Britain just
voted to leave the European Union – Brexit passed 52-48. This is not an issue that I have studied so I
don’t really have an informed opinion, but I do want to mark what I think is
probably a pretty important event with at least some random thoughts and
wonderings.
It appears
that Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales now are all talking about breaking from
Britain because they don’t want to leave the European Union. Did Britain just vote to become England?
Leaving the
European Union might also unravel the European Union. It is fine to have a common market, but a
common currency, and bureaucratic control from Brussels without a common,
united government seems to have stopped working around September 15, 2008 when
Lehman Brothers in the United States declared bankruptcy and the entire world
economy nearly collapsed, hitting the European Union particularly hard.
This is a
big step in the general unravelling of the world, or at least the unravelling
of many of the existing structures of the world. I never really understood the European Union –
how did such completely different peoples decide that they had a common
identity? After centuries of disastrous
wars? In order to prevent future
disastrous wars, of course, was the objective, but the old WWII folks are
mostly dead now, and newer generations might have to learn those old terrible
lessons all over again? I certainly hope
not.
On the
surface it looks like the biggest cause of the Brexit is saying NO to forced
immigration policies onto England by Brussels.
I think there are a number of right wing movements in the rest of Europe
pushing back very hard on the acceptance of immigrants from the exploding
Middle East. (thank you Osama bin Laden
for leading these attacks, and thank you George W Bush for taking bin Laden’s
bait and invading Iraq (that’s a bit of sarcasm just in case I was confusing)).
It’s all
reactionary. I think it starts with WWI,
goes to the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, goes to Colonialism and Imperialism
of the Middle East, goes to supporting despotic Middle Eastern regimes by the West
(just send us the oil and stop Communism), goes to terrorism to drive out the “infidels”, goes to
chaotic realignments in the Middle East, goes to massive immigration into the
West out of the Middle Eastern slaughters, goes to xenophobic and nationalistic
reaction against the immigrants out of fear of terrorism and out of fear of
dilution of existing nationalistic boundaries and identities, goes to Brexit…
Where to
next? Britain First! America First? (Trump?
dear Lord please no ) France first? Sweden
first? etc etc etc?
I think it
is a natural response for people to pull into themselves when things are in
chaos and they feel threatened. But I
don’t think it is necessarily wise.
