Debaathisation and it's repercussions

It seems an age ago that Paul Bremer made that fateful decison to remove all Baath Party members from Iraq. In doing so he took the rug from under the Iraqi people.

Recovering from war is a tricky thing at the best of times and yet what is certain is that key positions and functions must be kept operational if the transition is to be successful.

This was known in 1945 with regard to Nazi Germany.  The Allies knew that if they removed all Nazi members they would be removing the very fabric of German society: school teachers, police officers and fire fighters.

It appears that the provisional authority were not keen historians and did in fact this very thing. Overnight hundreds of thousands of soldiers, police and civil servants were got rid of. Understandably they were a bit peeved and as they say ... the rest is history.

Do we want the same for Syria?

If we get rid of Assad what will happen?  How much of the "regime" will need to fall? I'm sure the united opposition would like to get rid of all members of the "party" but this can not happen; we can not allow history to repeat itself. ... someone has to manage the country!

European Identity - From a construct to the innate

I recently read an article on Facebook criticising the rewriting of European history through the use of school text books. The article claimed that the books were glossing over the many divisions within European history in order to create the sense of a common European identity and thus an unstoppable process culminating naturally in a European State.

I am not going to talk about the rights and wrongs of the case against the textbooks, as I have not read them. Rather, I would like to discuss the idea that there is no such thing as a European identity.

Jean Paul Sarte once said that "we are what we make of what others make of us". A bit of a confusing statement I know :) but essentially he was always of the opinion that identity is something we create when dealing with the world around us.

The question is not therefore, is European identity something that has always existed but is this something that we can identify now. Are there things that identify Europeans as different to the rest of the world which overrides the differences between the individual identities? That does not mean that we must get rid of the others. We all carry many identities: I am English, British, a husband, a man, a teacher etc .  . These all play different roles in my life.

Returning to the idea if a constructed identity; both the British and American identities are the products of very discernible historical events. If you were to ask a resident of England living in 1650 about their sense of identity then you would be unlikely to get anything wider than English.  The Act of Union of 1707 created the political entity of Britain but it took many years to forge a common identity.  This process was still going on in the 19th century. 

In a similar way American identity was forged through the War of Independence yet even as late as the 1860s this identity was still somewhat artificial. The Civil War was horrifically bloody and pitted two very different identities against one another. The south were able to declare succession due in a large part to the lack of a sense of common identity with the north.

Yet today, in 2016, would we question the existence of either British or American identity? Of course not, they have both been forged through the common histories and exploits of their respective people. As with many things in life,  hardships often play a greater role in creating identity than prosperity. The idea of a common "other" an "enemy" will cement the sense of a shared identity faster than anything else.

This unfortunate fact means that until Europeans are forced to face the world together, then they probably won't. That said, it is just a matter of time before this identity is forced upon us and we have to 'make of what others make of us'. 

Jeremy

The road to peace

As we approach the date set by the British Prime Minister for a UK referendum on EU membership it is perhaps easy to loose track of the big picture. Both sides if the in/out argument seem to focus on the business and work reasons for staying in or getting out. But is this everything?

Are we purely mercantile egoists calculating our immediate gain without any regard to history or destiny? Britain did not become a prosperous liberal democracy through ignoring what was the right thing to do. Take the slaver trade for instance,  in 1807 and 1833 respectively  the slave trade and slavery were abolished. This was undoubtedly against the economy interests of the economy at the time, but was the right thing to do.

Taking this argument forward a bit; Britain's declaration of war against Germany in September 1939 made little economic sense. We were well-prepared for such an endeavour as the following 'phoney war' proved.  That said, morally it was the right thing to do. It was also the right strategic decision in the long term. Sometimes we must bite the bullet and take the mediate hardships in order to obtain some great prize.

That said, the economic arguments for or or against a British EU exit are far from a foregone conclusion. The one thing that economists do agree on is that it is impossible to predict the full repercussions of such a withdrawal. We should therefore perhaps refocus the argument, away from business and back to people's lives.

What do people gain from being in the EU and what do they loose? The average voter is not affected by the regulations regarding the city if London and has in fact more in common with a factory worker in Germany or Slovakia than they do with a stockbroker in London. Whereas the UK government is increasingly under the influence of big business it is in fact the EU'S labour laws that are the best protector of workers' rights in the UK.

The EU offers a path to integration and interdependency which acts as a deterrent for aggressive and destabilising national policies. Outside of the EU Britain would undoubtedly be forced into protectionist policies as its work and business market would be proportionately disadvantaged with regards its much large neighbour. Without the UK the EU would undoubtedly forge ahead towards deeper integration resulting in an insurmountable gap between the UK and the rest of Europe.

An independent UK standing alone against a federal Europe in say 50 years time would be in a very poor situation. By 2060 it is easy to forecast that China will have completed its ascendancy and be truly regarded as a global power, whilst the rest of the BRIC  countries will be on a similar level to that of many Western Europe  countries today. The one difference being population. Brazil,India and Russia all have population potential that far outstrips the most likely growth of any EU country. Once there economy has been developed enough then their greater population will be their true asset providing a workforce that we will be unable to match.

Whilst the USA and EU would be in a position to compete with the BRIC countries, the UK would be in  a marginalised position with perhaps only it's banking industry providing any rest-bite. However, as seen by the 2011 London Riots, the gulf between the haves and have-nots is already creating social problems and these would only be exasperated by an increasingly isolated UK.

As fuels decrease in abundancy the chances of conflict increase still further. We are already seeing the effects of a changing economy on our military.  The cuts announced by the Conservative government were met with warnings by seasoned generals on both sides of the Atlantic. A UK standing alone would have little chance of securing increasingly scarce resources or having an affect on international policy. The USA would be forced to deal with the EU over the UK as this would represent the best economic and thus strategic partner.

Returning to the opening argument, the EU grew out of the Coal and Steel Community which had a primary aim of integrating the industries of France and Germany in order to decrease the chance of war.  Although the industries of war have perhaps changed, the need for integration has not.  If you value peace and prosperity then you have but one choice: Vote no to a British exit.