Thursday, 6 December 2007

What next - Iraq in the EU??

I originally posted this on another blog of mine, but I figured that it wouldn't be completely irrelevant on this one either.

This is slightly old news, but a few weeks ago David Miliband, the UK's foreign secretary, gave a speech in Bruges about his view on the future of the EU. One of his points was that he thinks that the expansion of the EU is key and that the border of the union shouldn't be geographical. There is already debate about allowing Turkey into the EU since part of the country is in Asia Minor, but he's talking about having Israel as a member, as well as other Middle Eastern and North African countries. Now I'm all for diversity and the breaking down of political boundaries and barriers, but since when has Europe (that's the thing the E in EU stands for, Mr. Miliband) included North Africa and the Middle East? I have no problem with having trade links and economic ties with countries in the respective regions, but having them as member states of the EU brings in a whole host of other issues - mainly financial and security.

He said the goal "must be a multilateral free-trade zone around our periphery". This would be a "version of the European Free Trade Association that could gradually bring the countries of the Mahgreb, the Middle East and Eastern Europe in line with the single market, not as an alternative to membership, but potentially as a step towards it".

First of all the majority of these countries, albeit far from the poorest in the world, are not as rich as Western European countries. Citizens in the current EU would therefore have to pay more in taxes for these countries for development, farming subsidies, etc. It's all very well giving countries aid, but I get the impression this would be taking things a bit far. I know that the EU does have entry requirements, some of which may be financial or economic, but by 2030 I doubt a country like Iraq or Libya would be able to reach a Western European level of wealth, unless they get some Chinese-style economic growth going on some time soon.

Secondly, as member states of the EU their citizens would have the right to travel freely within the EU. Given a certain war against terror, this doesn't seem like one of the brightest ideas I've ever heard, especially for the UK and their involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. On top of that, given the current tensions between Christianity and Islam, mixing it all up could just make matters worse (not that I'm promoting the idea of complete separation) - just look at India and Pakistan and the issues between Islam and Hinduism there. Obviously it's a different situation, but there are some similarities. You just have to look at our history to know that religions do not co-exist easily. Will people never learn from our past mistakes?

Having said that, Miliband does have some sense at least and some of his suggestions like greater European military co-operation sound like good ideas to me. He's one of the few British politicans who actually believes that the EU has a use to the UK - he's not a pompous, self-important, "Rule Britannia" politician at least.

What does worry me though is that I mentioned this speech to a guy I know (a Brit) and he, completely seriously, without even giving it much thought (judging by his response time), nodded and said "I think that's a good idea". The thing is he's one of these people who loves the idea of globalisation, with everyone living together. Sadly that's an unrealistic utopia - I don't believe it could ever happen peacefully, at least not in the beginning. He bases his opinions and ideas on this ideal without seriously thinking about the consequences. And my main argument against this global mixing of cultures is that it defeats the very point of doing it. At the moment we have a vast array of cultures with very different societies and values. If you put them all together, within a few generations the world will essentially be one society with one common culture (with a few pockets of exceptions, but the number of which would decrease with time). Soon there wouldn't be cultures to mix, and the variety of cultures is one of mankind's most intriguing facets in my opinion.

This phenomen of deculturisation and loss of national identity is already happening in a number of regions. European countries are becoming more generally European for example. Or recently there was this article about the loss of languages in Mexico, linguistically one of the richest countries in the world. According to the UN one language disappears every two weeks. The same thing is happening in South East Asia as well, although it gets far less media coverage. Countries like Thailand and Malaysia have developed relatively rapidly in recent years and are far more developed than some neighbouring countries such as Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Burma. Some of these countries, such as Laos, are beginning to catch up though, and the cause? Bridges. A number of borders are defined by rivers like the Mekong (between Laos and Thailand) or to a lesser extent the Salween between Burma and Thailand. Bridges facilitate the transfer of people and money from neighbouring countries, who go in and spread their culture and values. Yes they bring economic advantages and can help to give the people a better quality of life, but it all contributes towards the deculturisation of the world, which would be a tremendous loss to man. And it's basically all in the name of capitalism. No, I'm not a communist, it just seems that more and more people live for the bottom line, for the money that they could potentially make out of something, rather than what's actually best for people or the region.

All of this makes me think that maybe Bhutan's approach is the right one. First of all they limit the number of foreign tourists and business that are allowed to enter the country. They also just the happiness of the people with the Gross National Happiness index, first established in 1972 by King Jigme Singye Wangchuck. It essentially aims to build an economy that serves the people and culture based on Bhuddist spiritual values - certainly in theory a real commitment to safeguarding their unique culture.

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