Can You Eat Democracy?
Can You Eat Democracy?
If one thing is clear, it is that Central Europeans will not come out onto the streets solely for an abstract idea of “more democracy in Europe.” The question therefore remains: how to inspire Central Europeans to mobilize for real reform?
Despite all odds, could this be a new moment of promise for EU positivists? In the times of a fragmented left, disappointing social democrats, and the rising far right, there have been few projects that could incite a wide mobilization of European progressives. But a new potential game-changer has emerged: the Democracy in Europe movement, or DiEM25.
DiEM25 surely deserves some excitement. It is an idea long overdue, when considering how poorly, despite many common interests, the public spaces of European nation states are interconnected. DiEM25 comes almost as a last resort, given the rapidly deteriorating sense of “Europeaness.” It seems symbolic that in the same month DiEM25 announced its formation, the UK won the battle to take away social protection and other rights from EU workers, making them effectively second-class citizens. We have decisively embarked on the slippery slope of European disintegration and “unions of different speeds.”
This shameful deal is an important case for just how much we need a European-wide movement and voices that would defy the logic of setting single member states’ self-interests against each other, an utterly obsolete and counterproductive idea in the era of globalized capitalism. Who else could be the driver of such a “Europeanization” of common interests if not civil society?
The central idea of DiEM25 is the democratization and re-politicization of the EU’s core economic policies, those that are usually decided behind closed doors. This is radical in its content for whoever reads between the lines or follows the DiEM25 arguments to the consequences. The proposed ideas, from stronger transparency and full disclosure of decision-making in the most important European economic bodies—ECOFIN, Eurogroup, ECB and the like—together with alternative proposals for resolving diverse European crisis—be it the banking, poor investment or migration—all open space for a radical shift in discourse. That alone would not be a small achievement. The policies are implemented where the narrative supports it, or else where a strong narrative is created to support subsequent policies. It would be harder to apply the austerity policies be it not that the majority society somewhat still believed it was a good idea.
The civil society of Central European countries, or even new member states at large, should have a particular interest in supporting and strengthening DiEM25. After all, any “union of different speeds,” or any form of disintegration, inevitably works against the interests of citizens of these countries. Their representative governments have engaged programmatically in a “race to the bottom” basically since 1989, offering lower taxes and loosening labor protection standards in order to attract foreign investments and gain an “advantage” against their neighbors, resulting in lower public revenues and ever poorer public services. If this trend continues further, not even the most radical leftist government that could theoretically come to power in a Central/Eastern European country would be able to negotiate significantly better conditions against the prevailing business interests, if facing them alone.
Another reason to give DiEM25 a fair chance is that it could help the progressives of this region win the public opinion for a genuine alternative to the current emaciation. There is no Podemos here, no Syriza, with a possible exception of a new Polish grassroots leftist party, Razem, the success of which is yet to be seen. Those who are really scoring points are the xenophobes, Islamophobes, religious “conservatives,” and other far-right groupings keen to leave the EU.
A strong presence of or cooperation with DiEM25 may pave the way for an alternative progressive narrative, but efforts in Central Europe will have to focus on swaying the opinions of electoral majorities country by country. Communication with the “masses” is exactly what the leftist elites—where they are present—were not successful at or failed to prioritize over the last decade. Staying on the margins, in the circles of existing progressive alliances, will only result in diverging from the society, losing the people for other causes, which are potentially rather sinister. The question therefore remains: how to inspire Central Europeans, largely lacking a tradition of grassroots organizing, to favor more meaningful mobilization?
If one thing is clear, it is that Central Europeans will not come out onto the streets solely for an abstract idea of “more democracy in Europe.” Many have already given up on democracy. The Hungarians clearly do not prefer Viktor Orbán for his democratic principles of governance. In Poland, Law and Justice leader Jarosław Kaczyński was democratically elected even though it was clear what his immediate steps after taking office would be. Cloaked under the guise of “redressing the imbalance of powers,” the Law and Justice party is effectively gaining control over the constitutional court and the media, centralizing power in hands of the executive branch of the government. Or consider the turnout of the last European Parliament elections in 2014, a litmus paper for people’s trust and involvement in the continent’s democratic process: 19.5 percent of Czechs showed up, only to be outdone by the Slovaks at 13 percent. In this context the idea of European democracy can hardly be perceived as something relevant and worth fighting for. On the contrary, for many people it is an abstract and disappointing notion, far divorced from the reality of their lives. In the post-communist countries there are even parts of society for whom “democracy” spells unemployment, rising poverty, and the evaporation of social security.
This is not to say that democratization shouldn’t remain a leitmotiv. It also does not mean that we should wait for twenty or thirty years until an investment into education and culture creates a layer of “democrats.” What we can do instead is try and speak the same language and discuss the issues that matter to everyday people. The talk of the day, although incessantly obfuscated by threats of “hordes of Islamists waiting behind the fences to rob us off our treasures,” is that life is not easy here and it is gradually getting harder. Average salaries in Slovakia are one-third of those in neighboring Austria, but living expenses are inevitably converging. Inhabitants of Bratislava even shop for food in Austrian border villages, where they also buy cheaper properties, and commute back to work. Working for more than the official eight hours, five days a week with unpaid overtime has become a norm. There are abundant cases of mistreatment of workers, such as staff members being forced to stay at their workplace without breaks; delays in paying workers or settling invoices to the self-employed have become increasingly common practices. The forced self-employment, putting all the risk on the worker and all the gains on the corporations, is a problem in itself and is connected to global trends of offshoring and outsourcing. As a result, the numbers of working poor and people at risk of poverty are soaring, while middle classes are disappearing, and anger and disenfranchisement with public affairs continue to grow.
However, there is no common understanding of what the root causes of the worsening situation are, who to blame or what to do. Rarely is the problem perceived as a structural one. If one cannot sustain his or her own living, cannot find an appropriate job, the internalized perception—created by the force-fed neoliberal and laissez-faire propaganda which in the last two decades has replaced that of so-called “actually existing socialism”—is that it is one’s own fault. Such a way of thinking not only decimates the ranks of trade unions or movements, but it hinders reflection on economic policies in general. On the contrary, it invites solitary dissatisfaction and shame. In this context, simplistic and wrong explanations of the situation are always at hand, blaming the poor and, increasingly, the migrants—hatred towards whom is so brilliantly exploited by many different actors across the political spectrum. Unless leftists can make a strong argument about how the lives of average people will be improved by sound policies implemented by strong democratic institutions, and about what level of public services and social security every European citizen should be entitled to, the majority of society will not be interested in any righteous ideas of democratization, nor in human rights more generally.
One could argue that all these issues need a different spokesperson, or political force, or strong, local leftist parties. We could wait until one forms, or we can focus on what we have now. To win Central European opinion to the cause of a better Europe, DiEM25 will need plain language and a direct communication strategy emphasizing specific outcomes for working people rather than just the process. If we promote the idea that an alternative economic Plan B for Europe will actually mean something tangible for the citizens, we might actually be able to win their support.
Alena Krempaská and Peter Weisenbacher are members of the Human Rights Institute, a Slovak non-governmental organization aimed at raising awareness and campaigning for equal access to human rights for all, with a particular focus on vulnerable and disadvantaged groups within society.
An earlier version of this article appeared at Political Critique.
