Can Europe Find an Ukrainian Mix of Resilience and Solidarity?
Predictions, anticipation, and two elections to watch in 2023
History of the Present 4 (fortnight ending 1 January 2023)
Well, Happy New Year everyone. Or is it? Privately, let's hope. Politically – doesn't look likely.
The Folly of Prediction…
At the end of every year the Economist produces a publication about the year ahead. In The World Ahead 2023, David Rennie, the magazine's outstanding Beijing correspondent, writes of China
"Zero-Covid" policies cannot change rapidly. Even if China stocks up on effective anti-viral treatments and increases vaccination rates, it cannot open up until it prepares its public to live with widespread, mild infections.
Well, ho ho. Sound advice from the Economist, but somehow Xi Jinping didn't follow it. So, magnificently, we have a prediction proved wrong before we even get to the year to which it applies.
I recently found again on my shelves the late 1988 version of this publication, entitled The World in 1989. There is no separate section on Eastern Europe. Countries from the German Democratic Republic (GDR) to Bulgaria feature in a one-page inset in the section headed Soviet Union. A little cartoon map sums up the authors' sage's prognosis. Over Czechoslovakia it says 'Ambivalent Perestroika, Yes, Glasnost, No'. Tell that to Václav Havel. Over the GDR it says ' Old Guard Stone Walls'. Instead, the Berlin Wall came down.
... and the Wisdom of Anticipation
It is folly to think we can predict what will happen in the New Year. There is wisdom, however, in trying to anticipate the coming challenges, with all due caveats, and therefore set the best course to deal with them – which is why publications like these are still valuable.
On any reasonable judgement of probabilities, this is going to be a rough old year. The big war in Ukraine will go grinding on, with Vladimir Putin now relentlessly targeting civilians. Most economies, in Europe and beyond, will go through difficult times. The head of the IMF says one third of the world's economy will be in recession. Britain's woes will be compounded by the now clearly visible consequences of Brexit and a divided Conservative party that will probably not allow a potentially competent, pragmatic prime minister to govern pragmatically and competently. Above all, it's going to be rough for the poorer and more vulnerable members of all our societies, and doubly so for those in the global South.
Keywords for 2023: Resilience and Solidarity
Obviously we need to identify specific policies to address specific issues. (Nigel Gould-Davies has some good advice for Western policy towards Ukraine here.) But at the start of the New Year it's worth identifying the underlying qualities that are needed in such times. The two key ones are resilience and solidarity. These are twins.
We see this demonstrated to an extraordinary degree by the Ukrainians. Their resilience in the face of Putin's war of terror is extraordinary. A small example is given in the photograph at the top of this note. Russia bombs the power grid, so Ukrainians set up an exercise cycle to power the lights on the Christmas tree at Kyiv's main station. People take turns to give a minute of festive light. Literally people power.
This resilience is so great because everyone feels they are in it together. In a poll last summer, reported in Olga Onuch and Henry Hale's excellent new book The Zelensky Effect, 60% of Ukrainians said they were contributing financially to the war effort, 37% that they were volunteering in civil society organisations, while 7% had joined the Territorial Defence forces (i.e. Home Army). I saw this myself in Lviv with the group making trench candles that I wrote about last time. Everybody is joining in. Solidarity reinforces resilience; resilience reinforces solidarity.
Those of us who live in luckier countries need the same thing to face our lesser but still serious challenges. Is there, for example, no way in which more volunteers could contribute to addressing the current acute crisis of the health service and social care in Britain? Better-off people like me should be asked – no, obliged – to pay more taxes. We can all contribute to energy saving.
It would be hyperbole to say 'we are all Ukrainians now'. But certainly we can learn from Ukrainians that combination of resilience and solidarity.
And Two Elections I'll be Watching...
Two elections stand out in the political prospects for Europe this year: Turkey's parliamentary and especially presidential election in June (possible second-round run-off in the presidential election in July); Poland's parliamentary election sometime in autumn 2023. Both are potentially pivotal.
The former will determine whether Turkey moves further from soft to hard authoritarianism under Recep Tayyip Erdoǧan, or back towards democracy.
The latter will decide whether Poland follows Viktor Orbán's Hungary down the path from illiberal democracy to electoral authoritarianism – something the EU has spectacularly failed to prevent in Hungary – or starts a return from illiberal democracy (i.e. liberal democracy in a state of decay) to genuine, liberal democracy.
Unfortunately, the war in Ukraine, which is a war to defend a democracy against a tyranny, will not necessarily favour the desirable outcome in both these cases. Erdoǧan is skilfully playing both sides, Russia and the West; his economy has got a boost from increased trade with Russia, yet he can argue that the country's economic difficulties are due to the war and 'in hard times like these you need a strong leader like me'.
Poland's genuinely stalwart support of Ukraine and remarkable (civil society-led) hospitality to Ukrainian refugees makes it more difficult for the EU to withhold the billions of euros in EU funds that it should withhold on account of the erosion of the rule of law and democracy in Poland. As Orbán has demonstrated, a populist regime can use those EU funds to shore up its support and further erode democracy. A bad precedent was set recently when Orbán successfully blackmailed the EU to give him €5.8bn in European post-Covid recovery plan (Next Gen EU) funds – that's nearly €600 for each Hungarian – to overcome his threatened veto on a further €18 billion of aid to Ukraine.
Anyway, watch out for those two elections. They, the course of the war in Ukraine and the resilience of our societies during tough economic times will determine whether this is really anything like a happy new year for Europe.
Be that all as it may: Best wishes to you and yours for 2023!
TGA