国人应看的关于日本的文章
2007-03-27 来源: 荆楚网(武汉)
作者:芮成钢
这个题目当然是大大夸张了，文章只不过是个人的杂感罢了。之所以这样说，其实是为了东施效颦《东京审判》的电影宣传词。影片的海报上印着这样的字：每一个中国人都应该看的电影。
我觉得这也夸张了，言重了。电影拍的虽然还不错，讲述了一段鲜为人知的历史，但这宣传词，一是有利用中国人的爱国心去多卖电影票的嫌疑，二来，那段痛苦的历史早已铭刻在每一位国人的心里，语言里，生活里，甚至是意识里，好像并不迫切急需更多的提醒。这句宣传词也许用在风在吼／马在叫／黄河在咆哮／黄河在咆哮的年代更为贴切。
国耻我们当然永不能忘，也不会忘。生活中随时随地常会想到。每次运动爬香山，看到被英法联军烧毁的香山寺的断壁残垣，我都会感慨：如此恢宏的大国，当年竟会被如此的侮辱。
我们所有中华民族的子孙，都应该经常去看看香山这样的爱国主义教育基地。去感受，去思考。
但爱国主义教育的目的，应该不是一次又一次的揭开陈年的伤疤，更不是去种下仇恨，传播仇恨。
我们的目的是——记住历史，自强不息。
中国和日本
我们这一代青年人究竟该用什么样的心态来看日本这个国家，来看日本人？这是一个挺难回答的问题。特殊的成长经历让我们对日本有着比较复杂的心理。
小时候，第一次看《小兵张嘎》、《地道战》的时候，我们也许还在哼着《铁臂阿童木》的主题歌。我们在模仿葛优他爸演的日本鬼子说话的时候，山口百惠和高仓建也正在塑造我们心中对男性女性最初的审美。学校包场去电影院看《南京大屠杀》的时候，自己却也许还正收集着《圣斗士星矢》的贴画。第一次听到“靖国神社”这四个字的时候，《东京爱情故事》也正陪着我们度过最艰苦的一段学生生活……
今天，从手机到汽车，从物质到文化，来自日本的点点滴滴，渗透着我们的生活，但打开邮箱，却能看见号召大家抵制日货的邮件。开车的时候一抬头还能看到前车的后屁股上赫然写着：大刀向鬼子们的头上砍去。
究竟什么是日货？
随便出一道考试题：下面的中文词语里哪一个是来自日语的外来语。
服务、组织、纪律、政治、革命、党、方针、政策、申请、解决、理论、哲学、原则、经济、科学、商业、干部、后勤、健康、社会主义、资本主义、封建、共和、美学、美术、抽象、逻辑、证券、总理、储蓄、创作、刺激、代表、动力、对照、发明、法人、概念、规则、反对、会谈、机关、细胞、系统、印象、原则、参观、劳动、目的、卫生、综合、克服、马铃薯。
答案：统统都是，全部来自日语。没想到吧，其实，来自日语的中文还远远不止这些，数不胜数。虽然日语的文字源于中文，但上面这些词语可都是日本人的创作。
随便举例，“经济”在古汉语里的意思是“经世济民”，和现代汉语的“经济”没有任何关系，这是日语对Economy的翻译。“社会”在古汉语中是“集会结社”的意思，日本人拿它来翻译英语的Society。“劳动”在中国的古义是“劳驾”的意思，日语拿它来译英语的Labor。“知识”在古汉语里指的是“相知相识的人”，日语拿它来译英语的Knowledge。而我们又统统把它们变成了中文。
试问想抵制日货的朋友，这些日货词语你也抵制得了吗？中国近代的孙中山、鲁迅、陈独秀、李大钊们无一不是在日本学习生活，把更先进的理念和思想带回当时落后的中国。这些人的思想、文化，你也能抵制得了吗？
作为一个做电视的人，我还想说：今天你看的所有中国电视全部都是用日本的摄像机、编辑机制作播出的。这个，你抵制得了吗？
尊重并熟悉历史的人会告诉我们：中国的确当过一次日本的老师，而日本却曾两次走在我们的前面。古代社会，隋唐开始中日有来往，中国比日本更早进入文明社会，遣唐使们虚心来到中国（中国的电影人们不妨也拍拍遣唐使的题材，说说中日的友好渊源）。
然而，在近代，日本明治维新后，迅速强大。甲午战争，日本不但战胜了中国，之后更是摆脱了西方对日本的控制，远远地走在了中国前面。
迅速崛起的日本给当时的整个东方世界带来了希望，成为亚洲国家摆脱西方控制，独立崛起的样板。当时的交通不便，中国人向西方直接学习难上加难。向日本学习成为惟一选择，像李大钊、陈独秀、孙中山这样的中国政治和知识精英们，纷纷东渡日本学习探索中国自强的道路，有的甚至把日本作为自己的基地。
当然，二战期间，日本对中国犯下了滔天罪行，这是中华民族永远不会忘记的，也是日本必须永远铭记在心的。我们决不允许任何人篡改这段历史，颠倒是非黑白。
但是我们也应该看到：二战之后，日本在一片废墟上又一次崛起，从零到一万。七八十年代，中国迎来改革开放的春天，日本又一次成为我们市场经济的老师。从赔款到投资，中日的贸易也成就了中国今天的繁荣。我们那时候虽然还小，但也应该依稀记得：中日关系当时是非常的好，可以称作是蜜月期。只是进入九十年代，日本的一些政客们的可耻行径才让我们似乎远离了日本。
从中日建交开始，日本的首脑，有过一次次的道歉和谢罪。只是到了小泉这几代领导人才出现了伤害中国人情感的劣迹。我们不能为了几个心怀叵测的日本政治野心家，几股落后可悲的日本政治势力，而忘记中日友好的千秋大计，忘记了从周恩来田中角荣开始的，几代中日领导人苦心经营的中日友谊。
中日那段痛苦的历史，也只是中日交流两千年里的一段阴影，不是全部。未来，更长。
我们不能只念叨着中文是日语的祖宗，恨不得连日本人都是当年秦始皇那找不到长生不老药的三千童男童女的后代，而忘记甚至根本不知道日本对中国的贡献。承认别人的长处，并不意味着妄自菲薄，相反，这是自信的表现。
我们从学校走向社会，在工作中，父母师长常会教育我们：看一个人要多看他的优点。对一个人尚且要多看优点，对一个国家，一个民族，更应如此，不能以偏概全。
前一阵子，诺贝尔文学奖得主大江健三郎在北京签名售书，竟然还有人打着反日的旗号抗议。这是中国人的尴尬，这样的做法，毁的是中国人自己的形象。
但愿我们这一代，在声讨小泉纯一郎参拜靖国神社的可耻行径之后，也不会忘记回家去听听小泽征尔的音乐；在痛斥完东京市长石原生太郎的反华言论之后，也还会去翻翻村上春树的小说……
强大与伟大
李连杰主演的《霍元甲》是一部让我感动得夜不能寐的电影。最重要的原因是：它表面上看起来只不过是一部经典武打片，其实却回答了一个今天无数中国人，特别是正在国际化的中国青年人思考的问题：今天的我们，究竟该以什么样的眼光和胸怀来看自己，来看世界。
影片中，在列强瓜分中国的大背景下，霍元甲走上擂台，面对生死状，第一句话却是：“在擂台上以命相搏，是中国人历来的陋习，可是我们有另一种传统，叫做以武会友”。在那样屈辱的背景下，一上来还能先反省自身的不足，然后再不卑不亢的面对强大的对手，这是何等的境界，何等的自信！
霍元甲战胜每一个对手，都不光是用武力让对方屈服，而是用自己的风范让对方心服口服。他的目的，不是让别人输，而是让别人“服”。服并不意味着谁喊谁一声大哥，服意味着得到他人发自内心的尊重，意味着用人格的魅力去融化他人的偏见和执拗，用人性的光辉去照亮他人内心不曾见过阳光的角落。
影片对日本人的描述也是一分为二，非常客观。和霍元甲比武的日本武士光明磊落，对霍元甲敬佩由衷，而策划毒害霍元甲的日本商会会长却是一个阴谋家。日本武士最后痛斥日本会长为了自己的赌局而侮辱了日本的荣誉，给日本人带来了耻辱。值得一提的是，这部电影也大大方方的在日本放映，而且并没有日本人说它丑化了日本人的形象。
霍元甲在临死前，徒弟们怒不可遏，要去报仇。而他对徒弟们是这样说的：“你们要做的不是去报仇，仇恨只能生出更多的仇恨。我不想看到仇恨。最重要的是——强壮自己。”
归根到底，还是要自强不息，自身的强大才是最硬的道理。短短的几句话，凝聚了无数中国乃至人类历史的经验教训。
我们伟大的中华民族的祖先们，也是用这样的胸怀，来这样期许我们这些后来人的。我们应该把这种精神传承下去，这才是一部每个中国人都值得看的电影。
今天的中国，盛事空前，已经以强大的实力屹立于世界民族之林。这是世人共晓的事实，这也是你走遍世界，所有的外国人都会告诉你的，并不需要我们提供更多的证明。也没有人会因为我们少踢进了几个球，少拿了几块金牌，或是少了几句过激的言语和行为，而觉得我们软弱。
强大，靠的是实力，但是，伟大，靠的是胸怀。
中国和世界的误会：盲人摸象
我们不妨问问自己，也问问周围所有骂“小日本”的朋友，去过日本吗？有过日本的朋友吗？答案大多是No。我自己原来对日本的印象也不好，但扪心自问，除了那段历史之外，也大都是道听途说，没去过日本，没有一个日本朋友，甚至也没有采访过几个日本的政要和企业领袖。
如果是一个美国人，从未来到过中国，没有中国朋友，而只是在媒体上看了一些有关中国的不良言论，就断言中国不好，我肯定不能接受，我会说：没有调查就没有发言权，你对中国人一无所知，你凭什么做这样的判断？
而我们对日本就了解吗？
日本是一个离我们最近，但却最不了解的国家。我们大多数青年人可能对欧美的了解远胜于对日本的关注。当然，日本不是一个容易了解的国家，日本人也的确存在着两面性。但从一个第三者的角度来看，日本并不比中国更难了解。问题不是可不可以了解，而是我们愿不愿意去了解（本尼迪克特著的《菊与刀》，赖孝尔写的《日本人》，都是非常精辟的著作）。
凡是来过中国的外国朋友，几乎无一例外的对我说中国要比他们想象中的精彩得多，优秀得多。一次中国之行，往往会改变他们许多从小积累的对中国的不良或错误印象。而一个真心相交的日本朋友，一次日本之行，往往也能改变许多。正是本着这样的目的，我去了一次日本，改变了我从前许多过于简单，过于主观的判断。
在耶鲁给美国学生讲中国的时候，我经常用盲人摸象这个成语来概括大多数美国人对中国和中国人的误解，以及中国人对美国的曲解。大家往往都是摸到了哪里，就认为哪里是大象的全部，都没有看到相对完整的大画面。甚至一些在中国长期生活的美国朋友和在美国定居的中国朋友，由于生活的圈子相对固定，也都没有能对一个国家有多角度的立体的理解，而是偏执于自己的一些个人经验体会。
中日之间更是如此。我经常听到有些在日本生活过的中国人，痛斥日本人的种种不是，听完之后，往往会激起我的一些反日的情绪。事后想想，这些人如果一直在国内，也许也会连篇累牍的抱怨中国人的种种不是。我也认识很多在日本非常成功的中国人，一些甚至在日本把日本人驾驭的、欺负的连我都看不下去的中国人。
历史上，许多国家之间的冲突和战争，最初都起源于相互的不信任，由于相互不信任，产生对对方行为的误判，以及过分敏感的反应。这种不信任和误判会制造出相互敌视的氛围，继而相互激发，最终使误判产生的预言变成现实。今天的文明人类，应该能够避免不信任和误判酿成的悲剧。为了让中国的和平发展成为可能，我们要努力消除这种不信任，防止误判的发生。
一分为三，为四，立体的，多元的，理性的，自信的看日本，看美国，看世界，这才是我们21世纪的中国青年应该有的胸怀和眼界。
过于敏感
“东亚病夫”这四个字我很反感，这些年除了我们自己经常提起，我从未听外国人提起过，也没有在国外的媒体上看到过。
在国外，我经常提醒自己不要过于敏感。到了一个发达国家，服务员态度不好，司机不老实，朋友说了两句无心快语，等等等等，我首先都会往“歧视”这两个字上去想，接着就仗着自己英语的优势，噼里啪啦的把对方说得无地自容，再仗着自己对西方规则的了解，去找人家的老板投诉一把，然后觉得自己又为中国人出了口气（相比较而言，恰恰日本是我感觉需要投诉几率最小的国家）。
从凡尔赛宫的保安到悉尼机场的检疫，从美国的交警到奥地利的空乘，我记不清有多少次是因为自己或是为其他的中国人受到不正当待遇拍案而起，怒不可遏。
这些投诉，当然有很多是必需做的，也是完全应该做的。但冷静下来，经常发现，有些时候，这些我投诉的当地人，其实对哪里来的人都一样，甚至对本国人的态度也都是一样，并不是专门针对中国人的。就像是我们在国内也经常遇到无礼的人一样。倒是咱们中国人，有时因为特殊的历史背景，容易自我心理暗示，产生联想。同样的事情，如果发生在老挝，或是纳米比亚，自己也许就不会往那个方面去想。
比如，日本人被普遍认为，虽然表面上很懂礼貌，但骨子里很排外。对此，英国人，美国人，和中国人一样有同感，而我们很容易把它理解成是对中国人的歧视。
而日本的这种岛国心态，其他国家也有，比如英国人，直到现在还不把自己看成是欧洲人，对此，法国人深有感触，也意见很大。
另外，必须承认，有些不合理的事，即使是针对中国人的，往往也是因为咱们的一些同胞们，总在不按当地的规则做事，给他们留下了太深刻的不良印象。这个时候，我们需要做的不仅是为中国人“出”口气，更需要用自己的修养为中国人“争”口气。
不卑不亢
不卑不亢是我们常说的待人接物的最高境界。如果问问周围的朋友，走遍世界能够做到不卑不亢吗？很多人说差不多。然后再问为什么呢？通常的答案是：因为我们有几千年的历史和文化，我们是人的时候他们还是猴，我们有九百六十万平方公里的土地，我们的经济增长10％，我们有四大发明、万里长城，我们有56个民族、长江黄河，我们曾经傲视群雄，如今大国崛起。这些事实（人与猴的部分除外）都是我们引以自豪的，但光靠这些还做不到真正的不卑不亢。
反省自己的不足，提醒自己不要沉迷于历史，忽略现在与未来，这固然重要，但也不是关键。
真正的不卑不亢更应该是发自内心的一种根本信念——世界上的人不论种族、肤色、男女、国家大小强弱，作为人，都是平等的。在这个基础上的自信与反省才是坚实的、健康的、和谐的。
如果你早晨醒来发现自己是卢旺达的公民，你的国家贫穷，弱小，全世界都曾把你的国家与种族仇杀连在一起，你，还能让自己阳光吗？如果你是菲律宾公民，殖民的历史让你的名字前面是法语，后面是西班牙语，你的官方语言是英语，你还自信吗？如果你坚信这颗星球上人人平等，那你会依然自信地微笑。
京都国歌
唐朝是中国历史上最辉煌的朝代，我们为之骄傲。但漫步在今天的西安街头，已经很难寻觅到当年长安的清晰轮廓了。
想看看长安大概是个什么样子吗？去日本的京都吧。京都当年就是按照长安的结构、建筑和规划建设起来的城市。我们的长安，如今模糊朦胧，而日本的京都保存完好。这不能不说是我们的一个遗憾。
离开京都的那天，打了一辆车。出租车司机问我是哪里来的。中国，我答道。话音刚落不久，突然，《义勇军进行曲》的旋律冲进了我的耳膜。原来，司机的车载MP3上录了几十个国家的国歌，拉到哪里的客人就给放哪里的国歌。高兴之余，当时的一个想法是：多奇怪啊，咱们国歌产生的背景，恰恰是当年日本侵略中国的时候，如果司机知道这个事实会怎么想呢？他还会放中国的国歌给我听吗？他又是不是应该先替他当年侵略中国的爷爷们和那个几个喜欢作秀的政客们向车里的几个中国人道个歉，再放音乐？
算了算了，想得太多了，太复杂了。看着京都出租车司机脸上朴实简单的微笑，坐着被国歌围绕的出租车穿行在京都的大街小巷，就让我自信地享受这个美妙的瞬间吧。
愿中日世代友好……
http://news.163.com/07/0327/09/3AJ3D2I2000121EP.html
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官商相护竞抢夺
你还让人民活不活？
屁眼黑哟
你还让人民活不活？
东方黑，太阳落
中国钉子户有话说
与民争利变成官商们的工作
却拿公共利益来盅惑
民脂民膏齐挥霍
屁眼黑哟
民脂民膏齐挥霍
东方黑，太阳落
西方钉子户怎样活
一扇陈旧老磨坊
憋死威廉老国王
风能进，雨能进，国王不能进
西方人给我们上一课
做人就该这样活
呼儿咳哟
做人就该这样活
我爱
我爱重庆的山 我爱重庆的水 我爱重庆这座城
我恨
我恨重庆的官 我恨重庆的吏 我恨生活不如意
恶搞史上最强钉子户(ZT) II
网易重庆渝中网友(211.158.97.*)的原贴:
东方黑，太阳落
中国钉子户有话说
他为自己争权利
他为自己谋幸福
他教大家这样活
呼儿咳约
他教大家这样活
东方黑，太阳落
中国钉子户有话说
恶人强拆心头烙
官商相护竞抢夺
你还让人民活不活？
屁眼黑哟
你还让人民活不活？
东方黑，太阳落
中国钉子户有话说
与民争利变成官商们的工作
却拿公共利益来盅惑
民脂民膏齐挥霍
屁眼黑哟
民脂民膏齐挥霍
东方黑，太阳落
西方钉子户怎样活
一扇陈旧老磨坊
憋死威廉老国王
风能进，雨能进，国王不能进
西方人给我们上一课
做人就该这样活
呼儿咳哟
做人就该这样活
我爱
我爱重庆的山 我爱重庆的水 我爱重庆这座城
我恨
我恨重庆的官 我恨重庆的吏 我恨生活不如意
恶搞史上最强钉子户(ZT)
引用第13楼人在天涯于2007-03-23 19:13发表的“”:
吴萍杨武赋
吴萍杨武者，夫妻也，结发于陋市之里，泯然于草民之间。昔者杨武曾以善武闻名，但报国无路，厕身于锱铢之营，只求独善其身也。俟得中年，置微业于九龙坡，以期颐口养家也。不期巨商窥伺此地，勾结衙府，强购此地，当地土著士绅，敢怒而不敢言，签卖家之约，所得微资，尚难以置业，此后众房披靡。唯吴杨二人独守将覆之巢，危楼独立，已近三载。近日衙府昏判，敕令速拆，二人升国旗于楼上，誓与楼共存亡。
夫家者，人之本也。有人而后有家，有家而后有国。观今者，家财倘不保，国资频为鼠盗。奸人居于庙堂之中，上矫君意，下乱民心。所谓开发商者，以微资驱民于水火，运国库窃利于私缗，实国之蠹也。商官勾结，为民者，足下一寸土不保，八尺之身何托？
昔有金庸曾文赞郭靖黄蓉守襄阳，侠之大者，为国为民。今观吴杨二人守危楼，心謂为私，实则为国。实有郭黄二人之风。倘使人人皆能戮力维权，贪吏奸商将无地自存，黑匪盗抢将不容于世，天地清明，请看今日之域中，竟是谁家之天下！
In China, Fight Over Development Creates a Star [NY Times]
March 26, 2007
Chongqing Journal
By HOWARD W. FRENCH
CHONGQING, China, March 23 — For weeks a dispute had drawn attention from people all across China as a simple homeowner stared down the forces of large-scale redevelopment that are sweeping this country, blocking the preparation of a gigantic construction site by an act of sheer will.
Chinese bloggers were the first to spread the news of a house perched atop a tall, thimble-shaped piece of land like Mont St. Michel in the middle of a vast excavation. Newspapers dove in next, followed by national television. Then, in a way that is common in China whenever an event begins to take on hints of political overtones, the story virtually disappeared from the news media, bloggers here said, after the government decreed that the subject was suddenly out of bounds.
Still, the “nail house,” as many here have called it because of the homeowner’s tenacity, like a nail that cannot be pulled out, remains the most popular current topic among bloggers in China.
It has a universal resonance in a country where rich developers are seen to be in cahoots with politicians and where both enjoy unchallenged sway. Each year, China is roiled by tens of thousands of riots and demonstrations, and few issues pack as much emotional force as the discontent of people who are suddenly uprooted, told they must make way for a new skyscraper or golf course or industrial zone.
What drove interest in the Chongqing case was the uncanny ability of the homeowner to hold out for so long. Stories are legion in Chinese cities of the arrest or even beating of people who protest too vigorously against their eviction and relocation. In one often-heard twist, holdouts are summoned to the local police station, and return home only to find their house already demolished. How had this owner, a woman no less, managed? Millions wondered.
Part of the answer, which upon meeting her takes only a moment to discover, is that Wu Ping is anything but an ordinary woman. With her dramatic lock of hair precisely combed and pinned in the back, a form-flattering bright red coat, high cheekbones and wide, excited eyes, the tall, 49-year-old restaurant entrepreneur knows how to attract attention — a potent weapon in China’s new media age, in which people leverage public opinion and appeals to the national image to influence the authorities.
“For over two years they haven’t allowed me access to my property,” said Ms. Wu, her arms flailing as she led a brisk walk through the Yangjiaping neighborhood here. It is an area in the throes of large-scale redevelopment, with broad avenues, big shopping malls and a recently built elevated monorail line, from whose platform nearly everyone stops to gawk at the nail house.
Within moments of her arrival at the locked gate of the excavated construction site, a crowd began to gather. The people, many of them workers with sunken cheeks, dressed in grimy clothes, regarded Ms. Wu with expressions of wonderment. Some of them exchanged stories about how they had been forced to relocate, and soothed each other with comments about how it all could not be helped.
From inside the gates, a state television crew began filming.
“If it were an ordinary person, they would have hired thugs and beat her up,” said a woman dressed in a green sweater who was drawn by the throng. “Ordinary people don’t dare fight with the developers. They’re too strong.”
Earlier this month, the National People’s Congress passed a historic law guaranteeing private property rights to China’s swelling ranks of urban, middle-class homeowners, among others. Some here attributed Ms. Wu’s success to that, as well as her knack for generating publicity.
“In the past, they would have just knocked it down,” said an 80-year-old woman who said she used to be a neighbor of Ms. Wu. “Now, that’s forbidden because Beijing has put out the word that these things should be done in a reasonable way.”
Between frenzied telephone calls to reporters and to city officials, Ms. Wu, who stood at the center of the crowd with her brother, a 6-foot-3 decorative stone dealer who wore his brown hair in jerri curls, stated her own case with a slightly different spin.
“I have more faith than others,” she began. “I believe that this is my legal property, and if I cannot protect my own rights, it makes a mockery of the property law just passed. In a democratic and lawful society, a person has the legal right to manage one’s own property.”
Tian Yihang, a local college student, spoke glowingly of her in an interview at the monorail station. “This is a peculiar situation,” he said, with a bit of understatement. “I admire the owner for being so persistent in her principles. In China, such things shock the common mind.”
Ms. Wu will in all likelihood lose her battle. Indeed, developers recently filed administrative motions to allow them to demolish her lonely building. Certainly, the local authorities are eager to see the last of her.
“During the process of demolition, 280 households were all satisfied with their compensation and moved,” said Ren Zhongping, a city housing official. “Wu was the only one we had to dismantle forcibly. She has the value of her house in her heart, but what she has in mind is not practical. It’s far beyond the standards of compensation decided by owners of housing and the professional appraisal organ.”
With the street so choked with onlookers that traffic began to back up, Ms. Wu’s brother, Wu Jian, began waving a newspaper above the crowd, pointing to pictures of Ms. Wu’s husband, a local martial arts champion, who was scheduled to appear in a highly publicized tournament that evening. “He’s going into our building and will plant a flag there,” Mr. Wu announced.
Moments later, as the crowd began to thin, a Chinese flag banner appeared on the roof with a hand-painted banner that read: “A citizen’s legal property is not to be encroached upon.”
Asked how his brother-in-law had managed to get inside the locked site and climb the escarpment on which the house sits perched, he said, with a wink, “Magic.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/26/world/asia/26cnd-china.html?hp=&pagewanted=print
Emerging Republican Minority [ NY Times Op-Ed ]
March 26, 2007
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Remember how the 2004 election was supposed to have demonstrated, once and for all, that conservatism was the future of American politics? I do: early in 2005, some colleagues in the news media urged me, in effect, to give up. “The election settled some things,” I was told.
But at this point 2004 looks like an aberration, an election won with fear-and-smear tactics that have passed their sell-by date. Republicans no longer have a perceived edge over Democrats on national security — and without that edge, they stand revealed as ideologues out of step with an increasingly liberal American public.
Right now the talk of the political chattering classes is a report from the Pew Research Center showing a precipitous decline in Republican support. In 2002 equal numbers of Americans identified themselves as Republicans and Democrats, but since then the Democrats have opened up a 15-point advantage.
Part of the Republican collapse surely reflects public disgust with the Bush administration. The gap between the parties will probably get even wider when — not if — more and worse tales of corruption and abuse of power emerge.
But polling data on the issues, from Pew and elsewhere, suggest that the G.O.P.’s problems lie as much with its ideology as with one man’s disastrous reign.
For the conservatives who run today’s Republican Party are devoted, above all, to the proposition that government is always the problem, never the solution. For a while the American people seemed to agree; but lately they’ve concluded that sometimes government is the solution, after all, and they’d like to see more of it.
Consider, for example, the question of whether the government should provide fewer services in order to cut spending, or provide more services even if this requires higher spending. According to the American National Election Studies, in 1994, the year the Republicans began their 12-year control of Congress, those who favored smaller government had the edge, by 36 to 27. By 2004, however, those in favor of bigger government had a 43-to-20 lead.
And public opinion seems to have taken a particularly strong turn in favor of universal health care. Gallup reports that 69 percent of the public believes that “it is the responsibility of the federal government to make sure all Americans have health care coverage,” up from 59 percent in 2000.
The main force driving this shift to the left is probably rising income inequality. According to Pew, there has recently been a sharp increase in the percentage of Americans who agree with the statement that “the rich get richer while the poor get poorer.” Interestingly, the big increase in disgruntlement over rising inequality has come among the relatively well off — those making more than $75,000 a year.
Indeed, even the relatively well off have good reason to feel left behind in today’s economy, because the big income gains have been going to a tiny, super-rich minority. It’s not surprising, under those circumstances, that most people favor a stronger safety net — which they might need — even at the expense of higher taxes, much of which could be paid by the ever-richer elite.
And in the case of health care, there’s also the fact that the traditional system of employer-based coverage is gradually disintegrating. It’s no wonder, then, that a bit of socialized medicine is looking good to most Americans.
So what does this say about the political outlook? It’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future. But at this point it looks as if we’re seeing an emerging Republican minority.
After all, Democratic priorities — in particular, on health care, where John Edwards has set the standard for all the candidates with a specific proposal to finance universal coverage with higher taxes on the rich — seem to be more or less in line with what the public wants.
Republicans, on the other hand, are still wallowing in nostalgia — nostalgia for the days when people thought they were heroic terrorism-fighters, nostalgia for the days when lots of Americans hated Big Government.
Many Republicans still imagine that what their party needs is a return to the conservative legacy of Ronald Reagan. It will probably take quite a while in the political wilderness before they take on board the message of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s comeback in California — which is that what they really need is a return to the moderate legacy of Dwight Eisenhower.
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/03/26/opinion/26krugman.html?pagewanted=print
Saturday, March 24, 2007
有史以来最牛的开发商 ● 张从兴
最近几天，重庆市内的一栋“孤岛”式的房子，因为户主杨武、吴苹夫妇拒绝搬迁，而成为海内外媒体关注的焦点。而这户人家，也赢得了“中国有史以来最牛的钉子户”的美名。
可我认为，杨武、吴苹夫妇只不过是尽一切力量来设法保住自己的资产，维护自己的合法权益。以困兽犹斗、背水一战来形容他们倒是十分贴切，说他们牛似乎还谈不上。
真正牛的不是他们，而是遍布中国各地，通过各种手段来迫迁居民，又不给予合理赔偿的房地产开发商。之所以说他们牛，是因为他们干了中国近现代史上最有钱的富豪和最有权的最高领导人都干不了的事。
到过杭州的人，都知道杭州城东南角元宝街有座占地10.5亩的豪宅。这座豪宅原来的主人，就是清朝末年大名鼎鼎的“红顶商人”——中国首富胡雪岩。胡雪岩的“红顶商人”可不是花钱买来的，也不是和什么地方官员勾结弄到手的，而是因为协助左宗棠兴办洋务，有功于国家，受到清廷嘉奖，封布政使衔，赐红顶戴，紫禁城骑马，赏穿黄马褂。用当代的语言来说，就是享受副省级政治待遇，能够自由开车进出中南海的民营企业家。
胡雪岩当年在建造这栋豪宅时，遇到了麻烦事——大宅西北角的一家剃头铺，成了钉子户，原因当然不是胡首富不舍得花银子。事实上，胡首富愿意给剃头铺老板比市价多出好几倍的赔偿，但是人家就是不肯搬走。
以胡雪岩当年的财力和权势，如果决心要赶走剃头匠，太容易了，只要派几个家丁把铺子烧了就了事。可是，胡老板一直到死都没有去动剃头匠。
另一个例子是浙江奉化的蒋氏故居。这个蒋家可不是普通的蒋家，其主人是曾经领导国民革命军东征、北伐，曾经领导中华民族全民抗战的中华民国总统、中国国民党总裁、国民政府军事委员会委员长蒋介石！
蒋介石在南京国民政府成立，当上总统后，想扩建奉化老家的旧房子，于是要让周围的邻居拆迁，好给蒋家腾出地盘。邻居们得知蒋家扩建房子的事后，都纷纷让出自己的宅基地，而蒋家也是给足了赔偿的。
可是，偏偏有个不识相的邻居周顺房，硬是不肯搬。于是，就有些地方官，背着蒋介石给周顺房施压。开始时，周顺房不为所动，后来实在顶不住压力，只好退让，却心不甘情不愿的说了句：“瑞元（瑞元是蒋介石的小名）当皇帝了，他让我搬，我不得不搬……”远在南京的蒋介石得知此事后，把那些地方官臭骂了一顿，特别交代不要强制周家拆迁。
直到今日，奉化蒋氏故居面临剡溪的大院右侧，还有一个“周顺房千层饼店”，嵌在蒋家大院的一角。这就是周顺房当年留下来的“钉子户”了。
论钱，估计当代中国没有一个房地产开发商或民营企业家，能阔过“红顶商人”胡雪岩；论权，他们更不可能强过集党政军权力于一身的强人蒋介石，可是他们却能毫不理会户主同不同意，说拆就拆。这一点，是胡首富和蒋总统望尘莫及的，所以说他们是有史以来最牛的开发商。
http://zaobao.com/zg/zg070325_509.html
可我认为，杨武、吴苹夫妇只不过是尽一切力量来设法保住自己的资产，维护自己的合法权益。以困兽犹斗、背水一战来形容他们倒是十分贴切，说他们牛似乎还谈不上。
真正牛的不是他们，而是遍布中国各地，通过各种手段来迫迁居民，又不给予合理赔偿的房地产开发商。之所以说他们牛，是因为他们干了中国近现代史上最有钱的富豪和最有权的最高领导人都干不了的事。
到过杭州的人，都知道杭州城东南角元宝街有座占地10.5亩的豪宅。这座豪宅原来的主人，就是清朝末年大名鼎鼎的“红顶商人”——中国首富胡雪岩。胡雪岩的“红顶商人”可不是花钱买来的，也不是和什么地方官员勾结弄到手的，而是因为协助左宗棠兴办洋务，有功于国家，受到清廷嘉奖，封布政使衔，赐红顶戴，紫禁城骑马，赏穿黄马褂。用当代的语言来说，就是享受副省级政治待遇，能够自由开车进出中南海的民营企业家。
胡雪岩当年在建造这栋豪宅时，遇到了麻烦事——大宅西北角的一家剃头铺，成了钉子户，原因当然不是胡首富不舍得花银子。事实上，胡首富愿意给剃头铺老板比市价多出好几倍的赔偿，但是人家就是不肯搬走。
以胡雪岩当年的财力和权势，如果决心要赶走剃头匠，太容易了，只要派几个家丁把铺子烧了就了事。可是，胡老板一直到死都没有去动剃头匠。
另一个例子是浙江奉化的蒋氏故居。这个蒋家可不是普通的蒋家，其主人是曾经领导国民革命军东征、北伐，曾经领导中华民族全民抗战的中华民国总统、中国国民党总裁、国民政府军事委员会委员长蒋介石！
蒋介石在南京国民政府成立，当上总统后，想扩建奉化老家的旧房子，于是要让周围的邻居拆迁，好给蒋家腾出地盘。邻居们得知蒋家扩建房子的事后，都纷纷让出自己的宅基地，而蒋家也是给足了赔偿的。
可是，偏偏有个不识相的邻居周顺房，硬是不肯搬。于是，就有些地方官，背着蒋介石给周顺房施压。开始时，周顺房不为所动，后来实在顶不住压力，只好退让，却心不甘情不愿的说了句：“瑞元（瑞元是蒋介石的小名）当皇帝了，他让我搬，我不得不搬……”远在南京的蒋介石得知此事后，把那些地方官臭骂了一顿，特别交代不要强制周家拆迁。
直到今日，奉化蒋氏故居面临剡溪的大院右侧，还有一个“周顺房千层饼店”，嵌在蒋家大院的一角。这就是周顺房当年留下来的“钉子户”了。
论钱，估计当代中国没有一个房地产开发商或民营企业家，能阔过“红顶商人”胡雪岩；论权，他们更不可能强过集党政军权力于一身的强人蒋介石，可是他们却能毫不理会户主同不同意，说拆就拆。这一点，是胡首富和蒋总统望尘莫及的，所以说他们是有史以来最牛的开发商。
http://zaobao.com/zg/zg070325_509.html
Lopsided Hong Kong Election Still Draws Interest
March 24, 2007
By KEITH BRADSHER
HONG KONG, Sunday, March 25 — As 796 electors prepared to cast their votes on Sunday in Hong Kong’s first contested election for chief executive, the Beijing-backed incumbent appeared almost certain to win re-election by a wide margin.
But the race has drawn more attention than expected here and across the border in mainland China.
For the first time, a democracy advocate, Alan Leong, has been able to get on the ballot by obtaining nominations from more than 100 of the 796 electors, who are mainly business people and politicians with links to mainland China. Hong Kong has also held its first two debates pitting a leader of the territory against an opponent actively promoting democracy.
The campaign has grown sufficiently contentious that mainland authorities have temporarily blocked signals from CNN even when Beijing’s favored candidate, Donald Tsang, has articulated his position on eventual democracy here.
People in the neighboring Guangdong province can receive television signals from Hong Kong, and have been expressing envy to Hong Kong television crews over this territory’s limited liberties.
“They say, why don’t we have the same thing for the election of our governors?” Mr. Tsang said in an interview Friday, adding that he did not have a position on whether this was good or bad.
Mr. Tsang said in the interview, with five foreign correspondents, that he wanted to introduce in the next five years a democracy plan that would satisfy the 60 percent of Hong Kong’s people who consistently tell pollsters that they want a system of one person, one vote.
But he declined to provide any details. He tried and failed in 2005 to fashion a consensus that would satisfy democracy advocates without upsetting Beijing leaders, who worry about losing control here, and without antagonizing local business leaders, some of whom warn that greater democracy could lead to demands for the introduction of a minimum wage and greater welfare spending.
Michael DeGolyer, the director of the Hong Kong Transition Project, a group of academics studying the evolution of democratic liberties in Hong Kong, said that Mr. Tsang’s comments over the past five months of the campaign showed a discernible shift toward greater enthusiasm for addressing the question of greater democracy here.
Mr. Tsang is considered virtually certain to win because he has Beijing’s backing and was nominated by 641 of the 796 electors. Only 132 electors chose Mr. Leong.
With unemployment falling and the economy booming, polls by Hong Kong University and other groups suggest that if the general public could vote, they would overwhelmingly choose Mr. Tsang. He has four decades of experience in public service while Mr. Leong is a former chairman of the Hong Kong Bar Association who emerged as the pro-democracy candidate after better-known politicians decided that it was hopeless to run against Mr. Tsang.
Roughly 200,000 professionals among Hong Kong’s 7 million people were eligible to vote for electors late last year, choosing slightly over half of the electors. The rest of the electors hold their position because of the offices they hold, such as being a member of the legislature here or of the National People’s Congress in Beijing.
Sunday’s elections also represent the first time that a secret ballot has been used to choose the next leader of Hong Kong. This has prompted speculation that some electors, secretly unhappy with Mr. Tsang but obliged to support him publicly to satisfy Beijing, might cast blank ballots while in the privacy of voting booths.
Stanley Ho, an outspoken supporter of Mr. Tsang who controls many of the casinos in nearby Macao, caused controversy two weeks ago by saying there was a way to find out who cast which vote. Mr. Ho later said that he had only meant to cite a local expression that every secret eventually becomes known.
Election officials have been issuing almost daily assurances ever since that ballots will be truly secret, with no photography allowed in the voting area and no serial numbers or other identifying marks on the ballots.
“It will leave some lurking doubt, so unless people have strong views, they will vote for Donald Tsang,” said Margaret Ng, a pro-democracy lawmaker who is an elector and supports Mr. Leong.
Longtime democracy advocates in Hong Kong remain divided over the wisdom of participating in elections with rules that make it certain they will lose. The two most prominent figures in the pro-democracy movement here — Martin Lee, the founding chairman of the Democratic Party, and Anson Chan, a former second-ranking official in the Hong Kong government — each declined to run this spring.
Under the British, who ruled Hong Kong until its return to Chinese rule in 1997, colonial governors were appointed by London with practically no regard for sentiment here. The initial rules drafted by Beijing officials for choosing chief executives were highly restrictive — there were only 400 electors in the first election in late 1996, and each elector’s name and vote were posted on a board, a move that made it impossible to provide secret support for democracy advocates.
With those rules, the democracy movement boycotted chief executive elections in 1996 and 2002, both of which were won by Tung Chee-hwa, a shipping magnate. When Mr. Tung stepped down in 2005 and elections were held for the two years remaining in his second five-year term, the chairman of the Democratic Party, the largest opposition party, tried to run but failed to secure the 100 nominations from electors necessary to obtain a place on the ballot.
The Democratic Party and the similar Civic Party have enthusiastically backed Mr. Leong’s candidacy this year, but other pro-democracy groups continue to boycott the political process, most notably the influential Catholic diocese of Hong Kong, which has the right to name seven electors.
Cardinal Joseph Zen, the leader of the church, said in an interview that while the Vatican would allow church officials to serve as electors, he and other clergy had chosen not to do so because the elections were not a democratic process.
Instead, the diocese has allowed parishioners to apply to fill the seven spots as electors, and has given no instruction to these parishioners on how to vote, Cardinal Zen said.
In a separate development, Cardinal Zen said that the Vatican had just turned down his offer of his resignation as bishop of Hong Kong. It is standard practice in the Catholic Church for bishops to offer their resignation when they turn 75, as Cardinal Zen did in January; he would have remained a cardinal even if he stepped down as bishop, and had said that he would like to be relieved of his duties here so that he could focus more on relations with China.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/24/world/asia/25hong.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print
By KEITH BRADSHER
HONG KONG, Sunday, March 25 — As 796 electors prepared to cast their votes on Sunday in Hong Kong’s first contested election for chief executive, the Beijing-backed incumbent appeared almost certain to win re-election by a wide margin.
But the race has drawn more attention than expected here and across the border in mainland China.
For the first time, a democracy advocate, Alan Leong, has been able to get on the ballot by obtaining nominations from more than 100 of the 796 electors, who are mainly business people and politicians with links to mainland China. Hong Kong has also held its first two debates pitting a leader of the territory against an opponent actively promoting democracy.
The campaign has grown sufficiently contentious that mainland authorities have temporarily blocked signals from CNN even when Beijing’s favored candidate, Donald Tsang, has articulated his position on eventual democracy here.
People in the neighboring Guangdong province can receive television signals from Hong Kong, and have been expressing envy to Hong Kong television crews over this territory’s limited liberties.
“They say, why don’t we have the same thing for the election of our governors?” Mr. Tsang said in an interview Friday, adding that he did not have a position on whether this was good or bad.
Mr. Tsang said in the interview, with five foreign correspondents, that he wanted to introduce in the next five years a democracy plan that would satisfy the 60 percent of Hong Kong’s people who consistently tell pollsters that they want a system of one person, one vote.
But he declined to provide any details. He tried and failed in 2005 to fashion a consensus that would satisfy democracy advocates without upsetting Beijing leaders, who worry about losing control here, and without antagonizing local business leaders, some of whom warn that greater democracy could lead to demands for the introduction of a minimum wage and greater welfare spending.
Michael DeGolyer, the director of the Hong Kong Transition Project, a group of academics studying the evolution of democratic liberties in Hong Kong, said that Mr. Tsang’s comments over the past five months of the campaign showed a discernible shift toward greater enthusiasm for addressing the question of greater democracy here.
Mr. Tsang is considered virtually certain to win because he has Beijing’s backing and was nominated by 641 of the 796 electors. Only 132 electors chose Mr. Leong.
With unemployment falling and the economy booming, polls by Hong Kong University and other groups suggest that if the general public could vote, they would overwhelmingly choose Mr. Tsang. He has four decades of experience in public service while Mr. Leong is a former chairman of the Hong Kong Bar Association who emerged as the pro-democracy candidate after better-known politicians decided that it was hopeless to run against Mr. Tsang.
Roughly 200,000 professionals among Hong Kong’s 7 million people were eligible to vote for electors late last year, choosing slightly over half of the electors. The rest of the electors hold their position because of the offices they hold, such as being a member of the legislature here or of the National People’s Congress in Beijing.
Sunday’s elections also represent the first time that a secret ballot has been used to choose the next leader of Hong Kong. This has prompted speculation that some electors, secretly unhappy with Mr. Tsang but obliged to support him publicly to satisfy Beijing, might cast blank ballots while in the privacy of voting booths.
Stanley Ho, an outspoken supporter of Mr. Tsang who controls many of the casinos in nearby Macao, caused controversy two weeks ago by saying there was a way to find out who cast which vote. Mr. Ho later said that he had only meant to cite a local expression that every secret eventually becomes known.
Election officials have been issuing almost daily assurances ever since that ballots will be truly secret, with no photography allowed in the voting area and no serial numbers or other identifying marks on the ballots.
“It will leave some lurking doubt, so unless people have strong views, they will vote for Donald Tsang,” said Margaret Ng, a pro-democracy lawmaker who is an elector and supports Mr. Leong.
Longtime democracy advocates in Hong Kong remain divided over the wisdom of participating in elections with rules that make it certain they will lose. The two most prominent figures in the pro-democracy movement here — Martin Lee, the founding chairman of the Democratic Party, and Anson Chan, a former second-ranking official in the Hong Kong government — each declined to run this spring.
Under the British, who ruled Hong Kong until its return to Chinese rule in 1997, colonial governors were appointed by London with practically no regard for sentiment here. The initial rules drafted by Beijing officials for choosing chief executives were highly restrictive — there were only 400 electors in the first election in late 1996, and each elector’s name and vote were posted on a board, a move that made it impossible to provide secret support for democracy advocates.
With those rules, the democracy movement boycotted chief executive elections in 1996 and 2002, both of which were won by Tung Chee-hwa, a shipping magnate. When Mr. Tung stepped down in 2005 and elections were held for the two years remaining in his second five-year term, the chairman of the Democratic Party, the largest opposition party, tried to run but failed to secure the 100 nominations from electors necessary to obtain a place on the ballot.
The Democratic Party and the similar Civic Party have enthusiastically backed Mr. Leong’s candidacy this year, but other pro-democracy groups continue to boycott the political process, most notably the influential Catholic diocese of Hong Kong, which has the right to name seven electors.
Cardinal Joseph Zen, the leader of the church, said in an interview that while the Vatican would allow church officials to serve as electors, he and other clergy had chosen not to do so because the elections were not a democratic process.
Instead, the diocese has allowed parishioners to apply to fill the seven spots as electors, and has given no instruction to these parishioners on how to vote, Cardinal Zen said.
In a separate development, Cardinal Zen said that the Vatican had just turned down his offer of his resignation as bishop of Hong Kong. It is standard practice in the Catholic Church for bishops to offer their resignation when they turn 75, as Cardinal Zen did in January; he would have remained a cardinal even if he stepped down as bishop, and had said that he would like to be relieved of his duties here so that he could focus more on relations with China.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/24/world/asia/25hong.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print
For a Europe Remade, a Celebration in Uncertainty
By ROGER COHEN
International Herald Tribune
SEVILLE
It is not easy to think of Spain as Poland. Stroll around this southern city at dusk, beneath the palms, beside the handsome bridges on the Guadalquivir River, past the chic boutiques and the Häagen-Dazs outlet, the Gothic cathedral and the Moorish palace, and it is scarcely Warsaw that comes to mind.
But, insisted Adam Michnik, the Polish writer, "Poland is the new Spain, absolutely." He continued: "Spain was a poor country when it joined the European Union 21 years ago. It no longer is. We will see the same results in Poland."
If history is prologue, Michnik is likely to be right. The EU, which celebrates the 50th anniversary of its founding treaty this weekend, is more often associated with Brussels bureaucrats setting the maximum curvature of cucumbers than with transformational power. But step by step, stipulation by stipulation, Europe has been remade.
What began in limited fashion in 1957 as a drive to remove tariff barriers and to free commercial exchange has ended by banishing war from Europe, enriching it beyond measure, and producing what Michnik called "the first revolution that has been absolutely positive."
Asia, still beset by nationalisms and open World War II wounds, can only envy the EU's conjuring away of agonizing history, a process that involved a voluntary dilution of national sovereignty unthinkable in the United States.
This achievement will be symbolized when leaders from the 27 EU member states gather this weekend in Berlin - the city that stood at the crux of violent 20th-century European division. They will sign a "Berlin Declaration" celebrating the peace, freedom, wealth and democracy that the Treaty of Rome has now helped spread among almost half a billion Europeans.
But it is a celebration in uncertainty. A bigger EU, expanded to include the ex-Communist states of Central Europe, has proved largely ungovernable. A constitution designed to streamline its governance was rejected in 2005. Which bits of it, if any, can be revived remains murky.
Integration has been a European triumph. But it has often failed with large-scale Muslim immigration, creating complex security issues that the Union is struggling to address.
"The EU is on autopilot, in stalemate, in deep crisis," said Joschka Fischer, the former German foreign minister, who seven years ago called for a European federation run by a true European government. "There is a lack of political will to create the efficient institutions enlargement demanded. You can't double the size of a company without changing the way it works."
The founding treaty, signed by the six founding members on March 25, 1957, rested on creative ambiguity. It called for an "ever closer union among the European peoples"; behind it lay dreams of a United States of Europe. The bold politics nestled inside basic economics - making a common market - and was thus rendered unthreatening. A common currency, the euro, emerged in 2002.
Still, the ambiguity persisted; it has proved divisive. Economic power has been built more effectively than political or strategic unity. Military power and integration have lagged. Europeans tend to do peacekeeping these days rather than wars.
Recent disputes - from Iraq to current American plans to install missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic - have shown how hard it is for the EU to speak with one voice or, as Fischer put it, "define what strategic interests it has in common." Nonetheless, "autopilot" in the EU still amounts to a lot.
It will ensure, for example, that over $100 billion is sent to Poland between now and 2013 to upgrade the country's infrastructure and agriculture, a sum that dwarfs American aid. Similarly, more than $190 billion has been devoted to Spain since it joined the EU in 1986, 11 years after the end of Franco's dictatorship.
The result has been Spain's extraordinary transition from a country whose per-capita output stood at 71 percent of the European average in 1985, to 90 percent in 2004, and now stands at 100.7 percent of the median of the 27 members.
In the space of a generation, Spain has moved into the club of the well off. Last year it created 40 percent of the new jobs among countries using the euro. Its EU-stimulated confidence is palpable.
Growth is a terrific trauma dampener. Dictatorship in Spain, 21 years after EU membership, seems utterly remote. Poland under the Kaczynski brothers is far from overcoming the painful legacy of communist tyranny, but by 2025 - its 21-year membership anniversary - it seems safe to say that healing will be advanced. The potential fallout of divisive rule is curtailed by EU membership.
"The EU slashes political risk," said Chris Huhne, a Liberal Democrat member of the British Parliament. "It also exercises a soft power on its periphery that has far more transformational impact than the American neocon agenda in the Middle East. Countries in the Balkans wanting to come into the European democratic family have to adapt."
That adaptation is economic as well as political. The creation of something approximating an American single market has been a powerful force in ending cartels and monopolies, introducing competition, pushing privatizations and generally promoting the market over heavily managed capitalism.
Open skies for freer airline competition, and the slashed fares that go with it, are just one visible expression of this process. "Europe would be immensely less competitive and less prosperous without the single market framework," Huhne said.
Which is not to say, of course, that European capitalism is U.S. capitalism. It is less fluid; it creates fewer jobs. It is also less harsh.
Indeed, defense of what is called the European social model - one of universal health care and extensive unemployment benefits - has become a tenet of European identity in contrast to an America where 45 million citizens (about the population of Spain) lack health insurance.
How far that identity, as opposed to national identities, exists 50 years after the Treaty of Rome is a matter of dispute. Only 2 percent of EU inhabitants of working age live in member states other than their own.
But a survey in the French daily Le Figaro showed that 71 percent of French people now feel some pride in a European identity. The Erasmus program, established by the former EU Commission president, Jacques Delors, has helped about 1.5 million young Europeans spend a year studying in European universities outside their own countries.
The hit movie "L'Auberge Espagnole," or "The Spanish Inn," captured the Erasmus experience: jumbled cultures, linguistic and amorous discovery, and the births of new identities from this mingling. Countless Eurocouples have not been the least of the EU's achievements.
How this generation will deal with the EU's central conundrum - what is often called the issue of its "finality" or end point - remains an open question. It is open geographically: The Union could end at the Iranian and Iraqi borders if Turkey joins. It is also open politically: How much of a federation, with its own executive and legislature, its own president and foreign minister, should Europe be?
The EU has been upended by communism's unexpected demise. The European Economic Community, as established in 1957, did not try to liberate the Continent; it tried to ensure that half of it cohered in freedom.
"Europe was initially built on accepting with more or less equanimity to forget about half of it, including historic centers of European civilization like Prague or Budapest," said Jonathan Eyal, a British strategic analyst. "And the irony is that it is precisely the return of these centers that has thrown the EU into existential crisis today."
That crisis is partly procedural. It is not clear how you get things done in a Europe of 27. It is partly of identity. The rapidly cohering Europe with a Franco- German core is gone, and nobody quite knows what to put in its place. And it is partly political. The conception of Europe in post-Communist countries is simply different.
These differences, which lurked behind the rejection of the EU constitution, have been most apparent of late in the flaring tensions between Germany and Poland, two countries whose reconciliation has been one of the EU's conspicuous miracles.
Germany has been utterly remade by an integrating Europe to the point that more people worry today about German pacifism than expansionism. But Poland is just entering that transformational process; under Lech Kaczynski's conservative presidency its wariness of the pooling of sovereignty inherent in the EU has been clear.
"Poland under Kaczynski is anti-federalist, quite nationalistic, and very conservative," said Karl Kaiser, a German political analyst. "It looks out and tends to see the old Germany and the old expansionist Russia. It has not taken part mentally in the long process of integration."
So Warsaw sees Moscow-Berlin plots of sinister memory when Russia and Germany agree to build a gas pipeline directly between each other, under the Baltic Sea rather than over Poland.
It pushes hard, but unsuccessfully, for references to Europe's Christian roots in the Berlin declaration. It contemplates, as does the Czech Republic, installing part of a new U.S. missile defense system against Iran, and does so despite German unease, Russian fury and the absence of any EU or NATO consensus.
Of course, what Poles and Czechs see beyond Germany or Russia is the America that defeated the Soviet Union and freed them: Poles, as Michnik noted, "tend to be more pro-American than Americans."
Whatever tempering of this sentiment Iraq has brought, Poland and the rest of Central and Eastern Europe remain more pro-American than the Europe of the Treaty of Rome and the Union's first decades. With Britain they now form a club within the club that sees Europe more as market than political force, more as loose alignment than strategic union.
"For Britain, Europe is a convenience rather than a concept," said Karsten Voigt, a German Foreign Ministry official.
This is an intractable division. It seems likely to affect Europe's search for strategic cohesion for many years. The Bush administration has accentuated the split with its ad hoc, treat- NATO-as-a-tool-box approach to its European alliances. That stance was evident at the time of the Iraq invasion and is evident again today over the missile defense system. Coalitions of the willing tend to make the unwilling bristle.
At a deeper level, Homo europeus, formed over 50 years, now lies at some distance from Homo americanus. Because it is process that has delivered answers to long unanswerable European problems like the German question, post-heroic Europeans tend to favor procedure, talk, international institutions and incremental measures to resolve issues where heroic Americans tend to favor resolve backed by force.
Peace is much more of an absolute value today in Europe than in the United States. Opposition to the death penalty and commitment to reversing global warming are also near universal values, where they remain contentious in America. So what? The ties that bind the Atlantic family remain strong.
But, unglued by the Cold War's end, they are not as strong as they were. As Kaiser noted, "the European Union would not exist without American support." It was American forces, not European, that stared down the Soviet Union and delivered the Europe whole and free being celebrated in Berlin.
Yet the celebration is European rather than Euro-American. The EU sees the United States today more through the prism of Baghdad than Berlin. Generations pass; memories fade; perceptions change. That is inevitable. The great achievement of the EU has been to absorb those changes and zigzags within the broader push for unity.
That push, that journey, is incomplete. But Europeans have learned, as Eyal said, that "traveling can be just as good as arriving." Perpetual difficulty has been the EU's perpetual stimulus. A United States of Europe remains a distant, probably unreachable dream. At the same time, continent-wide war has become an unthinkable nightmare.
"The EU is an unfinished project, but so what?" said Voigt. "Why be nervous? We have time."
Time enough even, the 50-year history of the EU suggests, for Turkey to become the new Poland.
http://select.nytimes.com/iht/2007/03/24/world/IHT-24europe.html?pagewanted=1&ref=world
International Herald Tribune
SEVILLE
It is not easy to think of Spain as Poland. Stroll around this southern city at dusk, beneath the palms, beside the handsome bridges on the Guadalquivir River, past the chic boutiques and the Häagen-Dazs outlet, the Gothic cathedral and the Moorish palace, and it is scarcely Warsaw that comes to mind.
But, insisted Adam Michnik, the Polish writer, "Poland is the new Spain, absolutely." He continued: "Spain was a poor country when it joined the European Union 21 years ago. It no longer is. We will see the same results in Poland."
If history is prologue, Michnik is likely to be right. The EU, which celebrates the 50th anniversary of its founding treaty this weekend, is more often associated with Brussels bureaucrats setting the maximum curvature of cucumbers than with transformational power. But step by step, stipulation by stipulation, Europe has been remade.
What began in limited fashion in 1957 as a drive to remove tariff barriers and to free commercial exchange has ended by banishing war from Europe, enriching it beyond measure, and producing what Michnik called "the first revolution that has been absolutely positive."
Asia, still beset by nationalisms and open World War II wounds, can only envy the EU's conjuring away of agonizing history, a process that involved a voluntary dilution of national sovereignty unthinkable in the United States.
This achievement will be symbolized when leaders from the 27 EU member states gather this weekend in Berlin - the city that stood at the crux of violent 20th-century European division. They will sign a "Berlin Declaration" celebrating the peace, freedom, wealth and democracy that the Treaty of Rome has now helped spread among almost half a billion Europeans.
But it is a celebration in uncertainty. A bigger EU, expanded to include the ex-Communist states of Central Europe, has proved largely ungovernable. A constitution designed to streamline its governance was rejected in 2005. Which bits of it, if any, can be revived remains murky.
Integration has been a European triumph. But it has often failed with large-scale Muslim immigration, creating complex security issues that the Union is struggling to address.
"The EU is on autopilot, in stalemate, in deep crisis," said Joschka Fischer, the former German foreign minister, who seven years ago called for a European federation run by a true European government. "There is a lack of political will to create the efficient institutions enlargement demanded. You can't double the size of a company without changing the way it works."
The founding treaty, signed by the six founding members on March 25, 1957, rested on creative ambiguity. It called for an "ever closer union among the European peoples"; behind it lay dreams of a United States of Europe. The bold politics nestled inside basic economics - making a common market - and was thus rendered unthreatening. A common currency, the euro, emerged in 2002.
Still, the ambiguity persisted; it has proved divisive. Economic power has been built more effectively than political or strategic unity. Military power and integration have lagged. Europeans tend to do peacekeeping these days rather than wars.
Recent disputes - from Iraq to current American plans to install missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic - have shown how hard it is for the EU to speak with one voice or, as Fischer put it, "define what strategic interests it has in common." Nonetheless, "autopilot" in the EU still amounts to a lot.
It will ensure, for example, that over $100 billion is sent to Poland between now and 2013 to upgrade the country's infrastructure and agriculture, a sum that dwarfs American aid. Similarly, more than $190 billion has been devoted to Spain since it joined the EU in 1986, 11 years after the end of Franco's dictatorship.
The result has been Spain's extraordinary transition from a country whose per-capita output stood at 71 percent of the European average in 1985, to 90 percent in 2004, and now stands at 100.7 percent of the median of the 27 members.
In the space of a generation, Spain has moved into the club of the well off. Last year it created 40 percent of the new jobs among countries using the euro. Its EU-stimulated confidence is palpable.
Growth is a terrific trauma dampener. Dictatorship in Spain, 21 years after EU membership, seems utterly remote. Poland under the Kaczynski brothers is far from overcoming the painful legacy of communist tyranny, but by 2025 - its 21-year membership anniversary - it seems safe to say that healing will be advanced. The potential fallout of divisive rule is curtailed by EU membership.
"The EU slashes political risk," said Chris Huhne, a Liberal Democrat member of the British Parliament. "It also exercises a soft power on its periphery that has far more transformational impact than the American neocon agenda in the Middle East. Countries in the Balkans wanting to come into the European democratic family have to adapt."
That adaptation is economic as well as political. The creation of something approximating an American single market has been a powerful force in ending cartels and monopolies, introducing competition, pushing privatizations and generally promoting the market over heavily managed capitalism.
Open skies for freer airline competition, and the slashed fares that go with it, are just one visible expression of this process. "Europe would be immensely less competitive and less prosperous without the single market framework," Huhne said.
Which is not to say, of course, that European capitalism is U.S. capitalism. It is less fluid; it creates fewer jobs. It is also less harsh.
Indeed, defense of what is called the European social model - one of universal health care and extensive unemployment benefits - has become a tenet of European identity in contrast to an America where 45 million citizens (about the population of Spain) lack health insurance.
How far that identity, as opposed to national identities, exists 50 years after the Treaty of Rome is a matter of dispute. Only 2 percent of EU inhabitants of working age live in member states other than their own.
But a survey in the French daily Le Figaro showed that 71 percent of French people now feel some pride in a European identity. The Erasmus program, established by the former EU Commission president, Jacques Delors, has helped about 1.5 million young Europeans spend a year studying in European universities outside their own countries.
The hit movie "L'Auberge Espagnole," or "The Spanish Inn," captured the Erasmus experience: jumbled cultures, linguistic and amorous discovery, and the births of new identities from this mingling. Countless Eurocouples have not been the least of the EU's achievements.
How this generation will deal with the EU's central conundrum - what is often called the issue of its "finality" or end point - remains an open question. It is open geographically: The Union could end at the Iranian and Iraqi borders if Turkey joins. It is also open politically: How much of a federation, with its own executive and legislature, its own president and foreign minister, should Europe be?
The EU has been upended by communism's unexpected demise. The European Economic Community, as established in 1957, did not try to liberate the Continent; it tried to ensure that half of it cohered in freedom.
"Europe was initially built on accepting with more or less equanimity to forget about half of it, including historic centers of European civilization like Prague or Budapest," said Jonathan Eyal, a British strategic analyst. "And the irony is that it is precisely the return of these centers that has thrown the EU into existential crisis today."
That crisis is partly procedural. It is not clear how you get things done in a Europe of 27. It is partly of identity. The rapidly cohering Europe with a Franco- German core is gone, and nobody quite knows what to put in its place. And it is partly political. The conception of Europe in post-Communist countries is simply different.
These differences, which lurked behind the rejection of the EU constitution, have been most apparent of late in the flaring tensions between Germany and Poland, two countries whose reconciliation has been one of the EU's conspicuous miracles.
Germany has been utterly remade by an integrating Europe to the point that more people worry today about German pacifism than expansionism. But Poland is just entering that transformational process; under Lech Kaczynski's conservative presidency its wariness of the pooling of sovereignty inherent in the EU has been clear.
"Poland under Kaczynski is anti-federalist, quite nationalistic, and very conservative," said Karl Kaiser, a German political analyst. "It looks out and tends to see the old Germany and the old expansionist Russia. It has not taken part mentally in the long process of integration."
So Warsaw sees Moscow-Berlin plots of sinister memory when Russia and Germany agree to build a gas pipeline directly between each other, under the Baltic Sea rather than over Poland.
It pushes hard, but unsuccessfully, for references to Europe's Christian roots in the Berlin declaration. It contemplates, as does the Czech Republic, installing part of a new U.S. missile defense system against Iran, and does so despite German unease, Russian fury and the absence of any EU or NATO consensus.
Of course, what Poles and Czechs see beyond Germany or Russia is the America that defeated the Soviet Union and freed them: Poles, as Michnik noted, "tend to be more pro-American than Americans."
Whatever tempering of this sentiment Iraq has brought, Poland and the rest of Central and Eastern Europe remain more pro-American than the Europe of the Treaty of Rome and the Union's first decades. With Britain they now form a club within the club that sees Europe more as market than political force, more as loose alignment than strategic union.
"For Britain, Europe is a convenience rather than a concept," said Karsten Voigt, a German Foreign Ministry official.
This is an intractable division. It seems likely to affect Europe's search for strategic cohesion for many years. The Bush administration has accentuated the split with its ad hoc, treat- NATO-as-a-tool-box approach to its European alliances. That stance was evident at the time of the Iraq invasion and is evident again today over the missile defense system. Coalitions of the willing tend to make the unwilling bristle.
At a deeper level, Homo europeus, formed over 50 years, now lies at some distance from Homo americanus. Because it is process that has delivered answers to long unanswerable European problems like the German question, post-heroic Europeans tend to favor procedure, talk, international institutions and incremental measures to resolve issues where heroic Americans tend to favor resolve backed by force.
Peace is much more of an absolute value today in Europe than in the United States. Opposition to the death penalty and commitment to reversing global warming are also near universal values, where they remain contentious in America. So what? The ties that bind the Atlantic family remain strong.
But, unglued by the Cold War's end, they are not as strong as they were. As Kaiser noted, "the European Union would not exist without American support." It was American forces, not European, that stared down the Soviet Union and delivered the Europe whole and free being celebrated in Berlin.
Yet the celebration is European rather than Euro-American. The EU sees the United States today more through the prism of Baghdad than Berlin. Generations pass; memories fade; perceptions change. That is inevitable. The great achievement of the EU has been to absorb those changes and zigzags within the broader push for unity.
That push, that journey, is incomplete. But Europeans have learned, as Eyal said, that "traveling can be just as good as arriving." Perpetual difficulty has been the EU's perpetual stimulus. A United States of Europe remains a distant, probably unreachable dream. At the same time, continent-wide war has become an unthinkable nightmare.
"The EU is an unfinished project, but so what?" said Voigt. "Why be nervous? We have time."
Time enough even, the 50-year history of the EU suggests, for Turkey to become the new Poland.
http://select.nytimes.com/iht/2007/03/24/world/IHT-24europe.html?pagewanted=1&ref=world
No Sex, Please, We’re French [NY Times]
Op-Ed Contributor
By STEPHEN CLARKE
Published: March 23, 2007
Paris
THE French claim to be a nation of rebels. They guillotined Louis XVI in 1793, they had uprisings in 1848 and 1871, and they boast that they maintain this noble tradition of protest in their habit of rioting every time there are rumblings of political discontent.
In fact, though, their heyday of revolution is over. Twenty-first century France rebels against change, not for it. These days, what typically happens is that a government decides to do something radical like, say, enable companies to fire service-sector workers who assault their customers. The unions see this as the first step on the slippery slope to slavery and call a national strike. After a week of posturing, the government backs down and waiters and sales clerks go back to insulting customers just as they have done since time immemorial.
The 2007 presidential election campaign is demonstrating just how deep this crypto-conservatism runs. After a relatively exciting, gossip-fired start to the battle for power, the French have decided, as the first round of the election approaches in April, that they want things to be boring again.
Historically, French presidents have been old, bald guys — Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, François Mitterrand, Jacques Chirac. In terms of sexiness, imagine an endless line of Dick Cheneys. This time, though, both front-runners have all their hair and, in one case, lipstick. Quite a novelty.
In the right-hand corner, you have a free-marketeer and friend to pop stars, Nicolas Sarkozy, 52. On the left, there is Ségolène Royal, age 53 but looking younger every day. She is unmarried but has four children with her partner, François Hollande, the Socialist Party chairman.
Given Ms. Royal and Mr. Sarkozy’s relative youth, it’s not surprising that this is the first time that sex has played such a large part in an electoral campaign. Everyone knew that Messrs. Giscard, Mitterrand and Chirac had mistresses, but no one paid much attention because everything was done discreetly. Besides, the French don’t believe that monogamy makes a politician any more efficient.
This time around, sex has come storming out of the closet. There was the incident a couple of years ago when Mr. Sarkozy’s wife, Cécilia, ran off to New York with her lover. In a dramatic turnaround, Mr. Sarkozy wooed his wife back, maybe with promises that she’d soon be choosing the curtains in the presidential palace. Meanwhile, the Mona Lisa smile on Ms. Royal’s face suggests that either her doctor has prescribed some very relaxing herbal teas, or she is exceptionally enamored of campaigning. Her, let’s say, permanently fulfilled expression prompted so much speculation about her sex life that she has issued legal threats to rumor-mongering Web sites.
All in all, until very recently, the 2007 campaign had been glamorous and Clintonesque, fought out via the celebrity magazines — a thoroughly modern, media-led affair.
But deep down, the French distrust modernism. They long for the days when theirs was the international language of diplomacy and only France made sparkling wine.
Which might explain why a third candidate suddenly became such a serious contender.
Until eight weeks ago, François Bayrou, a centrist former minister of education, was a marginal figure, down there in the polls with the Marxists and the “save the organic truffle” brigade. Since then, he has leapt to join the leaders. He has stalled in third place, but one poll this week predicted that if Mr. Bayrou and Mr. Sarkozy face off in the clinching second round of the election, in May, Mr. Bayrou would win.
The question is, pourquoi?
Well, Mr. Bayrou is the anti-excitement candidate, a sort of political Prozac after all the amphetamines of the Sarkozy-Royal conflict. He is fairly young at 55, and he has a relatively full head of hair, but so far he has left the paparazzi in a soporific daze. He wants to unite everyone — he’s a member of a centrist party but might well appoint a Socialist prime minister; he is a Catholic but a staunch defender of secularism in schools. The message is that if he can unite God and the atheists, surely he can unite France.
Most of all, he is something that even urban voters see as quintessentially French — a farmer. His official Web site shows him pitchforking hay on the family farm, and he was recently quoted in the weekly Le Point as saying: “My friends and I aren’t the jet set. We’re the tractor set.”
One should not underestimate the strength of this rustic image in the national psyche. If you gave an average Frenchman the choice between a reforming president who would plug the country’s huge deficit and a good cheese, he would probably opt for the cheese.
This is why in France, candidates not only kiss babies, they kiss cows. Politicians flocked into the recent Agriculture Fair in Paris to be photographed embracing livestock. And no one looked more convincing in the clinch with a four-legged, hairy friend than Mr. Bayrou.
His rise in the polls seems to prove that, despite what they say, the French are upset by upheaval, revolted by revolt. They want things to stay the way they have always been. Even Louis XVI was able to provoke his subjects into guillotining him only because he tried to flee the country, thus making himself look a traitor. If he had stayed in Paris and hugged a few prize bulls, France would probably still be a monarchy.
Stephen Clarke is the author of “Talk to the Snail: The Ten Commandments for Understanding the French.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/23/opinion/23clarke.html?em&ex=1174881600&en=81ff6389e9bc98d2&ei=5087%0A
By STEPHEN CLARKE
Published: March 23, 2007
Paris
THE French claim to be a nation of rebels. They guillotined Louis XVI in 1793, they had uprisings in 1848 and 1871, and they boast that they maintain this noble tradition of protest in their habit of rioting every time there are rumblings of political discontent.
In fact, though, their heyday of revolution is over. Twenty-first century France rebels against change, not for it. These days, what typically happens is that a government decides to do something radical like, say, enable companies to fire service-sector workers who assault their customers. The unions see this as the first step on the slippery slope to slavery and call a national strike. After a week of posturing, the government backs down and waiters and sales clerks go back to insulting customers just as they have done since time immemorial.
The 2007 presidential election campaign is demonstrating just how deep this crypto-conservatism runs. After a relatively exciting, gossip-fired start to the battle for power, the French have decided, as the first round of the election approaches in April, that they want things to be boring again.
Historically, French presidents have been old, bald guys — Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, François Mitterrand, Jacques Chirac. In terms of sexiness, imagine an endless line of Dick Cheneys. This time, though, both front-runners have all their hair and, in one case, lipstick. Quite a novelty.
In the right-hand corner, you have a free-marketeer and friend to pop stars, Nicolas Sarkozy, 52. On the left, there is Ségolène Royal, age 53 but looking younger every day. She is unmarried but has four children with her partner, François Hollande, the Socialist Party chairman.
Given Ms. Royal and Mr. Sarkozy’s relative youth, it’s not surprising that this is the first time that sex has played such a large part in an electoral campaign. Everyone knew that Messrs. Giscard, Mitterrand and Chirac had mistresses, but no one paid much attention because everything was done discreetly. Besides, the French don’t believe that monogamy makes a politician any more efficient.
This time around, sex has come storming out of the closet. There was the incident a couple of years ago when Mr. Sarkozy’s wife, Cécilia, ran off to New York with her lover. In a dramatic turnaround, Mr. Sarkozy wooed his wife back, maybe with promises that she’d soon be choosing the curtains in the presidential palace. Meanwhile, the Mona Lisa smile on Ms. Royal’s face suggests that either her doctor has prescribed some very relaxing herbal teas, or she is exceptionally enamored of campaigning. Her, let’s say, permanently fulfilled expression prompted so much speculation about her sex life that she has issued legal threats to rumor-mongering Web sites.
All in all, until very recently, the 2007 campaign had been glamorous and Clintonesque, fought out via the celebrity magazines — a thoroughly modern, media-led affair.
But deep down, the French distrust modernism. They long for the days when theirs was the international language of diplomacy and only France made sparkling wine.
Which might explain why a third candidate suddenly became such a serious contender.
Until eight weeks ago, François Bayrou, a centrist former minister of education, was a marginal figure, down there in the polls with the Marxists and the “save the organic truffle” brigade. Since then, he has leapt to join the leaders. He has stalled in third place, but one poll this week predicted that if Mr. Bayrou and Mr. Sarkozy face off in the clinching second round of the election, in May, Mr. Bayrou would win.
The question is, pourquoi?
Well, Mr. Bayrou is the anti-excitement candidate, a sort of political Prozac after all the amphetamines of the Sarkozy-Royal conflict. He is fairly young at 55, and he has a relatively full head of hair, but so far he has left the paparazzi in a soporific daze. He wants to unite everyone — he’s a member of a centrist party but might well appoint a Socialist prime minister; he is a Catholic but a staunch defender of secularism in schools. The message is that if he can unite God and the atheists, surely he can unite France.
Most of all, he is something that even urban voters see as quintessentially French — a farmer. His official Web site shows him pitchforking hay on the family farm, and he was recently quoted in the weekly Le Point as saying: “My friends and I aren’t the jet set. We’re the tractor set.”
One should not underestimate the strength of this rustic image in the national psyche. If you gave an average Frenchman the choice between a reforming president who would plug the country’s huge deficit and a good cheese, he would probably opt for the cheese.
This is why in France, candidates not only kiss babies, they kiss cows. Politicians flocked into the recent Agriculture Fair in Paris to be photographed embracing livestock. And no one looked more convincing in the clinch with a four-legged, hairy friend than Mr. Bayrou.
His rise in the polls seems to prove that, despite what they say, the French are upset by upheaval, revolted by revolt. They want things to stay the way they have always been. Even Louis XVI was able to provoke his subjects into guillotining him only because he tried to flee the country, thus making himself look a traitor. If he had stayed in Paris and hugged a few prize bulls, France would probably still be a monarchy.
Stephen Clarke is the author of “Talk to the Snail: The Ten Commandments for Understanding the French.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/23/opinion/23clarke.html?em&ex=1174881600&en=81ff6389e9bc98d2&ei=5087%0A
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