The people who make up today's generation of European public life between the ages of 40 and 70 (or even younger) are extremely lucky. There was never a war in their (our) lives, they never had to experience the horrors and trials of a real conflict, and the negative consequences that come with it. Until now - writes a staff member of vasarnap.hu in his opinion article.
From this point of view, Western Europe is in a particularly exceptional situation. Hungary and the countries of the "Eastern Bloc" lived through the 1956 revolution, the Prague Spring, the Polish events of 1981 and the Romanian revolution. Then, after the regime change, it didn't hurt to be on the lookout either, since the South Slavic war broke out almost immediately at Hungary's borders, which - if we add the NATO bombing of Serbia - lasted almost ten years. Thus, through this lens, Eastern European vigilantism works better than Western European vigilantism. The "luckier" half of the continent did not have to fear gunfire not only within the country, but thousands of kilometers from the borders. Lasting peace not only gave citizens, but also politicians a sense of security. The Western elite has formed, which thinks that instead of actions, it is enough to fight against a perceived or real, but usually more perceived, problem with words.
This is clearly demonstrated, for example, when someone worries about the masculinity of the Ukrainian army, saying that equality conditions are not enforced enough in the military. The real and now false sense of security that lasted for a long time simply made societies and politicians comfortable. The life instinct has been lost and problems that are irrelevant in a real conflict situation have become prominent.
In recent years, the Western European elite has chosen two paths in order to avoid having to find real solutions to real problems. On the one hand, he embraced matters that are secondary to the life situation of European people. It was like this when everyone became #metoo or when they worried about the Brazilian rainforest with the hashtag #prayforamazonia or when the problem of racial inequality became dominant with the hashtag #blacklivesmatter. Of course, these are all real issues and problems, but not necessarily in Europe, and above all, they cannot be solved by posting such a post on my Twitter every day. Moreover , unfortunately, after the uproar around the topics, they all disappeared into the abyss of political public discourse - without a real solution.
Another tactic of the Western European elite was that they wanted to solve their real problems with nice words or alternative actions instead of actions. The answer to Islamic barbarism is "je suis Charlie" and a French flag wallpaper, to the migration crisis "Wir schaffen das", and to Russian aggression is the mindless, self-damaging sanctions policy.
And what is the real scale? Failure, on the back of failure. A sidelined economic crisis, an unresolved migration crisis, botched vaccine procurement and measures that put millions of people in misery and, in principle, punish Russia.
This is what the Brussels elite, who grew up in peace, dealing with false problems, and educating us, can provide us Europeans. And this is increasingly taking a toll on our skin and our wallets, not only in Hungary, but throughout Europe, and this will bring the end of the age of mindless fake solutions. We just have to wait it out.
Source: vasarnap.hu
Author: Zoltán Kaszab
(Header image: YouTube)
