Beware Greeks Seeking Gifts!

Alphen, Netherlands. 26 January. Mahatma Gandhi once said, “Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes”.  Europeans have made a lot of mistakes these twenty-years past.  The victory of Alexis Tsipras and Syriza (Coalition of the Radical left) in yesterday’s Greek elections will reverberate far beyond Ekklesia where European democracy was born. Indeed, Syriza poses a challenge not just to Greece’s place in ‘Europe’ but to the entire European order.  As such Europe is a facing a series of power struggles no less important than the Peloponnesian Wars that decided the balance of power across the Adriatic in the fifth century BC.

Power struggle one will concern who pays. It will essentially be a struggle between the Northern and Western European taxpayers and savers of the eight or member-states that pay for the EU and much of Southern Europe.  With the Greek economy having shrunk by 20% since 2009 and with 25% of the population unemployed the frustration of the Greek people with austerity is understandable.  These past six years have indeed robbed Greeks of both “hope” and “dignity”, as Tsipras has said.  Tsipras also says that he will seek a 50% cut in Greek debt, re-employ large numbers of civil servants (in what was once an appallingly bloated public sector), raise salaries and pensions and offer free electricity.  In other ‘worlds’, Tsipras intends to pile on debt and return to the bad-old days when as a Dutch taxpayer I had to fund Greeks via spiralling, growth-killing Dutch debt.

Power struggle two will be about who is in charge. This will concern primarily (but not exclusively) the relationship between Chancellor Merkel, the Germans and the Greeks.  Both the Greek Left and Right shamelessly painted their greatest benefactor – the German people - as Nazis for insisting on cuts and reforms in return for large injections of German money.  This was outrageous and unfair. Yes, Germany had to bear some responsibility for Greek debt.  Indeed, if the Euro helped to lower the cost of borrowing for Greeks it also offset the cost of German production. Taken together low borrowing costs and low productions costs fuelled export-led German growth for almost a decade. 

However, implicit in the German view of ‘austerity’ is simply the belief that a state must live within its means and generate economic growth via an efficient and competitive economy.  That is why last week at German behest 80% of the risk of Mario Draghi’s massive €1.1 trillion of quantitative easing bonds will be borne by national central banks.  This is not without political irony. The Euro-evangelising Germans are indicating they will not accept debt mutualisation and thus a move towards a European super-welfare-state.  The Greeks on the other had are betting that there will be such a move, that their debt will become someone else’s problem and their vision for the EU is precisely a European super-welfare-state in which they are forever drawing welfare.

Power struggle three will concern the importance of ‘rules’ in the EU.  It will concern primarily the relationship between EU citizens, member-states, and distant Brussels and Frankfurt-based EU institutions.  In the absence of political union, monetary union was established on a set of principle, rules and practices enshrined in the Stability and Growth Pact. Sadly, the French and the Germans were the first to break the key rule that fixed the debt-to-GDP ratios.  By so doing they established a precedent for rule-breaking whenever politically-convenient that has ripped credibility from the heart of the single currency rendering the Euro what markets term a ‘soft’ currency. 

With the Syriza victory Europe is about to witness a game of chicken for the future of Europe and it will start next month.  Greece must repay €6.7bn to the IMF and ECB at the end of February if the next tranche of my money (Emergency Bail-out) is to be triggered.  If Syriza defaults on the debt Greek banks could soon collapse and the country go bankrupt.  A stand-off is clearly in the offing as German lawmakers are this morning threatening to block the money. 

The key issue will be the nature and extent of the inevitable compromise.  Will the so-called (and much hated) Troika really ensure Greece continues with reforms within the bounds of the so-called ‘Framework’?  Or, will the Framework be abandoned thus in effect opening the door to full debt mutualisation?  Of course, whatever happens Brussels propaganda will present the latter as the former but the truth will out.

Like many Europeans I am willing to make sacrifices for Greece because I have no wish to see fellow Europeans suffer. However, if I make such sacrifices I want to see Athens making the necessary reforms so that Greece and other Southern European can face the same reality I must in the competitive world of the twenty-first century. And yet I see no such reforms and instead I am continually lectured about the need for ‘European solidarity’ as the EU becomes ever more a mutual impoverishment pact and drags me and my family down with it.  

Perhaps the safest thing for Greece to do now is to exit the Euro, return to a devalued Drachma (with all the necessary social support from the rest of us), recover and reform.  That would, of course, pose another challenge to Brussels.  What is Greece were to do far better outside the Eurozone than within it?

In any case, to caricature Odysseus - beware Greeks seeking gifts!

Julian Lindley-French

Taking Liberties

Alphen, Netherlands. 23 January. Simon de Montfort, 6^th Earl of Leicester, is regarded as the father of the English Parliament. Seven hundred and fifty years ago this week he said, “You can maintain power over people as long as you give them something. Rob a man of everything and that man will no longer be in your power”.  The January Parliament sat on 20 January, 1265 some fifty years after the 1215 signing of Magna Carta that in time became the font of all English liberties.  Indeed, for the first time a Parliament comprised not just nobles but the knights and burgesses of the English shires.  De Montfort’s aim was to confirm his power and constrain that of King Henry III after the latter’s defeat at the Battle of Lewes.  However, the January Parliament also confirmed the two principles of freedom of conscience and freedom before the law established by the great William Marshal in the aftermath of Magna Carta.  Over centuries the great political shifts of the thirteenth century established the very idea of freedom which England gave to much of rest of the world – government by the people, for the people and of the people.  Today, those freedoms and liberties are under threat across Europe at several levels as freedom is traded in the name of security, function and ‘efficiency’.

 

At the oligarchic high bureaucratic level freedom is under threat from a European caste that believes they know best and that the over-concentration of power in a bureaucratic few is in the best interest of all.  Yesterday’s decision by the European Central Bank to print €1.1 trillion may or may not help to stimulate dormant growth, although in the absence of structural reforms it looks an increasingly desperate measure by the European Mutual Impoverishment Pact (formerly known as the EU).  Critically, there is no democratic oversight of the ECB and little accountability. Time will tell but Mario Draghi’s actions look very much like those of a man who is looking after his friends in southern Europe at the expense of the taxpayer’s and savers of northern and western Europe.

At the security level the threat posed by Islamic State to Europe is dangerous and growing.  One reason for that threat is the utter irresponsibility of liberal elites in allowing such extreme beliefs to use liberal societies as incubators in the name of multiculturalism and political correctness.  Now, be it the European Arrest Warrant or the sweeping new powers of surveillance demanded by states, elites are in a desperate game of catch-up to both mask and deal with the consequence of their own irresponsibility.  Yes, the threat is such that the state and the super-state may indeed need new powers but who, how and what is going to hold that power to account.

Even at the popular level basic rights and freedoms are being eroded as power is ever taken ever more distant from the people in Europe.  Politicians still routinely trot out the mantras that they are defending free speech and democracy but are they? Political machines seem far more interested in defending themselves, hence the almost universal obsession with the short-term by elites.  Je Suis Charlie many be an emotive slogan but make so mistake the French state was uncomfortable with Charlie Hebdo.  In England, the font of liberty, it is questionable whether the newspaper would have been even able to publish much of its work under the onerous hate laws that have been introduced in the past decade to mask the consequences of government responsibility.

Under pressure from above and without European society is increasingly self-censoring.  Naturally, liberty also implies responsibility in what one says and does.  However, there is a growing tendency to appease extremism on the grounds that it shows cultural sensitivity or because the Internet mob-rule, much of it generated by the sneering, censorious political Left, that is intimidating any dissent from their imposed ‘convention’. A mark of the extent to which British society is retreating from responsible liberty is the extent to which British police (yes, British police) now police thought as well as actions.  Indeed, there was a time when English law could distinguish between criminals and idiots, but not it seems any more.

Eight hundred years on from Magna Carta and seven hundred and fifty years on from the January Parliament it is as vital as ever that responsible citizens challenge over-mighty oligarchies. Sadly such oligarchies are the stuff of power in Europe today with parliaments reduced to being little more than impotent fig-leaves for over-mighty executives.

Simon de Montfort lost his life on 4 August, 1265 at the Battle of Evesham slain by royalists.  The absolute power of the King was restored and would not be so directly challenged until that great dissenter Oliver Cromwell established the principles of parliamentary democracy that endured until the 2007 Treaty of Lisbon.  In 1654 Cromwell said, “In every government there must be somewhat fundamental, somewhat like a Magna Charta, that should be standing and unalterable”.

Power is again taking liberties and it must again be held to account.

Julian Lindley-French

Chilcott: In Defence of Tony Blair

Alphen, Netherlands. 21 January.  Britain is as usual these days all a cafuffle.  The latest cafuffle concerns the delay in the publication of the Chilcott Inquiry into the Iraq War.  Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman is on Chilcott's team and he is also one of my mentors and a friend.  Any inquiry of which Lawry is a part will be conducted to the highest standards of public ethics and standards. Therefore, I have no doubt that the delay is due to the very great importance that Sir John Chilcott and the team place on fairness and accuracy.  The inquiry into Britain's role in and conduct of the 2003 Iraq War is of such importance that it must be right in tone, analysis and conclusions.

The media is publicly blaming former Prime Minister Tony Blair for the delay, which he has denied.  Coincidentally, I have spent the past year closely examining Blair's role in the Iraq War using both primary and secondary sources and I can find no evidence to suggest Blair acted in any way that was incompatible with what he saw as the national interest at the time.  There is some evidence that the culture of 'spin' which his government employed at the time to cajole a reluctant public into the conflict over-reached itself.This was primarily because Blair was under intense pressure from Washington, Paris and Berlin as well as his own Labour Party. However, Prime Minister Blair clearly believed that committing British forces to the removal of Saddam Hussein was the correct thing to do for Britain, the Middle East and for the security of the wider world.

My analysis will not chime with the fashionable view that Tony Blair is a warmonger and was a puppet of the Bush regime in Washington. So be it.  The purpose of this blog is not to kow-tow to fashion but to confront strategic reality, however uncomfortable that may be.  Nor am I an apologist.  For a time I went through a period of profound estrangement from Blair, partly because I had so believed in him back in 1997 when he came to power and partly because the costs of the Iraq War were so great for the people of the region and for the families of service personnel in Britain.

However, my personal study has revealed to me a man who believed in his country, wanted to do the right thing and found the tide of history against him.  I can only imagine the loneliness of power he must have felt at times for the evidence suggests a deeply moral man who thought long and hard about his decisions, his actions and their consequences.  The simple truth is that leading a great, powerful country means that one must at times have the courage to take decisions in pursuit of what one believes to be the greater good. That is why the rest of us pay leaders to lead so that the rest of us may have the luxury to comment.

Whenever the Chilcott report is released and whatever its findings it will still not answer the seminal question which both British and other European leaders will again at some point be asked to answer.  Do you have the political and moral courage to act in a dangerous strategic environment when for all the intelligence at your disposition the choice to be made can only at best be charged with political and moral ambiguity and people will die.  Welcome to geopolitics!

In defence of Tony Blair.

Julian Lindley-French

  

How Do We Defend Baltic Freedom?

Tartu, Estonia. 20 January.  Thirty-five kilometres from Estonia’s border with Russia freedom has a particularly sweet taste like a good, young wine.  It is as yet not full-bodied and has some noticeable flaws and vulnerabilities but it is clear that over time if left to rest a distinct flavour will emerge that will make it a vintage to remember.  How do ‘we’ defend Baltic freedom?

Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are important to me because they are the conscience of freedom.  We in Western Europe have become old, slow and complacent about the liberties and freedoms which we take for granted.  This is somewhat ironic given that today is the seven hundredth and fiftieth anniversary of Simon de Montfort’s first truly English parliament which set so much of the world on the long path to democracy.  Sadly, whilst the Paris attacks may have finally awoken us to the very real dangers posed by those who despise liberty and democracy it is unlikely to have really shaken our ever-so-little, all talk no action Western European leaders out of the torpor of denial that is helping to make Europe and the world a more dangerous place. 

Contrast Lithuania.  The Baltic States may be small but their leaders tend not to be, even if the politics of the region is not for the faint-hearted.  Last Thursday in Vilnius I met the impressive Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaité at the hugely important annual Snowmeeting at which I had also the honour to speak.  Today, I address the equally important Baltic Defence College, a model of defence integration and NATO’s most easterly command. My message to both was direct; all of the complacent assumptions you hold about the defence of freedom will be destroyed unless ‘we’ as the community of freedom stop talking and start acting.

In his seminal book “The Great Crusade” H.P. Willmott said of Hitler’s Blitzkrieg attacks, “German success between 1939 and 1942 owed as much to the German armed forces’ better understanding of the balance between offensive and defensive firepower as it then existed as to any material consideration.  Opposed by a number of enemies of limited military resources and inferior doctrine, the Wehrmacht had been able to defeat opponents lacking adequate anti-tank and anti-aircraft defences and – crucially – the space and time in which to absorb the shock of a Blitzkrieg attack”.  That pretty much describes the correlation of forces between NATO and modernising Russian forces and doctrine today in and around the Baltic region.

Now as then, NATO would not be able to defend the Baltic States against a surprise attack by an unstable, despotic and probably desperate Russia regime. Now as then, NATO would need to trade space for time until the West’s massively better fundamentals could generate the forces and resources to blunt and then repel a Russian lunge.  Now, unlike then, an aggressive Russia would make it perfectly clear that it has treaty-breaching short and intermediate range nuclear weapons to deter such a NATO counter-attack. Stalemate!

When I rose to speak at the Snowmeeting I simply tore up my prepared remarks and went for the jugular of complacency.  No, I did not believe Russia is about to attack NATO allies.  Yes, I am fully aware of Russia’s military shortcomings revealed during “Operation Russian Spring” in Ukraine.  However, “proval blitzkriga” is still at the heart of Russian military doctrine albeit leavened and reinforced by the use of proxies in conflict and destabilising disinformation designed to keep potential targets divided and their potential defenders politically off-balance. 

But that is not my essential point.  Russia forces may still be short of the fully-professional army they are seeking to achieve by 2020. However, the increasingly militarised Russian state will continue to drive towards such a force and Moscow will study carefully how to improve their military performance as well as the paucity of Alliance forces and resources in the Baltic region.  The essential strategic truth is that Russian military weaknesses would likely be less critically decisive at the point and moment of engagement than NATO military weaknesses. 

Therefore, due to European defence slashing and increasing American military overstretch that essential correlation between Russia and NATO forces in the Baltic States is only likely to favour Russia unless Alliance leaders do something about it rather than simply talk about it.  In other words, current analysis suggests within four to five years the conditions will be favourable for a desperate Russian regime to act and impose a new/old ‘buffer zone’ via a military fait accompli.  

The Ukraine crisis is as much a crisis of Russian weakness as Russian strength and that makes it all the more dangerous.  My sincere hope is that Russia will demonstrate the very real greatness of which it is capable by stopping the military logic of Moscow’s current strategic and political nonsense.  However, my fear is that a regime that is lost in the wilderness of romantic Russian nationalism and which is now undertaking all the necessary analyses and assessments of Alliance weakness will at some point reach all the wrong conclusions and be tempted to take all the wrong actions.

How do ‘we’ defend Baltic freedom? Not like this.

Julian Lindley-French

Eurozone 2015: Act or Crash

Alphen, Netherlands. 12 January. John Maynard Keynes once said, “…the oppression of the taxpayer for the enrichment of the rentier is the chief lasting result [of deflation]”. On 7 January the Eurozone tipped into deflation when it was announced by the European Central Bank that year-on-year prices had fallen by 0.2%. This is the first time the Eurozone has dipped into deflation since the height of the financial crisis in 2009.  Some economists (dismal scientists) suggest that ‘temporary’ factors such as the collapse of the oil price, the weakening Euro and stable European consumer confidence mean this latest deflationary dip will be temporary.  However, many indicators suggest otherwise.  The Eurozone economy is bereft of economic growth (Italy has not grown since 1999), few of the vital structural political, economic and regulatory reforms necessary to render the single currency credible or the Eurozone economy world competitive have been made, there is over-reliance on Germany as the engine of growth and both consumer and bond market confidence is fragile in the extreme.  Even the slightest shock could tip the Eurozone into a full blown deflationary crisis that could in turn tip much of Europe into a full-blown depression. That trigger may well come this month with the 25 January Greek elections and the prospect of the fiscally ill-disciplined Syriza party gaining power.  It is that prospect which saw German Chancellor Angela Merkel scurry to London last week for talks with David Cameron.  Even though the UK is outside the Eurozone such a crisis would need Europe’s two strongest economies to act closely together.  It would also need an awful lot more, which is why 2015 is a tipping point and why Europe needs a game-changer.

In a 1933 Econometria article economist Irvine Fisher established a proper understanding of the dangers of deflation.  Entitled, The Debt-Deflation Theory of Great Depression the article demonstrated just how dangerous structural deflation can be for both economies and societies.  During a deflationary spiral, which the Eurozone is in or very close to entering, the value of assets and incomes shrink rapidly pushing up the real burden of personal and corporate debt.  Soon debts can no longer be repaid which weakens vulnerable, debt-exposed banks some of which suddenly collapse.  Such a collapse effectively destroys confidence in the entire banking sector as investors and depositors rush to withdraw their cash and governments are forced to borrow and use the money of already hard-pressed taxpayers in an effort to prop up the banking sector.  A bond market crash then ensues as the cost of government-borrowing soars and confidence further evaporates leading in turn to emergency asset sales and the further driving down of confidence, hoarding and the effective end of normal economic activity with catastrophic social and political consequences.

The Eurozone today is full of individuals, corporations and governments with a high degree of personal debt.  It is unlikely Eurozone states would be able to stimulate or re-inflate the Eurozone economy as they are already dangerously indebted and their taxpayer’s effectively broke.  In such circumstances only external help from a rich, powerful state or other actor such as the International Monetary Fund or World Bank could help to stabilise the Eurozone economy.  Such ‘help’ would invariably come with political strings attached and calls for deep reform.  However, because so many Eurozone societies have been weakened by an economy now in its third recession in six years state institutions are possibly incapable of hard reforms for fear of social unrest.

The Euro itself is central to the problem.  Neither state nor super-state the EU lacks both the political and economic cohesion and fiscal and economic discipline to apply even the limited instruments possessed by the European Central Bank to effect.  In the end, the taxpayer’s of the eight member-states that actually pay for the twenty-eight member EU, led by Germany and to a significant extent Britain, are likely to be called upon to bail out the Eurozone by spreading the cost of Eurozone debt AND by stimulating the economy through counter-deflationary/inflationary measures such as the printing of money. 

The hope would be that the use of so-called Eurobonds and quantitative easing would help restore some semblance of economic confidence and all-important economic growth.  However, such is the fragility of the wider world economy, and the propensity for further geopolitical shock, the scale of the Eurozone debt mountain and resistance to reform in debtor states that any such stimulus by the ‘eight’ would in effect have to be permanent.  This situation would quickly lead to the complete and irrevocable bankrupting of the creditor states, the final crash of the Euro and with it the destruction of people’s hard-earned savings and pensions.  In other words deflation and depression could lead to a first order European political disaster.  

There are two immediate possible political steps that might buy European leaders some more time.  First, much deeper integration of fiscal and monetary policy could be pursued by the Eurozone in parallel with the sharing of sovereign and bank debt across all Eurozone and/or all EU taxpayers.  However, such a move would in effect entail the creation of a European super-state and almost certainly see Britain’s exit from the EU.  Second, those economies which bear too high a level of debt and refuse or are unable to reform their inefficient economies could be cut free from the Eurozone.  Greece is the obvious candidate. However, if a crash begins even Italy, Europe’s fourth largest economy, might be forced to exit the Euro.  That would either lead to a consolidated Euro focused on north and western European economies or simply mark the end of the Euro and with it Project Europe. 

There is a third game-changer option; move the strategic economic goalposts. Some economists believe a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with the US and Canada could boost trade and growth significantly.  Indeed, whilst TTIP could never resolve the Eurozone’s many structural contradictions it could act like a kind of economic NATO affording collective economic defence to its members against the kind of speculations and panics that might trigger a great European depression. 

TTIP would create a market of some 900 million people between the world’s most advanced economies and signal to the markets a willingness to take strategic steps to prevent deflation, TTIP could also help force Europeans become more competitive and re-inject meaningful growth into Europe, although to do so would mean Europeans abandoning the expensive social models to which they are so attached and which renders Europe so uncompetitive.  Above all, TTIP would buy European leaders time to undertake the reforms vital to prevent a depression which they have singularly failed to do since the 2010 Eurozone crisis.

There is of course at least one major caveat (and whole host of minor ones).  For TTIP to be successfully concluded American and Canadian politicians would need to be certain that they and their taxpayers are not being suckered into some kind of implicit, back-door Marshall Plan that would end up with them funding Eurozone debt.  Equally, it is not in the either the American or Canadian strategic or economic interest to see Europe fall prey to depression.

In an important article last week entitled A Comeback Strategy for Europe former Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt and former EU foreign and security policy supremo and NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana Bildt and Solana called on Europeans to conclude a TTIP agreement quickly.  Critically, the high-some twosome said, “…TTIP’s goal is to unleash the power of the transatlantic economy, which remains by far the world’s largest and wealthiest market, accounting for three-quarters of global financial activity and more than half of world trade” However, Bildt and Solana contrasted the stalled TTIP talks with the progress being made in creating a Trans-Pacific Partnership or TPP and the very real danger of European economic decline in the absence of TTIP.  They also gave a stark warning: “If the TTIP stalls or collapses while the TPP moves forward and succeeds, the global balance will tip strongly in Asia’s favour – and Europe will have few options if any for regaining its economic and geopolitical influence”.

2015; the year Europe must act…or crash. There can be no more muddling through.

Julian Lindley-French  

Je Suis Charlie…et Maintenant?

Alphen, Netherlands. 8 January. Je suis Charlie! My revulsion against those who carried out yesterday’s murderous attack on the journalists of Charlie Hedbo is complete.  Indeed, whilst at times extreme by lampooning power Charlie Hebdo helps hold power to account.  This is not easy in a twenty-first century world of big, distant pretend-democracy that so belittles the individual citizen. That great French philosopher Voltaire reportedly once said, “I disagree with all you say, but I defend your right to say it”.  That simple mantra is and must remain the essence of free speech in a liberal democracy and must be upheld at all costs.  Another geat French philosopher Tocqueville said that the more freedom one enjoys the greater the responsibility on each individual.  As society becomes progressively polarised between the tolerant and intolerant the boundaries between freedom and responsibility are being redefined and challenging the very cohesion of modern, multicultural societies.  Indeed, this attack was not simply an attack on a liberal, European society; it was also a reflection of it.  Therefore, it is vital that we the European people wake up to the profound challenges implied by this attack at the social, political and indeed geopolitical levels. 

A French friend of mine said to me yesterday, “une infirme partie des mussulmans est composée de vraies fascistes…”  The two most important words in that sentence are “partie” (section of) and “fascistes”.  Fascism is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “a system of extreme right-wing or authoritarian views”. There is no doubt that the intolerant views which inspired the killers do indeed represent a form of fascism in that the individuals in question reject any view other than their own and are prepared to kill to enforce their intolerance.  

Here's the rub.  For too long liberal European governments have acted as incubators for such extremism for fear of offending the Muslim community.  They have preferred instead to say such attacks have nothing to do with Islam and focussed on preventing any backlash in the wake of such attacks.  Worse, at times they have financially-supported extremist groups who sit on the border between non-violence and violence in the hope that extremist ideologies could somehow be co-opted. For example, my own country Britain still has no strategy to counter the non-violent extremism which is but a short step from violent extremism. Such absurd political correctness must end.   

The shock of the attack is made all the worse by the unwillingness of European leaders to come clean with their peoples about the nature of the threat posed by Islamism. Indeed, since 9/11 European peoples have been treated like children by their leaders.  For example, British security services are at any one time dealing with between 2-3000 terrorist plots.  People are not stupid. By trying to pretend to people there is no problem a gap has grown between leaders and led to the point in which today citizens no longer trust leaders to act in their best interests.  Therefore, it is time leaders started to come clean with their citizens about the extent of the Islamist challenge European societies face because democracy can only function if there is trust between power and the people.  If not a political gulf will emerge at the heart of politics which will soon be occupied by extreme populists on both the political left and right.

The attack was also a function of the new geopolitics, a chilling example of how the Islamic civil war raging across the Middle East can so easily reach into increasingly atomistic European societies.  Whilst the murders seem to have been carried out by two brothers of French-Algerian heritage there can be no doubt that they are but the foot soldiers on the front-line of a complex web of power, patronage and money.  As they fled the scene one of the attackers shouted to a witness, “Tell the press we are Al Qaeda in the Yemen”.  

Al Qaeda in the Yemen is part of a wider group known as Al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP).  If the claim is true they are part of a well-organised group with over a thousand members which has carried out a range of attacks across the Middle East and the West.  The primary aim of this Sunni insurgency is to rid the Muslim world of infidels.  Perhaps the most chilling implication of this attack is that the likes of Islamic State and AQAP now see Europe as part of their world and claim a 'right' to enforce strict Islamist blasphemy laws herein and force the rest of us to bend to their will. 

AQAP’s funding reveals the extent of the threat and the strategic ambiguity of the relationship between European governments, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States. The US State Department suggests much of AQAPs funding comes from fake charities, extortion and robbery.  However, the Americans also suggest that a significant part of the funding comes from groups in Saudi Arabia and the wider Gulf region.  Saudi money has long been used to buy off the threat posed by extremism to the kingdom via the funding of Islamic schools across the world, including Europe. These are schools that too often espouse an extreme view of Islam and weak European governments have for too long tolerated such extremism within their own borders. That must now stop and the funding chains destroyed.

At the top of this post I cited Tocqueville’s suggestion that freedom and responsibility are inexorably intertwined. So is respect. The attackers are not the whole story of Islam in Europe much though they would like to imply they are. Last night in the centre of Paris thousands of French Muslim citizens also proclaimed themselves as “Charlie”.  Like me they reject extremism and have reached an accommodation within themselves between faith, freedom and responsibility. 

Yesterday, I came under pressure to re-tweet a Charlie Hebdo cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad.  I refused.  This is not because I am a coward or some bleeding heart liberal obsessed with reality-warping political correctness. Indeed, I pay a big price for my willingness to challenge power.  However, I have no desire to insult the Prophet, Islam or the decent, law-abiding Muslims who I call compatriots, fellow citizens and friends.  In so doing I exercise my free will, my sense of communal responsibility and express my respect. To me that is the most powerful act of defiance.

Je suis Charlie...et maintenant?

Julian Lindley-French

Nous sommes tous français maintenant!

Alphen, Netherlands. 7 January.  The news from Paris about the appalling Islamist terrorist attack on the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo is truly shocking.  There is no point in speculation at present but every reason to send my thoughts and wishes to those who lost their lives this morning and to their families and loved ones.  

All I can say is that I have never felt as European as I do at this moment and that whatever our differences as Europeans this attack reaffirms my absolute belief in the values, beliefs and freedom which we must all uphold as Europeans. 

On 12 September, 2001 Le Monde ran the headline “Nous sommes tous americains maintenant”.  Let me say for the record as an English, Briton and European, nous sommes tous français maintenant!

Vive la France! Vive la liberté! Vive la fraternité! Vive l’Europe!

Julian Lindley-French