Europe – the letzte Mensch
or
Übermensch,
the new Byzantium or declining Rome
Prof. Anis H. Bajrektarevic
A
freshly released IMF’s World Economic Outlook brings (yet again, for the
sixth year in a row, and for the third time this year only) no
comforting picture to anyone within the G-7, especially in the US and
EU. Will the passionately US-pushed cross-Atlantic Free Trade Area save
the day? Or, would that Pact-push drag the things over the edge and mark
an end of the unionistic Europe? Is the extended EU conflict with
Russia actually a beginning of
the Atlantic-Central Europe’s conflict over
Russia, an internalization of
mega geopolitical and geo-economic dilemma – who accommodates with whom,
in and out of the Union? Finally, does more Ukrainian (and Eastern
Europe) calamities pave the road for a new cross-continental grand
accommodation, of either austerity-tired France or über-performing
Germany with Russia, therefore the end of the EU? For whose sake Eastern
Europe has been barred of all important debates such as that of Slavism,
identity, secularism and antifascism? Why do we suddenly wonder that all
around Germany-led Central Europe, the neo-Nazism gains ground while
only Russia insists on antifascism and (pan-)Slavism?
Before answering that, let us examine what is (the meaning and size of)
our Europe? Where, how and – very importantly – when is our Europe? For
example, is the non-EU Europe the existent but invisible world, sort of
the dark side of the moon? Or, is that more? Beyond the ancient
Maastricht and Schengen: the Roman Hadrian Wall and Limes Line there was
no world at all. There was only (an instrument of) the Silk Road – that
antique WTO, isn’t it? Hence, is this unionistic condominium the best of
Europe, or Europe itself?
Is the EU an authentic post-Westphalian conglomerate and the only
logical post-Metternich concert of different Europes, the world’s last
cosmopolitan enjoying its postmodern holiday from history?
Is that possibly the lost Atlántida or mythical Arcadia– a Hegelian
end of history
world? Thus, should this OZ be
a mix of the endemically domesticated Marx-Engels grand utopia and
Kennedy’s dream-world “where the weak are safe and the strong are just”?
Or, is it maybe as Charles Kupchan calls it a ‘postmodern imperium’?
Something that exhorts its well-off status quo by notoriously exporting
its transformative
powers of free
trade dogma and human rights stigma–a
modified continuation of colonial legacy when the European conquerors,
with fire and sword, spread commerce,
Christianity and civilization overseas – a kind of ‘new Byzantium’, or
is that more of a Richard Young’s declining, unreformed and rigid Rome?
Hence, is this a post-Hobbesian (yet, not quite a Kantian) world, in
which the letzte
Mensch expelled
Übermensch?
Could it be as one old graffiti in Prague implies: EU=SU²? Does the EU-ization
of Europe equals to a restoration of the universalistic world of Rome’s
Papacy, to a restaging of the Roman-Catholic Caliphate? Is this Union a
Leonard’s runner of
the 21st
century,
or is it perhaps Kagan’s ‘Venus’– gloomy and opaque world, warmer but
equally distant and unforeseen like ‘Mars’?
Is this Brussels-headquartered construct, the 20th
century’s version of
Zollverein with standardized tariffs and trade, but of an autonomous
fiscal policy and politics? Thus, is the EU a political and economic re-approachment
of sovereign states or maybe just an(other) enterprise of the borderless
financial capital? Ergo, would that be a pure construct of financial
oligarchy whose
invisible hand
tacitly corrupted the Maastricht Treaty as to web-up a borderless,
limitless, wireless and careless power hub, while at the same time
entrenching, silencing and rarefying labour within each nation state?
Is this a supersized Switzerland (ruled by the cacophony of many
languages and enveloped in economic egotism of its self-centered
people), with the cantons (MS, Council of EU) still far more powerful
than the central government (the EU Parliament, Brussels’ Commission,
ECJ), while Swiss themselves –although in the geographic heart of that
Union – stubbornly continue to defy any membership. Does it really
matter (and if so, to what extent) that Niall Ferguson wonders: “…the EU
lacks a common language, a common postal system, a common soccer team
(Britain as well, rem. A.B.) even a standard electric socket…“?
Kissinger himself was allegedly looking for a phone number of Europe,
too. Baron Ridley portrayed the Union as a Fourth Reich,
not only dominated by Germany, but also institutionally Germanized.
Another conservative Briton, Larry Siedentop, remarked in his Democracy in Europe
that it is actually France who
is running the EU ‘show’, in the typical French way – less than
accountable bureaucracy that prevents any evolution of the European into
an American-style United States. Thus, Siedentop’s EU is more of a Third Bonapartistic
Empire than
possibly a Fourth
German Reich. The
Heartland
or Rimland?
After all, is the Union yet another virtue out of necessity, as
Brzezinski claimed, that after centuries of colonial overstretch and of
mutual destructions (between protagonists in close geographic
proximity), Europe irreversibly lost its demographic, economic and
politico-military importance, and that the early EU was more of an
attempt to rescue a nation state than it was the quest for a true
enterprise of the European Community building?
Despite different names and categorizations attached, historical
analogies and descriptions used, most scholars would agree upon the very
geopolitical definition of the EU: Grand re-approachment of France and
Germany after WWII, culminating in the Elysée accords of 1961. An
interpretation of this instrument is rather simple: a bilateral peace
treaty through achieved consensus by which Germany accepted a
predominant French say in political affairs of EU/Europe, and France –
in return – accepted a more dominant German say in economic matters of
EU/Europe. All that tacitly blessed by a perfect balancer–
Britain, attempting to
conveniently return to its splendid isolation from the
Continent
in the
post-WWII years. Consequently, nearly all scholars would agree that the
Franco-German alliance actually represents a geopolitical axis, a
backbone of the Union.
However, the inner unionistic equilibrium will be maintained only if the
Atlantic-Central Europe skillfully calibrates and balances its own
equidistance from both assertive Russia and the omnipresent US. Any
alternative to the current Union is a grand accommodation of either
France or Germany with Russia. This means a return to Europe of the 18th,
19th
and early 20th
centuries – namely, direct
confrontations over the Continent’s core sectors, perpetual animosities
wars and destructions. Both Russia and the US has demonstrated ability
for a skillful and persistent conduct of international affairs, passions
and visions to fight for their agendas. It is time for Brussels to live
up to its very idea, and to show the same. Biology and geopolitics share
one basic rule: comply or die.
Prof. Anis H. Bajrektarevic
Vienna, 14 OCT 2014
Contact:
anis@bajrektarevic.eu
Author is professor in international law and global
political studies, based in Austria. His recent book Is There
Life after Facebook? is published by
the New York’s Addleton Academic Publishers.
. One of the greatest historians of our age, Sir Toynbee, gives an
interesting account of our civilizational vertical. He clas-sifies as
many as nineteen major civilizations: Egyptian, Andean, Sinic, Minoan,
Sumerian, Mayan, Indic, Hittite, Hellenic, Western, Orthodox
Christian/Russian, Far Eastern, Orthodox Christian/main body, Persian,
Arabic, Hindu, Mexican, Yucatec, and Babylonic. Further on, there are –
as he calls them – four abortive civilizations (Far Western Christian,
Far Eastern Christian, Scandinavian, Syriac) and five arrested
civilizations (Polynesian, Eskimo, Nomadic, Ottoman, Spartan). Like to
no other continent, majority of them are related (originating from or
linked) to European proper.
. Lately, it looks like a
Gay-rights Jihad at many places. The non-selective, but massive
push without premeditation on the key issue here: whether homosexuality
should be either tolerated behavior or promoted life-style, has to be
urgently revisited and (re-)calibrated. As it stands now, this
Gay-rights Jihad serves neither the human/behavioristic rights
nor a worrying birth-rates decline. The European demographics is far
more of a serious and urgent socio-economic problem. Why? It is closely
related to the emotional-charge inflammable triangular issues –
identity, migration and integration, and by it triggered (to say:
justified) right-wing anti-politics.
. Is globalization the natural
doctrine of global hegemony? Well, its main instrument, commerce –as we
know – brings people into contact, not necessarily to an agreement, even
less to mutual benefits and harmony...Or, “If goods cannot cross
borders, armies will” is the famous saying of the XIX century French
economist Frederic Bastiat, so often quoted by the longest-ever serving
US Secretary of State Cordell Hull.
. ”No venue has been created
in which an EU-wide public opinion might be formed… European Parliament
elections are not truly European because they are 27 different elections
with different electoral systems after campaigns in which national
issues predominate… Under present procedures, both the President of the
European Commission and the President of the European Council are
selected in private meetings of heads of governments..”, says former
Irish Prime Minister John Bruton. Bruton, J. (2013), How real is the
danger of an EU collapse?, EU Journal Europe’s World 23(13) 2013,
Brussels
08.10.2014
Brazil – New Age
Patricia Galves
Derolle
Brazil
is the largest country in size and population in comparison to other
Latin American countries, and it is the seventh largest economy in the
world by nominal GDP. Since the mid 2000’s, Brazil has become a more
attractive global player: it has diversified its economy and its
partnerships, and launched the Growth Acceleration Plan (2007) in order
to increase investment in infrastructure and provide tax incentives for
economic growth. Brazil has also decreased domestic poverty through
development plans: according to the World Bank, poverty (people living
with USD 2 per day) has fallen from 21% of the population in 2003 to 11%
in 2009. An overall view of Brazilian economy shows that the level of
foreign direct investment is increasing, the wages are rising, the
middle class in growing, and the unemployment rate is low, which offers
a wide range of opportunities in different areas. Despite the positive
scenario, Brazil is an emerging economy and faces issues and challenges
to be surpassed.
Commercial and
Economic Partnerships
Brazil has strong commercial and economic ties with both the developed
and the developing world. To diversify partnership so that its economy
is not entirely dependent on the West is not a recent action plan for
Brazil. Since the 1960’s, with the Independent Foreign Policy, Brazil
has searched for different markets to export primary goods. In the 90’s,
Brazil focused its economy on the developed world, being the United
States its primary partner. During Lula da Silva’s government, Brazil
started searching for alternatives to boost economic growth and increase
exports, although keeping traditional partners.
After
the Goldman Sachs report on emerging economies, released in 2001, Brazil
started again to diversify its partnership with other countries that
were similar to it. In this context, Brazil, Russia, India and China
decided to strengthen their relationships and to create a non-structured
grouping called BRIC. Only in 2011 South Africa joined the grouping,
turning the acronym BRIC into BRICS. Recently, the BRICS created a
Developing Bank, which offers its members credit to infrastructure
needs. With the traditional western partners, Brazil intensifies
commercial and economic relations, mainly bilaterally or through
regional groupings. In a simple analysis, Brazil exports primary and
imports manufactured goods. In a multilateral level, Brazil disagrees
with the West on issues that concern the International Monetary Fund
(quotas) and the World Trade Organization (agricultural subsidies).
Read more on the next page:
Patricia Galves Derolle
Founder of
Internacionalista
São Paulo, Brazil
25.09.2014
“War as Usual” in
Palestine.
Can Kosovo’s Independence Serve as Role Model for a Way Out?
by Corinna Metz
Israel and Hamas are leading their “war as usual” like a cynical biennially
routine at the expense of the civilian population of Gaza. However, when
taking a look at the map of the Middle East one sees that time is running
out for the Palestinian hope for a state since the territory it could be
built on increasingly gets absorbed by Israel.
Kosovo Style Independence – A Purported Way Out of the
Crisis
So what’s the solution? Palestinians desperately search for a way out of the
stalemate in the conflict with Israel and thereby clutch at every straw.
Without questioning the purpose and limits of analogy, several Palestinian
officials perceived the unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo in
2008 as universal remedy to conflicts about statehood. This was expressed in
the statement “Kosovo is not better than us. We deserve independence even
before Kosovo, and we ask for the backing of the United States and the
European Union for our independence.”
ii made by the high ranking member of the Palestine National
Authority and advisor to the Palestinian President, Yasser Abed Rabbo.
Despite its popularity, this approach was rejected by most members of the
Palestinian leadership including President Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian
Chief Negotiator Saeb Erekat, who clearly commented the discussion with the
assertion “We are not Kosovo”.iii
Notwithstanding, political commentators and scholars seized the opportunity
for a broader debate about the relevance of a comparison of Kosovo and
Palestine.
Read more on the next page:
August 9, 2014 by Corinna Metz
Global Climate Negotiations and
Politics
Alisa Fazleeva
Alisa Fazleeva earned an MA in International Relations from
the University of East Anglia in Norwich, United Kingdom in 2013. Her
research interests include foreign policy decision-making, realism and
constructivism, and social psychology and constructivism.
Once climate and ecological problems are put in the
agenda of international organizations, they immediately become a tool
for wider political controversies.
The first observation is that climate negotiations are
becoming one more way for the governments to pursue their interests. The
brightest example happened last year, at the UNFCCC (United Nations
Framework Conference for Climate Change) held in Bonn, Germany, which
caused utter dissatisfaction among the delegates. The reason for that
was an agenda dispute concerning a proposal by the Russian Federation,
Belarus and Ukraine to introduce a new item on legal and procedural
issues related to decision-making under the Conference of the Parties
(COP) and Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the
Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP). (Earth Negotiations Bulletin, 2013)
This is particularly interesting because, given the
ratification of the Kyoto Protocol by the Russian Federation in 2004
(the protocol at which many developed countries agreed to legally
binding reductions in their emissions of greenhouse gases), it seems
there was a shift in the Russian attitude towards the negotiation that
needed to be addressed. Was the amendment to the Kyoto protocol
desirable because the protesting countries intended to influence the
environmental negotiations decision-makers? Or did it happen because the
Russian economy is alive mainly because of oil extraction and chemical
industry and pending the UNFCCC conclusions was beneficial for Russia?
Read more on the next page:
02.08.2014
On 28th
July exactly 100 years ago, Central Europe declared a war to Eastern
Europe, an event that marked the official outbreak of World War I. This
was a turning point which finally fractured a fragile equilibrium of
La Belle Èpoque, and set the Old Continent and the whole world with
it into the series of motions that lasted for almost a century, before
docking us to our post-modern societies. From WWI to www. Too smooth and
too good to be true? Let us use this occasion and briefly examine our
post-modernity and some fallacies surrounding it.
From
WWI
to
www.
– PUTIN
NEXT DR
Prof. Anis H. Bajrektarevic
In the (Brave New) world of
www.
where, irrespectively from your current location on the planet, at least
20 intelligence agencies are notifying the incoming call before your
phone even rings up, how is it possible to lose jumbo-jet for good? The
two huge aviation tragedies affecting same country – Malaysia, are yet
another powerful reminders that we are obsessed with a control via
confrontation, not at all with the prosperity through human safety.
Proof? Look at the WWI-like blame-game over the downing of the plane – a
perfect way to derail our most important debate: Which kind of future do
we want? Who seats in our cockpit and why do we stubbornly insist on
inadequate civilizational navigation?! Consequently, Ukraine today is a
far bigger crash site, which is – regrettably enough – well beyond an
ill-fated MH 17.
Why in the
www.
world our media still bears the WWI-like rethorics? The ongoing
demonization of President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin in the
so-called mainstream media actually serves as a confrontational nostalgia
call on the side of West. Hence, this main-scream
seems aiming not to alienate, but to invite the current Russian
leadership to finally accept confrontation as a modus operandi after a 25 years of pause.
Read more on the next page:
Vienna, 28 JUL 2014
A Modest “Australian”
Proposal to Resolve our Geo-Political Problems
The Continent and Nation of
Australia
Dr. Emanuel L. Paparella
There is little doubt that our geo-political problems are
becoming more and more intricate and intractable. We presently have on
our hands the middle East crisis, the Ukrainian crisis, the Iraq and
Syria crisis, the economic crisis of the West, the border crisis between
the US and Mexico (with thousands of unaccompanied children from Central
America crossing the border), the territory disputes between Japan and
China, North and South Korea, the EU-Africa crisis with refugees
arriving almost daily in Lampedusa, Italy attempting to get a foot-hold
in Europe, and the list goes on and on. The world is indeed a sorry
mess.
It has not dawned yet on our myopic politicians, our so
called leaders and statesmen, that, as the Pope has repeatedly declared,
the problem is one of inequality and distributive justice; that as long
as there are desperate people in desperate circumstances there will be
refugees crossing the borders in search of a better life. Usually those
crisis lead to wars and socio-political global turmoil benefiting none,
not even the affluent countries.
I have a modest solution which some may find laughable,
even absurd, but it is practically historically inevitable within our
ongoing process of globalization. Before I suggest the solution let us
consider some present geo-political realities. There is a polity in
place which can be termed a Continental nation in the true sense of that
word. It is Australia. It is completely surrounded by the Pacific Ocean
which functions as its borders. It is a nation with a common language
and a multicultural background, including the aboriginal culture which
is now respected if not exactly promoted.
Read more on the next page:
27 July 2014
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 2014
AND INDONESIAN FOREIGN POLICY
Igor Dirgantara
Abstracts:
Indonesian foreign politics are closely related to the issue of its
national pride, position, and role in the international affairs. The
fact that a peaceful election in Indonesia should be a major capital and
stimulus to improve the active role in regional and global arena, as
mandated by opening of the Constitution 1945 paragraph 4 to participate
in creating a world order, as well as to resolve issues and security
challenges. The question that a distinguish prof. Anis Bajrektarevic has
recently asked in his luminary work “Europe of Sarajevo 100 years
later”, ‘Was history ever on holiday?’ – is nearly answered, at least
this time in Indonesia – the 3rd largest
democracy in the world.
Keywords :
Indonesia Presidential Elections 2014, Foreign Policy Performance,
Security Challenges, Prabowo Subianto-Hatta Rajasa, Jokowi-Jusuf Kalla
By: Igor Dirgantara (Researcher and
Lecturer at the Faculty of Social and Politics, University of Jayabaya)
Indonesian Presidential general election has been underway on July 9th.
There were 2 pairs of strong candidates for Presidential and
Vice-Presidential position: Prabowo Subianto-Hatta Rajasa
(Prabowo-Hatta) and Joko Widodo and Jusuf Kalla (Jokowi-JK). There will
be numerous challenges for the elected pair, and one of the more
important challenge will be regarding Indonesia's future foreign
politics policy. This article will try to foresee the type of leadership
of each couple and also their foreign politics performance.
Read more on the next page:
16.07.2014
Is the ‘crisis of secularism’ in Western Europe the result of
multiculturalism?
by Peny Sotiropoulou
Introduction
Prof.
Anis Bajrektarevic famously claimed that “…the conglomerate of
nation-states/EU has silently handed over one of its most important
debates – that of European identity – to the wing-parties, recently
followed by the several selective and contra-productive foreign policy
actions.” Elaborating on these actions he went further as to claim that:
“…sort of Islam Europe supported in the Middle East yesterday, is the
sort of Islam that Europe hosts today. (…) and “…that Islam in Turkey
(or in Kirgizstan and in Indonesia) is broad, liberal and tolerant while
the one in Northern Europe is a brutally dismissive and assertive.”
******
Western Europe is phasing the outcomes of the development of two
different trajectories. On one side, the immigrant presence from the
former colonies, growing since the 1960’s, has turned Western Europe
into a multicultural and, by extension, multi-faith mosaic. On the
other, the permanent decline of religious performance has brought up a
wider consensus concerning the privatization of religion as well as its
status of invisibility in the public sphere. These two trajectories can
be perceived as oppositional if one bears in mind the significant
numbers of non- white immigrants residing in Western European states and
the paramount importance most of them place on religion for
identification, organization and political representation. Several
prominent academics refer to the emergence of the aforementioned
phenomenon as a ‘crisis of secularism’.
Read more on the next page:
July 5, 2014
Geo–cultural strategy for
Eurasia
A Paradigm for the New Silk Road
Emre Kovacs and Murray Hunter
In September 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed that China and
Central Asia collaborate to build a Silk Road Economic Belt,
which would comprise all countries within the Eurasian region. According
to Eurasian expert and China Daily columnist Liang Qiang, such a
corridor would be the
World’s longest economic belt, with the most potential for development,
and a strategic base of energy resources in the 21st century.
Liang Qiang further noted: “The Chinese government can strive for the
vision of establishing the Silk Road Economic Belt by making further
efforts to build mutual trust and overcome doubts, such as making clear
the difference between China’s vision and those of Russia and the US,
and stressing development and cooperation without economic integration,
and by taking into consideration the different concerns of different
countries and actively seeking converging economic interests with
regional countries.”
Read more on the next page:
22.06.2014
EU = SU² - An ahistorical
enterprise?
(Of Europe’s 9/11 and 11/9, 100 years later)
Europe of June 1914 and of
June 2014. Hundred years in between, two hot and one cold war. The
League of Nations, Cristal Night, Eurosong and Helsinki Decalogue Coco
Chanel, VW, Marshall Aid, Tito, Yuri Gagarin, Tolkien’s troll, Berlin
wall and Euro-toll Ideologies, purges, repeated genocides, the latest
one coinciding with the Maastricht birth of the Union… a televised
slaughterhouse and the Olympic city besieged for 1,000 days, just one
hour flight from Brussels.
E
non so più pregare
E nell'amore non so più sperare
E quell'amore non so più aspettare[1]
Key words in 1914: Jingoism, booming trade and lack of trust,
assassination, imminent collision, grand war. 100 years later; Europe
absorbed by the EU project, demographic and economic decline, chauvinism
reloaded … Twisting between the world of (Gavrilo) PRINCIP and global
village of (instant) MONETISATION (of every-thing and everyone)… Are our
past hundred years an indication of what to expect throughout this
century?! What is our roadmap?! Is it of any help to reflect on the
Sarajevo event of June 28th,
1914 which has finally fractured a fragile equilibrium of La Belle Èpoque,
and set the Old Continent (and its world) into the series of motions
that lasted for almost a century, before ending with the unique
unionistic form of today’s Europe?
Four men leading one
man bound
One man whom the four men hound
One man counted bound and led
One man whom the four men dread[2]
The following lines are not a comprehensive account on all of the
events. Rather interpretative by its nature, this is a modest reminder
of what Europe used and still tends to be, despite all our passions and
hopes, visions and targets, institutions and instruments.
![Dr. Nguyen Anh Tuan, Assos. Prof.[1] Nguyen Linh[2]](images/Prof_Dr._Nguyen_Anh_Tuan_140.jpg)
World
Security Network reporting from Berlin in Germany, April 17, 2014
One
of the fastest growing economies (over 6%) and the forthcoming power
house in the impressive world’s top 10 club, as well as the largest
Muslim (but secular, republican and non-Arab) country is heading towards
its presidential elections. Mood, wisdom and passions of the strongly
emerging Indonesian middle class will be decisive this time. Or by words
of distinguish colleague of mine, professor Anis Bajrektarevic: “The
middle class is like a dual-use technology, it can be deployed
peacefully, but it also might be destructively weaponized, for at home
or abroad.”
1
Introduction
december-2014
