nettime's panic room on Thu, 2 Jul 2015 12:51:03 +0200 (CEST) |
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<nettime> Fear-mongering is the enemy of democracy |
The Tories always use Project Fear to get their way at the ballot box, and the same tactic is used when the Greek people are asked to choose between the hell they know and one they can only imagine Wednesday 1 July 2015 20.00 BST Suzanne Moore http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/01/fear-mongering-enemy-of-democracy-from-greece-to-camerons-eu-referendum-euro-crisis Project Fear stalks Europe. In suits and ties and chaffeur-driven cars, in hurried meetings, in corridors blaring with strip lights, around the cabinet tables, in meetings where strategy is scrawled on whiteboards, in advertising agencies where earnest young people compete to unsettle us in the most effective ways. Perhaps I am too old and dreamy to think that politics was ever about anything other than fear; that hope is a necessity not a luxury. Surely I know, really, that when you want someone to vote a certain way you have to frighten them into thinking that any alternative is worse. We may not know what we like, but we sure as hell as know what we donât like. Project Fear is not a paranoid delusion of mine. This phrase was used by the Conservatives in the last election and the pro-UK Better Together campaign. It was part of Lynton Crosbyâs tactics to scare those in marginal seats by suggesting that a Labour vote meant a vote for a smarmy thief or a snappy dominatrix in the form of Alex Salmond or Nicola Sturgeon. It mostly worked. People donât like being ruled by people from another country, except, of course, if you are actually Scots and are meant to love it. Project Fear is now to be used by David Cameronâs team campaigning to keep us in Europe. All the alternatives will be made to appear risky. His message will be âbetter the devil you know than the devil you donâtâ. This is an entirely negative form of politics, where the whole vision thing goes out of the window. Democracy boils down to a vote for the status quo and anything else is too inherently risky. Of course, Project Fear reaches its apotheosis in Greece. If there is a referendum, the Greek people will be asked to vote for a hell they already know or one they can only imagine. They will continue to be lectured on profligacy and infantilised as lazy children, while their hospitals are running out of supplies, people are sleeping on the streets and unemployment soars. Those who stand in ATM queues are fearful, and who wouldnât be? But from my last couple of visits to Greece, I would say that when a crisis is everyday, when you live on the brink, a strange calm sets in, a resilience that I can only compare to what I have seen in war zones, in that the need to get on with living overrides fear. No one can panic 24/7. âWe will grow potatoes,â one man said to me. âWe all watch out for each other,â said a woman. For the thing about Project Fear is that when it becomes the weather, one learns to ignore it. As the Eurocrats huddle and speak of Greece, and then Spain and Italy, as some kind of totemic ethnic âotherâ, we should be disturbed. Does this huge south need to be dealt with differently? Is this all a place of unpaid tax and bribery and siestas? Be fearful of this. âThey will take what is oursâ is the subtext here. There is no respect for seasonal economies like Greeceâs, but the fear is myopic. How can we not see that all of Europe will lose, too, if it continues to impoverish these places? With migrants arriving in Kos and hordes of the dispossessed massing in Libya, why would we want to alienate a nation just one country away from Isis? Greece spends a lot on defence, this is true. Can we not see why? But the troika are the agents of Project Fear. Though Germany was allowed to grow its way out of recession in 1953, it will not let Greece do this, because it would set âa bad exampleâ. The aim of all these dealings becomes clearer. It is to remove the democratic challenge of Syriza to these huge, undemocratic institutions of the EU and IMF. Even many rightwing economists argue that the conditional loans given to Greece have only enriched the financial intuitions. The aim is not growth but punishment. The struggle within Greece is over whether it can be considered a sovereign state. This matters. It matters because it makes Europe a hostile place for those who are concerned with sovereignty, and this will play into the hand of the ultra-rightwing sceptics. Within Greece, it will play into the hands of the fascist Golden Dawn. It will be yet another victory for largely faceless financial institutions over an elected government. Those who are pro-Europe are going to have make arguments based on these anxieties. We will have seen that some parts of Europe are way more equal than others. Project Fear, when it is activated by the Yes camp of our own pro-EU referendum lobby, will surely involve a muted defence of the indefensible in the name of trade. It will have to be vague abut how this bureaucracy works without going into Farage-type spasms. It will have to, in some way, play down the power of the banks and play up the power of national politicians. Otherwise we might all look at Greece and be very afraid indeed. We might wonder if Europe is our future. Project Fear works, you see. As Mussolini said: âDemocracy is beautiful in theory; in practice it is a fallacy.â # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org