IF SOME of what’s happening in Europe were to happen to the Philippines (mass immigration, crime resulting from mass immigration, austerity measures, national sovereignty subjugated to a regional or international body) I think that a large portion of Filipinos will be very angry, and rightly so.
So it is not a surprise when a few weeks ago, several European countries elected more right-leaning parties into power, with the mandate of fixing immigration and the economy. Germany, Belgium, France and others elected parties that could be defined as right-leaning and anti-immigrant.
There’s a lot of hand-wringing about this, with many saying that another Hitler could be coming and warning that history is repeating itself. The problem with this analysis is that the early 20st century is very different from ours, and the Europe of today is different from the Europe of yesterday. Even the world today is different from yesterday.
The Europe of today is in a world with a militarily assertive China, an unstable Middle East and an America that wants to return to something close to isolationism and of course, let us not forget about Russia.
There are also demographic problems everywhere. Post-war Europe was conceived as a response to the failures that led to World War 2. The emerging European order seems to be a response to the obsolescence of Post-war Europe.
The peaceful, open Europe of yesterday cannot exist as it once was. It had to adapt, and this rightward shift is a symptom of that.
The process is by no means finished, and the forces behind these parties are trying to consolidate themselves, but, assuming this trend continues, I think this new Europe will be very different from the one.
It will become less open, less liberal, possibly less beholden to the US and perhaps a little more like what it had been before the World Wars. And just as the world moves away from the unipolar world order, Europe will have to redefine itself once more./PN
