Plain Omelette. No Potatoes. Tomatoes, Instead
22nd April 2016
Richard Fernandez dishes out some inconvenient truth.
… the basic laws of institutional behavior remain, one of the most important is that organizations can only do what is in their repertoire. Bureaucracies are like jukeboxes. They can’t play what’s not on the list. One of the most striking examples of this is the scene in the 1970s movie, Five Easy Pieces. in which the character played by Jack Nicholson unsuccessfully tries to order breakfast items in a diner which are scattered in different parts of the menu. He simply couldn’t get a “plain omelette. No potatoes. Tomatoes, instead”.
In the old days the phrase for this was “just following orders”. Today the same constraints will apply to the EU’s response to refugee/migrant crisis. Even though logic dictates that the only long term policy alternative to absorbing the MENA population is helping them make their countries “habitable” again by reforming its Human Terrain, this option is not on the menu.
The Eurocrats have looked in the handbook and there’s no entry under “crisis” for effecting the transformation the Allies did to Germany 70 years ago — described by Dwight Eisenhower in his book Crusade in Europe. The new EU handbook says “Crusades” are strictly forbidden and are to be regarded as “cultural chauvinism” and “evil”.
That’s out so the EU will give you something else. Like the waitress in Five Easy Pieces, it can provide items from a wide selection of welfare products, even if it’s not what anybody needs or wants. Is ISIS blowing up Palmyra? “We can provide you resettlement.” Are they beheading the sheiks in Anbar? “We can provide you with public housing.” Is Saudi Arabia now invading Yemen and vice versa? “We can point you to the nearest transgender bathroom.”