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  #1  
Old 10-19-2005, 12:18 PM
Rudey Rudey is offline
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Europe Recognizes Mistakes and Moves Right

They can't integrate their immigrants nor support their welfare economies. Who knew?

http://select.nytimes.com/iht/2005/1...ist.html?8hpib

October 19, 2005

Globalist

Europe's Troubles Push Even the Left Rightward
By ROGER COHEN

International Herald Tribune

The pendulum of Europe's political direction tends to be erratic, but for the moment it is pointing rightward. That may be surprising at a time when the Continent has spent a lot of time defining itself in opposition to President George W. Bush's conservative administration.

But it's less surprising when two factors are considered: the alarm caused by jihadist killings in Madrid and Amsterdam and London, and the difficulties of social market economies with comprehensive welfare systems creaking under the strain of high unemployment and aging populations.

The terrorism means that law and order, part of Angela Merkel's winning message in Germany, is in and indulgence toward immigrants is out. The economic difficulties, especially in France and Germany, are pushing in the direction of free-market reform. Both these trends favor the right.

It has not been lost on Europeans that terrorism has come from within. The killings have in general been perpetrated not by agents sent from the Middle East, but by Europe's own, Muslims born and raised in European societies or long-term residents. The murderers knew freedom, often a great deal of it, and opted for an attempt to destroy the open societies that nurtured them.

That is disquieting, especially for a European left that had long held aloft the "multi-culti" model of diverse peoples living side by side and in harmony without a strong overarching national culture.

So the left is moving right. Earlier this month, Wouter Bos, the leader of the Dutch Labor Party, had some sharp comments for a gathering of European socialists. His speech suggested the degree to which the mainstream European left is reconsidering its past policies in the light of the violence that has struck the Continent.

"Every society has limits to its capacity to absorb newcomers," Bos said. "Successful integration therefore above all requires a restrictive migration policy because our capacity to integrate and emancipate is not limitless. And it will require toughness, both on those who arrive new into our societies and the society that adopts them."

Toughness on immigration is a new message for the left. So is talk of "emancipating" immigrants, a clear message that European Muslims will have to show more readiness to buy into the norms of Western societies on such matters as the equality of men and women and freedom of sexual choice.

Bos acknowledged that past policies had proved inadequate. "Social Democrats all over Europe have not been too good at tackling these problems," he declared. "Maybe because they were afraid to be accused of racism."

Another reason, of course, was that hostility to immigration was the terrain of the right and, in its ugliest form, the preserve of extreme-right xenophobes like France's Jean-Marie Le Pen.

But the left now sees that it is possible, indeed critical, to confront the grave failures of immigration policy without adopting the bigoted excesses of the right. For one thing, the welfare state that is the great creation of European social democracy depends on change because a welfare system supporting out-of-work immigrants in disproportionate degree tends to stir resentments that are explosive.

In the Netherlands, Bos said, "migrants and people of migrant background have a much greater chance than others of being poorly educated, unemployed, sick or ending up with a criminal record. Here again the result, if we do nothing about it, will be that the white middle-class tax-paying citizen wonders: Am I paying taxes for myself or am I paying for them?"

In a similar way, if basic values are not shared in a society, the welfare system, ultimately based on a sense of solidarity, frays. The welfare state is a form of collective insurance. For it to work, there has to be some agreement on the nature of the risk and the nature of the way of life to be defended. From Britain to Spain, evidence has accumulated that such a consensus has been lacking.

The bottom line, after Europe's recent violence, is that greater efforts, in education and in imparting the meaning of citizenship in a European democracy, appear essential if tensions with immigrants are to be eased. Nationalism tends to be anathema in Europe, which knows its downside too well. But national values and national pride may be making a comeback.

Of course, as long as the economies of Germany and France remain stalled with unemployment rates hovering around 10 percent, tensions within European societies will tend to persist. Societies that fail for long periods to produce significant growth or jobs are societies that promote a paralyzing dependency and stifle hope.

That is why both Merkel and the center-right French prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, have proposed tax cuts, greater labor market flexibility, reductions in nonwage labor costs and other measures to try to stop the institutionalization of unemployment in their countries.

In a coalition with the Social Democrats, Merkel's margin for maneuver will not be great; Villepin faces French labor unions and may opt to zigzag into ineffectiveness. But at least they have been frank about the core of their countries' problems: the fact that it has often been more attractive financially not to work than to work.

Their joint presence may just revive the French-German alliance and give a new impulse to free-market ideas in the euro zone. Resistance will be significant. But Merkel has real convictions about where she wants to go; Villepin has unusual energy. This combination could bring results, especially as the railing of leftists against globalization, neoliberalism and the like has an increasingly sterile air in both countries.

The most successful politician in a major industrialized democracy, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan, has successfully deployed a mixture of radical reform and carefully dosed nationalism. Merkel and Villepin may take a leaf from his book.

After all, toughness, national values and a freer market are even being espoused by some of Europe's mainstream left. Could there be a looming market for European neocons?

-Rudey
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  #2  
Old 10-19-2005, 01:50 PM
BobbyTheDon BobbyTheDon is offline
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freakin Euros. Lets go over there and beat them up.
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  #3  
Old 10-19-2005, 05:18 PM
Tom Earp Tom Earp is offline
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Bobby, Iowa cannot ever be compared to Heaven, I think that is where Shoeless ended up because it is Hell!


Rudey that was a post that makes a lot of sense if and for any who have been to Eroupa!

They as many countrys have the same problem of People moving in and taking jobs from the Locals.

Of course, the Locals wil not work for the wages as immigrants as in the USA!

Ask the President of Mexico!
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