Bush unwelcome

Despite President Bush's recent placatory visit to Europe, he remains almost entirely distrusted by the EU citizen

Condoleezza Rice, Warrior Princess, came first to seek conversation this time and not a monologue — or so she said. But she came before also to make sure that the carpet rolled out by Europe for President George W. Bush, her king, was blood red and long.Despite the plots planned behind the closed doors of presidential palaces, the mood on the streets of Europe was without joy at Bush's visit. Even in the marketplace, America is seen as the biggest obstacle to a world order based on international law.

Pillars and walls are hung with posters that "want" Bush for crimes against humanity and the planet. There is a large section of Europeans that continues to warn the world to beware of Bush because he is nuclear-armed and because he is seen to suffer from delusions that he is democratically-elected as president of the world.

The name Bush evokes resentment today simply because people do not feel that the world is a more secure place under his leadership. Despite elections in Afghanistan, Palestine and Iraq, global environment and life is threatened by the greed of multinationals and the galloping proliferation of light arms across the world.

What is most disturbing is the rise in America's military budget, which leaves few resources for urgently-needed domestic programmes to help the poor, according to the Belgian-based Boycott Bush network, which is at the heart of the international boycott campaign of American multinational corporations (MNCs), seen as glaring examples of US cultural and economic imperialism.

Bush, it says, must be boycotted because he encourages MNCs to get richer while billions on this planet starve.

Community leaders in Europe believe that it is no longer possible to protest against American foreign policy while drinking Coca-Cola and eating at MacDonald's. The call is to strengthen the UN, which is continuously undermined by the US, and to encourage consumers to buy local products as an alternative to corporate goods.

Supporters of this international boycott of Bush believe that American foreign policy is dominated by its military and its use of fear as a mode of social control and international intimidation.

In this context, the ongoing discourse on security at the Austrian Institute of International Relations is precious for its sheer topicality. Here, the concept of state-centred security is challenged as static, and states that continue to spend all resources on the military as creating conditions for more anarchy.

Now that the Cold War is ended, the security situation around the world is changed. States such as Canada have already integrated into their foreign policy the concept of "human security". Human security is described as being people-centred, focusing mainly on non-military means to prevent conflict and to assure the individual and the public at large that they do not have to live in fear.

The traditional theories of international relations concentrate on the state as the core actor, and on the assumption that every neighbour state is naturally a potential source of conflict with it. And insecurity is defined as being vulnerable to the harm that the other wants to force upon us.

Simone Wisotzki of the Frankfurt Peace Research Institute says that in an interindependent world where boundaries are increasingly dissolving and security challenges such as terrorism arise on a global scale, a state-centred perspective of security does not reflect today's changed security environment.

The new concepts of security focus on the security enjoyed by individuals first, and global challenges include environmental degradation and the cross-border trafficking of human beings.

Alternatives to avoid the military option were first discussed in the 1970s in the Brandt and Brundtland Commissions. The North-South Report of the former German chancellor, Willy Brandt, tabled in 1980, pointed out the urgent need to improve the economic and social situation in the southern hemisphere, emphasising the common security needs of all the peoples of the world. One way to do this is to change the world trade system and to make it more just and fair. The other is to call for worldwide disarmament so that the same money can be used to fight poverty instead.

There is ample evidence to show the nexus between the arms race, hunger, and the common security problem: all three are directly related to the economic exploitation of Earth's scarce natural resources.

Larger than life Europeans such as Brandt never tired of describing sustainable development as environmental protection, economic growth, and social equality. It is this thought that must remain at the core of all conversation between Europe and America if the world is expected to feel less angry with Bush, or with Europe.