Xenophobes Win, Homophobes Lose
Michael C. Moynihan | October 22, 2007, 2:10pm
Good news and bad news from Europe this weekend. First, the good news from Poland, where the free-market Civic Platform, led by Donald Tusk, received 41 percent of the vote in Sunday's general election. The outgoing government of Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski—co-founder of the Euroskeptic, hyper-nationalist, homophobic Law and Justice Party—won't be missed by many in Brussels (or, it seems, among Poland's young, urban voters). Tusk promised that, if elected, his party would push for a 15 percent flat tax on both corporate and individual income and ease restrictions on the hiring and firing of employees. For all of Law and Justice's reprehensible policies (like that delightful suggestion that gays should not be allowed teaching positions), I'll give them a some—but not much—credit for its aggressive lustration policies, aimed at purging Polish politics of collaborators with the Soviet puppet government. The right idea, poorly executed.
And now for the bad news: In Switzerland, the anti-immigration SVP trounced the opposition Social Democrats, who lost nine seats in the lower house of parliament and managed only 19 percent of the vote nationwide. Also distressing, the free-market Free Democratic Party lost voters to the SVP, shedding five seats from the 2003 election. The SVP managed an impressive 29 percent of the vote, solidifying its position as the country's largest political party, and gaining seven seats in the Swiss parliament. The AFP has reaction from Geneva:
"It's the strongest score of any party" since 1919, political scientist Hans Hirter told AFP. The daily Le Matin dubbed the result a "triumph" for the SVP and the architect of its shift to the right over the past two decades, Justice Minister Christoph Blocher. The establishment Neue Zuercher Zeitung, however, warned of "increasing polarisation" in Switzerland.
Here is the vote breakdown, courtesy of Tages-Anzeiger (From left, the major parties listed: Swiss People's Party (SVP), Social Democrats (SD), Free Democratic Party (FDP), Christian Democrats (CVP), Greens (GPS)):
Matt Jenny | October 22, 2007, 4:21pm | #
Michael C. Moynihan,
Three minor corrections on the situation in Switzerland:
Also distressing, the free-market Free Democratic Party lost voters to the SVP, shedding five seats from the 2003 election.
Like most European parties that call themselves "liberal", the Swiss Free Democratic Party is definitely more libertarian than what is considered "liberal" in the US, but it is nonetheless not particularly libertarian. They're pretty much middle ground on most issues. As a Swiss libertarian, I had no reason to vote for the FDP.
(From left, the major parties listed: Swiss People's Party (SVP), Social Democrats (SD), Free Democratic Party (FDP), Christian Democrats (CVP), Greens (GPS)):
The Swiss abbreviation for the Swiss Social Democrats is "SP". In the Swiss political context, "SD" stands for the
Schweizer Demokraten (Swiss Democrats), a minor nationalist and state socialist party (though not explicitly Neonazi -- there is a Neonazi party in Switzerland called PNOS, but they're even smaller than the SD).
The
following isn't altogether true either:
The SVP is generally free-market, unlike most other xenophobic parties in Europe.
While the SVP could maybe be regarded as more free-market oriented than the FDP, it's still nowhere from libertarian. Their xenophobic, anti-immigration stance is just the most obvious. Apart from that, they also are the most hysterical supporters of agricultural subsidies (the party was founded as the "Farmers, Artisans, and Citizens' Party"). And they've launched a citizen's initiative to ban Muslims from building Minarets. The party also officially opposed civil unions between homosexuals when that was put to a vote a few years ago. Plus, they're pretty rigidly anti-drugs.
Apart from these points, though, the SVP is probably less dangerous than France's Le Pen or Austria's Jörg Haider, regardless of what is being written in the
New York Times and other newspapers about Switzerland soon becoming a fascist nation or whatever. And even if the SVP actually were openly fascist and still got their 29% of the votes, they still couldn't reign arbitrarily over the Swiss population due to the unique
political system in Switzerland.
Still, it is a very sad fact that the SVP got most of its votes due to their populistic and xenophobic appearance. They've constantly been gaining more power since the 1990s -- since Switzerland experienced a quite large influx of refugees from the Yugoslav Wars. But this wasn't a unique experience. For example, Switzerland experienced a big influx of Italian guest workers in the 1970s and, of course, that didn't mean the end to civilization in Switzerland. So the recent immigration issues in Switzerland are in my view hugely blown out of proportion by the power hungry SVP populists and their supporters.
gib | October 23, 2007, 11:38am | #
"gib, what percentage of Muslims in Europe and America favor female circumcision or killing people for blasphemy? Are those figures rising or falling? What percentage would be enough to legally limit the immigration of Muslims?"
Question 1: Does the exact percentage matter as much as just the fact that violent reaction to having one's sacred cows skewered is a palpable, tangible reality wherever there are large populations of Muslims? Does that figure matter as much as the fact that European newspaper editors and on the street journalists, as well as governments, take the threats seriously enough to change course, censor material, fail to print critical material, hide people who have had a fatwa put on their head, etc.?
Question 2: I don't know but I do know that the Dutch filmaker who was killed for making a movie wouldn't care much whether he was part of a rising or falling statistic. And the millions of girls suffering from genital mutilation are not decreasing in numbers in any sort of rapid fashion.
Question 3: That's unrelated to my point. In fact I largely favor open immigration. My point was that an equivalence to how Muslims, Christians, and Jews react to being offended cannnot be blithely drawn. Additionally, it isn't just the figures that are important. There might be as many Christians as Muslims who oppose enlightenment values - yet, tacitly at least most western Christians accept them in that violent reaction is much rarer these days and operates on a smaller scale.
iih,
You forgot Somalia, largely a Muslim country. I suppose you're right that it's a phenomenon that, to some degree, transcends religion, yet considering that millions of African girls, predominantly in Muslim contexts, are suffering from this practice, it appears that the *practitioners* believe that it's sanctified by the Koran. So whether or not the Koran supports this cruelty, just as more moderate Muslims say that the Koran does not advocate Jihadism the way its interpreted by fundamentalists, the sad fact is that millions of Muslims believe that it does and react violently to having it disobeyed or criticized.
Matt | October 23, 2007, 6:43pm | #
Michael C. Moynihan:
Being of Polish origins myself and having relatives currently living in Poland, there are some corrections on the situation in Poland I'd like to make:
As for "the Euroskeptic, hyper-nationalist, homophobic Law and Justice Party":
While one could argue about the Euroskepticism of the Law and Justice Party (while the EU negotiations were bitter, the party's leader did sign and hence eventually supported the EU Reform Treaty, despite the protests coming mainly from the right-wing opposition), I do not think "hyper-nationalist" is a correct characterization of this party. It has been mostly applied by the more Euroenthusiastic part of the political scene in order to portray the opposition to the Reform Treaty in a negative light (the opposition included, more specifically - for example - the disagreements related to the EU's "Charter of Fundamental Rights" - even though it was quite mild compared to, say, the non-negotiable 'red lines' of the UK ex-prime minister, Tony Blair; and one certainly can't characterize the Labour Party as "hyper-nationalist"). "Nationalistic" would apply rather for the parties like the UKIP in the UK (and even in this case I wouldn't call it "hyper-"), and the concessions made by Law and Justice Party put it very far from that position. Taking into account the noise made by it during the negotiations, with virtually no results, I would rather call it "incompetent."
As for the homophobia - I've heard of a few remarks made by the member of the party, including the one you've recalled, but (thankfully) none of that was reflected in the actual policies and/or the party platform, and harsh criticism at home included the members of the very same party. Though I consider that one could make a case a public person should be careful with using certain words, there's also "free speech" v. "responsible speech" issue involved here - being a believer in a full free speech rights I will be the last one to criticize anyone for just saying what seems irresponsible or even just plain crazy (even though I may disagree wholeheartedly) - on the other hand, standing up for individual rights as well, I'd probably be the first one to criticize the attempts to actually implement any of potentially discriminatory policies. So I'm somewhat mixed on that one...
I'd say there's one word which would correctly and aptly characterize the type of the party the Law and Justice was and still is: "reactionary."
Promoting the obsolete government regulations, socialism and heavy economic interventionism, coupled with the lack of ability to professionally negotiate with the EU, resorting to the class-warfare rhetoric in the name of "solidarity" (using the term as a Polish equivalent to 'socialism') and pandering to some voters promising the benefits, subsidies, and so forth.
One thing is for sure - the majority of the Poles does not feel sorry this party has finally lost power [well, possibly excluding the 30% of its voters ;)] - and rightly so.
As for the "free-market Civic Platform" - as much as I (or anyone for that matter) would like to believe that - nothing can be further from true.
The Civic Platform can be more correctly characterized as an ordoliberal party, with some Christian-democratic influences/factions. The corresponding economic model is the "social market economy" (stemming from the ordoliberalism, though also strongly influenced by the "social democracy" - meaning here a continental European economic model (with Germany and CDU party being the main examples) - though distinctively different from the Scandinavian socialism - also a political ideology belonging to a wider class known and referred to as "socialism"). Ordoliberalism generally promotes anti-trust regulations, central bank monetary ("stabilizing") interventions, taxes raising revenues enough to ensure balanced budgets (as opposed to lower taxes coupled with lower spending), collective bargaining (incl. a privileged role for the trade unions). "Social market economy" boils down to support of the continental European model of the post-WW2 welfare state in general.
The Christian-democratic contributions to the Civic Platform are conservative stances on social and ethical issues, including opposition to abortion, gay marriage, euthanasia and stem cell research. (Not just funding of the research, but the research per se.)
I guess I can also refer to "10 promises", on which the Civic Platform ran in this campaign:
http://www.platforma.org/aktualnosci/newsy/art108,dziesiec-zobowiazan-platformy-.html
(in Polish, sorry; below is my attempt at translation):
1. We'll accelerate and make use of the economic growth.
2. We'll radically increase the wages in the public sector, raise the pensions and retirement benefits.
3. We'll build modern highways, expressways, bridges and beltways.
4. We'll guarantee universal health care and get rid of the National Health Fund (NFZ).
5. We'll simplify the tax code - by introducing the flat tax with pro-family rebate, getting rid of over 200 fees and charges
6. We'll expedite construction of new stadiums for the (UEFA) Euro 2012.
7. We'll quickly fulfill our mission in Iraq.
8. We'll make the emigrants from Poland want to come home and invest in Poland
9. We'll improve the education level and popularize the Internet
10. We'll actually fight the corruption.
Now - 1st one could mean both pro-growth policies (which could be a nice thing) and expansionary fiscal policies (much less fun). "Making use" has a redistributive bent to it. The voting record of the members is quite mixed, so I guess we'll just have to see.
I guess that pts. no. 2, 3, 4, 6 and 9 can be safely characterized as socialism (the "education" system to be improved is the state public education system, supported by the Civic Platform /not a mention of even trying a voucher system, forget about private education/, the "popularization" of the Internet is meant in a redistributive sense - as in "Every home should have Internet access" (c) Democratic Party, incl. the possible price regulations in the telecom. industry).
Point no. 7 reminds of the Democratic Party and its empty promises backed with no real plan for victory or just coming home (no matter where are you coming from, I guess there's not much of an argument about the failure of the Democrats with this respect.)
Point no. 5 - "simplifying the tax code" - reflects the fact that ordoliberal Civic Platform stands in the very opposition to what Goldwater stood for. To explain why I'm not impressed, let me just quote Goldwater himself:
"
I have little interest in streamlining government in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have failed their purpose, or that will impose an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is 'needed' before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible."
If you'd like to look for the opposite side to the argument made by Goldwater, the Civic Platform fits just about right. The very important point is that the proposed tax code changes are supposed to be "revenue neutral" - that is merely changing the way the taxes are collected, not decreasing their level (and unfortunately - not a chance of smaller government, lower spending / fiscal restraint, or any of that...) That also includes "getting rid of the NFZ" in pt. 4 - in the Civic Platform plan the taxes will be raised directly by the state instead through the NFZ, not lowered. Socialized health care is not only going to be left intact, but "guaranteed."
This very way of thinking - rarely considering whether something is good for the individual taxpayer - rather, always putting "what's good for the budget" first - is something I'd consider an anathema to the free-marketeers.
Getting rid of fees and charges sounds great. Points 8 [if that's meant in a voluntary sense ;)] and 10 sound nice as well - as many other campaign promises do - I guess all of them remain to be verified...
The other thing which I might add is the unwavering support for the EU's "Charter of Fundamental Rights"... I'm not saying all of it is necessarily bad, but what it also includes is:
"
Article 14 Right to education
- 1. Everyone has the right to education and to have access to vocational and continuing training.
- 2. This right includes the possibility to receive free compulsory education.
- 3. The freedom to found educational establishments with due respect for democratic principles and the right of parents to ensure the education and teaching of their children in conformity with their religious, philosophical and pedagogical convictions shall be respected, in accordance with the national laws governing the exercise of such freedom and right."
"
Article 23 Equality between men and women
- Equality between men and women must be ensured in all areas, including employment, work and pay. The principle of equality shall not prevent the maintenance or adoption of measures providing for specific advantages in favour of the under-represented sex."
(effectively allowing for the 'gender affirmative action')
