The Possum Bistro

Britain might consciously retain its decades-old skepticism of everything 'Europe', but its psyche is replicating the dhimmitude of its continental neighbours in troubling fashion.

You know ideological constructs are at risk of being dismantled from within - like Gorbachev's perestroika of the Soviet juggernaut and the precipitation of Communism's dissolution - or without by external forces such as those of the Allies and the Red Army in the destruction of Nazism. Islam as a religious-ideological construct has been proven to be more than resilient, its superstructure able to withstand the onslaught of sheer firepower through multiple wars and conflicts, its adherents seemingly capable of feeding on a malignant culture of failure, shame and death, proselytising generations of young men and women in the way of the the Islamic terrorist - perhaps inspired by bushido, but in no aspect as glorious or honourable as the Japanese samurai - and perpetuating myths of resistance and revolution within the ideological movement in order to maintain the 'opiates of the masses' that keep the elites sufficiently insulated from pressure or intellectual challenge.

Unfortunately, while peoples living under Communist rule became irreversibly disenchanted with the ideology in light of the events of 1956 and 1968, cynically observing that utopia was unattainable, life wasn't going to improve for them under the repressive collaborationist and Soviet cadres ruling their countries - then, the currency of power was state monopoly of violence and an unquestioned capacity for military intervention by the USSR. History and coincidence may have provided Western European governments with the convenient excuse that they were distracted by the 1956 Suez Canal crisis while the repression of the Hungarian revolutions were being ruthlessly carried out; again when these same governments were nonchalant about the invasion of Prague 12 years later - an event that should have created a furore due to the fact that Czechoslovakia had one of the longest-running traditions of democracy in Europe, and that it was also the most cooperative regime in terms of amenability with Soviet interests; or for the third time in the wake of repression of Polish uprisings in the 1980s.

The unavoidable truth was that Western Europe and its intellectuals had abandoned any thoughts about reunifying both halves of the continent - the Americans were unwilling to risk military confrontation or nuclear warfare to liberate East Germany, preferring instead to leave it at the status quo. Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik was a conscious recognition that none of the FDR's backers would ever possess the motivation or motive to risk war on the continent again for the third time in a century - if change and reconciliation were ever to occur with the GDR and the Soviet Union, it would have to come from Germany itself. Eastern Europeans and their intellectuals harboured resentment towards their Western counterparts for consigning them to irrelevance, for deliberately writing them out of their history while their Soviet masters continued to manufacture history for their satellite puppets. The alternative to Communism for Eastern Europeans was not capitalism: it was 'Europe'.

As Tony Judt put it succintly in Post-War, Eastern Europeans began asserting their 'Europeaness' in order to avoid being excluded, though the prime concern was to avoid being included in the Soviet Union and its iron grip. This was not borne out of geographical concerns as can be observed: the boundaries of an entity as amorphous as 'Europe', or its transnational manifestation that is the European Union, are constantly shifting according to the agendas of European bureaucrats in Brussels, reviewing every proposal for integration, scrutinising and agonising over each and every detail regarding accession. Furthermore, defining one's nation as being on the boundary of Europe carried with it risks as well as advantages: one could be seen as the bulwark against external, foreign aggressors and barbarians (a primitive idea, nonetheless it serves the ideological argument well) like Vienna in 1683; yet it could also become very vulnerable and attract the very subversion and aggression it propounded to defend against (no guarantee that it would be successful in deterring its enemies). Additionally, the EU might be increasingly wary of including countries that lie between itself and potential belligerents, old enemies (like Russia) and probable breach-points (such as Turkey being a conduit between West and East).

As such, when European integration was once introduced into the equation, it sent a strong signal to the Eastern European states that this represented a momentous precedent that would accord them legitimacy and credence in investing their hopes in a future while leaving the shambles of a destroyed past behind. However, several members of the EU have demonstrated their insistence that integration should be strictly controlled by demanding concessions and standards of economic responsibility and democratic governance among other prerequisites, and thereby through an incremental process raising these benchmarks higher and higher - a thinly-veiled move to discourage other 'peripheral' nations like Turkey, those in the Balkans and the Caucasus from entering.

Most integration proponents who advocate against the inclusion of Turkey mention the demographic challenge, positing it as the main linchpin of their vociferous argument (some insist, of course, that the founders of the EU remind themselves that it is a Christian club). The tragic irony is that this demographic challenge is already perpetuating and multiplying itself in Europe - through the lax immigration laws, the destruction of free speech, the accommodation of sharia - above all, the dhimmification of the European Union's bureaucrats who still adhere to an anachronistic, authoritarian, pre-democratic tradition of dictating what national governments should or must do. The corrosive tentacles of the transnational progressivists who espouse such blatant disregard and advocate the rescinding of the very idea of state sovereignty laid out in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 have stretched far and wide into the very workings of the European Union, so much so that its bureaucrats now answer to Brussels, and Brussels to no one.

This disrespect for sovereignty has been expounded upon right here at the Bistro as well as fellow sites like the Dumb Looks Still Free, Gates of Vienna and Brussels Journal - and it comes at a price that can only multiply exponentially in the months and years to come. It is not merely an abandonment of the nation's right to determine its interests and actions that follow - the EU truly believes that political integration is possible among the member states, and that its bureaucrats are harnessing the transnational advantages for exponentially beneficial rewards for the Union - eventually consolidating 'Europe' into a real enough construct whereby it will serve as a beacon for those looking for the ideal way of life, economically and socially. Unfortunately, the burgeoning Pollyannas of the intellectual Left in Europe - who believe that peace can thrive without security - are recklessly promoting this dissolution of state sovereignty because they believe that they will be the main beneficiaries of the destruction of the Nation-State.

With this simple sleight of hand, transnational progressivists are easily able to blame the Nation-State and the government for all of the shortcomings and apparent 'failures' such as 'global warming', human rights violations and feminist repression. Think of it as blaming the captain for the sinking of a ship during the perfect storm. Ironically, this trend of castigating Nation-States and consigning them to the sidelines is a 180-degree reversal of the early mood that swept the continent as the European Union came into inception. Politicians of all stripes found it expedient to blame 'Eurocrats' - unelected bureaucrats sitting in Brussels - for the government's incapacities and shortcomings. Would it be coincidental that those who sought to place the blame in the hands of the EU then are the same people who have switched allegiances and betrayed the Nation-State? Through their consistent lamentations about their own inability to control the reins of governance, the public witnessed the erosion of their own faith in the government to protect its sovereignty - instead, succumbing to the transnational progressivist movement and its seductive clarion call, promising stability of governance.

Instructive as it appears to be, the transnational progressivists seek to rewrite History as one catastrophe after the next, all the product of the failures of individual governments of Nation-States as they selfishly looked out for their own interests, abusing and exploiting the very concept of sovereignty and its inviolability to invoke casus belli to spark confrontations and wars of a unilateralist strain without consulting supra-national bodies like the League of Nations, the UN or the EU. The invasion of Poland that signalled to Britain that the former's sovereignty had been violated could be perceived in retrospect as 'an abuse of the concept of sovereignty' to initiate conflict against Germany - even though many of us believed that it was necessary to act before Hitler's Third Reich grew ever stronger, and so would the appeal of Fascism. Fast-forward to the invasion of Iraq and the charges of US unilateralism and it all becomes clearer: that the Nation-State is being made to account for the mistakes and crimes of individuals like Hitler and Stalin in the past, and the failures in dealing with 'global warming' among other 'crises' can only be the responsibility of national governments who have neither the appropriate resources or support to deal with them. Regardless of the necessity and imperative of intervention, all motives and actions of the 'hegemon' or ruling authority are negated and deemed 'evil' and worthy of condemnation. This is the mentality of the progressivist.

So it must come as a shock that one of the main proponents of the European Union, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, has emerged to oppose the unhealthy habit of deception that EU bureaucrats tend to indulge in between siphoning off more control away from the national governments and promising the world to Europeans:

Under the headline: “You are being cheated!” in this heretofore unseen kind of article, the father of the EU-treaty declares that “the EU citizens are being forced to join decisions that the EU politicians dare not present to the citizens. This treaty (to be adopted in Brussels on June 21-22) may be a good exercise if you earn your living being a magician — but it enhances the mistrust of EU-citizens”, Monsieur Valéry Giscard d’Estaing states.

Mr. Giscard d’Estaing warned that:

The EU-citizens unknowingly join some decisions which the politicians dare not present openly to their citizens.

Monsieur Giscard d’Estaing was the chairman of The European Convention that wrote the original draft of the Constitution Treaty.

According to the latest move from the German EU-presidency a solution is near which removes only the common flag, hymn and other emblems. Poland alone protests.

A Danish expert, Marlene Wind of the University of Copenhagen, agrees with Mr. D’Estaing:

The leaders have cynically told themselves : We must make the same treaty (which was rejected by the French and the Dutch) - but make it look like something different.

It is no pretty sight, for it forces them to lie.

Mr. D’Estaing’s attack also strikes a nerve in the Danish Parliament, where many politicians are dissatisfied with Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s secrecy.

Nevertheless, on June 15, 2007 the overwhelming majority of Parliament chose to close the doors of Parliament and to send the media and the audience away, as the treaty was to be discussed. A person from the audience told the news paper Politiken:

What has happened today is in total accordance with this entire closed process so far.

But, at any cost the EU leaders will avoid referenda, which may delay a new treaty — as was the case in France and the Netherlands in 2005.