Europe's swing to centre-left

By Mohamed Sid-Ahmed

Shortly after the Wall came down, an American scholar, Francis Fukoyama, wrote what was regarded at the time as a seminal article under the title, The End of History, which became a catchword in the political lexicon to describe the post-Cold War situation. According to Fukoyama, the removal of the Berlin Wall symbolised the removal of all barriers between East and West, that is, between communism and capitalism. It also symbolised the decisive victory of the West, a victory that was to take material shape with the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the bipolar world order. Developing his thesis further, Fukoyama argued that the West's victory in the Cold War represented a victory for the values championed by modern-day capitalism (democracy, human rights, a market economy, etc) and the complete defeat of all totalitarian ideologies, whether communism or fascism. Of course, the end of history theory did not mean that events would stop unfolding, but that agreement had been reached on the terms of reference governing how they would unfold in future.

It soon became apparent, however, that the theory owed its fame less to its prescience than to the fact that it had tapped into the self-congratulatory mood of the West which, in the heady atmosphere surrounding the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, was all too ready to believe in the final demise of communism. When the initial euphoria abated, however, the theory came to be seen as an overly sanguine reading of events. Another American scholar, Samuel P Huntington, came forward with a new theory which sought to "correct" Fukoyama's theory without negating it altogether. Huntington conceded that conflict -- and, hence, history -- had not ended because humankind was still unable to agree on terms of reference acceptable to all. Thus conflict was now taking the form of a clash of civilisations, in particular between the Western Judeo-Christian civilisation and the Islamic civilisation.

The fact that two contradictory theories were advanced only a few years apart by two eminent Western scholars proves the fallacy of the West's contention that we have reached a point where one specific outlook to history (and to conflict) can be adopted as the unique frame of reference. This failure at the ideological level was soon followed by a similar failure at the economic level. The collapse of the Soviet Union was portrayed as an expression of the failure of command economies based on central planning and dominated by an inflated state sector submerged in red tape, including those followed by much of the Third World. The formula put forward to overcome the ills of bureaucracy was the promotion of a vigorous private sector, the encouragement of privatisation and the free interplay of market mechanisms. The experience of the Asian tigers was held up as a model which proved that market economies could serve developing societies just as successfully as they had the countries of the advanced world.

The bubble burst with the collapse of the once thriving Asian markets. Even the Japanese economy, perhaps the most outstanding success story of the post-World War II period, was not immune to the reverberations of Asia's economic crisis. Then came the Russian crisis. Russia, with its stockpiles of nuclear weapons that could end up in the hands of terrorist groups, is no ordinary state, and its stability is vital for global stability.

It is in this context that the German electorate went to the polls. There is no doubt that Helmut Kohl, who served a record four consecutive terms as chancellor, has been no less influential in shaping the course of his country's post-Nazi history than his predecessor and mentor, Konrad Adenauer. His success in presiding over German reunification in the wake of the collapse of the Berlin Wall earned him the respect of all political trends both in Germany and throughout the world. But for the German people, his 16 years in office were enough: they wanted change. In a way, his defeat calls to mind the defeat of Churchill and Thatcher in Britain.

The candidate chosen by the rival Social-Democratic Party (SDP) to run against Kohl was Gerhard Schroeder, a moderate capable of polarising German society around the centre-left instead of the centre-right and against the extremist trends in Germany, which are now represented by ultra right-wing neo-Nazis rather than by ultra left-wing groups like the Baader-Meinhoff band which terrorised Germany three decades ago.

Social-democracy has witnessed a revival in most countries of the European Union. It is no longer regarded as a continuation of what it was under the bipolar world order, when its hostility to communism laid it open to charges that it was trying to curry favour with right-wing forces by opposing the "authentic" Left. Social-democracy has become the left-wing school that does not reject the principle of market economy while at the same time insisting on vesting it with a 'social dimension' to counterbalance its propensity to deepen class discrepancies, increase unemployment and expose wide sections of the population to critical frustration and discontent.

Today, social-democracy is looked upon in many European countries as the school of the Left that is best equipped to lead its other component elements and win over much wider majorities than the 51 per cent achieved, for instance, by the French Socialist Party during the Mitterrand presidency. New Labour in Britain and the SDP in Germany enjoy comfortable majorities which allow for an all-out swing to the left and the forging of common fronts with other leftist trends. In Germany, Shroeder is contemplating building a coalition government that will include the Greens and even factions of the former Communist Party in the eastern parts of Germany which have been renovated to cope with the new rationale under a dynamic young leadership.

All over Europe, it is trends that attribute themselves to a renovated Left, and which Tony Blair has described as advocates of a Third Way, which hold the forefront of the political arena. In Italy, the Democratic Party of the Left, which includes most of the members of Italy's former Communist Party (ICP), is the mainstay of Italy's present government. The ICP, Italy's biggest party throughout much of the Cold War, was systematically kept out of government. Paradoxically, it is only when communism disappeared as a world pole that Italian communists entered the mainstream of Italian politics. The Italian communists have always been at the vanguard of movements to renovate the Left worldwide.

In France, Jospin cannot be described as a non-conventional Socialist. However, his Socialist government's cohabitation with Gaullist President Chirac has been a notable success, if only because both Right and Left in France have to confront the growing threat of Le Pen's ultra-right Front National -- a confrontation that compels France's present leaderships to keep the 'social dimension' high on their political agenda.

The resurrection of social-democracy could eventually become a main bulwark against a new bipolar world structure pitting the so-called 'New World Order' against political movements based on rejectionism, violence and terrorism. Whether the social dimension in social-democracy's Third Way will be sufficient to curb the threat of international chaos remains to be seen. This will probably become the major challenge as we move into the new century.