Posted on 09/19/2005 8:09:36 AM PDT by Constitution Day
The European Right? By Mark Steyn Most of us are familiar with the subtle differences between even relatively compatible cultures. One notes, for example, that what’s known to Americans as “The Hokey-Pokey” is called in Britain “The Hokey-Cokey.” Just when you think you’ve figured out what it’s all about, it turns out you haven’t quite grasped all the nuances. Accustomed as I am to these linguistic variations, I was nevertheless brought up short browsing the Guardian the other day and reading that Angela Merkel’s election victory would make Germany “the 20th of the 25 EU nations with a centre-right government.” That’s right: The EU — you know, the EUnuchs, the Euro-weenies, the proverbial cheese-eating surrender monkeys, etc. — are four-fifths “center-right.” Half a decade ago, they were all center-left Third Wayers. But having put its left foot in, Europe pulled its left foot out, stuck its right foot in, and shook it all about. The Guardian is technically correct. At the moment, Europe is governed largely by politicians of “the right.” Jacques Chirac, for example, is in French terms a “conservative.” Granted, “conservative” is an elastic designation, and, in the hands of the media, it’s usually shorthand for the side you’re not meant to like. Thus, George W. Bush is “conservative,” and so are unreconstructed Marxists in the Chinese politburo and the more hardline ayatollahs. But even under those expansive rules of admission, I find it difficult to encompass President Chirac within the definition. If he’s “center-right,” where the center is doesn’t bear thinking about. Still, the fact remains that the transatlantic estrangement of the Bush era has occurred during a period of supposed political convergence between Washington and chancelleries of Europe — the end result of which is that the president’s closest ally is the center-left survivor Tony Blair. That’s why I’m unpersuaded by those Europhiles in Washington who are pinning their hopes on a Euro-American realignment under Frau Merkel and France’s Nicolas Sarkozy. The differences between Europe and America are so profound that political labels are simply lost in translation. You know those showers where the merest nudge of the dial turns the water from freezing to scalding? Mainstream European politics is the opposite of that. You can turn the dial all the way from “left” to “right” and it makes no difference. Over the last half-century, Continental politics evolved to the point where almost any issue worth talking about was ruled beyond the bounds of polite society. Austria was the classic example: Year in, year out, whether you voted for the center-left party or the center-right party, you wound up with the same center-left/center-right coalition presiding over what was in essence a two-party one-party state. In France, M. Chirac isn’t really “center-right” so much as ever so slightly left-of-right-of-left-of-center — and even that distinction applies only when he’s standing next to his former prime minister, the right-of-left-of-right-of-left-of-center Lionel Jospin. Though supposedly from opposite ends of the political spectrum, in the 2002 presidential election they wound up running against each other on identical platforms, both passionately committed to high taxes, high unemployment, and high crime. Americans often make the same criticism of their own system — the “Republicrats,” etc. — but take it from me, the U.S. still has a more genuinely responsive politics with more ideological diversity than anywhere in western Europe. On the Continent, the Eurodee and Eurodum mainstream parties are boxed into a consensus politics that’s no longer sustainable. The people are weary of certain aspects of this postwar settlement — permanent double-digit unemployment and the Islamification of their cities — but they’re not yet ready to give up the social programs, the short work weeks, long vacations, and jobs for life. They’re voting against the center-left consensus but there’s little sign they’re willing to vote for any medicine tougher than a modest tweak toward a right-of-left-of-right-of-center consensus. Remember Dominique de Villepin, the magnificently obstructionist big-haired French foreign minister in the run-up to the Iraq war? He’s a poet — a veritable Rimbaud to Bush’s Rambo. Well, he’s prime minister now and, in his first big speech in the job, he was at pains to reassure French voters that the internal contradictions of a pampered lethargic welfare society could all be resolved through “Gallic genius”: “In a modern democracy, the debate is not between the liberal and the social, it is between immobilism and action. Solidarity and initiative, protection and daring: That is the French genius.” Oh-la-la! C’est magnifique, n’est-ce pas? All those elegant nouns just waiting for a stylishly coiffed French genius to steer the appropriate course between the Scylla of solidarity and the Charybdis of initiative, between protection and daring, immobilism and action, inertia and panic, stylish insouciance and meaningless gestures, abstract nouns and street riots, etc., etc. The French electorate was in the mood to hear something about crime or jobs. But for a man of letters with a Byronic hairdo that’s all too dreary and prosaic compared with an open-ended debate between solidarity and initiative stretching lazily into the future. Tony Blankley’s well-argued new book, The West’s Last Chance, is among other things a heartfelt plea for the European political class to rouse itself before the canoe goes over the waterfall. I don’t think they’re ready to tell the voters and I don’t think the voters are ready to hear it. They put their center-right foot in, they pull their center-left foot out. But they don’t yet understand they’re about to be shaken all about.
Rimbauds, Not Rambos
French Genius!
They lost me after that oxymoron.
Semper Fi
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
ping
Oswald Spengler - Decline of the West
in an earlier post i mused on 1914, i suppose for the same reason.
I laughed up my Red Bull with that one.
Thanks for the ping, Pokey! (Did you like this one because it made reference to the Hokey POKEY? LOL!)
What do you mean by Dark Age?
Chuckle.
a time of repression, say like ancient egypt ---- the swallowing of the individual. who will carry the banner of personal liberty after we're gone. these other cultures don't want the BURDEN of freedom. They will an authoritarian state where there is no ambiguity.
Do you really think so? Or will enough of them be corrupted from having grown up under that system to demand the same rights, but also without alcohol or being able to actually look at women?
Human nature doesn't change
They put their center-right foot in, they pull their center-left foot out. But they don’t yet understand they’re about to be shaken all about.
Agreed-priceless!
Who else but Mark Steyn could credibly work the Hokey Pokey in to a critique of European politics?
But Tony Blankley is a right-winger! He's the editor-in-chief of the Washington Times. He's a regular on The McLaughlin Group, where the blowhard-in-chief never gives him a chance to speak, preferring the opinion of Eleanor Clift!
Evidence so far is that second and third generation Islamic immigrants in Europe are more fundamentally minded and radical than the original immigrants. Maybe due to the ghetto-ization of them and the generous welfare state conditions.
well said
Yes, I've heard that, too. But there are 2 relevant points that occur to me:
I'm not saying that it's a sure thing that the Islamification of Europe will get you Europeanized Islamists . Not by a long shot. But it's a possibility.
<< Though supposedly from opposite ends of the political spectrum, in the 2002 presidential election they wound up running against each other on identical platforms, both passionately committed to high taxes, high unemployment, and high crime.
Bwahahahaha! >>
Poor bastards' committments are aping those of more than seven decades of our "Democrats."
Thanks for the ping, Pokes.
Excellent observation. If only the Democrats were honest about the results of the policies they support. (Or if only the voters were smarter!)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.