Two weeks ago we looked at the issue of the United States and its special relationship
with Great Britain. This week we will finish our pre-election backgrounders by looking at the United States and
its relationship with Europe. That is to say, we mean the Europe of France, Germany and its satellites, not the
go-go Eastern Europe of modern times.
In his recent book The World Is Flat, political analyst Thomas Friedman quotes business organization consultant
Michael Hammer:
- One thing that tells me a company is in trouble is when they tell me
how good they were in the past. Same with countries. You don't want
to forget your identity. I am glad that you were great in the 14th Century,
but that was then and this is now. When memories exceed dreams, the
end is near.
In Europe today, we find the clash of two cultures - Secular European and Religious Arab - both of which rely
on falsified memories to make up for the failure of misbegotten dreams.
Much of the Left advocates imitating Europe as the way to ease European anger towards the United States. Since
this Yield-to-Europe mantra will be a significant theme in the next two months, one might ask what it is about
Europe that we should emulate.
For an answer, two other new books are helpful - While Europe Slept by Bruce Bawer and Menace in Europe
by Claire Berlinski. Both are written by Americans who have lived and traveled in Europe for decades. They describe
some fundamental truths that Americans need to keep in mind before we decide to yield to Europe.
Europe is a Royalist Democracy. "In most Western European countries," Bawer writes, "the
political system is essentially a private club." In their own club member eyes, they are a brilliant elite,
heirs to royalty and ministers to the king. The political, media and academic establishment of Europe have no parallel
in the United States. Club members are not to be seen as servants of the people but as their betters, teachers
and protectors. Their primary mandate is to be loyal to fellow club members and to distain those who pay too much
heed to the opinions of the "rabble," even if they are in the majority.
This class structure also contains the seeds of the European policy of always recommending multi-lateral commissions
and offering unquestioned support for the UN and the EU. These institutions offer lots of well-funded employment
opportunities with large expense accounts. Proper career politicians or bureaucrats can look forward to winning
elections when they can and to be appointed to prestigious positions in the EU and UN bureaucracies when they can't.
Both the club careerists and their ideas prevail in such a system, Bawer observes.
Therefore, political journalists, being from the same elite class, view mainstream European government officials
as fellow members of an educated elite whose joint task is to keep the group and their shared ideals alive and
well. Original thinkers are not welcome, Bawer says. People who might shake things up are closed out. As a result,
what passes for the thinking of the two major political parties of Europe is limited, in American terms, the Far
Left and the Almost Far Left.
In practice both parties accept the idea taught to school children that a government-controlled economy enforcing
income redistribution is the perfect balance
between American-style Capitalism and Soviet-style Communism. For both mainstream political parties there is not,
nor should there be, any particular limit to the state's purview. European elites stand shoulder to shoulder against
their own populations on issues that challenge the state's power - and obligation - to shape their citizen's personal
choices through an extraordinarily intrusive array of legal prohibitions, taxes and subsidies.
European Elites Have Failed. The underlying problem with all this royal governance is more severe but essentially
the same as in the United States - the isolated elites are wrong.
The Career Mandarins, who rose to prominence by scoring well on an endless series of national tests, do not take
risks and they are not entrepreneurial. They are bound to the past and to the system that has rewarded them.
The European secular state system arose after the 1648 Peace of Westphalia and replaced the medieval system of
feudal loyalties says Berlinski, All subsequent European wars were then fought for reasons of state and not any
longer for reasons of religion.
Europe is still organized along the lines of the 1815 Congress of Vienna. It remains a collection of independent
nation-states governed by ever-shifting coalitions designed to prevent any one state from ever achieving the dominance
won by Napoleonic France. Their model has produced two notable failures - The First and Second World Wars. It is
about to produce a third - Eurabia.
The Congress of Vienna model is inherently blind when confronted with an ideologically-driven, internationalist
movement, Berlinski notes. Europe proved its blindness against Communism. It now finds itself in the same position
with respect to radical Islam. Europe is under assault from an international movement that does not identify itself
with a single nation-state. Now, as in the past, Europe is incapable of marshaling an appropriate, effective and
united response under such conditions.
Europe's leaders lack the imaginative power to understand and appreciate the different nature of their opponents.
The leaders of Old Europe expect fascist Islam to be, at heart, like Europe, Berlinski observes. Much of the European
model is illustrated in their oil-for-food history with Saddam. Europeans expect their adversaries to be like them
- open to negotiations, amenable to reason and susceptible to bribery.
It is a naïve delusion or a raw political tactic of the Left to say that the current administration created
hatred when there was none before. That erroneous view is born of the political frustration of not being in charge.(Things
would be so much better if you would just let me run the government.)
The vast bulk of the criticism of America is exuberantly irrational, Berlinski notes.
The first principle must be this - European anti-Americanism is a cultist system of faith, rather than a set of
rational beliefs, and as such it is impervious to revision upon confrontation with facts, logic, evidence, gestures
of good will, public relations campaigns or attempts by American leaders to be more sensitive.
As the elites fumbled on, cowed by resurgent anti-Semitism, the demographics of Europe are changing - Muslims have
babies and Europeans do not. The economy will collapse - taxes do not match government pension obligations. (That's
possibly enough to unravel the EU.)
The Islamo-fascists know where to attack the weak. It's not the United States.
"And once again," Berlinski concludes, "the only people to whom this will come as a surprise are
those who have not been paying attention."
September 15, 2006
