Why Hamlet is no
euro-federalist
http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/article/889201-why-hamlet-no-euro-federalist
Evenimentul zilei
Bucharest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LghqpGmTUnc&feature=relmfu
Laurence Olivier as
the Prince of Denmark
in his 1948 adaptation of Shakespeare's play.
Although many
commentators have called for it to be established, the United States of Europe
remains a chimera, which is incompatible with the history and plurality of
cultures on our continent, argues Romanian writer Mircea Cărtărescu.
Mircea Cărtărescu
In recent weeks,
Romanian President Traian Băsescu has repeatedly spoken of the need to create a
United States of Europe: an initiative that will only be possible if participating
countries agree, in a context of economic and financial necessity prompted by
the ongoing crisis, that they should all “hand over control of part of their
sovereignty.” So it would amount to a necessary evil and a strategy for
survival in a region of the world that is struggling to cope with many
imbalances and vexations.
However, I do not
believe that this scenario is either realistic or desirable if the model for
such a federation is the United
States of America, which is what Traian
Băsescu’s expression implies. More importantly, I do not think that there is an
existing federal system anywhere in the world today that could serve as a model
for a united Europe. For a united Europe to function (as it has done already to a certain
extent), it will require another basis that is specific to our continent, and
not one that is solely focused on the issue of economic survival.
We should bear in
mind that European states are not simply rectangles that have been arbitrarily
demarcated on the surface of the globe. They have histories that date back for
thousands of years. They have their languages, their traditions, and their own
mentalities and ethos. Each one has its own collective unconscious, its own
fantasies, and they all have old wounds and frustrations that have been
accumulated in the course of a history they share with their neighbours. This
past, which oozes out of every stone, feeds the ancillary nationalism of
European peoples, as well as their superiority and inferiority complexes. Nothing
is plain and simple in Europe: neither its
borders nor its laws, which differ enormously from one state to the next.
Some countries even continue to use
different systems for weights and measures, and we still drive both on the left
and the right hand side of the road. All of these major differences and
insignificant idiosyncracies contribute to a force of repulsion between the
states of our continent that we cannot ignore.
The European mind:
the driving force that built our civilisation
In Europe, national
consciousness came to the fore during the Romantic era and later gave birth to
the degenerate and chauvinistic nationalisms which figured large in the
conflicts and stereotypes that reached their poisonous apogee in the last
century, when heroic ideals were transformed into a nightmare of
totalitarianism and world wars. Millions of European citizens were massacred in
the name of patriotism and to serve the ends of exacerbated nationalism. The
Cold War and the Iron Curtain between the West and East of the continent also
contributed to mutilation of European consciousness, or what was left of it in
the wake of the historic hell it had endured.
The trend towards
fragmentation based on ethnic principles still continues today, in countries as
diverse as Belgium and the
republics of the former Yugoslavia.
Then there is the issue of the religious fragmentation of the continent, which
follows borders that are not aligned with national ones to produce the famous Huntington faultline that also crosses Romania. So the
question is – can a unifying force provide an effective counterweight to the
terrible power of nationalism?
Fortunately, such a
force exists and it does not rely for its raison d’être on the legislative
centralisation and standardisation orchestrated by Brussels. I am talking about the European
mind: the formidable cultural and artistic alliance, which is the driving force
that built our civilisation – a common heritage that includes such visionaries
as Homer, Socrates, Dante, Leonardo de Vinci, Shakespeare, Newton, Vermeer,
Goethe, Kant, Beethoven, Proust, and Einstein to name but a few. Europe is
first and foremost a cultural concept, a state of mind, and a sense of
belonging to a civilisation.
A united Europe
cannot be a United States
It is the continent
of museums, concert halls, and cathedrals. It is the home of the spirit of
scepticisim, with all the slow deep power that is embodied by the figure of
Hamlet (himself a European archetype), who is the polar opposite of the man of
action. Present-day Europe relates to the United
States as Athens once did
to ancient Rome.
And although at one point Athens sought to emulate Rome,
I can see no reason why modern Europe should seek to emulate the United States.
A united Europe will
never be united in the same way as the United States. It is a continent
that has had the good fortune to be blessed by its quest for a point of
equilibrium between the nationalism of nation states and the European mind,
which is characterised by free thought and creativity. And although the
European mind has been used to provide ballast for an overly centralised
bureaucracy and a drive for standardisation which does not take local
conditions into account (and this is currently the case), we are still very far
removed from the goal of unity. Very few governments appear to be willing to
hand over more of the state sovereignty which they represent to a monolithic
power that apparently aims to implement an overly planned version of economic
socialism.
Because in Europe we would not only be handing over our sovereignty,
but our living history which is deeply rooted in the past. If we are to make
such a sacrifice, we will need a goal that is significantly better than the one
that has been presented thus far.
Hamlet - Sir Laurence
Olivier
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