Speaking to US journalist Margaret Warner last Tuesday, just before his trip to meeting with President Barack Obama in Washington, Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti said that “it is very, very important that we all take this with great attention in order to avoid that something that was meant to be the culminating point of the European construction – namely, the single currency – turns out to be, through psychological negative effects, a factor of disintegration of Europe”.
...we are not yet in sync with best European cultural practice- Mario Vella
He also warned that this crisis brought about “the re-emergence of old phantoms about prejudices between the North, the South of Europe and a lot of mutual resentment”.
The phantoms Prof. Monti spoke about are indeed creeping out of the unsealed graves of European history. A case in point is the resentment of, say, German citizens that do not see why their country should bail out profligate Southern European states. Another case in point is the anger of, say, Greek citizens, who resent what they see as the cruel austerity measures that the EU, with Germany at the forefront, wants to impose on them in exchange for a bailout.
You cannot exorcise the phantom of Greek resentment by lecturing the Greek people on the rationality of firing 15,000 public sector employees, lowering the minimum wage by 22 per cent and reforming the pension system. Not when Greece is already in deep recession and unemployment in excess of 20 per cent.
Nor can you preach the phantom of German resentment back into its grave with pious sermons against egoism and self-interest for, as Zizek, following Lacan, rightly insists, “the true opposite of egotist self-love is not altruism, concern for common good, but envy, resentment”.
Of course it is not, as St Augustine reminds us, by harbouring anger and resentment that situations are resolved. Indeed, he argues, to do so is like taking poison and expecting the other to die.
Situations as dangerous and complex as the European crisis – for it is much more than the crisis of the euro, much more than public debt crisis, much more than an economic crisis – can only be resolved if, to start with, we overcome the fear of discussing them openly. By openly I mean outside of the sterile dogma and the tired rhetoric of a political paradigm that opposes Euro enthusiasts and Eurosceptics.
Now, the 69 year old Prof. Monti, an economist and a former European commissioner for the internal market, services, customs and taxation (1995-1999) and for competition (1999-2004), can certainly not be accused of being a Eurosceptic. And, yet, what an abyss separates Prof. Monti from those politicians and bureaucrats who are unable to think outside of the narrow box of Euro-babble and who float around in a Euro-bubble of their own making, far from the increasingly resentful Europeans that inhabit the real Europe.
Does that make Prof. Monti a Eurosceptic? On the contrary, Europe’s salvation lies with those who, like him, have the political will and the intellectual competence necessary to call a spade a spade. His advantage probably lies in his experience, one that has enabled him to understand that Europe’s Achilles heels are not so much its most fiscally uncouth member states but, possibly, its very structure.
Overcoming the present crisis, therefore, requires innovative critical approaches. For Europe’s sake.
The crisis, it must be said, has not only generated resentment and anger but has also, on the positive side, stimulated attempts to better understand what is going on, what brought it about and how it can be overcome. There are clear indications of intellectual ferment, of creativity and of innovation. A case in point is the forthcoming third annual conference of the Institute for New Economic Thinking (Inet) to be held in April in Berlin with the theme Paradigm Lost: Rethinking Economics And Politics.
The institute, set up in 2009 with an endowment by George Soros – whose own views on the structural nature of the present European crisis were stated in no uncertain terms at the World Economic Forum in Davos three weeks ago – will bring together about 300 scholars, students, journalists, and policymakers seeking “new economic thinking that is open, credible, and relevant in the current world; that offers vision amid uncertainty and that fosters cooperation where there is fragmentation”.
Taking place in the heart of Europe, Europe will also be a central theme of this event.
It is disheartening, within this perspective, to note that, once again, we find ourselves in the cultural backwaters of Europe.
Alfred Sant, in his recent book Malta And The Euro – a study that I have yet to discuss in this columns – argues against dogmatism. Some – but certainly not all and certainly not those that I have often referred to in this column as quiet “thinking Nationalists” – have cited this as a proof of his Euroscepticism. Had these “some” taken the trouble to really read this book, they would have been less rash in their judgement.
Branding (without seriously engaging with) an engaging study such as this one is a sign that we are not yet in sync with best European cultural practice. It is a symptom of cultural poverty such as does not befit a country whose capital is making a bid to be European Capital of Culture in 2018.
Unless and until we overcome this state of poverty we will not be part of the solution of the European crisis but part of the problem.
Dr Vella blogs at http://watersbroken.wordpress.com .