Lisbon the Sequel - A Foreign Perspective

When I was involved in campaigning for the Yes during the referendum on the Lisbon Treaty last time around, there seemed to be a ruthlessly determined No side who passionately used any argument their imaginations could conjure to cite as reasons for a vote against. Whereas the Yes side, as far as my recollection goes, and apart from the likes of JEF (the Young European Federalists) and other such exceptions, was far more measured, acknowledging reasons to be dubious and accepting certain criticisms emanating from the No camp. To the point where many final Yes voters and even campaigners seemed to have spent a long time agonising over their decision, because of the compromises it required. Most of the people I had aligned myself with politically, for instance, had attitudes which were positive overall but attenuated by the apprehensions they nursed about the Treaty's actual content, and some of the more difficult to defend aspects of the EU in general.

This time around, it seems the Yes side has learnt from those responsible for its defeat - that such honest doubts and ambivalence are not to be afforded, if a victory is to be won. As a result, we have a Yes side that seems to have acquired the steely determination of its adversaries, as well as its ability to stop at nothing to ensure it goes their way. The cost is obvious. The pay-off as yet unknown.

If I was in Ireland and voting this time around, I'd probably abstain. I'm not trying to be provocative - or wait, only slightly - but essentially I've found so unpalatable the campaigning, even from outside the country, that I don't think I could bear giving a vote that would favour either side in this charade of a "second referendum".

I think when it comes to bullying tactics, neither side has shown itself to be particularly scrupulous. The Yes side have descended to insinuating, or even declaring outright that if Irish people vote no the EU will expell their nation, putting them back into a relationship of dependency with Britain. The idea of an Irish no vote as translating an assertion of independance is nothing but a silly myth, and the reality is that voters have to choose which camp they prefer (or least dread) or else we'll be set for a long hard winter of isolation. Think North Korea or Albania a couple of decades ago.

Of course, this rather pales in comparison to the threats made by the NO side - basically all of your worst fears will come to pass, and then some. Beyond being dubious tactics, most of it is just nonsense, as if Lisbon and the EU are the antithesis of religion and all that is holy (who are the people effectively running the EU? The same sort of people running France & Germany - conservative christians, last time I looked.) It lays itself open to legitimate ridicule because it actively misinforms, and in doing so harms its own cause - or it would if people bothered to find out the truth which, when it comes to the EU, people just never seem to do.

Perhaps as a response to this phenomenon the new & improved Yes side has acquired a slick new look, brought in people who clearly know a thing or two about marketing a product, as well as the value of charismatic orators, and all their arguments have been boiled down to snappy soundbites. While there's nothing wrong with that per se, it makes me personally instinctively more distrustful of their discourse, because there seems to be a concerted effort being made to purposely put the onus on style over substance. As if an attempt is being made to draw our attention away from something else. To put it bluntly, I know the bitter pills and the complexity are being swept under the carpet, and I just don't buy it.

What also makes me uneasy on the Yes side is the sense I have that underlying the new, aggressive drive is an agenda that was absent last time around, which I can't quite put my finger on. Maybe it's just paranoia. But a more solid reason for a protest abstention (or the temptation of such a vote - notwithstanding its complete futility) would be about there even being a referendum at all given the total lack of free and clear information, the level of scaremongering and disinformation. So much for a free and independent choice, but then I suppose you could say the same of a vote on anything, and certainly of any election.

In campaigning for the Yes myself I had to overlook a lot of things that didn't sit right with me, and had to defend them (the EU's attitude to immigration is a particularaly jarring one). That's what being in a political party entails (and which incidentally is partly the reason I no longer am).

Other factors that have contributed to the shift in my views would be getting on the wrong side of EU bureaucracy last year year, which taught me just how irrational, not to say infuriating, it can be.On a less pratical and more theoretical level - there was the highly revealing and profoundly depressing information I acquired during a seminar given by the Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO). Information about the close links between the EU institutions and "commercial interests" - it's not even links - they kind of meld into one another without anyone being able to distinguish where to draw the line (an example - when executives of big companies are called in to act as "experts" on panels when legislation is being drawn up - giving them more power and influence than the members of the European Parliament - this stuff is routine). That showed me a different side of Brussels than the one I've known all my life. The one where NGOs campaigning for transparency, for environmental and social justice, equality, etc, are completely trodden on, dwarfed and drowned out by the immense weight of the towering commercial entities and those representing their interests. Where consultancy firms who've defended everyone from South American dictators to war criminals and fraudsters operate without anyone raising an eyebrow from their luxurious offices just across from the Berlaymont.

I haven't quoted anything in this post because it's more about the issue as an emotive one for me, my reactions to what I've followed of the whole thing, as well as my own recent experiences which have led me to my current perspective. That's exactly what it is, a perspective.

I cannot defend the whole project. I could not say YES to the whole treaty. Maybe I am becoming more of a reactionary in my old age, more like Besancenot in believing that actually, instead of toeing the line, instead of going along with it, and hoping things get better, why not spend my time and energy taking the steps towards fighting for, defending and creating the Europe that I WANT.

But alongside these improbable aspirations, there exists a real world. And while we're constrained to exist inside it I'll still advise anyone who'll listen to vote Yes. For the same reason that it is better to have the Europe we do have, than no Europe at all. Because it has brought about good things, and has the potential to do a great deal more. So support the yes side, because no matter how iffy their campaign has been, they're still better than those jokers on the No side who have trafficked in the most outrageous of untruths, and employed the most shameful of tactics. That's unfortunately what democracy is all about.

The 11th Hour

Since I watched this film at the start of the summer, I've been wanting to write a comment or review on it. The film surprised me, in a positive way. It doesn't shy away from the complexity of the themes which it opens up, and overall treats the issues without excessive poignancy, drama or simplification.

The way the film is put together, like many other documentaries, involves Various strands of narratives being juxtaposed, ideas from commentators, scientists, sociologists, philosophers, etc. But without there being a clear, single message overall (unlike the Inconvenient Truth, if my memory serves at all). All the contributors are intelligent people, they just don't seem to be able to agree with one another which gives the film somewhat of a schizophrenic feel and perhaps a slight lack of coherence because of the number of different angles presented.It leaves the viewer coming away with more questions than answers and a few uneasy contradictions to ponder. But that's no bad thing.

The really beautiful and inspiring thing about the film is that it reminds us we should be in a permanent state of awe at the planet. Not just at the world as a whole, but also the most seemingly mundane everyday details like our own bodies which are, I dont want to say masterpieces or miracles to avoid straying anywhere near creationist lingo, but you know what I mean.One commentator takes a moment to express his wonderment at the millions of simultaneous processes going on every split second inside our own bodies, something I think it's worth remembering every so often.

But this film is a long, long way from creationism and that's one of the things I liked most about it. It extolls the reassuring continuity of existence, the sheer beauty of evolution. And, for example, presents something like extinction as fundamentally natural, and an integral part of that process, far from being a failure of the system. I think this is where the film's superior strength really lies, as a celebration of evolution.The idea that life goes on whatever happens, and how wonderful that is.

The other thing I like about the film is its breadth of scope, its ambition. Not so much about asking people to turn the red light off as calling for a full-scale paradigm shift, and being upfront about the fact that nothing short of that is going to turn things around.

We need a shift from "Well-having" to "wellbeing" says Nathan Gardels, we need to change the object of desire, putting welfare as the objective, rather than growth. In other words, we need a cultural transformation, a shift in the way our culture interacts with the environment.

It's useful to be reminded of just how superficial and tenuous are the doctrines which regiment our lives and systems of belief. Our expectations are growing with the resources are not. The economy can be regarded as a subsystem, while the parent-system (the biosphere) doesn't grow (again that wonderful constancy). This failure to see the linkages, the arrogance of it, are fundamentally short-sighted, it is as if one floats above the other rather than being embedded within it, completely dependant on it. More evidence of that disconnect that now exists between us and our environment.

Another commentator describes what we have currently as a waste-producing economy, in other words we are in a cycle of transforming resources into waste. In nature there is no waste, and so green design needs to find inspiration from natural processes (I beleive the term one lady has coined is "biomimicry").

Worth mentioning also is Thom Hartmann's "Ancient sunlight" notion to describe the energy we use which enables to sustain 10 billion people on the planet. In other words - we are seriously pushing our luck.

Some of those contradictions I mentioned:

- Will the earth regenerate itself or will it turn into a frozen wasteland like Venus forever? The predictions are contradictory.

- I was also not convinced by the initial footage of natural disasters which unfortunately is used to open the film (we'll indulge them and call it a necessary visual "accroche" device) alongside the claim that these are not just isolated events, even though the media portrays them as such (arguable). Are there more natural disasters or is there just more coverage?

- And a parallel question - are there more diseases or just too many people in the world? Are chemicals leading to cancer or are we just living longer?

Besides which, images of natural disasters used carelessly is seriously at risk of falling into unoriginal over-simplified scare-mongering. And it's certainly not unnatural, in fact chaos and upheaval are profoundly natural, as opposed to the pristine, fragile, perfect view of nature favoured by creationists and the wrong sort of conservationists.

If there is a overarching thread that runs through the entire film it seems to be that life is tenacious and adaptable, as a whole, but paradoxically individual elements within it (such as our own species) are intensely vulnerable. If we remain under the delusion that nature is fragile while we ourselves are invincible, we will fall into a trap that is quite literally as old as the hills.