Right in the middle of the most chaotic days of the economic crises, there are many crucial questions to be asked and answered immediately. Immediately, because it seems that the world does not have a long time to think, negotiate, vote and decide in the European standards. The domino effect of the crisis is faster than precautions and the complete chaos is spreading from Wall Street to even villages of Finland.
Is it really end of capitalism and the liberal values in the world, with serial state intervention into the market and strict regulations and flow of financial support to the banks in order to stabilize the current situation? It is still discussable. But there are various theories and most of them are related with the lessons taken from the biggest economical disaster in west; Great Depression. Some says that the world will never have a similar experience again, but if we have not something in similar way, maybe a minor model of the crisis, would the people able to survive while the life conditions might change rapidly? Is west really ready for that in upcoming years?
Is another Great Depression on the way?
A prominent journalist and columnist of Turkey, Altan Oymen (Radikal, 11.10.08) stated “ let’s look after 1929; USA somehow managed to be solving the problem in the democracy, UK and Switzerland, and Scandinavian countries almost did the same way, they managed to put the things right. But Germany could not do that. They found the way out of unemployment and other disasters related with crisis, in Hitler’s Nazism. And some other European countries also undergone through dictatorial regimes. Italy was already in Mussolini’s fascism. Mussolini used the crisis to reinforce his power in Italy and region. USSR also emphasized “how Marxism was right” and used the crisis as the proof of the “fact”. The crisis worked well for Stalin in over there too.”
He also emphasizes that there is a great change in everything in today’s age, so it does not mean that the same things will happen again in Europe or in any part of the world. But what is not thought and analysed today, who might be benefiting in today’s economical crisis? What sort of political movements might use the crisis as a scenario of the last day of the world, in order to gain the public’s support? How would the whole situation affect the actors of the world in the political-economical-sociological senses?
When will Europe act together?
It seems that every economic and political change in the world is a test for Europe’s acting together or independently. Unfortunately, the system which does seem to be perfect, does not really work in the practice since EU first could not agree on a common reaction after the Georgia and Russia Conflict broke out on 08.08.08. There are variety of opinions with in EU about the situation, such as the one of the Finnish Ambassador stated "Europe has been watching the actions of Russia in a state of paralysis, and has taken hardly any concrete action in the matter” in his two pages of assessment on the situation in the world asked by Finnish Foreign Minister Stub. According to the news of another Finnish ambassador also wrote “Europe is increasingly dependent on energy from Russia, and in Georgia, Russia showed how easy it would be to cut off the important pipelines to the west as well. Russia has already used the energy weapon in its foreign policy, when the state-owned company Gazprom turned off the taps to its pro-Western neighbour Ukraine for some time” in his assessment. The description is really telling a lot about the current situation in EU; “paralysed” by the Finnish Ambassador.
The second biggest test about the unity of EU was the economical crisis and it seems that one more time member nations are acting independently rather than acting as one actor. It seems that the decision taking process with in EU makes the actions to be take immediately almost impossible and the leaders of EU are finding the only way out by securing their own garden with the fences, not thinking about the neighbourhood that they are living in.
Changing roles and new infrastructure
Whether we like or not, it is time for questioning the economical and political pillars of EU, rather then praising “how good we are” then the other parts of the world. “The others” of Europe for centuries are finding their own ways and whether they are democratically ruled or not, countries are like Chine, India and Russia seems to be the new economical fore leaders of the world. They do consider all the options and they play this chess game according to its own “liberal rules”. Certainly, meanwhile this economic power does not stay as “innocent economic power” but evolve into a strong, willing and daring political power. We can see that clearly, day by day Chine and Russia having more “say” in every matter and “Russia” is so much aware of the west to be dependent on new energy sources. The whole matter might lead us to the question; is it really still matter to be part of EU or not? If the nations of EU will act independently in major cases as we have seen in Russia-Georgia Conflict and current economical crisis, does it still carry a meaning to be called a “union”? Sooner or later we will learn the answers of these questions, hopefully not through sad experiences.
Note: In the second picture, unemployed people are lined in order to get food and drink in 1927.
Gokhan KURTARAN
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