Reconciling Europeans with civic engagement

It’s been quite some time since the last time I have been civically active. It’s relateively unclear which actions can be considered as definite acts of political participation, or civic engagement. I think that the last time I publicly took a political stand, aside from online via Twitter or Avaaz, was when I went to a small pro-Charlie demonstration in Amsterdam, the day of the attacks. It was a special moment for me, one of the first times I actually participated offline in something that I followed online. There were only a few people, as the attacks were still in the middle of being covered and the perpetrators at bay. They distributed some sheets of paper covered with pencils and various slogans evoking freedom of expression. The protest remained silent until a group of french citizens started shouting in a single voice, “Liberté, égalité, fraternité”, as to remind their perpetrators that they stood as one, the french people, against the terror that those radicalized individualized attempted to spread.

It felt good to be there, it felt meaningful to stand for something that I believed in that night. My views of the French government’s response are surely not unilaterally positive and being able to stand there with some other people before an official political statement emerged to guide the nation in a determined direction felt good. This personal freedom to assemble and voice our own narrative was important.

Unleashing the masses

The response to the Charlie attacks was strong, it was grand. To me, it stands as one of those greater events that unites a nation, that triggers the patriotic ties and nationalist feelings that lie within each and everyone of the members of a big nation state such as France or the United States. In the case of the US, 9/11 provoked a similar national call to the defense of a nation that was built to represent a set of constitutional values that are still considered as the golden truth as of today, unfortunately often out of context and with a lack of perspective.

Dichotomizing narratives

In a more theoretical interpretation, we are simply revisiting some simple notions of public opinion and communication theory. The methods that are still at work today are not as sophisticated as they appear in their final form, and they have been used across generations to drive support towards one side or the other of key political arguments. Framing, agenda-setting, priming, appeal to emotions, appeal to fear, those are only some of the pieces of a greater propaganda puzzle. In order to make sure that all of those techniques resonate simply and efficiently with the public, they are often dichotomized. By simplifying the depiction of one problem at hand, by focusing on its consequences instead of the nature and development of its roots (e.g. focusing on the threat of terrorism on French lives and values instead of the greater problem of radicalization as systemic educational failure), elites design a simplified opposition between good and bad, between sacred and evil, the nation and the “others”. This simplification makes it easier for the public to process the information in a unilateral, uncritical way, which doesn’t require any personal contextualization of any discourse as it presumably lacks any sort of complexity.

CETA, a comparable story?

The most recent example of CETA is an interesting one. Vetoed by the Wallonian government, which consequently suppressed the ability of the federal Belgian government to vote “yes” and therefore stopped the whole European Union to agree this trade agreement with Canada, CETA has become a cornerstone of EU policy.

While the EU already suffers from the general apathy from its citizens, such blockage can only exemplify the inner wekanesses of its institutional structure. One million walloons (as advanced by some as the actual share of those eligible voters who elected the socialist government of Paul Magnette) are blocking a trade agreement that would benefit the rest of the 507 million Europeans. Clearly, we are revisiting Asterix and Obelix vs. the Romans as french newspaper Libération comically designed its front page today. Or are we? aren’t we here simplifying a greater agreement, summarizing a complex political deal into a childish, supposedly “populist” act from a fraction of the Belgian opposition? That’s what I would argue.

Why I am against CETA

Before even commenting on the reasons why one might oppose such an agreement, I must say that I am sad for the EU. I believe in the union, I believe in its founding principles, in its mechanisms to ensure peace, promote cultural diversity, encourage mobility and centralize its economy to rival with the superpowers of the century. Too often, Europe is blamed by national governments for the hurts of a member state, without having a proper mechanism of response for the said perpetrator, which ends up creating a false narrative that far right and far left movements have been delighted to seize across the years. However, it is difficult not to reflect upon our dear European parliament as distant mass when it comes to their favorite policy making: trade agreements.

CETA is presumably the closest thing to NAFTA as one can think about. It aims at facilitating business between Canada and the EU at an unequal proportion, so that both sides can benefit from a standard of market security (not having to deal with an excess of influence from some of the big EU firms for instance). It will lower the prices of some of the food we consume everyday. A great prospect for the average consumer who hopes to save money on a daily basis, but also a serious threat for the farmer whose better quality products will have to compete with the cheaper, more chemically processed aliments from North American industries, despite the symbolic clauses of the agreement not to include certain hormones within the meat, chicken pork etc.

Yet above all aspects of the agreement, the most controversial one, which I do not abide by at all, is the one concerning the legal procedure in case of disagreement between a said corporation and the government authorities in which it is doing business. If a conflict occurs, a corporation is entitled to sue a government for loss of interests. The case will then be assigned to an arbitrator to solve the issue and assign an outcome, outside from the public’s knowledge. This lack of transparency is blatant and I believe that it hurts democracy. If the company does have a justified reason to claim damages from a government and therefore money from its tax payers, its people, the latter deserve to be transparently informed about the mistake of the government, as the people are responsible to make a democratic choice for their next government during the next elections. Although these only constitute some of the points that CETA enumerates, I believe that it is important not to limit the debate into two camps of those unequivocally in favor or against the agreement. Rather, it should become a public discussion, the public should be informed better about the specific clauses of the policy and encouraged to voice out their opinion about the points that they find relevant. This can only benefit democracy, reduce inflamed narratives and peripheral cues and improve the life of both Europeans and Canadians.