Page 19 - CSA Speaker Bulletin January 2017 | CSA Celebrity Speakers

US ELECTIONS
Joschka Fischer
Goodbye
TO THE
WEST
Now that Donald Trump has
been elected President of the
United States, the end of what Powers and the Entente of Britain,
was heretofore termed the “West”
has become all but certain. That
term described a transatlantic world
that emerged from the twentieth
century’s two world wars, redefined
the international order during the four-
decade Cold War, and dominated the
globe – until now.
The West shouldn’t be confused with
the “Occident.” While the West’s
culture, norms, and predominant
religion are broadly Occidental in
origin, it evolved into something
different over time. The Occident’s
basic character was shaped over
centuries by the Mediterranean
region (though parts of Europe north
of the Alps made many important
contributions to its development). The
West, by contrast, is transatlantic, and
it is a child of the twentieth century.
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When World War I began, it was a Joschka Fischer served as
European conflict between the Central Vice Chancellor and Foreign
Minister of the Federal Republic
France, and Russia. It became a true of Germany from 1998 to 2005.
world war only in 1917, when the US Throughout this time he was
entered the fray. This is the moment arguably the most popular
when what we now call the West began politician in his nation and
to take form. one of the most influential
commentators across the world.
The West can be said to have received From 2006 to 2007, Joschka
its birth certificate during World Fischer held a professorship at
War II. In August 1941, after Nazi the Woodrow Wilson School of
Germany had invaded the Soviet International and Public Affairs
Union, British Prime Minister Winston at Princeton University (USA).
Churchill and US President Franklin
D. Roosevelt met on a warship off the
coast of Newfoundland and signed
the Atlantic Charter. That agreement
would later develop into NATO, which,
for four decades, enabled an alliance
of independent democracies with
shared values and market economies
to withstand the Soviet threat – and
which has safeguarded Europe to this
day. n
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