Dialogue: Bush provides rallying point for left

Helen Clark is on her way to a meeting with 13 other leaders of centre-left Governments. GORDON HARCOURT suggests what they should do.

When Helen Clark arrives in Stockholm it will be to meet an organisation facing a crisis of relevance.

The Progressive Governance Network consists of 14 world leaders of various pinkish-hued Governments: Tony Blair of Britain, Gerhard Schroeder of Germany, Lionel Jospin of France, Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Jean Chretien of Canada (liberal, but invited anyway), plus Helen Clark and eight others from Europe, Scandinavia, South America and Asia. Chardonnay Socialists of the World Unite! as a friend described it - perhaps unkindly.

The first major meeting of the network, in Berlin in 2000, was held on a wave of optimism. In Britain, New Zealand, Germany and Italy centre-left Governments had recently come to power, and of course Bill Clinton was still in the White House. It seemed to be the dawning of a new age of social democrat orthodoxy.

This year's meeting promises to be less rosy. Gone from the 2000 lineup are Italy's Giuliano Amato and Argentina's Fernando de la Rua. Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Guterres will be in Stockholm, but he is a lame duck, having already resigned before elections next month. Most importantly, Bill Clinton - the network's rock star - has been replaced by George W. Bush.

In Europe, the formerly pinkish political map is increasingly purple, or even solidly blue. The right is newly in power in Spain, Italy and Denmark, and - most ominously - in Austria, where the far right Freedom Party is in the coalition.

Like Helen Clark, Jospin and Schroeder face elections this year. In Germany, the economy is faltering and Schroeder faces a stiff test in his general election. In France, socialist Prime Minister Jospin is again trying to win the presidency from his conservative co-habitee Jacques Chirac, who defeated Jospin in 1995.

Tony Blair is the rock star now, but even he is looking a little rattled. Ironically, it is his so very progressive world travels that have provoked a domestic backlash. The conservative press - and the formerly moribund Conservative Party - have decried his globetrotting, and demanded he focus more on the intractable domestic issues of the rail service and the crisis-riven National Health Service.

Much of Blair's travelling has been on behalf of George W. Bush's Coalition against Terror. And it is Bush's America that represents the greatest challenge to the relevance of the network.

When it last met, President Bush and his "War Against Terrorism" were unimaginable. Bush has come to dominate the world stage in a way that must have astonished (and secretly horrified) many in Europe.

When he was elected, many Europeans were smugly contemptuous of him. When he began his one-man international treaty-smashing spree, they were smugly contemptuously outraged. When he went to war, and said you're either with us or against us, they suddenly had to dance to his tune.

Many on the left predicted a Soviet-style Afghan humiliation for America. They were emphatically wrong, and Bush has transformed himself into a supremely confident leader, heading a moral struggle just like Ronald Reagan and his fight against "the Evil Empire".

The comparison to Reagan seems increasingly apt. He was a similar figure of fun for the left, but it cannot be forgotten that the Cold War was largely won on Reagan's watch. Like Reagan, Bush sees things in black and white terms. To him, the European mode of constructive engagement must seem like mere prevarication.

The treatment of the Al Qaeda prisoners at Camp X-ray in Cuba stirred progressive consciences, but the final provocation was the Bush "Axis of Evil" State of the Nation address. It outraged many European leaders, and caused particular dismay in South Korea.

President Kim Dae Jung was to be in Stockholm as a new member of the network, though his embassy in London now says he will not be attending. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000 for his "sunshine" policy of engaging with the wayward North. That policy has hit some serious rainclouds.

The Axis of Evil doctrine may, however, be a rallying point for the network. It has been roundly attacked in Europe, with Jospin leading the charge. In a speech which angered Washington, the Frenchman said the United States should not give in to unilateralism, and that military might alone could not solve the world's problems.

Jospin's comments can in part be put down to electioneering, but last week European Union External Affairs Commissioner Chris Patten unleashed a startlingly blunt attack on the Bush speech.

Thus, a push to moderate the Bush doctrine could be a way for the network to reassert its relevance. But if Bush does decide to go to war against Iran or Iraq or North Korea (or all three), there will be nothing the networkers can do about it.

Another possible bright point for the leaders in Stockholm is the resuscitation of activist government, post-September 11.

Where Reagan and Bush sen's Republicans had led the worldwide push for smaller government, September 11 has forced a reversal of that. Even in America, opinion polls have shown greater public trust in government.

Last October, Blair delivered a messianic speech to the Labour Party conference. Most memorably, he said the starving, the wretched, the dispossessed, the ignorant and those living in want and squalor from the deserts of northern Africa to the slums of Gaza to the mountain ranges of Afghanistan were part of the cause.

Blair was ridiculed as much as praised for the speech, but it was the sort of global ambition the networkers would have had in their student days. It is the sort of ambition the network might aspire to this month.

If not, then providing good peace-keeping troops after the Americans have gone might be a more realistic goal.

* Gordon Harcourt is a London-based New Zealand journalist.