Welcoming a Balkanised Europe

John Papworth

The old order changeth indeed and in Europe just now faster than anywhere. But in all sorts of ways it seems to be a change back towards the past rather than towards some brilliant new dawn, and it is a past which fills many commentators with the gloomiest forebodings as they dilate on nationalism, ethnic struggles, 'Balkanisation', turmoil, conflict, violence, and, just round a corner signposted 'a Reunited Germany', the shadow of another world war.

Such feelings seem to be based on faulty reasoning and a false view of history. Before the Second World War, and even more before the First, 'Balkanisation' became a synonym for nationalist turbulence and political instability for two main reasons. The first related to the fact that many legitimate nationalist aspirations were frustrated by undemocratic systems of government, and the second to the way in which each of the 'great powers' sought to use these frustrated aspirations to serve its own interests and to deny possible advantages to its rivals. One observer concluded:

'There's not a nation in Europe but labours

To toady itself and humbug its neighbours.'

This has caused many people to conclude that nationalism is a dirty word and bound to lead to endless discord and political disruption as a matter of course, but is this borne out by the facts?

The history of Scandinavia is one of continual war, conquest, suppression and nationalistic resurgence, until, that is, the idea of democracy took hold. Today, as twentieth century political standards go, they are models of good government, peaceful, stable, moderate and, as the Brundtland Report might suggest, able to address problems in terms to which the world community is ready to listen.

And does not the record of Switzerland suggest a similar lesson? European history is in part a record of frequent conflict between French, German and Italian speaking peoples; why then have the same linguistic peoples been able to dwell in perfect harmony within the Swiss Confederation? Switzerland can justly claim to be one of Europe's oldest democracies, and in many ways its system of government gives its varied peoples a far more effective voice in political matters than that of many other countries which can claim to be democratic.

It will be noted that in both these examples that not only has the factor of democracy been of importance in establishing the peaceful conditions which prevail, so too has been the principle of non-interference in their affairs by outside powers. But there is also a third factor which has helped to achieve these results, and it is one which is highly relevant to the turmoil through which much of Eastern Europe is now passing.

'There is a quite extraordinary disposition to assume that unity brings with it prosperity and stability'

In both cases their peoples have not sought to solve their problems on the basis of some form of unity, rather have they actively promoted the principle of division.There is a quite extraordinary disposition to assume that unity brings with it prosperity and stability and that division is either impossible or impracticable and the prelude to anarchy and misery, when in fact exactly the opposite is the case.

The small nations of Scandinavia, each of which has a population less than the number of the inhabitants of London, and in two cases less than half the number of which London might boast, are not poor, they are among the most prosperous nations on earth! The same may be said for Switzerland, its six or seven million people live in a haven of prosperity, stability and political sanity, not because they are united, for the very name of 'Switzerland' is shorthand for the Swiss Confederation, meaning a confederation of self-governing cantons, each of which can leave the confederation if it so wishes, and where citizens of a single canton can divide themselves into two cantons if they are, as they have been, so minded.

It will be noted that no outside power has imposed any 'settlement' on any of these peoples in order to bring about the system which prevails; the governing systems, the boundaries and the allocation of constitutional powers and prerogatives have been decided by the peoples themselves, and the key to their well-being resides in the fact that, having decided what they wanted, they proceeded to get it and can continue to claim that they have now got it.

There is a tendency to assume in the case of Switzerland that the country is well governed simply because it is rich, but as Professor Leopold Kohr pointed out in his 'Breakdown of Nations', first published over forty years ago, this is to get things the wrong way round; Switzerland is not well governed because it is rich, it is rich because it is well governed. One may add that it is well governed because it has rejected the principle of centralised unity and pursued the path of non-centralised diversity.

Is there not here a key to the solution to the turbulence through which much of Europe is now passing? The evidence is abundant that smallness of size, far from being a barrier to prosperity and peace, is a factor which enables them to be promoted. So, far from fearing the further division of Europe into its ethnic parts, why not embrace the principle of democratic self-determination in every case where people are seeking to assert their identities?

This brings us to the problem of Germany, a problem which the Congress of Vienna tried, and failed, to solve in 1814; it was a failure which played its part in the events leading to two world wars. The size of Prussia was out of proportion to that of the other German states and the size of the Bismarckian-unified Germany was out of proportion to many of its neighbouring countries. The Prussian Bismarck's enforced unification of the German kingdoms, principalities and grand duchies was a direct consequence of the rigid centralisation imposed on France by Napoleon (which in turn can be said to have its origins in the centralised iron rule of the English Tudors).

'When proportion is ignored, so that one or more countries are too large proportionally to others, conflict is inevitable'

In the politics of peacekeeping, proportion is all, and when proportion is ignored, so that one or more countries are too large proportionally to others, conflict is inevitable and war something difficult to avoid. This is the lesson that Europe must at some stage digest; that power, to be robbed of its capacity for violence, needs to be fragmented into numerous small units so that if any one of them should opt for war the consequences would be modest in scale and containable, rather than result in a tragedy of global dimensions.

The old political framework will no longer serve for the new Europe that is emerging, even less will it be served by the old ideas on which that framework is based. For instance, there is no reason at all, apart from entrenched old fogeyism in the realm of ideas, why Ireland should not be divided into a number of self-governing provinces on the lines of the Swiss cantons, with a confederal-type government having absolutely minimal powers which are strictly defined and controlled by the provinces.

'A super-sovereign states of Europe would create another immense and uncontrollable power bloc on the world stage'

The same sort of thinking needs to be applied to other parts of Europe. Europe, as Mrs Thatcher used rightly to affirm, is not a country and never will be. The attempts by her old adversary Mr Heath and others to create a super-sovereign states of Europe, moves now happily in retreat as the dangers of such an approach - which would create another immense and uncontrollable power bloc on the world stage and result in an inevitable increase in the tensions and phobias about security and all the attendant prospects of increased global conflict endemic to such a scale - are increasingly recognised.

A Europe organised on the basis of democratic division and non-centralisation will still need functionally unified organs of government, but these need be no more than what common sense indicates is required and, no less important, they need not all be located in a single centre. Its transport commission could be in Lyons, its health commission in Birmingham, its postal and communications commission in Geneva and so on, and all firmly under the control of elected representatives from the different provinces, counties or cantons.

'The Europe that once existed of many small city states gave it the only sublime glories it has ever known'

Of course such an approach involves a radical restructuring of its large existing countries, of Russia and Germany, no less than of Britain, France and Italy, into smaller and more manageable units, but before such proposals are dismissed out of hand as mere map dreaming, let it be recalled that the European malaise is fundamentally a malaise of power, power out of control and producing results which continue to threaten the demise of our entire civilisation. And let it be also recalled that the Europe that once existed of many small city states gave it the only sublime glories it has ever known.

John Papworth, 24 Abercorn Place, London NW8 9XP (tel 071 286 4366).

Previous / Next / Table of Contents