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The Right-Wing Resurrection
Europe's conservatives appear to have turned their back on the golden rule of conservatism: less state, lower taxes and more market. In Britain, once home to Margaret Thatcher, the Amazonian queen of rightist politics, Gordon Brown's Labour government cuts taxes while David Cameron's Tory party pledges more state money for health and defense and to subsidize a bankrupt postal service. Sweden's Moderate Party—once known as the Conservative Party—ousted the Swedish Social Democrats two years ago, but economic growth has slowed down, taking government popularity to such lows that most assume the left will win back power at the next election. On foreign policy, conservatives who once were ready to be tough to defend European democracy coddle up to the semi-authoritarian Russia. Conservative politicians who once championed human rights in communist Poland or Czechoslovakia are now silent on the daily abuse of core democratic rights in China. Conservatives who once built bulwarks to stop totalitarianism from contaminating European politics now accept handouts for Islamic centers financed by the Saudis to promote the Jew-hating, homophobic and misogynist Islamism of Wahhabi preachers.
Far from strengthening NATO, Germany's center-right leader, Merkel, blocked efforts to help Ukraine move toward a Euro-Atlantic future. The conservative government of Greece stopped a brave small democracy like Macedonia from joining NATO in an argument over its name that was little more elevated than the row among Swift's Lilliputians over whether a boiled egg should be cracked at its big or small end. Meanwhile, defense spending under European conservatives plunges to a record low at a time when Europe claims it wants to promote its presence everywhere in the world. Churchill, Adenauer and de Gaulle are turning in their graves.
MacShane is a Labour M.P. and was Britain’s minister for Europe.
© 2008
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Member Comments
Posted By: a.sarris @ 05/08/2008 9:34:07 AM
Comment: "I can tell you that no amount of racist policies that the government of Athens (or should I say the gov't of the Former Ottoman Province of Yunanistan) will exterminate the ethnic Macedonians that live under Greek rule in the Aegean part of Macedonia. " writes good Mr zoranm5.
This is why the door to the EU and NATO will remain shut. Admisssion to these alliances requires relations of good neighbors, and we cannot be expected to admit to these organizations nations who covet our territory. You can call yourself whatever you want, but no amount of chest beating will change those of you who are not Albanians from slavs, who speak a slavic language and use a slavic alphabet. If you are not Greeks (praised be the Lord!) why the fixation on Alexander the Great (the name of your airport) or the sun of Vergina (found on the tomb of Phipip the II) on your flag? None other than lay the ground for territorial claims. Greeks at one point or another occupied most of the land of the ill-fated Yugoslavia (union of southern slavs) and all of Asia Minor, now occupied by Turkey. The simple historical fact is that after the wars of 1912/13 those are the borders. At the time of the treaty of Buccharest in 1913 and up to 1948, there is no mention of a slavic Macedonian nation or language. How come? How come the Bulgarians understand you without translators and call your language a bulgarian dialect? Are they also Macedonians, and do you perhaps have claims on their territory as well?
Therefore unless you see reality, we will close our borders, and airspace, and ports, and commerce, and the doors to the EU and NATO. And you can stay in Vardarska, land-locked with the Albanians at your west, the Serbs at the North, and your Bulgarian brethren in the east.
Posted By: zoranm5 @ 05/07/2008 12:53:04 PM
Comment: I applaud the comment: "The conservative government of Greece stopped a brave small democracy like Macedonia from joining NATO in an argument over its name that was little more elevated than the row among Swift's Lilliputians..." And as for people like a.sarris, please give me a break. Who are you, and what makes you such an expert on what is the ethnic make up of the citizens of the Republic of Macedonia? I can tell you that no amount of racist policies that the government of Athens (or should I say the gov't of the Former Ottoman Province of Yunanistan) will exterminate the ethnic Macedonians that live under Greek rule in the Aegean part of Macedonia. Like it or not, we exist, we are ethnic Macedonians and time will come when the Athenians will realize that instead spreading hatred, we should all learn to live and prosper together. I am an ethnic Macedonian (as in not Greek, not Serbian, not Bulgarian or Albanian) and I speak the Macedonian language. I do not tell you what you are and please you extend me the same kind of courtesy. And as for you last point I could say: "Aegean Macedonia to the Republic Macedonia and the rest to Turkey," but I will not
say it as I am not a hard core and unreasonable nationalist as you appear to be. And as far as the open borders of Greece, shame on you, how can you even imply this? The former Turkish province of Greece is one of the most xenophobic, minority unfriendly, genocide prone non-democratic country of the world. Recently, Macedonian passport holders with proper visas were turned back from the border point of entry at the mercy of the border patrol officer gangsters (unfortunately this is the best word that describes them). And need I mention the complete economic embargo of the mid 1990s that crippled the Macedonian economy, which is today somehow resurrected by somewhat more subtle measures of the Athens government. Which country puts airplane passengers at risk and forbids flying through their airspace just because the name of the company that the passengers chose to fly with is "Macedonian Airlines?" You guessed it: The Former Turkish Province of Yunanistan (Greece). Get a grip, smell the coffee and the reality as well
Posted By: a.sarris @ 05/07/2008 6:21:45 AM
Comment: "The conservative government of Greece stopped a brave small democracy like Macedonia from joining NATO in an argument over its name that was little more elevated than the row among Swift's Lilliputians..."
This comment is revealing the extend to which the author is ignorant of European history. And that also those who froget it are condemned to repeat it. The dispute is not simply about the name, but about who they are, and by extension what they want. The inhabitants of Skopjia claim to be descentants of the Macedonians of alexander the great, and on that basis they choose a name and lay claims to the historical area of ancient Macedonia, including the "Macedonia of the Aegean" On this falsehood they try to build a nation. In fact, 30% of them are Albanian moslems. The remainder are Slavs, who moved into the area in the 7th century after Christ, the speak a bulgarian dialect, and use the Cyrillic alphabet which was introduced to the slavic populations when they converted to Christianity by the Monks Curillus and Methodius. The Macedonians of Alexander the Great were greeks (like the Athenians and the spartans), spoke greek, and used the greek, not the cyrillic alphabet. The myth of the "macedonian nation" in Vardaska was created by Tito after WWII to keep a barrier between Bulgaria and the province of Skopjia, and also to lay claim to Salonica and the neighboring areas. FYROM is no "brave little republic", but an impostor. Unless they see reality, the path to NATO and EU will be closed, and Greek cooperation and open borders will also disappear some day. And this falsity would best go: Tetovo to Albania, the rest to either Serbia or Bulgaria.