London's statue status

Yesterday a statue of Nelson Mandela went up in Parliament Square, and it got me thinking. In a city with more statues than dentists, at what point do we start reevaluating the ones that are already here?

I mean logic would tell you that, on a practical level, if this city keeps putting up statues at the rate it has been they’ll be no room left in the public parks for anyone to walk around. But on a more sentimental level, one has to note that the kinds of people we’re chiseling into stone today are quite different from the people we immortalized a century ago.

Take the new Mandela statue for instance. When I went to visit it last night I saw that it faces a statue of Jan Smuts, who was the South African prime minister at the inception of white rule. Winston Churchill, perhaps the most well-known statue in the square today, helped to draw up the du-jour segregation plan at the outset of South Africa’s independence.

Turkey's Islamic landslide

I think you’d be hard pressed to find a political climate more reflective of a wider issue than what’s going on in Turkey right now. The conflict between the Islamic-rooted party and the secularist party resulted in the calling of an election on Sunday that saw the Islamic party receive a solid victory, more than anyone could have imagined last week. What will this mean for Turkey’s future, and its relations with Europe?

The situation is enormously complicated and requires a bit of explaining. Turkey was the center of the Ottoman Empire for centuries, which stretched at various times from Morocco in North Africa to Hungary in Europe. It literally had territory on three different continents and therefore acted as a bridge between many different cultures. By World War I the empire was antiquated and ailing, and following the sultan’s disastrous decision to join with the Germans and Austro-Hungarians in World War I, a group of “young Turks” in the army led by a man who came to be known as Ataturk (or “father of the Turks”) seized power and completely reformed Turkey, giving up its non-Turkish possessions and developing a fiercely secular, Western-oriented nation. Ataturk was an avowed enemy of religion and felt that the state must take safeguards to keep it firmly out of the government. For this reason, Turkey and the rest of the Middle East took very divergent paths in the remainder of the 20th century.

For decades the country was ruled by Ataturk’s heirs, the secularist army. But in the last ten years Islam has been becoming steadily more popular in the country, as evidenced by the rising number of women in Ankara and Istanbul wearing headscarves. This is worrying to much of the country, who fear that Turkey could slide toward the kind of governments seen in the rest of the Middle East. Even a moderately Islamic government, comparable say to the degree that the US government is Christian, would be extremely worrying to many Turks.

So when the Islamic-rooted party Justice and Development was voted into power five years ago, the army stood up and prepared to take up their traditional role of defending the secularist Turkish state, through force if necessary. When the party nominated the current foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, to be president. Gul’s wife wears a headscarf, and this fact was so unacceptable to the army that they not only derailed the nomination but demanded that the government hold new elections. But this move backfired and now Justice and Development is even more powerful than before, although they have pledged to nominate a new compromise candidate for president, presumably one who’s never even seen a head scarf.

So it’s a simple story of a pro-Western army trying to keep an Islamic fundamentalist party out of power right? Not even close. It’s a lot more complicated than it seems at first glance. For instance, it could be argued that Justice and Development is Islamic in the same way that Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats in Germany are Christian (i.e., a historic root in the religion but not strongly religious). What’s more, it can’t really be said that the party is anti-Western, because they’ve made a number of economic and social reforms in an effort to get Turkey admitted to the EU. They’ve actually presided over an economic boom time in Turkey, and the reality is this is probably the reason they received such an overwhelming result on Sunday. People weren’t voting for an Islamic party, they were voting for a party that had presided over successful times.

What’s more, the secularist army’s party, the Republican People’s Party, is “pro-Western” really just in its opposition to Islam and its promotion of Western lifestyles and values. The reality is this is an autocratic party that wants to stifle democracy, and this is one of the biggest obstacles to Turkey’s joining the EU. As long as the RPP remains so powerful, the country could never join the European Union.

It’s also not as clear-cut as religious people versus secular people, in many ways the religion issue is a mask for an urban-rural divide. As Mark Mardell pointed out this week, the conflict is as much about the educated, secular, urban elite of Istanbul and Ankara, who control the army and the beaurocracy, fearing the uneducated, religious mob of the rural interior. Writes Mardell:

This is a battle of different classes, as well as of religion and ideas. Anyone think of any other countries with an urban and coastal liberal elite that feels under threat from the religious politics of the rural hinterland? The big difference is that the Pentagon wouldn’t even dream of putting tanks on the White House lawn if George W held a prayer meeting.

I thought this was an interesting analogy. It would be as if the urban elites of the East and West coast controlled the army and the rural red state voters controlled the government (of course the opposite is true, the rural red staters control both!). But if this were the case in the US, the conflict wouldn’t just be about religion versus secularism, although that would be a big part of it. That conflict would just be part of a larger class conflict, and this is the case in Turkey today.

I thought Mardell’s story about a conversation he had with some Turkish generals was even more interesting. Writes Mardell:

I had an early morning drive across the Bosphorous to talk to a couple of retired senior military men, three-star generals. They argued Turkey was not a democracy, despite the fact it goes to the polls on Sunday in what appear to be free and fair elections, with multiple political parties and a free-ish and vociferous press. Their arguments strike me as rather Leninist. The masses are uneducated and illiterate so can be deceived by unscrupulous politicians. Only when they are better educated will Turkey be a real democracy. It is the army’s job to intervene if there is any deviation on the path to this true democracy.

They make a similar argument about "ethnic issues"... which means the Kurds. Poverty and bad education is the problem. The solution may need a tough military component but it's really about developing the south-east of Turkey until people stop worrying about issues of identity.

Turkey is really a very interesting country, and I’m curious to see how this unfolds over the next several years. One is really unsure who to side with in this debate.

Budapest pride Marred by Violence

My friend Lee was at the Budapest gay pride parade on Saturday and he said it was really scary. He’s in an opera in Vienna right now, and he had been to the pride parade in that city the previous week and said it was very nice and pleasant, your standard pride parade.

So the following Saturday he went to the Budapest parade, which is literally 90 minutes away by train. But the difference couldn't have been more stark. Apparently there were as many protestors of the parade as there were marchers. It was like one of those old-timey gay pride parades in New York from the 70’s, where they were literally protesting something rather than just having a big street party. He took some pictures which you can see here. Apparently people were throwing eggs, bricks, beer bottles, anything really, and a couple people got beat up really bad. And lining the route of the parade (which really was more of a ‘march’ than a parade) there were no cheering onlookers, either indifferent stares or menacing taunts.

Pesky Poland

I had an interesting conversation with a Polish person I met last night, and it shed a bit of light into the Polish character and why the country has been such a thorn in Brussels' side over the past few weeks.

To recap, the big news in Europe over the last month has been the meetings over the new treaty being hammered out to replace the EU constitution, which died when it was voted down by referendums in France and The Netherlands two years ago. There were two member states that were the biggest obstacles to progress in the talks. The first was, predictably, the UK, which has been the most historically uncooperative member and wanted all sorts of special exemptions from the treaty for itself. But the second was Poland, a new member state that was admitted just three years ago.

Poland is currently run by a pair of eccentric, very conservative twins. They caused quite a stir at the meetings by demanding that the EU adopt a voting system in which each country gets an amount of votes proportional to the square root of the population, rather that proportional to the actual population. This would give smaller countries more voting power and bigger ones less, and would essentially give Poland (population 38 million) the same voting power as Germany (population 82 million). The twins were intractable on this, and although all the other members states warned them that this type of hard-headed obstinacy doesn’t work in the EU and they should use softer diplomacy, in the end I guess they were wrong because the twins won and got no permanent decision on the voting system for at least another seven years, even though all 26 other members were opposed to this. The twins are now claiming that there was an “oral agreement” for further concessions to Poland and they want to redo the deal that was finally worked out.

Big British Butt Ban

SATURDAY SATURDAY SATURDAY, the Big British Butt Ban goes into effect!

From Jul 1 you will no longer be able to smoke anywhere indoors in England. I’m so curious to see how this unfolds. Having been in New York in ’02 when the smoking ban went into effect there, I’m interesting to see how this city’s reaction will differ. Frankly I’m surprised that they’ve chosen to do the switchover in the summer like NYC did, because that ended up causing quite a problem.

The first state in the US to start a smoking ban was California (which tends to be on the forefront of things like this). There it worked quite well, and there weren’t any problems during the changeover.

So when mayor Bloomberg passed the same ban in New York City, they expected it would go off just as smoothly. But they were forgetting on difference between New York and the main cities in California (LA, San Diego and San Francisco). Because of the warmer climate, many (if not most) bars in California have some kind of outdoor section or courtyard. In contrast, this is quite rare in NYC, as space constraints would make a courtyard very expensive and weather makes it financially impractical (why pay extra rent for a space you can only use 5 months out of the year?)

'We Have a Treaty'

Well the EU treaty has been drafted, and Tony Blair can walk away feeling quite pleased with himself, having won on virtually every ‘red line’ demand the British were making. Those who dream of a federalist state, however, will be bitterly disappointed by this compromise.

That’s not to say the Eurosceptics in the UK won’t kick up a fuss about it, but they don’t have much of a leg to stand on now. Though the conservatives will demand one, there is no way Gordon Brown is going to hold a referendum on the treaty in the UK. And the reality is, even if David Cameron manages to defeat Gordon Brown in the next election, it is very unlikely that Cameron would put it to a referendum either. Because even this lukewarm treaty would be voted down by a British population generally hostile to Europe, and Cameron doesn't really want to be single-handedly responsible for either destroying the union or wresting the UK from it. Much like the gay marriage issue in the US, playing on the xenophobia of the Brits might win you elections, but it doesn't work as actual rational policy.

So who won here? Certainly not the federalists, and certainly not the Eurosceptics. It would be, I suppose what one could call the “moderates,” those who want to keep Europe moving forward and get it out of the quagmire it has found itself in since the constitution was voted down, even if it means making many sacrifices.

Just to explain a bit of the context, this treaty was made necessary when France and the Netherlands voted against passage of the original EU Constitution in 2005. Although 18 countries had already ratified the constitution, all it took was one state and the whole project came to a grinding halt. Europe has been trying to figure out what to do next for the last two years. When Germany assumed the rotating presidency of the EU this year (a policy which will thankfully be ended by this treaty), Angela Merkel made it her mission to revive the constitution, and she’s found a like-minded ally in newly-elected French president Nicholas Sarkozy. Both are pragmatists, and knew that they couldn’t just submit the same constitution to the public again. So all mentions of the word “constitution” were banned from the European political lexicon, and instead we get a “treaty.”

Eurosceptics here in the UK however will argue that the “treaty” is different from the “constitution” in name only, but the reality is there are some significant changes that dilute the power and efficacy of the original document. There is an opt-out for Britain from the Charter of Fundamental Rights (sort of like our Bill of Rights) so Britain can go ahead and torture as it pleases if it so chooses. There will not be a single foreign minister for Europe, so individual countries will still set their own foreign policy. And there won’t be any changes to the voting system until 2014. This last stipulation should keep Poland happy, which was clamoring for a “square root” voting system that would have given them as much voting power as more populous countries like Germany and France.

Of course the treaty still has to be approved by the individual countries, and each one gets to decide whether it will be put to a general referendum or voted on by the parliaments. Blair and Brown are saying the document doesn’t give any new power to Brussels so it doesn’t need a referendum. But neighboring Ireland is putting it to a referendum. The reason why is fairly obvious. In Ireland it will pass overwhelmingly. In Britain it would not.

So it will be interesting to see how this unfolds and which countries will go for direct referendums and which will not. To be honest I have no idea how long that will take. But if you want my two cents, I don’t think European governments should have to make up disingenuous excuses for why they’re not putting this to a referendum. I think all direct referendums are a bad idea, all the time, without exception. California horrifies me actually, with its constant and insane referendums constantly on the ballot. We live in representative democracies. People elect politicians because those politicians can become fully educated and involved in what’s going on. That’s why we entrust our representatives with making decisions for us. The idea that Joe Q. Public is well-equipped and knowledgeable enough to make these kinds of decisions is absurd, and worse yet it smells of mob rule. In this case, the British public is woefully misinformed about what the EU actually is and what it intends to do. The sheer insanity of the “Euromyths” that abound here never ceases to astonish me. What’s more, the British public unfortunately seems to let their smug sense of superiority overrule a rational, realistic assessment of how their country can remain relevant in the 21st century.

Politicians at least have the ability to see the forest for the trees. So it will be interesting to see who will be making the decisions on this treaty. But it is at least heartening to see Europe moving ahead again and perhaps moving out of the stagnation and pessimism of the last few years.