24 november 2019

Mounk starts from the given that Liberal Democracy as a political model is under attack all over the world. He sees how illiberal democracies and undemocratic “liberal” states come into existence and formulates the proposition that Liberal Democracy maybe only functioned well within certain constraints (“scope conditions”). (Fareed Zakaria had years ago already conceptually decoupled Liberalism and Democracy).

In Part Two of his book , he tries to define the origins of the current breakdown of Liberal Democracies. He sees in essence three items which have changed substantially and which also impact the proper functioning of Liberal Democŕacy. First, the development of the internet has reduced the cost to communicate alternative versions of the truth and the cost to set up alternative command structures. This enables challengers to break or to pass by the traditional political channels with ease. Second, the slowdown of economic progress or the more limited distribution of the existing economic progress (increased inequality) creates uncertainty over the future. Third, Mounk states that successful democracies were in the past in general momo-ethnic. The current levels of migration threaten that stability. He however takes note that populists are especially strong where immigration is still limited (but not in the area with high levels of immigration) and concludes that it is only fear for the unknown that generates that uncertainty.

I’m positively surprised to see how Mounk puts forward the idea that successful democracies are/were in general mono-ethnic. Unfortunately Mounk does not focus on the importance of language and the possibility of an inclusive approach; mono-ethnicity is not necessarily exclusive if it is based on language. His wordings might suggest the opposite

Further, he seems to forget that in areas with high levels of migrants, populists might indeed no longer have political relevance if the immigrants with voting rights already form 40% or more of the population. I assume California is already in this situation. That populists are not so strong in those areas might be the result from the fact that they have already been put in a minority position from an ethnic point. This most plausible solution is not even mentioned by Mounk.

23 november 2019

Begin november 2019 was de Nederlandse regering door een  Rechtbank verplicht om alles in het werk te stellen om kinderen uit Syrië terug te halen. De Nederlandse Regering ging in beroep tegen dit vonnis.

Op 22 november 2019 deed de Rechtbank in Den Haag een uitspraak in hoger beroep en gaf de regering gelijk. De rechter was tot de conclusie gekomen dat dergelijke internationale kwesties door de politiek beslecht moeten worden en niet door rechters. De schriftelijke motivering zal uiterlijk op 6 december beschikbaar zijn. Beroep is nog mogelijk.

Deze uitspraak is minstens interessant te noemen. In een periode waarin rechters soms/vaak het verwijt krijgen dat ze hun boekje te buiten te gaan, wereldvreemd zijn of zelf wetgeving maken, valt het op wanneer een rechter zichzelf gewoon buiten spel zet. Bestaat er een algemene regel aan de hand waarvan kan worden bepaald of een rechter zichzelf aan politiek waagt of wanneer hij enkel recht spreekt ? Het argument dat dit een internationale kwestie is en de rechter daarom niet bevoegd is lijkt mij in deze kwestie niet direct  relevant.

22 november 2019

In this small book (only 91 pages) , KM confronts the West with some harsh realities. He starts from two key propositions : (1) In the past 30 years, i.e. since 1989, the world made an enormous progress. During that process the relative weight of the West versus the Rest (KM’s word), expressed in terms of GDP, has strongly diminished. The West has to adapt to that new reality; (2) The progress of the Rest is the result of a successful emulation by the Rest of Western best practices. “The biggest gift the West gave the Rest was the power of reaoning” (p. 11).

In this booklet KM raises a lot of interesting points for further critical thought. However what I will focus on hereafter is the contradiction I see between his second proposition and his more in depth analysis in the last part of his book. At this place I will not discuss whether KM is right or wrong with his analysis.

From page 75 on it becomes clear that the Western model is certainly not fully copied by the Rest and should, according to KM, not be fully copied :

• “The West is wrong in believing that democracy is a necessary condition for economic success. If it were, China could not and should not have succeeded. But it has. This… undermines many key pillars of Western ideology.” (80) With this statement KM contradicts to a certain extent what he wrote in the beginning. There he still stated that the spread of Western reasoning led to three silent revolutions. The first revolution he saw was political and ended ‘Oriental despotism’. However he acknowledges that huge imperfections remain but “most Asian leaders now recognize that they are accountable to their people, and as long as they have to demonstrate daily that they are improving their people’s lives Asian societies will continue to improve.” (15)
• “Democracies are not designed to take on long-term challenges.” This weakness hinders the West in taking the right strategic decisions.
• KM gives some examples of wrong strategic decisions from the past. He mentions the decision to keep Turkey out of the European Union and allowing Turks in. “It would have been wiser to keep Turks out and admit Turkey into the EU (with restrictions on free movement of labour)”. Of course with such a statement KM rejects an essential pillar of the European Union, the free movement of people.
• Another strategic mistake mentioned by KM is the European “Common Agricultural Policy” (CAP) which was launched in 1962. “It enriched a few European farmers. It impoverished millions of African farmers, especially in North Africa.”
• “There is no doubt that the Western elites failed to prepare their populations for the inevitable ‘creative destruction’ that flowed from China’s admission into the WTO in 2001.” In the same context KM makes the known statement that the elites in the West, but especially in the USA, enjoyed the advantages of globalisation while the masses did not. “200 million Americans live on the edge”.

KM states that the West made also other important mistakes. For completeness sake I mention ;

• Wars against Muslim countries, but especially the second war against Iraq
• The humiliation of Russia after 1989
• Europeans should understand that their strategic interest is different than the trategic interest of the USA. “The Americans have destabilized Europe’s Europe’s geographical neighbourhood.” (68)

19 november 2019

In de nasleep van de discussie over de Vlaamse canon is reeds bij herhaling opgemerkt dat de Slag der Gulden Sporen (SGS) in de reële geschiedenis niet de rol had die aan haar wordt toegekend in de Vlaamse “roman national”.

Recent legde een historicus uit dat deze Slag niet bruikbaar was voor het Vlaams nationalisme omdat de overwinnaars bij deze veldslag (de Vlamingen) ook Frans spraken, evenzeer als diegenen die verslagen waren (de getrouwen van de koning van Frankrijk).

Een andere historicus corrigeerde de eerste en wees er op dat de overwinnaars wel degelijk Vlaams spraken maar dat de Frans-sprekende Vlamingen (de adel) meevochten aan de kant van de koning van Frankrijk en dus bij het verliezende kamp behoorden.

Nog een andere historicus wees er op dat de SGS dus zeker niet als een Vlaamse strijd kan voorgesteld worden omdat het eerder een sociale strijd was, een strijd van de adel tegen de opkomende stedelijke burgerij.

Waarbij ik mij dan de bedenking maak dat de sociale strijd in 1302 reeds samenvalt met de nationale strijd zoals ook in de beginjaren van België. In beide periodes “collaboreert” de Vlaamse elite met de Franstalige elite. Pas met de echte democratisering snapt de Vlaamse elite dat ze de kant moet kiezen van de Vlamingen en Vlaams moet spreken.

Dit lijkt mij toch een interessante discussie om in een canon op te nemen.

17 november 2019

In de Knack van 6 November 2019 doet de socioloog Luc Huyse volgende uitspraak :

“Vandaar mijn pleidooi om de positie van de nieuwe Belgen juist in te schatten. Als men de inwoners van Vlaanderen een ‘leidcultuur’ wil aanpraten en men zo hard de nadruk legt op identiteit, moet men dan schrikken dat de inburgering van bijvoorbeeld de Turkse gemeenschap uiteindelijk een laag vernis blijkt te zijn ? Vlaams- nationalisten zouden vanuit hun eigen kijk op de samenleving toch kunnen veronderstellen dat als eigen identiteit zo belangrijk is, de inburgering van een grote groep vreemdelingen in een andere cultuur nooit echt voltooid kan zijn ?”

Uiteraard behoort Luc Huyse niet tot extreem-rechts, maar volgens mij bevestigt hij met dit statement minstens een light versie van de omvolking-these van Renaud Camus. Essentieel daarbij is dat de migratie vandaag de dag op zo’n schaal gebeurt dat het geen individueel gebeuren is maar een groeps (=volks)gebeuren van individuen met een collectieve gemeenschappelijke identiteit. Ten tweede zegt Luc Huyse dat het niet mogelijk (of zeer moeilijk) is om dergelijke groepen van nieuwkomers te integreren. Hij spreekt zich niet uit of dit wenselijk zou zijn. 

In dezelfde Knack stelt hoofdredacteur Bert Bultinck zich de vraag of “die ‘omvolking’ niet een gruwelijke overdrijving is ? Tenslotte heeft toch niet meer dan 12% van de Fransen een niet-Europese migratieachtergrond.” Het fenomeen ‘ghetto’ is Bultinck blijkbaar niet bekend (maar misschien mag je dat woord niet gebruiken omdat het stigmatiserend zou kunnen overkomen?)

De Afspraak” op vrijdag 15 november 2019.

Beatrice Delvaux vindt dat termen zoals transmigranten en illegalen niet mogen gebruikt worden. Ze omschrijft deze termen als “de-humanizerend”. Een dergelijk statement valt geregeld te horen aan wat we gemakshalve de “linkerkant” kunnen noemen.

Hiermee zegt Delvaux dus eigenlijk dat voor haar transmigranten en illegalen geen mensen zijn. Wat fout is. Er zijn allerlei soorten mensen in omloop : legale, illegale en transmigranten. Transmigranten zijn soms zelfs in zekere zin twee keer illegaal : soms zijn ze illegaal in het land en weigeren ze daar bovenop gelegaliseerd te worden. Maar het zijn zeker mensen. Delvaux moet daarover geen twijfel zaaien.

15 november 2019

On 13 november 2019 Donald Tusk speeched in Bruges and gave his view on the European Union. At that occasion he criticized the objection of the French President Macron to the start of negociations with some Balkan states. Tusk commented :

” There wil be no sovereign Europe without stable Balkans integrated with the rest of the continent, and you don’t need to be a historian to understand this.”

It is difficult not to agree with Tusk on this but there are two big “but’s” : (1) The Balkans are NOT stable ; (2) They will not become stable by including them into the European Union.

To stabilize the Balkans border corrections are unavoidable. At best these corrections will be performed in a peaceful way via negotiations.

Only when the borders are updated the Balkans might be stabilized and fit for integration in the European union. The sequence of the events is of crucial importance.

10 november 2019

From a statement by Folks Bernadotte, Chief UN mediator for Palestine, published on 18 September 1948. Bernadotte was killed by a Zionist terrorist organization on 17 September 1948.

“It is … undeniable that no settlement can be just and complete if recognition is not accorded to the right of the Arab refugee to return to the home from which he has been dislodged by the hazards and strategy of the armed conflict between Arabs and Jews in Palestine. The majority of these refugees have come from territory which… was to be included in the Jewish State. The exodus of Palestinian Arabs resulted from panic created by fighting in their communities, by rumours concerning real or alleged acts of terrorism, or expulsion. It would be an offence against the principles of elemental justice if these innocent victims of the conflict were denied the right to return to their homes, while Jewish immigrants flow into Palestine, and, indeed, at least offer the threat of permanent replacement of the Arab refugees, who have been rooted in the land for centuries.”

10 november 2019

A lot of pundits often defend the statement that a political entity “Europe” is an impossibility because there is no common language in Europe and therefore no common public opinion.

While I have defended this point of view in some other place, it is time to make an observation which to a certain degree contradicts this proposition.

If we look at the themes that determine the political agenda in Western Europe it will quickly become clear that the issues/challenges are to a great deal the same in the whole of that part of Europe. (1) How to deal with migration ? Can we choose our migrants ourselves ? Should there be more strict rules to obtain access to social security ? (2) How to deal with (radical) islam ? What about the nikab and the headscarf ? Quid separate schools for Muslims ? Should imams preach in the local language ? How to deal with European IS-fighters in Syrian prisons ? (3) How to transform the existing economy into a climate-friendly one ? Nuclear energy, cars, green taxes ? (4) How to deal with the Chinese presence ? 5G and Huawei, Chinese investors… (5) How to deal with the impact of the longer longevity of the populations on the finances of the state ? Evidently also other items are common to these societies.

But notwithstanding that the same issues fill the public domain, they are not discussed at the same moment and the solutions chosen might be different. They are discussed in the national parliaments, newspapers and the national magazines but these are closed “national” worlds although the issues and arguments are basically the same.

It must be possible to use this basic fact to organize a Western European public opinion in a more formal way.

4 november 2019

The Feast of Sacrifice is one of the two most important Islamic feasts. It relates to the story in the Qur’an according to which Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son Ismael at the request of God. But at the moment that Abraham was to sacrifice his son, God sent a sheep and allowed Abraham to sacrifice the sheep instead of the son.

I have always been puzzled by this story which I know of course already since my youth in the version of the story which can be found in the Old Testament (and where Isaac has the honour of taking the place of Ismael). But it is confusing (or not at all) that Islam gives this story such a central place. What are we actually celebrating ? That God is so good to save Ismael ? That Abraham, as the example for all true believers, was willing to sacrifice his son at the simple request of God ? Or the combination of both : that God is good for the ones who are fully submissive ? I suppose the last explanation is the most accurate. The core of Islam is blind submission to Allah. A horrible message for a humanist.

One could argue that the same message can be found in the Old Testament and thus in Christianity. They are completely wrong. Christianity is not based on the Old Testament but on the New Testament. And a key difference is exactly that in the Old Testament God asks Abraham to kill Isaac while in the New Testament God sacrifices his own son to save the human kind. Islam goes back to the logic of the Old Testament.

Given the essential concept of submission to Allah in Islamic belief, we can question if there even exists something as ethics in Islam. Or if it exists, ethics is reduced to the question of obedience versus non-obedience. For Islam the believer is obedient or not. There is however no room for “real” ethics ; there is no room for an individual that has to take an autonomous decision following an internal moral compass.

3 november 2019

At the end of his book Aly concludes with a small chapter with the title “Das Gute begünstigte das Böse”. On the last page of his book he writes :

“Das Böse entsteht nicht allein aus dem Bösen, sondern auch aus dem prinzipiell Guten. Gute, niemals zu missbilligende Bildungspolitik und der staatlich geförderte Willen zu massenhafter Aufwärtsmobilität, also die größten Erfolge im Europa des 20. Jahrhunderts, steigerten den Hass. Dieselbe Ambivalenz muss für die schönsten, gleichfalls bewahrenswerten politischen Ideen der europäischen Neuzeit im Betracht gezogen werden. Sie heißen: Demokratie, Volksfreiheit, Volkswillen, Selbstbestimmung und soziale Gleichheit…

So betrachtet steht das größte Verbrechen des 20. Jahrhunderts, der Holocaust, im Zusammenhang mit der größten Leistung derselben europäischen Epoche, dem massenhaften sozialen Aufstieg. Unter dem extremen Druck des von Deutschland begonnenen und geführten Krieges begünstigte der zivilisatorische Fortschritt den Zivilisationsbruch.”

Aly understands that his key message might be difficult to digest for the average reader. This average reader has to accept that something evil can take place as part of an overall positive project. In the West we believe in general that evil can only result from evil and good only from good. Aly’s description of the events requires a twist of the western mind.

The paradox that Aly sees is very similar to the one I’m confronted with in my book “liberal quicksand”. In my book I claim that Europe has an exceptional opportunity to create a political entity “Europe” thanks to the twohundred years of struggle which led to the creation of linguistically homogeneous nation-states. I do not glorify this struggle to create these nation-states but I see how the bad makes the good possible. As such I even considered to include the image of the waterlily in my book as a philosophical image of the transformation of the ugly in the beautiful.

2 november 2019

When I wrote my book “Liberal Quicksand” an important decision I made was not to include the story of anti-Semitism and its disastrous consequence, the Holocaust, into my book. I had two reasons. First, the story of the near destruction of the Jewish population in Europe was sufficiently known. Second, this horrible story was, as I saw it, a matter of racism and as such an aberration of the processes I described in my book : formation of the different nations and democratisation in one movement.

Just recently I finalized reading “Europa gegen die Juden 1880-1945” by Götz Aly. In this excellent book Aly makes the point that to understand anti-semitism and the Holocaust, the ideas that these events are driven by Racist theories or Christian revenge theories (Christians eliminating the Jews because they killed Jesus) are no good starting points. Aly demonstrates rather convincingly that the events are, certainly in Eastern Europe rather related to (1) the modernizing transition of societies, (2) the fact that Jews seemed to make better use of the opportunities offered by the new circumstances, (3) the intention to create nation-states in which the people belonging to the nation should make sufficient social progress, if needed by holding down the Jews who prospered too well. Anti-semitism was futher (4) formalised politically by the introduction of universal voting rights. In pre-democratic structures anti-semitism did not find a political outlet.

Understood like this, the story of the near elimination of the Jewish people in Europe certainly fits the story I described in “Liberal Quicksand” better. The way Aly tells the story anti-semitism is a formative power of the European nation-states working together with democratisation, and this certainly in Eastern Europe and Central-Europe.

But of course Aly cannot deny that the whole story presupposes that the Jews were clearly identifiable and were indeed identified as Jews and that therefore, even if the history is told as he does, the racist basis is a necessary element of the explanation of what happened. Aly makes even the assumption that the jealousy against the success of the Jews was based on the fact that Jews dealed better with the ermanent flux in modernising societies.

And then of course, the conclusion must be that these forms of anti-semitic nationalist processes are not inclusive, while I, in my book, focus on linguistic nationalism which is capable of inclusion.

1 november 2019

End October 2019 the American House of Representatives recognised the Armenian Genocide. As is well known the Turkish Government denies such Genocide took place.

I do not intend to discuss wether there was a genocide or not; Whether a Turkish government gave the instruction to perform a genocide or not ; Whether the regular Turkish army performed that genocide or was involved ; How many Armenian died during the genocide.

What I want to discuss is the story that the Armenian genocide was the first genocide of the modern times. This is certainly not true. The first systematic ethnic cleansing took place during the liberation wars of Eastern Europe and Greece and during the Russian occupation of Ukrain (the Tatar territories) and the Caucasus. During these wars a lot of Muslims or Turkish speaking people were chased and resettled within the smaller territory of the Ottoman empire, where they sometimes ran into conflict with local populations like e.g. the Armenians. If there was a genocide, it was not a Turkish invention but a Turkish reaction to the ethnic cleansing that took place in Europe and Ukrain in the hundred years of the 19th century when nationalism took the lead in the liberation of the people’s of Europe.