My thoughts after the 2016 US presidential election conventions - July 31,2016

How strange and riveting the past two weeks had been. This past week our evenings were fully occupied by the televised events from the Democratic National Convention, while the previous week we were similarly occupied by the telecasts from the Republican National Convention. What contrast! What totally contrarian approach to solving the very same society’s very same problems. One suggests unification through the joint efforts by all, the other proclaims exclusionary discrimination against many.

On one side we have a very much experienced and well educated woman who is very knowledgeable in the affairs of the world-order; on the other side we have a rich misogynistic “nut-case” who is well experienced in performing on television, and whose primary accomplishment besides staring in TV “reality shows” has been the successful mastering of the high art of profitably bankrupting business enterprises. Hillary Clinton devoted her entire professional career to solving social and societal problems. Donald Trump focused on filling his pockets with profits derived from the impoverishment of others.

In the past Hillary Clinton in her public-political activities committed several well-known errors; Donald Trump did nothing. Only those make no mistakes who do not try to solve real problems.

In his excellent and uplifting address at the Democratic Convention president Obama raised the fundamental question: “Who are we as a people?” Based on their observations during their travels two-hundred years ago in the young USA that had fewer than 15 million inhabitants then, in their books the French Alexis de Tocqueville (“American Democracy”, 1835) and the Hungarian Sandor Boloni Farkas (“Travels in North America”, 1834) gave their answers: they saw democracy in action where all citizens were equal (unlike in Europe where royal mandate mostly ruled then). Now the trumpists advertising Trumpism are denying at every opportunity the fundamental American belief in democracy and are promoting a new exclusionary credo. - - On one side stands the centuries old American attitude, based on cheerful optimism, forward look, progress by joining all the forces of our multi-ethnic society and going forward united. On the other side we face the ugliness of Trumpism based on fear, anger, and social division, rejecting diversity and trying to forge political capital from discriminatory targeting of easily identified minorities. - - Now we have here a face-off between the audacity of hope and pessimistic isolationism.

A well-qualified experienced individual advocating, and standing on, historically successful fundamental human principles faces off against an unqualified inexperienced denier. As of today no one knows for sure who will win. Is this the consequence of the new “emote-on-demand” mass media approach, or has the world simply gone mad and suicidal anger replaced the rule of common sense?
 

Thoughts of Today June 13, 2016: We Are Who We Are and a Lesson the EU Could Learn from the Mayor of Los Angeles

I left Hungary, my native country, 60 years ago. I left because we lost the Revolution of 1956, in which I believed and participated. We lost against our enemy, the evil empire of the Soviet Union, an overwhelming superpower at that time. We lost, because the West, and in particular the USA, did not support us, maybe avoiding wisely a Third World War. In any case, whatever the post-mortem analysis may find, we lost, I left as a refugee, and became an American. But I still retain strong feelings and identify with Hungary and profess pan-EU views.

This spring in Budapest I encountered a growing public sentiment that believes that in fact we did not lose it, but somehow we were responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was not the West led by the USA that won the Cold War, but we Hungarians did so by our brave act in 1956 by showing to the rest of the world our strength, our greatness, our willingness to stand up against the evil Soviet empire. This is now being advocated by a younger generation that was not of age to be part of the Revolution, nor learned much about in school or at home. Schools obviously did not teach about it prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union and Hungarian parents for sensible survival reasons taught nothing about the 1956 Revolution to their offspring. During the Kadar period that followed immediately after the merciless oppression of our uprising, a new slogan was introduced: “who is not against us, is with us”. This was in contrast to an earlier Stalinist era slogan of “who is not with us, is against us”. Thus not speaking about the Revolution allowed people to get on with their lives without getting into conflict with the ruling political system. - - But now of course history can be reinvented or imagined in new ways.

I also heard in Budapest much Eurosceptcism and anti-migrant fear-mongering. I heard lectures about the fundamental values that define the Christian European nation-states inhabited by white people following common beliefs, possessing common illiberal values, living in and practicing a homogeneous culture.

In Budapest I also was told by some that the massive migration headed towards Europe is motivated, de facto irganized, by the USA and president Obama is actively involved carrying out the instructions issued by the multi-billionaire financier George Soros. This is done, it was claimed, because it is in the interest of US financial powers to weaken and ultimately destroy Europe through the mass immigration of Asians and Africans, some of who are terrorists. - - There is in Hungary a certain culture of “victimization”, whereby some view their perfect and innocent country as the victim of nefarious foreign acts and plots. However, this takes a xenophobic national paranoia to a new level. Unfortunately, I also detected a growing anti-American sentiment. When I asked why, some denied it, saying that there are always fringe groups with strange ideas. Others acknowledged it and claimed that most ills in the world nowadays, from the Great Recession to the Syrian war and the rise of Islam terrorism, were caused by the USA.

Today the news in America are all about the horrendous mass murder that took place yesterday in Florida in a gay night club and left a hundred people hurt, half dead, half shot and hospitalized. The perpetrator was an American son of Afghan immigrants. The motivation appeared to be a strong anti-LGBT sentiment, though the perpetrator may have been a highly conflicted gay Muslim. - - But then I read a quote from Eric Garsetti, the mayor of Los Angeles (cited in an Op-Ed article by Frank Bruni, “The Scope of the Orlando Carnage”, The New York Times, Monday, June 13, 2016, p. A19): “Today we know that we are targeted as Americans, because this is a society where we love broadly and openly, because we have Jews and Christians and Muslims and atheists and Buddhists marching together, because we are white, black, brown, Asian, Native American. The whole spectrum and every hue and every culture is here.”

And so it goes….

Nation-States and the Future of Europe

Recently I spent two months in Europe, mostly in Hungary. While prior to going there I was reasonably well informed about the prevailing mood there, I was still surprised by what I encountered. Below here I summarize my impressions and reactions.

1) There I encountered two somewhat interwoven major topics of conversation, the European Union (EU) and the migration crises.

2)  I have given thought to these matters for some years. I can imagine a successful resolution of the European migration crises only through a strong EU. Today’s migration is only the beginning of a new mass migration of historic dimensions into Europe. (Notes 1.) We can anticipate in the course of the next half-century the migratory motivation and possible movement of a billion people from the regions surrounding the EU into the EU. This mass movement is driven by the fundamental demographic and economic forces of depopulation versus overpopulation and relative enrichment versus impoverishment (Note 2.); furthermore, climate change is also a continuously growing important contributing factor. - -  I imagine the solution of this growing crisis could/must come through a dual pronged EU-wide coordinated effort that includes a broadly accepted policy of assimilation/integration of large numbers of legally admitted migrants and the deployment of an effective border protection system. European birth-rates are below that needed for maintaining its current population, thus without assimilating immigrants the aging European society would either slowly die out, or most likely collapse before dying out. Without effective border protection that controls the human inflow, the EU would be unable to assimilate the large influx of migrants arriving at accelerating rates in numbers that would overwhelm its absorption capacity.

3) Europe must unify or it will die. For me the unification of the United States of America is the fundamental model, where the outcome of the Civil War (1861-65) decided that the USA is not a loose association of independent states, but it is the centrally coordinated and directed economic and political non-negotiable (you can’t exit) union of the states. – Furthermore, while the immigration policy of the USA is imperfect, it is functional: there is no depopulation, the non-Hispanic whites are not multiplying and thus are now in minority (the combination of the other ethnic groups together now form the majority), nevertheless the country continues to function and in a global perspective continues to do rather well.

4) There are many in Europe, who believe that the USA is not a meaningful example for Europe to follow, because Europe comprises nation-states with histories going back centuries and millennia.

5) The concept of independent states living in nominal peace side-by-side was born in the World first time at the Westphalian peace in 1648. The notion of the nation-state assumes that the state has a homogeneous population that speaks a common language and shares a common culture; this came much after the birth of the state concept.

6) In East-Central-Europe the national consciousness of the various linguistic and ethnic groups started to rise strongly during the decades preceding the European continent-wide revolutionary movements of the 1840s. This growing nationalism was to a large extent fueled by an erroneous (and as it turned out suicidal) activity by the Habsburgs, who imagined to use national rivalries for balancing the power structure within their Monarchy. – During the millennium that preceded the 20^th century, this region was organized into various empires ruled by Russian, Prussian, Austrian, Hungarian, and Turkish kings, emperors, czars, and sultans.

7) The East-Central-European independent nation-states first came into being after 1920 as a result of the Trianon Peace Treaty, breaking up the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, creating Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, and enlarging Romania. (Romania became an independent state in 1878.) This was the time when many multi-ethnic families lost their regional unifying identity and became “pure” Czechoslovaks, Yugoslavs, Poles, Hungarians, etc… Subsequent to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War in 1990, additional nation-state purifications took place. Czechoslovakia broke into the Czech and Slovak nation-states by the end of 1993. Yugoslavia broke up into seven nation-states as a result of a protracted conflict that started in the early 1990s, it included war and genocide, and finally ended in 2006.

8) Till the First World War the bloodiest war among White-Caucasians was the American Civil War. - -  Both World Wars resulted in casualties far surpassing the Civil War. In both World Wars Europeans killed Europeans on the battle fields and off thereof, with thereto unknown cruelty and in thereto unknown quantities.

9) The outcome of both World Wars was determined by the USA. All Western-European and East-Central-European countries lost both of these wars. - -  Europe has suffered badly as the result, both morally and economically.

10) The EU was born after Europe woke from the horrors of the Second World War. It was the result of the common desire shared by the then rebuilt Western progressive democracies in 1993 and it succeeded the European Economic Community (EEC) that was established in 1957 by the treaty of Rome, whose signatories included Europe’s historical arch rivals, France and Germany.

11) After the collapse of the Soviet system, the ex-Soviet satellites eagerly sought admission into the EU, hoping for significant economic benefits and also looking for protection against possible Russian expansions. Unquestionably, these hopes have been realized (though many would wish for more and differently administered benefits).

12) Now in several East-Central-European countries the new political invention is that they are illiberal nation-states with histories reaching back a millennium, who must join forces against the West (especially the EU bureaucrats in Brussels) and for developing closer ties with the Russians.

13) The EU is far from perfect. Its recovery from the Recession of 2007-09 still incomplete. The common currency, the euro, has not been well conceived, it is not used by all EU countries, and it does not appear to the benefit all who use it. There are the growing number of Eurosceptics. The Brexit movement is significant, no matter its outcome. Some feel that Germany, the de facto leader of the EU, exerts too much influence and its influence is much of the time self-serving. And the list of imperfections and complaints goes on. - - Nevertheless, the EU is the best thing Europe invented in many centuries, the best replacement for war in managing intra-European conflict, replacing conflict with mutual help and collaboration. And all countries on its borders, from the Ukraine through Turkey to tiny Montenegro, would like to join it.

14) The common task that all European leaders should focus on is to figure out how to solve the EU’s problems and evolve a stronger, more united European Union. Europe needs statesmen, not bickering populist politicians clothed in outdated and still dangerous nationalist demagoguery that led to so much suffering in the past. World War II must not be forgotten, even though there are only a few of us alive who are old enough to have actually experienced and can still remember it now in 2016. (Note 3.)

Notes

1. The Europeans as we know them today are the results of a series of mass migrations during recorded history. The major immigration waves include the Germanic tribes’ mass migration between the years 300 and 500, the Slavs between the 500 and 700, and the Hungarians arrival into and their occupation of the Carpathian basin between the late 800s and 1000.

2. In 2015 the EU population was 514 million people and the World total was 7,228 million. In the age group of 1-24 years old, the age group that will be procreating in the next decades, we have 27% of the EU’s and 42% of the World’s population. In the age group of 55 yers and older, the group that either already needs or soon to be needed to be supported by the working age population, 32% of the EU’s and 17% of the World’s population. As a consequence of this age distribution, the expected population by 2050 are 507 million in the EU and 9,408 million Worldwide. Thus in the course of the next three-and-a-half decades the EU population is expected to shrink, while Worldwide more than 2 billion people need to be provided for. Much of the Worldwide population growth is coming from the poor regions of Africa (1,134 million additional people) and of Western and South-Central Asia (774 million additional people). - - The GDP per capita at Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) in the EU is $37,800, while in Eritrea (a high population growth rate African country already sending many migrants to Europe) it is $1,300 and in Afghanistan (a high population growth rate South-Central Asian country already sending many migrants to Europe) it is $1,900.  - - Population data source from the website http://www.census.gov/population/international/data/idb/informationGateway.php , and GDP data from the website: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/ .

3. The Second World War ended in 1945, 71 years ago. Assuming that we retain realistic memories from age five years and older, 8% of the EU population today may have memories of the horrors of the Second World War and for 92% it is abstract history. - - For population data source see above Note 2.