A Radical Idea for Europe

The European Union’s 60th anniversary this month comes at a time when some political leaders are attracting significant popular support for policies that directly call into question the value of the union. It’s not just the EU under attack, but NATO, the United Nations, the Council of Europe and its human rights court, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – all the institutions and ideals that emerged in the post-war, post-Holocaust spirit of “never again” that bolster respect for human rights and rule of law are facing fresh attacks in western democracies and beyond.

There is, of course, much to criticise about the functioning of the EU and other post-war institutions – bureaucracy, lack of transparency, economic policies, or simply when their actions do not live up to their values. But today’s criticism goes beyond the inefficiencies and inadequacies; the very existence of these bodies and even of the post-war order itself are being questioned.

It seems puzzling on the face of it. Nothing so earth-shattering has happened to justify a sweeping rethink of the reasons and need for core institutions that have helped ensure peace and stability in Europe for decades – no great depression, no dramatically rising crime, no sharp rise in unemployment. Some would cite the 2008 economic crisis as a cause or maybe the stresses of enlargement or the introduction of the euro, but if these are key factors, there’s been a curious delay between those events and today’s populist responses.

There has been a spate of terrorist attacks, but there have been far more protracted campaigns in the past that arguably led to far less questioning of political fundamentals. The everyone-for-himself response to chaotic arrivals of asylum seekers in 2015 probably didn’t help. Even so, there’s no clear cause one can point to to explain the seeming drift toward radical solutions that undermine human rights protection.

Even the globalisation and identity arguments often put forward to explain the rise of rejectionist populism don’t really make sense. Why, in 2017, when globalisation has been steadily marching on for decades, and populations mixing for decades, is it suddenly at a tipping point? There’s no obvious cause for the radical shift in general political direction, although the willingness of mainstream politicians to embrace the dangerous mantle of populism certainly hasn’t helped.

Some argue that people have forgotten history, but that doesn’t ring true. Europeans know about World War II and understand the horrors of the Holocaust. Denial is still very fringe.

But perhaps the problem is historical knowledge ends there for too many people. We are less familiar with how key institutions emerged after the war to ensure peace and security through political and economic integration, based on respect for fundamental human rights. Maybe people understand the philosophy of “never again” but too often don’t realise that, 60 years on, that is exactly what the European project based on strong human rights values has been about and has helped deliver.

These post-war hopes and institutions backing democracy and human rights were the radical ideas of their time in response to dire circumstances. We don’t need a new radicalism; we need to bolster the one we have. And we need political leaders to stop denigrating European institutions. Nothing less than the peace and security of Europe depends on it.

Congratulations, Mr Karimov!

I wrote this piece for the European Voice on 17 January 2011, just before the visit of Uzbek President Islam Karimov to Brussels. It deals with a serious subject, of course, but I have to admit I greatly enjoyed writing it in this sardonic tone. The article got a lot of attention (for a piece about Uzbekistan), and I was particularly happy to receive emails from inside the country from people who had heard it translated and broadcast via shortwave.

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On the eve of your first official visit to Brussels in years, President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan, you deserve high praise. You have played the long game expertly and outmanoeuvred European foreign-policy makers so deftly that you have become a model of how to shrug off international pariah status.

Any old authoritarian ruler can dismiss UN reports of “systematic” torture in police custody and human-rights groups' long lists of political prisoners. But you managed to overcome so much more and win yourself a welcoming reception by José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, which is far more than the average tin-pot dictator from, say, Africa or Belarus ever gets.

Forgetting a Massacre

This short piece appeared on my Reuters AlertNet blog on 12 May 2010.

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Tomorrow, 13 May, marks the fifth anniversary of the Andijan massacre in Uzbekistan, when state security forces opened fire on mass demonstrations, killing some 750 civilians. The regime in Tashkent would like everyone to forget about it, of course, and they spent a long time after the event hunting down witnesses and threatening them and their families into signing false confessions in a series of show trials.

The EU's record shows they are willing to forget, dropping sanctions over the years without any of their initial criteria being met, including the call for an independent investigation into Andijan.

The High Price of Five Years of Forgetting

This article appeared in the European Voice on 29 April 2010.

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"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting". Milan Kundera's words should haunt Europe on 13 May. The fifth anniversary of the massacre in Andijan, a town in eastern Uzbekistan, ought to remind decision-makers, particularly those in Berlin, how the EU first raised the hopes of the victims, and then dashed them.

An Overview of Media Development in Post-Conflict Transition

This piece formed the basis of a speech I delivered to a European Union workshop on "the Role of Media in Conflict Prevention" on 3 April 2009. It began as a set of notes I'd been making on the subject for years and is the kind of all-inclusive media development text I'd been wanting to write for some time. Sometimes it's good to have a conference or other event to force you to pull all your thoughts together.

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If you look at media-related projects in post-conflict situations in recent decades -- though you can go back much further, of course, as this is not a new field -- there appear to be lots of practical lessons learned, but they often seem specific to one theatre and at best only partially transferable to others.

The good thing is that few can doubt the importance of media development in an overall post-conflict package these days. After the horrific role played by Radio Mille Collines in driving the Rwandan genocide through its hate propaganda, there is a widespread understanding that irresponsible media can help tear apart a fragile society. And after success stories like the UN-sponsored Radio Okapi, which has been helping to foster a feeling of national unity in the shattered Democratic Republic of the Congo, there is a growing awareness that responsible media can help repair and even strengthen a post-conflict society.

Fake Champagne and Life-saving Drugs

This originally ran on my Reuters AlterNet blog on 19 March 2009.

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How is sparkling wine like a life-saving drug in developing world countries? They're both targeted for destruction by EU customs officials if they're found in European ports with the wrong label on them.

A number of aid agencies are currently worried that overzealous action by EU officials in ports like Rotterdam is going to have serious health effects for people in Africa and South America. Customs officers have been seizing generic drug shipments en route from India to Brazil, Nigeria and elsewhere because of alleged patent infringement. The drugs in question are generic in both the country of origin and the country of destination, but here in the EU, some drug company or other has the legal lock on their manufacture.

Today, in an open letter in the European Voice, a group of MEPs on the European Parliament's international trade committee have picked up the cause, protesting the slated destruction of three consignments of Indian-manufactured generic medicines in particular. These drugs -- clopidogrel, rivastigmine and olanzapine -- were on their way to developing countries to treat patients with serious and life-threatening conditions such as heart attacks, strokes, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and psychosis. Halting the shipment and planning its destruction is simply outrageous.

Note, these are not harmful or out-of-date meds. As the MEPs write:

It is vital to differentiate between illegal counterfeit medicines -- which the World Health Organization defines as medicines having a false representation of identity and/or source -- and legitimate generic medicines, which are, in most cases, simply unbranded versions of patented medicines.

And the wider implications of the authorities' actions compound the trouble. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) actually ships generic medicines from EU-based warehouses to developing countries. Are the customs police going to break up that perfidious racket, too?

The EU has, of course, been known to destroy large quantities of American sparkling wine improperly labeled "champagne" and caught in EU ports. I am all for safeguarding consumers through protected names, but I don't see the logic of rash action and wanton waste: why smash the bottles when the producer could just be required to relabel them instead before onward shipment? Or when they could be given to charity?

But while a bit of spilt booze is a sad loss, the senseless destruction of live-saving medicines that are perfectly safe and legal in their production and distribution countries is absolutely immoral. The European Commission ought to think again here.

Czech Art Shocks Brussels

As I walked into the European Council building in Brussels for a pair of meetings yesterday, my eyes were led upward by multiple fingers pointing amidst audible breaths being drawn in to an enormous new art installation. Entropa depicts the EU as a build-it-yourself set of plastic parts, with each country represented by a blunt stereotype.

Italy is a football pitch, Germany a spread of autobahns in which those with the intention to do so might see a swastika, Sweden is wrapped up in a flat-pack Ikea box, and the UK, perceived as more eurosceptic than most, is noted by its complete absence. The Netherlands is under water apart from a few minarets, and in Poland, a Catholic clergy raises the gay rainbow flag.

The group I was with mostly laughed, getting the joke right away: we Europeans have such simplistic prejudices about each other -- and among ourselves within individual countries -- and Europe will not be built until these mental barriers really start coming down.

But many of those gasping at it clearly found it offensive, and it has sparked controversy in the media. Admittedly, Bulgaria, which comes off as a squat toilet, might have a bit more to gripe about than others.

And the Czechs, who currently hold the six-month rotating presidency and commissioned the work, were somewhat embarrassed when it emerged that the artist, David Černý, had apparently scammed them, having initially told them the work was made by 27 EU artists when he created the whole thing himself. But, come on, Prague: you commissioned David Černý -- what did you expect but controversy?

Even still, to me, it's brilliant: great art, provoking some wonderful conversations and hopefully breaking people out of their day-to-day complacency. Once again, I am amazed people just don't get humourous political art.

Let's admit it, here in Brussels we all hear the same kinds of national stereotypes coming from some of those who actually work in the EU institutions. Many people seem to ask almost as a matter of course what member state a person in a particular position in the system comes from, and then they immediately make sweeping judgements about how that person will respond to a request or explanations of behaviour in the style of, "ah, well, he’s from X, so that explains it". Then, a wave of knowing nods around the table. We have yet to make Europeans even among those most likely to feel comfortable with that identity.

Ať žije David Černý!

Gaza: If Not the EU, Who?

My Crisis Group colleague, Robert Blecher, and I penned this for the European Voice on 7 January 2009. It was reprinted in a number of national outlets across Europe.

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The collapse of the weak ceasefire in December and the return to all-out conflict between Israel and Gaza under Hamas has tempted many to say, "here we go again", with comparisons to the summer 2006 Israel-Lebanon war flowing freely from the keyboards of commentators everywhere.

Indeed, there are some similarities: provoked once too often, Israel responded then as now with overwhelming military power against an Islamist force and the civilian infrastructure, resulting in enormous casualties for which both sides blame each other. The international community is split on how to act, as the US tacitly gives Israel a green light to carry on its attack and the Arab world shouts and cries with little effect. All the while, the horror and humiliation are stoking the next generation’s militancy.

The question this time, however, is whether anyone in the international community has learned the lessons of 2006.

Witness to Absurdity

Given what I've written about Uzbekistan in recent years -- and assuming the visa-issuing officials in Tashkent have heard of Google -- there was never much chance of me getting into the country under normal circumstances. But an opportunity came in autumn of 2008, when I was able to go as part of an EU-sponsored conference. The experience of visiting Uzbekistan again after five or six years away was welcome yet disturbing. This is the piece I wrote upon return, for Transitions Online on 16 October 2008.

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Arriving at Tashkent airport is not a pleasant experience. For foreigners, it means three or four hours in the tumbling scrum of Uzbek customs and immigration, with hundreds of people cramming up against each other to get through the paperwork. It’s not just the chaotic developing world, “this passport control is taking forever” sort of thing, but a literal shoving match for hours on end. It would be hard to imagine anything worse, but then, you don’t really have to: you just have to look at the pitched battle at the passport control booth for Uzbekistan’s own citizens.

The Ghost of Sanctions (Not Quite) Past

This article originally appeared in the European Voice on 18 July 2008. The EU's policy toward Uzbekistan had once been hailed; it then became an example of unprincipled policy-making at its worst.

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Attempting to ignore its own policy on Uzbekistan is becoming a favourite pastime for the EU. The latest in the sorry saga of EU sanctions against Tashkent is the decision not to include the Central Asian country on the formal agenda for next week’s meeting of EU foreign ministers.

This ‘oversight’ is somewhat surprising given that in April, the ministers’ monthly meeting – known as GAERC, for the General Affairs and External Relations Council – agreed to review the progress made by the Uzbek authorities after three months. Of course, nothing is particularly clear when it comes to the EU’s position on Uzbekistan: ‘after three months’ could mean any time, and sticklers might say ‘review’ doesn’t actually mean ‘discuss’.

This fits a fairly predictable pattern of late. If the EU has a way to avoid Uzbekistan, it will take it.

Europe's Soft Powerlessness

This article originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal on 20 May 2008.

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Any dictator concerned about Western condemnation of his actions could learn a lot from Uzbekistan's President Islam Karimov. Tashkent's strongman, with some help from Berlin, has just outmaneuvered the European Union to get the sanctions against his regime lifted.

Three years ago, the EU agreed on an Uzbek arms embargo and visa bans against top regime officials involved in the brutal crackdown on demonstrators in the eastern city of Andijan. No one can be sure how many men, women and children were killed on May 13, 2005, when security forces opened fire on the crowd. The authorities never allowed an independent inquiry. But conservative estimates suggest some 750 people died that day.

In fact, an independent investigation was one of the key conditions the EU had set for lifting the sanctions imposed in response to the mass killings and the torture, forced confessions and show trials that followed. It was an all-too-rare case of the EU taking the international lead on a tough foreign policy issue. The U.S. never even got as far as sanctions.

Sadly, European nerves didn't hold up.

EU-Africa Summit: Get Beyond Bob

From my Reuters AlertNet blog on 4 December 2007.

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Here's a challenge to all European journalists intending to write about this weekend's EU-Africa Summit: deal with real issues that may have an effect on people's lives, not invented ones that politicians use to aggrandise themselves. In short, skip the flap about Robert Mugabe's attendance, and go directly to substance.

Some may say this is hard to do. No doubt editors back home are baying for Bob, so they can cover what they assume people are interested in -- mostly because the competition is working under the same assumptions. Of course, in doing so the media gatekeepers have to consciously ignore their duty to inform the public as well as the opportunity they possess to set the agenda.

There are at least a dozen much more critical issues this EU-Africa Summit raises.

Von Taschkent zum Narren gehalten

This piece originally ran in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on 15 May 2007.

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Vor fünf Jahren sah es so aus, als könnten ein paar kleine Fortschritte in Bezug auf den Respekt für Menschenrechte im Land eine Öffnung des Regimes in Usbekistan signalisieren. Taschkent stellte Leichtgläubigen aus dem Westen eine Falle, und einige fielen darauf herein.

The EU's Inexcusable Pardon for Serbia

My Crisis Group colleague, Sabine Freizer, and I wrote this piece for the European Voice, which ran it on 29 March 2007.

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Given the widespread negativity about further EU enlargement, it is curious that the EU is poised to lower the bar for Serbia, which Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said earlier this month could achieve candidate status by 2008.

Indeed, it is more than surprising – downright shocking – that the EU proposes to waive preconditions that the most notorious war criminals in Europe are arrested and transferred to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague.

For years, talks with Serbia over a stabilisation and association agreement (SAA) were strictly dependent on Belgrade’s full co-operation with the tribunal and from December 2004 to April 2005 this conditionality bore fruit. Serbia transferred 16 indictees before SAA talks began in May 2005.

But that is precisely when co-operation stopped.

Uzbekistan: Beyond Sanctions

This originally appeared in Transitions Online on 22 November 2006.

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The EU can do little now to change Uzbekistan’s direction, but it could be doing more to prepare the Uzbek people for the coming blows.

It was not the worst-case scenario many had feared. European Union foreign ministers did not drop Europe’s sanctions against Uzbekistan at their meeting on 13 November. But their decision to temporarily renew the punitive measures was not exactly a complete victory for human rights and regional stability either.

The EU and the Turkmen "Prophet"

I wrote this piece together with Tanya Cox of Human Rights Watch. It was published in the European Voice on 6 April 2006.

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For years, it has been pretty hard to find anyone with anything nice to say about Turkmenistan's leadership. A widespread consensus developed that the country's leader, president-for-life Saparmurat Niyazov - who styles himself 'Turkmenbashi', or father of all Turkmen - is an autocratic ruler, wrecking his country and oppressing his people.

Criticism of his authoritarian government is not restricted to non-governmental organisations such as Human Rights Watch and the International Crisis Group. The United Nations and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe have regularly criticised the country's appalling human rights record and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has suspended all public sector engagement with Turkmenistan over such concerns. What everyone seem to agree on is that Turkmenistan is one of the world's most repressive states.

It thus comes as a huge shock that the European Union is moving to break ranks and cosy up to the pariah government.

Blind to the "Butcher of Andijan"

This article originally appeared in the European Voice on 24 November 2005.

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Uzbekistan Interior Minister Zakirjon Almatov is currently on an extended visit to Germany. Nothing strange or particularly newsworthy about that, you might think - until you realise that Almatov has been declared persona non grata by the EU. He is officially prohibited from visiting the EU, and yet, he is here all the same.

On 14 November, the Council issued travel bans on 12 Uzbek officials "directly responsible for the indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force" in the massacre of hundreds of unarmed protesters in the east Uzbekistan city of Andijan on 13 May, 2005. The name Zakirjon Almatov tops the EU's travel blacklist.

The German Foreign Ministry defends its decision to allow Almatov to stay in the country despite the visa ban against him, saying it is acting "on humanitarian grounds", because he is receiving medical treatment at a clinic in Hanover. That must seem a cruel joke to the victims of the Andijan massacre. They know Almatov as "The Butcher of Andijan", a man who showed little humanity as he told protesters there would be no negotiations just before government troops started firing into the crowd.

The West Is Far Too Kind to Uzbekistan's Tyrant

This article originally appeared in the International Herald Tribune on 16 March 2004.

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"I didn't want to leave my home," a friend e-mailed me a few weeks ago, "but Uzbekistan doesn't give me a choice."

After the police got rough and threatened to arrest him, he decided it would be best to leave the country right away. Given that torture by the law enforcement agencies in Uzbekistan is "systematic" - to borrow a word from the United Nations special rapporteur on torture, Theo van Boven - my friend, a journalist who had tried to investigate police abuses for an international news agency, was wise to get out while he could.

Kind treatment, however, has been the approach of the international community toward the Uzbek regime.

A Tribal State

This originally appeared in both Czech and English in Britské listy on 11 March 1998, and a few days later in the Czech daily Slovo. It's important to note that Germany reformed its nationality law in 1999, making it a bit easier for people to claim citizenship based on birthplace.

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Before his flight to Poland, Czech President Václav Havel made several interesting comments in front of reporters, and his most intriguing words concerned Czech racism and EU entry. The country had to decide, he said, whether it wanted a "tribal state" or if it wanted to choose a democratic path which respected the rights of minorities. According to Havel, only the latter would bring the Czech Republic in line with the EU.

It would be nice if this were true, but in reality, the EU is far from a paradise of racial and ethnic harmony. Leaving aside the more bloody examples of Northern Ireland and the Basque region for the moment, it is clear that many countries in the EU have serious problems with racism not only in society at large but also in their legal systems. Germany is a perfect example.