Greece and the European Union

S P SETH

The recent elections in Greece that brought radical left Syriza party into power  under its youthful leader Alexis Tsipras, 40, now Greece’s new Prime Minister, is creating political vibrations in the European Union (EU), thus raising concerns about Eurozone with a common currency for its 19 member states. Greece is a member of the Eurozone, probably the sickest with its enormous debt. It has become a laboratory of sorts to test the efficacy of a comprehensive austerity strategy to cure its economic malaise. However, despite all the cost cutting measures over last few years leading to huge job losses, cuts to health, social welfare and related services, the country is nowhere near economic recovery or even showing signs of it. Indeed, the unemployment rate is still hovering around 25 per cent, with youth unemployment upward of 50 per cent.

When Greek people voted for the Syriza party, they were essentially voting for hope that the new radical left outfit might miraculously bring about an end to their economic misery by renegotiating the country’s debt, possibly its write off by half. Which would mean significant reduction in interest payments creating space for economic stimulation and a momentum for growth. But subsequent negotiations with the troika of the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund didn’t go anywhere. Germany, Europe’s strongest economy, was adamant against any change to the bailout package insisting on the old austerity regime and other member states rallied behind it. Therefore, even though the existing bailout has been extended for four months thus saving Greece from a possible default, there doesn’t appear to have been any softening of terms. Whether there will be any modification in the days to come seems very unlikely or, at the most, marginal. Indeed, the whole deal could still fall through if the troika were not satisfied with the Greek government’s follow up measures.

Greece’s new government disagrees fundamentally with the troika’s prescription of putting Greece on economic diet to restore its ‘health’.  Before the 2009 financial crisis Greece was certainly living on borrowed money from EU banks that created an economic bubble. Indeed, it was part of the global financial crisis that started with the United States and then spread to Europe. The US and EU financial architecture was like a pyramid scheme where dodgy financial instruments of all sorts were circulating creating an illusion of prosperity with very little transparency, and a widely shared belief that the economic merry go round had acquired its own never ending momentum. But when the chips were called in and there was not much cash in the kitty, unsurprisingly the financial dominoes started to fall in the US and in Europe.

But when it came to devising an economic architecture to deal with the financial meltdown and its disastrous impact on people’s lives, the United States and Europe broadly followed two different approaches. In the United States, the government used public funds to bailout some of the big banks and financial institutions to keep the system working lest everything would come crashing. At another level, billions of dollars were poured into stimulating the economy. At the same time, the country’s Federal Reserve cut down the cash rate (at which banks do transactions between them) to zero, and put even more money into the economy by what came to be called quaintly as quantitative easing. In other words, printing ever more money to oil the wheels of a sick economy. The result of it all in the US has been patchy, though some sectors of the economy seem to be showing positive results.

The EU, by and large, followed a conservative approach, forcing its highly indebted member countries, with Greece on top of the list, to put their economic house in order by massive economic retrenchment to bring down their debt and budget deficit within certain limits over a period of time. And to tide over the crisis Greece was given bailout packages to run the country under broad troika supervision. In the process, the successive Greek governments were told that, irrespective of the electoral verdict (s) against a severe austerity regime, they were required to carry out the troika’s demands or else they might not receive the necessary bailout to run the country. In other words, troika’s dispensation was more important than any outcome of democratic election (s). And the Greek politicians of almost all persuasions were forced into ignoring the people’s verdict and their demand for a fairer economic adjustment regime, because the alternative of leaving the Eurozone appeared too draconian with virtually no access to international finance. The option of defaulting on its debt would put Greece in an isolation ward, economically speaking, with unpredictable and certainly unpleasant results.

The new government in Greece is keen to explore alternatives that would restructure its debt radically to reduce repayment obligations but still remain in the Eurozone. Greece badly needs to revive its economy through a stimulation programme rather than an imposed austerity package that seems to be making things worse. The question then was: Will the EU relent and write off a substantial part of Greece’s debts? For this to happen Germany, as Eurozone’s strongest economy with a large part of Greece’s debt owed to German banks, would play a determining role. Any write off of these debts will require a German government to bailout its own banks with its tax payers having to ultimately foot the bill. Germany, backed by Netherlands and Finland, particularly, as well as other Eurozone members, opted for toughness. And it has prevailed so far with the new government in Greece forced into continuing the old austerity regime or else be forced out of Eurozone.

That alternative would throw Greece into uncharted waters. But this would also be damaging for European integration, slowly and painstakingly built over several decades to foster European unity. Even though Europe’s political integration as a pan-European entity has so far eluded the continent, it certainly made considerable progress weaving together 19 European economies into a common market with a common currency, until the global financial crisis hit it with enormous debts of some of its members with Greece as a stand out example. The recent elections in Greece have shown that its people do not like being made an example, as they believe, for the collective sins of the Eurozone. While Greece’s corrupt governments were on a borrowing binge, the European banks couldn’t escape blame for irresponsible lending without any questions asked. In other words, it takes two to tango. Without easy lending, Greece wouldn’t be in the situation it is today.

Such finger pointing, however, is not helpful when there is need to find a solution to ward off a serious crisis, which has the potential of unraveling the EU. The four-month extension of the bailout, if carried out, might buy time to accommodate Greece in such tough economic times. Greece was hoping to rally support from some fellow member states, but that was not forthcoming. Its government and the people, even under great economic distress, do not want to quit Eurozone to tread their own solitary path to, what might even be, a riskier course.

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.

Contact: sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au

Is US democracy in peril?

S P SETH

Having led the charge to promote democracy and free speech all over the world, the US has often found itself in a quandary. Which is: how to reconcile the practice and precept/ideology of democracy at home. And that is denting its democratic credentials internationally. One important reason often cited for limiting freedoms at home is the need to deal effectively with the terrorists and jihadists who have become a living nightmare, as evidenced by the recent terrorists attacks in Paris. It is, therefore argued that it is necessary to take extraordinary measures by way of anti-terrorist legislation, large scale surveillance and the like to ensure the security of people against wanton terrorist attacks. In the process, the security imperative is tending to compromise freedom and free speech.

The question that arises then is: how effective is this obsession with security leading to mass surveillance of people, as revealed by Edward Snowden?  Now living as a political refugee in Russia, he has maintained that he revealed the US National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence dragnet because he was not comfortable with the way his government was indiscriminately spying on people and he wanted to start a public debate to curb its scale and intensity. On the face of it, there is nothing to suggest that Snowden was doing it to profit from it as an agent of a hostile foreign government. Indeed, his revelations have seriously compromised US’ relations with some of its closest friends like, for instance, Germany where the NSA was found to have been listening in on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s private mobile phone. Although there have been attempts to patch together the estranged relationship, there is now a deep lack of trust, at least on the German side, about what the US might be doing unknown to the German state and its people.

It is not just that the NSA has been caught spying on one of their closest friends in Europe and its leader; it has somehow devalued the image of the United States that many Germans admired in the post-WW11 period. In a long article on Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany and contemporary Germany, George Packer, a staff writer of the New Yorker, quotes Peter Schneider, a German novelist and writer who sums up this sense of great disappointment with the United States as a role model at one time. Schneider says, “You have created a model of a savior, and now we find by looking at you [the USA] that you are not perfect at all—much less, you are actually corrupt, you are terrible businessmen, you have no ideals anymore.” Cataloguing America’s sins, so to say, like the disastrous Iraq War, drones, the unmet expectations of the Obama Presidency, and now spying, “You actually have acted against your own promises, and so we feel very deceived.” Indeed, this is a very widely held view in many parts of the world that the USA is no longer the ideal or model that was once promoted as the standard bearer of western democracy and liberal capitalism. It was not true even then in its entirety but is further tarnished in the wake of all that has gone terribly wrong in the world under American leadership.

As if this was not enough, the release of a summary of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee report---the total report exceeds six thousand pages--- on the CIA’s torture of detainees after 9/11 to extract confessions and intelligence on terrorism only reinforces how far the US has gone off the track as a healthy and functioning democracy. Commenting on it, the New Yorker says, “ It’s hard to describe it [the report] as a positive development when a branch of the federal government releases a four-hundred-and-ninety-nine-page [summary] report that explains, in meticulous detail, how unthinkable cruelty became official policy.”  The Republican Senator John McCain described the report as “a thorough and thoughtful study of practices that I believe not only failed their purpose—to secure actionable intelligence to prevent further attacks on the U.S. and our allies--- but actually damaged our security interests, as well as our reputation as a force for good in the world.” It is important to stress that all the torture inflicted on detainees by the CIA failed to actually produce actionable intelligence, but people like the former vice-president Dick Cheney still swear by its usefulness in the war against terror.

Talking about the close collaboration in torture and other intelligence gathering and related projects between the so-called ‘Five Eyes’ (Britain, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand), David Bromwich writes in the London Review of Books, “… the evidence suggests that Anglo-Saxon democracies in our time have influenced each other chiefly in the cause of social control and illegal violence.” Indeed, in the United States, there has been a culture of impunity for the CIA operatives responsible for torture of suspects in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Even as the Senate Select Intelligence Committee was going about its work, which the CIA did everything to impede and thwart, President Obama had assured the CIA operatives early in 2009 that under no circumstances they would be prosecuted. Which simply nullifies whatever has been revealed in the report, as there is no accountability about it.

Indeed, there is a line of defence to explain and justify torture at the time. And it goes like this: That the recourse to worst forms of torture occurred between 2001 and 2008 to extract information and confession in a climate of panic and fear when those responsible, out of a misplaced but genuine love for their country, did things that, if understood in the context of the times, should be overlooked and even forgiven. By this logic, forgiveness is in order for all sorts of infractions and human rights violations because circumstances for such heinous crimes will always be found understandable in their context.

The US is still considered an open society and hopefully will remain so to prevent any repetition of the torture practices of post-9/11 detainees. But there is genuine concern that a regime of anti-terror legislation, mass scale surveillance, drone strikes and the likes might further erode democratic freedoms and values. David Cole, a professor in law and public policy at Georgetown University, thus expresses this concern in his article in the New York Review of Books; “Increasingly, our governments seem to be insisting that our lives be transparent to them [through mass surveillance], while their policies remain hidden from us. For the sake of democracy itself, we must do all we can to resist that impulse.” 

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.

Contact: sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au 

Charlie Hebdo and satire

S P SETH

There has been a lot of soul searching about the separate terrorist attacks on the French satirical weekly, Charlie Hebdo, and at a kosher (Jewish) grocery store in Paris, reportedly killing 12 and 4 people respectively. The police, in turn, killed the terrorists. Whether or not the two were coordinated is not quite clear, though the gunman involved in the kosher market attack reportedly claimed the connection and said that he was acting for the Islamic State in Syria and Levant (ISIL). However, the two gunmen responsible for the Charlie Hebdo attack claimed to be acting for the al Qaeda in Yemen. Whatever the connection or non-connection between the two attacks, the fact is that France’s own jihadists sought to avenge the caricaturing of Prophet Muhammad by Charlie Hebdo, and the attack on the Jewish supermarket is apparently part of random attacks on the Jews related to the ongoing Palestinian dispute and the recent killings of 2200 Palestinians in Gaza Strip following Israeli invasion.

The Charlie Hebdo attack has been seen as an assault on freedom of speech, creating a groundswell of popular support, not only in France but elsewhere in Europe, to send a clear message that the terrorists wouldn’t silence Europe’s free media of which Charlie Hebdo has become an iconic symbol. And to reinforce this message, the new edition of the satirical magazine carried another image of Prophet Muhammad that might look like he was saddened by the attack with tears in his eyes. This has caused popular demonstrations in a number of Muslim countries, where Prophet Muhammad’s visual representation in any shape and form is considered against their religion. Which is further sharpening the divide between people and the rulers of the Muslim countries that joined the Paris march against terrorism. In other words, it might have the effect of blurring the distinction between terrorism that many Muslims oppose and abhor, and Charlie Hebdo satire they see as needless and gratuitous provocation designed to hurt their religious sensibilities.

In France, for instance, where Muslims are said to constitute about 10 percent of the population to number 5 million people, there is a strong divide between many youthful French Muslims and the country’s mainstream population. A recent Washington Post dispatch by reporter Anthony Faiola captures this vividly. A 17-year old high school senior, according to this report, who was outraged by Charlie Hebdo attack, was also disgusted by the magazine’s provocative cartoons using Prophet Muhammad as a subject of satire and continuing to do so in its new issue. According to another French-Muslim citizen in the predominantly Muslim suburb of Gennevilliers, Charlie Hebdo’s satirical portrayal of Prophet Muhammad symbolizes everyday humiliation of Muslims in France. According to Mohamed Binakdan, 32, a transit worker in Paris (quoted in the report), “You go to a night club and they don’t let you in. You go to a party, they look at your beard, and say, ‘Oh, when are you going to Syria to join the Jihad?’ Charlie Hebdo is part of that too.” Which means: “Those who are stronger than us are mocking us. We have high unemployment, high poverty. Religion is all we have left. This is sacred to us. And yes, we have a hard time laughing about it.”

How much of this sense of frustration and helplessness described by Binakdan is truly representative of Muslims in France and elsewhere in Europe and in a more generalized way in Muslim countries is not the issue here. The issue is that many Muslims sense it and some of them find in terrorism a way to assert their new sense of power. Which is to strike terror and fear among those who appear to be ‘mocking’ them and insulting their religion.

 It is important that Islam doesn’t get equated with terrorism. Terrorism also targets Muslims for sectarian and all sorts of other reasons. In that sense, there is a lot of common ground among Muslims and non-Muslims alike to oppose and thwart terrorist violence. But it doesn’t have to be by positing free speech versus terrorist violence from some Islamic quarters. There is certainly a case for responsible exercise of free speech when it tends to offend the religious and cultural sensitivities of many people, like the Muslims, by caricaturing their Prophet. Indeed, there are laws in different countries against spreading and inciting hate against minorities. For instance, in Germany, one is likely to end up in prison for denying Holocaust, perpetrated on the Jews by Nazi Germany. In Australia a prominent columnist was recently forced to resign from the Sydney Morning Herald for his strong commentary against the Israeli bombing of Gaza Strip that killed nearly 2200 Palestinians, even though a different spin was put on it.

Many Muslims see these instances and the likes as western double standards, if not downright hypocrisy. In an opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald, Tom Switzer and Nicole Hemmer make this point: “Yet for all the talk of free speech as a non-negotiable right, many Charlie Hebdo supporters are rank hypocrites.” Because: “Far from bearing strong attachments to free speech, many support restrictions on free expression in their own countries.”

Though there is an entrenched bias in the west where Muslims are concerned, it is all the more important that we try to approach these issues with an understanding of people’s religious, cultural and racial sensibilities so that they feel inclusive and not being ridiculed and insulted. Pope Francis dealt with this issue with great understanding during his trip to the Philippines. He said bluntly that, “You cannot make fun of other people’s faith. There is a limit.” He seemed to equate insult to religion with insulting one’s mother. Gesturing towards his aide Alberto Gesparri, he said, “If my good friend Dr Gasparri says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch on the nose.” Throwing a pretend punch, Pope said, “It’s normal. You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others.”  Pope Francis strongly defended freedom of speech but favoured its exercise with responsibility and with an understanding of its limits.

Pope Francis aside, you do come across some thoughtful commentary on these issues in the western media. In a letter to the Sydney Morning Herald, Allan Patience wrote, ”In the liberal West there is an increasing tendency to cross the fine line between satire and insult. This is evidence of cultural arrogance. Witty caricatures of powers-that-be are one thing. Sneering at, or contempt for other peoples’ cherished values and profound beliefs is entirely another.” He added, “Western liberalism is not the ultimate repository of all human wisdom. It’s time to draw breath and ask whether Charlie Hebdo is as liberally innocent as its understandably outraged Western defenders would have us believe.”

But we can all agree on one thing. Which is that the terrorist mayhem visited on Charlie Hebdo staff and others, including the innocent shoppers at the Jewish supermarket, is totally unacceptable. 

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.

Contact: sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au