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"The Common Crisis: Is There Any?"

English Pages, 11. 5. 1996

Being known as a passive and almost submissive person who always accepts somebody else’s suggestions, a few months ago I accepted the suggested title of my today’s speech: „The Common Crisis“. But several days ago when I started to seriously think about what to say, I modified the title slightly as compared to the printed version of the program of this congress, adding to it the question: „Is There Any?“. The reason for it is that I am the last one who would call our situation - both at home and in Europe or in the whole world - a crisis. Such a pessimistic label seems to me not appropriate. To call our current situation a crisis implies to consider some other period of human history as a non-crisis. I cannot find, however, any moment in the past for which I would use such term.

I prefer to start my today’s discussion with different assumptions. We live in a real, not hypothetical world, in a world with real - which means imperfect - people, with imperfect social institutions, with many issues which remain to be solved but with tangible results, visible improvements and innovative solutions to many difficult problems. For me the term „crisis“ means a situation in which everything goes down, not up, where there are questions without answers, where there are problems without solutions, where there is a lack of elementary social cohesion and mutual understanding, where there is no dynamics, just stationary state. This is not what I see when I look around.

The post-communist and post-cold war era demonstrates a visible movement forward. To interpret it differently means to be disappointed with what has happened since 1989. For me, we are moving, we are „on the road“ to a better world, to a world without totalitarian regimes (at least when we talk about Europe and America, about our common Atlantic region), without threatening military structures, without totally inefficient economic systems, without over-ideologized thinking. We have not yet entered the heaven and we will never make it but I am confident that we are on the right track. I know there are people among us who see crisis in any moment when there is no central authority in full control of all events, when there is no dirigism from above, when we witness more spontaneity in human behavior than somebody’s intentions, whenever there is anything new, unknown, unplanned and unprepared, when the old clichés are lost or forgotten. I do not belong to that group.

We have probably entered a new period, but I see it as a chance, not as a problem.

I know, of course, that human society is very fragile (and vulnerable to all kinds of disturbances) and to think that we will be able to move forward without a permanent effort, without daily involvement of all of us in a never-ending fight for freedom, would be a fatal mistake, „fatal conceit“, and would take us on „the road to serfdom“ which some of us know too well. To think that the collapse of communism and its probable definitive end is a final victory, the „end of history“, would be very costly. We all see around us new dangers, new blind alleys, new attempts to create „brave new worlds“ based on very promising rhetoric, on more sincere or less sincere intentions but on wrong ambitions and false assumptions about human behavior.

Even though I expressed my strong disagreement with the term „crisis“ in the title of this session, I accept the adjective „common“. With all the historic and cultural differences, human society is more homogeneous than some of us assume. I agree with those who say that there are common answers to our problems. In addition to that, I believe that the answers are simple, more or less known and old-fashioned, and realizable. I am optimistic and I agree with one of the heroes of the Atlantic movement, with Ronald Reagan, who many years ago said: „The experts tell us there are no simple answers to our difficulties. They are wrong. There are simple answers, just not easy ones.“ It is our task to look for them and find them. I hope this conference will help us in this respect.

The ambition of our conference is, of course, not so general. We are interested in a closer issue, in transatlantic relations. The idea of transatlantic cooperation between Europe and North America we are talking about, was born at the end of World War II. The tragic experience of our fathers and grandfathers with fascist dictatorships, with communism and with the devastating war and their resolution not to go through it again led to many post-war activities and to the formation of several international organizations, especially the NATO.

The transatlantic cooperation was - for decades - kept together by an imminent communist threat and we, subconsciously, accepted the idea that NATO is an anticommunist block and nothing else. With the end of communism the common enemy disappeared and some of us seem to be at a loss what to fight for.

I am not. For me, the transatlantic community was never connected solely with one past enemy. It has deeper roots and stronger basis. It is based on ideas, not on enemies. It is connected with the tradition of freedom, democracy and market economy. European and American liberalism (in its original, European meaning) represents our common cultural heritage which we try to keep alive for future generations on both sides of the Atlantic ocean. We are committed to such a duty and we have to guard it in all spheres, including the security one.

I am aware of existing dangers and know that - for the time being - they are more in the field of ideas than in the field of security. Some of them are „domestic“ and are connected with new attempts of corporativisation and syndicalisation of our societies, with attempts to legislatively support organizations and associations, partializing us, filling the space between individuals and the state at the expense of both and denying the elementary principles of a liberal society. Such approaches, justified - erroneously - by well-intended people who, instead of advocating further deetatization through liberalization, deregulation and privatization (not just in the economic sphere), advocate not freedom, but new versions of collectivism, not overall healthy competition, but more and more areas controlled by experts, professionals and „better“ people, not the acceptance of incrementalism and improvements of Pareto optimality, but isolated, absolutist „solutions“ to partial problems, not a coherent society, but new „feudalities“ (to use a Ludwig Erhard’s term), etc.

Such tendencies, when winning at home, will have enormous influence upon international relations, upon the whole transatlantic cooperation and we should not underestimate them. Our foreign policy reactions and initiatives are less autonomous than it is often assumed and their roots in domestic ideological tenets are very deep.

I see the danger of the increase of isolationist tendencies in both Europe and America, even if it is for different reasons. In Europe it is because of more deepening than widening in its integration philosophy, because of less vigorous market forces and less vigorous individualist traditions, in America it is because of the prevalence of new, less liberal ideologies and because of traditional self-centeredness in world affairs. I see external dangers as well, but I consider them less dangerous than our own deficiencies.

At the beginning of my speech I rejected the assumption of the existence of a common crisis. I can, however, imagine the arrival of such crisis at the moment of closing ourselves, instead of opening ourselves both in the field of ideas and of trade. For several decades, we - in this country - lived in a closed society and know what it means. We know what it means to stress differences and hatred instead of searching for commonalities and friendship. I believe the original post-war transatlantic idea arose as a reaction to our pre-war closeness and we should not repeat our mistakes. The dissapearance of one common enemy should not demotivate us. We know that the slippery road to serfdom is not very far away and that some parts of the road may offer seducive views of the natural beauties around.

Václav Klaus, Prague, 11 May 1996

(Notes for the speech at the New Atlantic Initiative Congress)

References:

1. Rebirth of a Country: Five Years After (Ringier ČR, Prague, 1994)

2. From Communism to Democratic Capitalism: The Role of Visions (speech at the James Madison Institute, Florida, December 1995)

3. The Transatlantic Relationship from the Czech Perspective (Transatlantic Leadership Award Address, The European Institute, Washington, D.C., May 1995)

4. The Methamorphosis of the Czech Society (speech at The Center for Democracy, Washington, D.C., May 1995