"Brexit was against austerity"

 

      Anyone who has already begun to experience apocalyptic nightmares because of Brexit should read an interview with Micheline Calmy-Rey, conducted by Geneva correspondent Jamil Chade, published by Estado de S. Paulo (July 26, 2016). It allows for some rationality in the debate.

      Former Swiss president, where he also served as foreign policy director, and a social democrat by training, Calmy-Rey helps to distance the debate from the ideological fantasies that accompanied the formation of the European Union, often presented as a kind of capitalist version of a world without borders, without class conflicts or national interests, which can be found in the work of the founders of communism. The conventional view today is that this dream universe collapsed after 52% of Britons voted to leave the EU.

       Even while acknowledging that the formation of the European Union played a historical role in weakening the dictatorships that survived on the Continent, such as fascism in Spain and Portugal, and the military dictatorship in Greece, Calmy-Rey shows that this dreamlike, tolerant, and egalitarian Europe never existed.

      "The vote was about globalization, the free movement of people and capital," he says, "In globalization, some people win. But there are losers. People who lose their homes, their jobs, their means of transportation, and even their identity. (...) Over the years, multinational corporations have always won. Those who suffer are small businesses and artisans."

       To explain Brexit, Calmy-Rey states that "we need to understand that there is a revolt against the elites. A vote against job losses and against austerity. That's how we have to understand what happened."

      The usefulness of this perspective is easy to understand – and not only for European citizens. The debate helps to recognize the current forms of capitalist development, dominated by enormous financial interests and a minority group that is socially, but extremely powerful from a political standpoint. This same situation explains, among other events, Michel Temer and Henrique Meirelles's brutal maneuver to freeze public investments for 20 years.

      Calmy-Rey allows us to recognize the immense gap between the European Union offered to the most educated and wealthy segments of society, who have access to a vast market of opportunities and comforts, including choosing the country where they want to live without major problems, and an excluded majority, for whom opportunities have been diminished and even eliminated. According to the former president, the big news in Brexit was that the vast majority of those affected made it clear that they refuse to bear the burden of sacrifice alone.

     Given the growth of fascist-inspired movements, one of the visible symptoms of the current European malaise, this perspective helps to remind us that there will be no honest – nor effective – response to the situation without a courageous debate about the economic policies imposed on the people of each of the current 28 EU member states.

    What is being discussed is a review of the austerity and low-growth policy that the IMF, the European Central Bank, and the European Union are pursuing over 28 countries, regardless of who is elected.  

     Without investment or incentives for growth, it is a mathematical certainty that the struggle for accessible wealth can only intensify, fueling nostalgic reactions and reactionary, exclusionary projects that seek to justify themselves based on cultural diversity among populations.

    The risk is predictable and can even be seen on the horizon for certain countries. It could lead to a desperate situation like that of Europe in the 1930s, the birthplace of Nazism and Fascism, when the lack of prospects for their lives and the future of their families led immense segments of the population—those with the best formal education on the planet—to support totalitarian movements and criminal practices.  

    In fact, cultural differences between populations within the same society have always existed and often function as a factor of diversity, renewal, and enrichment for both groups. It is impossible to tell the story of science, medicine, and culture in countries that define themselves as Western without acknowledging the immense—and often minimized—contribution of non-European peoples, beginning with the Arabs.

    This situation can lead to scapegoating when, instead of offering a material foundation based on shared rights and opportunities, daily life merely reinforces inequality, privilege, and prejudice. This gives rise to ambitions of dominance and subjugation. 

     Defending solidarity and other values ​​essential to all human society will be nothing more than empty—and demagogic—praise as long as it is not accompanied by practical measures to address inequality and impoverishment. This is the debate in Europe today.