ALEXANDER DECROO KNUFFELPREMIER

Belgie heeft een regeringsleider waarin het zich kan herkennen. Dit doet niets af van de "verdiensten" van zijn voorgangers.  In minder dan drie maanden is hij er in geslaagd het vermoeide politieke discours te keren. Hij is de gedroomde schoonzoon, de proto Belg, met het curieuze taalgebruik vandien. De oppositie is voorlopig de media strijd verloren.

Deze regering komt na te lange Byzantynse onderhandelingen, waarin te veel geruchten en theatrale uitvallen opvielen. De korte "staatsgreep" PS/ N -VA is niet doorgegaan, mede omdat De Wever zijn charisma niet langer kon vergulden. Het erbarmelijk parcours van de Vlaamse regering is daar niet vreemd aan. Vivaldi is een in vitro formule en niet het resultaat van een passionele verhouding. Decroo is er niettegenstaande in geslaagd de opinie warm(er) te maken voor zijn premierschap. Paul Magnette (PS) was de geroepen kandidaat als regeringsleider, te meer dat hij verantwoordelijk is voor een aantal gemaakte keuzes. Hij heeft trouwens het charisma, de intelligentie en de taalvaardigheid. Dat Decroo een Vlaams politicus is, maakte van hem de onvervangbare prins inter pares.

De ploeg is er een van verademing en verjonging. Frank Vandenbroecke (SP.A) is de geteste Ancien, met karakter. Het wordt vooral uitzien naar het post COVID 19.  De socio-ekonomische puinhoop wordt een bijna niet voorstelbare uitdaging. De lidstaten en de  EU wacht een heroisch creatief herstel initiatief, waarvoor nog geen model voorhanden is. Vincent Van Peteghem (financien/CD&V) en vooral Thomas Dermine (Relance, wetenschapsbeleid /PS) valt de Prometheus uitdaging toe om de zaken proberen recht te trekken. Dermine heeft nu de kans gekregen om zijn profiel van Wunderkind waar te maken.

Annelies Verlinden (binnenlandse zalen /DD&V), Vincennt Van Quickenborne (justitie/openVLD) en Sophie Wilmes (buitenlandse zaken/ MR) worden beschowd als pro's. Wilmes vooral moet proberen de geloofwaardigheid van Belgie te herstellen ( NAVO, EU, VN ( mislukt parcours in de Veiligheisdraad), AFRICA, AZIE, dossier Brussels Airlines enz. Het wordt ook tijd dat het onthaal in Brussel eindelijk te bekijken valt, liever dan te omzeilen.

Decroo kan daarbij nog het voorbeeld van zijn vader, ras politicus, opvolgen. Hij kan ook rekenen op de persoon van de koning, die een te naderen persoon is geworden in een land dat lijdt onder een nadelig saldo aan symboliek.

BREXIT REQUIEM

An unpleasant divorce is probably better than an acrimonious agony. The Brexit agreement has zero sex appeal, the way separations go. Besides, the 500 pages will be read by none and only used, in part, when needed or convenient.

It is hard to see what the United  Kingdom has achieved. The prime minister claims that Britain got its sovereignity back. Nobody ever thought it had been lost.  Ascot, the parades and the hats survive. The Crown is the ultimate depositary of the country's DNA.

The agreeement sent Mrs. Thatcher's Single Market to the gallows, together with her handbag. Her dishevelled current successor decided to run the illusion rather than the waves.

This Brexit is a nightmare:  cross sector retaliation, arbitration (versus litigation), requirement for passports, deportation, etc. create a minefield that will be hard to navigate. Too many clauses have a temporary time-limit and others are shaky. From fisheries to Ireland, the road is a slippery: one which might trap goodwill and reliability.

The EU and the UK are together in too many fora to become structurally divided, but the Churchillian amorous quarels are gone for ever. They are a thing of the past.  Mrs. Thatcher was a partner who worked on European nerves, still she was part of the fanily: a Mary Poppins on steroids.  Boris Johnson is a Trumpian politician whom Europeans love to hate.  Nevertheless, nothing lasts forever. Remember de Gaulle's veto against the UK joining the Common Market (La chaise vide)?  Some are of the opinion that, after all, the General was right, that Britain and the continent did not belong together.  Others differ.

It can stll be argued that Britain deserves its place in Brussels, more so than Hungary for instance.  One does not have to return to the Magna Carta or the centuries of mutual hate/love to be convinced of the desirability of London's participation in European affairs. 

Brexit is the result of an arrogant miscalculation of David Cameron, who fits more in a Wodehouse novel than in Westminster. It is hard to imagine that the undoing could be revisited in the short-term. The Europeans, who disagree about most, are united in their contempt for the Brexiteers who ended up being even more unsufferable than the Visegrad hooligans.

The clock is turned back for now. Both the EU and the UK are exhausted, relieved that the nightmare is over but worried because of the booby-trap that may be hidden in these 500 unholy pages. Divorce can be harder to navigate in the absence of a pre-nuptial or a clean-cut. This curtain call could have been avoided if it were not for the arrogance of the fools who set it unnecesarely into motion.

2021 : EXPLOSIF

2020 aura ete une annee globalement deficitaire. En realite, elle a ete un crash annonce, dont les consequenes risquent d'etre perverses. Commencee sous le signe du Zodiac malefique de Trump elle se traine comme un cauchemar de Goya. Le Covid 19  s'est empare des jours et des vies, avant que les vaccins n'arrivent, comme a l'Opera, au troisieme acte, apres que les jeux sont faits.

J'attends que Michel Houellebecq nous livre sa version de cette descente aux enfers. Apres tout , de "Soumission" a "Serotonine" la boucle est fermee. Reste le constat. 

Il est consternant d'observer combien les meilleures intentions derappent. Elles visent la lune mais elles n'arrivent qu'a s'ecraser sur une surface en carton, type Melies. Certes, les interventions et vaccins finiront bien par achever la bete, mais les consequences plus structurelles demeureront longtemps en chantier

Le reveil sera sans merci. Le tele-travail aura vide les temples du capitalisme. Le nombre de nouveaux pauvres sera enorme. Les comportements basic, affectueux, familiaux, sexuels, spontanes risquent de sortir abimes du coma artificiel. Au demeurant, les patients qui se sont remis du Covid 19  presentent des symptomes atypiques pour lesquels la science reste  inconsistante.

Il est evident que la morale ou la philosophie hesitent a affronter de front les rivages traitres de cette pandemie, venue de nulle part. Le courage politique fait defaut. L'imagination empirique reste introuvable. La religion fait le mort. Il n'en reste d'ailleurs a peu pres rien. En Europe Occidentale laique, seuls quelques Sociniens survivent, dificilement.

On entre dans l'inconnu. L'autorite deja debordee, voir meme depassee, approche l'avenement de ce nouveau cycle avec anxiete. Bien qu'il devienne clair que les arrangements et certitudes passes sont devenus obsoletes, personne n'a le courage d'affroter la nouvelle realite. Alors que tout  change devant nos yeux, le bricolage ephemere continue d'occulter la revision fondamentale. 

Il faudrait pourtant mieux opter pour Danton plutot que d'attendre l'arrivee de Robespierre. On peut s'attendre a des tensions sociales destabilisantes, des lors que la dette, le chomage, la deliquescense de plusieurs pans de l'economie et l'agonie du secteur artistique, demandent des interventions courageuses. 

Le temps presse, d'autant plus que le rechauffement climatique devient  incontournable. Les flux financiers ne quittent toujours pas le delta des possedants, feignant ignorer l'amont des "nouveaux pauvres". Ces desequilibres sont destabilisants. Les services publics plient, la police craque, la population deprime. Une nouvelle generation de criminalite va inmamquablement apparaitre.

 Ce ne sont pas les mirages des pays du Golfe, colportes par CNN (contre renumeration), qui exposent un monde meilleur. Ces images fabriquees de modeles - femmes et hommes - genre Glamour made in Saudi ne doivent pas occulter l'assassinat de Khashoggi ou la situation des travailleurs migrants abuses qui croupissent loin des regards des medias. 

Pour le meilleur et le pire les Etas Unis ont ete le moteur des grands changements dans le monde. A court terme Trump les a mis KO. Il n'est pas certain qu'ils sortent rapidement de leur stupeur. L'UE est devenue un projet laborieux et trop byzantin pour pouvoir reclamer un premier role alors qu'elle ne sait meme pas agir contre  ses membres infrequentables. La Chine cree trop d'envies pour laisser une place a l'emulation spontanee. Des initiatives de pays comme la France (trop hexagonale), le Royaume Uni (hors jeu) ou l'Allemagne (le poids de l'histoire) sont dead on arrival. Un nouveau groupe de Bandung n'est pas a exclure, mais quand ? Sans "ennemis" communs, les 77 d'hier sont devenus des enjeux plutot que des acteurs.

Bon, l'envol de la mongolfiere 2021 est attendu, sans GPS... et encore sans public. Egon Musk et le Big Tech sont les maitres des cieux . La rue reste a prendre...

US ELECTIONS ACT 6 : TRUMP'S SHAME

Finally the Electoral College has confirmed Biden's victory, both in terms of his overall score and by the numbers in the Electoral College. The Republicans swallowed their lies and halted their gruesome tactics, for now. Trump will never give up since in his sick, infantile mindset it is all about himself. This fabricated real estate Wunderman is nothing but the ultimate 'demolition man.'

America looks like Pompei after the Vesuvius, covered under the weight of four years of corruption, falsehood, denial, organised crime and looting. Prestige and influence lie in the gutter. It becomes hard to believe that this unglorious descent follows a century of existential continuity. There have been colossal mistakes in the past:  slavery, racial discrimination, Vietnam, Iraq....but the pain led to some form of atonement and realization thast something that went dramatically bad that needed to be adressed, collectively.  Instead, lately Americans have had to cope with a 24-hour news cycle of relentless war against facts, science, truth, which left people exhausted.

The new president will have to be the "healer-in-chief".  He needs to restore credibility and civility inside and abroad.  He must lift America out of the category of dubious players, like Brazil, Poland, the Gulf States and Co. It is going to be difficult to convert Trump's base to a more generous form of political discourse since their "leader" will not choose for a more gentle withdrawal in the sunset, as his predecessors did. 

Biden will need support before the United States can lead again.  Europeans should be generous in their support, be it in a more robust burden-sharing in NATO, in welcoming America back in the Paris climate agreement, in WHO,  in trade and in a renewed investment in culture and human rights. These are difficult times since  Covid-19 rules the hearts and minds. Society as we knew it one year ago is gone for ever.  Social behavior, the laws of economy, structural breaking points need a global Rooseveltian intervention. It is unfair to expect the new American president and  vice-president to help the world to break out the Gotterdamerung in a fortnight. It is fair however, to hope for the good of all, that president Biden will try to be the steward of an enlightened global search for solutions that can bring solace for many without privileging one. It would be useful if such an inclusive reflexion could bring back a revisited group of Bandung (the 77). Yesterday's non-alignement is a thing of the past for sure, but the emergencies of today (in the first place climate change, looting of natural resources, the Pikety curse) demand that groups rally among themselves for various degrees of self-preservation.

We are entering unchartered waters. Recent pillars of reason are already immersed by the incoming tide. In the past there were major intellectual events which spurred a coming together of ideas. The Russian revolution, World War II, the end of the colonial arrogance, the Cold War ,Vietnam, the fall of the Berlin Wall created a wave of thought and creativity. Now the voices are muted and Trump was able during his four years of aberration to detrone sense and let noise rule. Thinkers and crators went into hiding. The time has come to wake up and to kill once and for ever the "alternative reality" which was house bred in this grotesque White House.

WHAT ABOUT THE CROWN ?

This new Netflix chapter in The Crown's saga was at the same time riveting and ordinary. The story is well-known and the behavior of the protagonists, looking like lost souls in a soap opera, is flabergasting. The royals are portrayed as being all about rituals and curtsies and about nothing else outside but their own moth-balled charades at home. They live in decors they inherited, by prerogatives which remain unquestioned and "ruling" over subjects they are clueless about. Even Diana runs "empty" in the midst of a pack of dogs.

The Crown can be seeen as an idictement of a system which is out of touch with reality, as much as the Tsarist regime was oblivious of its subjects. The Windsors are presented as fools without redemption. The "entourage" is made of deranged minds and arthritic knees that are beyond therapy.

Other second- and third-tier monarchs must look at this sad farce with an amount of dread and fear.  Presidents come and go. Trump or Nixon's attempts to install some pomp in the office were derided in the start blocks. The monarchical magic doesn't work any longer. Grace Kelly and Diana were actually "imports" who blew up the machine before becoming themselves victims of their Guy Fawkes attempts to let fresh air in.

This last Netflix batch felt tired and gloomy. The queen looks like being on automatic pilot.  Even Thatcher is reduced to a script made for a frustrated vicar's wife. The actress who plays Diana makes an almost heroic attempt to come close to the "myth" but her battle is too uphill to eclipse the original.  Camilla's part is kind of subversive:  cigarettes, whisky.

Reconstitutions and remakes are the more arduous if the original was a bummer to start with. Most of these people are too mediocre to attain a level of lasting interest.