1 January 2011
African Union: The Limits of the Possible
By Gwynne Dyer
“It’s not a bluff,” said an adviser to Alassane Ouattara, the real winner in November’s presidential election in Ivory Coast, who is now besieged in a hotel in Abidjan, the capital, under United Nations protection. “The (African Union) soldiers are coming much faster than anyone thinks.” But it IS a bluff, and the AU is just undermining its own credibility by threatening to use force.
The incumbent president, Laurent Gbagbo, who stole the Ivory Coast election by getting the Constitutional Council (headed by a crony) to invalidate many of Ouattara’s votes, still controls the capital and the army. His actions have been condemned by the United Nations, the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the United States and the European Union, but getting him out will not be easy.
Gbagbo, once a history professor and a pro-democracy campaigner, has latterly turned himself into the self-appointed defender of the Christian peoples in the southern half of Ivory Coast. Now he says: “I do not believe at all in a civil war. But obviously, if the pressures continue as they have, they will push towards war, confrontation.”
He knows about civil war, because one broke out two years after he was elected president in 2000. Military mutineers, mostly Muslim troops from the north who didn’t want to be demobilised and lose their jobs, attempted to seize power in Abidjan.
They were quickly defeated in the capital, but other Muslim troops took control all across the north. French troops blocked them from moving south, and after a couple of months the divided country settled into the sullen cease-fire that has lasted for the past eight years. The civil war that Gbagbo is warning about would be the second round, not the first.
Then why doesn’t he just accept his electoral defeat and quit? Partly because he just wants to stay in power, of course, but it’s not as simple as that. He has real support among the Christians of the south, because many of them see Alassane Ouattara as the democratic facade of a Muslim takeover bid that began with the military mutiny in 2002.
The north-south division in Ivory Coast is real. The country has shifted from a narrow Christian majority twenty-five years ago to a Muslim majority today – and it has done so largely through illegal immigration from the much poorer, entirely Muslim countries to the north: Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea.
About four million of the 21 million people now living in Ivory Coast are illegal immigrants, and almost all of those immigrants are Muslims. It has changed the electoral balance, because many of them register to vote, especially in the north of the country where they speak the same languages as the local citizens. Southerners are afraid that they will lose control, and so they back Gbagbo.
It’s really a rich-poor problem, not a Christian-Muslim problem. The country’s agricultural resources, particularly the cocoa plantations that make Ivory Coast the wealthiest country in West Africa, are mainly in the south. Southerners think that a northern-led government would divert a lot of that income to the north, and they are probably right.
That would only be fair, but southerners also believe that hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants were allowed to register in the north, and that they all voted for Ouattara. They may be right, they may be wrong, but they believe it. So the November election didn’t solve the Ivorian problem; it exacerbated it.
The African Union is determined to force Gbagbo to accept the election outcome because it wants to break with the past and make democratic elections the norm in Africa. It has had some recent successes in thwarting military coups, but the situation in Ivory Coast is a lot murkier, and direct intervention by the AU would be a lot harder.
Armchair generals in the AU and ECOWAS talk boldly of military intervention to drive Gbagbo from power, referencing the successful operations to end civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone in recent years. But Ivory Coast is five times bigger and richer than either of those countries, and its army can actually fight.
Besides, where would the AU and ECOWAS find enough African troops to intervene effectively? Only Nigeria is big enough, but it is most unlikely to commit a lot of troops this year to what might be a real war in Ivory Coast. This is an election year in Nigeria, and body bags coming home as the voters go to the polls are rarely a vote-winner.
The United States and the European Union have already imposed sanctions on Gbagbo’s government, and the Central Bank of West African States has blocked his access to Ivory Coast’s account. These are measures that will work slowly, if at all, but there is no alternative. Starting a war is rarely a good idea. Starting an unwinnable one never is.
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To shorten to 725 words, omit paragraphs 6 and 7. (“Then…Guinea”)
20 June 2010
Today Belgium, Tomorrow the European Union
By Gwynne Dyer
Bart de Wever, the Flemish politician who promises the “evolutionary evaporation” of Belgium, is now the political king-maker in Brussels. The bureaucrats and politicians of the European Union, who also hang out in Brussels, will therefore have a ringside seat for the dismantling of the Belgian state. They should pay close attention, for their own turn may be coming.
De Wever’s New Flemish Alliance won 28 percent of the vote in Dutch-speaking Flanders, the northern half of Belgium, in the national election on 14 June. Elsewhere that would not be an impressive result, but in the highly fragmented Belgian political system it counts as an avalanche.
A long struggle will now ensue while the many Flemish and Walloon parties struggle to form a coalition with a parliamentary majority. It’s always a struggle, because there is very little by way of shared identity between the Flemish and the French-speaking Walloons. (After the 2007 election, it took 200 days to negotiate a coalition, and then there were three governments in three years.) Belgian politics has reached a state of semi-permanent paralysis.
The project for an independent Flanders is no longer a political pipe-dream, but the reaction elsewhere is likely to be a loud Who Cares? So we end up with a separate Flanders and a (reluctantly) independent Wallonia. We can live with that. However, the very thing that is destroying Belgium may also destroy the European Union, or at least drive it back to a much earlier version of itself.
It is customary, when discussing what’s wrong with Belgium, to recite a history lesson about how the French-speaking part, Wallonia, was one of the first industrialised areas in Europe and dominated the Belgian state for over a century. The Flemish always resented their lower status, and after the Second World War the shoe moved to the other foot.
Wallonia’s smokestack industries were dying, while Flanders got all the new high-tech industry and grew rich. By the 1980s the Flemish were powerful and confident enough to demand and get an extravagantly federal system, but in two key areas they failed. The Walloon political leaders ceded all sorts of powers to the various federal entities, but they managed to keep both taxation and social spending under the control of the central government.
So long as the Flemish politicians must negotiate with them about how money is collected and spent, the Walloons can ensure that a big chunk of federal spending is actually transfers of wealth from rich Flanders to poorer Wallonia (where unemployment is twice as high). After a few decades of subsidising the Walloons, many of the Flemish have concluded that the problem is the central government itself, and that the solution is its abolition.
Now consider the present difficulties of the European Union: most urgently the crisis of the euro currency, but more broadly the growing popular resistance to any further attempts to “broaden” or “deepen” the EU.
Might this be connected to the fact that the richer countries of northern Europe are getting fed up with the huge transfer of resources to southern Europe, and in particular with the way that their common currency has been undermined by the fiscal irresponsibility of the southern members? Of course it is, and it does not bode well for the future of the EU as currently constituted.
The architects of the euro half-understood that rich countries like Germany and France and relatively poor countries like Greece and Portugal need to run their currencies in different ways. The euro, as a one-size-fits-all straitjacket, was therefore a problematic currency from the start, but the elite policy-makers who wanted to “deepen” European unity were determined to have it anyway.
They tried to erase the north-south disparity by large transfers of resources from the rich to the poor countries, but that didn’t really change the economic structures and political habits of the poorer, mostly Mediterranean countries – and it awakened a powerful sense of grievance among the rich. Like the Flemish in Belgium, the northern European countries that use the euro are running out of patience.
Large transfers of resources between different regions are possible if people at both ends of the exchange see themselves as part of the same greater enterprise. But the Flemish don’t see themselves in that light – and neither do most ordinary people in the EU.
The “European” identity that has emerged with the growth of the EU in the past half-century is not a mere fantasy, but it is not a deeply rooted, instinctive identity for most people either. The sheer foot-dragging reluctance of the German government to finance the bail-out of Greece, even though the euro itself was at risk, is a measure of how deep the rot has gone.
Greece will probably declare bankruptcy in a couple of years, but the euro currency as a whole will survive until the next major recession. It will probably not survive beyond that, however, unless the national economic policies of EU countries can be subordinated to some all-powerful central bank. That is very unlikely to happen.
The euro, it turns out, was probably a step too far. Devised as a means of uniting Europe, it instead threatens to divide it fatally, and all the good that the previous, more modest version of the EU did could be lost.
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To shorten to 725 words, omit paragraphs 3, 12 and 14. (“A long…paralysis”; “Large…EU”; and “Greece…happen”)
3 October 2009
The EU’s Democratic Deficit
By Gwynne Dyer
You can get the Irish to agree to anything, even a European super-state that forces abortion on them, conscripts their citizens for a European army, and compels Ireland to abandon its traditional neutrality. All you need is a severe recession (Ireland’s economy is the hardest-hit of all the European Union members), and suddenly all those concerns fade away.
Sixteen months ago the Irish voted “No” to the Lisbon Treaty, a deal that streamlined decision-making in the EU. For the first time the 27-member union would have a president, a foreign minister, and voting rules that do not require unanimity on every single policy decision. Twenty-six members ratified the treaty in their parliaments, but Ireland’s constitution required it to ratify treaties by referendum.
This led to a campaign in which Irish nationalists and leftists, backed by the right-wing anti-EU press in Britain (which circulates widely in Ireland), scared Irish voters into saying “No”. All the allegations in the first sentence of this article are untrue, but they all played a large part in that campaign.
The Irish “no” vote brought the process of European integration to a halt, but the EU then issued various statements promising the Irish government not to do what the Lisbon Treaty never gave it the right to do anyway. Last Friday the Irish were sent back to the polls, and this time sixty-seven percent of them voted “Yes”.
Presidents Lech Kaczynski of Poland and Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic, the last two hold-outs, will both sign the treaty before the year’s end, and it will come into effect before the British election due by next spring brings the Conservatives to power. David Cameron, their leader, will therefore be released from his promise to hold a referendum on the treaty if it is still open to debate, and the EU wins once again.
By the way, this whole exercise became necessary because the original proposal to create an EU constitution was voted down in Dutch and French referendums in 2005. Whenever you ask the actual people of European countries if they want to “strengthen” and “deepen” the European Union, they have this distressing tendency to say no.
So after a “period of reflection,” the proposed EU constitution was re-packaged as a mere treaty, which in most EU countries can be ratified by a parliamentary vote without a referendum. Party discipline ensured that most members of parliaments will vote the right way, and 26 out of 27 parliaments did. Only Ireland required special treatment, and it was duly administered.
There is an obvious democratic deficit here. The grandees decide, and the people obey. Moreover, some of the grandees are very grand indeed. Take Jacques Chirac, president of France for twelve years until 2007.
Chirac has most recently been in the news when his pet Maltese terrier, Sumo, leaped up and bit him on the stomach – the dog was depressed by the move from the spacious grounds of the presidential palace to a private apartment on the Quai Voltaire – but the politician’s real claim to fame is his ability to escape corruption charges.
The charges date back to when Chirac was mayor of Paris in 1977-95. Between 1992 and 1995 alone, he spent two and a half million francs (about $500,000)in cash, mostly stuffed into brown envelopes in 500-franc notes, to pay for lavish holidays for his family, his friends, and their families. The money probably came from almost $100 million in bribes and kickbacks paid by companies seeking a share in a rebuilding programme for schools in the Paris area.
Chirac avoided prosecution for twelve years by insisting that he could not be questioned about the affair while he was president. The legal machinery ground slowly into motion once he left office, but like banks that are too big to fail, Chirac is too grand to go to jail. It now appears that all legal proceedings against him will be quashed.
There are other current example s of this phenomenon – Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, for example – and many past ones. But the larger reality of which this is only one facet is that high politics in most European countries is still an elite project. That is nowhere truer than in the project of the European Union.
If it had been left to the normal politics of European countries, the EU would never have happened. It was the post-Second World War elites of Europe, appalled by the wars that had devastated the continent, who conceived the goal of a European Union where the rival nationalisms would eventually wither away and Europe would live in peace.
From the European Coal a nd Steel Community in 1951 to the European Economic Community in 1957 to the European Union in 1993, they summoned into existence a political entity for which there was little popular demand. When local nationalism got in the way, they worked round it or waited it out – like in Ireland just now.
While the forms of democracy are always observed, the spirit that animates the EU is we-know-what’s-good-for you, vote-again-till-you-get-it-right. If the result had not been a Europe that is prosperous, committed to protecting human rights, and astonishingly peaceful, you’d condemn the whole project out of hand.
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To shorten to 725 words, omit paragraphs 6 and7. (“By the way…administered”)
3 October 2009
The EU’s Democratic Deficit
By Gwynne Dyer
You can get the Irish to agree to anything, even a European super-state that forces abortion on them, conscripts their citizens for a European army, and compels Ireland to abandon its traditional neutrality. All you need is a severe recession (Ireland’s economy is the hardest-hit of all the European Union members), and suddenly all those concerns fade away.
Sixteen months ago the Irish voted “No” to the Lisbon Treaty, a deal that streamlined decision-making in the EU. For the first time the 27-member union would have a president, a foreign minister, and voting rules that do not require unanimity on every single policy decision. Twenty-six members ratified the treaty in their parliaments, but Ireland’s constitution required it to ratify treaties by referendum.
This led to a campaign in which Irish nationalists and leftists, backed by the right-wing anti-EU press in Britain (which circulates widely in Ireland), scared Irish voters into saying “No”. All the allegations in the first sentence of this article are untrue, but they all played a large part in that campaign.
The Irish “no” vote brought the process of European integration to a halt, but the EU then issued various statements promising the Irish government not to do what the Lisbon Treaty never gave it the right to do anyway. Last Friday the Irish were sent back to the polls, and this time sixty-seven percent of them voted “Yes”.
Presidents Lech Kaczynski of Poland and Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic, the last two hold-outs, will both sign the treaty before the year’s end, and it will come into effect before the British election due by next spring brings the Conservatives to power. David Cameron, their leader, will therefore be released from his promise to hold a referendum on the treaty if it is still open to debate, and the EU wins once again.
By the way, this whole exercise became necessary because the original proposal to create an EU cons titution was voted down in Dutch and French referendums in 2005. Whenever you ask the actual people of European countries if they want to “strengthen” and “deepen” the European Union, they have this distressing tendency to say no.
So after a “period of reflection,” the proposed EU constitution was re-packaged as a mere treaty, which in most EU countries can be ratified by a parliamentary vote without a referendum. Party discipline ensured that most members of parliaments will vote the right way, and 26 out of 27 parliaments did. Only Ireland required special treatment, and it was duly administered.
There is an obvious democratic deficit here. Th e grandees decide, and the people obey. Moreover, some of the grandees are very grand indeed. Take Jacques Chirac, president of France for twelve years until 2007.
Chirac has most recently been in the news when his pet Maltese terrier, Sumo, leaped up and bit him on the stomach – the dog was depressed by the move from the spacious grounds of the presidential palace to a private apartment on the Quai Voltaire – but the politician’s real claim to fame is his ability to escape corruption charges.
The charges date back to when Chirac was mayor of Paris in 1977-95. Between 1992 and 1995 alone, he spent two and a half million francs (about $500,000)= 0in cash, mostly stuffed into brown envelopes in 500-franc notes, to pay for lavish holidays for his family, his friends, and their families. The money probably came from almost $100 million in bribes and kickbacks paid by companies seeking a share in a rebuilding programme for schools in the Paris area.
Chirac avoided prosecution for twelve years by insisting that he could not be questioned about the affair while he was president. The legal machinery ground slowly into motion once he left office, but like banks that are too big to fail, Chirac is too grand to go to jail. It now appears that all legal proceedings against him will be quashed.
There are other current example s of this phenomenon – Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, for example – and many past ones. But the larger reality of which this is only one facet is that high politics in most European countries is still an elite project. That is nowhere truer than in the project of the European Union.
If it had been left to the normal politics of European countries, the EU would never have happened. It was the post-Second World War elites of Europe, appalled by the wars that had devastated the continent, who conceived the goal of a European Union where the rival nationalisms would eventually wither away and Europe would live in peace.
From the European Coal a nd Steel Community in 1951 to the European Economic Community in 1957 to the European Union in 1993, they summoned into existence a political entity for which there was little popular demand. When local nationalism got in the way, they worked round it or waited it out – like in Ireland just now.
While the forms of democracy are always observed, the spirit that animates the EU is we-know-what’s-good-for you, vote-again-till-you-get-it-right. If the result had not been a Europe that is prosperous, committed to protecting human rights, and astonishingly peaceful, you’d condemn the whole project out of hand.
______________________________________
To shorten to 725 words, omit paragraphs 6 and= 07. (“By the way…administered”)