De nuevo la geopolítica exige entrar en escena

La democracia europea, amenazada.

Primero, una breve síntesis de la idea de democracia en el mundo.

- Seguimos convencidos los europeos continentales que somos el origen de la democracia, que nació en Grecia. Supongo que se sigue enseñando en la enseñanza media española que la democracia renació con la Revolución Francesa. Grecia no dice el origen de una democracia. La Revolución Francesa arrasó con cualquier brote de orden democrático, orden que fue restablecido por un tirano: Napoleón, todavía venerado en Francia.


La democracia europea nació en el Parlamento inglés, con un pacto con los reyes (María II y Guillermo de Orange), que sustituyeron al huido Jacobo VII, el último de los Estuardo. Fue en 1688, un siglo antes que la revolución francesa. Las naciones continentales, con más o menos convicción, intentaron imitar el sistema de Poder Compartido inglés. Es lo que buscaron los primeros dirigentes de la Revolución Francesa, pero los radicales Robespierre & co, prefirieron guillotinar la testa real y "empezar desde cero".
La democracia que nació en EEUU fue completamente distinta, porque cuando se firmó la Constitución, la sociedad americana ya había establecido desde abajo unas instituciones elegidas por el voto, bajo solemnes pactos de carácter religioso (Covenant). Esas instituciones eran locales y regionales: no había un Parlamento central. Ese fue el caldo de cultivo natural en el que se implantaron las ideas de de la época de la Independencia, las ideas de la Ilustración, y es claro que éstas se amoldaron a los sentimientos arraigados en los trece estados iniciales. La Ilustración americana no fue irreligiosa, como la europea, como destacó Tockeville. Eso le dio un tono de irreverencia al poder de la razón, tan imperante en la Ilustración europea (Isaías Berlin). En 1776, lo que se hizo fue sustituir el poder de la Corona por uno nuevo, un Presidente republicano, necesario para defender una nación débil y recién formada. Se puede decir que fue una democracia realmente fundada de abajo a arriba, la primer de la historia, piénsese lo que se piense de su sello democrático actual.

Una cosa común de las dos democracias anglosajonas es su estrecha ligazón con el patriotismo. No es concebible una democracia sin nación. Algo similar pasa con la Republique en Francia, aunque Republique ha habido ya cinco, no todas exitosas.

No es la primera vez que Europa Continental ve amenazada su democracia por sus demonios internos. Europa ha sido un campo de batalla, sólo apaciguado desde el Tratado de Viena, 1815 (fin de las guerras napoleonicas), hasta la Primera Guerra Mundial, 1914. El Periodo de Entreguerras 1919-1938 fue una paz ficticia, en que se consolidó el poder soviético, y luego los países europeos cayeron en la anarquía y en manos de partidos extremistas, en gran medida mediante las urnas (lo que dice poco del arraigo democrático).

Cabe preguntarse qué hubiera sido de Europa sin la entrada en las dos guerras de los EEUU. No digo esto para meter el dedo en el ojo a nuestros progres antiamericanos (Dios les proteja), sino para poner las cosas en perspectiva. La democracia necesita arraigo. Necesita también contrafuertes, defensas contra la demagogia. Y olfato bien extendido para detectar cuándo un partido concurrente a las urnas es un peligro para las instituciones. Tiene que pasar muchas cosas en Reino Unido y en EEUU para que partidos como Syriza o Podemos lleguen al poder. Estos baluartes se tienden a interpretar en Europa como falta de democracia, como si en ella todos deberían tener acceso al poder. Si Hitler no hubiera tenido ese acceso en la República de Weimar (las más avanzada de Europa, dice Mark Mazower), la historia del siglo XX hubiera sido bien distinta.

A continuación, dos opiniones fundadas sobre las amenazas actuales a la democracia europea.

- Sobre la fortaleza de la democracia en Europa, Mark Mazower

... The EU’s founding generation knew from bitter experience that democracy was a recent implant with a fragile record. As recently as 1921, the legal scholar James Bryce had written with surprise of "the universal acceptance of democracy as the normal and natural form of government". But things had quickly gone awry. The European left was already ambivalent towards parliamentary politics, even before the Depression and the example set by Stalin’s USSR. The right, the great victor on the interwar continent, was a parade of strongmen, clerics and generals. The centre could not hold.
By 1939, most of the continent’s functioning democratic systems were in ruins, victims of a flight to the extremes. Weimar Germany, the most modern constitutional polity of its day, gave way to the Third Reich. Across eastern and southern Europe, the interwar transition to democracy was thrown into reverse as no fewer than 16 countries shifted right. Only after 1945 did parties on all sides slowly come to terms with the virtues of political moderation. This painstaking restoration of the centre ground was the precondition for democracy’s reconstruction.
... The shaved heads of these muscle-bound hard men may not worry people outside Greece. But a shift rightward is under way elsewhere, too. In France, the disarray of the centre-right UMP has benefited Marine Le Pen’s National Front, which came top in last year’s European parliamentary elections. The Danish People’s party scored a similar victory. The picture is even bleaker because the polls do not show how the threat from the fringes influences parties of the centre-right itself. It is a phenomenon found right across the continent. In short, the battle to defend the continent’s shared currency is reviving a rightwing language of national purity, racism and independence.

- Un análisis muy completo de los conflictos geopolíticos de Gideon Rachman:

... The problems in Russia, the Middle East and the eurozone have very different roots. But, as they worsen, they are beginning to feed on each other.

The economic slump in much of the EU has encouraged the rise of populist parties of the right and left. The sense of insecurity on which the populists feed has been further encouraged by the spillover from the conflict in the Middle East — whether in the form of terrorism or mass illegal migration. In countries such as Greece and Italy, the inflow of migrants from (or through) the Middle East has heightened the atmosphere of social crisis, making immigration almost as controversial as austerity.

Meanwhile, Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine presents the EU with its biggest foreign policy challenge since the cold war. Mishandled, it could lead to military conflict. The EU, marshalled by Germany, has managed to unite around a reasonably tough package of sanctions. But the rise of the political extremes within Europe threatens EU unity on Russia — making it more likely that the Kremlin will be emboldened and that the crisis will escalate.

One emotion that seems to unite the far-left and the far-right in countries such as Greece, Germany and France is a soft spot for Vladimir Putin’s Russia. The far-right likes Mr Putin’s social conservatism, his emphasis on the nation state, his authoritarianism and his hostility to America and the EU. The extreme left seems to have retained its traditional affinity for Moscow.

It makes perfect sense for Russia to cultivate the political extremes inside the EU. If the unity of the EU breaks down, the sanctions regime that has helped to isolate Russia will also begin to dissolve. Mr Putin has fostered ties with the far-right National Front in France, as well as Syriza in Greece. The first foreign dignitary received by Alexis Tsipras, the new Greek prime minister, was the Russian ambassador. Athens immediately voiced its opposition to further EU sanctions on Russia.

For Angela Merkel, the German chancellor and Europe’s dominant political figure, the problems are crowding in. She is under domestic pressure to be tough with Greece — but under international pressure to cut a deal. Greece’s flirtation with Russia has added a geopolitical angle to the euro crisis, making it likely that the Americans will press Germany to keep the Greeks within the EU family. (Historians might recall that the Truman doctrine of containment of the Soviet Union was rolled out in 1947, as Washington moved to keep Greece from falling into Moscow’s orbit.)

Ms Merkel’s government at least has the advantage of reasonably favourable economic conditions at home. Unemployment is low and Germany can borrow at rock-bottom rates. By contrast, there is a strong sense of social and economic crisis in other key EU countries. Unemployment is in double-digits in Spain, Italy and France — and Greek-style revolts against economic austerity and the EU are distinctly possible.The intensification of the fighting in Ukraine presents the German chancellor with another set of stark choices. The clamour to arm the Ukrainians is growing in the US and parts of the EU. But the Russians are issuing dire warnings about the consequences of such a decision that are likely to alarm the pacifistic German public. The rightwing German parties that are calling for toughness towards Greece and softness towards Russia, are also linked to the "anti-Islamisation" demonstrations that have broken out in German cities.

Worryingly, none of Europe’s three crises look like improving. In the Middle East, Syria and Libya are in a state of near-collapse and the situation is also bleak in Yemen and Iraq. Russia’s behaviour is becoming more, not less, threatening. And although optimists continue to argue that it is inevitable that Greece and the EU will strike a debt deal, the early signs are unpromising — and confrontation is looming.

All of this looks like a formula for a further fracturing of the political centre in Europe. Loose parallels are being made with the politics of the 1930s when economic depression, combined with an unstable international political environment, led to the rise of political extremism — and, ultimately, war.