A
WAGNERIAN VISION
In
a startling
speech given at Berlin's Humboldt University, taking off
his Foreign Minister's hat – "although I know this cannot
really be done" – he called for the radical acceleration
of the EU's scope and power: the direct election of a European
President, the federalization of Europe according to the principle
of "subsidiarity," and the "division of sovereignty" between
the constituent nation-states and the rising power of the
EU. Looking to absorb Eastern Europe, Fischer declared that
the present process of European integration is at a "standstill,"
and that the authors of the pan-European initiative need to
be more aggressive in their pursuit of what he calls –
with a typically German flair for ponderous melodrama –
"the European finality." Such Wagnerian rhetoric, coming from
a German government official, was enough to send the French
minister of the Interior through
the roof. Jean-Pierre Chevenement, the left-wing leader
of the anti-Maastricht Citizens' Movement and a populist voice
within the government, averred:
"We
are in the presence of a German tendency to imagine or Europe
a federal structure based on its own model. At the bottom
of this, Germany is still dreaming of the German Holy Roman
Empire. It has not yet healed from the historical accident
of Nazism."
YOU
WANNA TAKE THIS OUTSIDE?
Them's
fightin' words. But Fischer's speech was provocative in the
extreme, and he knew it: he certainly knew he was making headlines,
and even alluded to them in his speech, before they were ever
written:
"And
all the Euroskeptics on this and the other side of the Channel
would be well advised not to immediately produce the big headlines
again, because firstly this is a personal vision of a solution
to the European problems. And, secondly, we are talking here
about the long term, far beyond the current intergovernmental
conference. So no one need be afraid of these ideas."
BE
AFRAID – BE VERY AFRAID
But
anyone listening to that speech – and especially citizens
of countries occupied by the Germans during World War II –
is bound to be suspicious, at the very least. His or her ears
will certainly perk up upon hearing the refrain "especially
for Germany" repeated like a mantra throughout Fischer's peroration.
In touting the economic, political, and cultural benefits
that will accrue to Europeans once the EU is enlarged and
engorged with power, Fischer invariably adds that the results
will be beneficial "especially to Germany." He waxes particularly
eloquent when describing the process of Eastward expansion,
but you can't blame Monsieur Chevenement and others from instantly
thinking: Lebensraum!
FISCHER'S
TRIUMPH OF THE WILL
Indeed,
there is an ominously triumphalist tone to the Fischer speech
that is all too familiar on that side of the Atlantic. The
EU is likened to the spirit of History itself, and identified
with the idea of ever-ascending levels of progress –
to be achieved, of course, by the Euro-crats and legislated
into existence:
"Quo
vadis Europa? is the question posed once again by the history
of our continent. And for many reasons the answer Europeans
will have to give, if they want to do well by themselves and
their children, can only be this: onwards to the completion
of European integration. A step backwards, even just standstill
or contentment with what has been achieved, would demand a
fatal price of all EU member states and of all those who want
to become members; it would demand a fatal price above all
of our people. This is particularly true for Germany and the
Germans."
THE
FUTURE BELONGS TO US
To
advance integration is to go "forward," and all other sentiments
are merely nostalgia for a world that is already dead, and
about to be buried. The Future Belongs to Us. Now where
have we heard that before? Chevenement shocked the French
elites, and aroused such a political storm with his remarks
that he was forced to either apologize or else reconsider
his future employment prospects. Although he was properly
contrite – declaring "I
like Germany a lot" – he had it about right the first
time around. The militaristic faux-nationalism of the French
Socialist government, which disdains everything American and
dreams of building a rival superpower to contend with the
US on the world stage, was here trumped by the voice of an
authentic French nationalist, who sees Europa's capital city,
Brussels, as being more than halfway to Berlin. Is there really
nothing to fear from an idea that would accomplish Germany's
objectives during the last war – without a shot being
fired? French patriots have plenty of reasons to fear the
EU – as do patriots of all the nations of Europe.
THE
FUTURE IS NOW
If
you want to see what the future of Europa, the mega-state,
will have to mean, then listen to Fischer – who narrowly
pulled his "Green" party of Germany into the "humanitarian"
crusade to bomb the daylights out of Yugoslavia – tell
us why the EU needs to "integrate" and complete the process
of "communitzation" not only economically, but in terms of
forging a common European foreign policy:
"It
was not least the war in Kosovo that prompted the European
states to take further steps to strengthen their joint capacity
for action on foreign policy, agreeing in Cologne and Helsinki
on a new goal: the development of a Common Security and Defense
Policy. With this the Union has taken the next step following
the euro. For how in the long term can it be justified that
countries inextricably linked by monetary union and by economic
and political realities do not also face up together to external
threats and together maintain their security?"
ALL
PUMPED UP
The
Europeans, who once huddled under NATO's shield, are flexing
their military muscles, beefed up as they are by a constant
source of US taxpayer dollars in foreign aid and other subsidies.
Now the Eurocrats want what every aspiring government must
have, and that is its own armed forces. The EU's deficiency
in this department was keenly felt by the aspiring Eurocrats
of Fischer's ilk, who had to stand by while the hated Americans
did their dirty work for them. It isn't enough that they're
stiffing us in Kosovo, refusing to pay up on their prewar
pledges of "burden-sharing": now the socialist governments
of Europe are banding together to present a common front –
against whom? Who or what does this "external threat" consist
of?
LOOKING
FOR TROUBLE
Is
it Russia – a defeated, dismembered nation, nuclear-armed
but unable to subdue even the brave but ill-equipped Chechens?
Nah. The threat from Moscow is not that Russia will invade,
but that it will implode and cause increased instability on
the EU's eastern frontier. In any case: just how "European"
is a Union that encompasses Istanbul but not St. Petersberg.
Anatolia but not the Ukraine?
NO
THREAT FROM THE EAST
But
then – who? The Chinese? They aren't in much better
shape than the Russians: the fragility of the Beijing regime
has never been greater, and China is seething with the spirit
of rebellion. It is all the gerontocrats of the old Stalinist
regime can do to hold on to power, let along try to extend
it. The Brits – if they manage to stay out of the Eurocrats
clutches – could be a thorn in the EU's side, albeit
a small one. In spite of Tony Blair's attempt, in Sierra Leone,
to make the first new addition to the British Empire in God
knows how long, the only real military danger or "external
threat" posed by the islands of the UK would be as outposts
of American power. . . .
NOW
THERE ARE TWO
Given
the radically protectionist economic policies pursued by,
for example, the French Socialist-led government of Lionel
Jospin – which include new barriers to the importation
of American culture, as well as manufactured goods –
we can expect a similar if more radical policy from the EU.
With the seizure of power by the Eurocrats, it won't be long
before this new European super-state will come into open conflict
with the US – and the days of the US as the world's only
superpower will be over.
DOUBLE
THE TROUBLE
Before
you start celebrating, think of it this way: instead of one
gang lording it over us all, however incompletely and ineptly,
there will be two of them: and not only that, but they'll
be at each other's throats from the British Channel to the
Red Sea, battling for Africa, competing for oil profits in
the Caucasus and playing balance of power games with Moscow
and Beijing.
NEITHER
HOLY NOR ROMAN
And
here's the scary part: the rise of a European superstate would
put antiwar activists in an almost impossible situation, for
we would have a much harder time making the case for peace
in the face of such an aggressive and potentially dangerous
enemy. For the reality is that a nuclear-armed and fully-empowered
EU would indeed represent a deadly and dire military threat
not only to the US but to the peoples of the world. Contrary
to the windy delusions of all too many right-wing European
intellectuals – who feel obligated to bend the knee to
the European Idea, somehow without bowing before the golden
idol of the EU – European federalism does not
represent some vague notion of European cultural solidarity,
but a coalition of the uncrowned princes of Europe, the heirs
to the Congress of Vienna and would-be legatees of Charlemagne.
It is indeed, as Chevenement put it, a "new Holy Roman Empire"
which, like the original, is neither holy nor Roman.
THE
BROW OF ZEUS
It's
full consolidation, as Fischer and his fellow EU "patriots"
would have it, promises to be the unholy birth of a power
that can only be malignant. For here, combined in one vessel,
are all the ancient intrigues and ambitions, the bloodbaths
and the persecutions, the suffering of a continent diseased
by rampant statism and riven by religious and ethnic hatred.
An explosive combination, but if the force of the explosion
can be diverted outward – the classic device of
rulers throughout history – then Europa can emerge, like
Pallas Athena, from the brow of Zeus fully armed. With the
sudden appearance of an "external threat," look at how suddenly
and magically Joschka Fischer has conjured a new kind of politically
correct patriotism. While practically no one – including
Fischer – goes into ecstasies of Euro-patriotism whenever
they hear "Ode to Joy," with the sudden appearance of the
unnamed "external threat" a kind of ersatz patriotism comes
into instant existence.
HAIDER
AGAINST THE EU
This
started out to be a column about Jorge Haider, the much vilified
leader of Austria's Freedom Party (FPO), and widespread sentiment
in Europe in regard to the EU-imposed sanctions that enough
is enough. I
have written on the subject of Haider before, and I won't
repeat myself here except to say that Haider is no more a
Nazi than any one of a number of conservative Republicans
who want to get rid of the welfare state and seek some
limits on immigration. Aside from Haider – and the concerted
attack on him, including not only his politics but his reportedly
unconventional sex
life and even his personal
travel plans – the Freedom Party is the Austrian
equivalent of the GOP in terms of ideology and its stolidly
middle class base. Posing a real challenge to a bipartisan
elite that hands out jobs and special privileges to party
members, the FPO calls for free markets, protection from rising
crime, and some assurance that they will not be overwhelmed
by the flood of refugees coming in from the east. In Herr
Fisher's Europa, this is backward thinking: he uses terms
like of "enlargement," "extension," and "expansion," but the
Austrians are being overwhelmed by a floodtide of immigration
– instead of expanding, Austria seems to be shrinking
in the face of the coming onslaught. And it isn't just in
Austria: throughout Europe, but particularly in France and
Belgium, right-wing populist movements are mobilizing against
the centralizers, defiantly asserting their particularism,
appealing to history – and to nature – as the basis
of their stubborn separatism. There is a campaign on now to
ban them, just as Serbian nationalist parties have been banned
in Bosnia: the idea is to demonize them as neo-Nazis, just
as they smeared poor Haider, and make the propagation of all
nationalist or separatist ideologies a hate crime.
THE
HISTORICAL PERISCOPE
As
the EU comes trolling eastward, intervening in who knows how
many ethnic, religious, and territorial disputes that go back
to the 12th century, the era of renewed European
wars of conquest begins. The Albanian presence in the Balkans
will be expanded and given free rein, and the Turkish influence
extended right up to the gates of Vienna. This is the new
multicultural Europe, and this time the Saracens will not
be turned back. Instead, they will be welcomed, and the Serbs
and other Orthodox Christians treated like invaders. If we
could look into our historical periscope and see Europa as
envisioned by Herr Fischer, say, ten to twenty years from
now, perhaps sooner, what we would see is . . . Kosovo.
AN
ALARMING PORTENT
This
is what makes the Fischer speech so alarming, for in it he
proposes a radical acceleration of the EU's evolution, and
his sense of urgency is clearly communicated. He raises the
possibility – while again claiming not to speak for the
German government – that even if all the EU members are
not ready for a unified federation, with a single head of
state and a constitution, then it is up to a few "avante garde"
states to take the lead. He envisions a "core" of European
states committed to making the EU a real political entity,
who would sign a "treaty within a treaty" and agree to a division
of sovereignty – in effect, a merger. He clearly holds
up the possibility of a Franco-German accord, and even raises
the idea of several smaller countries taking this course –
Belgium, seat of the Eurocratic elite, is particularly avid.
This would be a radical – and ominous – development
that could prefigure a period of wars, repression, and turmoil
throughout Europe.
KARMA
The
rise of the EU as a superpower rivaling and possibly threatening
the US is a case of karma if ever there was one. It is almost
a kind of physical law, in the sense that every action has
an opposite and equal reaction. In spite of the Hegelian fever
dreams of a few neoconservative eggheads, history is far from
ended. The dialectic of hegemonism, and counter-hegemonism,
the cycle of intervention and retribution continues as before.
The pretensions of the "one dispensable nation" as our Secretary
of State puts it are about to be rudely shattered – and
if not for the prospect of World War III, it might almost
be worth it.
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