Jan Smuts' prophetic Brexit warning: 'Don't abandon Europe for the United States!'

With yet another Brexit deadline looming, a sage voice from the past calls us in Britain to reason. The essential message is this: "Get real!"

(This is a repeat of an article I posted as Theresa May invoked Article 50 in 2017)

In 1943 Jan Christian Smuts was invited to address the Empire Parliamentary Association. He entitled his address; “Thoughts on a new world’. He was concerned that his address might be ‘explosive’ and asked the 300 members of parliament attending to consider it as ‘thinking aloud’.

Avoid dogma

Smuts began his address by offering that he had no dogmatic beliefs to place before them; the times in which they were living did not permit of rigid or fixed opinions, or a dogmatic outlook on life. They were dealing with the most perplexing and complicated human situation that had ever confronted the world. Anyone, he suggested, who thought he had a panacea at his command to deal with these problems must either be sub-human or super-human. (We must remember as a context to this address that the second world war had reached a phase where finally Hitler’s forces were on the defensive, and Europe was in shambles whilst Russia advanced steadily and surely westwards. In the Pacific the war with Japan raged unabated.)

Avoid over-simplification

In addressing the future of the world Smuts now emphasised two dangers. First he warned against the habit of oversimplification in a world where problems were increasingly complex. This tended to falsify the real character of the problems, and as a consequence resulted in real solutions being missed. The second danger was that of following slogans or catchwords. This he said led to the missing of the real ‘inwardness’ of problems. (By ‘inwardness’ Smuts pointed to the infinite numbers of variables that constituted the manifest situation.) 

Avoid final blue-prints

Concerning the first problem of over-simplification, he suggested the only way to progress was to proceed towards a solution ‘step by step’. What Smuts was suggesting was that rather than coming up with a final blueprint, it would be better to take an action and observe the consequences, reflect, and repeat the process. This was far preferable to the theorizing and rationalising that tended to lead to oversimplification. He was thus warning of the danger of trying to impose dogmatic and idealistic models on a dynamic and evolving context. To this extent he was already anticipating approaches from complexity theory that would emerge only much later.

Avoid sloganeering

The second problem Smuts addressed was the danger of getting locked into slogans and catchwords. He used as an example the oft facile claim of ‘fighting for democracy - fighting for freedom’ - so easily abused under various guises. These words, he warned, could become clichés, no more than vague slogans. Now, in this current post-truth age of growing populism this has become an issue of growing concern. In a previous posting we have looked at this issue: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/we-could-get-moon-surely-must-able-solve-our-human-issues-van-wyk

Exercise of power

Governance in a complex situation, Smuts stressed, required a good mixture of democracy and freedom, one the one hand, and leadership on the other. Idealism, he emphasised, was not enough; universality (apparent universal agreement) was no solution for security. You simply could not get away from the issue of power. Peace, he stressed, unbacked by power, remained a dream. The situation demanded robust and principled leadership. From this perspective the vigilant maintenance of organisations such as NATO as a nexus of power protecting western values, makes imminent sense. From this perspective too wise elder statesmen must continue to offer their guidance to the world. In a previous posting we have looked at the role of such leadership: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/dare-blair-speak-claudius-van-wyk

Smuts had a good cause for this warning. Whilst he had deep respect and gratitude for Russia's immense effort of in the war against Nazism, he was alarmed, as was Winston Churchill, at Russia's intentions in Europe. He consequently identified the three major powers who would play the leading future role in the world: Great Britain with the Commonwealth, the United States of America, and, of course, Russia.

Future of Europe

In the face of the Russian advance, he was both deeply concerned for the future of Europe, and the future of global security. The old historic Europe had fundamentally changed. He saw its destruction as one of the greatest catastrophes in history. And he recognised that Russia was becoming the new colossus in the region.

Whilst he lauded Britain for its greatness of soul, and its glorious history in the human cause, he predicted that it would emerge relatively economically poor. Britain had 'put in her all’- had held nothing back in the battle for humankind - but she would never be the same again. But she could continue to demonstrate a system of governance offering moral leadership.

Politics versus Economics

In contemplating the fate of Europe, and the failure of the League of Nations to achieve its intentions, he identified a fatal flaw. The League had not paid sufficient attention to economics. It had looked too much to political solutions. At the Peace Treaty of Versailles he had desperately warned of the consequence of the economic impoverishment of Germany. This warning had fallen on deaf ears in a 'grabbing' atmosphere fuelled by a pervading attitude of retribution. And he had been in no illusion about the consequent dangers facing Europe. In a previous posting we have looked at his description of this development : https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/st-andrews-university-timely-message-world-claudius-van-wyk

Oxford author Anthony Lentin reports how Smuts, at the end of the war and the defeat of Nazism, felt deeply for Europe “…of which Germany remained and integral, if not dominant part.”

Britain and United States

Smuts consequently issued a further warning. There was an understandable desire by some in Britain for a post-war closer union with the United States. Whilst Anglo-American collaboration could be a force for good, he cautioned that as a political axis it would be unwise. There were grave dangers in pitting Britain with the United States against the rest of the world. You would simply stir up opposition, he suggested - “…rouse other lions”. The resultant potential international strife and enmity might just lead to a greater struggle for power. He then he offered this prescient insight:

“...I’m troubled with this thought…whether Great Britain should not strengthen her European position…by working closely with those…democracies in Europe which are of our way of thinking, which are entirely with us in their outlook and their way of life, and in all their ideals, and which in many ways are of the same political and spiritual substance as ourselves. Should there not be closer union between us? Should we not cease as Great Britain to be an island? “

The 300 members of parliament present were reportedly deeply affected. Smuts had been introduced by Viscount Cranbourne who offered that it was characteristic of Smuts’ whole life that he never looked back. He was always constructing and moulding the future. He combined the experience of the old with the vision of the young.

Britain on precipice

Now Britain and Europe again stand on a precipice. The affinities, the delicate fabric of shared values that Smuts held so dearly, can easily become torn in the so-called hard bargaining for short-term political and economic advantage. Something tremendous is at stake - essentially it is the living application of the core Christian ethos that underpins the sanctity of the human person that Smuts so revered. As Anthony Lentin put it: “For Smuts Europe was always the centre of civilization…”. 

National sovereignty

On any future relationship with Europe let us therefore identify and to draw lessons from Smuts' address. One hundred years ago, in a previous address in May 1917 to the House of Lords, he stressed that the British Commonwealth was dependent for its very existence on worldwide communication. He warned that it would be a mistake to think about the group of nations as one state. Rather it was a system of nations - a community of states. It was not a stationary system, but a dynamic evolving system. Then he prophetically declared:

“All the empires we have known in the past, and that exist today, are founded on the idea of assimilation, of trying to force human material into one mould…do not... standardize the nations…develop them towards greater fuller nationality. There is only one solution - the tradition of freedom, self-government, and of the fullest development of all constituent parts… Far too much stress has been laid in the past on instruments of government… the world is growing more democratic, and the public opinion, and the forces finding public expression in public opinion, are going to be far more powerful than they have been in the past. When you build up ... a common ideal, the instruments of government will not be a thing that matters so much as the spirit which actuates the whole.”

For Britain the officially proffered issue for leaving the EU has been about regaining sovereignty. Some however point out that the notion of sovereignty itself is changing fundamentally in a globally interconnected world. Others, however, consider the reason for leaving to be more about an attempt at isolationism - something even based in an anachronistic nostalgia for the past. Of course, change in this uncertain world is disconcerting - and that is what leadership is called upon to manage - truthfully!

Future of Europe

What then could it take for the undoubtedly forthcoming negotiations to be transformed into an opportunity to influence Europe in the kind of direction Smuts proposed? Certainly it would not become a single federal state, as desired by some in Europe. Certainly it would not fall back into the retrogressive horror of a renewed and rampant nationalism. But it would want to remain as a dynamic evolving community, united in the preservation of that deeply shared ethos that has been Europe's inspiration, commencing in the enlightenment, and manifest in her greatest moments. And this, in Smuts' view, would be the new spiritual whole of deeply shared and coherent values. That is why Europe must remain strong in her commitment to her humanistic ethos - informed, as Smuts would see it, by principled pragmatism. See Smuts on spirit that binds: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/jan-christian-smuts-vision-humanity-holistic-claudius-van-wyk

The question at this late hour is - can Britain still rise to that? The answer is - she has done, so many times in the past, under inspired leadership. For that new quality leadership we wait patiently.

The new chapter to be played out begins now - the participants might simply get caught up in the game of winning at all cost - see: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/brexit-heading-pyrrhic-victory-claudius-van-wyk/ - or it will reflect their deeper essential values. Future generations will judge.