Entangled Alliances

It’s perhaps a truism that if you want to understand a country, you need look no further than the way it teaches history.  Most countries are engaged in subtle yet constant processes of constructing a meta-narrative which legitimates the regime and institutions of the present.  In France, for example, the Revolution (of 1789) is appropriated as good solid secular republicanism (which is a hazy proposition at best), while the socialist Paris Commune is excluded, remembered only in the “group memory” (rather than the national, or “collective” memory) of a few pilgrims who trudge defiantly each May to the tombs of the fédérés in the Père Lacahise cemetery.  Equally, the German notion of Vergangenheitsbewältigung (coming to terms with the past) has been a crucial one in the post-war generational evolution of the nation’s self-image and has had implications for Germany’s affinity for European identity, the generational conflict of ‘68 and resurgent nationalism around the time of the 2006 World Cup.  Drawing on history lessons, the tempting contrast is, of course, between a Germany racked with “guilt” and a Japan defiant about its wartime actions until very recently.  The way in which collective memory treats events in a country’s history is, then, an enlightening insight into the way in which it is evolving in the present.

Take a fascinating and often harrowing account in this week’s New York Times about modern-day Cambodia:

As it struggles to leave its past behind, Cambodia today suffers from a particularly painful generation gap: those who survived the brutal Khmer Rouge regime, and their children and grandchildren, who know very little about it.

photo credit: Strevo

Under the leadership of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge killed around a fifth (most likely around 1.8 million) of the Cambodian population, engaging in radical social engineering which, in its persecution of anyone with the slightest education and its emphasis on a purely agrarian social model, not only had a massive human cost, but also social, economic and cultural consequences which will be felt for decades to come.  That, as the NYT article reports, 80% of under-30 year olds (who make up 70% of Cambodia’s population) know “little or nothing” about this period clearly has massive implications, generationally and in terms of an historical healing process.  Despite the ongoing trials of Khmer Rouge figures, under UN pressure, the Prime Minister, Hun Sen is clearly a proponent of historical oblivion: “[he] once proposed that Cambodia “dig a hole and bury the past.”*

[...] the Khmer Rouge period has not been taught in school, causing some teachers who are survivors to feel orphaned by their students.

A new high school text book that discusses the Khmer Rouge years has been prepared, but it will reach only a portion of the country’s students

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Is this the next FiveThirtyEight.com?  Let’s wait and see, but some interesting stuff nonetheless from predict09.eu:

Predict09.eu is a prediction of the outcome of the June 2009 European Parliament elections and the resulting make-up of the next European Parliament. The prediction is based on a statistical model of the performance of national parties in European Parliament elections, developed by three leading political scientists: Simon Hix (London School of Economics), Michael Marsh (Trinity College Dublin), and Nick Vivyan (London School of Economics).

The prediction will be updated each week until the elections on 4-7 June.

Their model analyses the expected make-up of the next Parliament by bloc and by member-state.  Some highlights and analysis below the fold:

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A quick round-up of all the fantastic Silvio stories from the last few days:

1) Not content with complimenting Obama on his “tan”, Silvio reminds Italians that he himself is “paler”.

2) After the G20 photo has to be re-staged because of a wayward Canadian PM, Silvio wanders off and prevents a successful retake.  His presence was more than evident during the first try, though, where he made headlines for irritating the Queen.

photo credit: ! Franz Maga !

3) At the official arrival ceremonies at the Strasbourg NATO summit, marked by a symbolic crossing of the Pont de l’Europe over the Rhine, Silvio keeps a bemused Angela Merkel waiting while he chats on his phone.  Perhaps more importantly, he then went on to miss the “class photo”, the walk across the bridge and the minute’s silence in honour of fallen NATO troops.  My favourite detail:

At one moment, after the others had entered a marquee, Miss [sic] Merkel even peeked out to see if the Italian leader was coming in to join the photo before shrugging her shoulders.

He was not.

His phone call continued.

When a German military brass band struck up, Mr Berlusconi put his finger in his ear and walked further down the river bank to drown out noise.

4) An oldie, but a goodie – here’s Silvio “playing hide and seek” with Merkel at an EU summit last November.

He’s only being true to form: 

The billionaire media mogul then sparked a minor diplomatic incident in 2005 by suggesting he had used “playboy tactics” to woo Finnish President Tarja Halonen in order to ensure her backing for Italy to host the European Food Safety Authority.

It’s anyone’s guess as to just why the seventy-three year old is has having his third go as leader of the world’s seventh largest economy.  But never fear, there may well be even more power coming his way, and he won’t be leaving the world stage anytime soon – Italy will be hosting the G8 summit in Sardinia in July.  Feel free to add your own favourite Silvio stories in the comments…

In 1996, Stryker McGuire launched the age of “Cool Britannia” with an ode to the city’s burgeoning chic in Newsweek magazine:

Right now, London is a hip compromise between the nonstop newness of Los Angeles and the aspic-pre-served beauty of Paris, sharpened to a New York edge. In short, this is the coolest city on the planet.

photo credit: *spud*

Thirteen years later, Stryker is back with an altogether more despondent vision.  Looking back over the Blair-Brown era, he casts back to the millennial optimism of the 1997 Labour victory and London’s world leadership in fashion, the arts and architecture.  The contrast, and it’s a stark one, is with a modern-day London heading into deep recession – the symbols of its former glory now insistent reminders of its current predicament:

Glitzy restaurants and cutting-edge fashion that used to be signs of welcome creativity reek of excess in a time of belt-tightening. Heavily mortgaged homes that looked like brilliant retirement nest eggs when property prices were soaring year after year now just look like basket cases. Construction sites and street works that once raised expectations of things to come now seem like major inconveniences. 

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When domestic politics is getting you down, the international stage can prove a welcome diversion.  Just ask Bill Clinton.  But here in Britain we’re talking plummeting poll numbers, not impeachment, and the diversion of international economic policy, not cruise missile strikes.  Yes, what a breath of fresh air the international stage has been for Gordon Brown.  Far away from a seemingly insurmountable deficit in the polls, and rumblings in the Labour ranks, Brown has been reveling in a reputation as a far-sighted guru of economic policy, feted by the likes of Paul Krugman and fulfilling a boyhood dream (I’m with you Gordo) of addressing a Joint Session of Congress.  Next month, however, these two worlds will collide in a bold all-or-nothing attempt by Brown to merge the two currents of his premiership; an attempt to rescue his domestic political prospects and cement his role as a world leader in one fell swoop.  In April, the G20 is coming to town, and for Gordon Brown the stakes could not be higher.

photo credit: World Economic Forum

The London Summit, which will be held on one fateful day, April 2nd, is a follow-up to a session held last November in Washington D.C. – a session in which rather little was decided, except vague assurances about cutting taxes and increasing government spending.  The Prime Minister’s zeal was already clear at this stage.  He declared that the summit  was “the road to the new Bretton Woods. It is absolutely clear that we are trying to build new institutions for the future.”  For him, London is where the deal will be sealed.   His agenda is extraordinarily ambitious.  As the Economist sardonically put the issue:

The summit should not only stimulate the economy and renounce protectionism, but also bolster the IMF and other international financial outfits, revamp regulation, create an early-warning system for crises, and save the poor. It was as if Mr Brown thought the ailing economy would yield to an act of governmental will, if only it were colossal enough.

The Economist, ever pragmatic, argues that such overreach risks undermining the immediate necessities of global government stimulus and a united front against protectionism.  This pessimism seems to be borne out by the unenthusiastic noises coming from G20 capitals and an emerging transatlantic gulf in attitudes.  Below the fold, I look at the opposition to Gordon Brown’s plan for new financial institutions, and the implications for his domestic political fortunes.

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Between June 4th and June 7th, Europeans from twenty-seven member states will go to the polls to elect a new European Parliament.  One man, however, is more likely to tip the balance of power in Strasbourg than the electorates of most individual countries.  That man is David Cameron.  In 2005, when campaigning for the leadership of the Conservative Party, Cameron sought to ingratiate himself to the Eurosceptic wing of his party by making a pledge.  Choose me, he assured them, and I’ll bring the Conservatives out of the mainstream centre-right political grouping in the European Parliament, the EPP (European People’s Party), after the next elections.  The icing on this isolation cake was the surreptitious deselection and suspicious retirements of old-style pro-European Tory MEPs, and the imposition of control from Central Office during the MEP corruption scandals of Summer 2008.

photo credit: loungerie

Why exactly did the Cameroonian plan tug on the heartstrings of the John Redwoods and William Hagues of this world?  Above all, it’s important to remember that the modern-day British correlation between Left and Right and Europhile and Eurosceptic is an anomaly in international terms as well as historically (Labour’s 1983 manifesto promised, for example, to pull Britain out of the then-EEC).  Your most ardent Superstaters are likely to be found, not in the Socialist bloc, but within Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats or Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP.  The Tories smell a federalist scent wafting around the hemicycle, and it gives them the jitters. For them, there’s nothing worse than the familiar refrain of common security, immigration and foreign policies.    And don’t get the anti-Maastricht veterans started on the Lisbon Treaty (no really, please don’t). 

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Europe’s recession in numbers: If you like your economic data in jazzy form, then you’ll love this interactive map from Dutch newspaper, NRC Handelsblad.

Political intrigue in Germany ahead of September’s elections.  Will Angela Merkel be able to free herself from the constraints of the Grand Coalition?  Her personal popularity suggests so, but it’s not clear whether this will spill over into unequivocal support for her Christian Democrats.

In the context of the ongoing rants at business news channel CNBC over Obama’s economic policies, Daniel de Groot at Open Left links to a fascinating Pew poll (from October) that compares how well-informed various Americans are depending on where they get their information from.  Some obvious findings (doing well, the New Yorker and the BBC; doing badly, Fox News and religious radio), but also some surprises (ESPN outpolls CNN, for example).  And take pride: a whole 28% of Americans can name the British PM.                    photo credit: holger doelle

Also from Open Left, it had been taken for granted that party identification was in inexorable decline, but has Obama (or indeed, Bush) stemmed the tide of this phenomenon, and set Democrats on a long-term upward trajectory?  Sure looks like it.

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s State Department has entered the blogosphere.  Some good catch-up clips from her recent travels in Europe and the Middle East (a visit that serves as the prologue to President Obama’s visit next month).  The FT’s Brussels Blog reports on the masterfully executed political strategy which was her visit to the European Parliament.

photo credit: carf

“Lexington”, who writes the Economist’s weekly column on America, now has his own blog.  This will be the Economist’s second blog on American politics, the other being the long-running Democracy in America.  Slightly off topic perhaps, the latter yesterday considered the nefarious consequences of British visa restrictions (which I discussed briefly last week) on… clowns.

Talking of the Economist, there have been a few articles about friendship groups and social networks recently, but for my money, this article rises above the pack.  Check out “Primates on Facebook: even online, the neocortex is the limit“, and ponder whether you have enough friends to surpass the “Dunbar number”.

One of the oddest things about our political system is that, in all likelihood, the broad centre-left of Labour and Lib-Dem will top 50% in next year’s election, but it looks pretty certain that a Tory government will be returned.  With this in mind, and allusions to the 80s along the lines of my own Thatcher rant, Polly Toynbee eyes electoral reform.

And finally… Andrew Sullivan links to a welcome if unusually frank expression of opinion by a British PM on US politics: Gordon Brown on California’s homophobic proposition 8.

In an earlier post on language I alluded to the idea of a European “demos”, that elusive common sense of European identity and political community which would seem to be the key to any chance of “ever closer union”.  The disconnect between European citizens and their governing institutions is certainly stark.  Have you talked to anyone lately who’s getting excited about the upcoming elections to the European Parliament?  Can anyone doubt that the election of the American president was a much more exciting prospect for an overwhelming majority of Europeans than the selection of a new president of the EU Commission?  And what of the question of identity?  A resident of Manchester would probably describe him or herself as British, English, Northern and Mancunian before considering, if at all, that he or she might be European.

photo credit: Albertane

Some argue that it’s impossible to achieve a common political identity across 27 member states, pointing to different political traditions, language barriers and the enduring pride of the nation-state.  The possibility of “demos” and the very logic of supra-national representation was, for example, attacked by Czech President Vaclav Klaus in the European Parliament last month.  The attitude of Klaus, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the EU Council (bring on Sweden), is indicative of a habit of  unproductive naysaying.  It slams the European project without offering solutions and delights only those with preconceived Eurosceptic attitudes.

Without indulging in the media-fostered image of phantom overlords plotting away in Eurospeak in their Brussels hideaways, then, I fully admit the need for a greater sense of relevance for the EU and the importance of attempts to foster “Europeanness”.  Indeed, in response to Klaus’s challenge, the task of pro-Europeans is to identify measures that could be taken to improve the extent to which Europeans identify with their policy makers and planners.  Below the fold, I discuss some of these ideas.

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Suddenly she’s everywhere.  Docu-dramas on the Beeb (and what could be more thrilling than Portillo on Thatcher?); a New Statesman special issue; op-eds from the Guardian to the Telegraph; portrait hangings at No. 10.  Yep, apparently we have Thatcher Fever.  What accounts for the sudden revivalism of a legacy which has been spurned for two decades?  I don’t buy the argument that this is a matter of simple anniversaries.  Sure, it’s almost 30 years since Sunny Jim miscalculated the election date, but I don’t recall a similar fiesta in 1999.  

photo credit: Steve Punter

Nor, it would now seem, does the mere mention of “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie” elict the Pavlovian response “Out Out Out!”  The BBC’s sympathetic portrayal, and Gordon’s acceptance of the idea of not only a Downing Street portrait, but even a state funeral, seem to imply that after Harry Enfield’s Tory Boy, an election campaign based around Thatcher’s hair on Hague’s head and spontaneous celebration when she quit, it’s finally OK to be a bit soft on the Iron Lady.  Just when did it go out of fashion to hate Tories?

How has this happened?  Well, as Martin Kettle points out in his Guardian column, part of the explanation is that, unlike in 1999, we’re now on the precipice of a Conservative comeback.  David Cameron is poised to become the next Prime Minister, so, the media seem to be presuming, we’re all a bit nostalgic for the last era of Conservative hegemony, if not (as in the case of my generation) curious about what it was actually like.

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Washington D.C. has long had a bizarre constitutional status.  A “district” largely carved out of territory ceded by Maryland in 1790, it has had little control over its own destiny.  Congress still retains most powers that a Governor would normally enjoy, which is why you see bizarre school voucher experiments (and today’s gun law tactics) in a city where 90% of residents vote for the Democratic candidate for Mayor, President or (non-voting) Congressional representative (currently the inestimable Eleanor Holmes Norton).

photo credit: mindgutter

Non-voting representative no more, however.  Very soon, the District of Columbia will no longer complain of ‘taxation without representation’.  The long-awaited follow-up to the 23rd Amendment (1961) which gave Washingtonians votes for President may now have belatedly arrived.  Yesterday, the Senate voted 61-37 for a D.C. voting rights bill, expected to be quickly followed by the House and signed by President Obama, which will extend voting rights to the legislature.  There are, of course, constitutional issues at play when considering the notion of full congressional representation for D.C.  The Bill is likely to face legal challenges, which will probably make it all the way to the Supreme Court (perhaps, one speculates, finally giving the Supremes a chance to make up for Bush v Gore).

For Chris Bowers, that the constitutional status of the District is back on the agenda is a signal that a national conversation should be opened about the statuses of other anachronistic US territories, especially Puerto Rico, which, as we were reminded of at the time of Hillary Clinton’s primary victory in the island last June, remains largely a colonial entity.  The US should indeed be wary of the potential for unrest during the recession.  In an escalating crisis, Europe’s biggest remaining colonial power, France, is being reminded of the awkward relationship of modern colonialism and economic crisis in its Caribbean territories, Martinique and Guadeloupe.  American hypocrisy over D.C., Puerto Rico and the rest of its overseas territories is rarely something that is openly discussed, but yesterday’s Senate vote is an encouraging sign that Obama’s America is beginning to live up to Bobby Kennedy’s call of “really mean[ing] it when we say all men are created free and equal before the law.”