Transatlanticism: Swinging to the right, swinging to the left

Tony Judt, possibly one of the best political historians of our time, likes to remind us that Austria never exorcized its Nazi past. As Hitler's first 'victim,' it never intoned the kind of national mea culpa that Germany, grudgingly and painfully, let out over time. But Austria was not only Adolf Hitler's birthplace; it provided a disproportionate amount of SS agents, concentration camp administrators, and Nazi sympathizers, on a higher per capita basis than Germany itself. In the absence of accountability and collective soul-searching, the echoes of Austria's post-war deafening silence reverberate today.

Austria's 2008 general elections have just yielded the strongest electoral result of the far-right in Europe since the end of World War II. Surpassing Jörg Haider in 1999 and Jean-Marie Le Pen in 2002, the new poster boy of xenophobic, anti-Brussels Europe, Heinz-Christian Strache is the rising star in a country that embodies European civilization and is one of the highest contributors to the EU coffers. The young Strache and his former mentor, Haider, combined for one-third of the vote, holding a key to the success of any governing coalition emerging from the elections. A former dentist (am I the only one who finds that extremely appropriate?), Strache has been filmed in military fatigues training alongside known neo-nazis; wants to repeal a ban on swastikas and other Nazi symbols but prohibit the construction of minarets; enjoys calling headscarved women "female ninjas" and seems distressed that many Austrians prefer falafels, kebabs, and couscous over Wiener schnitzels and sausages; and his rhetoric and programs are unashamedly anti-gay rights, anti-immigration, anti-Islam and, perhaps most importantly, anti-EU. All of the above brings him close and tight with extreme right-wingers in France, Flanders, Bulgaria, Serbia, and elsewhere.

And it is not just Austria. A former fascist party, Alleanza Nationale, is part of Silvio Berlusconi's governing coalition. Alessandra Mussolini, Benito's granddaughter, is growing more outspoken every day. While her cohorts harass Gypsies and immigrants, Berlusconi wants to make illegal immigration a punishable criminal offense and fingerprint the Roma minority. Similar anti-Islam and anti-immigration sentiment is growing in Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, France, and Poland.

More mainstream conservatism is also on the rise. The Labour Party is crumbling in the United Kingdom, Sarkozy is winning his battle against the unions in France, and at least one of the Polish twins keeps quarrelling with Brussels over the death penalty. Not even Sweden is a social-democratic paradise anymore.

Meanwhile, the United States, a country whose political center is supposed to be markedly to the right from Europe, is in the midst of the biggest government intervention in its economy since the New Deal. American leaders are embracing words like 'bailout' and 'nationalization,' and railing against 'the unfettered free market' and 'deregulation' -although one could equally argue that "socialism for the rich," the only acceptable socialism in America according to John Kenneth Galbraith, has always been part of the conservative agenda. While stocks plunge in Wall Street, the political capital of atheism, universal health care, same-sex marriage, and taxes for the rich is steadily increasing. And unless something dramatic happens, Americans are about to elect a young, black, progressive man from the South Side of Chicago called Barack Hussein Obama to the highest office of the land.

It's almost as if a law of opposites informs the variable distance between the political centers of America and Europe, or as if the pendular swing of politics moves too fast to give all those books that came out at the beginning of the decade any respectable shelf life. Robert Kagan, who famously declared that Americans hail from Mars and Europeans hail from Venus, should look for new planets to explain the transatlantic gap. Jeremy Rifkin and others should wake up from their European Dream. Congressman Tom Tancredo, known for his hardline anti-immigration positions, is about to retire from his seat in the House of Representatives after failing to get Americans to embrace massive deportation. Well, maybe he should just move to Europe!

What is Holding Turkey Back?

To understand Modern Turkey, one must examine the mentality of the country’s founder and first strongman, Kemal Ataturk, and his legacy in Turkey today. Under his leadership, the remains of the Ottoman Empire in Anatolia and Asia Minor were forged into Modern Turkey. The Turkish transformation from the dismantled Ottoman state to the Turkish Republic was made in the image of this man, whose last name translated means “father of the Turks.”

Quite the contrary to what Turkish citizens believe, and have marketed to the rest of the world, the Kemalist ideology is exactly what is preventing the country from moving forward. As has been noted by Marcus A. Templar in his recent study Tasting the Bitter Pekmez: Causes of Turkey's Instability argues that:

The reality that haunts the Turkish Republic from its inception is dangerously revealing itself. Kemal's dream was to Europeanize Turkey, but the foundations he forcibly set have remained stagnant while Europe keeps developing. Government institutions in Turkey look back to Kemalism fearing that deviation from Kemalist ideals could bring the end of their state. Turkey has been built on the principles of Pan-Turkism that are no longer acceptable in Europe and, as she is not an ethnically and racially homogenous country, this alone is the cornerstone of its instability.1

The Kemalist ideology also appears to be the main reason why Turkey cannot be relied on to abide by treaties, thereby hindering the normalization of relations between itself on the one hand, and Greece, Cyprus and the European Union on the other.

[1] Marcus A. Templar, "Tasting the Bitter Pekmez: Causes of Turkey's Instability" in Journal of Global Change and Governance Volume I, Number 2 (2008).

The Fourth Wave of Newly Independent States

[Note: This is in part a reply to Miodrag Kapor’s earlier post on Kosovo, but due to its length, I have decided to make it a separate post rather than a comment.]

You are right to worry about the cascade effect of Kosovo’s independence. As we have discussed previously, I believe the province’s independence is a fait accompli and cannot be avoided at this point. While some commentators have said Russia will block it out of ideology and not use it a bargaining chit, I disagree. I have watched the Putin administration closely for almost a decade and have yet to see ideology rear its ugly head. He is a pragmatism to the core and will ultimately sell out the Serbs (an outcome which, I believe, would be in the nation's long-term interests) to get his way with Abkhazia (though I still not see an independent South Ossetia in the cards).

Given this, I believe that the international community needs to begin addressing the implications of the “fourth wave” of newly independent states within and on the borders of the European Union. The first and most important wave (1918-1922) resulted from the breakup of the Romanov, Habsburg, Ottoman, and Hohenzollern empires after the Great War, creating Cazecholovakia & the Baltics and reviving Poland and Albania. While the second wave (1945-1969) which was associated with decolonization did little to redraw borders in Europe, the loss of colonial possessions did much to change the face of the Continent. The third wave (1989-1993) again remade the map of Eastern Europe, as the federal states of Yugoslavia and the USSR disintegrated. Today, we sit in the liminal space between waves three and four. In addition to Kosovo, Republika Srpska, Abkhazia, Transnistria, South Ossetia, Flanders, Wallonia, Euskadi (Basque Country), Catalunya, Padania, Corsica, and various ethno-republics of the Russian Federation are clamoring for absolute autonomy or outright independence. The devolution of power to regional and ethnic areas which the EU has facilitated over the years is a powerful catalyst for these polities. Kosovo’s independence will encourage them even more.

Inside the European Union (especially within the Euro- and Schengen-zones), granting independence is a bureaucratic nightmare, but will have little effect on peace and stability. Outside its borders, things are much stickier—especially where Russian troops might have a say in territorial transfers. Regardless, the lawless statelets which have proliferated since 1989 are a major problem and must be addressed soon. Forcing breakaway republics to adopt parts of the acquis communautaire could possibly function as tool to reduce crime, trafficking, etc. However, to get to that point, the EU needs a policy. In post-Soviet space, it will be Russia that rewards and punishes behavior, and so the Kremlin will need to do its part as well. The question is: how comfortable is the international community with the fracturing of the current state system? Is a 300-member UN anathema or could it be accommodated?

A unified position is the only way forward. Back in the early 1990s, Bush the Elder told Croatia and Slovenia not to jump ship, but there were back channel signals which contradicted this official position, and, of course, the Germans did not hide their feelings about Croatian and Slovene independence. Currently, such mixed messages again proliferate. As Miodrag pointed out in his earlier post, a common EU position on Kosovo itself is almost unimaginable, much less a concerted agreement on the general trend towards splinter states. This situation is likely to emerge as an important shibboleth in years to come. Angela Merkel has shown an amazing propensity for ostrich-like behavior on tough issues, so don’t look to Germany to provide answers. I suspect it instead be Nicholas Sarkozy that decides the future of the European map.

Kosovo's case - consequences and implications

In a recent visit to Albania, President Bush received a much needed warm welcome by local officials, as well as by the local population. The reason was very simple: in contradiction with international law, Mr. Bush promised Albanians that Kosovo would be recognized as an independent country in a reasonable time period, thus rewarding the region that has the highest level of the organized crime in Europe. He looked very satisfied knowing that there exists a single European nation that actually likes him.

On the other side, the Russian president Vladimir Putin is very satisfied that the current political situation in Serbia corresponds to Russian interests in that part of Europe. Not long ago, the current prime minister of Serbia Vojislav Kostunica declared himself a big follower of the Western ideas in politics. Unfortunately, he did not take into account that he would sacrifice most of his former principles just to stay in power. From making a political union with former Milosevic and Arkan allies to the recent change of the party's status (Democratic Party of Serbia, not to be confused with Democratic Party in Serbia) which explicitly says that the party is against joining the NATO alliance in the future.

Taking into account the strongly entrenched views between the U.S. and Kosovo on one side and the Russian Federation and Serbia on the other, it seams that the (unified?) view of the European Union will have a decisive impact on the future solution of the breakaway region. But again, will it be there a unified EU view regarding Kosovo's future status? It is hard to confirm, particularly since there are many regions in Europe that have similar problems (including a recent widening chasm of distrust between Belgium's two main language communities). The long-run worst case scenario would be a possible recognition of Kosovo's independence without the resolution of the U.N. Security Council, which is unfortunately the most likely scenario considering the current situation.

What impact will it have on world politics? Will other problematic regions in the world take Kosovo's case as a prime example for their ultimate political goals (just to mention the cases of Abhkazia and Taiwan)? I would not be able to give a conclusive answer right now because there is, I believe, currently none.

In the case of the Balkan peninsula, there would be a long term animosity, not only between Kosovo and the rest of Serbia, but also between Bosnia (why the Republic of Srpska should not have the same rights as Kosovo?) and Serbia; not to mention a most likely scenario of Serb's rebellion in the northern part of Kosovo (where Serbs make up the majority of the population) against a unilateral declaration of Kosovo's independence. Depending on the general political relations between the Russian Federation and the U.S., Serbia actually might go more quickly into political and economic reforms than it would otherwise do with the region that is economically underdeveloped and has two million insubordinate people.

Yet, by accepting this fact, Serbia would have to give up its highly valued national pride which plays a huge role among the majority of Serbs.