event of the year took place last weekend. I’m referring to the announcement by Kofi Annan of a referendum on the reunification of Cyprus to be held on 21 April this year. There’s still room for something to go wrong, but I’ll present my analysis on the basis that the referendum will be held and approved, which seems likely at present.
Why should settlement of a long-running dispute on a Mediterranean island, with no recent flare-ups, be so important ? Let me count the ways.
First, this is another victory for the boring old UN processes so disdained by unilateralists.
Second, a settlement of the Cyprus dispute would mark the end of hostilities between the modern states of Greece and Turkey that go back to the achievement of Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire 200 years ago. Taking a longer historical view, the predecessor states of the modern Greece and Turkey have been at the frontline of hostilities between Islam and Christendom for 1000 years or more. By comparison with this dispute, the troubles in Ireland are of recent vintage.
Third, and most important, the positive role played by the Turkish government, until now the sponsor of the separatist government in Northern Cyprus, will greatly strengthen Turkey’s case to become a candidate for admission to the European Union. Admission of Turkey, which could be expected to follow by around 2010, would dramatically change the dynamic of Middle Eastern politics. Iraq, Iran and Syria would all have borders with Europe. With membership of the EU, Turkey would provide a model of a secular, democratic and increasingly prosperous state in a predominantly Islamic country. By comparison, the replacement of the odious Saddam Hussein with an imperfectly democratic Islamist government dominated by Shiites (the most plausible current outcome for Iraq) would fade into insignifance.
A decision by the EU to reject Turkey, despite its dramatic progress towards a fully democratic system of government, would be equally significant, but in the negative direction. The advocates of rejection, most notably the German Christian (!) Democrats would correctly be seen as being motivated primarily by anti-Islamic prejudice. This would be a big setback in the struggle against terrorist forms of Islamism.
I didn’t blog much last week because Peter Katzenstein, a famous international relations scholar, was workshopping a book manuscript over three days at the University of Toronto; it was a fun and interesting discussion, but quite time consuming. One of Peter’s observations struck me as blogworthy – he was trying to get at the reasons why many US right wingers, and especially conservative legal scholars, have a visceral dislike for the European Union and all its doings.^1^ Part of the explanation is surely power politics, and the perception of the EU as a potential rival, but surely it goes beyond this. Much American debate gives the impression that the European Union is somehow worse for American interests and world peace than Russia or China. Peter’s take on it was that much of the animus derives from the hostility of the US right wing to internationalism in all its forms, and in particular to the idea that international law should take precedence over national law under certain circumstances. If, as Peter argues, the EU’s fundamental identity involves the primacy of public international law within the jurisdiction of its member states, then it’s easy to see why strict constructionists and others who believe in the primacy of the (US) constitution, would view the EU as abhorrent. On this account, the problem that the EU poses for the US right isn’t that it’s an incipient rival, or even a spoiler like France. It’s that if you take a certain stance on the relationship between international law and domestic sovereignty, the EU appears to be an abomination, something that shouldn’t exist. It’s not a state – nor is it likely to become one anytime soon. Nor is it a simple international organization. Instead, it’s something between the two – an unnatural hybrid of sorts, in which national policy makers increasingly become entangled in a supranational legal order. It’s enough to give Robert Bork hives.
^1^ For the record, Peter also had some hard words about anti-Americanism in Europe.
It is a great pity that so much of the media is disappearing behing subscription-only walls. This includes the Financial Times where the estimable Simon Kuper has “a subscription-only article”:http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1073281404815&p=1012571727132 debunking the common American perception of a rise in European anti-Semitism. Some facts from the article. Kuper reports on two opinion polls conducted by the Anti-Defamation League in Western Europe in 2002. These found that roughly a quarter of Europeans had some anti-Semitic attitudes. This compares with a similar ADL survey in the US in the same year which has 17 percent of Americans espousing anti-Semitic views. Not a great difference, and one brought further into perspective when we learn that most anti-Semitic Europeans are over 65 whereas age is not a good predictor of such views among Americans. True, there has been a significant increase in anti-Jewish violence (especially by young Muslims in France), but in the US the FBI recordes 1039 hate crimes against Jews in 2002. There also doesn’t seem to be a very good correlation between attitudes to Israel and anti-Semitism: 7 per cent of the Dutch population are judged to be anti-Semitic by the ADL which is a lower figure than anywhere else in either Europe or the US, but 74 per cent of the Dutch view Israel as a threat. Attitudes to Israel are pretty mixed though, with Europeans more likely to blame Israel than the Palestinians for the current situation (but only by 27 per cent to 20, with the rest presumably “don’t knows” or distributing blame equally). 86 per cent of Europeans see no justification for suicide bombers. None of this is reason for complacency, of course, but the view peddled by US-based commentators such as Thomas Friedman and their blogospheric echo-chamber of Europe as a seething cauldron of ancient Jew-hatred is plainly garbage.
“This is getting ridiculous”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3416091.stm :
bq. A proposed ban on religious symbols in French state schools could include a ban on beards, according to the French education minister. Luc Ferry said the law, which will be debated in parliament next month, could ban headscarves, bandannas and beards if they are considered a sign of faith.
UPDATE: “According to Le Monde”:http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3224,36-349896,0.html , Ferry invoked Saussure’s principle of the “arbitrary nature of the sign” in defence of the policy. We’re not going to hear any think like _that_ from a minister in London or Washington any time soon!
Interesting times for the European Union’s Growth and Stability Pact, according to an “Economist”:http://www.economist.com/World/europe/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2349980 story that touches on a disagreement between Dan Drezner and I. Over the last couple of years, big member states such as France and Germany have been flouting the terms of the Pact, which is supposedly binding. It’s looked as though they were going to escape any punishment for doing this.
While I believe that taxes in many countries could probably be used better and for more things than they are currently, I do think there should be limits to how government spends its tax payers’ money. A recent decision by the Hungarian government seems to suggest that some see no limits. The state has decided to spend $4 million sponsoring a driver for participation in Formula One next year. If this happened in a country with adequate social services and few people living in poverty then perhaps one could contemplate its legitimacy. But in a country with as many social problems as Hungary, I find it hard to swallow. Read it and weep.