The
unflinching support for the EU and its institutions is not about
preventing European countries from becoming “Afghanistan.” Not
about preventing collapse. Not about the inconvenience of long lines
at passport control. It is about promoting an ideology, a specific
worldview, a vision for the way the world should work.
by
Michael Nevradakis
Part
1
It was way
back in the ancient 1990s, when protesting crippling economic
austerity measures, the economic imperialism of the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, and free trade deals such as
NAFTA and the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual
Property Rights (TRIPS), was a mainstay of the progressive or
left-wing political agenda and worldview.
Today, that
same worldview apparently makes one a “nationalist” or a
“fascist,” in the eyes of self-described leftists and
progressives. Oh, the irony!
Opposition
to free trade agreements or open borders is now a surefire way to be
branded with the modern-day scarlet letter, that of being a
“nationalist.” Opposing unchecked migration—and the war and
conflict that spur mass waves of migration in the first
place—apparently makes one a “xenophobe.” Standing up to the
crippling austerity prescribed by the open-borders project known as
the European Union towards some of its own member-states makes one a
“fascist.” Independence and sovereignty are bad, open borders and
unrestricted free trade benefiting certain industrial powerhouses and
large multinational corporations are good.
In another
irony, the anti-colonial independence movements of the 1950s and
1960s were by and large nationalist movements, and were supported by
many progressive forces around the world. But at the time, the
“n-word” (nationalism, of course) was not the dirty word that it
is today.
Back in the
distant 1990s, the United States was described by western
commentators as the leader of the free world, the beacon of liberty
and democracy. This worldview continued unabated up through the end
of the term of President Barack Obama. The election of President
Donald Trump in November on a populist platform — on the heels of
the British referendum result in favor of Brexit, which also drew
heavy support from populist political elements — put an end to this
worldview.
In yet
another irony of ironies, it is now the “iron lady” of one such
industrial powerhouse, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who is
widely viewed as the global beacon of liberal democracy and freedom.
According to Politico, it is Merkel who is now the “leader of the
free world,” anointed as “global savior.” Online feminist
publication Jezebel has dubbed Merkel the “last pillar of liberal
democracy in Europe.” And Kati Marton, wife of the late U.S.
Ambassador and Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke,
described Merkel as “the last real democratic leader standing”
and “the most powerful woman in the world,” in a highly laudatory
profile piece written for fashion and lifestyle magazine Vogue.
The
aforementioned sources are quite varied in style and substance, but
they all adhere to the same worldview: neoliberalism, or if you
prefer, globalism. And it is “free” trade, “open borders,”
and the dominance of supranational institutions such as the EU that
are some of globalism’s basic tenets. In the eyes of Politico,
Jezebel, Vogue and their ilk, leaders like Merkel — among the
staunchest supporters of open borders, and of economic austerity for
suffering EU member-states such as Greece, towards which the EU
supposedly displays “solidarity” — epitomize the ideal global
leader, in the mold of other globalist favorites such as former
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
This tacit,
blinding acceptance of institutions such as the EU, the World Bank,
and the IMF and their policies and practices is a slap in the face to
all those—whether they are in Greece, Mexico, Argentina, Tanzania,
Indonesia, or elsewhere—that have suffered as a result of the
economic doctrines that these institutions have imposed upon their
countries. And no criticism or opposition shall be brooked by the
purportedly tolerant supporters and backers of such institutions!
Case in
point: Naomi Klein. The out-of-nowhere celebrity author and
“activist” with a hazy biography first became widely known in the
late 1990s for her anti-corporate globalization treatise No Logo,
though the pinnacle of her anti-economic globalization work is her
2007 book, The Shock Doctrine. Following the election of the
supposedly “radical leftist” SYRIZA in Greece on January 25,
2015, Klein could barely contain herself, gushing like a teenage
schoolgirl over its victory in social media postings that now seem to
have been scrubbed—although some evidence of Klein’s enthusiasm
still remains. As SYRIZA and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras have
sold Greece and its people down the river, overturning the July 5,
2015 referendum result and enacting a third (and since then, a
fourth) memorandum agreement, Klein has remained conspicuously
silent.
Instead, we
are now told that any opposition to neoliberalism is racist,
xenophobic and positively fascist, a product of the dreaded populism
and “nationalism” that has been universally deemed by those whose
opinion matters—such as Politico, Jezebel, and Vogue, not to
mention CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post—as evil. We
are supposed to believe that residents of Missouri counties, which
had previously voted solidly for Obama, suddenly transformed into
racists overnight in voting for Trump in the last election. And we
are hysterically lectured that the dastardly act of choosing to leave
an institution such as the EU puts human rights into peril, as with
Brexit. “Millennials” — the generation that this author is
unfortunately a part of, and who in countries such as the United
Kingdom do not even remember life prior to the EU — have become
instant experts on the horrors of life that await outside of the EU’s
open borders.
To be clear,
this is not an argument in favor of political figures such as Trump
(more on this later). Instead, using the EU as a case study,
neoliberal doctrine and the prevailing orthodoxy observed in the
overwhelming majority of the world’s mainstream media outlets—and
in such sectors as business and academia—will be deconstructed. By
examining what a supranational institution such as the EU actually
is, how it was created and how it operates today — as well as by
analyzing why so many entities have a vested interest in maintaining
the status quo and how they attempt to discredit any opposition to it
— readers will (I hope) come away with a clearer understanding of
the purpose such institutions serve in the global order today, and
why they are not quite what they seem.
Comments
Post a Comment