My friend Valentin recently met the Charles, the Prince of Wales. Valentin was forced to leave Rumania in 1991, and sought asylum in Great Britain, where he was granted British citizenship shortly before this meeting. He was presented to Prince Charles as an example of a young, well-educated Rumanian embodying a new Rumania that has successfully become integrated into the West and adopted the so-called Western values (whatever that means) as its own. The Prince shook Valentin by the hand and asked, »So you came here ten years ago?« Valentin answered, »Yes, but now I'm British, just like you!« The Prince responded with a typical aristocratic phrase: »Oh, how splendid!« and moved away from this strange new Briton who claimed to be exactly like him.

In the past ten years, the process of so-called transition in Eastern Europe has been seen as a journey starting from a situation in which the people living in the East are completely different from »us« (in the West), and ends with a situation in which they have become »exactly like us.« Not only their countries and societies are to be exactly like ours: the people themselves are to become as similar to us as possible. They should listen to the same music, see the same films, eat the same food, understand the same language, have the same or similar concerns in life, and vote for the political parties that stand for the same or similar values. They should cease to be like the figures from James Bond films that we used to laugh about and find so strange. One day, when they finally become like us, we – the West – will accept them as equals. Then we'll allow them to become part of our political world (for example, members of the European Union). But – not before!

Europe should not and cannot accept those who do not share what Javier Solana, while explaining the reasons for bombing Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999, called »common values.« The transition – as seen by mainstream representatives of political and economic Eastern European research – is above all a change in the system of values. The so-called »transitologists,« on the other hand, seem to have overlooked this dimension. In their analyes of the political processes in the former East of Europe, they neglect, as a rule, the subjective element, something they also often do when talking about the West or politics in general. Firstly, they assume that there is a clearly defined and attainable goal. Transition is no longer what O'Donnell and Schmitter called »transition FROM democracy«, but »transition TO democracy.« ¹ They think they know what democracy is, and what path leads to it. They think that they, as theoreticians of transition, possess the key to democratization – it is up to the politicians whom they advise to use it. If they do not, the transitologists propose sanctions ranging from gradual isolation to bombardment. As we saw from the statements that preceded the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, the reason for such sanctions can be summed up in one sentence: these countries did not make the effort to look like us and share common values.

Neither the present theory of transition nor current policies regarding Eastern Europe and the other non-Western parts of the world leave many options open. They insist on Adam Przeworski's claim that today, after the fall of communisim, there is only one game in town, and that is: liberal democracy. It is, as Fukuyama says, »the end of the ideological evolution of humanity.«² And it is the transitologists and democratologists who define what liberal democracy ist. For this reason, their power is enormous – no one succeeds in evading this power without serious consequences.

The problems with transitology already start with its universalistic claims. Whereas once upon a time a certain degree of plurality was allowed, and still is allowed for old members of the European Union (Greece, for example, was permitted to differ from Germany in many regards, and Great Britain can still stay out of the euro zone), this possibility is withheld from the new Eastern European members. They are either to become exactly like us, or remain outside. Remaining outside no longer means being left in peace, however. A country that is different than us cannot be allowed in our proximity or on our borders. Whereas borders between EU member states are becoming more and more relaxed, those between the Union and its neighbors are becoming increasingly strict. The claim of universalization thus leads us into a situation in which the choice is at the same time simple, and painful: either you are like us, or you are our enemy. Because of the mutual dependence and an enormous dominance of the powerful in today's world, a choice like this is really no choice at all. It is a choice between a voluntary and a forced loss of identity. The main reason for the small countries on the European periphery to become members of the Union is exactly this – they have no alternative. But if there is no alternative – if only one game is being played in town – then where is freedom?

The paradox experienced by Eastern European countries today consists in the fact that they thought they had freed themselves from bondage – and are now confronted with it once more. Formerly, they had no choice. For geopolitical, military and historical reasons they were forced to play the only game remaining to them – the Soviet game. And now, they again have no choice. In this way, the transitologists, in so far as they are in favor of the universalistic concept, are promoting nothing more than an expansion of the common values into a previously unconquered area that – because it has neither its own alternative ideology nor the power to support one – has no possibility of countering the process.

It is no wonder that the transitologists do not take account of the central question involved in the process of change in former Eastern Europe: that of a change in the hierarchy of values, one that is necessary if the East of Europe is to become the same or similar to the West. Transition is not first and foremost a change in the structure of the institutions, the founding of political parties, and an overall increase in wealth in the East, as the transitologists claim. It is rather a process of change within the system of values, both in the political and the economic area.

Politically, transition is a process in which the concept of state changes more than any other other as regards meaning and value. In communist socialism, the state was in the process of dying. It was to become public property. Its main functions were to be handed over first to the avant-garde (i.e. the Party), and then to the people, once it had become aware of its historical role. Socialism was an anti-state project. The state was its enemy. It is thus no wonder that ideas about the death of the state were strongest where there was an anarchistic tradition, as in Russia, or where the nation-state was not sufficiently developed, as in the Balkans.

In liberal democracy, the state can be reduced to a minimum, but can never die completely. Even a minimal state has an apparatus (army, police) that is strong enough to ward off the use of force both from outside and inside. Socialist states foundered on this. Yugoslavia – a country that took the idea of the death of the state seriously and developed the (self-administration) project furthest – weakened its state to such an extent that it was no longer in a position to ward off the violent forces from within. Now, all of this suddenly has to change. The introduction of Western values means introducing the Western model of a state: that is, introducing taxes and serious penalties for tax evasion, effective control of private arms etc.. Post-socialism is a period of building up nation-states on the Western model. This is what is behind the warning given by Chris Patten, the EU Commissioner for External Relations, that the Balkan countries have to change so that the rule of law finally prevails and the weakness of the institutions is overcome.³

In the economic regard, the transition mainly means introducting money as an absolutely dominant value. Socialism was no enemy to money or the exchange of money, but also permitted moneyless exchanges, and promoted a solidarity among people and social groups that compensated for a lack of money in public business. If the official or real income of people in Eastern Europe is considered today, it is impossible to understand, from a Western viewpoint, how these people survive at all. How is it possible in Serbia, for example, where the average monthly wage in August of this year was $US 165? The trick – one familiar to Eastern Europeans and completely foreign to Western Europeans – is the moneyless exchange of goods and services. Owing to a lack of money and a weak state, the people in Eastern Europe have learnt to live with bartering goods and services without paying for them. In the East, that was called »connections,« and in the West, corruption. Let us take the case of three friends as an example. One of them is a dentist, the other a car mechanic and the third a grocer. The first friend has no money to repair his car, but can help the car mechanic to start his daughter off at school, and can give the grocer's son maths lessons so he doesn't fail at school. The grocer will not pay him for this, of course, but will have the washing powder ready under the counter so the doctor doesn't have to wait in a queue and jeopardize his social status. The car mechanic will repair the grocer's tires free of charge and receive a good-quality piece of meat from him, which he takes along to the dentist the next time, who will attend to his teeth for nothing. In this way, everyone in this society received what they needed without seeing any money. People didn't need money while they had this solidarity and method of trade.

Now, that's all being changed. Our – Western – values are being introduced. The old system is being destroyed and a new one created. But there isn't enough money. The state mostly does not go in pursuit of criminals and mafiosi, although their number has increased in Eastern European countries to such an extent in the last ten years that they are a replacement for the dead state that has not yet been resurrected. In this interregnum, during which the one system no longer functions while the other is being constructed according to the recipe of various transitologists and the institutions under their control, it is only these transitologists who believe unconditionally in a better future. The others, who today are without privileges or protection, are less optimistic than ever. But what the unprivileged and unprotected think here (in the West) has no significance – why should we in the West there in the former East be worried?

 

Translated by Tim Jones

 

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