Transcript The Ancestors of the West

Chapter 30
A Continuing
Experiment:
The West and
the World
Since 1989
Protesting Austerity
Athens, Greece,
January 17, 2012
What event in the
table
Was NOT a result of
terrorism?
2001 U.S.
2004 Madrid
2005 London
2003 Hussein
2005 Paris
Riots in Paris
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Post-Cold War World
• Trends in the Contemporary world
– Tensions between the West & the Islamic world
– Unprecedented economic technological changes
– Concern about the pace of European integration
– A growing backlash against globalization
• Challenges
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How to interact w/ an ex-superpower, Russia
Questions over the purpose of & membership in NATO
The rise of militant Islam
Globalization & assimilation of immigrant populations
• Germany – Major beneficiary by end of Cold War
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Rapid unification
Transfer of capital back to Berlin
Reopening of the Reichstag
German participation in NATO air strikes in Yugoslavia
By 2011 Germany’s role in the EU was the economic superpower which had survived the
financial crisis.
The European Union
• 1957 – Treaty of Rome – established the European Economic Community
• After 1991, growing European integration
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NATO expanded to include former Soviet bloc countries but NOT RUSSIA
– The Maastricht Agreements, 1991 (Maastricht Treaty)
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Provided for a common policy on workers’ rights
Accelerated integration of the EU & created the Euro (common currency)
Expanded the membership of the EU to include formerly communist states
Allowed EU members to opt out of some of its provisions
– By 2012, twenty-seven member countries
– Economic stagnation forced the EU to create a true single market &
genuinely free competition inside the EU
• By 2011 Nations in the EU managed their own fiscal policies, but the EU managed
monetary policy
• Economic problems revealed new weaknesses
• Conflicts between national interests and E.U.
interests
– A case in point: the EU currency crisis of 2012
– Austerity = an economic policy that emphasizes high
taxes and government spending cuts
• Group of 20 – Nineteen nations & the EU (represent 90% of world economy)
• Group of 7 – The U.S., Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy & Canada
• Group of 8 – the Group of 7 plus Russia
– Purpose of the 3 groups = to coordinate the responses to an economic
crisis
The Democratic Reichstag, Berlin
The centerpiece of the renovation of the German parliament building, completed in 1999, was the addition of a
glass dome, intended to manifest the openness of Germany’s democracy as its capital moved from Bonn to Berlin.
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French President
Nicolas Sarkozy, right,
and German Chancellor
Angela Merkel shake
hands as she prepares to
leave following their key
meeting at the Elysee
Palace, Paris, early in
December 2011.
The two, who had come to
work closely in response
to the European debt
crisis, developed a plan to
tighten oversight of
government budgets that
was approved in its
essentials at a European
Union summit later that
week.
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The reunification of Germany and the breakup of the Soviet
Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia fundamentally
altered the map of Europe during the 1990s.
Map 30-1 p871
• Tensions and challenges
• Ethnic conflict in the Balkans in the 1990s
• All of the following contribute to the breakup of Yugoslavia –
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• Ethnic violence during WWII
• The decline of a single Yugoslav identity
• Ambitions of individual political leaders
• The death of TITO
Collapse of communism leads to civil war and ethnic cleaninsing
• Ethnic Cleansing = forced relocation and murder of unwanted ethnic
groups
• New countries out of Yugoslavia
• Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia
NATO intervenes to stop the bloodshed controversial b/c:
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violated national sovereignty
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They never intervened in Rwanda during that genocide
Set a troubling precedent
NATO forces would occupy Kosovo and Serbia (Kosovo becomes a new nation)
Much of east-central Europe, and particularly the Balkans, has long been an area of complex ethnic mixture. The end
of communist rule opened the way to ethnic conflict, most tragically in what had been Yugoslavia.
This map shows ethnic distribution in the region in the mid- 1990s.
Map 30-2 p873
Mourning in Bosnia
July 11, 2009
a Muslim woman mourns by the grave of a relative during the reburial of 534 newly identified victims of the massacre of up to
8,000 Muslim men by Bosnian Serb forces at Srebrenica in 1995. Each year on July 11, the anniversary of the
massacre, bones excavated from mass graves are matched to a name and reburied at the nearby Memorial Center of Potocari.
As of the 2009 ceremony, over 4,000 of the victims had been reburied at the Memorial Center.
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• Terrorism in the 2000s
• Global threat
• Attacks in:
• London
• Spain
• Russia
• Northern Ireland
• Basque
• Chechnya
• USA – World Trade, Pentagon, Sept. 11, 2001
• Pennsylvania (Flight 93)
• Iraq War & Shifting Alignments in the West
• After 9-11, US won widespread support
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Pres. Bush lost most of that support w/ his call to overthrow Saddam
Hussein’s regime in Iraq
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Great Britain join w/ us in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
• Arab Spring – began Dec. 2010 – Revolutionary movement to
overthrow autocratic rulers. (Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Libya)
Terror in New York
City,
September 11, 2001
With one of the twin towers of
the World Trade Center burning
from an attack at 8:45 A.M.,
a second hijacked plane crashed
into the second tower less than
an hour later.
By the end of the morning, both
towers had collapsed.
The Consequence of the
attack:
• The U.S. called for
the destruction of
weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq
• U.S. invasions of
Afghanistan and Iraq
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Global Economic Realignment
• Breakdown of old distinction between “developed”
and “developing” worlds
• The rise of China
– Deng Xiaoping’s reforms
– Production of manufactured goods for export
– New role as creditor in the E.U. financial crisis
• Advent of the G-20 after 2008
– Group of 20 – Nineteen nations & the EU (represent 90% of world economy)
– Group of 7 – The U.S., Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy & Canada
– Group of 8 – the Group of 7 plus Russia
• Purpose of the 3 groups = to coordinate the responses to an economic crisis
By the early 21st century, GDP varied dramatically among the European countries, revealing the wide disparity in
economic well-being across the Continent. The former communist countries continued to lag, even as some were
growing at impressive rates. The U.S. figure was $42,000, and Canada’s was $32,900.
(Figures are from 2008, before the worst of the economic crisis.)
Map 30-3 p880
Transition in Post-communist States
• The former Soviet bloc
– Facing the uncertainties of capitalism
– The example of Poland: successes and tensions
• Experienced a 50% rise in GDP between 1990-2005
• Became one of the Big Six in Europe (the six EU biggest states France, Germany, the UK, Spain, Italy and Poland)
• Suffered a widening gap between rich and poor
• Attracted considerable foreign investment
• The former Soviet Union
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Experienced a 50% drop in its economy from 1991-2001
Developed “Crony Capitalism & “Gangster Capitalism”
Moved toward greater authoritarianism under Putin
Suffered a decline in population
Vladimir Putin
• War in Chechnya
– Chechnya is a small Muslim republic located in the Caucasus
– 1994 provoked war with Russia for independence, compromise reached
in 1996
• Chechen hardliners oppressed the Russian minority, kidnapping & enslaving some
• Islamic militants began to spread Anti-Russian message – Russia renews full scale
war with Chechnya in 1999.
• Putin’s rise to power (head of Secret Police – hardliner against Chechens,
Yeltsin appts. him Prime Minister)
– Early Days:
• Won international acceptance, making Russia a major international
player
• Saw the emergence of a growing middle class
• Put restrictions on the media
• Attempted to increase the population of RUSSIANS by expanding
maternity benefits & grants to mothers
– Dramatic strengthening of the state
– Ruthless suppression of opposition
– Reliance on petroleum income
– Under Medvedev, growing anti-Putin sentiment
Vladimir Putin, right, quickly came to dominate Russian politics after his first election as president in 2000. For constitutional
reasons, he had to yield the presidency to Dimitri Medvedev, left, from 2008 to 2012, but Putin retained power as prime minister,
then reassumed the presidency in 2012.
Putin
Medvedev
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Two Models of Democratic Capitalism
• The “Free Market” model
– Embraced by the United States and Britain
– Conception of unrestrained competition as source of opportunity
– Willingness to accept resulting social inequality
• The “Social Market” model
– Embraced by continental Europe
– Concern about the injustice that can result from unrestrained
competition
– Desire to mitigate social inequality with government intervention
• Social Market Economy refers to the combination of capitalism & a secure
safety net in Europe.
• Convergences after the financial crisis of 2008
– Growing criticism and protest of inequality in the U.S.
– Both feel the pressure of globalization and aging populations
– Shared concern with how to continue funding the welfare state
Identities and Lifestyles
• New challenges to old identities
– A small but growing Muslim minority
• Raised questions about assimilation and the nature of European identity
• Example of France and the “Affair of the Scarves”
• France also had the highest % of Muslims in Europe in 2011.
– Growing influence of far-right anti-immigrant parties
– Anxiety that globalization will steamroll cultural differences
– Increasing demands for regional autonomy within nation-states
• The rise of consumerism
– Flattened out old class distinctions
– Growing abundance created new problems with pollution
• Religious change
– After WWII, adherence to traditional religion in Europe declined
drastically, though many stayed culturally Christian.
– The Catholic Church from Vatican II to John Paul II’s conservatism
– Resurgence of Orthodoxy and Islam in Russia
At the center of worldwide demonstrations in January 2004, French Muslims, mostly
women, march in Paris to demand the right of women to wear traditional Muslim attire in
public schools and other public buildings.
The placard says: “Schooling is my right, the veil is my choice, France is my home.”
A Referendum on Minarets in Switzerland Prominent in Zurich’s main train station in October 2009 were
strikingly designed posters provided by the Swiss People’s Party. They call for a yes vote in an upcoming
referendum on banning the construction of minarets, the slender towers typically accompanying Muslim
mosques, much as bell towers typically accompany Christian churches. The referendum passed the next month.
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The West in a Global Age
• Interdependence in the new “Global Village”
– Globalization and cultural mixing
• World Economy:
– Chinese dominance in manufacturing
– China’s control of much of the U.S. national debt
– A substantial move of European automotive production to east-central
Europe
– Former communist countries of east-central Europe appeal to
manufacturers in the West
– Western Europe’s Economy in the world:
• As European integration proceeds regional identities have intensified &
devolution has occurred
• France Adopted government-subsidized affordable day care for Preschoolers in the 1980s –
following other European countries.
• Disparity in Europe involve job security as in civil service – which is primarily
important
– How is the world less Eurocentric?
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The influence & impact of OPEC was universal
Chinese trade became a world factor
A Threatened environment involved world action
Nuclear threats from rogue nations threatened world peace
This map shows populations in 2002, as well as projected average annual growth rates
from 2002 to 2015, in countries throughout the world. In the developed countries of the
West, populations are relatively high but growing slowly, if at all. Most of the world’s
population growth is occurring in the less- developed countries outside the West.
Map 30-4 p891
• The “Western Tradition” in light of globalization
– Environment
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The fall of communism revealed environmental catastrophes
U.S. withdrawal from Kyoto had drawn serious criticism
Consumer culture still threatens the environment
Support for nuclear power is increasing in the Western world.
– Population
• Africa is the continent with the highest growth rate
• By 2050 the projected population of the world is 9.3
Billion
– Post-Modernist Movement
• Architecture
– Embraces: Tradition, Rationality, the Machine, and
impermanence & liberation from previous forms
• French Philosopher & historian Michel Foucault said
that the key to social or political power is the power to
specify what constitutes knowledge.
The Visual Record
Pages 896-897
Il Palazzo Hotel,
Fukuoka, Japan
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Der Neue Zollhof (The New Customs House),
Dusseldorf, Germany
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City of Arts and Sciences, Valencia, Spain
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The Presence of the Past in
Contemporary Europe
Especially with the
transformation of Europe since
World War II, new styles
intersect with living artifacts
from the past to form sometimes
ironic combinations.
Here, in a neighborhood in
Milan, Italy, a teenager on a
motor scooter seems oblivious
to the legacies of Christianity
and Renaissance architecture
prominent around him.
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