The radical case for the UK to stay in the EU – London DiEM25 event, 28th May 2016
On 28th May, a landmark event took place in London – the largest event presenting the radical, progressive case for Britain to stay in the EU. Speakers included Yanis Varoufakis, Caroline Lucas MP, John McDonnell (MP and Shadow Chancellor) and many others. At the end of the event, all speakers signed THE LONDON DECLARATION. For full details of the event co-organised by DiEM25, Open Democracy and Another Europe is Possible, click here.
Transcript of Varoufakis’ speech follows:
LONDON SPEECH 28th May 2016
Referenda make for odd bedfellows. But there is nothing odd about this company – those of us who are joining in today to sign The London Declaration.
We were compelled to join forces by the two official campaigns who infantilising voters, intentionally living up to a referendum that was cynically called to settle scores within the Tory party. Our campaign is different
We rely on hope and invest in unity rather than on fear and loathing
Unlike the two official campaigns, we do not rely on dodgy statistics. As an economist I assure you that both sides’ econometric predictions on the effects of Brexit are not worth the paper they are written on. Cameron’s and Osborne’s warnings of a collapse in disposable incomes, the pound, house prices etc. are bogus. But so are the Leave campaigns’ optimistic numbers. Economics is simply incapable of producing decent predictions on any of this. Those propagating such numbers are either fools or lying.
Unlike the two official campaigns, we are not interested in polarising voters
We come from different backgrounds, political parties and even nations. We may harbour different perspectives on the EU. But, as our London Declaration affirms, we stand united in our belief that a democratic, prosperous Britain can only be won in the context of a pan-European struggle to democratise the EU.
Yes, We are here to present the radical case for keeping Britain IN the EU. The internationalist case. The case for rejecting the beggar thy neighbour, the divide and rule logic that both the British establishment and the Brussels bureaucracy fall back on, each in its own cynical manner.
Our campaign engages honestly with the strong points of both options. The official REMAIN and LEAVE campaigns cannot afford to treat voters as adults. There is a reason for this. On the one hand REMAIN represents those who fabour a status quo limiting democracy all over Europe and serving particular vested interests. On the other, the LEAVE campaign represents a national oligarchy as keen to liberate itself from Brussels as it is to rule over the British people
The Leave campaign turns on two issues. Sovereignty and Migration.
Sovereignty is crucial. Boris Johnson is right: We should not tolerate democracy-free decision-making in Brussels. The people of Britain must NEVER settle for diminished democratic sovereignty. For it is not a fair price to pay for supposed EU-mediated global influence in the era of globalisation.
However, voting to leave the EU will only benefit a national ruling class that loves democracy as ling as the demos is not in power.
Leaving the EU will not even rid of you of the EU’s regulatory over-reach that the tabloid press love to lambast. We agree that it is important to keep a check on bureaucrats luxuriating in the power of their unelected office. But leaving the EU will not change anything. Britain’s establishment will never allow PM Boris Johnson to leave the single market (even if voters choose to leave the EU). And so there will be no escape from the EU’s regulatory framework.
On migration, we are concerned that its undisputed net benefits are asymmetrically scattered throughout society. Public services, in certain parts of Britain, are indeed strained, leaving many with a feeling of having been marginalised in their own country. However, this feeling is not caused by migration; it is merely correlated with it. The reason public services are failing is the rolling austerity that cloaks a vicious class war against Britain’s poor; a war that would have happened even if the UK border were hermetically sealed. Indeed, without the labour, skills and dedication of migrants staffing them, the NHS and other services would have collapsed. Lest we forget, turning the native poor against the migrants is a variant of the old divide-and-rule trick that the British establishment honed ages ago to dominate the Empire. Today it uses it to dominate the domestic ‘natives’, to hide austerity’s effects, and to deflect anger toward the ‘other’, the foreigner, the migrant.
Friends and opponents point out a seeming paradox: Last year I tried, and failed, to convince the EU to behave humanely toward my long-suffering country, Greece. And now I am standing here in front of you campaigning for Britain to stay IN this same EU – yes, the one that crushed our Athens Spring and has been behaving abominably ever since.
Why don’t I agree with those who argue that speeding up the EU’s fragmentation through Brexit is not such a bad idea. Think again!, I say. Will the EU’s disintegration cause progressive democrats to rise up across Europe, empower their parliaments, usher in the forces of light and hope, and foster harmonious cooperation on the continent? Not likely.
This is the reason that following the crushing of the Athens Spring, Caroline, myself and many, many others from across the continent formed DiEM25 on the principle that we shall now surrender to the current, authoritarian EU but we shall also not surrender to the soothing fantasy of progress through a return to the nation-state.
I read only yesterday, on a leftwing site that supports Brexit, a depiction of our campaign as Leftwing Turncoats Fearing Change. I have news for these comrades: We crave Change. We are working of Change. We are campaigning to tear up the status quo. But to ensure that it is Progressive Change, we eschew isolationism and we insist on taking the difficult, internationalist path that is built on the conviction that we cannot usher democracy in Britain if we do not fight for democracy everywhere.
Today, we shall sign the London Declaration, reflects this determination for change along the lines of the manifesto of our Democracy in Europe Movement – DiEM25. This is the beginning of a process. A process for putting in train an agenda of DECENTRALISED EUROPEANISATION to produce:
- A Democratic Europe in which authority stems from Europe’s sovereign peoples, decision-making is transparent and communities are empowered;
- A Social Europe that recognises rights and freedom from exploitation as a prerequisite for true liberty;
- A Dynamic Europe that unleashes the creative and productive powers of its citizens;
- A Peaceful Europe, which serves as a force for good in our neighbourhood and around the globe;
- An Open Europe that is alive to ideas, people and inspiration from all over the world, instead of building fences and borders to divide us;
- A Sustainable Europe, leading the way in the green transition to the flourishing economies of the future, and living within the planet’s means.
What does this mean in practice? It means working toward a coordinated economic (monetary, fiscal, investment and financial sector) along the lines of a Green New Deal for Europe that is implemented from The Shetlands to Crete and from the Riga to Porto. It means deliberative democratic decision making that must replace oligarchic pseudo-representative democracy. We have a long way to go. But this is the path that we have chosen instead of the twin illusions of business as usual or of recovering prosperity in the splendid isolation of nation-states barricaded from one another by xenophobic borders.
CONCLUSION
When I was a student, a close friend who hated parties nevertheless never missed one just so that he would have something to bitch about the day after. My message to the people of Britain is: Please do not be like him! Please go out there after this event to campaign, campaign and campaign for radical change of your municipality, your region, your country, your Europe. Please join is to campaign in favour of Britain staying in the EU with enthusiasm for our common cause: to take arms against a sea of troubles, and, by opposing, end them!
John McDonnell and DiEM25 link-up for a democratic Europe
LONDON, June 3, 2016 –Labour’s Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, John McDonnell has now added his unequivocal support for the principles advanced by DiEM25 to a rapidly expanding list of illustrious backers, including Noam Chomsky, Ken Loach, James K. Galbraith and Brian Eno.
John McDonnell has campaigned stridently alongside DiEM25 co-founder, Yanis Varoufakis, finding enthusiastic responses from Britons of all walks of life, now recognising the existence of a viable humanist alternative.
Yanis Varoufakis affirmed:
“DiEM25 is proud to welcome John McDonnell to its ranks. At a time when Europe is disintegrating under the weight of austerity and its democratic vacuum, our movement is bringing democrats together from across the continent. Together we confront failed policies and an establishment contemptuous of democracy. Together we seek to reclaim our Europe on behalf of its citizens. We refuse to surrender to Brussels but we also refuse to surrender to the soothing fantasy of recoiling within our nation states. As Britain’s Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, John is working feverishly to create a progressive Labour Party economic agenda for Britain. DiEM25 works towards integrating such agendas into a pan-European agenda. John McDonnell, welcome to DiEM25. We have so much to work towards.”
John McDonnell’s address at the DiEM25/AEIP ‘Vote In’ launch last Saturday energised the assembly by holding forward the fact that:
“For the first time in over a generation, there are movements and political forces…mobilising across Europe to respond to (the challenge of democratically transforming European institutions) – but responding to it increasingly together.
“We have the opportunity now (to recover) a debate about the democratic future of a Europe…that’s vitally needed,…proud of being British,…but also proud of the European future we’re creating in solidarity.”
Yanis Varoufakis reiterated the significance of the event in observing that:
“…to ensure that change is progressive, we have to embed Britain’s democracy in a broader surge of democracy (running) throughout the breadth…of the European Union. This is why I’m here about to sign the London Declaration for a social Europe; a democratic Europe; a dynamic Europe; a peaceful Europe; an open Europe; a sustainable Europe.”
This culminated in John’s signing of the ‘London Declaration’ alongside Yanis Varoufakis, Caroline Lucas, Owen Jones and British comrades, a compact of Europeans committing to the recovery of a democratic Europe in which Britain can prosper. The longer-term significance of the ‘London Declaration’ lies in an unprecedented convergence of support from across the radical and progressive Left, united and oriented toward one simple, succinct, modest proposition – democracy.
John McDonnell’s stoutness and consistency in appealing to the human dimension over sophistry in public life embodies the values and principles which DiEM25 hold forward as fundamental to a European future emancipated from Neoliberal chaos.
The London Declaration: Why we stay in the EU to change it
On 28th May 2016, at the event organised by DiEM25, Open Democracy and Another Europe is Possible, the speakers signed THE LONDON DECLARATION. Signatories included: Yanis Varoufakis (DiEM25), Caroline Lucas (Green Party MP), John McDonnell (Labour MP & shadow chancellor), Clive Lewis (Labour MP & shadow climate), Owen Jones (author and activist), Anthony Barnett (openDemocracy), Sirio Canós Donnay (Podemos), Neal Lawson (Compass), Zoe Gardner (migrants’ rights activist), Matt Wrack, (FBU general secretary), Caroline Hill (Young Labour chair).
For the text of The London Declaration,
THE LONDON DECLARATION: VOTE IN TO CHANGE EUROPE
28th May, 2016
We come together from different backgrounds, political parties and movements. We are joining forces to call on people across the UK to rise up, campaign, and vote ‘IN’ to change Europe.
The people of Britain will make a historic decision in the referendum on 23rd June, 2016. In the next four weeks, progressives must mobilise to win their hearts. We cannot leave the future of our country in the hands of regressive politicians and vested interests who do not speak for us.
This is the first step in a bold campaign to reclaim our democracy – not just here in the UK, but all over Europe.
The European Union has built a lasting peace, helped protect our shared environment, created possibilities for protecting the rights of citizens and workers, and established common ground for Europeans to live, study and work together.
It suffers from serious flaws – a vacuum of democracy and economic policies which are unleashing a vortex of deflation and depression in several countries, yielding nationalism and xenophobia everywhere.
We are faced with a stark choice today. Either we walk away from the European Union and reap the whirlwind – or we join together across parties and borders to build an open, democratic Europe that works in the interests of all its citizens.
We know another Europe is possible. It is down to us to work for it.
If we leave the EU, who stands to benefit most? The political and financial elites of this country. Be under no illusion that a vote to leave willsomehow strengthen British democracy, bring shared prosperity, or strengthen the influence of the majority of Britons over decisions that affect our common future.
‘Brexit’ would strengthen nationalism and xenophobia in Britain and across Europe, sowing conflict, strengthening toxic politics and accelerating an economic crisis that will drag all of us down. Being outside the EU will not insulate us from this fate.
We, the undersigned, have joined forces to campaign together for a democratic and progressive IN vote. We are against walking away from Europe, and we are against surrendering to the status quo in Brussels.
Our campaign against Brexit is also a campaign to join forces with democrats across Europe to confront the status quo and to democratise the EU. The unity of working people and progressives striving for a sustainable future is the only source of hope for better things to come. And this unity cannot, and should not, end at the British Channel.
By joining forces to promote the Remain vote on June 23rd, we are beginning a passionate campaign for a Britain that prospers in:
- A Democratic Europe in which authority stems from Europe’s sovereign peoples, decision-making is transparent and communities are empowered;
- A Social Europe that recognises rights and freedom from exploitation as a prerequisite for true liberty;
- A Dynamic Europe that unleashes the creative and productive powers of its citizens;
- A Peaceful Europe, which serves as a force for good in our neighbourhood and around the globe;
- An Open Europe that is alive to ideas, people and inspiration from all over the world, instead of building fences and borders to divide us;
- A Sustainable Europe, leading the way in the green transition to the flourishing economies of the future, and living within the planet’s means.
We are united in this call; now we are calling upon all of you to join us. This is your campaign. Let us work together to vote IN on the 23rd June, and to change Britain and Europe for the better!
Biggest ‘In’ rally of the campaign to take place on Saturday (28th)
Democracy in Europe Movement (DiEM25) comes to Britain
Over 1000 people will gather on Saturday at what campaigners claim will be the ‘biggest pro-EU rally of the referendum campaign’.
With just one month to go until the Referendum campaign group Another Europe is Possible say that they’ve received a ‘surge in support’ for their nationwide tour.
The event in London will see speeches from Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, Green Party MP Caroline Lucas and the former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis.
The event forms part of the Democracy in Europe Movement (DiEM25), initiated by Varoufakis and Lucas (among many other European activists, politicians and artists) in Berlin last February. The pan-European campaign aims to build a cross-continental movement to democratise the EU and make it accountable to citizens. At the event on Saturday leading politicians and members of the public will sign the ‘London Declaration’ committing them to campaign for a more democratic European Union. The event will specifically focus on the issue of sovereignty.
Yanis Varoufakis, initiator of DiEM25, said:
“Britain needs to reclaim its democracy, protect its weakest citizens, and safeguard its environment. And the only way to do this is to stay in the EU and, together with millions of Europeans from across the continent, fight to democratise, civilise and humanise it. DiEM25 refuses to surrender to the authoritarianism of Brussels but, with equal determination, refuses to retreat into the bosom of the nation state.”
“On 28th May we shall present the radical case for remaining in the EU as a first step toward reclaiming democratic sovereignty by confronting authoritarianism, irrationality and inhumanity at a continental scale.”
Ahead of the event Lucas, a founding supporter of Another Europe is Possible and DiEM, said:
“It’s brilliant to see so many people signing up to these events. With the main thrust of the campaign so centred on establishment figures I’m not surprised to learn that people are flocking to hear from alternative voices.”
“I’m looking forward to joining forces with Labour, the trade unions and people from across the progressive movement in campaigning for Britain to remain part of the EU. We know that the EU isn’t perfect – but we’re committed to working across borders to make it better.”
“For progressives the facts are clear: Britain is fairer, safer and greener as a member of the European Union.”
The Refugees Through my Eyes
(By Dora Chalari / Production Assistant at SKAI TV for OTE TV)
It might sound strange, but no, it isn’t. Last October, one of the largest refugee disasters happened in Lesvos, I run across an article full of despair, from volunteers, doctors who were already on the island, with statements full of despair: ‘Europe is dying at this place, we hardly manage to pull half dead children out of the water, Lesvos being full of ambulances and shocked, terrified people. We are looking for help from people who will help us to regain our strength and continue together.”
On the very same day, early November, I am on the internet, I am searching for information on organizations who are already there, in order to do something, to help. How can I help? Zero medical skills, just my presence, my “two hands”. By end of November I receive a message from a self-organized group, located in the city Sykamnia of Lesvos, the “first line” as the locals call them, the place where most boats from the coast of Turkey arrive, the nearest point across.
– May I come on upcoming holidays, when I’ll be able to get a leave from Athens?
– You might come any time, the needs are great and do not stop, we are awaiting you.
I had one month to ‘prepare’ myself, following daily what was happening there, getting the collywobbles when thinking about what might be expecting me, alone, in a place I don’t know anyone, with one purpose only, to manage to help those who are already there to ‘regain their strength’.
December 2015, Sykamnia. People from different countries, Spain, France, USA, Iceland, all strangers to each other, at the beginning. As the days passed they became friends, family. If someone told me this before I would have laughed at him. These moments, you know, sometimes the change you forever.
The day passed calmly, with smiles and small talk, ‘where do you come from’, ‘how long will you stay’. “This is the place that will change your life’. Nonsense, I thought. I came here prepared for the worst, I know what to expect and how to deal with it.” Night falls. A message on the radio: “A boat about 70 refugees, engine stopped, we tow it in, will approach the coast in 10′, be ready.” I follow the others. Isothermal blankets in our hands and running to the coast. ‘Prepare for the worst’ I said to myself and followed the group.
The boat arrives at the shore. My blood freezes… I had seen videos, I had read about it, I was informed. But watching it on the screen of your computer, in your home, is completely different to experiencing it in reality. Reality is shocking. People stacked, feet out of the water, children crying and looking for your glance, exhausted women, tired, shocked men with empty eyes.
I remained motionless and frozen. I did not know what to do, how to behave. Rescuers were grasping both ends of the boat, trying to stabilize it to help people disembark. In a certain order, first the toddlers, then the women. Hand in hand they forwarded us each of them to wrap them with the blanket and see if they are OK. Bring then to the camp, to give them a hot tea, dry clothes. to make them feel like human beings.
Their feelings were mixed. For most of them this journey took months, by the end of the journey some of them remain orphans, lost their family, child, grandchild. Some are shocked and weeping, sick with hypothermia from the sea or exhausted from the journey, others swoon just when they feel that you are there to take care of them and that they reached the shore. Those who recover from the shock and begin to recover their strength will begin to tell you how they got here. “We were told that we will cross the great river, the river that burns” (because of salty sea water), “for the first time in our life we saw the sea, they told us to hold still to not fall in and drown, all the way we did not wag nor our foot, we were scared.”
There is also the time you are alone with yourself. And at that time you are allowed to process what you experienced, to break out and collapse. Only at that moment. The next day will come and another boat with other people, different experiences, lives, situations, this time there where unaccompanied children which will wear a tag around their neck with their data (if they are lucky), alone, because their parents either have been killed or do not have the necessary money for the traffickers and prefer to save those even if themselves die… have you ever thought about how much power it requires for one to do that? For these people the island is like the lighthouse they were searching for and when they see you, you are like a part of it.
That’s how I felt about volunteering… A small light that you are responsible for keeping it burning always.
Time passed and buses came to take them to the registration centers. It was night now. Hesitantly they entered one by one the buses, this time not crowded and calmer. They were dry and winked us goodbye with a smile and a “thank you”, off to the last part of their journey.
These are the reasons for which you have to be there, to do the minimum to your fellow human beings, and when the day ends and the night comes and you stay alone, to think about that the only reason you are not in their position, is luck and nothing else. You happened to be born here. And you are even luckier when meeting these people and mingle with them, to give them your hand, the look in their eyes and offer them even the least you have and can to make them feel human again, at this border that shouldn’t been dividing you.
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Do you have a personal experience with refugees? Xenophobia is greatest among people who have rarely if ever met a refugee. Let’s counter their unfounded fears and fill the web with stories of people who regularly spend time with refugees or who have had a significant real-life experience with refugees. Post your story on your blog or on a forum, use the hashtag #let_them_in and tell DiEM25 about your post by sending an email to [email protected]. The most interesting stories will be featured on DiEM25 and promoted through our social media channels. There’s nothing to fear but fear itself! Carpe DiEM!
DiEM25 member Ken Loach wins Palme d’Or at Cannes
Lauded British director and DiEM25 member, Ken Loach, was awarded his second Palme d’Or last night at the Cannes Film Festival for I, Daniel Blake.
The film, which portrays a disabled man’s struggle with England’s social welfare system, heralds Loach’s long time preoccupation with social politics.
In his acceptance speech, Loach praised the festival for supporting “a cinema to represent the integrates of the people against those who are powerful and mighty.”
Loach previously won the award in 2006 for his war drama The Wind that Shakes the Barley.
DiEM25 co-founder, Yanis Varoufakis, celebrated Loach’s accomplishment: “Ken Loach’s films have been exemplars of progressive politics and anti-establishment aesthetics for many years. Speaking personally, from the time I watched his Raining Stones to this day, my thinking about a world degenerating under the cloud of neoliberalism has been influenced dramatically by Loach’s incisive eye. Today we celebrate not only another great film by Ken Loach but also the fact that such a diatribe on the ills of austerity was recognised at Cannes. This is important because Europe is disintegrating as a result of austerity’s triumphant march throughout the continent. DiEM25 was founded in response to this austerity-fueled disintegration. And Ken Loach was there on our first day, agreeing to be a signatory of the DiEM25 manifesto and a founding DiEM25 member. Congratulations Ken.”
“There is a conscious cruelty in the way that we are organising our lives now, where the most vulnerable people are told that their poverty is their own fault,” Loach stated earlier in the festival. “If you have no work it’s your fault you haven’t got a job. Never mind in Britain, there is mass unemployment throughout Europe.”
The 79-year-old director is now one of the only nine filmmakers to have been awarded the Cannes Festival top prize twice.
The Globalising Wall
From its origins in the Cold War to its triumph at undermining a disintegrating European Union.
As I write these lines in downtown Athens, Afghan, Pakistani and Syrian refugees are incarcerated in inhuman camps in Athens, in Pireaus, on various Aegean islands and in Eidomeni, a border crossing on Greece’s northern border made famous by the refugees’ light. Their incarceration is due to a recent decision of the European Union to violate international law by refusing carefully and humanely to consider their application for refugee status, to block safe passage to Europe, and, instead, to deport them to a country that has steadfastly refused to endorse international law on the treatment of refugees: Turkey.
The refugees languishing in Greece’s so-called ‘hotspots’, a euphemism for prison camps, are surrounded by a broader Wall. Physically, it takes the form of an electrified fence dissecting the Greek-Turkish land border and, more recently, another such fence built along Greek Macedonian border. Politically, it manifested itself when, a few months ago, Europe’s leaders began calling upon the President of Turkey to open his country’s borders with Syria, to let refugees in from the war torn nation while, at once, threatening the Greek government that if Greece does not seal its border with Turkey, Greece’s own northern borders with the rest of Europe would be sealed.
It is easy to get lost into the details of the unfolding drama. It is easy to despair at the irrationality and callousness of Europe’s leaders. We shouldn’t. For there is something larger and more general, in terms of its planetary significance, lurking behind these developments. We call it: The Globalising Wall.
Cold War Origins
Walls have a longstanding relation both with liberty from fear and subjugation to another’s will. After 1945, walls acquired an unprecedented determination to divide. They spread like a bushfire from Berlin to Palestine, from the tablelands of Kashmir to the villages of Cyprus, from the Korean peninsula to the streets of Belfast.
When the Cold War ended, we were told to expect their dismantling. Instead, they are growing taller, more impenetrable, longer. They leap from one continent onto the next. They are globalising. From the West Bank to Kosovo, from the gated communities of Egypt to those of California, from the killing fields of old Ethiopia to the US-Mexico border, a seamless wall is meandering its way, both physically and emotionally, on the planet’s surface. Its spectre is upon us.
Dividing lines are not what they used to be. Fences and walls have taken on new roles that their predecessors would hardly recognise. In times past they simply fended off the enemy, and lightly imprinted the Empires’ footprint on the land. Following WW2, a new species of division was born.
Before the discovery of the autonomous individual, the ancient polis constantly dreamt of demolishing its walls or, at least, of never having to keep its gates closed. Only at times of crisis or degeneracy were the gates ordered shut. Hadrian and the Chinese Emperors built great walls, but never with the intention of freezing human movement. They were mere symbols of their Empires’ self-imposed limits and a form of early warning system.
In the Era of Reason and Liberty, modernity spawned fences, walls and fortifications fit for an exciting variety of new roles: they liberated the individual from the tyranny of the ‘other’, replaced love for one’s neighbour with ‘good’ fences, pacified the colonised, marked the nation-state’s territory, imprisoned the alien, and institutionalised the weird. After 1945, however, a new species of division evolved, with a persona more sinister than ever before, spreading like a bushfire from continent to continent; each time with added ferocity, as if in order to make amends for the crumbling European Empires.
It started with Europe’s Iron Curtain and then leapfrogged the Eastern Mediterranean to reach Palestine, before ruthlessly making its mark in Kashmir. Soon after, it emerged with imposing cruelty on the Korean Peninsula, before returning to Europe to bifurcate Berlin. When the Troubles broke out in Belfast, it was there to embellish the pre-existing discontent with euphemistically called Peace Walls. When Cyprus erupted, it was there too, turning a soft, colonial Green Line into an impenetrable barrier. More recently, it preyed on the disintegrating Yugoslavia, standing tall in the midst of hitherto unified communities. Further to the south, in Africa’s Horn, it claimed murderous grey zones from the rugged tablelands between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Back, in the Promised Land, it dipped and it weaved with concrete-slab breathlessness, carving out the world’s ultimate concentration camp. Currently, it is unfolding audaciously along the thousands of kilometres that form the superpower’s underbelly, a border-fence that joins the earth’s two greatest oceans in a bid to stem the Spanish-speaking human tide that strives to break into today’s Promised Land.
Liberalism, Globalisation and the post-2008 World
The new species of division, that began globalising at breathtaking pace, had its roots in the benign notion of a free individual and a sovereign nation-state: in the idea of ‘well-defined’ spaces within the ‘walls’ that keep ‘others’ out. However, the fuel that drove its globalisation was none other than financialisation – the process of private money minting by financial institutions unleashed by the global hegemon (Washington DC) in exchange for the financing of America’s twin deficits.[1]
And so it was that our modernist concept of freedom became contingent on the colonisation of ‘alien’ others, while our splendid cosmopolitanism was funded by the frenzy of private money minting of Wall Street, the City and other financial centres, bought at the price of parochial divides that mindlessly disfigure the Earth’s face.
Not too long ago, Globalisation was being heralded as the process to dismantle all borders. It has not. The reason was that only financialisation became truly global. As trade and capital were liberated from border controls, the fences and dividing lines that separated people kept getting less porous, taller, more intimidating. Allah and God were often blamed but, in truth, they were just scapegoats for purely secular forces that would never even allow the competing gods the impossible task of drawing ‘just’ borders between their people.
Therein lies the Great Paradox: The more we develop reasons to, and means for, dismantling the dividing lines the less powerful the forces who are working for their dismantling. Deep divisions, patrolled by merciless guards, seem to be the homage that our enterprise culture pays to misanthropy.
Yet hope’s candle is burning brightly. Yeats taught us that no humanism can be authentic which has not passed through its own negation. In this sense, to confront the planet’s ugliest dividing lines is to confront the negation of our urge to be free in a world in which we are born into fewer of the roles that come to define us, and choose more of our partners and projects. This confrontation cannot, alas, be effected by either politicians or theorists. It is best experienced through the visual arts.
The Work
Danae Stratou’s first stab at capturing our world’s most impenetrable divisions took the form of a photographic installation entitled CUT – 7 Dividing Lines. Its function was to force a confrontational aesthetic upon the viewer’s eye. It alludes to a series of human interactions unfolding in the space on, between and beside these lines. The photographic stills relay humanity’s impeccable capacity to re-create normality along the time-honoured divisions that deface Belfast, Nikosia, Mitrovica, the mountain ranges of Kashmir, the red dust of Badme, the ocean beach of Tijuana. The fourteen, juxtaposed, transparencies fashion a new line, an imaginary no man’s land which the viewer physically traverses, following mentally the breadth and length of the imperialistic new species of division, and in so doing negating it; healing the rift that the latter leaves in its wake.
CUT – 7 Dividing Lines works by highlighting the unity of the human experience along the world’s sharpest divisions and contrasts it against the background of the divisions in our ‘unified’ lives. In so doing, it comments wryly, but also hopefully, on a globalising world and its delicious contradictions. At a personal level, having travelled with the artist to these divisions, and stood by her while she photographed them, I was slowly infected by a distinct, uncomfortable sensation. It had to do with a strange sense of spatial dislocation that I felt more powerfully when close to the divisions Danae was photographing.
While travelling to the Line of Control in Kashmir, I remember thinking that nothing reminded me of the road to, say, Belfast or to the concrete division in Palestine. Absolutely nothing. And yet, once we approached the Line of Control, the similarities with life next to the Northern Irish Peace Walls or to the Separation Wall of the biblical lands began to flood in.
I recall my surprise when I first saw graffiti on the Peace Walls of Belfast referring to the Wall in Palestine or to Kashmir or, indeed, to the Wall in Tijuana and Juarez. Months later I smiled to myself when in Kashmir I saw cross-references to the Belfast division painted on cement fortifications preventing Kashmiris from travelling from the Indian held to the Pakistan held parts of the province. And when in Arizona we bumped into an Israeli engineering unit building parts of the US-Mexico Wall-Fence, using concrete slabs identical to the ones that we had seen in Bethlehem, the idea of a Globalising Wall was ‘cemented’ in my mind once and for all.
So it was that the idea of the Globalising Wall hit me. Once I had conveyed it to Danae, she set out to represent it with moving pictures comprising some of her many thousands of stills – stills that had not made it into the set of fourteen images comprising CUT – 7 dividing lines.
Conclusion
That was 2005. Since then the fragmentation that followed financialisation’s implosion has only strengthened the nasty underbelly of globalisation. The Globalising Wall has spread its ugly reach into our own country, Greece. The electrified fences and walls that today imprison the refugees in Athens, Pireus, Eidomeni and the Aegean’s islands are The Globalising Wall’s extensions after the 2008 global financial crisis gave this steel-and-concrete serpent a magnificent boost. The subject that we had travelled the world to encounter has come full circle, invaded our very own Greece, and is now spreading division and discord in our backyard.
Oscar Wilde knew that the only beautiful things are the things which do not concern us. But if they are beautiful, they do concern us! Danae Stratou’s two related works, CUT- 7 dividing lines and The Globalising Wall uses visual beauty as an analytical weapon that no theorist could muster. It exposes us to images that, seemingly, concern so few of us in order to force us to throw away the mask of self-sufficiency; to re-discover in the contrast of each division’s two sides something ‘real’ and authentic about our nature.
[1] For more on this Faustian bargain, see my The Global Minotaur: America, Europe and the Future of the Global Economy, London: Zed Books, 2011, 2013, 2015
DiEM25 and the UK Referendum
As the 23rd June Referendum approaches, the British people are being bombarded by a false dilemma between remaining in an undemocratic EU and leaving the EU in the false hope of restoring their democratic sovereignty outside it.
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No one believes David Cameron’s claim (not even the PM himself!) that his recent Brussels deal has reformed the EU and has democratised its practices. Thus, the PM is, in essence, asking voters to surrender to today’s Brussels democracy-free zone because doing so is in the interests of the City, trade, Erasmus students, etc.
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Equally hollow rings the Brexit camp’s promise of recovering democratic sovereignty through retreating into the cocoon of our nation-state while staying within Europe’s Single Market and yielding to the almost complete loss of sovereignty that the TTIP demands.
The 23rd June Referendum offers the people of Britain a real chance to reclaim their democracy. But to do this they must choose to stay in the EU and join forces with democrats from across the continent to democratise the EU.
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Remaining in the EU out of inertia or fear would be a wasted opportunity, as it will continue Britain’s apathetic, grudging membership of the EU, which in turn leaves unchallenged Brussels’ deep contempt for democracy
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Leaving the EU is equally hopeless because it will not only fail to restore sovereignty (courtesy of the Single Market and the impending TTIP) but also because it will accelerate the process of the EU’s disintegration. Rather than celebrating the demise of the EU’s problematic institutions, the people of Britain must consider the repercussions of this disintegration: The (already fragmenting) EU’s collapse will occasion a continental economic depression that is the best gift to the worst political forces around Europe. A frightful vortex will open up, a black hole of economic decline and toxic politics, the dire consequences of which the British people will not be able to escape even if outside the EU.
For these reasons, DiEM25, the Democracy in Europe Movement, calls upon British voters to reject both Mr Cameron’s Brussels fudge and the illusion that exit will empower British democracy.
DiEM25 invites the people of Britain to embrace a third course: A surge of democracy that penetrates EU institutions, against the will of its entrenched interests. Contrary to received wisdom, the EU’s democratisation is the sole route to returning greater sovereignty to the House of Commons.
On 23rd June we vote REMAIN to start the good fight for a democratic EU as a prerequisite for a sovereign Brtitain.
An Austrian Refugee Teacher Says #let_them_in
Guest post by Robert Bigler
About 14 months ago I met the first Syrian refugees in my hometown. It was a chance encounter which, however, would change my daily routine for the months to come and continues to have a great impact on my life.
Meanwhile, I offer German classes as a volunteer several times a week, visit refugees in their homes and invite them over to my place, try to assist them with Austria’s abundant red tape and, last but not least, share many enriching moments with them. I listen to their stories, we laugh and we cry. There are moments of jauntiness and moments of sadness, but most importantly there are those times where we feel close to each other.
We all know that we can’t solve the problems in their home countries but we try to find a way to help them start a new life here. The people seeking refuge do not come from Syria only, we have entire families from Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and other countries amongst our new neighbours.
Their cultural and ethnic backgrounds may differ from each other, but they were all facing terrible threats when they decided to leave their homes.
In October last year I watched thousands of people walk by my house, people who were extremely exhausted and scarred by what they had gone through, a sight I never expected to witness in my life time.
These people have been suffering from two terrible plights. The first is the war in their home countries and the second is the inability or, even worse, the lack of readiness on the part of Europe to assume its responsibility and assist those stranded along our borders.
Instead of allowing people who are desperate to save their lives a safe passage to Europe, still the richest continent on this planet, many countries have resorted to a policy of deterrence and isolation. Europe’s most intrinsic values are being sacrificed in the wake of anti-immigrant, in particular anti-Muslim, sentiments. Tens of thousands of volunteers try to fill the gap left behind by the incompetence of state organisations, before this gap turns into a major social abyss which will only lead to more problems.
What we need is concerted action firmly based on international law and taking into consideration the extraordinary circumstances of the current conflicts. If we want to stop the rise of right-wing extremists who eagerly try to undermine the most fundamental democratic principles in our societies, we need to act quickly and with determination to stop the suffering of those who have lost everything.
The primary goal must be to stop the bloodshed in the countries of origin of the refugees. Secondly, we need to support the neighbouring countries around the trouble spots before these countries become the next victims of violent clashes. And thirdly we need to establish strong ties between all other nations to offer those people who have no other option but to leave their homes a safe haven where they can play an active role in building a flourishing free society.
Managed properly and without any indulgence towards right-wing extremists, this so-called “refugee crisis” could be a unique opportunity to show the world the true value of democratic principles. However, if we as people and the politicians we have voted into their positions continue to fail to find an appropriate way of dealing with this challenge, we will all pay a high price for our blindness.
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Do you have a personal experience with refugees? Xenophobia is greatest among people who have rarely if ever met a refugee. Let’s counter their unfounded fears and fill the web with stories of people who regularly spend time with refugees or who have had a significant real-life experience with refugees. Post your story on your blog or on a forum, use the hashtag #let_them_in and tell DiEM25 about your post by sending an email to [email protected]. The most interesting stories will be featured on DiEM25 and promoted through our social media channels. There’s nothing to fear but fear itself! Carpe DiEM!