Although it was a good thing that he did this in the end (and initially no one, except for the Arab regimes that instigated the rows, could have foreseen that it would become such a big thing), I was rather critical at the time because Fogh Rasmussen did not take the opportunity to explain what free speech was really about:

What Fogh should have done instead of saying that free speech is important, was explain why it is important. Instead of appearing as a weak leader not worthy of much respect, by saying that as a Danish PM he is used to being criticised and that he accepts that, he would have come across as a good leader by explaining that the constant criticism actually helps him to do a better job. He could have said that because people in Denmark have been allowed to say what they think about their leaders for a long time, and can even get rid of them if the leaders don’t listen, Denmark is such a wealthy country with so little inequality and suffering. The hint would not have been missed on a region still predominantly ruled by dictators.

Today, the Netherlands is holding its breath for a similar row to erupt, this time about a Quran-critical film that has been made by a Dutch MP and which should come out before the end of this month. Over at A Fistful of Euros, Guy described how the issue is being hyped in Dutch media before the film is even published. Hype or not however, the Danish case shows how easy it is to turn the positive reputation of a country into one of evil anti-muslim crusaders (that is, if you are an Arab regime with a motive and complete control over what appears in your own media). So it is only right that, in an attempt to avoid the Danish mistakes, the Dutch government has been working for months through its embassies in the muslim world to at least try to get its own message across to government and media in the predominant muslim parts of the world.

As part of the pre-emptive strike, Radio Netherlands Worldwide, the world service of the Dutch public radio, has now produced its own documentary (and a website ‘about Fitna, the movie’) in which it tries to explain the Dutch position on the MP’s film and its relation to free speech:

Has it succeeded better than Anders Fogh Rasmussen in the Al Arabiya interview? Well, yes, a little. What is good in the RNW film, is that it underlines that even the Dutch government is bound to obey the law, just like any ordinary citizen. It is not government, but the majority of the population through its representatives which makes the law. This is an important point to make. What the film also seems to be doing better than the Danish PM, is to make clear the importance of free speech for an open public debate. Even though a large majority of the population does not agree with the MP’s film, they still accept it is published because they realise that if they would ban opinions like these, next time it is one of their own opinions that is banned from being published. The giving and taking of free speech becomes a little clearer, and even more so because of most of the people explaining this in the documentary are Dutch muslims.

If the RNW film turns out to be convincing enough for a critical audience remains to be seen. What I am still missing, for instance, is a clear(-er) explanation of the connection between free speech, the state of law and democracy on the one hand, and having a government that is not corrupt, does not torture its citizens and governs effectively on the other. But it is an attempt, and anyway, if people turn to the streets over this film in Saudi Arabia, Syria or Egypt, we know that this is because their governments wanted them to, not because they have watched some film on the internet.

** update 27 March 2008: ** The film was published today. What an anticlimax! I mean, it is still the modern equivalent of Der ewige Jude, but not a lot of Dutch flags are going to be burnt over this. And it is badly made at that…

** update 28 March 2008: ** More on A Fistful of Euros.

The PQ had a majority of the seats in the Québec parliament a number of times in the 80s and 90s of last century. Referendums on independence have been organised in 1980 and 1995 but failed to get majorities in favour (60% and 51% voted non, respectively). The vote is a victory for new party leader Pauline Marois who favours a more centrist course. ]]> http://www.european-democracy.org/archives/2008/03/17/link-of-the-day-parti-quebecois-abandons-separatism/feed/ 0 http://www.european-democracy.org/archives/2008/03/14/eu-presidency-the-quiet-candidates-ii/ http://www.european-democracy.org/archives/2008/03/14/eu-presidency-the-quiet-candidates-ii/#comments Fri, 14 Mar 2008 01:00:53 +0000 eulogist http://www.european-democracy.org/archives/2008/03/14/eu-presidency-the-quiet-candidates-ii/ Philip Stephens of the Financial Times writes in so many words that the new president of the EU (Council) should be Tony Blair after all, instead of one of the lesser known candidates. This is not a time for “faceless competence”, he says, for Europe needs someone who is taken seriously by McCain/Obama/Clinton, Medvedev/Putin and Hu Jintao.

This leaves one wondering when was the last time Tony Blair was taken seriously by the American president – the “Yo, Blair” incident perhaps?

Unbearably Blairite in its arrogance is also the following passage:

[Juncker, Fogh Rasmussen and Ahern] are bright people. Small countries can produce brilliant politicians. Putting aside a personal prejudice against EU institutions being forever run by Luxembourgers, I am not quarrelling with these candidates’ competence. But it is no disrespect to say that none is exactly a household name. Their candidacies seem to speak instead to a deliberate paucity of ambition about Europe’s global role. How seriously would they be taken by John McCain, Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton? Imagine the reception from Dmitry Medvedev when Mr Juncker turned up in Moscow to protest against his decision to turn off the gas. How much weight would these candidates carry even in Europe?

First of all, being unknown now is not exactly a problem that cannot be overcome: Hands up who (outside Illinois) knew Barack Obama before he decided to run for the US presidency.

Secondly, any future president meeting fellow world leaders will be speaking on behalf of the EU, not his home country. The size of the latter will not make much of a difference at this stage. Maybe it does during the appointment process or while EU countries are trying to forge a common position (which requires unanimity), but the precise point Stephens makes about Luxemburgers indicates that being from a small country may actually be an advantage then.

Of course Europe needs someone with stature, but what Stephens seems to forget is that it has to be the right kind of stature. Blair’s is tarnished not only by his handling of the Iraq war, but – more importantly – by his reputation of being all spin and no results for most except the first few of his ten years as Prime Minister. The British EU presidency in 2005 was, if not a failure (there was an agreement on the Financial Perspectives after all), at least a disappointment.

What matters in the end is that Europe’s future president has the personality, vision and above all the diplomatic skills to make a success of the job. I am afraid Tony Blair has proved to have none of these.

Actually something similar existed already here: the Noteworthy News in the right hand corner, but it was not visible enough. Also, because it basically consists of my links on del.icio.us, it did not have enough space to leave commentary. The Link of the Day should solve both problems.

From left to right, top to bottom:
French war graves, Verdun
American war graves, Oosterbeek (near Arnhem)
German war graves, Fricourt (Somme)
British Tyne Cot cemetery, Passchendale

This year is the Rome Treaty’s 50th anniversary – still wondering why it was a good idea?

• Apparently, the test was low power;
• North-Korea is not that advanced technologically, handicapped as it is by its international isolation, the dire state of its economy, and its stifling political system;
• North-Korea is desperate to get the bomb – but even more to make it known that it has the bomb. For Axis of Evil dictators these days, having the bomb is their only guarantee against an American invasion;
• Propaganda is Kim Il’s middle name.

Update 17 Oct: Still no proof despite what the US government says; check out the comments at ArmsControlWonk (via).

My bet is that Hamas will, indeed, choose the respectable route, even if it may take some time before the rhetoric changes accordingly. A sign of this is the fact that it chose to take part in the elections at all, and that it has declared and kept a cease-fire over the past year. This shows that its’ leaders not only have brains but also influence over their followers. Such a decision makes sense, because taking the respectable route is the sensible thing to do also from their own point of view. After all, by taking part in the elections they have achieved more power and a better negotiating position in a few months of campaigning than in decades of terrorist attacks.

If the Hamas government fails, we will be back where we were in an endless cycle of attacks and retributions. But if it becomes a success there could be progress for both sides. Hamas has itself an interest in success, for in order to stay in power it must root out corruption, provide real change and make sure it is re-elected. But it cannot do so alone, and will need help from the external sources that already provide most of the PA’s funding. As a result this could be one of those decisive moments where only a small prod suffices to get the events moving in the right direction.

In recent years, Arab regimes in the region have begun to show some commitment to a real solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Therefore the West and the Arab regimes must work together and avoid the mistakes made when the FIS won the elections in Algeria. This should be the deal offered: recognition of Israel and an end to terrorism, in return for financial and logistic support.

The interesting effect of such a choice by the Hamas leadership would be that this could be the beginning of the end of terrorism in Israel. Real change would then have been achieved – not by a military invasion, not by occupation and suppression (which, if anything, by undermining Fatah accelerated Hamas’s rise to power rather than slowing it down), but by the ballot box.

In a, by all accounts, fair democratic competition, people chose the alternative to a government that had the support of western powers but also showed itself incapable and corrupt. This could be the example the Middle-East is looking for. As an indigenous movement come to power through democratic elections, Hamas seems to be in a better position to become a catalyst for democratic change than the invasion of Iraq.

————————————–
Update 26 Jan 21:30: A first step in the right direction. According to the Libération blog:

Dès que les résultats se sont précisés, les ambassadeurs du « Comité politique et de défense », COPS, un organisme qui n’a rien à voir avec le Comité des représentants permanents  (COREPER), se sont réunis en urgence. Les Etats réputés « pro-palestiniens » (France, Espagne, Grèce, Irlande, Suède) se sont mis d’accord avec les « pro israëliens » (Allemagne, Grande-Bretagne, Pays-Bas, République Tchèque) pour conditionner la poursuite de l’aide européenne à trois exigences: la reconnaissance de l’Etat d’Israël par le Hamas, la participation au processus de paix et la renonciation à la violence. « Nous allons exiger du Hamas une révolution culturelle », explique un diplomate. « S’il accepte, ce ne sera plus la même organisation et nous pourrons poursuivre notre aide ».

So, am I happy? I am not sure. He certainly highlights important problems and it is wonderful and rather exciting that more and more countries in the region are electing presidents that speak for the impoverished masses instead of the rich elites. That is democracy in action.

But once in office, those presidents have to be able to deliver by making at least some noticeable improvements to the lives of their citizens. Can Morales deliver? After his speech, I am not so sure. It lasted more than half an hour (and, said an admiring BBC, was delivered without notes), but it sounded more like an election speech than the inauguration address of a new president outlining his policies. It was chaotic, contained lots of promises on improving the fate of Bolivia’s poor, but most of the time did not get specific either on the improvements that would be brought or on the way to achieve them.

And where he did become specific, the analysis seemed simplistic, populist, and – worst of all – bound to lead to ineffective solutions. Take this classic example of taking a correlations for a cause-effect relation:

We were told 10, 15, 20 years ago that the private sector was going to solve the country’s corruption problems and unemployment, then years go by and there is more unemployment, more corruption, that economic model is not the solution for our country, maybe it is a solution for an European country or African but in Bolivia the neo-liberal model does not work.

Perhaps it is true that there is more unemployment now than 20 years ago. Perhaps it is true that the model proposed by the Washington consensus (which, by the way, no longer is the ultra-neoliberal beast it used to be) is more suitable for fully developed economies than for Bolivia. But the fact that corruption has risen in that period can hardly be blamed on the economic model, and rather indicates weakness of institutions and of the rule of law. A weakness that does not bode well for Morales’s plans to increase the state’s role in the economy…

Morales = Chavez II? Time will tell. If he is, he can at least count on the sympathy of that French senator who likes our new EU members so much (hat tip Largo Desolato, also read Tipota).

PS: On the claim that Bolivia could be richer than Sweden, read Martin Wolf’s “freakonomic” article in today’s FT. Bottom line: whether an autocracy becomes a democracy or not is an economic decision: a trade-off between the costs of keeping the masses quiet and the costs of privileges lost if the country becomes a democracy as far as the elite is concerned, and between the costs of organising a revolution and the benefits of getting a larger share of power and resources as far as the masses are concerned. As a result, countries with huge natural resources are likely to stay autocracies, particularly when the resources are in the hands of the state. Another bad omen for Bolivia’s future…

Is this another example of “activist law-making”, as argued by opponents of the change? Well, perhaps, and that certainly increases the risk of losing popular support: Already, the conservative opposition has announced it will seek a revote of the law if it wins the next elections. But even if the law is activist and politically risky, that does not make it morally wrong to pursue its adoption. In fact, the Canadian government has done admirably what governments in a democracy are supposed to do: to show leadership and vision, also in the face of public opposition.

What keeps surprising me in debates like these, is not so much the opposition itself, but the lack of philosophical coherence behind that opposition. If same-sex marriage was opposed solely on the grounds of religion or tradition, I could easily accept (though not agree with) that argument. But more often than not, opposition comes from people calling themselves Liberals or Conservatives: People who, supposedly at least, put individual liberty first and who have a healthy distrust of state intervention in people’s personal lives.

How do they combine such principles with homophobic state intrusion?

** update ** The Spanish parliament has delivered, increasing the number of Truly Civilised Countries (TM) to four in the world. Next in line: Cambodia?