Arriba y abajo, abajo arriba. La "superioridad" de Europa

Robert Carle sobre el fugaz sueño europeo.

Primero, la declaración incontinente, exultante, bochornosa, de júbilo explosivo: estábamos creando un mundo mejor, casi perfecto, que dejaría en el pasado a EEUU. Esta nación era el centro del hard power; el pasado. Europa sería el reino de "la soberanía compartida, cooperación pacífica, soft power y justicia social". ¿El euro? Iba a sustituir al dólar como moneda de reserva. ¿Por qué? Porque Europa iba a ser la prosperidad en persona.

At the turn of the 21st century, a parade of books and articles declared that the American century had ended, and that the new century would be a European century. Matthew Kaminski of Politico wrote recently that in 2000, many believed that "a continent free, whole, prosperous looked within reach" and that "the new century promised pooled sovereignty, peaceful cooperation, soft power, and social justice." As Kaminski notes, futurologist Jeremy Rifkin wrote that Europe’s "vision of the future is quietly eclipsing the American dream" and that "Europe will run the 21st century." Washington Post correspondent T.R. Reid predicted that the Euro would replace the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. The Euro, he wrote, "is more than money. It is also a political statement—a daily message in every pocket that cooperation has replaced conflict across the continent."

Brussels represented the kind of post-national, multicultural city that European bureaucrats hoped the continent would become. In a 2001 report entitled "Brussels: The Capital of Europe", Italian philosopher and novelist Umberto Eco wrote, "In the presence of a multi-lingual, multi-religious, multi-ethnic Europe, Brussels [is] the center where diversities are not eliminated, but rather exalted and harmonized." In May 2001, British historian Timothy Garton Ash describedBrussels as "a place where highly sophisticated, multilingual men and women from the most diverse backgrounds . . . reconcile national interests and national ways of thinking with the pursuit of larger, common interests."

Tiene mucha gracia esta declaración convencida de que la era de EEUU había terminado. Mi vida pRofesionals se desarrolló inmersa en ese plasma purulento, porque no era inocente esa ilusión por Europa. Como siempre que nace un sueño colectivo, tenía un gran contenido de odio. Odio a EEUU. Después de 15 años, el desengaño es terrorífico.

The EU’s capital, Belgium, seems to have become a microcosm of this troubled European project. Like Belgium, the European Union is an artificial multi-national construct, created around conference tables. Belgium is officially bilingual, yet there is almost no Dutch spoken in Wallonia and little French spoken in Flanders. "The division could not be starker if barbed wire separated the two provinces", Theodore Dalrymple wrote. In 2010, an anti-immigration, euro-skeptic Flemish nationalist party became Belgium’s largest political party, raising the specter of Belgium’s breaking apart. Today, the largest political parties in Flanders are nationalist and free-market oriented, while the largest political party in Wallonia is socialist. The tensions between the Flemish north and the French south echo the divisions within the European Union between the Germans and the Greeks. In 2014, the European Commission warned that Belgium’s debt ratio will reach 108 percent of GDP by 2016, and Belgium came out worse than I

"Un fantasma recorre el Europa", decía Marx. Ahora lo recorren muchos, innumerables. Uno de ellos es la invasión islamista.

But more worrisome than these economic and political cleavages are the anti-societies of gangsta rap, criminal activity, and extremist versions of Islam that are developing in Belgium’s Muslim enclaves. Tourist sites warn visitors to avoid Muslim neighborhoods in the northern parts of the city, especially at night. "Twenty years ago, I was convinced that the young New Belgians would be quickly assimilated", writes Vander Taelen, a Flemish MP for the Green Party. "But now there is a generation in Brussels that has grown up like rebels without a cause." Vander Taelen lives near a Muslim neighborhood, and his daughter refuses to set foot in the neighborhood. "She has simply been abused too often", Valder Taelen writes.

Pero no olvidemos una crisis económica que no sabemos resolver, una creciente división entre los intereses de todos y los nacionales; una confusión creciente entre cuales son los intereses de todos los europeos, como se ha visto en la crisis griega (unos alemanes quería. Que saliera del euro, otros lo contrario)...

División que ha ejercido con fuerza con el problema de los refugiados, ante la que Europa. Impotente. Deja hacer. Lo que puede exacerbar el por lema de los refugiados, elevarlo a la enésima potencia:

In the absence of effective European and American action, Russia and Iran are intervening in Syria in ways that are almost certain to exacerbate the refugee crisis. Europe’s inability, politically, economically, and culturally, to absorb the millions of people who have yet to show up on its shores means that greater numbers of young men will languish in despair in Middle-Eastern and European refugee camps. Such people will become increasingly vulnerable to radicalization by ideologues who offer them hope for an apocalyptic end to the political and religious systems that have failed them.

No hemos querido aprender de la historia. No hemos querido aprender del éxito de EEUU en asimilar a sus inmigrantes y refugiados. Ahora ellos tiene un problema mucho menor que nosotros en ese y otros aspectos.

In contrast to American Muslims, who tend to be affluent, integrated, and educated, second- and third-generation European Muslims are more alienated from European cultures than their parents and grandparents were. European Muslim youth are increasingly finding dignity in Muslim identities in closed communities that reject the surrounding culture as "the land of unbelief." Most of these re-Islamized youth embrace quietist and peaceable Islamic traditions such as sufi mysticism, Tablighi sectarianism, and pietistic salafism. Others embrace Tariq Ramadan’s political mixture of globalism, socialism, and Islamism. A small minority passes from voluntary sectarianism into violence, escaping cultural dislocations to participate in a cosmic struggle that explains their rage and imposes upon them an obligation to retaliate. But for all these youth, their primary identity is a Muslim identity, not a European identity. European countries seem incapable of fashioning a national identity that can connect Muslim youth to a common democratic culture, as the American creed does for immigrants to the United States. Garton Ash wonders whether the personal attitudes and behaviors of millions of Muslims and non-Muslims in Europe can change in time to avert a catastrophe. "I fear not," he writes, "it’s already five minutes to midnight—and we are drinking in the last chance salon."

En cuanto a la economía, estamos a años luz: el espíritu que nos domina es el de los Luditas (http://www.the-american-interest.com/2015/10/01/italy-and-bulgaria-reject-gmos-science/); es más, para júbilo de muchos, cada vez más gente, vamos en dirección contraria. Estamos cada vez mas lejos de una economía que pueda dar futuro a nuestros hijos. Porque la crisis está horadando las bases del futuro. Estamos cada vez mas cerca de que Europa, que se comió los poderes nacionales, sea un estado fallido.