At the turn of the year – They missed the moment of opportunity

Across the continent For almost the entire last century there was a unanimous battle cry from the new generation at every turn. From the bourgeois Christianity, strongly anti-communist, in the scout movement. To the communist-inspired children’s organization in the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc, the pioneers. On both sides of the Iron Curtain, children had to respond to the quasi-military call of their leaders:

“To be prepared!” It was the call: And the boys responded in unison: “Always ready.”

Like a child I experienced it from both sides, from the scout movement headquarters on the western frontier in Blindern in Oslo, where there were many pornographic magazines in the attic, strongly against the purpose clause. To school 77 in Moscow, where, equally far from the purpose clause, behind the gym hung cheap port wine and smoke, where the teachers rarely dared. After all, it was an elite school, where it was a long way for the school to confront the powerful parents with all the abominations of the children. It was another way of life-lies and corruption in the days of high communism. And despite all our double standards in both worlds, we live in our time: “Be prepared! Always ready. “” Byit gotov! Vsegda gotov. “

So we were prepared – or prepared – our way, on both sides. And then it turned out that we were still almost as ill-prepared for what was to come when the ideological confrontation disappeared. We have reached the turn of the millennium. And where the Soviet Union and communism had failed, and had been thrown into the absolute garbage of history, now it was our turn, the West’s turn, to fail. This is what the latest book by Dutch journalist Geert Max is about: “Great Expectations”. Because we too, the victors, were far from prepared. For 20 years we have been very poorly prepared. For the most part. Result. Second thought.

Mak’s book is a wake-up call. To reflect. Because Mak is so precise in his analysis and descriptions that he has written the book that all self-respecting foreign journalists wish they had written themselves. And here you have to listen, because they are compliments that sit deep down.

What went wrong? On September 11, 2001, two airliners crashed into the Twin Towers in Manhattan, New York, and the world was never the same again. The spectacular terrorist attack led not only to catastrophic wars in Afghanistan, which, after all, could be justified, and to Iraq, which was by no means justified. Mak claims that in a few weeks, European immigrants went from being simply “immigrants” to becoming “Muslims.” In other words, they were suddenly stigmatized as potential terrorists. And as stigmatized, more and more young Muslims turned to extremist mosques and began to wear clothes identified with radical Islam. And we did it with cartoon and horror fights. Europe fell on “them” and “us”.

The EU is a tough try actor during the period. The euro arrived in 1998 as a boon for travelers. But in many ways it became a curse, and at least a straitjacket, when the financial crisis hit the continent in 2008. When Chancellor Angela Merkel saved the euro two years later, the Protestant cleric was full of Protestant ethics. . Budget scammers and cheaters in Greece and other southern countries not only had to pay for themselves, which they never achieve. They had to pay for their sins. What they still do, with a 40 percent unemployment rate among young people in Greece, ten years after the disaster that wiped out 25 percent of the economy. The Protestant ethic triumphed over economic reason and the banks were bought out, while large sections of the European middle class became the economic losers.

Have a chance to say no

Compassion it was another aspect of Merkel’s background that characterized the period. When he opened the borders of refugees trapped in the Balkans in the fall of 2015, he did not know what he was doing. A million refugees flocked to a continent that was not prepared at all. Closed borders, the collapse of the reception system and a total lack of solidarity were some of the consequences. A changed political landscape, with fascism on the rise, greater skepticism of the EU and even more “them” and “us” were other consequences.

And then Ukraine Knocked on the door of the EU in the winter of 2014, during another revolution, the union became concerned about the curvature of cucumbers and the size of the lids of jam jars, in places of the longings and souls of the people . Because politics is more than the technical adjustments of the Brussels bureaucrats. So let’s put Brexit in the same jargon, another disaster for the union.

Despite all that has also gone well in the last 20 years, there is reason to shed some tears over the many abused opportunities on our continent.