The Politics of Frustration

Rand Dahrendorf

The politics of frustration has been particularly apparent in the postcommunist world during the last fifteen years. The heavy hand of nomenklatura rule was gone, and the vision of a new life like that in the open societies of the West seemed real. Yet, in fact, things initially got worse. The route to prosperity and freedom was not straightforward. On the contrary, it led through a valley of tears.

(...) 

While the politics of frustration was thus controlled in the postcommunist world, it broke out with a vengeance in the Islamic world. Here, too, the phenomenon was not new. With the onset of modernization, millions of people were uprooted from their traditional communities and ways of life. Young men, in particular, saw the prospect of a life more like that presented to them by Western television.

(...) but nowadays people want results here and now. If the benefits do not come quickly – and for most people they do not – they get restless. The massive migration processes that have only just begun will be the major issue of the coming decades. Particularly in Africa, migration will be almost the only quick route to modernization.

Those who do not manage to get to other countries, or who fail in the countries to which they have migrated, are in a quandary. For them, the old world of traditional ties and customs is gone, but the new world of modernity remains out of reach. They are lost in a limbo of uncertainty and disappointment.

What we call “terrorism” has many causes, and one must beware of facile explanations. However, the politics of frustration, of ambitions raised and then thwarted, is clearly one such cause.

It is thus also a challenge to those of us living in more fortunate circumstances. If we do not wish to be submerged in violence and authoritarian responses to it, international institutions must do for the modernizing world what the EU has managed to do for the postcommunist countries. For the world’s democracies, there is no greater or more important task.

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