Foreign Policy: An American in Paris

by John Rensenbrink

Dear Greens,

     Is there any longer such a thing as a Foreign Policy (emphasis on foreign)? Coming away from the Paris Congress of the European Federation of Green Parties February 26-28, I was struck by the inappropriateness of the term. The Green vision embraces the world and for a Green there is nothing "foreign" about any part of it. As an American in Paris for a long weekend of (mostly) listening to the European Greens and also Greens from Australia, Africa, and Mexico, I felt the force of the Green slogan: think globally.

     And yet to me it seems that we Greens have not nearly sufficiently explored and developed an approach to the world that fulfills global thinking. Holistic thinking. Thinking for the whole. Often, here in the USA for example, we often just fall back routinely on responses to world events that we've learned from the peace movement, along the lines of **U.S. OUT OF____** (and fill in the blank: Cuba, the Near East, Somalia, Guatemala, and so forth), and couple this with earnest words about the importance of peace and non-violence. This is good so far as it goes, but of itself it seems only protest-oriented and re-active, and not really thinking through what a pro-active stance might mean.

     Hold that thought for a minute. Because it also came through to me loud and clear in Paris that Greens, no matter what and who, think locally, nationally, and regionally. In a big way. So much in fact that I feel that we will not really think globally in any effective way except through the various local, national, and regional pieces of a possibly emerging global Green vision.

     What are these pieces? Maybe by identifying them, or what seem the most salient ones, we may be able to grasp conceptually and holistically what a global Green vision for the world might/could/should be. And in that light, we could map more effectively what could/should be the thinking and action of Green Parties in every country of the world, in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand, South America and North America. This directly ties in with the initiatives begun in Paris that will lead to the adoption of a Global Green Declaration (or Global Green Message as Jorge Torres, president of the Mexican Green Party, would like to call it) at the world gathering of Greens in Canberra, Australia on Easter weekend in 200l.

     So here is my take on some of the more salient pieces.

     First: the European Federation of Green Parties, representing the most advanced of Green parties in the world, poised in many places in situations that move them from opposition to actual governing (a huge development). How they proceed and what they will be doing is immeasurably significant for a future Green vision of the world, and for its actualization. Annie and Steve and Holle and I (as reps of ASGP) listened carefully to the speeches of European ministers and members of parliaments, especially to Joschka Fischer, Germany's Foreign Minister.

     They face a perplexing situation. You may gather this from the excellent Editorial penned by Niki Kortvelyessy, EFGP Spokesperson, as part of a post entitled UPDATE sent out recently by Ralph Monoe, EFGP's General Secretary. [If you do not have this post and want it, please holler]. I am reading somewhat between the lines of Niki's Editorial, based partly on my long discussion with her at dinner on the Friday night of the Congress, and partly on what I sensed from Joschka Fischer's speech to the Congress Saturday morning.

     The gist of the matter seems to me to be this: Europe is discovering a newly found and engaging unity through the European Union. Both this and other factors are inevitably raising more and more clearly the relation of Europe to US power, both economic and military. In order to both get out from under an acutal and perceived dependence on the U.S. and yet not create a breach with this superpower, this is a great and grave challenge. The challenge is, to be quite blunt, to be the kind of power in the world that then transforms the U.S. from a super-power into a friendly side-by-side cooperating power. To repeat this in a different way: how can Europe become strong in its own right, in the face of the hegemonic position and policies of the U.S., and how can it act in such a way that the U.S. gradually relinquishes its super power arrogance and assumptions, without this new Europe itself becoming another rival superpower? The answer, feelingly given by many thoughtful Green Europeans, including Niki and Joschka, is by thinking the language of "family". We Europeans, they say, want to, are trying to, create a **family** of European nations whose inner principle is one of cooperation and not hegemony -- cooperation among ourselves here in Europe, and cooperation with the other parts of the world.

     This is a superb answer and in keeping with the best traditions and hopes for the whole world in which hitherto suspicious nations and groups accept one another's diversity; and in which images and not so hidden dreams of hierarchy and hegemony and control are replaced by images of side-by-side, cooperative interaction of equals. I prefer the word REPUBLIC to that of Family, thinking back to the ancient tradition of res publica and thinking forward to a concept and practice of democracy that genuinely fosters and structures freedom in side-by-side relationships. But family is fine too if you mean by it not anything patriarchal (or matriarchal). So the European Greens are thinking and moving through some heavy stuff and I think we here in the U.S. and in the Americas generally should try to see what their dilemmas are. But I also want us to see how deeply the answer to the problems of a world presently reeling from the depredations of multinationals and ethnic and racial strife, how deeply the answer to them is bound up with issues of structure and power, or with how to structure power so that it fosters peace and security rather than aggressive and hegemonic behavior.

     There are more pieces, and they interface closely with this one of Europe on the edge of a new beginning. But I must stop for now. More pieces later.