Europe: The World’s Newest Emerging Slum?
The tales of a continent smothered by 19th Century socialism
Photo Courtesy Deutsche Welle
Recently the leaders of
But if one were merely to calculate who the greatest losers of the century among all of the chief economic competitor nations might be simply based upon current performance one might find that to the surprise of many Europeans 20 years ago, it's their own continent which is clearly sinking into disrepair. A slide which could in a century or so leave its member nations on the verge of almost another Dark Ages in human enterprise and freedom of thought, unless a corrective course is taken, much as was done in 1980 when America threw off its malaise and tossed out the failed policies of ideas followed by such as Democrat Jimmy Carter, learning thereafter that the best way to deal with stagnation is by facing it head-on.
Europe can't grow its way out of second-world political and economic status because its largest economies”, Nicole Gelinas of the New York Post today writes, “ —
The Europeans glumly admit that they are now wedged between a powerhouse
..
As a headliner in today’s Deutsche Welle points out,
When the
As we learned before the Walls of Communism came down, both enterprise and the freedom of the human spirit are always linked and no permanent prosperity ever grows out of oppressive totalitariates or bureaucracies. Something
In Germany’s case, things changed quickly after the Wall in Berlin came down, but Bonn’s forecasts largely appear today based on the false assumption the newly integrated East Germans (Ossies) would also assimilate and unlearn the destructive philosophies and habits imposed upon them from Kindergarten in the DDR.
Though those Ossies yearned to be free from the oppressive regime they knew to be wrong, they did not fully understand, nor were they taught exactly why, it would seem and because of such being creatures of habit their Social Net and work-performance expectations helped to recast the mold of the newly reunified Germany’s politics.
Not soon thereafter was the Christian Democratic Union of Pro-West Helmut Kohl reduced to opposition party status, replaced by the newly invigorated Social Democrat Party of Gerhardt Schroeder, followed by a radical realignment of German power not seen for decades both internally as well as on the global front.
Suddenly years later, Germany finds itself in a stagnant economy (with a GDP growth rate of 0.2% in 2002), a looming collapse of its pension system, a government laden with corrupt foreign and domestic entanglements and a loss of the moral clarity that so impassioned West Germans against terrorism and tyranny throughout the Cold War era, as exemplified by their sentiment towards not only the Berlin Wall and the regime which placed it there, but against the very idea of an ideology that could take a human life simply because it yearned to determine its own future or simply because that life belonged to a particular ethnic or religious group.
And so today some Germans – a full one fifth of those surveyed now think it wasn’t such a good idea after all tearing down that wall. Jaded by the policies of a government 20 years ago overrun with emotion, too quick to pretend normalcy had descended after the Wall fell and soon vanquished from power due to that error. But many in Germany today are now waking up to the fact that a return to that love of Freedom and unshackled enterprise and ideas which brought the Wall down and rebuilt Germany into a global power before that, were things much too quickly tossed aside for the sake of “einheit ohne klarheit” – or the notion of collective agreement over moral rightness. The self-same mentality which has caused the Germans – who should know better – to follow the French government’s lead on many if not all things foreign and domestic. Something even some in
Gelinas continues,
“The American neoconservatives have their imitators in Europe,” the head of
Madelin — and others like him — may gain more listeners as stubborn France now flails desperately for a way to somehow put Bush in his place. But even as Europeans accept the global political reality of the next four years — “C'est Bush” — most continue to delay this inevitable economic reality.
And according to the Deutsche Welle report on
While several areas of Berlin today literally sparkle with vigor and possibility, such as the glass and chrome towers of Potsdamer Platz or the splashy facades of boutiques on Friedrichstraße, under the surface lurks a serious case of economic malaise. The boutiques on Friedrichstraße are usually empty, the landlords of Potsdamer Platz's skyscrapers cannot find tenants.
Few in
And the national picture, as well as that of most of the EU appears just as, or even more bleak.
But the irony for the governments in Europe at present is the simple fact that the very many which they so very much wanted to lose and whom they considered ignorant and disattached from the times, U.S. President Bush, is actually leading the pack globally with domestic reforms that will prevent what appears to be in Europe’s not-too-distant future.
Gelinas:
So Bush's second-term mandate for
And in
“We cannot permit ourselves any more excuses, illusions or escape . . . the Europeans must not make anti-Americanism their ideology,” Le Monde editorialized. The French now know they must reconcile their growing cognitive dissonance with external action.
At least some, a growing number, admit there is a problem. Meanwhile the French leadership and the SDP party-controlled government in
Blogbat related:
Die Deutschen – 12. October 2004
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