Burma, Myanmar, India and us

Are we going to let India lead us by our noses once again?

In these hours not that dissimilar from that night on 3 June 1989, hours before the Tian-an-men massacre in Beijing, it may be difficult to think of how to realistically support the demonstrations in Burma, apart from sending more and more appeals for calm to a Military Junta probably second to none in matters of bloody-thirsty repressions and the political and economic strangling of a country.

Still, it is possible to perform three not-just-symbolic gestures:

(1) Categorically refuse the use of “Myanmar” in place of “Burma”.

Even if “quasi-etymologically correct”, “Myanmar” is the invention of the Military Junta, forced upon the country in 1989 with no democratic process at all. If the Burmese will want to change the official “foreign” name of their country to “Myanmar”, they will be able to do so after getting their country back from the usurpers.

More: a couple of years ago the Foreign Minister of Burma protested for the use of “Burma” by the US State Department: all more the reason not to use “Myanmar”.

(2) Let’s publish the names of the dictators.

For way too long the Military Junta of Burma has been treated as a shapeless entity, not as a group of ferocious dictators (humanity-free to the point of denying Aung San Suu Kyi the chance to meet her dying husband for one last time).

Here then some of the persons who should be answering charges in a court of law, instead of commanding Burma against the will of its people:

General Than Shwe – President
General Soe Win – Prime Minister
General Major Nyan Win – Foreign Minister

If we force as much publicity as possible on the names (and pictures) of those in charge of Burma, they won’t be able to hide themselves with the anonymity they have so far much cultivated.

(3) And finally, we should not let India lead us by the nose once again.

Not only many European Governments have underplayed the scandal of the Dhruv helicopters, built also using European supplies and then supplied to the Burmese Junta against every EU embargo rule. It’s worse than that: while outside the Burmese monks were demonstrating, Indian Oil Minister Murli Deora was busy signing a US$150-million agreement for natural gas research in Burma: a clear sign of support of the Junta on the part of a “democratic” Government.

This behaviour is part of New Dehli’s strategic myopia, with India so scared by rebellions in the Northeast to the point of propping up the Burmese Military Junta to get their help in preventing an escalation of those conflicts. And it is based on the apparent impunity when a State goes against rules established by other democratic countries.

If that way of thinking would be intolerable when done by communist China, all the more so for India.

Foreign and International Trade Ministers from all the EU countries (and elsewhere) have a clear duty tonight to apply all possible pressures: including a protest against the present Indian acquiescence, and possible future complicity with the Burmese Junta, before things turn to the worse.

(link to the AVAAZ petition “Stand with the Burmese Protesters”)

Turkey Bashers Should Be More Honest About It

People ideologically bent on keeping Turkey outside of the EU should be more honest about it, instead of trying to come up with yet more excuses.

President Sarkozy of France is maneuvering to prevent further openings of talks between the EU and the Ankara government, taking advantage of the impasse over Cyprus and still toying with the silly idea of a Mediterranean Union of poor States with the main aim of keeping them out of the EU.

Reader H.R. Clausen applaudes the stance on the International Herald Tribune (Letters, June 28) and goes as far as accusing Turkey of “badly lacking implementation of the Copenhagen criteria“.

But Sarkozy (and Clausen) can’t have it both ways. If Turkey were not complying with the EU minimal requirements, there would be plenty of rules already in place to halt its entry into the Union.

And therefore there would be no need to stop negotiations. Simply, these would report the current non-compliance.

If some are trying so hard to even prevent negotiations, it may actually be out of their own fear that Turkey is not really so far off in fulfilling the EU entry criteria.

90 Years After Killing Itself, Europe at the Crossroads

The umpteenth EU summit is taking place in Brussels from tonight.

The issue at stake is far heavier than in past meetings of Heads of State and Government. With the expansion to include countries formerly behind the Iron Curtain, the EU has to find a way to work despite its components living in different histories.

Call it “Constitution”, call it “Treaty”, call it “Donald Duck” but a new set of rules is needed for a future of prospects rather than implosion.

As I wrote yesterday, the best way to keep one’s life truly alive is to deal with the diverse times that cohabit in one’s soul: just as well for the European Union. Its old, Western core is several decades in front of the new Eastern members in matters of handling national interest in a multi-state Union.

It is not that the Poles or the Czechs are slow-witted: it is that by wrapping their national evolutions in ice under the Soviet domination, it is all too natural to them for history-heavy questions such as strategic defence and World War II considerations to be on the table right now.

Unfortunately, those are exactly the questions that cannot interest their Western counterparts. Because to them, history is at best a nuisance.

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Europe and European culture committed suicide around 1917 and perhaps didn’t stop stabbing itself for another 30 years. All the Empires that boldly entered World War I in 1914 were irreparably damaged by three years of war, and in all the participating countries only the most rabid types were not appalled by the pointless carnage.

To compound the situation, millions had joined the fight inspired by enthusiastic nationalism, almost invariably spiced up by religious references. Ominously, they had done it in Britain, in France, in Germany, in Russia, in Italy, everywhere following similar patterns.

They literally marched on to kill one another, seemingly unaware of their extraordinary similarities. And obviously in hindsight, their war could not end, as they were able to perfectly match and outwit one another.

That’s why it was a mass suicide, of bodies and of culture. The U.S. officially joined the war on April 2, 1917. Their mere presence was enough to finally put it to a stop. Old Europe heard its bell tolling.

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Fast-forward to 1947. Hell-bent on destroying themselves, Europeans had managed to complete the Great War with the even bigger World War II. A great chunk of them were taken out of history by falling into the hands of that failed experiment called Soviet Communism.

Another large chunk, to the West, decided to forego history altogether, laying its soul finally to rest. No more violent nationalism, no desire to stomp on one another, no talk of reparation of this or that historical tort, and since they were at it, steam ahead with a Union of nation states, but down with religion and all mores of old (from “Father knows best” to “A woman’s place is in the kitchen“). Some call it “modernity“.

Sixty years later, the process is almost complete. There is no aspect of contemporary (Western) European life that has not been affected by modernity. The artistic renovation s of the 1920’s have fathered an incredible variety of movements. Religion is on the wane, especially organized religion, and it has become perfectly normal to practice homosexuality and to raise single-parent children, things considered quite deviant as recently as 30 years ago.

Frankly, it is more than absurd to imagine the great-grandchildren of those knowingly sent to die at the Somme or Caporetto, accept any Government initiative without much skepticism.

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That’s not the experience elsewhere on the Continent and beyond. For example it is almost impossible to deny the impetus given to liberation of Western European women by the request to work during both wars in stead of their war front-bound men. That’s not exactly what has happened in Communist countries (where the desire to free men and women alike somehow became synonimous of morphing citizens into State servants).

And that’s not what has happened in the Middle East either. Who knows, without World War I there would still be little or no voting rights for female citizens of…liberal democracies! (The U.S.A., of course, is a whole different topic).

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And so the new bunch of countries cannot simply join the European Union without a lot of kicking and screaming: Poland especially, a former Empire in itself from the Baltic to the Black Sea, then put together, dismembered and forcibly moved westward by its neighbours.

Will the Brussels meeting be any fruitful? Usually, if a summit like that fails, it is simply forgotten. But let’s hope it does succeed, so it will leave a mark in history.

Imagine if Germany could finally accept Poland’s requests, recognizing each other’s completely different historical paths, and convince it to actually become a leader in the Union: putting to rest at least 13 centuries of enmity.

———–

If the EU will be able to rationally accommodate so many countries with such a variety of experience, cares and worries, then it will be ready to expand even further: Turkey, the Ukraine, Israel, Morocco, Tunisia…and why not?

As a sort of grass-root United Nations, the EU could then become the first gift to Humanity by a more peaceful, re-born Europe. 

Kosovo, Another EU Failure

The European Union is chugging along with its Ahtisaari Plan for the future of Kosovo, the quasi-independent province still nominally and legally part of Serbia albeit occupied by NATO and a UN protectorate since the end of the 1999 war.

In truth, that Plan seems more the result of a vision-free EU that is trying its might to get out of a region that has seen the Union’s reputation hit rock bottom several times for the past 15 years or so.

Of course, ultimately any failure and the blame for any violence lie with the Kosovo residents. It’s their lives that they themselves seem so apt to make more miserable than should be.

But the sudden push for making Kosovo independent does not look like the wisest of choices for the EU.

They are now claiming that they want to prevent development of local dependency on foreign aid, but foreign aid will surely continue flowing to Kosovo for the foreseeable future.

Also, the Ahtisaari Plan is highly-detailed: yet more evidence that there is no comprehensive vision for both communities. Expect further hardships for the Serbs.

What are the alternatives? For example, simple allow Serbian areas of Kosovo to rejoin Serbia, rather than remain a small minority in a brand-new State that Serbian will never be.

And what is this idea of attaching peoples one to the other with superglue even when they blatantly do not want to live together?

The EU itself is made up of nation-states that were established and are still run on the idea that people of the same nation (traditions, culture, but at the end of the day a matter of shared heritage with dubious genetic aspects) must be allowed to govern themselves free from the influence of other nations.

The Kosovo plan makes no sense in this respect. Why force them something we have no intention to do ourselves?

The Elephant In Europe’s Integration Room

HDS Greenway leaves as an exercise to the reader to complete his reasoning on European attitudes on integration (“Europe’s integration problems“, IHT, May 4).

What would it mean if Europeans accepted “that theirs is a society of immigrants the way America has always been“?

Under those most unlikely of circumstances, Europeans would publicly recognize that no nation comes from a single heritage, and immigrants have been positively adding to the new home nation’s culture for centuries.

It is high time indeed that European societies abandon their superiority complex to allow those to contribute culturally and socially as well as economically.t

Alas, nothing of the sort is currently allowed by the snobbish ways of France’s total assimilation or the UK’s diversity-conservation. And so there is no such a thing as a Moroccan-French or Indian-Briton to compare to Irish-Americans or Italian-Americans.

Even President Sarkozy of France is and cannot be no Hungarian-French…he is, and he has to be, just French. Anything else, and he would be rejected.

Long Live the European Dream

It is encouraging to see that there are still politicians courageous enough to stand out of the crowd, as Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt does when speaking the simple, yet inexplicably unorthodox truth that the European Union’s very lifeline resides in its outward expansion (“Open wide Europe’s doors”, November 7)

Inspired by a historic opportunity of peace, (or more likely,  unwittingly), EU leaders have been creating for the past 40+ years a community of states perhaps like no other: something like a mixture between a Honors Club, accessible only after passing tough exams on civil rights, infrastructure and the fight against corruption; and a peaceful Roman Empire, forever beaconing the people outside its borders to join in the benefits of free movement for people and goods

And just like the Roman Empire, the European Union will start to die the day it decides it has expanded enough, and cannot go any further

Only the lack of visionary politicians such as Mr Bildt could prevent the EU as an Association of States to move beyond the arbitrary definition of what Continental Europe is, and embrace all Asian and African nations capable to “pass the grades” (apart, perhaps, from the already-giant states like Russia, China, the USA)

May that be our future, I really hope: and not the whining, embrittled EU of those too afraid to continue the European Dream

Napoleon Was (not) Here

What if a member country’s relationship with the European Union depended on the achievements of the most famous Corsican in History?

Take…the United Kingdom (please! I mean, as an example)

What about the UK? Don’t we all know that the Emperor of France was unable to cross the Channel? Those 25 miles of sea had seen the advance of Julius Cesar, Claudius Augustus and William the Conqueror, but were impenetrable to the Victor of Austerlitz, either by sea (with his fleet destroyed at Trafalgar by Admiral Nelson), or by a risky tunnel from the Calais area.

But that is the point: having endured no French invasion, the English (and Welshmen, and Scots) did not experience some important changes, “details” that are now native to cultures and societies of the European Countries, that around the year 1800 were under the hegemony of Paris

From this point of view, many of the clashes and misunderstandings between the British nations and the rest of Europe are consequences… of the Fall of the Bastille (a reminder to Chinese President Mao’s 1950s answer about the impact of the French Revolution of 1789: “Too early to tell” )

Some differences between Great Britain and the Continent are self-evident: for example, Napoleon deliberated for cemeteries to be transferred outside cities, whilst most London Churches sport quite more recent tombstones nearby

But the real break with past after the violent end of King Louis XVI of France, was something more meaningful than simple administrative decisions concerning public hygiene

In fact, the French (people and elites) moved on to export the Principles of the Revolution: Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Those were extraordinarily new concepts and revolutionary indeed for an Europe rigidly divided then (as now) in sovereign States keen to defend their own (ruling classes’) interests

Amid all the chaos of war, French armies propagated those Principles in the popular consciences in Germany, Spain, Italy and beyond. The administrations that followed had the stated goal of freeing their “brothers”, that is all nearby nations, reorganizing them around the idea that all the Citizens have the same rights, and are equal in front of the Law

The very notion of a European Union proceeds from the idea of a Militant Fraternity between Peoples (curiously, an attitude currently disliked as “American”). More: in its fit of destruction against the Ancien Regime France allowed a person like Napoleon Bonaparte, born far away from the old Bourbon elites, to become first a General, then a Head of State, and finally an Emperor

Of Italian origins, with little links to the Upper Strata of society, and without a large inheritance to sustain himself, Napoleon came from Corsica, a restive island itself far away from the command centres of the Kingdom and then the Republic

The conquering French Emperor and his armies, powerful and invincible masters and liberators of Europe (apart from the British islands and little more), showed thus to all the people of the continent that lineage, commercial interests, money were not needed (not even a good accent) to soar to power

In the United Kingdom instead, there is no historical trace of a popular revolution capable to change the nation and subvert the Establishment, nor of a non-Establishment person (no matter how exceptional), to take control of the State

Popular uprisings, of course, did happen in centuries past, but they all failed. The most serious, in 1381, saw thousands of peasants march only to see a young king renege on his promises (and execute their ringmasters)

The one Revolution that succeeded brought to power nobleman Oliver Cromwell in 1646: but he refused to let himself proclaimed Head of State (in stark contrast, Napoleon crowned himself in Paris in front of a reluctant Pope)

Europhile Ireland, also untouched by Napoleon, managed instead a popular revolution to free itself from United Kingdom at the beginning of XX the century, reinforcing the feeling that British ambivalence towards the European Union is linked to a its (un-) revolutionary history

The consequences are not difficult to imagine. The British population has become allergic to any thought of an uprising, and has maintained a strong sense of Authority. In what other modern state could one find the citizens officially defined as “subjects” of the Queen?

And with all the wars and revolutions of the XIX and XX century, where else is power firmly in the hands of the (old) ruling classes, the so-called “The Great and the Good”, a mixture of nobility and hereditary merchant classes uninterruptedly in control, at least from the age of Wilhelm of Orange (King since 1688 having been “invited over” by a group of English parliamentarians)?

Obviously not all the UK political leaders of last three centuries were of high lineage or coming from powerful, rich families: but all of them effectively belonged to, or became part of the Establishment. Margaret Thatcher, potentially an outsider woman in a world of men, worked instead to re-establish the most cliched idea of what the British society ought to be (centred, not by chance, around her person as a sort of Queen-in-all-but-name)

The British tradition of Authority is continuously renewed also in the apparently more democratic aspects. For example, governmental planning, a process theoretically opened to the opinions of all citizens, is so mysterious and forcefully dedicated to reach a consensus, that is almost impossible for plans not to be watered down, let alone be able to change the status quo

The British citizen is educated never to complain in an effective manner. The tradition of the “stiff upper lip” is waning but not disappearing: think of a person that does not reveal feelings nor emotions, and whose mouth never betrays joy nor anxiety: whose passions, and whose angers therefore, remain hidden, to leave Society undisturbed. People may complain about the quality of the trains, but they will do nothing more, stoically enduring antiquated pre-modern services reminding of 1980’s continental Europe.

True, the National Health System (NHS) is now at the forefront of contemporary provision: at the wrong forefront, one might say, as it is showing the rest of Europe that nurses can cheaply (but how effectively?) “diagnose” illnesses simply by following rigid criteria based on the patient’s own reporting of symptoms, rather than with a careful analysis and an experienced doctor

The dutiful “customers” accept the situation as a necessity, unaware of the fact that today’s awful service will become tomorrow’s standard. Healthcare managers of course are very happy with the savings, and further encouraged to find out how to spend less, without consideration to the actual health benefits to the patients

Particularly rigid and unmovable, cold and impersonal, the British bureaucracy is clearly geared to satisfy superiors rather than citizens. The year 2006 opened with the case of an old couple separated by social workers: he, a veteran of the Second World war; she, blind. The husband’s GP ordered him to enter a clinic specialised in the treatment of the elderly. Alas, the wife could not follow, as her situation did not fulfil obscure criteria established by the local Council

Last I checked on this piece of news, paradoxes were piling up, all related to an excessive importance given to the “Authority”. The husband is unwillingly parked in the clinic, but does not return home as he is following doctor’s orders. The wife is home just as lonely with the family taking care of her now. Some letter-based protest had been lodged by their children, but they did not move their father back nor considered using a private healthcare provider

The social workers, instead of improving the citizens lives, became responsible of a serious and self-evident injustice that ruined the life of two old innocents. Why couldn’t they do differently? Because there is no alternative

Any “personal interpretation” of the rules (the shock! The horror!) would be considered an act of insubordination and the career of the “guilty” probably finished to the moment. And of course there is no official channel where to ask exceptions to the regulations in exceptional circumstances.

In a centre-driven, hard, harsh, pyramidal and frozen structure, even the social worker, as any other representative of the State or any organization, is just a messenger

There is also a European aspect that is directly affected by this attitude. The EU is famous for its “directives”: technically, “a legislative act of the European Union which requires member states to achieve a particular result without dictating the means of achieving that result”

Peculiarly, those directives do not have the same consequences in the UK as elsewhere. For example recently hundreds of local British abattoirs have been closed due to some EU directive, whilst nothing of the sort has happened in the rest of the European Union.

Some fundamental cultural misunderstanding must be at work: so whereas most countries consider a “directive” as a “strong suggestion”, a rule indicating the direction of things to come, in the UK it is interpreted as a mandatory law that must be followed to the letter: exactly the difference between guidelines expressed by popular representatives, and the imperative commands of a King/Ruling Prime Minister.

Even in 1968, to the rioters in France, Italy and Germany the English youth answered with pointless rebellions as seen in movies like Quadrophenia. And today, instead of blocking crowded trains like in Turin or Milan, London commuters find refuge in witticisms about the state of the railroads

It’s not by chance that British humour is famous worldwide, well developed (and widely tolerated). It’s one of the three main discharge valves for life-stressed citizens. Another valve is the creation and destruction of myths (like Tony Blair). And the third is the ambiguous celebration of alcohol and alcoholism, but these topics deserve their own articles.

And so consider Bonaparte’s disasters at Trafalgar and Waterloo, when trying to understand British idiosyncrasies about “Europe”. For now let’s just heave a sigh whilst lamenting: Napoleon, why didn’t you come here?

Help the EU save some money…

…for once!

The European Parliament should be located in Brussels

It costs European taxpayers approximately 200 million euros a year to move the Parliament between Brussels/Belgium and Strasbourg/France. As a citizen of the European Union, I want the European Parliament to be located only in Brussels.

MEP's from different parties are behind the initiative

Please sign the on-line petition. It surely won't hurt. As of this moment there are already 60,000 signatories

And if we "need" the Strasbourg building because we "have to", let the French Government pay the whole bill

Petition to the EU Parliament – unfair, double-taxation of UK working families

Dear Committee on PetitionsI am an Italian citizen, in England since 1997, writing to you now to highlight the unfair treatment of working families, by the United Kingdom's tax system.

Since both I and my wife work (employees) for most of the week, to fulfill our natural aspiration to provide our son with the best possible conditions we decided early on to have him taken care of by a nanny, during day time.

We have strived to follow all rules and regulations. That means I am effectively the employer of my son's nanny, and I pay all her tax and national insurance contributions.

The unfairness of the system is in the fact that the money my nanny is paid with, comes out of my salary as full-time employee, in other words the nanny's _gross_ salary is money that has already been taxed .

Indeed, despite me being an employer, I do not have any right to detract the nanny's gross salary from my total income for tax purposes.

As the situation stands, that money is effectively taxed twice, as the nanny then has to pay income tax of her own.

This is a blatant case of the UK's Inland Revenue taking advantage of my situation as full-time employee to tax my income two times.

I repeat: I do not have any trouble in paying all contributions ought to the nanny, her national insurance, etc.

The system should be re-assessed, with for example a simple mechanism introduced, with the nanny's employer getting taxed on his/her gross salary MINUS the nanny's gross salary, and not regardless of it.

Unfortunately this is far beyond the means of the "little guy", if only because a legal fight with the mighty Inland Revenue would be long and costly.

But the fact that I don't want to risk the financial ruin of my family to fight this particular injustice, does not detract from the fact that thousands of UK families are taken advantage of by the current system.

Is there any way you can help redress the situation? Please do let me know