The February "informal" summit of the European Union was almost entirely devoted to raising funds for the needy states of Africa and Asia. Promises with the price of gold were collected surprisingly much, about half a billion euros. Recipients of assistance, if promises will come true, will be primarily states located along the borders of the old continent, forming a sort of sanitary cordon. This cordon protects Europeans from the flow of refugees from the dysfunctional regions of sub-Saharan Africa and the great Middle East, "writes Yefim Fishstein in the column for" Radio Liberty ".
The collected funds were decided to allocate primarily to projects and technical measures dedicated to the achievement of this noble goal - to squeeze the streams of destitute, already tuned to resettlement in the "zazhravsheysya" Europe. This position is understandable, although it completely negates the pathos of German Chancellor Angela Merkel: today no one argues that it is by no means a "policy of welcome", namely the burdens of mass immigration will be the key phenomenon of our current hard times.
Not that the European Union has no other business - cases just above the head. It is necessary to find a replacement for the current chairman of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, who is retiring on his old age for a well-deserved rest. Those wishing to occupy the grain office are darkness, but it is not easy to achieve the consent of Areopagus with someone's candidature. Chairman of the Commission - the position is by no means formal, much depends on it. The Chairman embodies, and in part determines the direction of the main blow, articulates the goals of the entire integration process. A goal-setting requires at least some kind of unity, without which the entire association operates on the principle of "who is in the woods, who is on firewood".
It is in this crucial issue that there is a complete mess: some countries - above all political and economic heavyweights of Europe - want even greater integration around the "solid core"; those countries that are smaller insist on their right to breathe freely. The former seek the abolition of the principle of unanimity in decision-making, the latter, on the contrary, resist the introduction of democratic centralism, in which all volen-nolens obey the will of the majority, which is easy to draw, given the overall alignment of forces. Understand what, strictly speaking, is hidden behind the phrase "solid core", especially given the recent shifts in Britain, Italy, Spain, in Germany itself, then everywhere, it is almost impossible.
The departing chairman of the Commission solved this sacramental question elegantly: in words, Juncker disowned the idea of ??any federalization of the European Union, not to mention the creation of a unitary superstate, but in fact proposed measures that inevitably lead to this. The formation of a common fiscal system with a unified taxation, a unified armed forces and a mandatory foreign policy is nothing but the transformation of a group of sovereign states into a federation. But to leave a distinct answer, while retaining a thoughtful look, one must be able to, and it is still unknown, whether any of the potential successors owns this rare skill.
There are other urgent topics - first of all, the problem of refugees. She was tired of thinking and talking about her, but from the general fatigue the problem did not disappear. The fundamental dispute today: what is the reason for some easing of the resettlement pressure. There are two opposing points of view. The German chancellor claims that only she can accept congratulations - this is in fact Merkel agreed with the Turks that for a small tip (about 6 billion euros) they will stop passing Syrian and other refugees through their territory. There is a blatant cynicism in this position, because two years ago it was a question of accepting all the suffering people, and not only those who managed to break through to Germany first. Now it turns out that it was enough to remove the poor fellow from the eyes, and Angela Merkel's conscience is clean again.
Another contender for the Peace Prize - Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. He recently boasted that, had it not been for his decision to erect a two-row barbed wire fence on the borders of Hungary, Europe would have been flooded with toxic settlers. Let us recall the events of two years ago when, at the April EU summit in Brussels, a resolution was angrily condemned the erection of any frontier barriers as a measure contrary to the fundamental European values. "The Balkan path must remain open to all who need it," it is written in black and white in that remarkable resolution that has long been dusting on archival shelves.
If it is practically impossible to agree on difficult issues, then the appearance of legal capacity is maintained by some unprincipled surrogate. The best thing in this situation is to throw yourself into a common pot and actually pay off the petitioners, although this simplistic approach contains a lot of reefs and ethical and actual reefs. Indiscriminately naive can indulge in illusions that it is enough to pacify Syria, and the rapid flow of military refugees will dry up by itself.
Waiting for Godot was a much more meaningful pastime. The number and intensity of armed conflicts is not diminishing, although their geography is changing. The problem of mass migration was not born in Syria and Syria will not die. However, it can not be said that Western politicians have an increased understanding of the hidden mechanisms of this capital phenomenon - rather, on the contrary, most still want to believe that with a certain dexterity of hands it is possible to return the contents of a broken egg into a shell.
The desire to change places, and even the war itself as a technical prerequisite for the right to asylum - are no more than secondary signs of a social ulcer that ripens in the depths of modern civilization. An untreated abscess is forced into the subconscious, on the surface there is only an external sign in the form of a pimple, which it is better not to comb. Half a billion euros in not yet signed bills - is it a lot or a little? How to say: in order to put a "tick", this is enough to solve the problem - even to realize it - to ridiculously little.
Social pathology is that the gap between the rich north and the poor south (or, if you will, between the "first" and "third" worlds) is not reduced from handouts. The distribution of small things to the poor acts on appeasers peacefully, but poverty does not diminish. The information and transport accessibility of any corner of the globalized world makes the tension between the "golden billion" and those who fell into the dry sediment unbearable. All attempts to squeeze out the flow of the human mass are nothing more than a marshy's work: it is impossible to stop the electric current between the polipolar electrodes while the medium is being held.
Paradoxically, from this situation all parties derive some benefit. The summit meetings, like the recent Brussels one, are held with an enviable regularity: they invariably take the expected decisions on writing off old irrecoverable debts and granting new loans. The rare sober voices of those who warn about the meaninglessness of such assistance until the stable development of the needy regions are provided and the money is not guaranteed to be distributed among those who really need them, usually "slammed" the indignant majority: well, is it not blasphemous to insist on formalities , when someone somewhere somewhere dies of hunger in front of a conscientious Europe?.
There is no arguing - no successful resolution does not eradicate endemic corruption and tribalism, ethnic and religious litigation, monstrous social contradictions, when the majority of the population vegetates in the caves and dugouts of the Stone Age, and tribal leaders inhabit manors on the shores of Lake Geneva. Netaktic attempts to break fragile tribal structures can lead to the disintegration of national identity, into civil wars and other forms of destructive behavior.
To avoid such disasters and complete self-destruction, such societies prefer to perceive themselves as eternally poor. Poverty becomes their primordial attribute, a kind of generic sign and a common denominator of national identity, even a matter of pride - poverty is not a flaw! She can justify any ugliness - general bribery, slovenliness, pofigism, idleness, chauvinism, whatever you like. "And we are such: we have if they steal, then in large, in a big way" - it is pronounced with a slight tinge of narcissism. Around the poverty there is a whole mythology and national identity: we are poor and therefore more generous, magnanimous, kinder, in general better than others who are richer. The all-human is always poorer than all. Strong man in such a society necessarily looks a disgusting fist-miracle.
Rich societies are afraid to look like murderers, they have developed a morality, mistakenly erected to the Christian tradition, in which it is not worthy to be unfeeling witnesses to someone else's grief. Losers are born, misfortune does not have rational reasons, it simply falls on its head. If someone is poor, then this is not otherwise, as a result of his circumstances, interference of higher power: the arid climate, frequent floods, volcanic eruptions, locust invasions, civil wars, foreign enslavement and forced emigration. Once to think out the reasons for the ineradicable poverty of those who are called "thirty-three misfortunes" - in our solidarity they need here and now.
It's well known that money will be cut or squandered and they will not reach the goal in any case, but the sense of the fulfilled debt will remain. Poverty as an innate disability gives uninhabitable rights to the needy, first of all, the right to persevere, and sometimes brazenly to remind oneself of the need for warmth and care. The right to a billion aid and loans in debt, which is known in advance that it will be unpayable and irrecoverable, begins to be felt as one of the inalienable human rights. This allows debtors to oust from the national consciousness the real problems and contradictions of their own social being.
It is here that the source of tension in the modern world is hidden, split into those who generously serve Sunday alms, and those who generously accept it. No one has the slightest idea how to balance these relations so that political stability, mutual benefit, social justice and other conditions of non-conflict development are ensured. Nobody canceled the axiom "it's better to be rich and healthy than to the poor and sick", to argue with it is useless.
In a world where rights are formulated much more clearly than duties, it is impossible for anyone to deny the right to happiness, and the search for personal happiness and well-being, as is known, is not limited by state borders. The problem is that the unrestricted reception of new settlers on the pre-last year's recipe Merkel fundamental contradiction does not dull, but rather it exacerbates even more. I preface, I do not argue - whoever does not prejudice, let him raise his hand - but I trust the intuition of Niall Ferguson, one of the best historians of our time, who believes that "the German chancellor will very soon pay for his gross miscalculations".
In an article whose name I quoted in the previous line, the shrewd analyst states: "The place in history is determined not by the motivation of political decisions, but solely by their consequences". According to Ferguson, Merkel, whom the philanthropists, but short-sighted publicists have recently called "the man of the year" and the "Chancellor of the Free World", will sooner or later have to answer for their most fatal mistake in the history of post-war Germany. But what, in fact, did she miss?.
Those who have moved from the "third world" to the distant future for the rest of their lives are relatively few in order to radically change the fate of their lost homeland, but too much to successfully adapt to the new environment, dissolve in it, master the customs and domestic standards. I'm not sure that it is possible at all to weigh the correct doses on the pharmacy scales, determine the measure of digestibility of the social organism - but the current mass outburst is enough to cause xenophobic attacks among old-timers, and new settlers have a progressive brutalization.
In the effort to bridge the gap between the north and the south, nothing has been done yet, and the Western world is already shaking in its fundamentals. In the depths of the national subconscious of these peoples the premonition of an imminent catastrophe ripens. I remember that Lenin ordered to share - but the comedian looks like someone who perceives this call as a guide to action. Willingness to welcome any number of pilgrims gives helplessness and disorientation of the goodwill who ranks in the early Christian rags. You can, of course, depict on your face extreme satisfaction from your own nobility, you can drive the growing awareness into the subconscious, the fear of approaching suspense and increased irritability, but this does not cancel the gap between thoughts and reality, and even vice versa.
Calling forth regular meetings at the highest levels and accepting all new declarations of good intentions, no one for some reason is surprised at the fact that, by a strange coincidence, neither the writing-off of old debts, nor the provision of new loans, makes the donated people neither happier nor even richer. From the statistics of the IMF, it can be calculated that the financial injections into the economy of the Sahel countries have increased six-fold over the past three years, but this did not lead to a noticeable economic spurt. The economic development of sub-Saharan states varies between stagnation and decline.
The GDP per capita indicator in many abandoned corners of Africa such as Chad, Southern Sudan and their wide neighborhoods in 2016 was lower than two years before. Money, most likely, go to the sand of the desert. It is striking that an endless series of failures and failures does not arouse anger from any of the creditors, rather with a hardly suppressed yawn. The reason for the phenomenon of a special military secret is not: on the process, all the really interested parties. The EU laws allow the political elites of the poorest countries to spend their money in the jewelery passages of Paris and Milan, acquire a chateau in the Loire valley and ride a pink "Bugatti" with a pearls logo.
Thus, part of the funds donated to Africans is returned to Europe in the form of value-added taxes, real estate, services and other small pleasures of life. In this scenario, forgiving debts becomes a symbolic gesture, almost a method of laundering stolen money. It would be unethical to demand the return of funds that have already settled in European banks. By giving alms, no one asks a beggar, what he is going to spend thrown in the cap of a pittance.
"Culture of welcome", of course, is by no means a triumph of Christian virtues over pagan vices, as it is sometimes interpreted. This is the result of postmodern conceptual nonsense, the substitution of values ??and the rejection of the linear conception of history, which has at least some understandable vector of development, moves from point A to point B, even if by zigzags. Our era rejects any possibility of comparing different societies according to the achieved level of development and the quality of shared values. Nothing is better or worse than anything else. Even the search for criteria for comparative analysis is considered something disgraceful, an eructation of colonialism: after all all cultures are by definition good and equally worthy of respect, comparing their achievements is simply not correct.
It makes no sense to affirm that Chopin's preludes are more musical than the song of a shaman who is fiddling on one string. For a long time concepts like "ahead" and "behind", "above" or "below". The policy of European states leaves the impression of complete disorientation in part because, like all politics, it is the externalization of public sentiments - if you will, the reflection of the state of mind of the population. It would be necessary to start with the rejection of the phantom of "unjustly poor" and "unreasonably rich" societies. It would be a difficult step, but in the right direction. He could end the paradigm that condemns the West to gradual impoverishment, in which no one is richer.
Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty Join also the TSN group. Blogs on facebook and follow the updates of the section!.