-Caveat Lector- LE MONDE DIPLOMATIQUE - April 1999 Social democracy betrayed by IGNACIO RAMONET For the first time since it was established in 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation is engaged in a war against a country that has not committed any act of aggression outside its own frontiers. And for the first time since 1945, European forces are bombing a sovereign European state. The decision to go to war, announced on 23 March 1999, was described by NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana, one-time leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, as a "moral duty". Mr Solana is supported in this decision principally by the French, German, Italian and UK heads of government, Lionel Jospin, Gerhard Schröder, Massimo d'Alema and Tony Blair - all four of them eminent proponents of social democracy in Europe. They all agreed to the military solution proposed by Washington as the "only way" to break the deadlock in the Kosovo peace negotiations, even though it is common knowledge - confirmed by US experience in Iraq since 1991 - that crises of this kind cannot be settled by air strikes and any attempt to send in land forces to occupy Kosovo would be extremely costly in terms of human life and might extend the conflict to the whole Balkan peninsula. The crisis is largely the result of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's refusal to grant Kosovo a broad measure of political autonomy. But he has widespread support for this stand among the Serbian population who believe Kosovo should remain within Serbia for cultural reasons and feel a sense of solidarity with the Serb minority there. So this is not, as NATO propaganda would have us believe, a clash between an isolated President Milosevic on one side and the allied forces and the Serbian people, ripe for "liberation", on the other. The situation is more complicated. Mr Solana justified the decision on the ground that we must prevent an authoritarian regime from continuing to oppress its own people in Europe (1). Does this mean that we must resort to force to oblige Turkey, also a European country and a member of NATO, to grant autonomy to Kurdistan and end an oppression that has already caused thousands of deaths among Kurdish civilians? Is there by any chance a double standard here? How could the social democrat leaders, heirs to Jean Jaurès and a long tradition of respect for international law, yield to pressure from Washington and embark on a military escapade that has not a shred of international legitimacy? There is no UN Resolution expressly authorising the use of force in the region and the UN Security Council, the supreme arbiter on international conflicts, was not consulted before the first strikes were launched and has not agreed to the use of armed force against Serbia. And finally, it did not occur to any of these leaders to explain themselves to their national parliaments before going to war, let alone ask their permission to commit their armed forces to the conflict. Thus socialism, one of the great unifying myths of mankind, has once again been betrayed by the social democrat leaders of Europe. The resignation of German Finance Minister Oskar Lafontaine on 12 March 1999 had already afforded spectacular proof of the bankruptcy of social democracy and its inability to provide an alternative to the ruling neo-liberal orthodoxy that now finds even the Keynesian approach that enabled President Roosevelt to bring the US through the economic crisis of the 1930s too left-wing. Oskar Lafontaine stood accused by his fellow-socialists of five cardinal sins: wanting to re-launch Europe, advocating a fairer tax system, criticising the European Central Bank, calling for reform of the international monetary system and, earlier, asking the Bundesbank to lower interest rates in order to reduce the cost of borrowing, stimulate consumption and combat unemployment. It is impossible not to see his departure as yet another sign of the ideological collapse of social democracy. The movement has completely lost its bearings. It is steering a course as best it can, obsessed with the next crisis looming up and devoid of any sound theoretical basis - unless you count those catalogues of renunciation and reneging, The Third Way by Blair's adviser, Anthony Giddens, and The Right Choice by Schröder's mentor, Bodo Hombach. For social democracy, which holds undisputed sway in all the major countries of Europe, politics means economics, economics means finance, and finance means the markets. That is why it is keen to encourage privatisation, the dismantling of the public sector, and concentrations and mergers of giant corporations. It is willing to renounce the social compact and has abandoned all idea of full employment or eradicating poverty, of seeking to alleviate the plight of the EU's 18 million unemployed and 50 million poor. Social democracy won the intellectual battle after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The conservatives lost and are preparing to quit the field of history, as the aristocracy was forced to do after 1789. The left now has to reinvent its place in the political spectrum, while the mantle of conformism, or conservatism, has fallen on the social democrats. Social democracy is the new right. It has taken on the historic task of taming neo-liberalism in a spirit of vacuous opportunism. It is at war with Serbia today and may be fighting its own suburbs tomorrow. All in the name of realism, not rocking the boat, above all not disturbing the status quo. Translated by Barbara Wilson (1) Le Monde, 25 March 1999. DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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