{"id":75556,"date":"2016-06-27T12:00:59","date_gmt":"2016-06-27T11:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=75556"},"modified":"2016-06-24T16:03:36","modified_gmt":"2016-06-24T15:03:36","slug":"the-brexit-shock-now-all-is-up-in-the-air","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/06\/the-brexit-shock-now-all-is-up-in-the-air\/","title":{"rendered":"The Brexit Shock \u2013 Now All Is Up in the Air!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"jan<\/a>24 Jun 2016 – <\/em>The UK, Europe and the rest of the world will be affected. But there has been no planning for this anywhere. It\u2019s now all up in the air what this Brexit vote will be the starting point of. All we can safely predict is that we are in for interesting times!<\/p>\n

Why did it happen?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Arrogant corporate and other elites continuously enriching themselves against all common social sense and ignoring the legitimate needs and concerns of ordinary citizens, women in particular \u2013 so, class and gender.<\/p>\n

So too that more highly educated people tended to vote for Remain and older people voting Leave \u2013 more interesting sociological analysis here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, the whole art world supported Remain<\/a> \u2013 and now fear for the effects of Brexit on Britain\u2019s cultural development.<\/p>\n

An EU that has failed to create a new, better way of doing politics, merely growing its original democratic deficit \u2013 so, lack of real democracy.<\/p>\n

An EU that has had a woefully inadequate, cynical response to a refugee crisis caused by leading EU member states\u2019 warfare \u2013 so, (mis)management and lack of leadership.<\/p>\n

Significantly, the leading Muslim Association of Britain, MAB, supported Remain with the argument that \u201dExit from the EU runs the risk of perpetuating rifts in British society, which would increase levels of hate crimes against British Muslims.\u201d So, Islamophobia.<\/p>\n

A general sense (but sometimes denial) of insecurity about the future all over the Western world, a deep sense of failure, loss, sense of risk of war in Europe and the fact that the rest of the world is moving ahead and will surpass the West; a sense that of the West lead by the the US getting relatively weaker and lacking leadership \u2013 so, psycho-political-civilisational insecurity.<\/p>\n

A fall-back to \u201dme and my home\u201d and closing the doors to the wider world world\u2019s problems \u2013 nationalism, xenophobia, right-wing, neo-nazism populism and all the things many of us hoped had visited Europe for the last time \u2013 so, populism\/nationalism\/regression.<\/p>\n

\"Queen-Brexit-Sun\"<\/a>What could it lead to?<\/strong><\/p>\n

An exit domino effect in a number of countries \u2013 referendums and eventually a quite small EU or no EU.<\/p>\n

A punishment by Germany and other EU of the UK for leaving, depending somewhat on whether the post-EU Britain will not only move out of the EU but also closer to the US.<\/p>\n

It could also, in the best of cases, lead to a re-think throughout the EU and a real effort to do things differently \u2013 but unlikely given the EU is already in crisis and lack visionaries in politics.<\/p>\n

A referendum in Scotland, further reducing the unitedness of the Kingdom.<\/p>\n

A reshuffling in the global economy \u2013 London being so much of a global financial centre. Where will the banks and investors go now? What will China do that had London as it\u2019s major hub?<\/p>\n

A tumbling of the British \u00a3 and turmoil on the financial markets, weakening of the US$?<\/p>\n

A Britain in deep economic crisis \u2013 or perhaps starting out on a new course with a great future, speeding ahead of the average EU?<\/p>\n

A Britain that ties itself (even more) to the US in security political terms and an increasing conflict between those two and EU\/NATO countries \u2013 spelling the dissolution of NATO.<\/p>\n

What does it signify?<\/strong><\/p>\n

That democracy works \u2013 and that it doesn\u2019t. The referendum instrument is an utterly democratic method \u2013 as Switzerland continues to prove to the world.<\/p>\n

But then, is<\/em> it wise that such an important decision can be made with such a small majority? Wouldn\u2019t it have been reasonable to demand, say, 2\/3 majority for Leave?<\/p>\n

To ignore now what over 48% wanted isn\u2019t good. But, anyhow, nobody trusts politicians nowadays and perhaps the effects will be smaller than most fear today.<\/p>\n

That the \u2013 Western centre \u2013 doesn\u2019t hold anymore. Such an important country leaving the EU is a blow beyond imagination to the entire idea of that Union.<\/p>\n

Basically that the West is getting weaker and while trying to \u2019divide and rule\u2019 it is fragmenting from inside.<\/p>\n

The EU is getting weaker in spite of still being the largest economic bloc in human history. Because of the rise of other economies, the 28 countries accounted for 30% of the world\u2019s total output in 1980 and 16,5% in 2015. With the UK leaving, the EU loses 15% of its GDP.<\/p>\n

That the EU construction and Lisbon Treaty, written up by three old men, was wrong and outdated from the outset and lacked every potential to appeal to the diverse citizenry throughout Europe, particularly the younger ones.<\/p>\n

That there is no vision and strategy; no one \u2013 no one! <\/em>– seems to have the faintest idea about what will happen now \u2013 as Ken Livingstone, London\u2019 former mayor, expressed it on Russia Today<\/em> the morning after.<\/p>\n

*******<\/p>\n

Be sure that Brexit on June 23, 2016 will be remembered as a turning point. And be sure that, while we do not know what will happen after Brexit, it\u2019s not a message of good things to come for the already crumbling, vision-losing Western part of our world.<\/p>\n

\u201dMay you live in interesting times\u201d as the English say, considering it a curse. The Chinese \u2013 to whom this phrase is often falsely attributed \u2013 expresses it differently: \u201dBetter to be a dog in peaceful time, than to be human in a chaotic (warring) time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both probably meaning that our time is more fraught with insecurity than ever\u2026<\/p>\n

______________________________<\/p>\n

TFF Director Prof. Jan Oberg is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 transnational.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

24 Jun 2016 – The UK, Europe and the rest of the world will be affected. But there has been no planning for this anywhere. It\u2019s now all up in the air what this Brexit vote will be the starting point of. All we can safely predict is that we are in for interesting times! \u201dMay you live in interesting times\u201d as the English say, considering it a curse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transcend-members"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75556\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}