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Vertigo in Europe
The past few days have seen so much chaos in Europe that I can barely keep up with it. Three critical elections, or sets of elections, ahead: The Dutch go to the polls tomorrow; the Turks will vote on constitutional reform on Sunday; and the two-round French presidential election takes place in April and May.
As you probably heard, last week Erdoğan called the Germans Nazis. The Dutch then barred Turkish ministers from campaigning in favor of their referendum in Rotterdam — Turkish expats can vote in Turkish elections — ostensibly on the grounds that their visit would cause unrest in the days prior to the Dutch election. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoğlu insisted upon causing unrest anyway, daring the Dutch to stop him from coming, which they did, and for emphasis the Dutch sicced the dogs on rioting pro-AKP Turks. Erdoğan then called the Dutch Nazis. Everyone in Turkey and the Netherlands went nuts, which was precisely the point of this whole charade: On the Turkish side, the goal (clearly planned in advance, and announced) was to mobilize their shock troops in the Netherlands, stage those scenes, stir up nationalist passions in Turkey, use these to pass the referendum, and succeed in giving Erdoğan all the power, forever; on the Dutch side, the goal was to persuade the voters that Prime Minister Mark Rutte can be just as tough on Turks as Party-of-One Geert Wilders — though everyone’s a bit worried now that he overshot and just persuaded the Dutch to vote for Wilders.
If this explanation went by too fast for you, Aaron Stein, senior resident fellow of the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, offered a running commentary as this unfolded: It should help with the details:
1. Govt X refuses to allow govt Y to hold a rally.
2. Govt Y changes rally location to a consulate, violating its own law.
3. Govt X then refuses to grant landing rights to FM from govt Y.
4. Govt Y calls govt X a Nazi and threatens sanctions.
5. Govt X gets offended.
6. Minister from Govt Y will drive to consulate in Govt X, violating own laws, but circumventing landing rights kerfuffle.
7. Govt X closes the road to consulate.
8.
#TurkeyHolland2017 (Will update as#breaking developments in total insanity continue).9. Minister from Govt Y is driving from Govt Z, which also blocked rally, but allowed Govt Y to break its own law to campaign at consulate.
10. Govt Y also called govt Z a Nazi, but had a phone call to smooth things over
#TurkeyHollandGermany2017.11.
#Breakingupdate! FM from govt Y reminds govt X that, were it not for goodwill from a now dead empire, it would not have tulips!12. Govt Y trolls allied with party behind rally proposals trolling govt x’s president on twitter and, mistakenly, govt F’s president.
13. Govt F’s president has the same name as Govt X, resulting in trolling confusion.
14.
#Breaking: Minister from Govt Y traveling from Govt Z has been stopped by police forces in Govt X.15. Govt X is calling the police blockade a quarantine, not a blockade, as the latter would be an act of war.
16. Confirmed contact along the contact line, RUMINT in govt X says a fine may be coming. Escalation ladder.
17.
#Breaking: Police forces from Govt X escorting govt minister from Y to the border with country Z.18. Quarantine maintained, whilst remembering that adults run these two countries (allegedly).
19. Protests at quarantine line, with tensions now threatening to spark a new front in the
#Tulipcrisis.20. President of country F still being trolled accidentally, threats coming to incorporate the wrong govt into long dead empire.
21. Govt X stops journalists from govt Y’s official agency at the border, betraying values of the union govt Y pretends to want to join.
22. FM from govt Y touches down in govt F for a speech. President of govt F still being trolled accidentally.
23. Govt Y basically kicks out Govt X’s ambassador.
#Tulipcrisis deepens.24. State backed journalists from govt Y defy govt X, back on the quarantine line giving updates.
25. Fog of war. Tweet #22 is partially incorrect. Trolling on-going, but trip to govt F will take place in future.
26. 2nd and 3rd quarantine lines open up in Govt y to protect/pressure Govt X diplomats, now 3 points of escalation in play
#tulipcrisis.27. Minister from Y returns from Z to X and now may be arrested in the latest farce that is the
#tulipcrisis.28. Update to #25. Tweet 22 was accurate
29. And an arrest.
30. Y’s bodyguards disarmed, were carrying without permission from X.
31: This is about a political party rally in a third country, held at a consulate that by law is not allowed to hold political rallies.
32. Minister is still in her car, raising prospect of being towed to Z.
33. Won’t be towed. Moved to a new vehicle and headed back to Z
34. RUMINT. Lek River Shield being discussed.
35. Minister from Y back in Z after X escorted her with cars and a helicopter.
(I think Aaron at that point he remembered he had research to do, and gave up.) Anyway, it got worse from there.
EU and NATO officials have been pleading for calm. Uninspired by these importunings, the Turkish government barred the Dutch ambassador, closed Turkish airspace to official Dutch flights, and called the Dutch Nazis a few more times for good measure.
Meanwhile the Turkish foreign minister visited Metz, in France, to campaign, where he called the Netherlands “the capital of fascism.” As far as I know — French journalists aren’t exactly jonesing to go to Metz, it’s middle of nowhere, so there wasn’t much reporting about what actually happened — the visit otherwise passed without incident. But it set off a round of pre-election competition among the French presidential candidates and pundits to see who could deplore in the most arduous and melodramatic terms the decision to let Cavusoğlu into France in the first place. A leading entry, from Nicolas Dupont-Aignan of Figaro:
I am ashamed of France today. I am ashamed that our government, our President of the Republic, is organizing a political meeting for a Turkish dictator who despises the Europeans, who threatens us and who treats Madame Merkel like a Nazi. I do not accept our treating a friendly country like Nazis, it is indecent. That France lies down in this way is pitiful.* This is the long continuation of a policy of national resignation. Away with Monsieur Hollande, urgently!**
*He said “se couche,” which can also means “get in bed,” so the phrase had a somewhat sexual implication. Tricky to translate.
**Mind you, Monsieur Hollande isn’t running.
Some quick thoughts. First, may I direct you to an excellent explainer on the Turkish referendum in question, which is now quite a bit more likely to pass? That outcome could not be less in the interests of anyone in Europe (not least the Turks themselves), so the lack of strategic foresight in the Netherlands is notable.
Second, let’s reflect on the way we arrived at this impasse. From 2002-2010, the Netherlands was the single largest source of foreign direct investment in Turkey, making it by far the largest source of FDI per capita. But these massive inflows of FDI played an extremely significant role in allowing Erdoğan to consolidate power. Few asked, back then, whether this was an outcome to be desired. That it wasn’t — and that it was an obvious strategic catastrophe for Europe in the making — was pretty clear to anyone paying attention.
During the same period, American and European politicians and pundits, the Dutch in particular, offered lavish support and encouragement to AKP, insisting Turkey was “liberalizing.” Now it was, in the sense that it became much more welcoming of FDI. Otherwise, it was not. To the contrary. The warning signs were ignored in a miasma of greed, wishful thinking, and intellectual laziness. If you don’t believe me when I say, “This was predictable long ago, but it was impossible to get anyone to pay attention,” check out my desperate attempts to get anyone’s attention, right here on Ricochet. And if you think this international incident is about anything other than Turkish and Dutch domestic politics and their simultaneous races to the populist bottom, ask yourself why no one raised any objections then to that democracy-destroying constitutional referendum — or to the Turkish politicians who campaigned for it in Europe back then.
(ITYSYFF interlude over.)
But this isn’t even the biggest story that broke in the past few days. A hard Brexit is on: The UK plans to trigger Article 50 imminently. This has prompted Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to announce she’ll seek another Scottish independence referendum, this on the grounds that Britain is dragging Scotland out of the EU against its will and on terms it doesn’t want.
A horrified Theresa May reproached Sturgeon and her party: “The tunnel vision that the SNP has shown today is deeply regrettable. It sets Scotland on a course for more uncertainty and division, creating huge uncertainty,” she admonished.
So let’s recap: The British argument is that they must leave the EU to regain their sovereignty, but Scotland must remain in the UK lest it set Scotland on a course for division and uncertainty.
It doesn’t add up, alas, and everyone knows it.
Then it got worse: Sinn Fein then announced that it too wanted a referendum on Northern Ireland leaving the UK, this “as soon as possible.” Now, Scotland will be (reasonably) fine either way, if impoverished and diminished, but Northern Ireland is apt to pay the price of Brexit in blood. “The Ulstermen,” as a friend who doesn’t wish to be quoted wrote on Facebook yesterday, “will lose their minds. Everything that was supposedly over will reignite.” He’s right.
Spain, meanwhile, tried and banned from politics the former head of Catalonia from public office for staging an informal referendum on independence. “The case,” reports France24, “comes as separatist political parties in Catalonia, a wealthy region with its own language and distinct culture, are pushing to hold another vote on breaking away from Spain in September.”
(Is anyone seeing yet why I don’t welcome the fracturing of Europe or believe its dissolution will achieve the happy and peaceful end state its advocates claim? It’s okay if you don’t. Just file these thoughts away for future reference.)
Meanwhile, in a surprisingly little-noted news item, the Russian Duma is proposing a law to give citizenship to ethnic Russians the world around based on the “right of the soil,” as they put it (or as I understand it, from Google Translate). If you’re a blood kin of a Russian or speak Russian, you too can be a Russian! Those of you whose minds tend to dwell unpleasantly on historic precedent can easily imagine where that might go. And the British intelligence services called an emergency summit with Britain’s political parties to warn them they’re at risk of the next general election being disrupted by Russian cyber-attacks.
Russian cyber-attacks on Europe continued apace.
What else? Yesterday, Hungarian President János Áder, an ally of Reigning Authoritarian Loon Viktor Orbán, was re-elected. By a large majority.
And what else? Oh yes, the French election went full-on anti-Semitic, albeit only for a day, though that was enough to make quite a number of us here truly ill:
That stuff, those ideas, these images, just will not die. And they’re reborn in chaos, so let’s hope this all settles down after these elections, and hope for the election of politicians who don’t themselves long for more chaos.
Anyway, that’s the news. (tl;dr: No statesmen, no foresight, no vision, no adults in charge, everything spinning apart.) All I can say is that if the world keeps dragging itself toward hell so effortfully, it will probably succeed in getting there.
I sure hope everyone sobers up.
Published in General
Holy crap, Claire. I have not had enough coffee to process all this — but thank you for the work. Also, what the hell is Ergodan doing?! Can someone send him a link to the Russo-ottoman wars — or are we just destined to watch helpless as this total eclipse of history engulfs us all?
If Le Pen wins, it will be because of the momentum of these fallen dominoes and I would advise coming back to the States.
On a funnier note (maybe?) — my first apartment was in Venice Beach in the mid 90s when gunfire frequently accompanied the drum circles, with two Irish and two Scottish dudes straight from the Islands. Headlocks and indecipherable English were routine when they were drunk but the boys from Glasgow always won — declaring in a thick-bog of accent:
The Irish pray on their knees because the Scots prey on their neighbors!
Only what he’s been doing for years, and what he’s been taught, through experience, he can get away with. If you feel like reading some of the (much) longer pieces I’ve written trying to explain this, here’s one I wrote during the Gezi protests; I think does a better job than some of my other attempts to explain the country and the man.
And this piece was a bit tongue-in-cheek: I managed to offend everyone concerned; but I discuss a few similar high points in recent Turkish foreign policy (the Turkey-Brazil Iran nuclear swap proposal and the Mavi Marmara incident). The point is that this sort of thing has characterized Turkey’s behavior and foreign policy for a while, and while it suited the Dutch, they paid it no mind. It was all perfectly understandable. Now, days before a critical election, they’ve suddenly decided it’s unacceptable. And it is unacceptable. But the time to have realized that was when serious pressure from the US and the EU might have made a difference: back when significant institutional checks on his power still existed, and before he took all the money the Dutch and the rest of Europe poured into Turkey and built a loyalist political apparatus out of it — and not only in Turkey, obviously. One that won’t readily be dislodged.
It’s heartbreaking for Ulster.
That is a seriously depressing image, Claire. And a pretty depressing essay. Any hopeful signs?
I’ve managed to suppress my inner Mommy so I’ll refrain from saying that you should come back to the U.S. at once, cats and all…!
So the world should have banned their citizens/corporations from investing in Turkey while the AKP was in power? Am I getting that right?
And can someone explain to me the point of Macron? Apart from being none of the other candidates, that is.
Well, Macron is still apt to beat Le Pen, and I think having a stable France in the heart of Europe–one still committed to the ideals of an open society, not cheerfully loving it up with Putin–would be a big step in the right direction. Especially because France is capable of extremely shrewd statecraft when it sets its mind to it. Whether Macron himself is capable of that, no one knows, but at least we can’t rule it out.
I think the French and the Dutch have been looking at the UK and seeing the costs of playing with this kind of populist fire, seeing what would really ensue from the breakup of Europe. This might lead to cooler heads prevailing. It’s escaped no one’s notice that Boris Johnson, alone in Europe, couldn’t utter a word about Erdoğan’s behavior: Britain now needs a trade deal with Turkey too desperately. That’s a pretty unpleasant and visible sign of the fate of any country in Europe that succumbs to what Le Pen and Wilders are offering. Perhaps the realization that the US is truly lost for now in its own domestic problems, and the sight of what’s happening to the UK, will scare European voters straight, so to speak.
But I don’t know. No one does, really. There are too many moving parts. The combination of Russia to the east, the catastrophe in Syria, Turkey, and a disengaged America — that’s a lot of destabilization at once for a continent with a pretty unhappy track record. But nothing is written; there’s still a lot of ways this ship could right itself, too.
I assume you agree that:
They should have crafted their trade policies with more of an eye toward Turkish domestic politics, yes. The adherence to the Foreign Corrupt Practice Act alone would have made a difference. Some hard bargaining that linked the benefits of the EU-Turkey customs union to real internal liberalization would have helped. Not treating the EU accession process as a joke, really taking the prospect seriously and loudly objecting to Turkey’s failure to take it seriously, would have helped. The EU always half-welcomed Turkey’s inability to meet the Copenhagen criteria for fear it would have to admit it; there was enormous bad faith on both sides. Turkey should not have been able to advertise itself as an EU candidate to investors when it wasn’t, in reality.
That’s quite a good point, isn’t it? Nicholas Tenzer’s defense of him is probably excessively optimistic, but he’s the only candidate of whom any of these things might even plausibly be said.
I do, yes; and the Turks in Europe who are under the control of the Turkish state should have been identified and expelled long ago. They are by no means identical with the population of Turkish immigrants, however. I’m concerned for the Turks in Europe who are not (even remotely) members of that group, many of whom have in fact, this entire time, been warning of precisely this, begging European governments to take this prospect seriously. Can you imagine the outrage and despair they feel now that their warnings weren’t heeded and they’re being scapegoated and identified with these thugs in the only homes they have?
If a side effect of Brexit is unified, independent Ireland then so much the better.
I shudder at the idea of Ulster (or Scotland) trying to survive on their own, though. I see quite a few, “What have the [English] ever done for us?” scenes in the dependent Gaels’ future if that happens.
A far more likely side effect of Brexit is another two centuries of The Troubles.
Apparently something nobody in England thought was worth worrying about.
Or perhaps once they’d convinced themselves of one fairytale the second and third came more easily.
It was one thing for the SNP to try for a referendum when oil was a hundred dollars a barrel. Try that one when oil is 30 dollars a barrel and the EU is literraly coming apart at the seems. The SNP hand is not quite as strong as it once was. Have you watched the Lexxit video? An interesting view of the situation from the left for brexxit.
I still think Le Pen will win. On the first ballot and Wilders is getting 40 seats. When the Cubs won the world series it was the first sign of the apocalypse.
Being upset at the dutch for investing in Turkey is the least of the problems. The Germans ignored there own rules of the Mastricht treaty and loaned out to much money. Most of the EU disarmed themselves. They put themselves into an end of history moment, and now that is starting to fly a part at the seams.
You cant build a foundation for a new nation state in a swamp. The EU is pretty well toast.
Of course all my predictions are just that. But I have had a pretty good track record lately.
Why must the people of Manchester or Newcastle compromise their sovereignty because the people of Ulster are unable to contain their passions? Are those of Irish blood lesser human beings, unable to master themselves as other humans can – and are expected to? I’m open to the possibility, but let’s be clear about what is being suggested.
And what exactly would an EU with Britain remaining have been able to do that a post-Brexit EU cannot? If the answer is “apply trade sanctions” that would be acknowledging that the only thing the EU has done right they did sixty years ago.
I read that the U.K. has to hurry up and get out of the EU, as its people democratically voted to do, cuz Brussels has told ’em they can’t make any deals till they do. But once they do, uh, I think the phrase I read was “a world of opportunity” open s up, free of the EU regulatory thicket.
Turkey wants its empire back, with Erdogan in the Sublime Porte. Russia wants its empire, or “union” back. What’s new ?
I enjoyed reading this, because I didn’t understand what you are getting at in many of your comments about our country.
I guess it just depends upon how long a historical view you take.
As for Scotland, the union with England 310 years ago was the smartest thing it ever did. They just had a referendum on whether to stay, remember? Is it anyone’s idea of democracy to call for do-overs every time the dear leaders are dismayed by the people’s voice(So loud! So vulgar!) ? The EU is the polar opposite of democracy.
oh and you don’t think present day anti-Semitism in Europe ( never gone, I do agree) has anything–anything at all? to do with those rallies where Islamists chant “Hamas! HAmas! All Jews to the gas!” while Europe’s liberal politicians maintain a tolerant silence?
You’re all, “In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark”
-and I’m all:
” We choose to say it is let loose by the Devil,
But power of blood itself releases blood
It goes by might of being such a flood
Held high at so unnatural a level.
…..
And now it is once more the tidal wave
That when it has swept by leaves summits stained.
Oh, blood will out. It cannot be contained. ”
(–Frost, “The Flood” )
Bloodshed IS a “flood”, the “blood-dimmed tide”, as Yeats put it. And our country is the Ark. You’ll probably rejoin that you think we’re scuttling our own ship. I think not. We’re patching her up, tarring up all the leaks, polishing her brass and fitting her with new bright banners. All aboard!
She’d have to pack up her dad too. Not to be off topic, but has that ever been a thought and do you feel, after the length of time you have spent there, that France is more home really, than the US? I am going to post about that – I read a story that gave pause about where home really is.
You think they still have it in them to dredge up all of that mess again. They have been rather quiet for about two decades now. Has it just been boiling under the surface? Though I guess you only need a few cranks to start setting fires, to stir things up quickly.
Great post Claire, and Turkey’s turn toward authoritarian Islamism is a genuine worry. Has been essentially since Ergodan first took power. He never made any bones about being anything else. There’s been a lot of head burying going on because nobody wanted to believe it, but after the crackdown after the coup attempt, it became impossible for even the most willfully blind to ignore.
Two questions though:
Um, yuh! They’ve been dicking around with Northern Ireland long enough. If “the Ulstermen” are defeated in a democratic election. and Northern Ireland elects to reunite with the south and remain in the EU–well, isn’t that the way democracy works? Or did, before the EU came along….
Too much internal diversity makes consensus impossible, and collapses the social trust. The EU was always impossible.
America is collapsing for the same reason. There lacks sufficient buy in for anything and insufficient trust for any faction to permit the rule by the other. Witness Obamacare. There is no consensus for its existence, and no consensus for its elimination. Government is impossible.
Welcome to the world post war ideology built. Fragile societies (too much internal tension to withstand with external forces), Collapse of market economies (built on trust), democratic institutions (built on trust), and everything good about modernity dissolving in front of our faces on live TV.
Things will continue to dissolve into component parts with sufficient social trust to maintain a credible and legitimate institutions.
Your explanation was easier to understand than Aaron Stein’s. First thoughts:
Throwing the word Nazi around in 2017 is deplorable. I didn’t know of the close ties between the Dutch and Turkey, kind of like ours with China. If you trade with unscrupulous governments, things eventually get dicey. I see how complicated things are getting in Europe – even under a Union, each country still has their own issues and with all of them becoming schizophrenic at once, it is not a nice picture.
Why are so many European governments so upside down, meaning no one seems to just have a middle of the road candidate – they’re all extreme – oh wait – that sounds familiar…The web of the EU sounds like our healthcare system – it will take years to unravel and replace – no quick solutions. Is the mood among most to stick with the EU, and what does it mean for extreme leadership choices in each country to stay under EU umbrella? How can they possibly agree on anything collectively? Has much of this been spurred on by the refugee crisis?
My take-away is the world seems to be spinning off into tense, very defensive directions rather than cooperation and communication, including here; it’s happening quickly, and is far from stable. Is this due to repeatedly bad foreign policies and sweeping problems under rugs for so long?
When you stage a coup you do not let the target of the coup back into the country if he is out of the country. Unfortunately some in the Turkish military forgot their Ottoman history when a coup usually resulted in a more permanent removal of the top man. Those high ranking officers that were wavering in their support of the coup lost their nerve when Ergodan stepped back onto Turkish soil.
Agree. And to get back to Ireland: let those Battle of the Boyne holdouts in the north move back to the Motherland; that would help with social cohesiveness and trust in the U.K.
Belarus is starting to get interesting.
On this, I lean toward the view that this “coup” was a set-up, to justify whatever measures Erdogan wanted to take.
Since Ataturk’s day, the Turkish military has never failed when it decided to step in and hand power back to the secular government. It has done so periodically and successfully since then. Why did it fail this time? Because it had been infiltrated with Islamists. They encouraged the old guard, just so they could point ’em out and get ’em purged. It’s like Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Europe has always been at war with itself for its whole existence. :( What we are seeing is a return to those impulses. If shooting were to break out, the various groups would rather stay linked up. Ironically, the very peace of Europe leads toward a tendency for groups to go their own way, because they do not have to defend themselves against others. Same applies for the US protective umbrella.
If the US (not arguing for this) were to tell Europe “We are done. Troops are coming home. Good luck with Russia. Russia, leave us the heck alone, and stay out of the Americas.” If we said this, then Europe would be forced to actually make some hard choices on their own defense. Right now, they are living in a fantasy land where we are the protectors of their vacation from History.
As far as Turkey is concerned, what if America and the EU should tell Russia, “Turkey is out of NATO because they are nuts. Do what you want with them, but in exchange, the Baltic States are off limits. Finland too.” Turkey deserves what it gets, frankly, as they refused to support us after we were attacked. They have no business in NATO. Sorry, Claire, I know you love Turkey, but they are going off the deep end, and nothing is going to stop it verses a military intervention from the outside. It really stinks.
Turkey playing fast and loose with american lives with russia earlier was reason enough to eject them from NATO.
Claire,
A man needs a little madness…
Sometimes there is nothing left to do but dance.
Regards,
Jim
Nationalism will never go away. The idea that it will is a Marxist fairy tale. The problem in Europe is that they actually learned nothing from the fascist era. Fascism was a reaction to Marxism’s internationalist pretensions, the self-evidently ridiculous idea that an Italian worker had more in common with a Russian worker than he did with his Italian boss. Trying to suppress a people’s natural preference for their own kind turns what should be a harmless sense of national/cultural pride into a virulent resentment of outsiders.
To paraphrase a great American: The EU can’t fix this problem; the EU is the problem.
I think something like a United States of Europe could work. But it would have to be an honest discussion built up over the years. A long project that could take a century with gradual understanding that the end project would be a United Europe, complete with a legislature and foreign policy and united army.
But the EU tried to do it under the water and bs its way through the process and thats why it was doomed. It worked a bit for a while when times were good. But as soon as it hit rocky waters, it fell upon the rocks and every man for himself.