VOLUMEAJR JOURNAL 12 NO.1 JAjanuarNUARYY 2012 Beware of Greeks bearing gifts imeo Danaos et dona ferentes’ to that country by the Eurozone states number of political issues, are very much ‘ (‘I fear Greeks even when bear- provided an object lesson in the un- more difficult to manipulate and are Ting gifts’), warns the Trojan priest democratic potential of referenda, in the longer term a far more reliable Laocoön in Virgil’s Aeneid, in a vain unless employed in a manner properly reflection of the democratic process. attempt to deter the citizens of Troy defined by a democratic constitution. The first political leader in modern from accepting the wooden horse Greece had not had a referendum for times to rely on referenda was Emperor that the besieging Greek forces have 37 years, and then only in the wholly Napoleon III, whose French Second seemingly left as a gift, but which is exceptional circumstances of the coun- Empire (1852-70), in effect a form of in reality intended to bring about the try’s return to democracy after the plebiscitary dictatorship, was ‘constitu- destruction of the city. The ancient collapse of the military regime of the tionally’ founded on referenda. Having Greeks bequeathed the concept of ‘Greek colonels’ in 1974; the people been elected president of the Second democracy to the world, but their mod- were called on to vote on the future of Republic in 1848, Louis-Napoleon ern counterparts have recently helped Bonaparte carried out a coup d’état in to give currency to a more questionable December 1851 and seized dictatorial popular (not to say populist) device, the powers. He then had the coup approved plebiscite or referendum. by the French people in a referendum, in Forms of parliamentary self- which his regime cynically exploited the government, in which the people nationalist-militarist aura surrounding entrust their elected representatives the Bonaparte name. In December 1852, with the responsibility of government, a second referendum was engineered have always sat uneasily alongside to approve the abolition of the Second forms of more direct popular self- Republic and its replacement by the expression such as referenda. But what, Second Empire, with Bonaparte ruling one might ask, could possibly be more as Emperor Napoleon III. This exercise democratic than asking the people to in political manipulation by means of express its democratic will directly on a referenda enabled Napoleon to strip given issue by means of a referendum? the elected parliament of the Second How can one deny the democratic Republic of its power and establish his legitimacy of the will of the people, own brand of authoritarian rule. directly expressed through a single-issue Napoleon III, Emperor of France 1852-1870 The German sociologist Max Weber vote (and thereby dispensing with those (1864-1920) distinguished between grubby little parliamentarians and their the Greek monarchy, which had been three types of political leadership, fiddling of their expenses)? badly tainted by its association with each requiring its own legitimisation. The answer lies, obviously enough, in the colonels, and decided to abolish it. Traditional forms of leadership like the potential that referenda offer govern- This was the kind of constitutional monarchies were legitimated by ments, press barons, well-funded interest issue suitable for a referendum; it principles such as feudal concepts of lobbies, nationalist tub- thumpers and had precedents, notably in the Italian heredity, while modern Western states other powerful, unscrupulous groups for referendum of 1946 that resulted in were legitimated by the rule of law and manipulating the outcome of the vote. the end of that country’s monarchy, by rational systems of administration As any number of historical examples fatally identified with Mussolini’s Fascist and government (among which one may shows, the phrasing of the question, dictatorship. The referendum on the here include elective democracy). The the timing of the ballot and all the EU bailout, by contrast, was a piece of third type was the rule of the charismatic other conditions determining the vote transparent political sleight-of-hand, leader, which scholars like Ian Kershaw allow for a very considerable degree of conjured up out of nowhere by the have applied to the dictatorship of inappropriate influence to be brought then prime minister of Greece, George Adolf Hitler. It is easy enough to see in to bear on a single-issue plebiscite. The Papandreou, as a desperate measure Napoleon III an early prototype of the recent referendum on the alternative vote to shore up his party’s legitimacy, and charismatic leader/dictator, since he system in this country, where emotive dumped unceremoniously as soon as it had neither traditional nor democratic and personalised arguments were allowed became unviable. That cannot be done legitimacy; his legitimacy, such as it to obscure the real issues, demonstrated with parliamentary elections, especially was, was provided by referenda, backed this with depressing clarity. under a system of fixed electoral terms. by coercion and manipulation, and The fate of the short-lived proposal Parliamentary elections, involving a underpinned by the skilfully propagated (October/November 2011) for a refer- variety of parties and politicians, a mystique of the Bonapartist myth. endum in Greece on the bailout offered system of constituencies and a large continued overleaf 1 AJR JOURNAL januarY 2012 Beware of Greeks cont. from p1 It is no accident that both Hitler and AJR Holocaust Memorial Day Service Mussolini, Napoleon III’s successors in Belsize Square Synagogue this respect, employed referenda to Monday, 23 January 2012 at 2 pm legitimate their policies. In Italy, the one- party state was institutionalised by the The AJR will be holding a service to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day electoral law of 1928 and parliamentary at 2 pm on Monday 23 January 2012 at Belsize Square Synagogue, 51 Belsize elections abolished; instead, the Grand Square, London NW3. Council of Fascism, now the supreme Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg has kindly agreed to lead the service and will give constitutional authority, selected a sin- an address on this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day theme ‘Speak Up, Speak Out’. gle list of candidates that was approved The service will also include an address by a representative from Action by plebiscite. Musso lini’s example was Reconciliation Service for Peace. followed by such unsav oury dictator ships The service will be followed by refreshments. If you wish to attend, please as the regime of the Greek colonels, call 020 8385 3070 or email [email protected] whose leader, Colonel George Papado- poulos, used a referendum in 1973 to Members may also wish to attend two further Holocaust Memorial Day events, legitimate his abolition of the monarchy for which admission will be strictly by ticket. These are: and the establishment of a presidential A service at City Hall hosted by the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, at 12 noon republic under which wide-ranging pow- on Tuesday 24 January 2012 – please telephone Lydia Volans at City Hall for ers were vested in the president (himself); tickets on 020 7983 4067. and the Chilean dictator, General Pino- The National Event, organised by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, at chet, employed the National Plebiscite Northumberland Place, London on Thursday 26 January 2012. The event will of 1980 to give his bloodstained rule a start at 4 pm. Transport can be arranged for members in the London area. fig-leaf of popular legitimacy. To reserve a place, please call AJR Head Office on 020 8385 3070 or email Hitler held four plebiscites, all [email protected] cynically manipulated to legitimate his regime and its policies. The second and most constitutionally significant of That weakening of republican democ- with other Western European states. these took place following the death of racy and its replacement by the Nazi The leader of the German National- President Hindenburg in August 1934. regime was materially assisted by the ists (DNVP), Alfred Hugenberg, set up Hitler immediately promulgated a law referendum demanded in 1929 by the a committee to promote a plebiscite whereby the office of president was anti-republican right on the Young combined with that of chancellor (an Plan, the successor to the Dawes Plan office he had assumed in January 1933) of 1924 that had regulated Germany’s The AJR and the presidential powers transferred reparations payments to the Allied Pow- Paul Balint Centre to ‘the Führer and Reichskanzler Adolf ers. Both helped to integrate Germany Please note that as from Hitler’. The plebiscite of 19 August 1934 into the wider economy of the Western Tuesday 3 January 2012, duly approved Hitler’s assumption of world. But it was that process of the the AJR Paul Balint Centre absolute power, thus enabling him peaceful integration of Germany into will relocate to to claim that he ruled as dictator by the post-1918 framework of Europe Belsize Square Synagogue, the direct will of the people – the key that the German right so bitterly op- London NW3. feature of referenda. In stage-managed posed. For it meant accepting the reality demonstrations of national enthusiasm, of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, the Nazis also secured the ratification imposed by the victorious Allies on against the Yo ung Plan, and invited Hitler by plebiscite of Hitler’s decision to defeated Germany in 1919, and the to join it. The alliance with the conserva- withdraw from the League of Nations resulting strategy, pursued especially by tive DNVP and the Stahlhelm, the war (1933), to send German military forces Germany’s outstanding Foreign Minister veterans’ organisation, was a boon to to occupy the Rhineland (1936), and to Gustav Stresemann, of ameliorating the then electorally insignificant Nazi annex Austria to the Reich (1938).