1989: The Beginning of the End of the European Divide
It’s a bit strange for me to be speaking English here, but since everyone here understands the language, it seemed like the best solution. It’s strange for me because I’ve always wanted to visit this place, where Willy Brandt used to work. He’s one of my great heroes, a source of inspiration, someone whose works I’ve read and digested. I recently reread his biography. He has really inspiring things to say about Europe. When I was listening to the speech of Iveta Radičová just now, about things not being what they seem, I was reminded of one of the first jokes I heard after coming to Russia, which was still the Soviet Union at the time. I hope it works in English.
A man walks up to a policeman and says, ‘Please sir, can you tell me where I can find the shop called Principle?’ ‘Hmm…the name doesn’t ring a bell. Why are you looking for it?’ ‘Well, I went to the bakery and asked if they had any bread, and they said, “Well, in principle...” Then I went to the grocer’s and asked if they had any vegetables, and they said, “Well, in principle...” So now I’m looking for this shop called Principle.’
This neatly sums up the split between illusion and reality in the Soviet system, and I believe that if you look at Europe today, this split has undermined the ability of many former Communist systems to transform more rapidly. If I may step outside the EU context for a moment, one of the reasons Russia is struggling today, and one of the reasons we have never had a good Russia policy in the West, is our belief that concepts like democracy, the market economy and freedom had been so totally distorted and misrepresented during the Soviet period that the population would reject them when they eventually came along. We in the West are partly to blame for this, because we accepted it. In our search for stability, we bought into this total fabrication. We also did it to ourselves. During the eight years of Bush, the rest of the world was urged to embrace human rights and the rule of law, while the US reserved the right to run a place like Guantánamo Bay. Accusations of double standards were heard around the world, including in our own societies.
I hail President Obama for his efforts to reinstate the values we call democracy, the rule of law, transparency. We need to do this; this is one of the fundamental issues before us as Europeans. I say this coming from a country where a great many concepts have been put into question over the last couple of years. I want to explain why this is. We need to understand what is happening in a country like the Netherlands if we want to understand the challenges we face as Europeans: north and south, east and west. I’ve already spoken of our mutilation of some of our most cherished values, the knee-jerk reaction that occurred after 9/11, but it’s more than that.
The Wall fell exactly 20 years ago. I had a great day today with the students, travelling along the former Wall, talking with people who had experienced the prison of daily life under the oppression of the GDR. It was a great day because it will give the students so much to think about and to use in their own lives. But if you look back over those 20 years, one of the mistakes we’ve made in the west is to think that the end of the European divide would turn the east into the west without affecting the west at all. This is a fundamental flaw in our thinking. The end of the European divide has obviously changed the east more visibly than the west, but the west has changed as well. We fail to see this and its consequences.
Let me focus on the consequences for my own country. First of all, we have a 400-year tradition of not wanting to be sucked into the murky business of continental politics. We’ve always tried to stay on the sidelines. The last time we were dragged into the fray was in 1672, when the great powers of Europe entered into an agreement to make sure the Dutch would stay where they belonged. They formed a coalition to defeat us, and it was very successful – from their perspective, not ours. Since then, we’ve always tried to maintain our neutrality, trade with the rest of the world and stay away from European politics. That, of course, all changed on 10 May 1940, when we were invaded by Germany. And from that moment on, it was clear we needed to integrate ourselves into alliances to make sure this never happened again. This was a constant element in our foreign policy, and it remains so today.
But the end of the European divide and the collapse of the Soviet Union called into question the basic premises spawned on 10 May 1940 and reactivated those elements of the Dutch DNA that longed to be neutral again. And what we’ve seen in public perceptions of Europe is an increasing aversion to being drawn into the ‘murky business’ of European politics. People want to be good Europeans. In every poll the Dutch always come out as the most pro-European, and you see that Dutch are strong supporters of the internal market and everything that goes with it. But they are very reluctant Europeans when it comes to talk of a political union or other elements that would build a united Europe. It is important to see this neutrality reflex in the context of current trends in Dutch society, but unfortunately it is more than that.
If you look at Western European societies, for the first time since the Second World War, the middle classes do not automatically believe in progress. Many people in the Netherlands, and probably in Germany as well, feel they have reached the pinnacle, and it’s all downhill from here. And the enlargement of the EU, which is the single most important historical event I will ever see in my lifetime, is seen as increasing the speed of the decline rather than strengthening us in our pursuit of progress. We had an interesting talk today in the bus, and our guide said at some point, ‘You’ve heard many people share their perspectives, but they all came from the east. Let me give you my western perspective.’ She was very humble and also a bit ashamed about how she felt in 1989. I admired her honesty in talking to us about this. She said, ‘At some point in November 1989, all these people started appearing in our streets, with their homemade perms and their funny-looking jeans and their plastic leather jackets and their Trabis, which stank up the town. They all wanted something from us. Two women approached me and asked for money to make a phone call, and I didn’t give it to them.’ She said she looks back on this with shame, but she felt that her cosy, little world of West Berlin was being invaded.
I was struck by this description because it’s so similar to what is going on in Dutch society. It’s something that’s struck us more than we’re willing to admit since the end of the European divide. What’s with these new kids on the block, who look different and smell different and act differently – what the hell are they doing here? They’re taking something away from us. Since then, this sense that people are coming to take things away from us has become increasingly dominant. We need to fight this. If democratic politics is to survive, we need to fight this mindset, because it’s killing our society. In Dutch society it’s sometimes Eastern Europeans who are the scapegoat, but after 9/11 it has also been Islam. In a country of 16 million, we have a minority of a little under one million people you could call Muslims, of all different types: 350,000 Turks, 350,000 Moroccans, some other groups as well. They were called Turks or Moroccans or Somalis until 12 September, when they all became Muslims, and they’ve been Muslims ever since.
Islam has become the symbol of everything that’s wrong with society, of all the people who are coming to take things away from us. It is important to understand this feeling. (This is not just happening in the Netherlands of course, but that’s the country I know best.) We need to understand this feeling before we can come up with an answer. While we shouldn’t respond in the language of moral superiority – saying that these feelings are wrong and that people shouldn’t have them – we do need to define the issue in moral terms, which is not the same thing. If we’ve learned anything from our parents and grandparents, it’s that sharing leads to a better situation for everyone.
This brings me to my final challenge in Dutch society. I’ve spoken about a feeling of loss and decline. I’ve spoken about the feeling of being overwhelmed by newcomers and the loss of control that that brings with it. If you’re a medium-sized country like the Netherlands and you’re one of six in the European Economic Community, you still have some measure of influence. If you’re one of nine, it’s still okay. Ten, 12, 15: still fine. But 27? Wait a minute now. Six big ones, 20 small ones, and us in the middle. At least, that’s how the Dutch see it. Rightly or wrongly it’s a strong feeling that we’re losing control over what’s happening in our neighbourhood. At least the feeling that our control diminished is very strong. My third point has to do with the way society is structured. Traditionally in Western European society, and in Dutch society as well, around 20% of the population would be very well off. This is the group that can buy itself out of a problem. They can go somewhere else, if things aren’t great where they happen to be at the moment. Those people are still there. Many of the people in this room fall into that category. (We always talk to each other and not to the others; that’s one of our problems.)
Then you have the middle classes, around half of the population. They used to look at that top 20% and say, ‘I’d like to be up there with them.’ Now they look at them and they get angry: ‘You tell us we can’t have higher pay because our jobs will go to China, but your salary is 500 times ours. And look at the mess you’ve made of the economy. You tell us there’s a relationship between our work and our pay, but we don’t see any relationship between what you’re getting and what you’re doing for us.’ So they’re angry at those 20%. But unfortunately, they’re also anxious about the 30% that are less well off. In the past they would say, ‘Come and join us. It’s better for society. If you can better yourself, do so. We’ll give you the tools.’ Now their fear of decline prompts them to say, ‘My primary goal is to prevent ending up like you. I want you to stay as far as possible from me. Don’t bother me with your problems. Go away.’ This is a fundamental problem in Dutch society and in Western society in general.
Now, let’s move on to the solutions; I don’t want to leave you completely depressed. The first solution is about reconnecting with our past and the context in which we operate. If we can understand what our parents and grandparents did to overcome war and tyrannies and all the other obstacles in their lives. In Dutch society we’ve lost our connection with our past, and we need to do something about that. If we realise that, we can surmount the challenges we face today, be they ecological, geopolitical, etc.
Secondly, as I’ve already mentioned, we need to go back to our basic values. We need to talk more about the kind of society we want to live in. We’ve been far too practical, especially in the European debate. We should go back to our principles, to our values, to what we stand for. We don’t do this nearly enough.
Thirdly, we need to find a new language, a language that will inspire the younger generation. I get angry when people from my generation say that young people have no ideas and that they’re disconnected. They have ideas; they have ideals: your ideals and my ideals. They have a different language, a different way of communicating, a different way of organising. We need to mobilise that. If Obama can do it in the United States, we can do it in Europe. We need to find the ways to do so that young people can understand that they have the potential to kick out old farts like me and do a better job. That’s the first step towards change, the first step towards a better society.
My last point is that we need to have the courage to do things that are counterintuitive. If you analyse the situation, you will come to the conclusion that we need to operate on a European scale, not a national one. At this stage, when people are afraid of loss, to say that they should pool their efforts at European level is increasing their uncertainty. It is counterintuitive, but politicians need to have the courage not to cater to the prevailing sentiment, but to fight against it and say, ‘This is the new way to solve the issue: at European level.’
Let me finish on this point. We Europeans want to determine our own future, according to values that say, ‘If people in this society are sick, they will be taken care of. If people need schooling, they will get the best education, on the basis of their talents, not their income. If people are old we will not let them slide into poverty, but we will make sure they have decent pensions.’ We feel solidarity with people in need in this society. If we want to do this, in a world that is changing rapidly, under the influence of 1.2 billion Chinese and 1 billion Indians, we can only do this on a European scale. That is my plea. That is my hope. That is what I would like to convey to the younger generation. You need to step up to the plate, grab the bat and hit a homerun.
Thank you.