The Titanic scenario

The global recession continues, as does the Eurozone crisis which is becoming a political and conceptual crisis whose solution will show the way to the future and the possibilities of the European Union as the most complex integration project in the history of humankind. Therefore, in this month’s report, we bring you a critical, but also alternative comment on the current problems of the European Union.

The Titanic scenario

1. The ship parable

The optimism of the beginning of the 20th century stemmed from the belief in human power and technology. Technology has always served the man as a source of power, while in the objectified sense it served as his extension. That year, 1911 AD, after J. B. Ismay, president of the White Star Line, met with James Pirrie, president of the Harland and Wolff shipyard, Titanic was built, the greatest passenger juggernaut of that time. When that ship structure was put to work, everyone spoke of its power and indestructibility. The ship embarked on its journey from Southampton to New York on 10 April 1912.

The ship was divided not only regarding its build, but also in a sociological sense in classes or social strata. Passengers/Argonauts of various motives, needs and desires boarded the vessel. Regardless of their motives, needs and desires every social stratum boarder the RMS Titanic joyfully. Thus, one sailed with faith in the liner’s might, which would bring the passengers to the promised land of America. Nobody thought of the possibility in which this giant ship could crack its “beak” on ice, because everybody, alas, believed in safety and power of technology and the coming 20th century which, thanks to technology, twice collapsed into the chasm of two global wars.

Later, following Kant’s idea of perpetual peace a need for bypassing wars emerged which was actually the need to socially construct Europe as an area of peace. And, as we know, first the EC/EEC emerged and later the EU. Similar to the ship parable from the beginning of our story, the shapers of Europe believed in success. The questionability of success was put on the “daily agenda” in a moment of global financial and economic crisis which was generated by a greedy minority or the financial oligarchy, both on a global level, as well as on a national level. The system of a stable union, all that optimism of the huge socially constructed EU machine began to collapse, confronted with the reality of the Greek syndrome (indebted like Greece) and similar countries of the European South. Before the Greek case, the passengers of the socially constructed EU ship listened to music, sipped expensive drinks, puffed on thick Cuban cigars and joyfully conversed about the future, not knowing that this social construction started to strand in the moment it “gently” kissed the iceberg called “indebted like Greece”.

Although they still partied for some time, not knowing for that fate, just as those passengers in 1912 when they were setting sail from England, which at the time still was not the cradle of Euroscepticism because there was not EU, towards America which in the interwar period showed itself to be a master of generation of financial and economic crises, just as it is nowadays, when in (that is, its greedy financial oligarchy) brought the world and the EU social construct into the abyss.

2. Contemporary Argonauts and the panic on the docks of the EU cruiser. Some introspective insights into the engine of EU generality

The epilog of the Titanic is well known and thus I shall say no more of its fate. At the beginning of the journey, the Argonauts of the huge steel vessel did not take in account the possible risk, i.e. that the ship could strand and vanish in the deep blue ocean. On the other hand, the Argonauts of the socially constructed EU ship, with a belief in knowledge, capabilities and technologies act just like the ones on the Titanic did at the beginning of the 20th century. Namely, they believed that such a thing could not happen. Naturally, such a discourse will immediately cause intellectual itching among dogmatics and an urge to assign labels and exclude people because of a talk which shakes the very fundaments of their political theology. Yet, let us leave the dogmatics in peace, as well as their EU political theology as a science about a new political religion. Let us try to move our attention to anti-dogmatic contemplation of the EU, research, as well as various centers and institute, even financed by the EU, which peacefully engage in the writing of different future scenarios of the EU. One of those is the Titanic scenario.

The Titanic scenario is thus one of the possible scenarios which, if fulfilled, would mean the end of the Union as we now know it. The latter is actually anti-dogmatic and realistic because it takes into account all the possibilities of the course of events in the EU, under the influence of global processes such as the financial and economic crisis. This crisis introduces deconstruction and destruction to the EU project and will serve as the first nail into the possible EU coffin if the EU does not protect itself from the journey to the museum of political ideas and projects or to happy hunting grounds.

The second but not less important story which confirms the Titanic scenario follows the idea of social cleavages in the EU which have given birth to specialized Eurosceptic political parties. These parties can represent either soft or hard Euroscepticism, yet their representatives sit in the EP, in the hall of simulated democracy, where, heavily remunerated, they express skepticism or even extreme phobia towards the EU. Some of them openly call on their countries to leave the EU because they themselves do not believe in that concept. Thus, as written not long ago by one Croatian journalist, we can see Members of the European Parliament who are EU-supporters on weekends and professional nationalists on weekdays, backed by substantial remunerations which cause us to see those small yellow EU stars in front of our eyes. If the crisis fits the hard content of the Titanic scenario, then these professional Eurosceptics and their Euroscepticism of different sorts gives potent material to the Titanic scenario because these people themselves do not believe in what they presenting to the citizens as a success fairy tale.

The third, maybe the strongest material and argument for the weaving of the Titanic scenario, in circumstances of radical social turmoil is rightist radicalism, which can in a long term generate an internal war of cultures. Its potential can be recognized in radical right political parties which voice the hard version of Euroscepticism. These are parties which should be placed in the context of the second anti-modern. In their programmatic foundations they oppose globalization, multiculturalism and the deconstruction of nation states and promote and support xenophobia and racism, as well as the concept of a Europe of nations. Typical representatives of such parties are the French Front national, the German NPD, the Belgian Vlaams Belang, the Austrian Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ), British National Party (BNP), the Italian Lega Nord and others. Radical right parties which promote xenophobia have an ethnocentric character. Recently, a comparative study of radical right parties in Europe was published. (1)

Over the course of time, several authors emerged who specialized in research of political parties and ideologies of the radical right with xenophobia as one of the key markers. One of these authors is Hans-Georg Betz with his book Radical Right-Wing Populism in Western Europe (1994). The authors analyzes radical right populism and changes on the global level, faces of the radical right, immigration and xenophobia. The sociological interest for research of the radical right parties and their ideologies, as well as xenophobia increased after 1989.(2)

3. Radical right parties and (un)accountable politicians, on the end of multiculturalism or the social division of labor

All across Europe, these parties express xenophobia and enmity towards foreigners. Namely, they do not want foreigners in their societies, while at the same time; these societies tolerate them with a remote control. Here we are talking about a model of tolerance on distance. The latter is practices by institutions dressed in the costume of the god Janus and intolerance or war against foreigners which is conducted by anti-immigrant radical right and populist parties. These parties build their ideologies on the meta-politics of the New Right or the intellectual, elitist part of the radical right. The new aspect of xenophobia in EU is Islamophobia which is on the rise after 9/11 as a radical answer to the rise of Islamic fundamentalism or Islamism. Just as some parties reject integration of their societies in the EU, a part of the Muslim, mostly Turkish and Arab, population does not want to integrate in recipient societies and creates in some parts of metropolitan areas their “parallel societies”. That is an additional argument for radical right parties to target these specific foreigners.

These radical right parties are not the only ones that generate xenophobia and Islamophobia as a potential igniter in front of the gates of the EU as a social construct, this is also, indirectly, done by politicians and their statements about the end of multiculturalism. Therefore, we have to draw attention to three characters in the context of the discourse about foreigners and multiculturalism. The first character is the German chancellor Angela Merkel who in 2010 announced the end of the multicultural society in Germany, saying that “Everybody who in the beginning does not know German is not welcome”. The second character is comrade and rightist social democrat Thilo Sarrazin, author of the book Deutschland schafft sich ab (Germany Does Away with Itself). What happened and what was on Thilo’s mind? One source tells us that it was precisely in the summer of 2010, when the – now former – member of the board of the Bundesbank, Thilo Sarrazin, said that Muslims “undermined the German society”, that a lively debate began about the role of immigrants in a country where there are four million Muslims and 16 million people with immigrant background. Recently, British Prime Minister Cameron also said at a security conference in Munich that multiculturalism in his country was dead. Hearing all this, the third character, Barroso, said: “Nowadays in Europe there is a surge in populism which is very serious and which bothers me. I see societies with a great tradition of openness and democracy who experience a rise in nationalism, chauvinism, xenophobia and even aggression”. He also said at another occasion: “Populism is a manipulation with anxieties and fears, coupled with irrational arguments, yet this sometimes works”. “Therefore I call upon all democratic and pro-European forces to use a sort of a pedagogic approach in explaining of our values”. Recently, Barroso, concerned about the German vote on aid for the consolidation of the Eurozone and the “Greek little fig”, showed himself to be a real spokesman of the Titanic scenario when he said that EU was in a serious crisis. Disregarding the opinions one may have about the three described points of crisis in the EU project, nobody who has a realistic outlook cannot think of ignoring the possibility of such a scenario. Will it really happen depends primarily on actors of glocalization. If it wishes to survive, the EU has to have a rational answer. Therefore, Croats who find themselves at the gates of the new capital city, also have to take into account this scenario and have their own alternative one in the case that everything goes to ground. Don’t worry, be happy!


Professor Anđelko Milardović, PhD
Director, Political Science Research Centre, Zagreb
Permanent Scientific Advisor, Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies, Zagreb


(1) Langenbacher, Nora and Schellenberg, Britta (eds) (2011): Europa auf dem „rechten“ Weg? Rechtsextremismus und Rechtspopulismus in Europa, Berlin: Friedrich Ebert Foundation, available at: http://library.fes.de/pdf-filesdo/08337.pdf

(2) Therefore, along with Betz’s book, we should mentioned several other works on this topic. These are, for example, Voting Radical Right in Western Europe (Terri E. Givens, 2005), The Radical Right in Western Europe (Herbert Kitschelt i Anthony McGann, 1997) as well as works by Cas Mudde The Ideology of Extreme Right (2003) and Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe (2007). Further, we should draw attention to several journal papers, such as the analysis of Jens Rydgren The Sociology of the Radical Right (Annual Review of Sociology, 33: 241-262) and Andrew G. Walder's paper Political Sociology and Social Movements (Annual Review of Sociology, 35: 393-412).

» add comment

comment


e-mail

potvrdni kod