As disparate but linked militant youth protests simultaneously erupt in a number of countries across the continent, French President Nicholas Sarkozy has retreated on two controversial pieces of domestic legislation out of fear that a spectre is haunting Europe - the spectre of 1968.
The 2006 anti-CPE mouvement is a blueprint for recent protest: an effective national coordination that actually accomplished goals it set. In Italy attempts at national coordination are still embryonic. The national meeting in mid-November has yet to establish goals and strategy. It has managed to push back the government agenda on education but is still distant from the French 2006 organization, singularity of intent and effectiveness.
Well, I suppose it could be worse. It could be the spirit of 1848. Or would that be better? Il faut se dépêcher d'agir, on a le monde à reconstruire
Anytime a government ignores the views of the people through the established channels they run the risk of public demonstrations, it is merely a last resort of something which cannot be held down.
What do they want? To be heard. Everything else is propaganda.
A new Spanish law on "historical memory" has given the right to descendants of exiles of the fascist Franco regime to apply for Spanish - and EU - citizenship, with up to 500,000 people living mostly in Uruguay, Chili, Venezuela and Argentina expected to come forward, Spanish media report.
The measure particularly targets children and grandchildren of Spaniards who sought exile between July 1936 and December 1955. That period covers not only the country's 1936-1939 civil war but also part of the brutal dictatorship of general Francisco Franco that lasted until his death in 1975. Victims of both periods are recognized for the first time under the Law of Historical Memory, passed by parliament last year.
The move came 10 days after Prime Minister Yves Leterme stepped down in the so-called "Fortisgate" scandal, with his aides accused of trying to influence a court case linked to the break-up of the major bank Fortis. "The king has charged Mr Van Rompuy to form a government. He has accepted the mission," said a short statement, after the speaker had held almost 90 minutes of talks with the monarch. Van Rompuy, a Flemish Christian Democrat like Leterme, had affirmed -- as late as this weekend -- that he would never accept the post of premier, but is now likely to handle one of the kingdom's worst-ever political crises.
"Democracy has given ETA three opportunities to finish its dreadful campaign of senseless crimes," Zapatero said, referring to the attempts at negotiations made by him and his two predecessors. "ETA has wasted the three opportunities. There will not be any others," the Socialist leader said at a news conference following the last cabinet meeting of 2008. The government began talks with ETA after the group declared a "permanent ceasefire" in March 2006. But the government called them off after ETA detonated a car bomb at Madrid airport nine months later, killing two people. ETA officially announced the end of the ceasefire in June 2007 and has assassinated six people since then. Zapatero highlighted the recent blows dealt to ETA, including the arrests of the group's suspected military chief Garikoitz Aspiazu, also known as Txeroki, in November and his alleged successor three weeks later.
AFP - Several dozen protesters, mainly women and children, briefly occupied the entrance patio of one of France's most famous and prestigious hotels on Friday to demand better low-cost housing. Around 50 police moved in and removed the group, many of them African immigrants, after they moved into the Intercontinental Paris-Le Grand on Place de l'Opera in the heart of Paris' main shopping and tourist district. "We are demanding a meeting at the prime minister's office, and for the time being we're warming ourselves up in this prestigious establishment," protest spokesman Jean-Baptiste Eyraud told AFP by telephone before police moved in.
Two weeks ago, the country's biggest left-wing political grouping, the Labor Party, which has responsibility for integration as a member of the coalition government led by the Christian Democrats, issued a position paper calling for the end of the failed model of Dutch "tolerance." It came at the same time Nicolas Sarkozy was making a case in France for greater opportunities for minorities that also contained an admission that the French notion of equality "doesn't work anymore." But there was a difference. If judged on the standard scale of caution in dealing with cultural clashes and Muslims' obligations to their new homes in Europe, the language of the Dutch position paper and Lilianne Ploumen, Labor's chairperson, was exceptional. The paper said: "The mistake we can never repeat is stifling criticism of cultures and religions for reasons of tolerance."
Two weeks ago, the country's biggest left-wing political grouping, the Labor Party, which has responsibility for integration as a member of the coalition government led by the Christian Democrats, issued a position paper calling for the end of the failed model of Dutch "tolerance."
It came at the same time Nicolas Sarkozy was making a case in France for greater opportunities for minorities that also contained an admission that the French notion of equality "doesn't work anymore."
But there was a difference. If judged on the standard scale of caution in dealing with cultural clashes and Muslims' obligations to their new homes in Europe, the language of the Dutch position paper and Lilianne Ploumen, Labor's chairperson, was exceptional.
The paper said: "The mistake we can never repeat is stifling criticism of cultures and religions for reasons of tolerance."
The why of this happening now when a recession could accelerate new social tensions, particularly among nonskilled workers, has a couple of explanations. A petty, political one: It involves a Labor Party on an uptick, with its the party chief, Wouter Bos, who serves as finance minister, showing optimism that the Dutch can avoid a deep recession. The cynical take has him casting the party's new integration policy as a fresh bid to consolidate momentum ahead of elections for the European Parliament in June. A kinder, gentler explanation (that comes, remarkably, from Frits Bolkestein, the former Liberal Party leader, European commissioner, and no friend of the socialists, who began writing in 1991 about the enormous challenge posed to Europe by Muslim immigration): "The multi-cultis just aren't making the running anymore. It's a brave step towards a new normalcy in this country. "
The why of this happening now when a recession could accelerate new social tensions, particularly among nonskilled workers, has a couple of explanations.
A petty, political one: It involves a Labor Party on an uptick, with its the party chief, Wouter Bos, who serves as finance minister, showing optimism that the Dutch can avoid a deep recession. The cynical take has him casting the party's new integration policy as a fresh bid to consolidate momentum ahead of elections for the European Parliament in June.
A kinder, gentler explanation (that comes, remarkably, from Frits Bolkestein, the former Liberal Party leader, European commissioner, and no friend of the socialists, who began writing in 1991 about the enormous challenge posed to Europe by Muslim immigration):
"The multi-cultis just aren't making the running anymore. It's a brave step towards a new normalcy in this country. "
Hm... nanne... what is your reaction to the piece?
I find it all rather sad. It's a rational political logic for the left - who ever really lost votes by picking on immigrants?
At the same time, the immigrant population doesn't seem that large and has there really been that much stifling of "criticism of cultures and religions"?
Obviously I don't know because it's now years since I lived there...
So I think that this position paper, from Vinocur's reporting at least, is muddled. If you think about communities it is obvious that you will have some level of separation in a society. You also have Jewish, Chinese, Indian and Indonesian communities in the Netherlands and these are not seen as problematic. So in dealing with the Turkish and Moroccan community you will have to address the aspect of where the problems lie, and in that sense trying to eradicate parallel societies and force full assimilation will not work.
There were some taboos in talking about immigrants in the ninetees, in the sense that the political top and much of the press stayed away from it, following a model of multiculturalism. But that was exploded long ago.
This change in the party's strategy has been decided at the top, by Wouter Bos. The Minister of Integration and Housing, Ella Vogelaar, fell as a result.
The Netherlands has in practice been trying confrontation for the past eight years, the only new thing being that the labour party is now also on board. I don't think it's brought much improvement over the soft approach of the ninetees.
If they allow themselves to embrace immigrants two things will happen:
Muslims' obligations to their new homes in Europe
Why only Muslims, why only obligations (there are, say, opportunities too), and why only on the part of immigrants (as if integration would depend on the immigrants only)? And why take Islamophobe Bolkestein at face value when he talks about an "enormous challenge"?...
Ah, you forgot to mention the author: who else, John Vinocur...
Still, like Metatone, I wonder what you think about the actual Ploumen position paper, and how it played in the Dutch-language media. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Or as I'd prefer to say it, the Dutch have become a nation of navelstaarders with no beliefs, no vision for the future. This too I already addressed in my piece on the Dutch government programme. Things have not improved since. At least in Germany there is a change going on, there is a viable community working on making the country sustainable. The Dutch have been busy letting the rest of the world catch up and pass them by while they focus on distractions for the past eight years, and they show no sign of improving.
