I’ve been busy with work and travel since I last posted. Just wanted to let you all know that I’m still alive, and am currently in Moldova. Some people from my church and I are helping to put on a summer camp for orphans. I’m very much looking forward to helping out, and to going off the grid.
For the EU to undertake any major changes (through new treaties), they have to be unanimously approved by all the member states - now 25. Each country has a choice of method of approval: either hold a referendum, where everyone gets to vote, or have the country’s legislative body ratify it. Not surprisingly, most countries choose the latter. Actually giving the people a choice is risky, they may reject what you’ve put a lot of work into. Much easier to just push something through parliament. As you may remember, the European constitution was scrapped because it failed in referendums in France and the Netherlands. Well, Europe is now faced with a new restructuring, the Treaty of Lisbon. Whatever you think about the treaty, you’d think that Euros would be in favor of democracy . . . not really. The Irish are the only people who are actually being given a choice in the matter. All the other countries have chosen to ratify through their governments. As insistent as we are on democracy in Iraq, we still have some work to do in Europe:
Since many EU leaders have since boasted that the Lisbon Treaty is practically the same as the “Constitution,” the fact that the French and Dutch will effectively get something they rejected is obviously a travesty of democracy. In some ways this is more antidemocratic than if the EU had rigged the referendums. To rig a vote is at least to accept the principle that political legitimacy requires victory at the polls, even if the “victory” is secured by cheating. To hold a ballot, lose it and then ride roughshod over the result is not even to accept that a democratic vote matters at all.
Last year, Germany’s former President Roman Herzog wondered whether given all the laws coming from Brussels, Germany could still be called “a parliamentary democracy.” If a former head of Germany’s constitutional court, who chaired the convention that drafted the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, says people worry that the “democratic control mechanisms are failing,” perhaps it’s time to sit up and listen.
It is not easy to define when referendums about European integration are appropriate. But given that the general thrust of EU integration has been to take powers away from national parliaments, genuine democrats should probably err on the side of calling referendums more often than not. Whichever way the Irish go this week, they can at least be proud their country has given them a choice. The rest of Europe looks on in envy.
Vaclav Klaus was right:
You cannot have democratic accountability in anything bigger than a nation state.
We could see the scaffolding of a nation-state that would retain a president and similar institutions, but with virtually zero influence. That’s my forecast. And it’s not a reassuring vision of the future.
LGF points us to some interesting stories that Robert Kennedy wrote as a young journalist:
* In April 1948, one month before Israel declared independence, Robert Kennedy, then 22, traveled to Palestine to report on the conflict for the Boston Post. His four dispatches from the scene were published in June 1948. The newspaper closed in 1956, and for decades the reports were virtually forgotten.
* “Unfortunately for [the Jews, Jerusalem’s water] reservoir is situated in the mountains and it and the whole pipeline are controlled by the Arabs. The British would not let them cut the water off until after May 15th but an Arab told me they would not even do it then. First they would poison it.”
* The Arab responsible for the blowing up of the Jewish Agency on March 11, 1948, said “that after the explosion, upon reaching the British post which separated the Jewish section from a small neutral zone set up in the middle of Jerusalem, he was questioned by the British officers in charge. He quite freely admitted what he had done and was given immediate passage with the remark, ‘Nice going.’”
* “The Jews informed the British government that 600 Iraqi troops were going to cross into Palestine from Trans-Jordan by the Allenby Bridge on a certain date and requested the British to take appropriate action to prevent this passage. The troops crossed unmolested….I saw several thousand non-Palestinian Arab troops in Palestine, including many of the famed British-trained and equipped Arab legionnaires of King Abdullah [of Trans-Jordan]. There were also soldiers from Syria, Lebanon, Iraq.”
* “The Arabs in command believe that eventually victory must be theirs. It is against all law and nature that this Jewish state should exist. They…promise that if it does become a reality it will never have as neighbors anything but hostile countries, which will continue the fight militarily and economically until victory is achieved.”
* “The Jews on the other hand believe that in a few more years, if a Jewish state is formed, it will be the only stabilizing factor remaining in the Near and Middle East. The Arab world is made up of many disgruntled factions which would have been at each other’s throats long ago if it had not been for the common war against Zionism.”
This doesn’t sound like an immoral black-hole:
There is much talk in the media, in our capital and elsewhere about the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. I have paid close attention to this dialogue, and after a year in command, it is clear that there are two Guantanamos: the one that exists in popular culture, and the one most discover when they actually see conditions there.
We house enemy combatants in one of several facilities according to their compliance with camp rules. Highly compliant detainees, approximately 20% of the population, live in Camp 4. Here they enjoy a communal, barracks-style environment, with movie nights, classes in Pashtu, Arabic and English, shared meals and prayers, and up to 12 hours of recreation per day.
Many of the enemy combatants, however, fail to comply with established rules. Offenses often include head-butting, kicking, biting and splashing young soldiers and sailors with feces and urine “cocktails.”
These detainees are housed in Camps 5 and 6 – modern, climate-controlled facilities modeled after existing U.S. prison facilities in the Midwest. They get a minimum of two, soon to be three, hours of outdoor recreation per day adjacent to three to five other detainees. And they are held in a block of single-occupancy cells where they communicate with other detainees, guards, medical staff, library assistants and mail delivery personnel. Prayers are led five times a day by a detainee-appointed Imam. Each cell contains an arrow that points to Mecca.
All detainees receive three-meals per day, a 4,000-calorie diet selected from six different menus that meet the halal cultural dietary requirements, and which provide for special needs such as low sodium, vegetarian or diabetic. We provide comfort items including sheets and bedding, uniforms, shoes, prayer beads, prayer rugs, toiletries and bottled water. Each detainee is issued a Quran in Arabic and one in his native language. An ever-expanding, 5,000 volume library is available for a weekly choice of reading material.
The whole article is worth a read.
One of my most treasured possessions was a black, Yves Saint Laurent dress shirt. It was supposed to be a quick fix purchase for a debate tournament that weekend, but it turned out to be a longstanding, essential part of my wardrobe. A few words of Yves Saint Laurent stand out as particularly true:
Saint Laurent’s success lay in the harmony he achieved between body and garment — what he called “the total silence of clothing.”
“Is elegance not totally forgetting what one is wearing?”
“A woman who has not found her style, who does not feel at ease in her clothes, who does not live in harmony with them, is a sick woman.”
“To be beautiful, all a woman needs is a black pullover and a black skirt and to be arm in arm with a man she loves.”
