The defiant optimism and energy behind the DiEM25 initiative is flagging due to uninspiring and unrealistic goals. To help counter this tendency, DiEM25 must contend with and reject an implicit Euro-chauvenism in its program. Prosperity, solidarity and security in Europe can not come at the expense of exploitation and unacceptable living and working conditions in the productive nations on which Europe’s economy still depends. Europe must become a world leader in international solidarity innovation!
DiEM25’s first “Immediate” [1] objective: to stream the Eurozone finance ministers meetings is ridiculous, impractical and it is diffusing momentum of their initiative. This call for transparency is even facetious, clearly debunked as un-actionable in Varoufakis own latest book “Adults in the Room” where he discovers that the real decisions are made by “insiders” who not only disdain but ignore with impunity anyone on the “outside” who has any opinion on how things are managed behind the scenes. Besides, who is going to watch the stream of finance ministers speaking economics and understand what they are saying? There are no economics courses provisioning in DiEMs platform. Or is the idea for the viewers to vote the finance ministers off the stream like in the Eurovision song contest?
Austerity has been discredited. There is a strong and rising political desire for sustainable measured and fair economic practices. Europe’s success is mortally bound with the success of the people on the rest of the world. Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign acknowledges at least that imperialist wars must come to an end [2] and that desperate conditions outside of Europe have implications for peace and security in Europe. DiEM25 should at least put as much energy and resources towards supporting activities for long-term sustainable global peace and prosperity, as it puts into its dubious agenda to “democratise” necessarily corrupt procedures of the inaccessible insiders at the upper echelons of European administration. What Lenin called the “opportunist” position which claims to be able to produce fairness from the institutions down, must be counterbalanced with concerted, persistent action to improve the conditions of people around the world. DiEM25 must declare itself explicitly against Euro-Chauvinism and for a non-colonial non-imperialist and anti-colonial social political and economic plan whose success need not come at the expense of the productive classes elsewhere in the world. Democracy in Europe cannot be dependent on tyranny and oppression elsewhere.
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[1] see https://diem25.org/manifesto-long/#1455748561092-7b8f1d50-a8c2
[2] from Corbyn’s Westminster speech on 26.05.17, reprinted in it entirety here http://www.businessinsider.de/corbyn-to-say-wars-boosted-terrorism-in-first-speech-since-manchester-attack-2017-5?r=US&IR=T
“…We will also change what we do abroad. Many experts, including professionals in our intelligence and security services have pointed to the connections between wars our government has supported or fought in other countries, such as Libya, and terrorism here at home….”
