(I expect Page will have some front-page wisdom about this, but here's my take for what it's worth. This issue is not getting much attention in the US press but I think it's vitally important to the future of progressive ideology, at the center of which sits the European Union.)
The Dutch vote today on the EU constitution, and they look set to vote even more decisively against it than their French counterparts. This will mean the second rejection in four days, which is all the more jarring because both rejections came from the two principal founders of the original union.
I've been asking around to every Dutch person I know about how they're going to vote and why. It's been an interesting experience, full of lessons not just about Dutch politics but also about the nature of democracy, nationalism and post-nationalism, the irrelevance of the political elite, the growing resentment of populations governed by a faceless and distant authority, and the future of the territory-less state that is the EU.
What I find most shocking about both the French and the Dutch rejections is how an enormous chunk of the population can vote in direct defiance of the advice of their elected, mainstream political leaders. In the Netherlands, the political continuum consists of about eight parties, from left to right, that would form a sort of wave on a graph of popularity and influence as you proceed to the right (see bottom for more details). If the constitution vote followed the parliamentary vote, it would be about 85% in favor.
On the far left and the fringe right you find the two or three parties that have constituted the sole opposition to the constitution--yet this is a sentiment that apparently corresponds to the will of about 60+ % of the Dutch population. These parties together receive less than ten percent of the vote in parliamentary elections. How can that be?
Part of the answer is plain old right wing, nationalist, racist xenophobia, and part of it is left wing, working class fear (driven by economic xenophobia). But, encouragingly, by far the largest issue is popular rejection of the current center-right government, combined with a healthy demand for greater transparency and democracy in the way the EU is governed from Brussels. And shockingly little of it has anything to do with the actual constitution, about which most voters are maddeningly, willfully ignorant.
The political leaders of the no (or tegen or non, depending on your language) camps are people like the notorious right winger Le Pen in France, the Socialists and the fringe right Christian Union in the Netherlands, joined by maverick weirdos like right winger Geert Wilders and the old party of Pim Fortuyn. These are all marginal domestic political players (excepting the Socialists), the kinds of people who come along from time to time to exploit various temporary fears in the population for short-lived, disastrous political gain. Think Ross Perot and his "great sucking sound".
They make interesting bedfellows, the far left and far right. I've been watching the evolving graffiti in an underpass I bike through on the way to work. It started with "Vote no against the EU constitution/Turkey", referring to the (false) belief that voting for the constitution will somehow have the effect of promoting Turkey into the EU, which is never going to happen. Then somebody added what I took to be a "white power" symbol underneath that. A few days later somebody had drawn a line between the "No" and "against the constitution" (leaving that sentiment intact), wrote "racism" underneath "No", X'd out the white power symbol and added at the end "Race isn't what divides us, Class divides us! Class War!"
So how is it that 60% of the country agrees with these people? The answer is, thankfully, they don't.
I've yet to hear anyone except a few family members say they're voting against the constitution because they're afraid of Turkey or the Polish plumber. To be sure, there are definitely large blocs in the no camp that adhere to these ideologies--perhaps not enough to actually vote for these people to govern their country, but enough to bend their vote on third party issues like this. But what I've heard time after time is that they are voting no because they were never actually consulted on the matter, because the vote is a farce, because the case hasn't been made, and because they are sick and tired of being treated like imbeciles who couldn't possibly grasp all the deep complexity of law in the document by the European elite.
The government made the mistake of assuming that because they were all for it it was a given that the population would follow suit. No real attempt has ever been made to educate voters about what is actually in the document, although it has been made available in its vast entirety for anyone with a few months to spare. The most important aspect of the informational campaign was a four page brochure mailed to every home in the Netherlands that was absurdly vague, facile and intellectually insulting. A friend of mine compared it to a flyer for a vacation park.
The effect of this has been to make the vote an exercise of resistance against this snow job, even among people inclined to vote yes. Another friend compared the whole referendum to an insurance salesman who flips a hundred page policy in front of you for ten seconds and then says "OK sign here and here and initial here here and here." Nobody likes to be taken for granted--even if they trust their leaders and the document, a large percentage of people simply are disgusted at the insulting way in which it has been presented.
The last straw for a lot of people has been the way in which the governing parties--who have a lot to lose in Brussels when their countries vote no--have grown more and more frantic and petty in their rhetoric as the no vote looms. They call it a crisis, they say it will be the end of France's influence in Europe, they predict economic disaster. This kind of talk is not what people expect out of mainstream politicians.
And Poor Jan Peter Balkenende, the most ridiculed Prime Minister in Dutch history, was quoted a few days ago complaining that if the Dutch vote no then he'll "look like an idiot in Brussels." The almost universal reaction? "He doesn't need the Dutch people to help him look like an idiot; he does that just fine on his own."
I was frankly disappointed when France voted no, and have been worried for a while about the Dutch vote, but the last few days' conversations have reassured me that this vote is not a rejection of Europe. It is a rejection of the way Europe is governed, and a rejection of the pandering, condescending, elitist attitudes of those at the top of the EU. It is a popular expression of independence. And I think in the end it is not the death knell for the EU, but a useful, necessary step in the growth of the European identity. And I hope it leads to greater popular participation in and attention to the European Parliament, which can only be a good thing in the long run. Even though I am a strong proponent of a united Europe, I think in the end this will be seen as an important step in that direction.
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For anyone interested, here is a rundown of Dutch political parties and their support for or opposition to the constitution:
On the far left you have the Socialists (SP), who get maybe three seats in a 150 seat parliament. They are anti-constitution because they feel it needlessly enshrines corporate and market interests with excruciating specificity while only paying token attention to socio-economic, environmental and human rights. A fair argument but one which I don't really subscribe to, even though if I could vote in a parliamentary election I would probably vote SP.
Proceeding right you have the Green-Left party, which gets about nine or ten seats. They support the constitution. If a party called Green-Left supports the constitution--in the Netherlands no less, where "left" means left of Jerry Brown and Green means something other than Ralph Nader--you can bet it is sufficiently environmentally friendly.
Then comes the Labor party, the Party of the Workers (PvdA). They are the main opposition right now to the center-right coalition of the Christians and the Liberals (in the European sense). They also support the constitution. Last election they received 42 seats in parliament, just under the governing CDA. This is a party that is anti-war, pro-social justice, pro-environment--solid progressive creds, and odds on favorite to run the next government.
After that is D-66, a splinter group of centrists that formed in the 60's. Many of my friends vote for this party, they are sort of the compromise between people with liberal social views and more moderate economic views. They also support the constitution, and were the main force pushing for a referendum (instead of just having the government approve the constitution). They are part of the current governing coalition, and get perhaps 20 seats in parliament.
It's hard to say who comes next, but I would say the Liberal (money) party, the VVD. The third party of the Netherlands, they have been in the government forever, as part of the "purple coalition" of labor and D66 and now in the second CDA-led cabinet. They are pro market, pro euro, pro EU--definitely for.
Then comes the Christian Democratic Alliance, the CDA. This is the governing party of Balkenende, which won the last vote 44 seats to 42 (PvdA). Warm oatmeal, milquetoast, Bush-toady party that governs without direction and with little influence among the population except as the butt of jokes and as a vehicle for the liberals to deconstruct the welfare state. Pro constitution.
After them is the remnants of populist anti-immigration anti-Europe party of Pim Fortuyn, the assassinated Dutch politician. A fading force in Holland. Anti constitution.
Then in James Dobsonville, the Christian Union. Let me tell you how refreshing it is to wake up every morning in a country where the Christian right is relegated to the bottom 2% of the vote. Anti everything, anti Constitution. You wonder why they don't just move en-masse to Utah.