Europe

How youth influenced the EU election – and could do the same in Canada: U of T expert

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 07 Jun 2019 19:33:26 +0000

How youth influenced the EU election – and could do the same in Canada: U of T expert

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 06/07/2019 - 15:33

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A demonstrator holds a sign outside the Portuguese parliament in Lisbon during a climate strike of school students on Friday, May 24, 2019 (photo by AP Photo/Armando Franca)

Tobias Wilczek

Topic

Our Community

Department of Germanic Languages and Literature

Climate Change

Europe

European Union

Faculty of Arts & Science

With major votes occurring within the span of five months this year, the European Union and Canadian federal elections are critical in deciding our planet’s future.

The results of the EU election – in which each European country elects an allotted number of representatives to the EU parliament – have already resulted in big changes, largely due to youth getting involved in politics.

Young people around the world are demonstrating a thorough understanding of the larger economic and environmental threats that are endangering not only individual freedom, but the very survival of our own species and more than a million others.

Around the world, youth protest movements like #FridaysForFuture have been growing steadily. Student protesters recently turned out in 120 countries and 1,700 cities to demand action on climate change just days before the EU elections on May 26. The next global student strike has already been announced for Sept. 20 and is expected to draw even bigger numbers.

It’s clear that young voters are bringing critical issues to the fore.

Young people protest ahead of the European elections during a climate strike of school students as part of the Fridays for Future movement in front of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, Germany (photo b Boris Roessler/dpa via AP)

As Europeans headed to the polls to elect a new European Parliament, the notion of a European “Green New Deal” was a big campaign issue. The German Green Party made history by coming in second place with 20.5 per cent thanks in part to the increased voter turnout in Germany (61.4 per cent).

The shift was due mostly to many first-time voters casting their ballots for the Greens, who won the highest support in the 18-to-24 cohort — 34 per cent — and 27 per cent in the 25-to-35 age group..

European Green New Deal

There was a renewed brawl pitting democratic eco-socialists and liberals against conservatives and far-right parties, as Europeans witnessed most strikingly in the first debate of the lead candidates of the pan-European parties.

The debate focused on “digital Europe,” “sustainable Europe” and the future of Europe.

The prospect of a European Green New Deal — popular among young voters — has been increasingly paired with renewed discussions about democratizing the European Union not just politically, but also economically.

Yanis Varoufakis’s transnational party European Spring included a Green New Deal in its platform, with the following pledges: “To dismantle the habitual domination of corporate power over the will of citizens; to re-politicize the rules that govern our single market and common currency.”

The party only marginally missed the threshold for securing seats in Germany and Greece, but more than 1.4 million Europeans voted for a Green New Deal. In Spain, the Socialist Party (PSOE) won on a Green New Deal platform.

As World Economic Forum writer Katie Whiting explained, a European Green New Deal would invest “at least five per cent of Europe’s GDP in emissions-free transportation infrastructure, renewable energies and innovative technologies, while creating jobs and transitioning Europe to zero-emissions – all without raising taxes.”

The European Greens, with 69 projected MEPs in the European Parliament, will certainly need to respond to calls from the Left Bloc (38 seats) and the Socialists and Democrats (153 seats) to work together on making Europe environmentally green and socially just.

They’ll have to do so while dealing with MEPs from pan-European parties like Volt Europa who want to democratize the European Union as far-right parties like Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) embrace increasingly nationalist and isolationist views.

The EU environmental agenda is also being shaped by particular national New Green debates. For example, in Germany, there is talk of reappropriating apartment units and car manufacturers to alleviate inequality and establish a more sustainable Europe.

Nationalize BMW?

Soon after discussions about nationalizing real estate properties emerged in the state of Berlin, Kevin Kühnert, the head of the 80,000-member-strong youth movement of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), was recently in the news for public remarks calling for the nationalization of corporations like BMW as well.

BMW is in the spotlight due to allegations it “breached EU antitrust rules from 2006 to 2014,” according to the European Commission. It’s being investigated for allegedly using illegal defeat devices to cheat regulatory emissions tests.

It’s not just young people making the case for abolishing private ownership of some entities. These daring remarks by young people, sometimes considered taboo, have inspired older generations, too. As Germany celebrates the 70th anniversary of the Federal Republic and its German Basic Law, even Baby Boomers are reminding the public about the law’s Article 15 that allows the nationalization of private property.

Demands for action on climate change are growing louder every day. British parliament recently declared a climate emergency due in part to ongoing protests organized by the Extinction Rebellion movement, which has also been supported by #FridaysForFuture student activist Greta Thunberg.

Growing movement?

The strong representation of Democratic Socialists federally in Germany, including young socialists up to the age of 35, is beginning to take hold across the Atlantic, where the Democratic Socialists of America, whose membership stands at 60,000, have also amassed more than 200,000 followers on Twitter.

While Canada seems to be lagging behind when compared to the European youth activism, voter turnout for those aged 18-24 increased by 18 percentage points from the 2011 federal election to 57.1 per cent in 2015.

And although provincial elections in Alberta and Prince Edward Island resulted in Progressive Conservative governments, the Green Party of P.E.I. are the first Greens in Canada to become the official opposition.

The progress is happening as many young Europeans and Canadians look up to young leaders like Germany’s Kühnert and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the United States as they advocate Green New Deals. It’s time for young people in Canada to get more involved politically if they want to have a shot at saving the planet. For now, #FridaysForFuture may be a good way to start.

Tobias Wilczek is a PhD student in department of Germanic languages and literatures at the ��Ƶ.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Rebuilding Notre Dame: U of T expert on the history and future of the iconic cathedral

Romi Levine — Tue, 16 Apr 2019 18:57:52 +0000

Rebuilding Notre Dame: U of T expert on the history and future of the iconic cathedral

Romi Levine Tue, 04/16/2019 - 14:57

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People watch as a fire ravages the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris (photo by Nicolas Liponne/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Romi Levine

Topic

Global Lens

Europe

Faculty of Arts & Science

Global

History

Humanities

Hundreds of millions of euros have already been pledged by wealthy donors and major corporations to restore Notre Dame, the iconic Gothic cathedral in Paris that was severely damaged by a massive fire on Monday.

People around the world watched as the cathedral’s spire toppled in the flames, waiting with bated breath to find out if the 850-year-old cathedral would survive.

Thankfully, the structure of the cathedral was saved, and many of the important relics and works of art were taken out of the building – with only minor injuries to two police officers and a firefighter reported.

Notre Dame had remained remarkably unscathed during its centuries-long history, avoiding destruction during both the First and Second World Wars, and only suffering some damage and vandalism during the French Revolution.

Yet, despite avoiding a major disaster, the cathedral has seen a great deal of change over the past eight centuries, says Paul Cohen, an associate professor of history at the ��Ƶ.

“The building we visited until yesterday afternoon – for those of us who have been to Notre Dame – is the 13th-century structure but also, like all the great Gothic cathedrals that have survived, it has been an evolving and changing, constantly maintained, constantly rebuilt, and constantly reconstructed structure,” he says. “It looks different than it was, it functions differently than it did.”

The spire, for example, was only built in the 19th century when Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, an architecture historian and lover of medieval architecture, led a large-scale renovation of Notre Dame, says Cohen.

“There are a lot of features with Notre Dame that we closely associate with the cathedral today that are his,” he says – including a lot of the statuary and the gargoyles.

Notre Dame’s ever-evolving structure offers a degree of hope for the future of the cathedral.

“It's been constantly reinvented over the centuries so this will be the latest reconstruction,” Cohen says.

U of T News spoke with Cohen about Notre Dame’s history and significance, as well as the efforts to fund its reconstruction.

What is it about Notre Dame that resonates with people around the world?

As one of the greatest examples of Gothic architecture in the 12th and 13th centuries, it's a spectacular and remarkable structure, from the sense of space in the interior – for any who have had the good fortune to visit Notre Dame – to the flying buttresses around the outside, to the extraordinary front facade and perhaps most extraordinarily the stained glass, the three rose windows, which, based on reports, appear remarkably to have survived.

It was built with a specifically spiritual and confessional purpose in mind as a seat for an archbishop and a space for Christian Catholic worship. But it was also built to create a sense of awe, of spectacle, of community – of a social experience – and it still succeeds at doing that even for people who aren't Catholic or Christian. That's part of the reason it is by some measures the most visited monument in Europe.

There are other reasons as well. The fact that it's in the very centre of Paris – it's a symbol, it's an iconic monument in an iconic city in the number one tourist destination in the world, in an age where mass tourism is an extraordinarily important social phenomenon.

It's a building that's entered popular culture in a way that is way beyond the religious dimensions. It's a process that really begins in the 1830s with the French writer Victor Hugo's novel Notre-Dame de Paris, which, like all Hugo's novels is a bestseller. It both relocates Notre Dame in the space of literature, popular culture, and also creates the framework for 20th and 21st century reinventions in popular culture.

What were some of the features of the cathedral that were saved in the Notre Dame fire?

There is some happy news amidst the sadness. It appears the three great stained glass roses have survived, and the organ, which was recently renovated at considerable cost. It appears that the vaulted ceiling protected the interior of the church, with the exception of the place where the steeple collapsed through it.

Most of the interior artwork, the wall around the choir behind the main altar, the altar itself, the side chapels – it appears they are in tact. There's no doubt there will be a lot of water damage but it could've been much worse.

Hundreds of millions of euros have already been pledged for the rebuilding and restoration of Notre Dame. Does this give the international community hope for the future of the building?

It doesn't take away the sadness and the loss. There are things that can't be replaced: the wood frame underneath the roof was an extraordinary latticework of enormous oak wood beams. Most of those were the original beams from the 13th century. Those can't be replaced – there are no 13th century wood beams around and I think an entire forest was felled to build the roof of Notre Dame.

There were some relics that were placed in the steeple that collapsed and burned yesterday, which can't be replaced. There are irreparable losses but, from the moment the fire began, there was never any question it wouldn't be rebuilt. Its symbolic importance in France is just too important.

The French state, the private donors, will rapidly mobilize the resources. France, like Italy, like Germany, has the technological know-how and the human power, the skilled labour to be able to do it because they're constantly rebuilding and renovating these structures. There are whole arms of the culture ministry and there’s a constellation of contractors and businesses that can do this kind of work.

This, of course, is a privilege reserved for wealthy, industrialized countries. That's not the case everywhere. Think of what's been destroyed, say in Syria – in Aleppo or Palmyra and so forth – or what took place in Afghanistan.

A number of opinion pieces have been published by French and European writers who say the fire is a reminder not to take important monuments like Notre Dame for granted. What do you make of that?

That's absolutely right. I think that's a lesson everyone looking at the live footage, or was thinking about this yesterday, thought. I'm half French and spent a good part of my life in Paris and I certainly felt that.

Anyone who has visited Notre Dame, or any of the other great Gothic cathedrals, can't but help come away with a sense of solidity and eternity. They were designed to evoke that – the eternity of God's creation, of God's judgement and so forth. But also, they're big, they're built with stone-supporting walls – for the most part they're in great shape.

To a very real extent, the notion that these were eternal, were here to stay and were something we could take for granted is something that maybe is rather new.

But I think it's important to keep in mind that there's a long history of damage and destruction that buildings like Notre Dame have suffered. Fire was the bane of big church buildings in the Middle Ages and in the construction of cathedrals.

My mother was born in Paris and grew up during the Second World War. It's easy for generations since then to forget that the generation of our parents remember very well the great Reims Cathedral – one of the great European Gothic cathedrals, in some ways equally as important as Notre Dame, that was very nearly destroyed in 1914 in the First World War under German shelling and the great Rouen cathedral, one of the jewels of medieval Gothic architecture in the capital of Normandy, that was very heavily damaged in 1944 by British bombing.

There is a long history of the great monuments like Notre Dame being partially damaged or completely destroyed. The long period of peace in Western Europe and the West meant that we had forgotten that history.

In a fire that bares uncanny resemblance to last night's fire: In the French city of Nantes, the cathedral of Nantes was undergoing renovations in 1972 and a worker's blow torch caused a fire that burned the wood roof of the cathedral.

It shows that sadly, for a building this old, these things happen. [Nantes] has been rebuilt – the roof was quite rapidly rebuilt and a full renovation was just completed a few years ago.

What was it like for you seeing Notre Dame for the first time?

I'm not sure I have a memory of the very first time, but from the first memories I have of it as a child, the great Gothic structures were deeply impressive to me.

There is something about the Gothic aesthetic that speaks to our modernity – the flamboyance of the flying buttresses, the gargoyles and the extraordinary sculptural narrative of the last judgement which is on the west facade.

It was designed to inspire awe and wonder and to create a social experience. This was a building designed to gather large numbers of people inside. It still does that, whether for Catholic masses or just from being the most visited monument in Europe by some measures. Any five-year-old boy or girl will feel that walking in.

'It will define the field for years to come': U of T historian wins prize for book on Germany

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 28 Jan 2019 05:00:00 +0000

'It will define the field for years to come': U of T historian wins prize for book on Germany

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 01/28/2019 - 00:00

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Professor James Retallack won the Central European History Society's Hans Rosenberg Book Prize for a 2017 book that explores the connections between political modernization and authoritarianism in Germany (photo by Diana Tyszko)

Alexa Zulak

Topic

Global Lens

Department of Germanic Languages and Literature

Awards

Europe

Faculty of Arts & Science

Global

History

Humanities

Jackman Humanities Institute

James Retallack, a professor in the University of Toronto's department of history, has been awarded the Central European History Society’s Hans Rosenberg Book Prize for his 2017 book, Red Saxony: Election Battles and the Spectre of Democracy in Germany, 1860-1918.

Awarded annually, the Hans Rosenberg Book Prize honours the best book on central European history published in English by a permanent resident of North America.

“It’s rewarding to have the feedback and acknowledgment of my peers,” said Retallack, whose latest accolade bookends his Hans Rosenberg Article Prize win from last year.

“It’s especially rewarding in the sense that two different prize committees, comprised of three people each, both found something interesting in my work.”

Retallack, who is also cross-appointed to the department of Germanic languages and literatures, is a renowned expert on German society and politics between 1740 and the rise of Adolf Hitler.

Red Saxony, published by Oxford University Press, explores the reciprocal relationship between political modernization and authoritarianism in Germany over the span of six decades. It illustrates how Germans grew to fear the idea of democracy, paving the way – after many twists and turns – for Hitler and the Nazis in the 1920s.

The Hans Rosenberg Book Prize committee commended Retallack’s research, analysis and argumentation throughout the 700-page work. "Red Saxony is a powerful contribution that calls into question long- and widely-held assumptions while establishing new ones: it will define the field for years to come,” the committee wrote.

Now Retallack is ready to reach a new audience with the forthcoming translation of Red Saxony into German.

While he’s quick to acknowledge the challenges in translating the text – like having to track down some original German quotations that had been translated into English – he also notes that it will be satisfying to reach German colleagues and scholars who may not have read the English-language book.

“I don’t expect to win any prizes,” said Retallack of the translated work. “But I will be very happy if Red Saxony contributes to advancing German-language scholarship, too, in the field of Imperial German history.”

Retallack has received grants, fellowships and research prizes from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Gerda Henkel Foundation, the German Academic Exchange Service, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Jackman Humanities Institute.

His latest project – a biography of the founder and leader of Germany’s social democratic movement and the Social Democratic Party of Germany, August Bebel – won him a Killam Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2015.

Retallack hopes prizes like the Hans Rosenberg Book Prize will lead to new readers.

“I’m very lucky that my publisher decided to nominate it,” said Retallack.

“In our world of scholarly activity, you almost know everybody in the field. Maybe someone who wouldn’t ordinarily look at it might pick it up.”

U of T expert on how Canadian politicians are playing a dangerous game on migration

noreen.rasbach — Thu, 06 Sep 2018 18:02:11 +0000

U of T expert on how Canadian politicians are playing a dangerous game on migration

noreen.rasbach Thu, 09/06/2018 - 14:02

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An asylum-seeker saying he’s from Eritrea is confronted by an RCMP officer as he enters Canada from the United States on Aug. 21 (photo by Paul Chiasson/CP)

Craig Damian Smith

Topic

City & Culture

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

Canada has joined the club of states embroiled with irregular migration. But our challenges are not unique, and we have two decades of European misadventures with irregular migration to guide our response. Unfortunately, Canadian politicians are following a well-rehearsed script in which crisis responses to anti-refugee sentiment undermine liberal values, limit policy options and open us to blackmail by hostile neighbours.

I have spent several years studying Europe’s relationship with irregular migration, most recently on a six-week trip that included looking at the Italian government’s hardline policies.

Interior Minister Matteo Salvini came to power on a promise to expel 500,000 migrants, and has spent his short tenure repealing services, criminalizing migrant rescue NGOs, fostering xenophobic nationalism and undermining European solidarity.

Salvini attends a news conference after meeting Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Milan, Italy, in August (photo by Luca Bruno/AP)

Salvini, also serving as deputy prime minister, blames migrants for longstanding Italian social problems like youth unemployment. In June, Tito Boeri, head of the Italian pension agency, clashed with Salvini on a very simple point that immigration was needed in light of an aging workforce. Salvini responded by stating that the tenured economist “lives on Mars” and that evidence-based arguments about demographics “ignored the will” of Italians.

This kind of populism has troubling parallels in Canada. Ontario Premier Doug Ford has blamed asylum-seekers for longstanding affordable housing challenges and ended co-operation with the federal government on the issue. His stonewalling and scapegoating to foster a crisis in the lead-up to the 2019 federal election are well-worn tactics.

Fears trump facts

Anti-immigrant populism trades on two interrelated trends. First, facts matter far less than voters’ feelings; second, as Daniel Stockemer from the University of Ottawa puts it, scapegoating migrants pays off at the ballot box. Ruling parties are caught in a bind since governments that want votes should be responsive to their citizens. But responding to anti-immigrant sentiments means policies with negative economic, social and security outcomes.

Ruling parties in Europe have tried to thread the needle by getting tough on irregular migration while maintaining open asylum systems. They must show voters that they’re doing something when their political challengers claim they have lost control of borders and undermined public safety. Statements by Michelle Rempel, the Conservative Party of Canada’s immigration critic, about irregular migration are thus wholly unoriginal.

Xenophobia fosters false opinions. Many Italians believe foreigners comprised 26 per cent of the population, when in reality it is only nine per cent. Similarly, a recent Angus Reid poll found Canadians overestimated the number of asylum-seekers by almost 60 per cent. The majority said Canada was too generous, and that the current situation represented a crisis despite the swath of Liberal ministers and range of credible experts saying the opposite.

Crises demand action

Crises demand extraordinary measures. Seventy-one per cent of respondents in the Angus Reid survey would devote resources to border security if they were in charge. Only 29 per cent said they would focus on assisting arrivals. Respondents were more aware of the asylum issue than any other in 2018. But as in Europe, Canadians’ strong opinions are based on feelings rather than facts.

The federal Liberals have reacted by shuffling the cabinet and appointing a tough-on-crime ex-police chief to oversee the issue. But Bill Blair has been named minister of border security and organized crime reduction. While this might seem like a savvy move, bundling migration with security narrows the range of options to reactive and counter-productive policies that exclude economic and social interventions. When your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Not to be outdone, the Conservatives would extend the Safe Third Country Agreement to the entirety of the border, meaning asylum-seekers could be turned back anywhere.

Securitizing borders is expensive, rarely works for long and undermines refugee protection. It also results in more criminality. Prohibition in the face of high demand fosters black market supply. Illicit economies and more dangerous routes also make migrants vulnerable to human trafficking.

What’s more, criminalizing migrants reduces policy options. Politicians in Europe are obsessed with “breaking” smuggling rings, with little interest in the supply/demand logics that drive them. Irregular migration becomes more spectacular, offering politicians fodder to escalate the response. This leads to right-wing parties framing migration as a civilizational threat, the starkest examples of which can be found in Austria, Hungary and Italy.

Maxime Bernier’s tweets about “extreme multiculturalism” and the “cult of diversity” were cribbed from European populists. His break from the Conservative Party in favour of forming an intellectually and morally authentic right-wing party was right on script.

Despite Conservative attempts to brush off Bernier’s defection at the party’s recent policy convention, a far-right fringe party could bleed voters. If Europe offers any lessons, the Conservatives will likely mimic Bernier’s arguments.

That both Andrew Scheer and Michelle Rempel supported far-right activists to score points against Justin Trudeau is telling. So is the fact that Conservative delegates voted for ending birthright citizenship based on apocryphal stories of citizenship tourists.

Scheer speaks at the Conservative policy convention in Halifax in August, where delegates voted in favour of ending birthright citizenship (photo by Andrew Vaughan/CP)

Canadians like to believe we are exceptionally tolerant. Environics pollster Michael Adams argues that Canada is particularly resistant to xenophobic populism, partly because of our immigration history. But the current situation reveals a different story: Canada’s openness is more about exceptional geography.

In a 2017 study, Michael Donnelly from the ��Ƶ found that Canada is no more tolerant than similar countries, and argued our resistance to populism is because we’ve been spared migration crises. That’s no longer true.

Fraying the social fabric

What can be done? The government inherited a broken refugee system from Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, but the Liberals must address unsustainable backlogs in asylum processing, which cascade through the system and decrease people’s trust in its efficacy. Conservatives must ask whether scapegoating asylum-seekers for votes is worth the cost. It frays the social fabric, and will leave them holding the bag if they win the 2019 election.

Political discourse matters. The migrants and asylum-seekers I interviewed this summer told me time and again that Salvini ascension had changed the mood. People routinely approach them in the street to tell them that their time is up and they’ll be expelled to Africa. Italian nationalists have shot migrants in the street. Recall that the Québec City mosque shooter was motivated by xenophobic nationalism. It can, and has, happened here.

All of this might sound like the moralizing of a university researcher (from Toronto, no less), so I will conclude with a national security rationale. Canada’s 2019 federal election campaign will coincide with dates for ending Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of migrants in the United States. While some might choose to come here, the more troubling option is that Donald Trump could send them our way.

Beggar-thy-neighbour policies can be used to exacerbate migration crises, and Trump is nothing if not a zero-sum thinker. As Kelly Greenhill from Tufts University has shown, states routinely use “engineered migration” to coerce or deter their rivals. Turkey did it to Europe in 2016, securing an extra three billion Euros with a threat that it would allow hundreds of thousands of asylum-seekers into Europe.

It would take a profound willed ignorance to assume Trump is beyond engineering a migration event to deflect public opinion at home, influence the Canadian elections or leverage trade concessions. Politicians from across the spectrum have a duty to ensure Canada is not exposed to that kind of blackmail, particularly not for gains at the ballot box. That means de-escalating the rhetoric and co-operating to ensure we have our house in order.

Craig Damian Smith is associate director of the Global Migration Lab at the ��Ƶ's Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Stephen Bannon's world: U of T expert on dangerous minds in dangerous times

noreen.rasbach — Thu, 26 Jul 2018 16:09:50 +0000

Stephen Bannon's world: U of T expert on dangerous minds in dangerous times

noreen.rasbach Thu, 07/26/2018 - 12:09

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Former White House strategist Steve Bannon holds a news conference with National Front party leader Marine Le Pen in the northern French city of Lille in March (photo by AP)

Ronald Beiner

Topic

Global Lens

Europe

Faculty of Arts & Science

Stephen Bannon, the rabble-rousing populist and alt-right enabler shockingly brought to the White House by Donald Trump, said the following to a gathering of the Front National in March: “Every day, we get stronger and they get weaker.…History is on our side.”

Is it true?

Bannon has not been in the White House for almost a year, yet Trump seems to be far more of a Bannonite today than he was when Bannon had an office in the West Wing, and seems to get more Bannonite with each passing day. Bannon himself recently visited Europe, where he’s planning a European right-wing “super-group.”

As the far right returns to the scene, so do worries about the possible ideological relevance of vehemently anti-liberal and anti-egalitarian thinkers like Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger – whose influences live on.

In the contemporary academic world, it has been widely assumed that Nietzsche and Heidegger are intellectual resources for the cultural and philosophical left, but in a context where the right and far right are newly resurgent, this assumption requires further scrutiny.

Dangerous philosophers

As I suggest in my new book, Dangerous Minds, intellectuals need to be far more alert than they have been in the past to potential far-right appropriations of these powerful but dangerous philosophers.

Consider as well two writers of the radical right who have been warmly embraced by the contemporary alt-right: Julius Evola and Aleksandr Dugin. Evola, the Italian baron and monocled proponent of über-fascism, the inspirer of black terrorism in Italy and an explicit disciple of Nietzsche, articulated a vision of caste-based Nietzschean neo-aristocracy.

Charles Clover, in an illuminating recent book, writes that Evola “believed that war was a form of therapy, leading mankind into a higher form of spiritual existence.”

‘Man should be overcome’

Recently, it’s come to light that Heidegger was very much attuned to Evola as a fellow critic of modernity. The modern-day Dugin – himself a disciple of Evola – presents himself as a Russian Heidegger and is published by two white-nationalist presses (Arktos and Richard Spencer’s Radix).

Aleksandr Dugin is seen at the New Horizons International Conference in May in Iran

In April 2014, Dugin was asked on Russian TV: “Is there a philosophical quote that is especially dear to you?” Dugin responded: “Yes: Man is something that should be overcome.”

Dugin didn’t specify the source of this quote, but anyone with any acquaintance with the philosophical novel Thus Spoke Zarathustra knows that it’s Nietzsche.

In the same interview, Dugin stated: “The essence of the human being is to be a soldier.” There are texts in which Dugin presents himself as a prophet of a “new aeon” that “will be cruel and paradoxical,” involving slavery, “the renewal of archaic sacredness,” and “a cosmic rampage of the Superhuman.”

He celebrates “hierarchical, vertical, ‘heroic,’ and ‘Spartan’ values.”

Such views capture quite well why the thinkers expressing these views are committed, in a faithfully Nietzschean spirit, to the root-and-branch rejection of the horizon of life embodied in liberal, bourgeois, egalitarian societies.

Liberalism is ‘dehumanizing’

Since the Enlightenment, there has been a line of important thinkers for whom life in liberal modernity is felt to be profoundly dehumanizing. Thinkers in this category include, but are not limited to, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Joseph de Maistre and Carl Schmitt.

Friedrich Nietzsche is seen here in this 1869 photo taken in Leipzig

For such thinkers, liberal modernity is so degrading that the French Revolution and its egalitarianism, traceable ultimately back to the Protestant Reformation, should be undone if possible. For all of them, hierarchy and elitism are more morally compelling than equality and individual liberty; democracy is seen as diminishing our humanity rather than elevating it.

We are unlikely to understand why fascism is still kicking around in the 21^st century unless we are able to grasp why certain intellectuals of the early 20^th century gravitated towards fascism – namely, on account of a grim preoccupation with the perceived soullessness of modernity, and a resolve to embrace any politics, however extreme, that seemed to them to promise “spiritual renewal,” to quote Heidegger.

For these thinkers and their contemporary adherents, liberalism, egalitarianism, and democracy are a recipe for absolute mediocrity and spiritual emptiness, and hence for a profound contraction of the human spirit.

Liberal democracies on the defensive

For the political-philosophical tradition within which Nietzsche and Heidegger stand, the French Revolution brought about a world in which authority resides with the herd, not with the shepherd, with the mass (the “they”), not with the elite, and as a consequence, ultimately the whole experience of life spirals down into unbearable shallowness and meaninglessness.

Ferdinand Mount, in a recent New York Review of Books essay on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, correctly writes that Nietzsche revered Goethe because “only Goethe had treated the French Revolution and the doctrine of equality with the disgust they deserved.”

Of course, Richard Spencer famously said that he was “red-pilled” by Nietzsche – the alt-right lingo meaning that Nietzsche opened his eyes to the truth of fascism.

All of this might have seemed irrelevant during the past 70 years, from about 1945 to 2015, when fascism was utterly discredited.

It doesn’t seem irrelevant today.

On the contrary, liberal democracy seems to be increasingly on the defensive. Today we have Trumpism and Bannonism in the U.S.; Putinism in Russia; Orbánism in Hungary; Erdoğanism in Turkey; Xiism in China; Modiism in India; Duterteism in the Philippines.

Admittedly, none of these leaders are as bad as Hitler or Mussolini or Stalin. But at the same time, none of them are guardians of liberal democracy.

Roger Cohen recently published a New York Times op-ed on the rise of quasi-authoritarianism in Hungary and Poland in which he quotes a former Polish foreign minister’s expression of disdain toward “those who believe history is headed inevitably toward ‘a new mixture of cultures and races, a world made up of cyclists and vegetarians, who only use renewable energy.’”

Politics can generate havoc

The project of populist nationalists in Poland and Hungary is to defend what they take to be European Christian civilization from such pathetic wimps. This, one should not fail to recognize, is a 21^st-century version of Nietzsche’s story of the last men who care only about material betterment and lack for any higher aspirations, shuffling through life without anything genuinely meaningful to live for.

Politics always has the potential to generate havoc or worse. The stakes are perhaps particularly high in a political world as unsettled as ours: where technological change is so head-spinningly rapid; where the boundaries between different societies and cultures are being renegotiated on such an epic scale; where the internet lets loose political passions so little inhibited by norms of civility; and where the most powerful man on the planet is someone as volatile as Donald Trump.

Bannon sought to encapsulate the new zeitgeist with a memorable line: “We are witnessing the birth of a new political order.”

We have to take with deadly seriousness the possibility that this is actually the case, and equip ourselves intellectually for a fully robust defense of liberal democracy.

Ronald Beiner is a professor of political science at the ��Ƶ and a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Free trade with Europe is not dead, but it’s in a coma, says U of T political scientist

lavende4 — Mon, 24 Oct 2016 13:02:21 +0000

Free trade with Europe is not dead, but it’s in a coma, says U of T political scientist

lavende4 Mon, 10/24/2016 - 09:02

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Protesters outside a meeting on CETA at the Parliament of Wallonia in Belgium (Nicolas Lambert via AFP/Getty Images)

Terry Lavender

Author legacy

Terry Lavender

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European and Canadian politicians and diplomats are scrambling this week to salvage a trade agreement that was supposed to be signed Thursday, but which is now in doubt because of the objections of Wallonia, a francophone region in Belgium.

If ratified by Canada and the European Union, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) would open up markets and drop nearly all import taxes on everything from food to cars to metal and forestry products.

U of T News spoke to Stefan Renckens, an assistant professor of political science at U of T Scarborough, about the collapse of the trade agreement. Renckens has a master’s degree from the University of Leuven in Belgium and worked there as a research and teaching assistant at the Institute for International and European Policy and as a research fellow of the Flemish Research Foundation before moving to North America.

Why is Wallonia balking at CETA?

There are substantial objections and political motivations. Substantially, one of the contentious issues is the so-called Investor-State Dispute Settlement mechanism, whereby foreign companies can sue governments. Even though a modified, more modest version has now been introduced in CETA, compared to the original draft and to other existing trade treaties, there is still a fear that this gives too much power to foreign companies and will lead to governments self-censuring out of fear of being sued by a company. In addition, there is fear – justified or not – that CETA can over time lead to a lowering of social, environmental and food safety rules, and that the elimination of trade barriers will lead to a loss of jobs in the agricultural and industrial sectors.

Considering the specific situation in Belgium, political motivations play a role as well. Over the last few months, there has been increased attention to several of these trade agreements, in particular the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), an agreement the EU is negotiating with the U.S. The negative perceptions around the TTIP negotiations have spilled over to CETA and have led to significant mobilization by civil society, which culminated in a large demonstration in Brussels in September.

Why does Wallonia have the power to veto the deal?

While the EU has the sole competence to negotiate trade agreements, the European Commission decided to label CETA as a “mixed agreement” instead of an “EU-only” agreement, indicating that both EU and member state competences were being touched upon in the agreement. As a result, 38 national and regional parliaments need to vote on CETA. This would in essence not be a problem if Belgium was a normal federal country. However, unlike other federal systems, there's no hierarchy of rules in Belgium, meaning that a decision by a regional parliament cannot be overruled at the federal level. And hence Wallonia has veto power.

Is CETA dead?

Not quite yet. The last few days, there were attempts to overcome the objections of Wallonia, especially around the dispute settlement mechanism, but they officially failed on Friday when Freeland left the negotiations. While the official deadline for an agreement was set for Friday, the unofficial one is Monday, by which time Canada would decide whether or not to cancel Justin Trudeau’s trip to the signing ceremony. Sources inside the European Commission have indicated that they will continue talking to the Wallonia government to see whether an agreement can be reached. So maybe over the weekend, we could see white smoke, but I doubt it.

Wallonia had hoped that they would get more time to negotiate. Their argument was that they notified the European Commission of their concerns already a year ago, and that not much was done to alleviate them. A few more weeks or months of negotiations shouldn’t be an issue, they argue, especially since just over the last few days several concessions have been made, which shows there is still room for negotiations. From the other side, EU officials and politicians from member states are saying that it is irresponsible to veto the agreement at such a late stage (negotiations started in 2009) and after all the other parliaments have agreed to sign. They argue that reopening the negotiations is not that easy, since it will undoubtedly put issues back on the table that negotiators thought were agreed upon. Over the last few days, the parties have only worked at improving an interpretative document that clarifies the agreement, instead of changing the agreement itself. But maybe the only way to alleviate Wallonia’s concern is to open up the agreement itself, which may be opening Pandora’s box.

Several Belgian politicians – especially of the Flemish Liberal Party Open-VLD – have suggested that the Belgian federal minister of foreign affairs should ignore Wallonia's “no” and vote in the Council of Ministers to sign the treaty anyway. This would, however, be unconstitutional and not hold up in the Belgian Constitutional Court. The Belgian minister of foreign affairs has said he will not do this. And without his yes vote, there is no agreement.

If no agreement is reached over the weekend, it looks like CETA will be at least in a coma for the near future. I believe they will try to resuscitate it at some later stage, since I don’t think they want to throw away seven years of hard work. But for now, it doesn’t look good, not just for CETA but also and especially for TTIP.

How important is CETA for Europe? For Canada?

Proponents say it will lead to economic growth and job creation. Opponents both in the EU and in Canada are saying that the gains will be modest at most. It is extremely hard to predict these potential gains, and each side has their own reports to back up their claims. Equally important as its pure economic impact is its political importance. Not signing the treaty would be a political setback for the EU, since it will be seen as an unreliable partner. EU officials are now saying that if we can’t even conclude a trade treaty with a close ally like Canada that shares many of our own values, with whom can we then credibly conclude a trade treaty? Even if it is signed in the end, it will certainly lead to a discussion on the way trade deals are negotiated by the EU and the voting procedure that is causing this crisis now.

Is Wallonia’s rejection indicative of wider European unease about free trade agreements?

There certainly is broader disagreement and concern in Europe about globalization in general, not just trade liberalization. This backlash follows in the wake of the Great Recession, austerity politics, and the emergence and popularity of populist parties. There were and still are concerns about CETA in countries such as Germany, France and Eastern European countries, even though none of them have formally blocked the process like Wallonia now has. The secrecy of the negotiations has also been used by opponents to argue that deals are being made against the interests of the people.