I can’t stop thinking about the interview I saw yesterday on Charlie Rose with SOHO’s billionare founder. One thing has stuck with me since, when Charlie’s asked her whether women fare far worse than men in China, and she answered that Chinese women probably fare the best in the world on a relative scale, when it comes to freedom and choices.

Now, social issues aside (let’s be clear that Chinese women, particularly rural ones, are seriously oppressed through marriage and traditional patriartical values, do in fact have the highest suicide rate of any female groups in the world), this is an interesting discussion to be had. Zhang’s arguement was that most middle-class Chinese women have a lot of support to learn on – child-rearing is supported by parents on both sides, and much household tasks can be off-loaded to affordable and readily available labour that migrates from the rural areas. This frees them up to pursue things outside of their homes, whether intellectually or in business matters. It is not hard to spot women in Chinese boards and high level executivie positions, nor are girls’ aspirations to make themselves a career anything to be surprised about. Compared to its East Asian neighbours, Korea and Japan, the female participation rates in the labour force is far far higher.

But consider how accidental this “progress” came to be – who could have predicted that in a still rather traditional and Confucius society, females in China have achieved what decades of feminist movements and thoughts in the West have fallen short in – an aspiration and a firmer grasp of economic freedom. Most of these are due to two events completely unrelated and unintended to have anything to do with female empowerment: 1) politics ordained official “equality”, and just like East Germany, this communist/socialist value pushed a lot of females into the work force, and 2) when China finally opened up post-80s, the working mentality had already been deeply entrenched in the Chinese female psyches for more than a generation, and urban females jumped on the career fast-track, courtesy of rural migration that bought to the cities wave after wave of available domestic help.

The cloest thing you see to the Chinese phenonemon is perhaps the US, where cheap Mexican labour has also freed up many Americans, men and women, to pursue more economically productive matters. In Europe, on the other hand, through stricter migration and labour laws, higher taxes (which makes it more worthwhile for you to take care of your own children, mow your own lawns, cook your own meals, and paint your own houses), and perhaps a higher level of complancy of females in knowing that their “equality” is realized through legal versus economic means, has practically barred its women from venturing back to the work force after having a family.  So is it Schadenfreude when the continent scratched its head and wonders what other tricks it has under its sleeves as to how it can best motivate and allow its highly-educated female population to become more productive members of society?

So while European women has resolved the work and life balance issue by clearly ticking the life box (or work, if you want to remain childless, and possibly family-less), and American women continues to fidget through internal battles of guilt, worries, while balancing and weighing their ambitions against their familial responsibilities, their Chinese counter-parts can more or less have both. It’s still an art to hold together a family while making meaningful contribution to your career, help or no help, but consider the probabilities of success in those aforementioned instances.

Sometimes when I see housewives leisurely pushing carts of their children through the park here in the neighbourhood, I wonder, in 20 years, when faced with their counter-part from another part of the world, children, husband, and all, how would these women feel? Would the so-called “equality indicators” really mean much at all? And whether more unintended factors, whether they be demographics, politics, matters of nature, will have far more influence over our lives than things we have struggled to advance and control.

When my now-fiancé first told his parents about his new girlfriend a couple years ago, me being Chinese-Canadian, the first question my now future father-in-law asked was, “does her family run a Chinese restaurant?”

Now, I love my father-in-law to pieces, who is a lovely man with not one drop of racist blood running through his veins.  But in his mind and through his experiences, perhaps the idea that a Chinese family can do anything other than running Chinese restaurants is a revelation. As far as I know, no members of my immediate family has ever ventured into the restaurant, grocer or laundry business.  So he might be disappointed that I’m not that good of a cook after all.

The point of the story is that when it comes to the issue of race, there’s a lot missing in the collective European psyche.  Through its own lack of experiences with multiculturalism – unlike in North American and other parts of the New World, where barriers and stereotypes get broken down and built up again, Europe is still stuck on Racial Issues 1.0.

I think this ad was meant to be funny, but is it?

Entitled “Ideal” – and to my eyes without the slightest sense of irony, the narrative goes to say that in an ideal world, the Netherlands is a small village, and then goes on to name various members of the farming community that produces the cheese in question.

After what feels like a great start to a propaganda film made for the Third Reich, where wholesome blonde girls and boys are contentedly occupied with various aspects of farm fun, the camera pans to an obviously dark-haired and ethnic girl – Fatima.

Slight pause, followed by the surprised but still jolly voiceover, oh, what the heck!  The implication being that as long as she’s making cheese – and playing by the rules of the farm, she’s part of the village.

Some might say it’s just the ad poking fun at itself for being too serious about the white picket-fence depiction.  Given the political situation in the country, where the far-right anti-immigration party is now projected to become the second-largest party in the country, and tempers are high on all fronts, is this really a sensible subject to joke around?

Call me hard-assed, but there are unspoken rules about what is appropriate to mock, and where. You don’t get to credibly make jokes about race unless your society has reached some level of racial harmony and mutual understanding on the subject.

So, dear misguided cheese company, until your supermarkets take those “negro kisses” off the shelf, your government starts to have some sensible conversations about immigrants and actually treat their children and grandchildren as your own citizens, those race jokes are not yet yours to make.

Canada and the US top the giving chart, coming up high on instances of money and time giving.  Although compared to the top performers of Europe, the difference is hardly noticeable.

The interesting difference comes from how giving changes with age. In no other region in the world, does giving rise at quite the same consistent pace as age as in North America.  Given US (and Canada) hardly has the most “secure” welfare system for the old and presumably eventually sickly, it is interesting how the upward slope contrasts with that in Australasia and Western Europe.

Do Americans just believe more in “giving it all away” when faced with the prospects of death, or are there more plausible, and perhaps cynical explanations out there?

source: Charities Aid Foundation

London is spending a pretty penny in getting a bike-sharing scheme up and running in the centre of the city.  Sounds great in theory, but why do I have the idea that the focus on getting the science and logistics right on bike logistics will not go very far in promoting and fostering a mainstream biking culture?

The Netherlands is perhaps the most bike friendly country in the world, followed by countries such as Denmark (or at least Copenhagen).  The roles that bikes play in everyday life has little to do with the availability of bikes on the road, but the fact that there are roads to bike on.

Now, like most of North American cosmopolitan centres that are also trying to encourage more biking and less driving, London suffers from a number of infrastructural problems.  To put it simply: the roads are built for cars, and bikers – the minority, have to make do with minimal disruption to the drivers – the majority.

Having lived in a bike-centric country for more than two years, here are some problems I foresee with the London attempt:

• Most of the bike lanes are either totally unmarked (you and your bicycle squeeze in however you can), or marked but only wide enough to accommodate one single bike that does not swerve.  This is unsafe.  Drivers swerve and hit bikers.  Sometimes bikers get killed.  After a couple of front-page headlines screaming “Biker get killed by speeding/drunk/careless drivers”, no mothers will want their kids try this.
• Bikers get suited up.  With reflective markings on their backs, anti-scratch shirts and pants, specialty biking shoes, protective gloves and helmet.  Now going out by bike becomes more of an exercise in playing dress-up than anything else, relegated to the hardcore.  Who else would bother?
• The anxiety of not having a dedicated lane to you, separated from BOTH car traffic and pedestrians, is a huge turn-off.  Imagine how feasible it would be to bike next to cars on a rainy day – the puddle splashes, on a foggy day – the fright! Some people talk about biking etiquette, but that is non-sense. Pedestrians are not told about walking etiquette, because they cannot be expected to share a paths with other moving vehicles.  Biking should be no different.  Separating all three types of lanes with barriers in between is the most sensible way to do this.

A few other things:

• Doing this kind of scheme densely populated area is best.  People will most likely not mind biking for around 30 minutes to work, 5-10 to get groceries or pick up their kids.  Anything more than that, alternatives will be considered.  This bike scheme is only available in central London, because London is simply too large to bike from end to end.  So for everyday commuters, I’m just not sure that by tacking on a bike ride at either the beginning or the very end of someone’s already excruciating commute will appeal to many people.
• Having a flat area/region/country helps tremendously.  You won’t be puffing and huffing once you reach your destination and have to change into a new shirt. Also, water don’t accumulate in inconvenient places that might make biking impossible during the rainy days.
• The is-this-comfortable test?  Most bike paths here fit at least 2 bikers at the same time, so you can have a nice chat with your friend while biking.  Helmets are unheard of – because biking is perceived as such a safe mode of transportation (and I don’t disagree, given the VIP lane treatment, but that’s very specific to this country), so you will look just as composed once you reach your destination. And biking skills have reached such expert level that it’s no shock to see girls with skirts and high heels, or guys with suits on bikes.  All this means that biking has reached the same level of convenience and comfort as taking the car or public transportation.
• For the biking culture to be adapted by the mainstream, it has to make economic sense above anything else.  We think we’ll bike because we want to exercise and save the environment, but more often than not, these are but a casual and positive by-product of biking when it is economically and socially advantageous to do. Biking is embedded in the Dutch culture, because it is the easiest and cheapest way to get around driving your expensive car and pay for exorbitant parking, and much faster than walking.  Surely, there are always bikers that will bike almost anywhere, regardless of conditions. But if the economic and convenience scale that weighs all other available modes of transportation does not tip in favour of biking in your city, than this kind of scheme will not take off on a massive level.

Home births has been getting more attention in the last little while in the English-speaking world, as the idea of purer and less interventionist births seem to coincide with the naturalist trend.

But are home births actually better and safer?  Some claim the rate of post-natal depression is lower in women that do give births at home, others see the practice as primitive and risky.

In the Netherlands, as many as a quarter of births take place in the home – which seems high, but still much lower than what it was 30 years ago. The midwifery role is well-integrated into the health-care system – who replaces doctors in their roles of monitoring pregnancies, birthing, and post-natal care.

The affinity for expectant mothers to turn to midwives instead of doctors has perhaps more historical and cultural bearings than what’s been given credit to.  The Dutch shuns painkillers and sees medication as the last resort, perhaps owning to its somewhat agrarian past where healthcare is not concentrated and widespread, and its Calvinist staunchness.

The government and the medical profession likes to keep the population think their stoic approach against pain and illness, is more sensible against what they view as the cry-baby paranoia of the Americans.  In fact, when a relatively famous Dutch TV host gave birth with the help of epidurals and later praised it as “invention of the century” (blasphemy!), she was quickly condemned by both the health ministries and physician associations for giving women the wrong idea.

As a result, it still remains that in the 21st century and a somewhat post-feminist world, when the majority of developed-world’s women have made peace with the role pain-relief plays during the birthing process, the average Dutch woman is still guilt-tripped into viewing a drug-free birth as the ultimate testament to their womanhood.

Visits to the doctors usually end with the patients empty-handed, with doctors doing little except telling patients to wait-and-see, and let-it-blow-over.  The entire healthcare profession also has little penchant for preventative care, which is to say, yearly check ups (no pap smears before the age of 40, and only every 2-5 years thereafter) and preventative dental care is almost unheard of.

But back to home births, is it better and just as safe as hospital births?  This report doesn’t seem to think so.  Although it’ll probably take another generation before the Dutch assertion that “home birth is the best option for a large number of women” goes challenged.

Germany is likely the only country in the world where Ricardian equivalence — the theory that the government cannot stimulate private consumption by cutting taxes because rational actors know that taxes will eventually have to rise again and therefore put aside savings — actually holds true.

As for reasons behind Germany’s obsession with savings? Other than the demographic pressures and a cultural of frugality?

History plays a role:

Whereas the Anglo-Saxon world is characterized by what one could call pragmatic optimism, Germans instinctively think about the long term, and they aren’t disposed toward cheerfulness. Whereas America’s recent history teaches hope, Germans see in their history the need to be cautious: In the last 100 years, Germans have experienced two currency reforms and the rise and demise of three regimes.

A distinctly German view on economic activity and the role of trade:

It’s an economic model that traces back to the beginning of the postwar period, when booming exports were the backbone of the Wirtschaftswunder, or economic miracle — the period of strong growth in the 1950s that transformed the destroyed country into a major world economic power. When Germans saw Volkswagens on roads all over the world, it wasn’t only a source of income, but proof that the country was once again an accepted member of the international community. Add Germany’s traditional obsession with engineering and its distaste for the service sector, and it may become clearer why the country is prone to mercantilism.

How government sees its place in macro-economic policy-making:

Germany simply does not have a tradition of macroeconomic policy, at least not in the American sense of managing aggregate demand. Contemporary German economics has its roots in Ordnungspolitik, a unique school of thought that emerged in the 1940s and for which there is no English translation. Ordnungspolitik accepts that government intervention is necessary for the economy to function properly, but the role it assigns to the state is fundamentally different than in the Anglo-Saxon tradition. Whereas most American macroeconomists believe in discretionary intervention in the way of countercyclical monetary and fiscal policy, German economists encourage the government to only alter the framework within which economic agents interact.

And as for Germans’ infamous fear of inflation?

By staking such a hard line, [Germany’s central bankers] managed to claim more influence for themselves in the West German political order. Germany’s contemporary fear of inflation is the product of an invented history — one that the mythmakers themselves came to believe.

I’m taking a short break away from the Lowlands, which gives me a good chance to reflect on the driving habits of my current compatriots.

There’s no doubt that the crowdedness of the country contributes to the overall feeling of aggression on the road. Behaviours such as tailgating, switching lanes with no signaling, not keeping to the right, relatively frequent use of the middle finger, all adds up to a pretty harrowing experience.

Taking into account the prevalance of biking as a serious mode of tranportaion in the country, perhaps this should not e a surprise.

Compared to the 2 cars per family (if not more) of more spacious lands, most Dutch families, when possible with work, make do with one car. That means a large portion of drivers on the road use cars only very occasionally.

I think of it this way: all those times much of North America spends on the road, driving to and from work, to the grocery store, going to movies, picking up kids from school; the average Dutch spends that time honing his ability to tackle various obstacles placed in front of his bike.

It would seem to me that as trivial as driving might be as a task, there is something to be said about practice. In my two years here, I have witnessed some truly mind-boggling driving behaviors that I can only attribute to time substituted on the bikes. In all fairness though, I’m also only on the road on the weekends too, so the sample is probably slanted towards the more amateurish set of weekend drivers. Alas, irony strikes as cloggie land mandates very expensive driving schools (around three thousand euros). And perhaps recognizing a rather unfortunate deficiency in manners, there are now discussion on driving exam touch-up when people renew their driving licences.

How do people invoke national football support as a boundary-drawing exercise?

In Scotland support for the national football team is regarded as a legitimate expression of national identity for both Scottish and English folk. The representation of a collective English national identity and ‘their’ stereotypes of the Scottish legitimate the assertion of a shared Scottish national identity, the maximization of differences between the national groups, and the justification for anti-English sentiment.

Moreover, this psychological attachment to Scotland and the Scottish is distinguished from the state of ‘being’ British. In England, respondents can also cast English and Scottish national identity in terms of national football, but treat these as problematic. Whilst the Scots are attributed with performing national identity and (justifiable) antagonisms towards the English through football, it is not acceptable for the English to do so.

Displays of collective English national identity are treated as irrational, a threat to individualism, and reflecting negative associations with hooliganism, xenophobia, and the values of the far Right. The inclusion of far Right hooligans into the sample, who do regard football as a legitimate expression of English nationalism, offers an insight into what the majority of the England-born sample resist.

Let’s tally up all the ways Europe is reversing gains made by decades of painful integration efforts:

• Germany’s North Rhine-Westphalia election clearly put German interests in front of European ones, and its vehement resentment towards Greek bail-out signals the country wants to come out of its WWII political backroom and function as a normal country.
• The Dutch electorate had a clear preference for more right-winged talk this time around. Two of the three top parties ran on platforms that 1) railed against the EU bureaucracy, 2) railed against (real or imagined) Islamic threats in the country.
• Belgians took it one step further than anyone else. Previously the golden child that saw itself the trailblazer in multiculturalism, the original mini-EU is now tearing itself apart at the seam.  The Flemish party which ran on a separatist platform won the election.  Although rumours have it that De Wever might very well let the Francophone Socialists run the country for a while, just so they can be the ones that nail the Belgian coffin shut for good.  In the meantime, this kind of stuff is happening.
• Ring-winged and nationalist parties have always existed on the fringe, but the economic crisis, along with flagrant abuses/misuses of power in Brussels are now ruffling more mainstream feathers than usual.  It’s not just France and Switzerland that have the occasional flair-ups, eastern European countries like Hungary have also entered a period of nationalistic radicalism.

Nationalism can stand alone in a sea of otherwise indifference.  But when closely clustered countries start to one-up each other, we get into trouble.  A decade ago, Europe could’ve pointed to Turkey’s nationalistic turn and snickered.  Nowadays, the pot can’t call the kettle black without sounding like a hypocrite. After all, in 2010, what could be more European?

[W]hat we will see emerging in Turkey is not an Islamist foreign policy but a much more nationalist, defiant, independent, self-confident and self-centered strategic orientation in Ankara. Because of similarities between the French and Turkish political tradition, I think it helps to think of this new Turkish sense of self-confidence, nationalism, grandeur and frustration with traditional partners such as America, Europe and Israel as “Turkish Gaullism.” One should not underestimate the emergence of such a new Turkey that transcends the Islamic-secular divide because both the Kemalist neo-nationalist (ulusalcı) foreign policy and the Justice and Development Party’s (AK Party) neo-Ottomanism — the ideal of regional influence — share the traits of Turkish Gaullism.

The best part of blogging is when the world echoes back, and someone challenges me on my ideas.  The latest question came from a dear reader, Amit, on the post I did a while ago on women’s labour participation in the OECD, particularly that of Japan and the Netherlands.

I’ve edited our email exchange slightly for easier web consumption.

Amit says:

1) The use of “abysmal” suggests that there is a pre-posited ideal state. Why so? It remains unclear as to whether the US and Scandinavian experiences with bringing vast numbers of women into the workforce fulltime are “correct” in an absolute sense.

Elizabeth Warren points out in her analysis of the US middle class, that women in the US workforce are there not just because they “want” to be, but often because they “need” to be, to afford housing and consumption at levels conditioned by media/pop-culture. She shows how the debt burden has risen per family, consistently, to the point where a prole+/bourgeoisie family has no alternative but to post 2 incomes to afford its suburban house (to which schooling is tied).

The US does not frown upon “assisted childcare” to allow women to work fulltime, but it also does not provide such care (though Scandinavian states do). For a mom to work fulltime in the US, the family takes on an additional expense burden (that eats away further into that debt servicing cash flow) of nannies and playschools, and the angst of knowing that this type of care is unregulated, and is held to a standard only on a caveat emptor basis.

Why is the US model good? Most American women (of a bourgeoisie status anxious grad schooled variety) I know, feel severe pressure to work and retain the “victories” of feminism, despite the strain it brings to their nesting and breeding instincts.

2) The Atlantic this week features the “millennial response” to the hook up culture, see it if you have time, and juxtapose with the Japanese sub-20 aspiration

3) I find your highlighting of the demand supply gap for the Y6MM+ man fascinating. If the US economy does not recover (through some fascinating and unforeseen next-big thing that generates jobs, perhaps it is Facebook?!), the same anxiety will grip American women of bourgeois extraction (and expectations).

There recently was an Atlantic review of the institution of Marriage itself, which shows that it will likely remain prevalent for bourgeois + (with richer women marrying younger and less educated and employed men, destined to be stay-at-home dads with part time work) and deteriorate entirely for bourgeois – (where marriage is largely abandoned already, 50% of kids are born out of wedlock, and 50% of those end up with an additional out of wedlock sibling via a different father within 5 years).

I’d call that sociological phenomenon of working women and stay-at-home-dads “inversion”.

I replied with the following, with mostly my observations and thoughts on why higher labour force participation for women is a net positive for society, and should be encouraged.

The reasons why I chose to highlight the low labour participation rate of women in this country [Netherlands] as a caveat for where the Japanese will most likely move toward, is because:

1. During WWI and WWII, most western countries’ female populations entered the work force because there were severe shortages of men, UK, US, Germany, etc.  The same didn’t happen in the Netherlands.  The country was occupied by the Germans relatively late in WWII, so it never suffered the same kind of labour shortages, which meant that women did not really step into the work force.

2. Contrary to popular perception, the Netherlands is a deeply conservative country.  Big surprise?

This is a country where the Christian Party is always featured prominently in elections, where they hold strong views on issues ranging from Sunday shopping (still a huge subject of debate even in big cities) to women’s places in society.  The views of the Christian party is well supported by popular opinion.  Outside of the Randstad (the triangular area of Amsterdam/Rotterdam and the Hague/Utrecht, the western and more developed areas of the country), women are expected to stay home after birth.  Those that rush back into the work force will have fingers wagged at them.

On top of societal pressure, child care is very expensive relative to income.  So for many, it is a  choice of finance, not one made out of emotional needs.  Germany is much the same, and the term Rabenmutter is quite infamous.

3.  It is perhaps then no surprise that, quite distinctly different from its Scandinavian neighbours, Netherlands has one of the worst maternity policies I have come across in developed countries.  Women get a mere 6 weeks of maternity leave after birth.  When I lived in Alberta, considered the Texas of Canada, women got a year off with 70% of their pay intact.

4. Now, you are saying, what’s the harm right? If women and families are happy with the way things are, why should anyone like me apply judgment on them?
Two reasons.

One is pure economics.  A country like the Netherlands simply can’t afford to.

On the one hand, it cannot afford to NOT harvest the productivity of half of its potential work force, which it has spent so much to educate.  I have seen statistics show that women on average are able to claim only 1/2 of what men can claim as pension at retirement time, because of the limited amount of time and investment they put into their working life.

On the other hand, 1 in 5 couples in the Netherlands is childless.  I have to do more research on whether that is better or worse than OECD average, but my guess is worse. If the examples of Germany and Italy is any indication (with shockingly low fertility rates), when faced with the choice to have children or continue building their careers, many women will choose the latter if society does not offer feasible options for them to do both.

We all know how demographics look in this part of the world. With a fear of immigration, putting children out at a rate higher than replacement ratio is the only way to ensure there’s enough working adults to support the graying population.  We’ve all heard this a thousand times, no need to say more.

But for many mothers or otherwise would-be-mothers, a lack of alternatives to pursue both tracks with social approval and financial support, they will choose one or the other, neither good for the long-run development of this society.

The other points is a bit more philosophical.  In a society like America, I think females have almost reached the post-modern place in term of gender progress (post Hilary, now Sarah Palin, so to speak).  In a place like that, some women can comfortably say, enough with that glass ceiling shit, I know I can do it, but I want to go home and spend time with my kids.  That is fine.  But that is after two (or is it three?) generations of struggles, to have bumped against the ceiling and made it, and to choose another paths.  That to me, is logical, and I would applaud mothers that choose that path.  But choice is the emphasis here.

The case with the Netherlands, and with Japan, is such that no such barriers have been broken.  It might seem a bit odd to lump those two countries together: one is confused with its Scandinavian neighbours in reputation when it comes to gender equality, the other is known to be paternalistic and operates under some assumption of misogyny.

But when it comes to the labour market, I dare to venture that they are closer than apart.  And it is somewhat misguided to think that just because its women have sexual freedom and ranks high on random gender issue/equality index, that the cultural and social setting, and the amount of gender progress made in this country is anywhere close to where America (and some others) is at the moment.

What do you think?  Write me and let’s talk!

1. On the difference between empiricists and philosophers, and the size of blunders they commit.

Most of the world seems to think that the Americans are the ones who do the crazy things, but it is really the Europeans who commit the colossal blunders. Americans are empiricists – they will try anything, but if it doesn’t work they stop doing it. Europeans are thinkers, philosophers. They theorize and analyze brilliantly creating castles in their minds, turning them over and over to perfect them. The tradition starts with Plato, then Machiavelli, and goes through Karl Marx, Nietzsche, and Pareto, to the creators of the euro. Every philosophy can be discredited. It is only when a concept works in the real world over time and is adjusted to fit changing circumstances – like Communism in China – that one can be sure of success. All empiricists know that the euro can not work as constructed, but the Euroleaders will destroy their economies, harming the Swiss as well, until they are forced from power.

2. On the problematic side of free education, of which the lack of standards naturally emerge as a side effect, as manifested in the Swedish educational experiment.

Yet the Swedish authorities’ own research has concluded that over the last fifteen years since the free schools were introduced, the number of low performing pupils has increased in Sweden, while the high performing pupils have neither increased in numbers nor have they become more successful.

The free school system, implemented without imposing clear standards, has seen schools opening with sub-standard facilities, often without libraries, and with a far greater number of unqualified teachers.

What’s more, the introduction of free schools has led to increased segregation where pupils from the same social background increasingly concentrate in certain attractive free schools.

This matters because segregation and poorer facilities serve no-one but the Conservatives seem to specifically think that these “freedoms” are positive aspects of the policy. This is a serious mistake.

3. Should Europe work harder? While Americans kick itself in the butt continually in the race to keep up with emerging workaholics the likes of Japanese and Koreans around the world, Europe says, meh.  Productivity can help you catch up to, say, the US, when the rest of the emerging countries are mired in political instability.  But nowadays, when there are competitors out there willing to put in the hours and invest in productivity, you think Europe in the next 50 years will look anything like what it does today, when measured up against the rest of the world?

4. What an ex-Cold War spy thinks of the current European Union. Ouch.

“The European Union is like some tasteless Dutch vegetable, irredeemably detumescent,” he pronounces. “I mean, just look at that extraordinary woman they have made foreign minister, Lady Ashton — she looks like ET as dressed by Oxfam. The best thing the EU could do would be to draft in another country, somewhere like Angola, which would torpedo the whole wretched union thing and put it out of its misery.”

5. When politicians think they are know-it-alls and vote political and economic unions into place, without reading writings on the wall.

When Josef Joffe, then foreign editor of the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung, wrote a 4,000-word essay in December 1997 attacking the planned formation of the European single currency, he published it first in English, in the New York Review of Books. “Never in the history of democracy have so few debated so little about so momentous a transformation in the lives of men and women,” noted Mr Joffe. As if to confirm his point, the article appeared in an abridged German translation in the Süddeutsche Zeitung more than a month later, unobtrusively buried in a weekend supplement.

Belgium’s government dissolved, and the almost 200 years experiment of constructing two (maybe 3 if you count the German minority to) major linguistic groups – based on mutual resentment and suspicions, amongst other national interests of its neighbours, is on the brink of collapse.

This is hardly shocking.  The Belgians have gone without a government before, and the linguistic divide between the Flemish and the Walloons are well known.  I wrote about encroachment of Catholicism in Netherlands and the potential of a unified Flemish and Dutch state a while back.  And as far as Belgium background pieces go, it doesn’t get better than this.

What I do find interesting is the parallel between what is going on in Belgium and what is potentially in store for the EU in the foreseeable future.  Consider this piece from the Telegraph three years ago.  Obviously written from a rather euro-skeptic point of view, but worth looking at nevertheless.

Belgium functions – or malfunctions – on the same basis as the EU. There is no Belgian language, no Belgian culture, precious little Belgian history.

As the winner of June’s election, Yves Leterme, has put it, Belgium resides in the king, the football team and some beers. To paraphrase René Magritte (one of the few unquestionably famous Belgians): “Ceci n’est pas une nation”.

Unable to appeal to a shared identity, the fledgeling Belgian government had to buy people’s loyalty though massive public works schemes. Every state institution was dragged into the racket: the trade unions, the nationalised enterprises, the social security networks.

Belgium, in short, became a microcosm of what the EU is becoming: a mechanism for the arbitrary reallocation of money.

Is the same happening within the EU experiment? Substitute northern Flanders for the northern constituents of the EU, and Walloons in the south for the southern and eastern constituents of the EU, do you get a comparable situation in the EU?

Belgium is failing because there are no real Belgians, just as there are no real Europeans. Rather, there are discrete peoples, with their own languages, television stations and political parties.

A democracy without a demos – the unit with which we identify when we use the word “we” – is left only with kratos: the power of a system that compels by force of law what it cannot ask in the name of patriotism. And kratos alone cannot sustain a state.

The Greek crisis is certainly testing the resolve of the Union.  Although much ink has been spilt over the survival of the euro in the medium term, few are questioning the longer term survival of the European Union.

But remember what Zhou En Lai said when asked about the impact of the French Revolution (1789) in 1972, “it is too early to say.”  Ultimately, survival or demise of the EU experiment, just as the Belgian project, is far from inevitable, and perhaps too early to tell.

Europe may have in recent years refrained from violence to settle ethnic quibbles, but in the southern and eastern corners of the continent, attempts on having the last word on history is far from abandoned.

Check out the Macedonian and Greek quarrel here, and the tedious bickerings between various other pairings here.

Backed when I lived in Toronto, there were areas in the city where you would see veiled women.  I feel the same way about veils as I do, well, Mormons in full Mormons dresses, or Jews in full Orthodox gear.  The light bulb that goes off is: these are some pretty religious people, and they are probably fairly segregated from the community at large.

And most likely, these not people I would end up fraternizing with, nor am I someone they would want to hang out with anyway.  But if they can navigate and do well within their own communities, what business is it of mine, or anyone else’s, to tell them how to live?  The idea of “female repression” barely registers.

So could this whole big deal about banning the hijab in France be the result of a specific French interpretation of the veil?

According to a fact-finding project conducted last year that surveyed general public’s attitudes towards Muslims in the UK, France, and Germany:

The general European populations surveyed are more likely to associate the hijab with religiosity than fanaticism, oppression, or being against women.  … [T]he general French population is more than three times as likely to associate fanaticism with the hijab than the French Muslim population.

As for the reason most frequently cited by French politicians in support of the ban?

Regarding the link between “repression of women” and the hijab, the views of the two communities differ by an even greater margin: 52 per cent of the general French population associate the hijab with repression, compared to 12 per cent of French Muslims.

If France thinks the deep-rooted social and structural problems behind integration can be solved by removing veils from the streets, then they’ve got another thing coming.

But then again, Sarkozy also supported the Swiss ban on minarets, so there you go.

Escaping the mediocrity, sometimes unfathomable bureaucracy, and a general lack of opportunities in their home countries, many European economists have stayed in the US after pursuing a degree.

This is not exactly shocking news.  But it reminds me of my own.  So allow me to indulge for a minute.

While in university, some of my friends went on exchange, and many to Europe.  While getting B-ish grades in our own universities, many came back with A+ from schools in Europe while maintaining a party schedule the rest of us could only dream of.

Not too long ago, I myself spent some time at a European university for a master’s degree.  Now watching my boyfriend also pursuing a master’s degree from the same reputable university, I can say from first-hand experience: There-Are-No-Standards.

First off, many universities in Europe have no entrance cut-offs.  That means, with the right preceding degree – which was also given to students that studied with no real entrance requirements, you are stuck in a classroom with the lowest dominator.  Having a “tolerant” education system also means assignments can be handed in late, exams can be taken and re-taken, an atmosphere of genuine lacklustre-ness prevails.

Adding to the lack of uninspired classroom interactions, the hierarchical structure on the other end of the podium is also unfathomable. Unlike the tenured and untenured tracks in the North American system, complete with resident RAs that mark assignments and hold the occasional seminars, the entire supporting arm of this higher education branch is missing!

Contrasting my lonely graduate student life with those that pursued their graduate careers in Canada – with their own office space, more-or-less guaranteed research assistant positions, access to professors and conferences, and a structured graduate-student social life, my deal was truly crap.

So I buy the story when it says:

Many of the Europeans first came to the U.S. as graduate students, frustrated by the limited options offered by European universities. … Getting a doctorate in her native Belgium was unappealing, … because students were left on their own, with little academic support or oversight; many Ph.D. candidates she knew became discouraged after a few years and gave up. In the U.S., by contrast, the university was geared toward the student. Professors were approachable; research facilities, including libraries, were first-rate; and financial and other assistance was readily available.

I also buy the argument that subjects such as economics, treated as a scientific pursuit in North America, is still subject to political and philosophical whims when presented in Europe.  I once sat in an advanced political economy class, where mercantilism was offered as a viable alternative to the current global economic system.

Obsolete and disproved Marxist and socialist thinking also remained strong within European universities, including in economics departments. Many young economists, scientifically oriented and so recognizing the superiority of free markets, found the climate intellectually stultifying. It remains the case that most French and Italian universities teach economics as a philosophical subject—with opinions mattering as much as facts—not a scientific subject. A Keynesian, statist perspective still dominates most European curricula: free-market professors are an embattled minority.

I can’t help but think that much of what goes on in those supposed intellectual hot-beds called universities, particularly in Europe, because of its relatively low level of diversity when it comes to political ideologies and economic preferences, tend to be self-selective.  Therefore, the Keynesians and statist school will always dominate, no matter the timing.  And those that want alternatives have no choices but to leave.