7 Europe in the Age of Globalization, 1991–Present The ongoing unification process in Europe, including the formation of the European Union in 1993 and the introduction of the Euro in 2002, has contributed to economic growth and increased globalization. Of the 27 member nations in the European Union, 17 currently use the Euro. sch66548_07_c07_281-324.indd 281 12/22/11 11:27 AM Section 7.1  The European Union: Wider and Deeper CHAPTER 7 Introduction T he collapse of Communism ended the division of Europe and allowed unification to reach into new areas of the continent. It also coincided with—and contributed to—a new period in European and world history, one characterized by a process known as globalization. This complex and controversial development can be described briefly as the increasing integration of the global economy as measured by international trade, investment, and manufacturing made possible by the political predominance of policies favorable to the free operation of market forces. These developments in the economy were facilitated by the revolution in information and communications technology, a transformation that also brought people around the world into closer and quicker contact than ever before. These changes also had implications for Europe’s culture and its place in the world. 7.1  The European Union: Wider and Deeper O ne of the most important developments of the post-1991 period has been the increasing importance of the European Union (EU). Replacing the European Economic Community as the primary political and economic institution for cooperating European countries in 1993, it has become both wider (more members) and deeper (more comprehensive in scope). These two trends have sometimes been at odds. Some countries known as “Euro-skeptics,” such as the United Kingdom, have argued for a rapid expansion partly because they felt that more members would make it more difficult to deepen the Union. Conversely, countries such as France, which has favored a deeper union, have been more reluctant to “widen” because they believed doing so would make it more difficult to increase the EU’s internal cohesion. New Members The EU’s expansion has been dramatic, as Figure 7.1 shows. Joining in 1995 were Sweden, Finland, and Austria (while Norway rejected membership in a national referendum). In 2004 Cyprus and Malta were admitted, along with a swath of former communist states, including Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. In 2007 they were joined by Bulgaria and Romania. By 2011, the EU included 27 European countries with 500 million people (compared to about 300 million in the United States), and excluded only Switzerland, Norway, Turkey, Albania, some former states of Yugoslavia and several of the European republics of the former Soviet Union, including Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia itself. The new additions made the Union by far the world’s largest trading bloc. Entry into the EU required commitment to political democracy and a market economy. Thus, the prospect of joining provided great incentives for reform in the former communist states, and entry placed a stamp of legitimacy on their regimes. Aspiring new members were presented with 97,000 pages of requirements, known as the acquis communitaire, with which they had to comply. These covered a wide range of issues, including the movement of goods and people, fisheries, and policies regarding culture. Even then they were admitted only after long delays and negotiations that reflected considerable reluctance by some existing members. They often feared an influx of immigrants and the sch66548_07_c07_281-324.indd 282 12/22/11 11:27 AM CHAPTER 7 Section 7.1  The European Union: Wider and Deeper costs associated with the EU’s “structural adjustment” funds, which transferred money from wealthier to poorer member states. In some cases, EU countries were allowed to impose quotas limiting immigration from the new admissions, which were also not given the same benefits in agricultural subsidies afforded to older members. In 2011 the EU was in various states of negotiations about potential membership with several countries, including Turkey, Serbia, and Croatia. Turkey, which first applied for membership in 1987, was—and continues to be—regarded as a critical test case for the ultimate boundaries of the EU. There was much debate over whether Turkey, with its overwhelmingly Muslim population, was truly a “European” country. There were also concerns over whether it met EU human rights standards, although the government of the Justice and Development Party, an Islamic party of the center-right, had made considerable progress in this area. On the other hand, the Turks felt they were being discriminated against because of their Islamic religion. Formal accession negotiations began in October 2005, with the EU assessing the alignment of Turkish law and practices with the 35 chapters of the acquis, a process that remains underway and is unlikely to be completed before the end of the decade. Figure 7.1: The expansion of the European Union ICELAND 57 73 81 N W E UNITED KINGDOM S NORWAY DENMARK IRELAND 73 73 57 BELGIUM LUXEMBOURG 57 86 86 FINLAND 95 04 95 FRANCE ESTONIA LATVIA 04 SWEDEN 04 07 LITHUANIA 04 73 NETHERLANDS 57 PORTUGAL 95 O 1957 1973 1981 1986 1995 2004 2007 Official candidate countries 04 POLAND GERMANY 57 04 95 CZECH REPUBLIC SLOVAKIA 04 04 07 AUSTRIA HUNGARY ROMANIA SLOVENIA ITALY O 86 57 SPAIN 57 CROATIA BULGARIA O 07 O TURKEY MACEDONIA 81 MALTA GREECE O 81 CYPRUS O The European Union added new members in 1995, 2004, and 2007. In 2011 there were 27 members states and two official candidate countries. sch66548_07_c07_281-324.indd 283 12/22/11 11:28 AM Section 7.1  The European Union: Wider and Deeper CHAPTER 7 New Institutions The “widening” of the EU was accompanied by a significant “deepening,” although ultimately each member state effectively retained its sovereignty in most matters. By the mid-1980s, with a population of 320 million in 12 member states, the EU was already the world’s largest trading bloc and richest consumer market. In 1993, in keeping with the provisions of the 1987 Single European Act, all remaining internal barriers to the free movement of goods, money, workers, and services within the market gradually began to be lifted. Another result of the Single European Act was the end of most border controls within the union, which cost an estimated 3 percent to 4 percent of total trade, and in some cases more than doubled travel time for commercial trucks. By late 2007, when borders were opened with nine new member states, it became possible to travel from Portugal to Estonia without clearing any customs controls. The Act also committed the EU in theory to the creation of a common monetary union with a single currency and a central bank, as well as calling for common social policies and expanded cooperation in defense and foreign policies. It required the writing of hundreds of new tax and trade laws and regulations involving the creation of EU standards to govern matters ranging from the quality of fruit to the dimensions of condoms. The European Court of Justice, the EU’s judicial arm, became increasing influential and succeeded in many rulings in superseding national laws with European law, for example ordering Britain to restrict its workweek to 48 hours. The Maastricht Treaty At a 1991 conference in Maastricht, the Netherlands, the EU formally adopted its new name and also agreed to create a European Monetary Union (EMU) with a single currency entitled the Euro to be adopted by 1999. Such a development would mean enormous savings in time and trouble for ordinary travelers, businesses, and governments, which no longer would have to change currencies at the borders and for various financial transactions. The Maastricht Treaty also proclaimed a social protocol providing for common standards related to worker health and safety and in other areas such as crime prevention, immigration, and asylum policy. However, it proved impossible to gain uniform acceptance from all member states for such regulations or for the EMU, which they saw as imposing excessive restrictions on their national sovereignty. Britain opted out of both the Euro and the common social policies; Denmark held referenda on Maastricht (1992) and the Euro (2000), both of which were defeated. The Euro The Maastricht Treaty eventually went into effect on November 1, 1993, after the second Danish referendum in May 1993 and its narrow approval by the French electorate. (Between the two referenda, the Danish government had negotiated some exceptions to the Treaty, which made it more acceptable to Danish citizens.) Under its provisions, and after several delays, the Euro was formally introduced as a common currency in 2002. By 2011, the Eurozone included 17 EU countries, while the other EU states, including Britain and the Scandinavian members, which saw their currencies as important cultural symbols, sch66548_07_c07_281-324.indd 284 12/22/11 11:28 AM Section 7.1  The European Union: Wider and Deeper declined to join. Although the Euro was unquestionably an enormous boon for tourists, businesses, and others, becoming part of the Eurozone required governments to commit to common guidelines with regard to annual budget deficits, inflation, and overall debt. Most importantly, because the Central European Bank that began operating in 1998 regulated interest rates, governments in financial trouble could no longer manipulate either their own interest rates or the value of their currency. The European Constitution CHAPTER 7 The European Union introduced its common currency, the Euro, in 1999. In 2011 it was used by 17 member states. However, not all Europeans were happy about adopting a common currency, especially in the midst of a dept crisis. In the meantime, another attempt to “deepen” the EU ran into severe trouble. In 2002 a convention of over 100 delegates began meeting in Brussels with the intent of creating a constitution for the organization. However, they failed to truly involve the public in their deliberations. When the time came to seek public ratification of the document in 2005, it was defeated in the Netherlands and France, primarily due the feeling that EU bureaucrats were increasingly interfering in Europeans’ daily lives without any real accountability to the general public. Subsequently, some of the proposed provisions of the constitution were adopted on an ad hoc basis in the 2007 Treaty of Lisbon. This was originally rejected by an Irish referendum in June 2008 but then approved in a second referendum in October 2009, thus providing the required unanimity among members for the treaty to come into effect. Its provisions included the appointment of an EU foreign policy chief and an EU president, although in the views of many, such changes simply added to an already complex EU bureaucracy. Outcomes Despite its travails, it can hardly be doubted that overall the EU has been an enormous success, continuing to serve as the world’s largest trading bloc and also, at least in Western Europe, enjoying the world’s highest per capita income and most comprehensive and generous social welfare system. There has been much debate on the extent to which Europe’s prosperity is due to unification; economists currently estimate that the GDP is 5 percent higher than it would have been without it (Broadberry & O’Rourke, 2010). While virtually every major aspect of its development led to significant internal battles within the EU, its constituent countries have enjoyed a highly stable peace, and armed conflict between any of them is virtually inconceivable. Nonetheless, for better or worse, each country largely retained ultimate sovereignty, especially in defense, foreign policy, and law enforcement. Furthermore, many individual citizens of the EU continued to feel alienated from the “Eurocrats” in Brussels. Thus, in sch66548_07_c07_281-324.indd 285 12/22/11 11:28 AM Section 7.2  The Economy CHAPTER 7 describing EU policymaking, Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Junker declared, “We decide on something, leave it lying around and wait and see what happens. If no one kicks up a fuss, because most people don’t know what has been decided, we continue step by step until there is no turning back” (James, 2003, p. 400). Ordinary citizens have registered their discontent with this “democratic deficit” by showing less and less interest in elections to the European Parliament. Voter participation dropped from 62 percent in 1979 to only 43 percent in 2009. Participation in European elections is below that for national elections in every country except Belgium and Luxembourg, and in many countries it is less than half. The success of the EU, and of the Euro in particular, was also called into question by the sovereign debt crisis that wracked Europe in 2010 and 2011. Three small “Eurozone” countries—Greece, Ireland, and Portugal—required massive loans to keep them out of bankruptcy. As the crisis approached Italy, the third largest European economy, in November 2011, the government fell, and Spain, the fourth largest economy was also on the brink. There was talk of Greece abandoning, or being forced to abandon, the Euro and the whole crisis brought the stability of the common currency into question. 7.2  The Economy E urope entered the world of globalization (the trend toward integrated global economy) under less than optimal conditions. Western Europe still struggled with the economic problems that had started in the early 1970s while the former Communist countries faced the daunting task of changing both their economic and political systems. The globalized environment was hostile to the high-tax welfare states that many Europeans so cherished. The new period thus threw up new challenges. But these challenges were also potential opportunities, and Europe took good advantage of many of them. Responding to Globalization Exponential growth in the volume of international trade has been one of the defining features of globalization and to this challenge European economies responded exceptionally well. By 2005, Europe’s exports were more than three times those of the United States and they accounted for a larger part of GDP than anywhere else in the world. European banks also did well in a new environment that favored the growth of international banking: By 2010, 27 of the 50 largest banks of the world were European, including the largest of all, France’s BNP Paribas. Germany had the largest number of banks on the list in Europe with six, the same number as the United States. (“The World’s 50 Biggest banks by Assets,” 2010), Europe also overtook the United States in terms of foreign investment (FDI), becoming the leading investor in the world. This trend has only accelerated in the 21st century. The United States held half of the world’s FDI in 1973 while Europe had only 25 percent. In 2000, the United States had only 21 percent while Europe had 39 percent. By 2005, European FDI was four times that of the United States (Berend, 2006). sch66548_07_c07_281-324.indd 286 12/22/11 11:28 AM CHAPTER 7 Section 7.2  The Economy By the early 21st century, Europe was the most globalized part of the world. It retained this position in 2011, when the first 12 countries and 18 of the top 20 as measured by the Swiss economic organization KOF, were from Europe. The only non-European countries in the top 20 were Canada (13) and Singapore (18). The United States ranked 27th (Dreher, 2006). Structural Changes to the Economy In Western Europe, this period saw a continuation, and even acceleration, of the structural changes to the economy that marked the years after 1973. On the one hand, Europe continued to de-industrialize; on the other, the service revolution progressed. Agriculture also continued its long-term decline. These changes are shown in Figure 7.2. s s B F G I N S ice rv se 04 20 74 se r vic e ice rv 19 50 in du st 04 B F G I N S s B F G I N S ry ry st du in 19 74 du in 19 50 B F G I N S N Netherlands S Spain 19 B F G I N S ry B F G I N S G Germany I Italy se Belgium France 20 B F 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 st Percentage Figure 7.2: Evolution of industry and services, 1950–2004 Industry and Services Europe’s economic structure continued to change: Industry declined while services grew. But some trends from the previous period were reversed. Both national governments and the European Union (EU) increased investments in technical and scientific research and development. Switzerland and Germany invested as big or even a bigger a share of their GDP on research and development than did the United States. As a result, Europe began to catch up with the Americans in information technology, which became a source of economic dynamism. European countries also did very well in the Global Innovation Index: In 2007 the United States led the list, but 15 of the top 25 countries, including Germany at number 2, were from Europe. sch66548_07_c07_281-324.indd 287 12/22/11 11:28 AM Section 7.2  The Economy CHAPTER 7 The Finnish firm Nokia is a particularly outstanding example of these developments. Founded in 1865 as a paper company, over the years the company expanded into numerous other products including televisions, computers, and mobile phones. At the beginning of the 1990s, however, it decided to concentrate solely on developing its own mobile phone technology. Nokia was able to defeat even U.S. companies on their home turf, and by 1998 it had the largest share of the U.S. mobile phone market. Nokia became such a fixture in American culture that it sponsored the annual Sugar Bowl college football game in New Orleans between 1995 and 2006. Nokia was not the only European company to develop a strong profile in the United States. The German auto producer Daimler Benz took over Chrysler in 1998, though it sold it in 2007. In 2011, the Italian car company FIAT bought a controlling share of Chrysler. European brands such as Zara (Spain), IKEA and H&M (Sweden), and Benetton (Italy) are all present in shopping malls across the country. The Welfare State Even as neoliberal economics (see chapter 6) and the pressures of globalization spoke against high taxes and state intervention in the economy, Europeans remained attached to the welfare state, or the European Social Model as it was called by the European Commission in 1994. Economic growth was, of course, important to Europeans, but other values, including social protection and solidarity, were equally so. The goal was to continue to “give to the people of Europe the unique blend of economic well-being, social cohesiveness and high overall quality of life which was achieved in the post-war period” (European social policy, 1994). Europe’s welfare states continued to look different from each other, but, whatever the details they were all based on a premise that crossed national borders: “a sense . . . of the balance of social rights, civic solidarity and collective responsibility that was appropriate and possible for the modern state” (Judt, 2005, p. 793). The result was that governments found it impossible to attack the welfare state in a serious way. Increasing costs for health care and unemployment benefits meant that social expenditures continued to increase as a percentage of GDP in almost every country after 1990, although not nearly as quickly as they had before 1973. They also remained well above the levels for Canada and the United States. The welfare state certainly benefitted many Europeans. One study found that without it, 20 percent of the German and Dutch middle classes would have fallen into poverty at some point during the 1990s. Yet the increase in social expenditure was not sufficient to prevent an increase in social inequality during the 1990s; as the same study found, “The volume and direction of transfer payments, taken together, now add up to comparatively less redistribution towards the relatively poor than in the 1980s” (Broadberry & O’Rourke, 2010, p. 397). The increases in spending on social policy were not as great as the increase in demand for benefits and services; as a result, social inequality increased in most countries between 1985 and 2000, although the extent of the increase varied, with the Scandinavian countries doing better than most others (see Figure 7.3). sch66548_07_c07_281-324.indd 288 12/22/11 11:28 AM CHAPTER 7 Section 7.2  The Economy Figure 7.3: Social expenditure as percent of GDP, 1980–2007 % GDP 35 30 France 25 Germany Italy 20 Portugal 15 Spain 10 Sweden 5 0 USA 1980 1990 2000 2007 Canada Year Social expenditures continued to increase as a percentage of GDP in almost every country after 1990. The Crisis of 2008 Just as Europe benefitted from globalization, it could also suffer from it. The financial crisis that began in the United States in 2008—the bursting of the housing bubble created by reckless lending to home buyers, the collapse of some of the biggest U.S. banks and the emergency bailout provided by the Bush administration—had a major impact on Europe. Many European banks had invested in the low-quality mortgages that lay behind the crisis, and when the bubble burst, financial panic hit Europe. Some European countries also had their own bursting housing bubbles. A broader economic crisis followed, and the economies of the Eurozone shrank in 2009. Soaring deficits in Greece, Ireland, and Portugal led to sovereign debt crises in 2010 and 2011, as creditors feared that these countries would be unable to repay their loans. After much discussion, the EU determined that the crises represented serious threats to the Euro and decided to provide bailouts: 110 billion Euros for Greece, 85 billion for Ireland, and 78 billion for Portugal. The EU also required severe austerity measures, such as cutting spending on government programs like education and health, reducing the salaries of civil servants, cutting social benefits, and raising the retirement age. These moves led to protests, especially in Greece. There was even a strong possibility that the country would leave the Euro and return to its old currency. Spain was also frequently mentioned as candidate for a bailout. Because its economy— the 4th largest in Europe and 12th largest in the world—was much bigger than the other three combined, this would have constituted a much more serious undertaking. The sch66548_07_c07_281-324.indd 289 12/22/11 11:28 AM Section 7.3  After Communism CHAPTER 7 Spanish government enacted drastic austerity measures, but these only added to the economic crisis, leading to an unemployment rate of 21 percent—45 percent among people aged 16 to 24—in the middle of 2011. The austerity measures introduced by the Greek government in response to the financial crisis and the bailout by the IMF and EU provoked widespread protests like the one seen in this photo. The UK was not part of the Eurozone, but its newly elected Conservative government was also aggressively attacking a massive deficit. In August 2011, there were three days of widespread rioting, especially young people who felt themselves marginal to the economy and abandoned by the state. 7.3  After Communism F or those countries that had shaken off Communism in 1989 and 1990, the big question was how they would fare afterward. Would they become stable democracies and develop strong capitalist economies? And there was still one country, Yugoslavia, that had to eliminate its Communist regime. Unfortunately, the process there was radically different from the quick and relatively bloodless events that had taken place elsewhere in the European Communist world. Yugoslavia would dismiss Communism only after a complex series of cruel civil wars that lasted until 2002. Eastern and Central Europe after 1991 With a few exceptions such as Belarus, which in 2011 remained a command economy under the 17-year dictatorship of Alexander Lukashenko, most of the former Communist states of Eastern Europe quickly adopted multiparty democratic political systems and major market reforms. Thus, in most of the east European countries, scores of political parties sprang up, and there was a massive and often sudden end to subsidies, guaranteed employment, and nationalized industries, many of which were sold to private interests under dubious conditions. Politics The downfall of the Communist regimes often led to an explosion of political parties and other signs of a rapidly emerging civil society. Thus, by January 1990, 51 political parties had registered in Czechoslovakia, and in Hungary the number of private book publishers quickly increased from two or three underground organizations in 1988 to 300 open publishers by mid-1990. In Poland an estimated 600 new publications emerged within five months, and even in Romania the number of periodicals quadrupled within a year. sch66548_07_c07_281-324.indd 290 12/22/11 11:28 AM Section 7.3  After Communism CHAPTER 7 Sixty-seven parties contested the 1991 Polish elections, while 74 competed in the Romanian elections of 1992 (Goldstein, 2007; Paxton, 2005). Where Communist parties survived, they often changed their name and adopted new, democratic platforms, while continuing to favor more government intervention in the economy than most other parties. In some countries, such as East Germany, secret police files from the Communist period were made public. In other countries, such as Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria, leading communists were purged from the civil service. But, in general, there were surprisingly few reprisals. A number of countries, however, including Lithuania and Hungary, established museums to document the horrors of Communist rule, with a stress on the abuses of the secret police. Economics The collapse of Communism and the end of the protected trading bloc COMECON left the economies of the former Soviet Union and its former satellites exposed to entirely new conditions. Governments faced a fundamental choice in economic policy: to attempt a one-time, overnight transformation from subsidized socialist economies into market-driven capitalism . . . or else to proceed cautiously . . . preserving as long as possible those features which mattered most to the local population: cheap rents, guaranteed jobs, free social services.” (Judt, 2005, p. 686) The “shock” or “big bang” approach included such measures as ending price controls, abolishing subsidies for companies, and privatizing state-owned businesses. Crisis Whether they adopted “shock” policies or not, most of the former communist states suffered a disastrous economic period during part or most of the 1990s. The transition to a market economy brought unprecedented levels of unemployment and inflation in regions where previously lifelong jobs had been guaranteed to all, and the governments had generally maintained stable price levels. The unemployment crisis resulted from the fact that many previously state-owned and state-protected enterprises were outmoded and simply could not compete in a free marketplace, while the high levels of inflation reflected the termination of government subsidies on the prices of basic goods. Indeed, the economic collapse in Eastern Europe and Russia of the early 1990s was comparable only to the Great Depression in the West, with unemployment levels often reaching 15 percent or more. In some regions, such as Albania and Macedonia, unemployment reached almost 40 percent by 1993. It was perhaps symbolic that one former secret police office in East Berlin was turned into an unemployment office. By 1993, industrial production across Eastern Europe dropped by up to 40 percent and agricultural production about 50 percent. Inflation rates across Central and Eastern Europe reached over 200 percent in 1993, with some countries experiencing hyperinflation that recalled Weimar Germany: 600 percent in Poland, 1,000 percent in Estonia and Lithuania, and more than 1,500 percent in Russia (Berend, 2006). At the same time, governments severely trimmed back social programs, so that levels of poverty soared. For example, in Poland, subsidies of basic food items, housing, and sch66548_07_c07_281-324.indd 291 12/22/11 11:28 AM CHAPTER 7 Section 7.3  After Communism energy were cut from 30 percent to 15 percent of the state budget and were mostly abolished for industrial and agricultural products. In 2003, social protection expenditures per person in Eastern Europe averaged less than 25 percent of such costs among EU members. At the famous Gdansk shipyard, home of the Solidarity trade union movement, “[m]arket capitalism proved to be a much stronger adversary than the riot police or the army,” as employment dropped from 17,000 to 3,000 during the 1990s and annual production collapsed from 20 ships per year to three (Berend, 2006). The economic collapse was especially severe in Russia. Per capita gross domestic product fell by almost 50 percent in the early 1990s, inflation increased twenty-fold by the end of 1992, and male mortality rates rose by about 50 percent between 1990 and 1996. During the same period, Russian male life expectancy decreased from 70 to 58.6 years. Similar, if less severe, declines occurred in the Baltic States. Infant mortality rates increased by 50 percent in Bulgaria, and the total population of the country declined by 1.2 million, to 7.8 million people. Overall birth rates decreased by about 40 percent across Eastern Europe between 1989 and 2004. Between 1989 and 1993 real wages decreased by over 20 percent in the Czech Republic, by about 40 percent in Slovenia and Romania, and by 50 percent or more in Bulgaria, Latvia, and Lithuania. Poverty rates (using a United Nations measure) increased across Eastern Europe from virtually nonexistent in 1989 to over 25 percent in 1995. Homelessness became a serious problem for the first time in decades, with an estimated 150,000 to 300,000 homeless in Poland alone in 2000 (Berend, 2006). (See Figure 7.4.) Figure 7.4: Per capita GDP (percent of EU average) 1989 2000 80 60 1989 2000 lg ar Bu kia Cz e ch os lo va ga Hu n ia 1989 2000 1989 2000 ry 1989 2000 nd la Po 0 1989 2000 20 1989 2000 40 So Fo vie rm t U er ni on Ro m an ia Per Capita GDP 100 Country Overall, the disparity between the former Communist countries and the rest of Europe grew. Only Poland did not lose further ground. sch66548_07_c07_281-324.indd 292 12/22/11 11:28 AM Section 7.3  After Communism CHAPTER 7 The New Rich At the same time as most Eastern Europeans suffered a severe decline in living standards, in most countries a few entrepreneurs made fabulous amounts of money. This created a gap between the top and bottom that was previously unknown in the region, though it was fairly comparable to Western Europe and only half of the gap in the United States. In part, this was a result of the privatization of state-owned businesses, a major feature of the economic transition. The scale of privatization went far beyond what had taken place in Western Europe in the 1980s (see chapter 6); according to historian Tony Judt, “The fire-sale of publicly owned commodities in post-1989 Eastern Europe had no historical precedent” (2005, p. 688). In many places regimes conducted such sales in a highly corrupt manner. The most attractive enterprises found their way into the hands of people with close ties to those in power. In many cases, these were cliques and networks that had formed within the Communist parties when they were in power. Corruption was worst in Russia, where the existence of vast quantities of natural resources, including petroleum, made the takings especially valuable. There, privatization produced a small number of extremely rich men known as the “oligarchs”; by 2004 Russia had 36 billionaires who controlled a quarter of the country’s economy (Judt, 2005). Trade and Investment Previous trade relationships were also severely disrupted. In the Baltic states, 95 percent of exports had gone to the Soviet Union before 1991 and the general loss of this market, combined with other factors, led to a collapse of 40 percent in their gross domestic products. In general, the greater the “shock therapy” of immediate movement to a free market economy the greater the immediate disruption, but also the sooner the recovery by the mid- to late 1990s. Defending the need for strong and radical economic measures, Czech President Vaclav Havel explained, “It is impossible to cross a chasm in two leaps” (Berend, 2006, p. 66). The governments of Western Europe and the United States welcomed the fall of Communism, but they did very little to help the former Communist countries make their transition to capitalism. There was foreign investment, but it “resembled not the sustained post–World War Two effort that helped reconstruct Western Europe but rather the piecemeal private-sector involvement that had followed [World War One]: investment in good times and withdrawn when the going got tough” (Judt, 2005, p. 690). This surprising indifference extended to the member states of the European Union, which were not particularly keen to bring the countries of Eastern Europe into their club. The one exception to the overall trend was the former East Germany, which had been made part of a reunited Germany within a year of the end of the Communist regime. The German government poured billions of dollars into its new region: From 1991 to 2003, the West sent between 4 percent and 5 percent of its GDP to the East. This included $95 billion lost in purchasing and selling off the East’s state-owned enterprises. The overall results have been reasonably positive. After suffering a massive decline in 1991 and 1992, the GDP of the East began to recover; the per capita GDP jumped from 49 percent of that in the West in 1991 to 66 percent in 1995, although the convergence stalled after that. The situation of individuals has shown greater improvement, with disposable income per capita hitting 82 percent of that in the West. The biggest negative has been unemployment, which has remained higher than in the West. sch66548_07_c07_281-324.indd 293 12/22/11 11:28 AM Section 7.3  After Communism CHAPTER 7 Overall, the disparity between the former Communist countries and the rest of Europe grew. By 2000, only Poland had not lost ground to the members of the European Union. The former Communist economies were simply less modern than those in Western Europe. To begin with, agriculture continued to loom much larger in their economies. In 2000, agriculture accounted for 14 percent of employment in Russia, 19 percent in Poland, 21 percent in Ukraine, 26 percent in Bulgaria, and 42 percent in Romania. In the West, only Greece (17.4 percent) and Portugal (12.6 percent) had an agricultural sector anywhere near as large. The figure for the most developed countries was between 2 percent and 4 percent; even in Spain it was only 6.6 percent. Of the former Communist countries, only the Czech Republic (5.1 percent) and Hungary (6.5 percent) approached Western norms. At the same time, services were a much smaller part of their economies, accounting for 50 percent of employment in 2000 compared to 71 percent for Western Europe and 72 percent for Northern Europe (Broadberry & O’Rourke, 2010). Former Communists Return Not surprisingly, there was a severe reaction against the “shock therapy” of sudden capitalism in some of the former Communist states that benefited from the ex-Communist parties. Thus, in Poland the former Communist party was returned to power in free elections from 1995 to 1997 and again in 2001, and the same was true of Lithuania in 1992 and in Hungary between 1994 and 1998 and twice during the early 21st century. In power, the ex-Communist parties allowed free elections and maintained the basis of free market economies, partly because their hopes of joining the EU were dependent upon meeting basic standards in these areas. Recovery In general, economic conditions gradually stabilized in Eastern Europe beginning in the mid-1990s and in the Balkans by the late 1990s, considerably aided in regions such as Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Croatia by a flourishing tourist industry that attracted increasing numbers of Western Europeans. By 2003, real wages in Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Estonia were well above their 1989 levels, although this was not true yet for some of the other countries. In Hungary, the number of main telephone lines increased from one to four million between 1990 and 2000, while in Romania the number of personal computers increased from 700,000 to 2.1 million between 2001 and 2003. By 2004, over 65 percent of all trade by the Baltic countries was being conducted with EU nations. Fifty new universities were established in Eastern Europe during the 1990s, and enrollment in higher education doubled. By the mid-2000s the average percentage annual increase in gross domestic product across Eastern Europe was a healthy 4.2 percent, exceeding the average EU rate, with the Baltic states leading the way with growth rates averaging about 8 percent. Unemployment, however, remained at the fairly high level of about 10 percent in the core countries of Central Europe (Poland, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic) as late as 2007, and was even higher in the Balkans at about 20 percent in Serbia and averaging around 15 percent elsewhere. Russia and the other states of the former Soviet Union remained outliers, however. There, the decline continued, so that by the end of the 20th century, per capita GDP was little more than half what it had been in 1989. Russia benefitted from high prices for oil and sch66548_07_c07_281-324.indd 294 12/22/11 11:28 AM Section 7.3  After Communism CHAPTER 7 other natural resources it had in abundance, but the rest of the economy remained stuck. All former Communist countries experienced a sharp increase in social inequality, but Russia had the sharpest by far. In 1985, income inequality, as measured by the Gini index, which measures the degree of income inequality in a country, stood at 23.8, similar to the figures in other Communist countries. By 2000, the index for Russia had almost doubled, to 45.6, much worse than that for the Czech Republic (25.4), Hungary (26.8), Romania (30.2) or Poland (34.5) (Broadberry & O’Rourke, 2010). By the mid-2000s almost all of the Eastern European nations, with the major exception of the former Yugoslavian countries, had stabilized to the extent that they were welcomed into the EU. This achievement required enormous changes in multiple facets of life as well as in the countries’ legal codes. For instance, in Estonia the entire legal code had to be translated into English, and all EU legislation into Estonian, and changes were required to the Estonian laws with regard to commerce, property and land registration, the civil code and family law, among others. Although EU membership exposed some parts of Eastern Europe, such as Latvia, to severe effects of the 2008 financial crisis, there is little doubt that most Eastern Europeans viewed membership as a badge of approval and legitimacy. Its financial benefits were also a solid plus, including almost $20 billion in direct financial assistance in 2006 alone. The Breakup of Yugoslavia Before it began to come apart in 1991, Yugoslavia was a highly diverse country that consisted of six distinct federal republics (Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia, Macedonia, and Montenegro) with five different ethnicities, four languages, three religions, and two alphabets. The towering figure of Marshal Josip Tito, who had led the resistance to German occupation in World War II, largely held the country together until his death in 1980, as did the relative prosperity of the land. But ethnic tensions were a constant problem just under the surface, with Croats especially resenting the disproportionate representation of Serbs in state office and the highest ranks of the military. Moreover, there were considerable disparities in wealth within the country. Slovenia, in the northwest, enjoyed living standards close to those in Western Europe, while the southern republics of Bosnia, Macedonia, and Montenegro were far poorer. After Tito’s death, Yugoslavia began to experience severe inflation, which reached 120 percent in 1987, as well as growing nationalist agitation, which was highly influenced by the downfall of communism in Eastern Europe and the upsurge of nationalism in the constituent Soviet republics. In Yugoslavia, this nationalist agitation was most pronounced in Serbia and Croatia, and was led by two prominent politicians, Slobodan Milosevic in the former and Franjo Tudjmann in the latter. Milosevic was elected president of Serbia in 1989 after serving as secretary of the Serbian communist party. Recalling past conflicts with the Albanians, he especially focused his appeals for Serbian nationalism against the Albanian minority that was concentrated in the Serbian province of Kosovo. Milosevic claimed that the Serbian minority in Kosovo had been persecuted, and in 1989 on the 600th anniversary of a major military defeat suffered by the Serbs at the hands of the Ottomans, he announced that henceforth the previous autonomy enjoyed by Kosovo would be replaced by full Serbian control. Tudjmann was a sort of junior version of Milosevic, somewhat less authoritarian and manipulative, but constantly harping on the alleged mistreatment of Croats in Yugoslavia, especially by Serbs. sch66548_07_c07_281-324.indd 295 12/22/11 11:28 AM CHAPTER 7 Section 7.3  After Communism Figure 7.5: Yugoslavia, 1991 FORMER YUGOSLAVIA Slovenska Bistrica Kranj Vrhnika Liubljana Sezana SLOVENIA Koper Kocevska Reka CROATIA Glina Gospic N W Zadar E S ITALY Sombor Zagreb Vukovar Pakrac Banja Luka ROMANIA Novisad Batajnica Beograd Tuzla SERBIA & MONTENEGRO BOSNIA & HERZIGOVA Zvornik Cuprija Srebrenica Jajce BULGARIA Kraljevo Sarajevo Split Mostar Sjenica Nis Belolijn Novi Pazar Kosovskaim Itrovica Dubrovnik Adriatic Sea Capital Cities Locations of Conflict Locations of Genocide Zepa Pristina Skopje 0 Ponikve MACEDONIA 100 Kilometers Leskovac ALBANIA GREECE This map of former Yugoslavia illustrates the contentious political and social environment caused by ethnic tensions and considerable disparities in wealth between the northern and southern republics. The Wars Begin Under the impact of the events of 1989 in Eastern Europe, Yugoslav authorities agreed to abolish the communist party’s monopoly on power and to hold multiparty elections in April 1990. Non-Communists won in the republics of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, and Macedonia, while the Communist (renamed the Socialist) Party won in Serbia and Montenegro. In Slovenia, the most Western-oriented of the Yugoslav republics, the non-Communists formed a government and, supported by Germany and Austria, announced their support for independence, a program endorsed by almost 90 percent of the Slovene electorate in a December 1990 referendum. In 1991, the Yugoslav army made a half-hearted and unsuccessful attempt to block implementation of the Slovene declaration of independence. When Croatia similarly declared its independence in 1991 following a referendum in which over 90 percent of the electorate supported such action, a full-scale war began in which the Yugoslav army, now largely reduced to Serbs, sought to block it. Serbs gained control of about one third of Croatia, including regions with substantial Serb populations. Much of the outside world was outraged, especially when Serbian shelling destroyed the town of sch66548_07_c07_281-324.indd 296 12/22/11 11:28 AM Section 7.3  After Communism CHAPTER 7 Vukovar and inflicted severe damage on the beautiful historic port of Dubrovnik, which was attacked primarily because it was the center of the Croatian tourist industry. In late 1992, the European Union recognized the independence of both Slovenia and Croatia, although parts of Croatia remained under Serb control. Meanwhile, Bosnia, which was primarily Muslim but included large Serbian and Croat minorities, de- The Yugoslav wars were especially vicious, and atrocities clared its independence in 1993 were widespread. This picture shows people buried in mass following a 1992 referendum that graves containing the bodies of approximately 240 Bosnian the Serbs boycotted. The war that Muslims discovered by EU and Bosnian investigators in 2000 followed involved fighting among in the village Sanski Most. all three ethnic groups, and it was repeatedly marked by what became known as ethnic cleansing as Serbs and Croats both expelled hundreds of thousands of their enemies from Bosnian regions after winning control of them. Similar ethnic cleansing had marked the Serbian-Croatian war as well, and it was accompanied in both regions by numerous instances of murder, rape, and torture. Regular Serbian troops entered Bosnia to aid the Bosnian Serbs, although Milosevic denied this was happening. All sides in the war were guilty of atrocities, and both Croats and Serbs established notorious concentration camps. But the Serbs were generally viewed as especially guilty in this regard. The Bosnian capital of Sarajevo was subjected to a Serbian siege involving constant shelling and sniper fire for over three years that killed approximately 10,000 residents, including 3,500 children. sch66548_07_c07_281-324.indd 297 12/22/11 11:28 AM CHAPTER 7 Section 7.3  After Communism In Their Own Words: Dragan Obrenovic: War Criminal Dragan Obrenovic (center) and two codefendants at the start of their trial in The Hague, May 14, 2003. There was no choice. You could be either a soldier or a traitor. At the beginning of the war, it seemed as if the war and all it brought with it was impossible, that this wasn’t really happening to us, and that everything would be resolved within a few days, and that finally our generation would have a chance. We didn’t even notice how we were drawn into the vortex of inter-ethnic hatred and how neighbours were no longer able to live beside each other, how death moved into the vicinity, and we didn’t even notice that we had got used to it. Death became our reality. I am here before Your Honours because I wish to express my remorse. I have thought for a long time, and I’m always followed by the same thought—guilt. I find it very hard to say this truth. I am to blame for everything I did at that time. . . . Thousands of innocent victims perished. Graves remain behind, refugees, general destruction and misfortune and misery. I bear part of the responsibility for this. . . . In our wartime sufferings, no one has come out as the winner; everybody is suffering now. On all sides, there is still pain. What has won the victory is misfortune and unhappiness, as a consequence of blind hatred. The spirit of this unhappiness still hovers over our Bosnian hills, which have suffered so much, and it will take years to wipe out the traces of this horrible war and to have smoke rise again from people’s chimneys, from the hearths, and maybe decades will have to pass before the wounds in people’s souls are healed. If my confession, my testimony, and my remorse, if my attempt to face myself contributes to the quicker healing of these wounds, I will have done my duty of a soldier, a fighter, a human being, and a father. (www.icty.org/sid/219) Born to Serb parents in a village in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1963, Obrenović attended the Yugoslav military academy and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Yugoslav army in 1986. By 1992, he was a captain commanding a tank company. As war spread across Yugoslavia, he transferred to the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS). In July 1995, he was involved in the mass execution of prisoners. By 1998 he had been promoted to general, and on November 1 that year he was indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia for “persecutions carried out through the murder of hundreds of Bosnian Muslim civilians, committed in and around Srebrenica.” In April 2001, he was kidnapped and sent to the Hague to stand trial. After initially pleading not guilty, he eventually agreed to change his plea and accept a reduced sentence in return for a full statement of his actions and testifying against the four men charged with him. He was sentenced to 17 years in prison with almost 3 years credit for time already served. International Intervention The fighting and atrocities, both the most severe known in Europe since World War II, caused such international alarm that in 1992 the United Nations established a protective force to monitor the situation and subsequently created six so-called “safe areas” in Bosnia. There, civilians were supposed to be protected against the ethnic cleansing and other sch66548_07_c07_281-324.indd 298 12/22/11 11:28 AM Section 7.3  After Communism CHAPTER 7 atrocities. In 1993, the UN established an international war crimes tribunal “for the prosecution of persons responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law” in the former Yugoslavia. Altogether, an estimated 200,000 people were killed during the fighting in Croatia and Bosnia between 1992 and 1995, and an estimated 3 million became refugees. Serbs protesting against the NATO bombing of their country burn the U.S. flag outside the U.S. Cultural Center in Belgrade, September 13, 1995. In 1995, the tide of the war between Serbia and Croatia turned in favor of the latter, but the war in Bosnia continued to worsen. The most horrific atrocity of the Yugoslav wars—and of post–World War II Europe—occurred in the Bosnian Muslim town of Srebrenica, which was supposed to be one of the United Nation’s safe areas. Serb troops under the command of General Ratko Mladic massacred an estimated 8,000 Bosnian men and boys in July 1995. Dutch UN “protective” forces had found themselves outnumbered by the Serbs and put up minimal resistance. The outrage caused by the Srebrenica massacre led NATO to bomb Serbian forces in Bosnia in August 1995, which spurred the Croats to attack remaining Serbian enclaves in Croatia. This eventually led to negotiations sponsored by the United States in Dayton, Ohio, in late 1995. Under the Dayton Accords, it was agreed that Bosnia would become an independent state but divided into two republics: the Serb republic, with 49 percent of the territory, and a Muslim-Croat federation, consisting of 51 percent of the territory. Although Bosnia thus became independent, the two republics within it effectively led separate political lives thereafter, with extreme nationalist parties winning the first elections in each region. The Conflict in Kosovo Although the fighting in Bosnia and Croatia ended by late 1995 and both became independent countries, fighting soon flared up in the Serb province of Kosovo when Serbs began attacking Albanians, who constituted a majority there. The Serb actions, which included numerous murders and another round of ethnic cleansing, provoked another wave of outrage in Europe. In early 1999 NATO began to bomb the Serb capital of Belgrade as well as Serbian military installations and villages in Kosovo in the first attack by the alliance upon a sovereign state in its history. By the time the Serbs capitulated in mid-1999, following 36,000 guided missile strikes, an estimated 20,000 Albanians had been killed and another million or so had fled the region. Milosevic agreed to withdraw his troops, and subsequently 50,000 NATO troops entered Kosovo as a peacekeeping force. The Republic of Kosovo declared its independence in 2008, but Serbia and many other states, including Russia and Spain, refused to recognize it. sch66548_07_c07_281-324.indd 299 12/22/11 11:28 AM Section 7.4  Society and Culture CHAPTER 7 After the Wars The Serb defeats in Croatia and especially Kosovo had profound repercussions for domestic politics in Serbia, where mass demonstrations and riots in October 2000 forced Milosevic to resign as president. Thereafter, Serbia gradually developed in a more democratic and Western-oriented political direction, partly spurred on by hopes of joining the European Union. This was especially apparent after the elections of 2008. Serbia’s increasing cooperation with the Yugoslavia war crimes tribunal in the Dutch city The Hague reflected its changing political orientation. Milosevic himself was arrested and extradited in 2001 to face charges of genocide and other war crimes, but he died in 2006 before his trial was completed. In 2008, the Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic was similarly extradited after successfully avoiding it for almost 15 years, and in May 2011, Bosnian Serbia military commander Ratko Mladic was arrested by Serbian officials. They announced that he, too, would be extradited to face war crimes charges in The Hague. Because the failure to capture Mladic had been regarded as a barrier to serious consideration of Serbian entry into the European Union, the announcement of the arrest was widely regarded Former president of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic appears as a key potential turning point at the International Crime Tribunal in The Hague, October in Serbian history. The Western- 29, 2001. He died before the completion of his trial. oriented Serb President, Boris Tadic, declared, “I think today we have finished a difficult period in our recent history,” and he stressed that the development was occurring on the same day that European Union Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton was visiting the country. French President Nicolas Sarkozy declared that the arrest reflected a “courageous decision” and “another step toward Serbia’s eventual integration into the European Union” (Bilefsky & Carvajal, 2011, para. 10), while The Hague war crimes tribunal prosecutor Serge Brammertz stated that the arrest gave a “strong signal to the world that anyone accused of the worst crimes can be brought to justice” (Bilefsky & Carvajal, 2011, para. 10). 7.4  Society and Culture E urope experienced a new and crucial social phenomenon in this period: a massive inflow of immigrants from around the world. The populations of many European countries became much more diverse than they had ever been. Together with the uncertainties produced by globalization, this development had important implications for European culture. Additionally, the former-Communist countries had to make adjustments in their cultural lives that were almost as difficult as those in their economic and political lives. sch66548_07_c07_281-324.indd 300 12/22/11 11:28 AM CHAPTER 7 Section 7.4  Society and Culture Demographics The decline in fertility that began in the 1970s continued into the 21st century. By 2005, birthrates ranged from 1.28 children per woman of childbearing age in Greece to 1.92 in France—in all cases well below the rate of 2.1 required to maintain the population at its existing level. The strongest reason for these trends is that European women are increasingly likely to go to university and then join the workforce. In 2006, between 60 percent and 80 percent of European women between 15 and 64 years of age were working. As a result, the ratio of people between 15 and 64 to those over 65 has continued to fall, as Figure 7.6 shows. This is making Europe an older place than ever. It also has important consequences for the welfare state as the number of people working and paying taxes per each retiree gets smaller. In turn, this makes immigration, which provides workers and taxpayers, crucial to Europe’s future. Ratio Figure 7.6: An aging population 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 France Germany Italy Spain Sweden 1960 1980 2000 2025 Year The ratio of people between 15 and 64 to those over 65 continued to fall after 1991. Immigration One of the phenomena associated with globalization has been a significant increase in population mobility. Whether for economic reasons or to flee one of the many internal conflicts taking place around the world, more people were on the move than ever before. Approximately 3 percent of the world population were considered immigrants in 1990; by 2000 the figure had reached 10 percent (Berend, 2006). Both prosperous and peaceful, Europe became a major destination for people from poorer and more troubled places. In the first years of the 21st century, between 3 and 4 million immigrants arrived in the 27 member states of the European Union each year (Albertinelli, 2010), and immigration accounted for almost all the increase in the continent’s population since 1991. sch66548_07_c07_281-324.indd 301 12/22/11 11:28 AM Section 7.4  Society and Culture CHAPTER 7 Immigrants became an essential part of the workforce in many Western European countries. In Switzerland, almost one of every four workers was a foreign resident; the figure was 15 percent in Germany and 13 percent in Sweden and Spain. Immigrants were eager to fill less attractive, low-wage jobs in construction, hospitality, and domestic service that natives spurned. This tremendous upsurge in immigration was perhaps the most significant social development in Europe in this period, and it generated serious concerns about national identity and contributed to the growth of xenophobic political parties. Immigration is not a new phenomenon in Europe, but the current situation has some novel features. The first is that it affects many more countries than in the past. During the boom of the 1960s, migrants went almost exclusively to France, West Germany, Switzerland, and the UK, and many of them came from poorer European countries such as Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. Now, in a change that happened almost overnight, these latter countries are receiving large numbers of immigrants. The most striking change has been the case of Spain. It had almost no immigrant population in 1990; in 2010 it had 5.6 million immigrants who made up 12 percent of the population. In 2006 it received more immigrants than any country in the EU. Members of the Spanish Red Cross assist would-be immigrants arriving at Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands, November 2006. Thousands of Africans try to enter Spain each year in overcrowded fishing boats like this one. Many of them die in the attempt. Even the former Communist countries were affected. Since 1989 they received 33 million international migrants, representing about 8 percent of their total population. Turks went to Poland; Chinese to Hungary. Even Russia, with all its problems, seemed attractive to people from poorer states such as Azerbaijan and Georgia. The second new feature was the much greater number of countries from which the immigrants came, and especially the much greater number who came from outside Europe. The first significant influx of non-Europeans came during the 1950s and 1960s, as many people from former colonies moved to the former imperial center; many Indonesians, for example, moved to the Netherlands. The current flow is much more diverse. For the EU as a whole, the five most important source countries in 2006 were Morocco, Ukraine, China, India, and Bolivia. Between 1997 and 2007, the largest source countries for immigrants to France were Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey, Mali, China, Cameroon, Romania, Congo, and Ivory Coast (International Migration Outlook, 2010). In Spain, 40 percent of the immigrants were from other EU countries, with Romanians constituting the largest group. Another 28 percent came from Latin America and 16 percent from Africa, primarily Morocco. There were also immigrants from Asian countries such as Pakistan and China (Spain, INE, 2011, http://www.ine.es/welcoing.htm). A third change has been the new prominence of refugees, what Europeans call asylum seekers. These are people fleeing from political conflict in their homelands—such as the sch66548_07_c07_281-324.indd 302 12/22/11 11:29 AM Section 7.4  Society and Culture CHAPTER 7 wars in Yugoslavia or the conflict in Northern Iraq following the first Gulf War—or who claim to be as a way of circumventing restrictions on immigration. From a total of only 70,000 in 1983, the number of asylum seekers hit 700,000 in 1992. It has declined since then but remains at much higher levels than in the 1980s; the figure for 2009 was 261,000. More than half of these claimants came from only 10 countries: Afghanistan, Russia, Somalia, Iraq, Kosovo, Georgia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Iran, and Zimbabwe (Albertinelli, 2010). Muslims Within the immigrant population, Muslims have attracted the most attention. Mistrust and even hatred of Muslims has a long history in Europe, going back to the Middle Ages, but current concerns derive primarily from the upsurge of Islamic fundamentalism and the terrorism it has inspired. The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, are the most famous episodes, but Europeans have also experienced terrorist acts on their own soil. In March 2004, Islamic extremists exploded a number of bombs on commuter trains in Madrid, killing 191 and wounding some 1,800 people. That November, a Dutch-Moroccan citizen murdered Theo van Gogh, who had made a controversial film criticizing Islam’s treatment of women. Then, in July 2005, 56 people were killed and 700 wounded when Islamic extremists set off bombs on subway trains and a bus in London. The number of Muslims living in Europe has increased since 1990, from 29.6 million (4.1 percent of the population) to 44.1 million (6 percent) in 2010. Projections suggest that by 2020 the numbers will be 51.6 million and 7 percent. Of course, not all Muslims in Europe are immigrants; many, as in the case of Turks in Germany, were born in Europe as the children or even grandchildren of immigrants. The Muslim population is also not spread evenly across the continent. The vast majority clusters in a handful of countries: France, with 4.7 million, has the most, followed by Germany (4.1 million), the UK (2.9 million), Italy (1.6 million), and Spain (1 million). Integration into European society has not proved easy for many Muslims. In France and Germany they have been faced with prejudice and strong national identities that have made it difficult for Muslims to feel truly part of the national community. In other countries, such as the Netherlands, extremely liberal multicultural policies have left immigrants on their own without making efforts to integrate them. Both cases have produced a sense of alienation among some Muslim youth, usually those born in Europe, that has made the adoption of a strong Islamic identity an attractive option. And in all countries, immigrants, Muslims included, have wound up living in particular neighborhoods, usually on the outskirts of major cities. They have also been associated, in the minds of “native” Europeans, One of the Madrid commuter trains Islamic militants bombed on March 11, 2004. with very high rates of crime. sch66548_07_c07_281-324.indd 303 12/22/11 11:29 AM Section 7.4  Society and Culture CHAPTER 7 Immigrant Literature The presence of many immigrants, and of their European-born children, has led to the emergence of a growing body of creative literature: novels, short stories, poetry, and plays. These European writers address topics such as the experience of migration, the problems of belonging to a minority, generational conflict, and the meaning of identity. Many female writers also deal with particular issues facing women born into highly traditional and patriarchal cultures but raised in more liberal European ones. Reflecting the patterns of migration, these writers come from around the world and write in many European countries. They also write in European languages. They include people like Nasim Karim, a Pakistani-Norwegian; Cletus Nelson Nwadike, a Nigerian-Swede; Zafer Senocak, a Turkish-German; Tahar Ben Jelloun, a Moroccan-Frenchman; Amara Lakhous, an Algerian-Italian; and Salah Jamal, a Palestinian-Spaniard writing in Catalan. These writers are adding new dynamism to the various national literatures by introducing new themes, challenging established concepts of identity, and building multiple or transnational ones. Immigrants and immigrant themes have also been treated in European movies, although most of these films have been made by nonimmigrant directors. As long ago as 1974, German director Werner Rainer Fassbinder made Ali: Fear Eats the Soul about a German woman who falls in love with a Turkish guest worker. In recent years, there have been an increasing number of films made by immigrants or the children of immigrants. Perhaps the best known of these directors is Fatih Akın (1973– ), who was born in Germany where his parents had emigrated from Turkey. His award-winning films include Head on and The Edge of Heaven. Identity The big changes that took place after 1991—the collapse of Communism and the end of the Cold War division of Europe, the ongoing growth and development of the European Union, the massive increase in immigrants from outside the continent, and the rise of Islamophobia after the events of September 11 and the bombings in Madrid and London—provoked one of the most important cultural phenomena of the period: a search for identity. Increasingly, Europeans engaged in debates about their identity as citizens of individual states and their identity as Europeans. These debates took place among intellectuals, but they also had a much wider resonance, contributing to a proliferation of new political parties whose primary goal was to preserve the national identity against “outsiders.” Is Europe Christian? One catalyst for these debates was the proposal for a constitution for the European Union, as discussed previously in this chapter. The draft constitution presented in 2005 did not mention either God or Christianity, a fact that provoked a sharp response from Pope John Paul II who wanted “a clear reference to God and the Christian faith to be formulated in the European constitution.” It also drew protests from a number of member states such as Poland, Italy, Lithuania, and Malta where Catholicism remained influential. They wanted the constitution to mention the “Christian roots of Europe.” Those who opposed invoking Christianity argued that Europe was multireligious and that it would be offensive to sch66548_07_c07_281-324.indd 304 12/22/11 11:29 AM Section 7.4  Society and Culture CHAPTER 7 non-Christians as well as to the many Europeans who are nonbelievers. As a compromise, the draft was changed to mention “the cultural, religious, and humanist inheritance of Europe.” The debate died out when the constitution failed to be approved in France and the Netherlands, although the idea that Europe is a “Christian”—or Judeo-Christian— place continues to be held by many and informs some of the anti-immigrant political movements that have gained prominence in the 21st century, discussed in further detail later in this chapter. Reactions to Immigration Immigration, and especially the presence of growing numbers of Muslims, provoked many expressions of concern that “European values” were being threatened. Books such as While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within (2007), Londonistan (2007), Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam and the West (2009), and documentary films like Demographic Winter (2008) all painted a nightmarish picture in which Muslims will outbreed “Europeans” who fail to defend their values against a hostile religion that is incompatible with them. The result, sooner rather than later these works predict, will be “Eurabia,” a new region more Middle Eastern than European. Many of these authors and others, including Melanie Phillips, Bruce Bawer, Mark Steyn, Robert Spencer, and Pamela Geller, also have websites and blogs where they keep up a steady drumbeat of anti-Muslim fearmongering. As one commentator noted, “A striking, if ironic, feature of [this] discourse is the way that Islam and Muslims have replaced Jews as the specter [sic] of alien enemy aiming at world domination” (Ruthven, 2011). The book that received the most attention, and generated the most controversy, was Germany Abolishes Itself (2010). Part of the book’s success—and notoriety—derived from its author, Thilo Sarrazin, the former SPD finance minister for the city of Berlin and a member of the Executive Board of the Central Bank of Germany. Sarrazin argued that Muslims constituted a serious threat to Germany’s future because they were genetically predisposed to be less intelligent than Germans and that the growing Muslim population meant that the country was being “dumbed down.” Sarrazin’s book was an immediate best seller in Germany, but it was also the object of widespread criticism. The implications for Europe of having a large Muslim population were also discussed by serious European intellectuals. One particularly striking debate took place in the online magazine Sign and Sight in 2007. Triggered by French philosopher Pascal Bruckner’s intense criticism of Ian Buruma’s book Murder in Amsterdam, about the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh, and a positive review of the same book by British historian Timothy Garton-Ash, the wide-ranging debate centered on the nature of Islam and how Muslims could best be integrated into European society. Buruma and Garton-Ash were critical of the frontal assault on Islam as a religion made by Ayaan Hirsi Ali (discussed in further detail later in this chapter) and defended some form of multiculturalism, “a large tolerance for cultural diversity,” as the best way forward for Europe. Halleh Ghorashi, an Iranian exile living in the Netherlands, agreed. She criticized the tendency to see cultures as “homogeneous, static, coherent” in favor of understanding the life of immigrants as a process, one that required a “safe space” if change were to occur: Immigrants who feel secure in their new homelands develop the confidence to sch66548_07_c07_281-324.indd 305 12/22/11 11:29 AM Section 7.4  Society and Culture CHAPTER 7 move away from the culture they grew up with and try new things. “This,” she wrote, “seems to be the most important precondition in order to strengthen and enable cultural change” (Ghorashi, 2007). For Bruckner and his supporters, such as Turkish-German writer Neela Kelek, defending multiculturalism was a display of cultural relativism, of seeing no greater virtue in one culture over another. For them, this meant surrendering to an oppressive religion that was incompatible with European principles of tolerance and the belief in reason. It also privileged groups over individuals, imprisoning people in the culture into which they were born. Multiculturalism is, in Bruckner’s words, “the racism of anti-racists; it chains people to their roots” (Bruckner, 2007). Much better, in his view, was the French model of laicité, which cleared the public sphere of all religious symbols (see chapter 1). That model came out of a century-long struggle with the Catholic Church. Since the 1980s, the struggle has focused on the headscarves worn by female Muslim students and, more recently, on the very small number of women who wear the burqa. Seen as a religious symbol, analogous to a Jewish skullcap, the headscarf violated the principle of total religious neutrality in the state sphere, which included public schools and universities. (Feminists and their supporters also argued that it represented the subordination of women, even in the face of statements by Muslim women that they wore headscarves by choice.) In 2004, the French parliament passed a law that prohibited the wearing of “conspicuous” religious symbols, such as headscarves, Sikh turbans or Jewish yarmulkes, in state schools. Interestingly, crosses remained acceptable so long as they were not too large. A European Islam? Alongside these debates about the meaning of Islam for Europe, there were also debates about the meaning of Europe for Islam, more precisely for Muslims living in Europe. The two most prominent figures in this debate are Ayaan Hirsi Ali (1969– ) and Tariq Ramadan (1962– ). Ayaan Hirsi Ali (center) receives the Simone de Beauvoir prize for the freedom of women from Julia Kristeva, Paris, February 10, 2008. sch66548_07_c07_281-324.indd 306 Ayaan Hirsi Ali was born in Somalia. She escaped from a forced marriage to a relative in Canada by entering the Netherlands as a refugee. There Hirsi Ali became an outspoken critic of Islam. She wrote the script for Submission, a film about the treatment of women under Islam that was made by the controversial director Theo van Gogh. (The film led to van Gogh’s murder by an Islamic extremist in 2004.) She also became a member of parliament for a time, although when it came out that she had made a false refugee claim, she left for the United States. 12/22/11 11:29 AM Section 7.4  Society and Culture CHAPTER 7 Hirsi Ali has declared herself an atheist and denounced Islam as incompatible with Western values, especially regarding the treatment of women. Islam, she wrote, needs a Voltaire (the 18th century French philosopher who was the leading critic of the authority of Christian dogma and the Catholic Church) who can inspire Muslims to become more critical of their own religion and their religious leaders. She is critical of European defenders of multiculturalism who, she believes, are afraid to criticize traditional Islam and are not doing enough to promote either the emergence of a more modern, reformed version of the faith or the integration of Muslims into European societies. One such defender of multiculturalism is Tariq Ramadan, who was born in Switzerland and has taught at universities there and elsewhere in Europe. (He was unable to take up a position at Notre Dame University in 2004 because the U.S. government denied him a visa, a position that was reversed only in 2010.) Ramadan identifies himself as a religious reformer; where Hirsi Ali speaks from outside the religion, he speaks from inside. His goal, he writes, is “to protect Muslim identity and religious identity, to recognize the Western constitutional structure, to become involved as a citizen at the social level, and to live with true loyalty to the country to which one belongs” (Buruma, 2010, p. 117). In books such as To Be a European Muslim (1999) and Western Muslims and the Future of Islam (2003), he has argued Muslims can live in Europe both as full citizens and as practicing Muslims. Analyzing Islamic religious texts, Ramadan identifies what he considers the “essential fields of Islam,” which are distinct from “Arab or Asian cultures, traditions or customs,” and he argues that these provide the basis for Muslims in Europe to create a “European-Islam just as there is an African-Islam or an Asian-Islam.” Ramadan is a very controversial figure. This is a result, in part, of the fact that his grandfather was one of Tariq Ramadan talks to the media after a conference at the the founders of the Muslim Broth- Er-Rahma mosque in Nantes, Western France, April 25, 2010. erhood, the religiously inspired, Ramadan is president of the think tank European Muslim anti-colonial political movement Network in Brussels and teaches at Britain’s Oxford University. that was founded in Egypt in 1928 and is now an important force in a number of countries. It also derives from some of his statements that appeared to be anti-Semitic and from the belief held by some that he says different things to different audiences. The issue that Hirsi Ali and Ramadan are debating is of the greatest importance for the future of Muslims in Europe. At its core, the question is whether Islam can be revised so that it and its adherents fit comfortably into a European setting or whether Islam is so fundamentally incompatible with democracy and pluralism that the only way Muslims can become real Europeans is by abandoning their religion. sch66548_07_c07_281-324.indd 307 12/22/11 11:29 AM Section 7.4  Society and Culture CHAPTER 7 Xenophobic Politics The heightened flows of immigration also provoked a political response, fueling the spread and growing popularity of populist political movements that had begun in the 1980s (see chapter 6). Older parties continued and had their greatest successes at the turn of the 21st century. Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia governed Italy from 1994 to 1995, from 2001 to 2006, and since 2008. In France, the Front National increased its appeal, coming in second in the 2002 presidential elections and, for the first time ever, making it into the second round. The Austrian People’s Party became part of a coalition government in 2000. In Switzerland in 2009, the Swiss People’s Party supported a successful proposition to ban the construction of new minarets (tall spires that are often built on or near Islamic mosques). This now forms part of the Swiss constitution, alongside guarantees of freedom of religion. Several new parties also emerged: the Danish People’s Party (1995), the Pim Fortuyn List (2002), and the Party for Freedom (2005) in the Netherlands, Flemish Interest (2004) in Belgium, and the True Finns (1995) in Finland. More than before, these populist parties emphasized their dislike of people they defined as “outsiders”: immigrants in general (and Muslims in particular), the Roma (discussed further later in this chapter), and even the European Union, which they saw as eating away at national independence and identity. The Lega Nord (Northern League) began in 1991 as a regionalist party advocating greater power for Northern Italy. It made criticism of immigrants an increasingly prominent part of its program, adopting the slogan “Polenta yes, cous cous no.” (Polenta is a staple of Northern Italian cooking, cous cous a classic North African dish.) In some cases, these parties claimed to be defending positions normally seen as on the left: women’s rights, homosexual rights, and sexual freedom, which are “threatened,” they say, by Muslims. Dutch anti-immigrant politician Pim Fortuyn was an open homosexual who defended his anti-Muslim positions by saying, “I don’t feel like having to go through the emancipation of women and homosexuals all over again” (Buruma, 2010, p. 97). Flamboyant Dutch populist politician Pim Fortuyn (left) during a debate, March 22, 2002. Fortuyn was assassinated on May 6, 2002, during the national election campaign. sch66548_07_c07_281-324.indd 308 The electoral support for many of these parties grew during the first years of the 21st century, giving them key positions in fragmented parliamentary systems where no party had a majority. This meant that they were able to convince more mainstream parties to enact some of their policies, such as tightening immigration laws. 12/22/11 11:29 AM CHAPTER 7 Section 7.4  Society and Culture Even in countries such as France, where they have not achieved such leverage, the growing appeal of xenophobic parties has pushed “mainstream” politicians further to the right, especially regarding immigration and tolerance for diversity. One result has been bans on women wearing burqas in public in France and Belgium. In some places, these attitudes have also influenced policies at the municipal level; for example, in 2010 the government of the Northern Italian city of Lucca banned “ethnic” restaurants in the city center. Triggered by a posting on Facebook, some 150,000 Norwegians, including the Prime Minister and Crown Prince Haakon, participated in the “Rose March” in Oslo on July 25, three days after the massacre. Given the frequency of anti-immigrant discourse, and the uninhibited verbal violence with which it has been expressed, it is not surprising that someone would eventually turn the words into actions. On July 22, 2011, a young Norwegian man exploded a bomb outside a government building in central Oslo and then went to a summer camp run by the governing Labor Party where he shot a large number of the campers. (The logic for this second act was that the Labor Party had committed “cultural treason” by promoting multiculturalism and that the campers were the Labor leaders of the future.) In all, he murdered 77 people. Before committing the massacre, the terrorist had posted a 1,500-page manifesto on the Web in which he cited extensively from a number of the most prominent anti-Islamic voices. The Roma Prableen Kaur addresses the festival held on July 29, 2011, to honor those murdered in the massacre a week earlier. sch66548_07_c07_281-324.indd 309 Muslims have been the primary victims of this new intolerance but it has not spared a traditional target of European prejudice, the Roma. The largest number of the approximately 12 million Roma live in Central and Eastern Europe, especially Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Hungary, and the former Yugoslavia. There, the post-Communist economic crises and spread of nationalist politics have produced an upsurge in segregation, discrimination, and even violence. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, many Roma applied as refugees to Canada, Switzerland, and EU member states. Canada and some European countries responded by imposing visa requirements on people from Hungary and the Czech republic, making it more difficult for them to enter the country and file a claim. For those who were able to apply, the 12/22/11 11:30 AM Section 7.4  Society and Culture CHAPTER 7 rejection rates in Austria, France, Norway, Switzerland, and the UK were very high. In Western Europe, Spain has a longstanding Roma population, now numbering around two million, that is fairly well integrated. As part of their admission process to the EU, countries had to abolish discriminatory legislation and establish special programs for Roma. This did not stop verbal and physical attacks, however. In Romania and Bulgaria, the media were full of representations of the Roma “not just as pariahs but as the enemy within” (Nicolae, 2009). Physical violence, including firebombings, shootings, stabbings, and beatings, increased in Hungary, the Czech Republic, and the Slovak Republic between 2008 and 2011. At the same time, openly racist organizations became more active. The situation was probably most extreme in Hungary where the radical right party Jobbik repeatedly denounced what it called “gypsy crime.” Its associated black-clad paramilitary group, the Civil Guard Association for a Better Future, established an intimidating presence in Roma neighborhoods while the police refused to intervene. Following the accession of the former Communist states to the European Union, many Roma moved to Western countries in search of better economic opportunities and less prejudice. As the anti-immigrant atmosphere intensified in 2009 and 2010, however, the Roma found themselves under increasing attack from both governments and ordinary people in the West as well. In May 2008 an Italian mob burned down a gypsy camp in Naples while onlookers cheered and police simply watched. In 2010, the city of Milan ordered Roma camps to be bulldozed and Roma living in a heavily immigrant neighborhood to be evicted while the city’s deputy mayor explained to the public, “These are dark-skinned people, not Europeans like you and me” (Faiola, 2010). The French government deported Roma to Romania but not before collecting biometric data to help stop them from returning, while Denmark expelled a group of Roma for being a threat to public security, although the government later reversed this decision as a violation of the EU’s rules guaranteeing freedom of movement for citizens The ruins of a Roma camp outside Milan after an arson of member states. attack on December 31, 2006. sch66548_07_c07_281-324.indd 310 12/22/11 11:30 AM Section 7.4  Society and Culture CHAPTER 7 In Their Own Words: Survivor of Terrorism: Prableen Kaur I was in the main hallway when panic struck. I heard shots. I saw him shoot. Everybody started to run. The first thought was: “Why is the police shooting at us? What the f***? . . . We ran into the woods. I looked around. “Is he here? Is he shooting at me? Can he see me?” A girl had broken her ankle. Another was badly injured. I tried to help a little before continuing down to the water. I took shelter behind some sort of cement wall. We were many. I prayed, prayed, prayed. I was hoping that God could see me. I rang mum and said it was not certain we would meet again but that I would do everything I could to make it through. I told her several times that I loved her. I heard the fear in her voice. She cried. It hurt. I sent an SMS to my dad, said I loved him. I sent an SMS to someone else I love very, very much. We kept in contact for a while. I sent an SMS to my best friend. He did not reply. We heard more shots. Pulled closer together. Did what we could to stay warm. . . . A man came. “I’m from the police.” I stayed down. Someone screamed that he had to prove it. I can’t quite remember what he said, but the killer started to shoot. He reloaded. Shot more. He shot those around me. I remained still. I thought: “It’s over. He is here. He will get me. Now I die.” People were screaming. I heard that others were shot. Others again jumped into the water. I lay there. The mobile in my hand. I was on top of the legs of a girl. Two others lay on top of my legs. I lay still. Text messages were ticking in. The mobile rang several times. I remained still. I played dead. I lay there for at least an hour. It was completely quiet. I carefully turned my head to see if I could see anybody alive. I saw dead bodies. I saw blood. Fear. I decided to get up. I had been lying on top of a dead body. Two dead bodies were on top of me. I had guardian angels. I hurried down to the water. Took my sweater off. It was big. I thought it would be hard to swim with it on. I tried to decide whether to take the mobile or not. I put it in my back pocket and jumped in. (Kaur, 2011) Prableen Kaur was born in 1993. An activist in the Norwegian Labor Party, in 2011 she was vice chair of Oslo division of the party’s youth organization. She was at the summer camp run by the party on the island of Utøya near Oslo when, on July 22, a gunman appeared and began killing the campers. Kaur survived and related her experience on her blog. Eastern Europe: Culture After Communism The Communist regimes had constrained cultural expression through censorship and state control of television, radio, theatres, and publishing. At the same time, they had promoted the culture they found acceptable through economic subsidies and privileges for approved cultural figures. With the collapse of Communism, everything changed. . . . Mentalities had to change. Publishers had to become responsive to the market. Authors used to having their works printed and reprinted found themselves unemployed. Foreign films and books flooded the cultural market. Intellectuals, including those who had been critical of communism, were aghast. They had moved from the dictatorship of the party to the true “dictatorship of the proletariat”: consumer capitalism. (Sassoon, 2006, p. 1,267) sch66548_07_c07_281-324.indd 311 12/22/11 11:30 AM Section 7.4  Society and Culture CHAPTER 7 The collapse of Communism brought much greater freedom of expression than before, which was welcomed, but the new world created losers as well as winners. Many established newspapers and magazines saw their circulations collapse. The Hungarian state recording company had done well producing local rock music as a state-owned company; it was privatized in 1995 and quickly went bankrupt. Writers and other cultural figures lost the privileges they had enjoyed and had to adjust to producing things that readers, not the authorities, wanted. Ironically, dissident writers had problems too. Their works were no longer banned by the political authorities, but few people wanted to buy them. Part of the reason for this was an influx of foreign influence. More precisely, the source of foreign influence changed. Until 1989, the major influence was Russian: The largest number of books published in translation had been published in Russian, and all students were required to study Russian as a second language. After 1989, the dominant foreign influence became Western European and American. Many publishers and broadcasters were purchased by foreign conglomerates such as Bertelsmann from Germany. English and German became the foreign languages of choice, and books written in English were the most frequently translated. Television stations broadcast shows imported from the United States or local versions of game and reality shows. Curiously, some of these, such as Big Brother and Survivor, which were believed to be American, were U.S. adaptations of shows that had actually originated in Western Europe: Big Brother came from the Netherlands, and Survivor was first shown on Swedish television. There was also concern about what many people denounced as the negative effects of the commercialization of culture. One was the flood of “trash literature.” The Canadian publisher Harlequin, purveyor of romance novels, quickly became the most important publisher in Poland and also sold large numbers of its books in other countries. Another cause for concern was the sexualisation of culture: Local versions of Playboy came onto the market, and television became much more sexually explicit than before—and a great deal more so than was normal in the United States. Going to the movies became much less popular than before. In 1986, the average Russian went to 12 movies per year; by 1994 the number was less than 3. The figures were 10.5 and 1.4 in Bulgaria, 7 and 1 in Romania, and 5 and 1.2 in Czechoslovakia (Sassoon, 2006). One of the causes of this massive change was the collapse of local film industries following the end of the Communist regimes that had subsidized them. Movies from the United States virtually took over this reduced market. In 1986, they had represented only a fraction of the films shown in Communist countries: 10 percent in Poland, 9 percent in Czechoslovakia, and just 4 percent in Bulgaria. By 1994, these numbers had jumped to 61 percent, 72 percent, and 84 percent respectively (Sassoon, 2006, p. 1,225)! The growing dominance of U.S. movies was something shared across Europe: In 2001, the 10 most commercially successful movies in the European Union were all from the United States, although the top three—Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Bridget Jones’ Diary, and The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring—were all based on books from the United Kingdom. Even among the 10 most popular European films, four had notable U.S. involvement in their production (Sassoon, 2006). sch66548_07_c07_281-324.indd 312 12/22/11 11:30 AM Section 7.4  Society and Culture CHAPTER 7 Memory World War II, and especially the Holocaust, had been difficult subjects for many Europeans to incorporate into their historical memory in the first decades after 1945 (see chapter 5). They emerged again, and possibly even with greater vehemence, after 1991 even though the war had been over for almost 50 years. For the former Communist countries, where an official memory had been imposed by the regime, this was the first opportunity they had to openly discuss these issues. In some Western countries, grassroots movements brought the question to public attention. Dealing with the memory of the past was something common to both Western and Eastern Europe, and in many cases it gave rise to disagreements and conflict. Germany West Germany had done a better job than other European countries in coming to terms with war and the Holocaust, but it was the first country to have to deal with new conflicts over memory. In May 1985, controversy erupted when President Reagan accepted Chancellor Kohl’s invitation to visit the military cemetery at Bitburg, where 49 members of the SS were buried. Afterward, Reagan referred to the soldiers buried there as being as much victims as those who died in the Holocaust. These statements, and the decision to visit Bitburg at all, provoked widespread protests in the United States from military officers and members of Congress as well as from Holocaust survivors. Very few Germans turned out to protest during the visit. Victimhood was also at the center of what became known as the Historikerstreit (historians’ dispute) that raged in the German media starting in 1986. The dispute began with an article in which the distinguished historian Ernst Nolte argued that the Holocaust was a defensive reaction to the mass murders committed by Stalin: “race murder” as a defensive response to “class murder.” This provoked an immediate response from Jürgen Habermas, who claimed that Nolte and other conservative historians were trying to “cancel out the damages” of the Holocaust by denying its uniqueness. One such historian was Andreas Hilgruber. In 1986 he published a book in which he compared the fate of the ethnic Germans expelled from Poland and Czechoslovakia at the end of the war (see chapter 4) with that of the Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust. The debate, which was carried out in very heated terms, soon lined up conservative and nationalist historians against more left-wing ones. The events of 1989–1990 overtook the debate, but the issue of German victimhood re-emerged in a different form in the early 21st century. Organizations such as the League of Expellees, who claimed to represent those ethnic Germans whom the governments of Poland and Czechoslovakia had expelled from their countries after World War II (see chapter 5), began to demand compensation for the property that they had lost in the former countries. They also proposed the construction of a memorial to the expellees in Berlin. The League even opposed Poland’s entry into the EU. These developments provoked outrage in the Eastern European countries, especially Poland. Within Germany, the question of the expelled Germans had a more significant place in the commemoration of sch66548_07_c07_281-324.indd 313 12/22/11 11:30 AM Section 7.4  Society and Culture CHAPTER 7 the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II in 2005 than did the crimes committed by the Germans who occupied Poland. Germany has paid more attention to crimes committed against Jews during the war. Since reunification, the country created two major monuments recalling the Holocaust. The first, the Jewish Museum of Berlin, was announced in 1988, but construction began only in 1992. The building, which Architect Daniel Liebeskind’s daring Jewish Museum is a major part of Germany’s historical memory of the Holocaust was designed by Daniel Liebeskind, was so striking that some and its deeper Jewish past. 350,000 people visited it between the time construction ended and the museum actually opened two years later. The second, the Monument to the Murdered Jews of Europe, located in the center of Berlin, was announced in 1994 and inaugurated in 2004. France It was only in the 1990s that France began to fully come to terms with the meaning of Vichy. Until then, the prevailing idea was that the collaborationist regime was an unfortunate aberration and not a part of real France. The change came as the result of the trials of two Vichy officials: Paul Touvier in 1994 and Maurice Papon in 1997. Touvier had been an important figure in the Milice, the hated police of the Vichy regime. He was sentenced to death in absentia for treason in 1946 but pardoned in 1971. In 1981, new charges, crimes against humanity, were filed but Touvier was brought to trial only in 1994. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison; he died in jail in 1996. Papon was a much more important figure. Since World War II, he had had a distinguished career in government service, including assignments as police chief of Paris, prefect in Algeria during the Algerian revolution, a deputy, and eventually a government minister. During the war, however, as a civil servant in Bordeaux, he had been responsible for arresting more than 1,600 Jews and sending them to Paris for deportation. The Papon trial lasted six months and captivated the country; it also destroyed the idea that Vichy and France were different things. Papon was sentenced to 10 years in jail but was released after less than 4 years on grounds of ill health. He died in 2007. Government officials also began to make statements about these matters in the 1990s. Shortly after he succeeded Francois Mitterand as President in 1995, Jacques Chirac made the first public acknowledgement of France’s role in the Holocaust. And in 2005 Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin announced in Jerusalem that “France was at times an accomplice in this shame [the Holocaust]. She is bound forever by the debt she has incurred” (Judt, 2005, p. 821). sch66548_07_c07_281-324.indd 314 12/22/11 11:30 AM Section 7.4  Society and Culture CHAPTER 7 These issues continued to reverberate as late as 2010. In that year, SNCF, the national railroad company, bid on a contract for high-speed trains in California. Under the terms of the Holocaust Survivor Responsibility Act, which was passed by the California legislature in August 2010 but later vetoed by governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, SNCF was required to include in its bid a promise to open its archives dealing with its activities during World War II and to compensate the families of those it victimized. SNCF agreed to follow the terms of the act even though it had not become law, and in early 2011 the company launched an English-language website that included material on its wartime history. “France under occupation: an overview of the historical context,” http://www .sncfhighspeedrail.com/heritage/world-war-ii/) Similarly, in 2010, the Police Museum of Paris announced that documentation concerning French people who collaborated with the Nazis, and which had been closed for 75 years by government order, were being digitized and would be published online starting in 2015. The Former Communist States Those countries that came under Communist rule had an official interpretation of the war determined for them and imposed upon them. The war had been an anti-Fascist struggle in which the Soviet Union had played a major role and paid the highest price. That the Jews had been the special victims of the Nazis was not mentioned, even though almost all the Holocaust had taken place in Eastern Europe (see chapter 5). When the fall of Communism allowed the former satellite states to reclaim their own memories of the war, these came to be dominated by a sense of their own victimhood. The most outstanding case was Poland: Poles saw themselves as the victims of the Nazis, and while Catholic Poles were indeed targeted (see chapter 4), the new rhetoric typically ignored the fact that most Poles killed by the Germans were Jews or that the...
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