Duly Noted: The Greatest Damage to the Greatest Number
From the desk of George Handlery on Sat, 2008-12-06 09:30
1. An understandable concern of the eastern half of the Atlantic World is its relationship to Russia. The more so since Russia is undergoing a mutation. Whatever emerges will largely determine her intentions and therefore set the parameters within which the relationship will have to unfold. In this regard, the conversation tends to shift to cautionary reservations. These ponder what Russia’s direct and indirect neighbors need to avoid in order not to antagonize her. While this makes some sense the depiction of the problem – wrong policies provoke Angst and that hostility – misses a point. It is that Russia’s vigorously communicated intransigence is allowed to net rewards that would not be extended to pure diplomacy. In the case of the Ukraine’s and Georgia’s NATO membership a middle way between the demonstration of resolution and capitulation has been agreed upon. Eventually, the two can become members. However, in response to Western Europe’s wishes, the admission procedure will not be shortened. In addition, NATO will resume its discussions about a “strategic partnership” with Russia. The interruption came about because of Georgia. So, as things stand, Russia is not getting everything it wants regarding membership and the content of talks. This means that NATO is not split (as Russia has trumpeted the situation for PR purposes) but it is divided.
2. On its way to success, the West has often been in danger of permanently succumbing to the temptation of a “developmental dictatorship”. The typical enticing promise was a benign dictator able to speed up change that brings with it the improvement of daily life. At the same time, a system commanded by a strong center and a Leader was supposed to protect its subjects from the threat the New. In the case of Russia, systems of this kind have prevailed. They also contributed to her success by the norms the majority defined the term. The definition’s center piece was military parity or superiority relative to the leading powers. The tendency to rely on directives providing autocratic short-cut solutions to modernity – especially its military aspects – has survived the Marxist experiment. Putinism is a product of the temptation and the tradition to resort to a progressive autocracy.
3. Europe’s stability and peace depends significantly on her treatment of minorities that are located within her constituent states. Regrettably, the EU feels inclined to place its greatest emphasis on preserving the integrity and full sovereignty of national states. Here a very narrow definition of the term is used even though few countries are in reality ethnically homogeneous. Therefore, dealing with minority grievances enjoys no high priority – it is often regarded as an inconvenient distraction – even though the minority of a country might be a majority in another one. This condition can lead to the internationalization of internal problems. Beyond the human rights aspects of the minority problem, a related issue is democracy and internal stability. Both of these might be superseded by the international complications that internally mishandled minority conflicts can cause between states. Refusing to hear and arbitrate the case of pressured minorities might please the representatives of the states against whom complaints might be directed. Succumbing to the temptation “to keep the matter quiet” and to equate the demand for collective rights with secessionism is a form of appeasement that is unlikely to cure the ailment. In fact, a conspiracy of silence encourages states that are inclined to do so, to assimilate coercively their minorities before the time to do so runs out.
4. On 18 November, the news of a crime made the pages of the foreign affairs sections of the world press. In the Hungarian city of Pécs, a grenade thrown into the living room of a Gypsy couple killed the parents and left their children injured. The police quickly indicated that it is suspecting normal criminality and not racial crime. The representatives of the Roma reacted that racial crime is in the interest of the folks they represent. Therefore, the incident must have been racism in action. Indeed, if the matter was carried abroad, it was presented as evidence of nasty Nazis lurking around. Actually, the police are a state organ and the Socialists run the state. Considering that the Gypsies are core supporters of the left, furthermore, adding the benefits of smearing “the other side”, the “organs” had every reason to put the blame on racism. They did not. Since then it became public that the casualties were involved in usurious lending – involving the forceful collection of debts. The victim also operated whorehouses and got involved in the fight to determine who controls the turf. What the case teaches us is that, as so often, not everything that looks like something is necessarily what it appears to be.
5. Good news from the majority-minority front. Ethnic problems require more than the accommodation of minorities through the recognition of their collective rights by the majority. All too often minority problems are complicated by the categorical rejection of the minority of the majority’s state, its system, language, laws, customs and way of life. Regrettably, the problem with the stateless but universally present Gypsies in central and east central Europe issues from the applicability of this generalization. From a “front” that is normally rich in bad news, a healthy initiative can be reported. In Hungary non-leftist Gypsies are trying to set up an organization that aims to reduce through self-policing the criminality committed by members of their ethnic group. Anyone able to produce a “good conduct certificate” (testifying that the person receiving it has not been charged with crimes) is eligible for membership. The positive about this is that here a minority that is widely regarded as crime-prone, acts autonomously to improve itself. Unwisely, existing and well connected Roma organizations tend to connect crime-fighting to racially motivated actions directed against their members or as attempts to paralyze their “culture”. Self-policing is the kind of self-help that can raise a group to the level of the majority surrounding it not by demanding support but by autonomous problem solving.
6. American, and to a lesser degree English affairs are, even though everybody is convinced to know everything about them, widely misunderstood. This misunderstanding gain in significance through the illusion of being properly informed which makes the evaluation of facts that contradict the preconceptions difficult. A fundamental cause of knowledgeable misjudgment is that the Enlightenment is the basis of the current stage of the Atlantic Civilization. Only that the Continent goes back to the ultimately revolutionary French Enlightenment and not to the one that had evolved in the English tradition. In France in 1789, a new social order “had” to be created. Its precondition was the smashing of the institutional order through which the social order expressed itself. In North America, a satisfactory social order and a successful society existed before ’76. The problem was that the political order did not measure up to what society had generated. The precondition of achieving this was mainly a reform – and not really a revolution. Its purpose had been to free the social order and to extend its sway on the existing political institutions. It tuned out that his could only be done at the expense of King George who incorporated the main impediment to modernization. Furthermore, economic well being – or the hope to achieve it – did not presuppose taking something away from someone else but could be achieved by ones own actions. In this situation, freedom and well-being became interrelated. This explains much about why the once Communist ruled bigger half of Europe is having problems to democratize itself.
7. Which way does the needle point? The types that get ambassadorial appointments reveal much about the real orientation of Presidents. Charles Gati might get the job in Budapest. He has the full support of the Socialists. It is worth a lot. After all, their approval rating soars at about 20%. They are destined to lose the next election with flying colors. The decision must have come about by re-writing Jeremy Bentham’s motto to become “the greatest damage to the greatest number”.
8. In total amazement, the writer forgot the source. The cause of the stupefaction is a new twisted story surrounding 9/11. The best-publicized tale regarding that event is the allegation that the CIA had plotted the mayhem. It then warned the Jews working in the Twin Towers not to go to work that day. Nothing is impossible and proving that is that someone has managed to carry this story further. It goes like this: the tale about an American conspiracy might be correct or incorrect. Regardless of the merits of either case, the very fact that the story sells in the Muslim world proves something. It demonstrates that these people have been, and are being, abused and injured by American/Israeli policies. If it would not be so, the account would not be acceptable to them. Therefore the “guilt” and the share of 9/11s victims in their tragedy is established. Naturally, some elements of this thesis would fly if the case would be made with a different emphasis. It could be argued that the willingness to believe an absurdity indicates that those accepting it as fact are, for whatever reason, bitter and hostile. Whether they are antagonistic because they had been wantonly mistreated or because they are in search of a good excuse to mobilize for a politically unattainable goal remains, in this case, an open issue.
Posts
