Why Britain walked out -23 iulie 2016
Dinica Roman shared Vincent Bevins's post.
Why Britain walked out
by Serge Halimi
Le Monde diplomatique
Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, must regret having compared a UK Leave vote to 'the beginning of the destruction of not only the EU but also western political civilisation in its entirety' (1). Nevertheless, the thunderclap of the Brexit victory resounds across Europe.
This time it will be difficult to ignore universal suffrage and ask a political class disowned by the result of the 23 June referendum to patch up an arrangement the people have rejected. No one imagines that the UK will be subjected to a democratic denial as flagrant as those perpetrated in France and the Netherlands after their no votes on the European constitution in May and June 2005. It is also unlikely that the British will be treated with as much contempt as the Greeks who, in response to their pleas for the EU to change course, were financially asphyxiated and socially purged, with disastrous economic consequences.
De Gaulle opposed the UK joining the European Economic Community in 1967 because he did not want 'the creation of a free trade area in western Europe, in preparation for one covering the Atlantic area, which would rob our continent of its unique character.' To blame the British government alone for this loss of identitywould be unfair, however, when it had so many willing accomplices in Berlin, Paris, Rome and Madrid; so many that it's hard to see what 'unique character' or specificity the EU still defends. It is also telling that, in an effort to stop the UK from leaving, the EU hadreadily agreed to measures that would have suspended welfare benefit payments for workers from other EU countries and strengthened legal protection for the UK's financial sector.
The EU, brainchild of an intellectual elite, born in a world divided by war, missed one of history's great choices, or opportunities, to take another route 25 years ago. The collapse of the Soviet Union was a chance for Europe to rebuild a project that could have satisfied its peoples' aspirations for social justice and peace. If it had had the courage to demolish and rebuild the EU bureaucratic structures surreptitiously erected alongside its states, and remove free trade as the engine of the machine, it could have opposed the triumphal progress of global competition with a model based on regional cooperation, social protection and top-down integration of the peoples of the former eastern bloc.
But instead of a community, it built a market. Bristling with commissioners, rules for member states, penalties for its peoples, yet wide open to competition among workers, soulless and with only one aim — to serve the wealthiest and best connected in financial centres and major metropolises. The European dream has been reduced to a world of penances and austerity, invariably justified as the lesser evil.
The protests expressed in the British vote cannot be dismissed solely as populism or xenophobia. And it is not by further reducing national sovereignty, in favour of a federal Europe almost nobody wants, that our politically discredited elites will assuage the popular anger unleashed in the UK — and rising elsewhere.
Serge Halimi
No one asked me, but here are my thoughts on the tragedy of the Brexit vote -
Both Brexit and Trumpism are the very, very, wrong answers to legitimate questions that urban elites have refused to ask for thirty years.
Questions such as - Who are the losers of globalization, and how can we spread the benefits to them and ease the transition? Is it fair that the rich can capture almost all the gains of open borders and trade, or should the process be more equitable? Can we really sustainably create a media structure that only hires kids from top universities (and, moreover, those prick graduates that can basically afford to work for free for the first 5-10 years) who are totally ignorant of regular people, if not outright disdainful of them? Do we actually have democracy, or do banks just decide? Immigration is good for the vast majority, but for the very small minority who see pressure on their wages, should we help them, or do they just get ignored?
Since the 1980s the elites in rich countries have overplayed their hand, taking all the gains for themselves and just covering their ears when anyone else talks, and now they are watching in horror as voters revolt. It seems in both cases (Trumpism and Brexit), many voters are motivated not so much by whether they think the projects will actually work, but more by their desire to say FUCK YOU to people like me (and probably you).
The leaders of these movements (Trumpstick, Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage) have acted cynically for their own benefit. They've been willing to stir division and nationalism. And some of their supporters are real racists. The only solution for that small minority is to be crushed and thrown into the dustbin of history. But I refuse to believe this is the case for the larger group of supporters, that is, half of the UK or almost half of the US. They have some legitimate concerns, and the only outlet to vent they were offered was a terrible one.
If we want to move forward productively from these historical shocks (and please, let's try to do that), rich world urban dickheads (like me) need to recognize that they are not the only people on the planet with views worth listening
Smaranda Dobrescu S-a dorit ca UE sa fie o comunitate, un loc al pacii care sa aduca prosperitate tuturor. De fapt, s-a reusit sa se construiasca o piata cu reguli stricte penytru statele membre, penalizari pentru locuitori, o competitie larg deschisa intre lucratori, lipsita de elemente umane si avand drept unic scop satisfacerea celor mai bogati si mai bine conectati in centrele financiare si majoritatea metropolelor. Visul european a fost redus la o lume a penitentelor si austeritatii, invariabil justificata ca fiind 4raul cel mai mic.
Niciun comentariu:
Trimiteți un comentariu