Thank you very much for inviting us to this conventional dinner already organized by Shafik Gabr on the occasion of the Davos economical Forum. The participants of this dinner are either regular guests of the Forum in Davos, or friends of Shafik.
I'm part of the another group. After seventeen greetings at his Forum in Davos (for the first time in January 1990), Mr Schwab began to consider me – about 15 years ago – 1 of his fundamental ideological opponents. He was right. I am a fundamental opponent of Mr Schwab and his way of reasoning about our world.
With mention to the title of this dinner, “I anticipate an unexpected”, I must admit that present – and especially this year especially – I am increasingly having problems distinguishing what is expected from what is unexpected. Let me be specific. Dominating trends and trends are more or little predictable in my eyes. To my large discontent, I can see that almost all of them are headed in the incorrect direction now. Individual events seem unexpected, but they are undoubtedly part of the whole.
As for trends and trends, I find it hard to stay optimistic, especially erstwhile my eyes inevitably focus on Europe and the Western world. In our institute we late published a collection of essays entitled “The Self-Destruction of the West”. My West was not threatened by either the East or the South. The West has been systematically but consistently destroying itself for decades.
Looking at crucial individual events, you cannot be optimistic either. I live in Central Europe. This part of the planet was seemingly changed by the war in Ukraine. Political freedom and freedom of the press (and all another media) have been limited, public discourse has changed substantially. With the declining opposition, centralist trends in the EU have risen dramatically. The long-lost ideas have reappeared. This is confirmed by the old saying that the first victim of war is truth.
I would not exaggerate if I said that telling the fact is almost as hard now as it was in the late communist era. The black and white explanation of war blurs out all another crucial topics – especially the damaging disadvantages of European centralisation (as disguised as European integration), the tremendous economical costs associated with the implementation of the Green Deal ideology, the prolonged secular stagnation of European countries, including mine. For me, however, it was all predictable.
We meet here erstwhile president Trump is sworn in. His election triumph was unexpected to me. I know quite a few people who say it was predictable, but I'm not sure. In any case, his choice – to whom I applauded – was positively shaken not only by the United States of America, but by the full world. He proved that you can fight for something that seems impossible. Something unexpected happened. This proved to be a large impulse for many of us.
Since 4 November, I have repeatedly stressed my satisfaction with this result. Nevertheless, I have repeatedly warned against the inexpensive and irresponsible triumphism of many, even serious people around me. We should not forget reality. There are so many profoundly rooted features of the modern world, which in my eyes are constant alternatively than changeable. There are besides any unquestionable "solid" in Trump's personality that make all predictions uncertain. 1 man can't change the world. He just opened the window of chance for the remainder of us. To change the planet is simply a task for all of us, not just for the American President.
The well-known British author Anthony Daniels rightly observed, saying: “It is easy for a conservative like me to look down on many pathologies of the present world” (The European Conservative, autumn 2023). I effort not to fall into this trap, but it's hard to be optimistic. In my opinion, in the coming years we will gotta face the most serious test of our democracy since the collapse of communism. Let's be active realists.
Václav Klaus at the yearly dinner hosted by Shafik Gabra, Central Sporthotel, Davos, 20 January 2025.
for: claus.che
Think Poland, No. 5-6 (2-9.02.2025)
