e_Paper (11 November 2016)

The dead end of history
Opinion 21
The 1990s was the decade of hope to end a century of division. We need them again
DT
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2016
political landscape in 2016 has
gone viral thanks to a New York
real estate tycoon with an ego as
grotesque as his bank balance.
Trump built the campaign
he prefers to call a “movement”
around his social media presence
and off-the-cuff, rambling
speeches.
Both suited his swashbuckling
style. Twitter, in particular,
provided a turret through which
he could fire at will, at any time
and at anyone.
That won’t do now.
Trump may be a successful
businessman, but he is short on
ideas, never mind an ideology. He
can still find these, of course, but
any resetting of his moral compass
in line with his new office may
take time the world simply does
not have.
His inauguration at the end
of January 2017 will be followed
by bellwether national elections
in the Netherlands, France, and
Germany.
However grand the party held at
the Manhattan Hilton on Tuesday
night, it could not possibly have
matched those thrown by Geert
Wilders in The Hague, Marine Le
Pen in Paris, or the AfD in Berlin.
All three congratulated Trump
before he had even congratulated
himself.
Bitterness, division, acrimony, intolerance
Trump may be a successful businessman, but he is short on ideas,
never mind an ideology
• Phil Humphreys
It was “The End of History,”
Francis Fukuyama proclaimed
in 1992.
The Berlin Wall had been
brought down and the Iron
Curtain forced open. Germany was
reunited while the Soviet Union
had disintegrated. The American
political scientist knew the plates
had shifted for good.
And who could argue?
Capitalism had won. Communism
was discredited. The final form
of human government had been
found and (almost) everyone
agreed.
In the 10 years that followed,
the world came in from the cold.
The European community
became a union, leading to a single
currency and central bank. The
World Trade Organisation came
into existence and the African
Union was conceived.
The Oslo Accords gave Israel
and Palestine a pathway to coexistence.
The Dayton Agreement
ended the bitter Bosnian War
and the Good Friday Agreement
brought peace to Northern Ireland.
Apartheid was overthrown
in South Africa and a Rainbow
Nation was born in its place. Latin
American liberal democracies
flourished where military
dictatorships had ruled. Even Cuba
began accepting US aid.
It was not all rosy, of course; the
Rwandan genocide and Kosovo
conflict left deep wounds. But it
was overwhelmingly a decade for
agreements, accords, unions, and
reunifications.
And what now?
A world turned in on itself
REUTERS
It seems only bitterness, division,
acrimony, and intolerance.
A Great Britain under
constitutional threat from Brexit
forces. Right-wing parties on the
rise across a fractured Europe.
The Middle East roadmap
in tatters. A failed Arab Spring.
Syria at war, and IS on the march.
Terrorism everywhere.
At the same time, China is
colonising the developing world
via economic stealth, while Russia
uses covert military and cyber
warfare to intimidate neighbours
it can annex, and destabilise
opponents it cannot.
Even in Bangladesh, houses
and temples are being attacked
because the people inside follow
a different religion. Next door in
Myanmar, the Rohingya face a
similar strain of persecution.
And now we have Trump.
Pandemic nationalism
They say that if America sneezes,
the rest of the world catches
a cold. Maybe this time, the
pathogen passed the other way.
The bitterness, division,
acrimony, and intolerance
infecting much of the global
The struggle for 2017
If this rising tide of hate-filled
nationalism is to be stopped, then
perhaps only the country which
has been fought over, ripped open,
and pulled from pillar to post more
than most can force back the flood.
The country with an act
of genocide on its collective
conscience; the same country
which has thrown open its borders
and arms to a million Syrian
refugees as the rest of Europe has
erected fences in 2016.
Helmut Kohl’s Germany led the
world out of the Cold War and into
a decade of relative reconciliation.
Angela Merkel and Europe’s largest
electorate can again show the
way when it goes to the polls next
September.
If the 1990s saw a spirit of hope
borne out of years of struggle and
despair, the elections of this year
can leave no doubt that the despair
has returned, and that the struggle
for 2017 has already begun.
Maybe now, as happened
then, the hope will follow. In the
country with the darkest past, the
light will surely be seen. •
Phil Humphreys is a British journalist and
former Bangladesh development worker
now living in Berlin, Germany.