Belgium has ceased to exist. The independent states of Flanders and Wallonia have been haggling fruitlessly for 20 years about how to carve up the Brussels region, which has become a no-man’s land.
Spain and Portugal are on a switchback ride towards modernisation and democracy – Latin American style – as strong-arm regimes alternate with weak elected governments made unpopular by the IMF’s periodic demands for budgetary belt-tightening. A number of serious military incidents between Greece and Turkey would have degenerated into outright war but for vigorous US intervention.
The Soviet Union fell apart only in 1999. Germany, as a quid pro quo for its reunification, has left NATO.
The Eastern European countries, although officially free of the Russian yoke, are not yet democratic. Everywhere, former Communists have managed to utilise the formal processes of democracy in order to hang on to power. Under cover of privatisation, the ruling cliques are divvying up capital assets and controlling shares in major companies. In Estonia and Latvia, trouble fomented by the Russian-speaking minorities was the justification for military intervention by Moscow, with the UN’s blessing.
The civil war in Yugoslavia has been going on for more than 15 years. Successive UN and OSCE efforts at mediation have resulted in several dozen ceasefires, all of which have broken down. For practical purposes the country is split proportionately among its ethnic communities. It took joint intervention by Washington and Moscow to stop Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia and Albania carving up the Republic of Macedonia.
Lire la suite…
La Belgique n’existe plus. Les Etats indépendants de Flandre et de Wallonie négocient en vain depuis vingt ans le partage de la région de Bruxelles, devenue un no-man’s land.
Comme les pays d’Amérique latine, Espagne et Portugal ont une marche en dents de scie vers la modernité et la démocratie. Des régimes musclés succèdent à des gouvernements parlementaires faibles, rendus impopulaires par les assainissements financiers périodiquement exigés par le FMI. Entre la Grèce et la Turquie, plusieurs incidents militaires graves auraient dégénéré en guerre totale sans l’intervention vigoureuse des Etats-Unis.
L’Union soviétique ne s’est effondrée qu’en 1999. En contrepartie de sa réunification, l’Allemagne est sortie de l’OTAN.
Officiellement libérés du joug russe, les pays de l’Est ne sont toujours pas démocratiques. Partout, les ex-communistes ont su utiliser les procédures formelles de la démocratie pour conserver leur pouvoir. Sous couvert de privatisation, les clans au pouvoir se partagent le capital et le pouvoir dans les grandes entreprises. En Estonie et en Lettonie, l’agitation fomentée par les minorités russophones a légitimité une intervention militaire de Moscou, avec la bénédiction de l’ONU.
La guerre civile yougoslave se poursuit depuis plus de quinze ans. Des médiations successives de l’ONU et de l’OSCE ont obtenu plusieurs dizaines de cessez-le-feu, toujours bafoués. En pratique, le pays est divisé selon le partage des communautés ethniques. Il a fallu l’intervention conjointe de Washington et de Moscou pour empêcher la Bulgarie, la Grèce, la Serbie et la l’Albanie de se partager la République de Macédoine.
Lire la suite…
Jacques Faizant would have captured it perfectly! Were the great cartoonist still with us – and had he deigned to turn his talent to yet another presidential campaign, having covered them all since the inception of the Fifth French Republic in 1958 – he might well have depicted his impish ‘Marianne’ bikini-clad in the pose of a seaside siren on the Côte d’Argent, contemplating the waves while a lovelorn lifeguard bearing a strong resemblance to Nicolas Sarkozy gently but persistently puts the question: ‘What’s it to be then, sweetheart?’
In a democracy, every election is a moment of truth for a nation. Despite what too many candidates, most of the pollsters and much of the press might think, an election is by no means a beauty contest: it is about choosing a pilot. And what lies ahead on the flight we are about to board is not exactly a clear blue sky.
Entre nous it’s time to tell it like it is. We have fallen behind. We have squabbled and we have prevaricated. We have seized on the first available pretext for failing to respond to developments. The world is changing before our eyes and all we can say is ‘Hang on a minute. Don’t harass us!’ In the face of rising unemployment, some bright spark came up with the idea of paying ourselves more for less work, so of course we gave it a go! The USA and the UK are out-performing us but it’s all down to nasty Anglo-Saxon ultra-liberalism and we don’t want any of that, thank you very much! As for the Chinese economic boom – well, what do you expect if they pay their workers peanuts?
Lire la suite…