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Notes for Vienna: “Building Bridges in a Divided Society”

English Pages, 24. 1. 2025

Many thanks for giving me the floor, regardless of the fact that I am not an expert on building bridges. Therefore, just a tentative note. An economist, turned politician, should be asked to speak about other topics, in which he has comparative advantage.

At first sight, the slogan “to build bridges” is undoubtedly a positive one. To a priori oppose it would be considered negativistic and unconstructive by most people. I will not do it, but a few clarifying remarks are more than necessary. When speaking about building bridges among human beings, countries or societies, they have to want it. If not, this is just an empty phrase.

Let me start by recalling my early post-November 1989 experience. The original idea, popular both in the West and in the East at that moment, was that we – the Central European countries – should become a bridge between capitalism and communism, between the West and the East, as a way of getting rid of the dangerous conflicts and confrontations of the Cold War era. I understood very rapidly that suggesting this was in the interest of the West, as well as of the East. They both wanted a buffer zone between themselves. It could not be in our interest.

I remember my very strong opposition to this idea, which most of the relevant politicians of that time considered positive and attractive. Let me repeat the main counterargument that we used at that time – the bridges are for being crossed, you cannot stay and camp out on a bridge. We did not want to build a bridge between capitalism and communism. It was necessary to get rid of one of these two systems. We, as is well known, voted for capitalism. Not for becoming a bridge.

We were asked to discuss, here, this morning, building bridges in a divided society. Let’s focus on the concept of a “divided society”. I am afraid that we use the term “divided society” too loosely, without specifying what we mean by it. We should clarify how, why and in what sense the current society is divided. Is it more divided now than at any moment in the past? Is the division deeper? Is the division of society more relevant today than before?

When talking about a divided society, we probably want to indicate that we don’t have in mind a divided world. Or do we have in mind a geopolitical division? That would be easier to discuss. The world is undoubtedly geopolitically divided now. We don’t live in an undivided world of perfect competition between small sovereign states. Nor do we live in a Metternich-like post-1815 European order. The bipolar world of the Cold war era is also over. The unipolar world of American hegemony, which started after the fall of communism, is coming to an end as well, even though the Americans don’t want to hear it.

The current multipolar world – characterized by the growth, strength and importance of China, by the emergence of a new entity called BRICS countries and by the falling role and importance of Europe and of the whole West – is a new form of the world reality. How to build bridges between America (together with Europe) and Russia is unknown to us. Bridges between America and China are even more unclear. The still not yet fully established entity called BRICS doesn’t behave in a consistent way. We should be aware of that.

This is, however, only one aspect of the plans to build bridges. The other, non-geopolitical, but not less important division of the current world is based on something else. It is about the ongoing breakdown of the dominant system of beliefs, of habits and traditions, of culture, and of behavioural patterns. This invisible, but not less solid and steady cobweb is also important for keeping the world together. Its eventual disruption may lead to an even more tragic developments than we have experienced until now. I see the division of the world in this respect as a fundamental problem already now.

Some people would mention another dimension of this problem – international law, pacts and agreements, or the existence of United Nations and similar organizations. I don’t start with them, because I am convinced that these institutional or legal arrangements are the consequence of the existing reality, both of the power relations in the world and of the implicit order of beliefs, habits, traditions and of cultures in a broader sense. Not the other way round.

How to build bridges between beliefs, cultures, ideologies and religions? Undoubtedly by meeting, by talking, by negotiating, by attending conferences like this one. By increasing mutual understanding. It will help. But it presupposes having solid geographical entities, the states, it presupposes re-establishing their borders and it presupposes making the fundamental building blocks of society, the states, homogeneous, not heterogeneous.

And now comes my main argument. It is necessary to forget the ideology of multiculturalism, or at least its today’s wrong version. We should promote a healthy multiculturalism at the level of the world as a whole, but a strict monoculturalism in its individual building blocks, in the nation states. We should travel to see a different culture, not to bring it home.

The mass migration, so characteristic for the current world, is destroying our societies. The mass migration is not about building bridges. On the contrary. It makes the building of bridges impossible. The whole concept of Merkelianism symbolized by the slogan “wir schaffen das”, was and is just opposite to the idea of building bridges. We should say that very loudly.

Václav Klaus, Vienna Congress, Palais Niederösterreich, Vienna, January 27, 2025.