I read today an article in le Soir about the different dates of the beginning of the WWII. For some it was 1 September 1939, for others December 1941. I started thinking, how can we write about the origins of our world if we cannot agree on a single date. Did our epoch start with the beginning of IIWW or with its end? And even the end is different in Europe 8/9 May and in Asia.
In 2007 Commission launched a big campaign 'Together for 50 years'... commerating the Treaty of Rome. But there was the High Authority and the Treaty of Paris before. And before the Schuman Declaration there was the Council of Europe. Where should we start the chronology? We need a sense of origins if we are to build a sense of belonging....
Or maybe we should look at the end of the old empires as the beginning of a new order. When Tsarist Russia, Ottoman Turkey and Austro-Hungarian duarchy seized to exist it was a new beginning for the whole terrain West of Germany, Switzerland and Italy.
I am afrain we shall get nowhere with dates. We have to go back to the ideas. And I am afraid we need to look at lawyers and philosophers: Hugo Grotius and Immanuel Kant. Maybe the law as a civilising power has to be the grounding idea? Maybe the idea of peace - perpetual if possible should be traced for being behind the European project? We need to be careful about looking for the origins... cause they will determine the objectives and the future. So if we look at the beginning of the WWII we talk about all that superiority and megalomania which seduced Germans in 1933. Tracing sins and vices leads you nowhere. You can find them everywhere. They are part of the human nature. Maybe we should look at examples of humans who went beyond it...
So the story of Europe starts with people who tried to reconcile the heimats (small territorial entities) with the power of the market and the notion of state as a regulating authority. National state was only a one example of reconciling these notions. And it had a catastrophic consequences. So not detaching yourself from local patriotism you need to establish a legal order where these heimats can survice and exchange (trade). And the centre cannot get to big so that it does not overshadow the small demoi, which it is composed of.
So the concept of funding fathers might be also exclusive. We should look beyond Adenauer, Monnet and Spaak. We should look at ideas that drove them. Or maybe anybody gets mature only when he/she liberates from the parents... Let the European dove fly and fly higher than the eagles of the nation states. The German eagle once managed to call all the other birds on the sky. We cannot let it fly under any other colours.
In 2007 Commission launched a big campaign 'Together for 50 years'... commerating the Treaty of Rome. But there was the High Authority and the Treaty of Paris before. And before the Schuman Declaration there was the Council of Europe. Where should we start the chronology? We need a sense of origins if we are to build a sense of belonging....
Or maybe we should look at the end of the old empires as the beginning of a new order. When Tsarist Russia, Ottoman Turkey and Austro-Hungarian duarchy seized to exist it was a new beginning for the whole terrain West of Germany, Switzerland and Italy.
I am afrain we shall get nowhere with dates. We have to go back to the ideas. And I am afraid we need to look at lawyers and philosophers: Hugo Grotius and Immanuel Kant. Maybe the law as a civilising power has to be the grounding idea? Maybe the idea of peace - perpetual if possible should be traced for being behind the European project? We need to be careful about looking for the origins... cause they will determine the objectives and the future. So if we look at the beginning of the WWII we talk about all that superiority and megalomania which seduced Germans in 1933. Tracing sins and vices leads you nowhere. You can find them everywhere. They are part of the human nature. Maybe we should look at examples of humans who went beyond it...
So the story of Europe starts with people who tried to reconcile the heimats (small territorial entities) with the power of the market and the notion of state as a regulating authority. National state was only a one example of reconciling these notions. And it had a catastrophic consequences. So not detaching yourself from local patriotism you need to establish a legal order where these heimats can survice and exchange (trade). And the centre cannot get to big so that it does not overshadow the small demoi, which it is composed of.
So the concept of funding fathers might be also exclusive. We should look beyond Adenauer, Monnet and Spaak. We should look at ideas that drove them. Or maybe anybody gets mature only when he/she liberates from the parents... Let the European dove fly and fly higher than the eagles of the nation states. The German eagle once managed to call all the other birds on the sky. We cannot let it fly under any other colours.
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